Middle Earth First

In his article Lord of Machines: Into Middle Earth with J.R.R. Tolkien, James Bell compares Tolkein’s Middle Earth myth with today’s Earth First/Earth Liberation Front movements.

I find it interesting that we admire Tolkien so much, but put today’s eco-activists in jail.

My political opinions lean more and more to anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs). There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power stations.

• Tolkien

In a related article, Starhawk compares Tolkien’s trolls to corporations.