Chris McIntosh was sentenced to eight years in federal prison December 16, 2005 for setting fire to a Seattle area McDonald’s restaurant on January 20, 2003. The restaurant was unoccupied at the time and no one was injured. The FBI originally claimed that the arson caused $5,000 in damage but were not allowed to introduce that figure in Court because they couldn’t prove even such minimal damage. The action was jointly claimed by the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. Chris, who is 23 years old, took a plea deal to avoid facing a mandatory minimum 30 year sentence. There were two police informants willing to testify against Chris.
At his sentencing hearing, Chris refused to express remorse for his crime, telling U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly, that “the Earth is being destroyed [and] animals are being led to mechanized slaughter. … I don’t consider myself a terrorist, but the Earth is being terrorized by corporate greed. … I felt I had to do something to protect it.” He is now serving his sentence in West Virginia.
By Chris McIntosh, US Penitentiary
When I reflect on McDonald’s, I always think about how it started off as a small hamburger shack and has grown to spread its evil tentacles to become a multinational franchise of death. By death I mean a literal murder of non humyn animals as well as the overall degradation of the health of millions of humyns, who either are too poor to receive a hot meal elsewhere, or have become so brainwashed by the inundation of McDonald’s propaganda that they truly believe they love the fast food chain. (Not to mention the destruction in South America taking place to raise cheaper beef.)
McDonald’s is a colonizer, a poster boy for this super size slob culture. A spreading disease — where can you go and not see a McDonald’s? McDonald’s is the prophet of uniformity, the slayer of local culture and native cuisines, and it’s food is a major contributor to the ever present rise in type 2 diabetes among kids. Their trans fat loaded, fat filled hormone steroid enhanced product assaults our children and us. There’s no way to look at it other than as a direct assault upon the people of the world and the animals sold and broiled daily for the almighty dollar.
When these freaks for profits attack our kids and the earth, we’ve gotta fight. And in essence, that’s what I chose to do, using arson as a medium for my rage at years of McDonald’s jingles. I attacked in the dead of night, in the center of Seattle. I struck while there were many people in the surrounding area, so the peons of this slob culture could see their idol burn. Snitches led to my arrest and subsequent incarceration. I’d do it all again.
Now ‘they’ say a good radical article includes a solution. I’m not saying this was a good radical article but I have a solution. An International Day of Solidarity with the victims of McDonald’s. A day to voice our dissent through legal activities protesting McDonald’s overwhelming propaganda throughout our culture. One day to start could lead to a week to a month to a year to a lifetime campaign.
So while I’m behind these walls, make August 25th an International Day of Solidarity with the victims of McDonald’s outside the walls — in your town.
Write letters of support to Chris: Christopher McIntosh 30512-013, US Penitentiary Hazelton, P.O. BOX 2000, Bruceton Mills, WV 26525
Chris depends almost exclusively on donations from the activist community to provide him with much needed vegan food and supplies in prison. Donations for Chris (however small) can be sent to his support group at: Chris McIntosh Support Fund, PO Box 8943, Collingswood, NJ 08108
Check www.supportchris.org for more info.