Posted on 04/19/2004 2:46:12 PM PDT by talleyman
John Burton Wade, 19, will complete his freshman year at Mary Washington College on April 30.
Then he'll spend what would have been his sophomore, junior and senior years in prison.
"I regret what I did," said Wade, one of three young Henrico County men to have pleaded guilty to the federal crime of conspiring to destroy vehicles by fire.
They admitted to a five-month campaign of vandalism meant to protest the damage that society is causing to the natural environment. They were driven by what the three high-schoolers viewed, with fierce teenage passion, as the adult public's frustrating refusal to care as they did.
Looking back, Wade said, "It was totally inefficient. It didn't accomplish anything. All I got were negative consequences."
That includes a long prison term that will rob him of precious time.
"I'll try to use it in a productive way," said Wade, who hopes to take some courses, perhaps to include training as an electrician, locksmith or bartender.
"I love to acquire seemingly useless skills," he said.
'I guess we were angry'
What Wade called their "radical environmental activism" took place nearly two years ago. The three worked together in damaging equipment at the Short Pump Town Center construction site, sport utility vehicles at a Ford dealership and the windows of several McDonald's restaurants.
For all that, they jointly owe more than $204,000 in restitution and are looking at spending some of the best years of their lives locked up.
Why did they do what they did? ...
"I guess we were angry because we viewed things as going so wrong in this country, and we viewed the environment specifically as being an urgent cause," Wade told a reporter who interviewed him Friday at a coffee shop near the Mary Washington campus in Fredericksburg.
Wade traced his strong concern for the environment to around the time of the last presidential election.
"I didn't really understand politics, but I remember rooting for [Al] Gore because he didn't want to destroy Alaska," he said. "That difference with [George W.] Bush really made an impression on me."
The environment became a key concern as he worked on his own political and philosophical beliefs about society and how he wanted to live in it. Some friends at school, including Linas and Blackwell, shared similar ideas and got involved in the student environmental-advocacy group at Douglas Freeman High School.
Wade talked Friday about "the struggle to live life from one day to the next and not hurt another human being." Living like that describes the heart of his philosophy, he said, but living like that is nearly impossible in American society.
"I don't really consider myself a socialist," Wade said. "I don't have any of the big answers. It's just that it seems that in capitalism, it's not only inevitable but desirable that some people must succeed while others fail. . . . It just seems there must be something wrong with that."...
During that time, Wade said, he became increasingly angry at the Bush administration's environmental policies. "Bush rolled back every single environmental protection," Wade said. "No one was responding."
"It was enjoyable," Wade admitted. "We were so angry at that point. . . . It wasn't really that I expected to get that much accomplished. It was just, like, I'm not going to live here and watch this and not respond. . . . It was just me basically trying to stay sane."
Wade said he would not do it again. A better action would have been to protest in the daytime with signs for the public to see, he said.
Even so, he said, "I hope I always act in a stupid way when it comes to acting passionately about something I care about."
Contact Tom Campbell at (804) 649-6416 or tcampbell@timesdispatch.com
[FYI: Executive Editor: Bill Millsaps bmillsaps@timesdispatch.com]
(Excerpt) Read more at timesdispatch.com ...
Yeah, let's teach this guy to pick locks!
Perhaps I'm being unforgiving, but I don't believe he truly regrets what he did. I believe he only regrets that he got caught.
I agree, though it's good that he seems to have learned that his stupidity had consequences.
Looking back, Wade said, "It was totally inefficient. It didn't accomplish anything. All I got were negative consequences."
He doesn't really regret what he did. He regrets that HIS life is now a screwed up mess.
Ah, the rationalizations of youth gone wild. Bored college kids using enviro-whacko propaganda to do some vandalism.
Tom:
"I didn't really understand politics, but I remember rooting for [Al] Gore because he didn't want to destroy Alaska," he said. "That difference with [George W.] Bush really made an impression on me." . "Bush rolled back every single environmental protection," Huh?????>
Do you feel any guilt at all for abetting this idiot? Now where in the world would a young impressionable youth get the idea that George Bush was going to destroy Alaska. Never mind the cartoonishness of the claim, but where would he get the idea that Bush would even harm - a little bit - the great state of Alaska?
Hmmmmm? Maybe from the junk-science profligators in the dominant liberal media, such as you.
"The environment became a key concern as he worked on his own political and philosophical beliefs about society and how he wanted to live in it." Now how much actual thinking do you think this numbskull has ever done? Judging from his previous and subsequent comments, I'd say not much. Here you are giving sympathy and the benefit of the doubt to a 19 year old kid with the intellectual capacity - maybe - of an 11 year old.
Why do you do that? Do you not know any better? Was there no one you could call for a rebuttal? Could you not add a little perspective to balance things?
"I hope I always act in a stupid way when it comes to acting passionately about something I care about."
What will happen when this bozo gets out of jail and learns that newspapers are made from dead trees? Poetic justice maybe.
So, is this really what you think, that prison rape is acceptable? Is that the punishment you want here, not just time in jail, but forced rape as well?
Look, q_an_a, this isn't directed entirely at you, but this was the fourth post I've seen today that seemed gleeful that a bad guy would get brutally raped in prison. I don't like that type of casual brutality. Our prison system has gotten so bad it's a national disgrace - but we don't care because it's only criminals who are exposed to it.
It's not acceptable. It shouldn't be acceptable to conservatives - criminals should have to fulfill their sentences, but their punishment is what we mete out, not this extra. It shouldn't be acceptable to any civilized human being, let alone conservatives. Personally, I get a bit disgusted at the suppressed glee and innuendo over this.
Let's give it a rest, already.
Drew Garrett
Yep, another lifelong Democrat
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