Since everyone is making such a big deal about 60 Minutes' segment on eco-terrorism -- an episode that played like Sen. James Inhofe's wet dream -- I feel compelled to re-post Sen. Jim Jefford's response last spring to the Senate Environment and Publica Works' Committee, back when the FBI came out and declared environmentalists the country's greatest terrorist threat.
Please read it.
No one here is endorsing violence in the name of the environmentalism and animal rights -- indeed, it hardly ever happens. But this campaign to protray enviros and animal-rights activists as pyromaniacal nutjobs is right-wing property-rights-crazed propaganda, pure and simple. It emerged as an idea almost exactly 10 years after the Oklahoma City bombing, right when Inhofe and his pals knew there would be attention paid to right-wing extremism in, specifically, his state. So he diverted the argument to promote what former Congressman Pete McCloskey, embarrassed about the current state of Republican leadership, calls a "property uber alles" philosophy.
Don't fall for it.
On a related note, the FBI has paid up and apologized for harrassing Josh Connole in connection with the Hummer-arson incident. Here's the story I wrote about it two years ago, when he got arrested.
UPDATE, 11/21: The FBI is reporting that a Maryland fire "could be the work a group of radical environmentalists," according to the Washington Post. These days, you can blame anything on the ELF, which the FBI reportedly considers "one of the country's most dangerous domestic terrorist organizations."
If that's true, we're pretty darn safe.
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There are 3 comments posted for this article.
Actually, I symphathsize with the quandry here. But, ironically, it is the same one currently faced by the religious right, with it's abortion snipers and creationists.
Simple fact, build a better mousetrap. No one is interested in your opinion of current models (not in attack mode there, they don't care about mine either).
The problem has NEVER been alerting people to what is wrong, It is guiding them to what is right. On a planet exploding with humanity, the environment WILL become unbalanced. How to manage that, and assuage politician's greed (which I assure you, will NOT go away)?
Fighting micro-managed battles has been the nemesis of the ecology front for some time. Just as fighting one particular Planned Parenthood center has sapped the strength of it's foes.
I find an interesting parallel here with computer technology, also. LINUX could, conceivably, displace WINDOWS. However, with thousands of discordant voices, each attempting to further a "micro-agenda", nothing happens.
The sad truth is is that there is no Green Party, only Reps & Dems & outsiders. If you think that the outsiders have a chance, you need do nothing; stay your current course.
Posted on November 19, 2005 4:11 PM by Terry Daniel
2+2=5
Posted on November 20, 2005 7:11 PM by 5
I'm not sure I got all of that, but I do agree with your assessment of where Linux-heads went wrong. I used to be a staunch proponent, until I went to a Linux conference and found out the ideal was another profit-agenda. And not a well-organized one.
How that applies to the overestimation of eco-terrorists, I'm not sure. But thanks.
Posted on November 21, 2005 4:11 PM by Judith Lewis