ResistanceIsFertile
Well-Known Member
I'm no fan of animal rights extremism, despite my fondness for other kinds and have even end my association with groups I have worked with when they set out to forge ties with a local animal rights organization, which had already been accused (but not charged) of "redecorating" some restaurants that serve foie gras, which sounds icky, but nothing to smash the place up over. Bad food is everywhere. Most vegans I've known (and I know a bunch) are soy crazed and amino deprived and therefore prone to wacky behavior and even more self-righteousness than I can deal with for more than few minutes.
I also think that anyone foolish enough to harrass someone at home, isn't really thinking things through either. I know how I'd react if there was a howling mob on my (rented) doorstep, but maybe they assumed these researchers were unarmed liberal-types who wouldnt reach for anything but the phone. If they really believe these researchers are so cruel and vicious, does it make sense to try and torment them where they live with their family and their stuff.
We have bigger problems than people trying to cure diseases, and regardless of your personal feelings about animals as food, a certain percentage of them couldn't have walked into this person's yard, had it not been for the polio vaccine, tested on animals.
These kinds also tend to be young, privileged and followers, and are thus easily befriended and entrapped, as in the case of Eric McDavid, who was led around by a civilian informant who smoked his weed and acted like his girlfriend.
What is troubling isn't the fact that they got pinched for throwing a tantrum in someone's yard, but the fact that they have added a new class of hate crime, only against a category of "corporate person". The Democrats seem to be much better at getting these types of things through. The dread USA-PATRIOT Act was in large part legislation from Clinton's crime and anti-terrorism acts that Republican civil libertarians (remember them?) put the axe to.
This isn't meant as a pity party, so much as a heads-up to critics of the regime, it's policies, the Fed, taxes, the UN or whatever your grievance, that you should play safe and smart if you must play.
FBIs 5-Step Process to Criminalize First Amendment Activity as Terrorism
Feb 24th, 2009 by Will Potter
The recent FBI arrests of animal rights activists as terrorists for chalking sidewalks, protesting and making fliers marks a drastic turning point in the Green Scare, and in the history of this country. The government and corporations are clearly hoping to set a legal precedent for the sweeping power of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. But these arrests are much more than a test case, or an isolated incident of ambitious prosecution.
These arrests are part of a 5-step process the FBI and other government agencies are using to overtly label First Amendment activity as terrorism.
The process has worked something like this:
I also think that anyone foolish enough to harrass someone at home, isn't really thinking things through either. I know how I'd react if there was a howling mob on my (rented) doorstep, but maybe they assumed these researchers were unarmed liberal-types who wouldnt reach for anything but the phone. If they really believe these researchers are so cruel and vicious, does it make sense to try and torment them where they live with their family and their stuff.
We have bigger problems than people trying to cure diseases, and regardless of your personal feelings about animals as food, a certain percentage of them couldn't have walked into this person's yard, had it not been for the polio vaccine, tested on animals.
These kinds also tend to be young, privileged and followers, and are thus easily befriended and entrapped, as in the case of Eric McDavid, who was led around by a civilian informant who smoked his weed and acted like his girlfriend.
What is troubling isn't the fact that they got pinched for throwing a tantrum in someone's yard, but the fact that they have added a new class of hate crime, only against a category of "corporate person". The Democrats seem to be much better at getting these types of things through. The dread USA-PATRIOT Act was in large part legislation from Clinton's crime and anti-terrorism acts that Republican civil libertarians (remember them?) put the axe to.
This isn't meant as a pity party, so much as a heads-up to critics of the regime, it's policies, the Fed, taxes, the UN or whatever your grievance, that you should play safe and smart if you must play.
FBIs 5-Step Process to Criminalize First Amendment Activity as Terrorism
Feb 24th, 2009 by Will Potter
These arrests are part of a 5-step process the FBI and other government agencies are using to overtly label First Amendment activity as terrorism.
The process has worked something like this:
- Label. The first step was to label illegal direct action by groups like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front as terrorism. The FBI, corporations, industry groups and politicians began doing this in the 1980s, through media campaigns, think tank reports and legislation like the Animal Enterprise Protection Act.
- Guilt by association. Next, these groups expanded their smear campaign to anyone who ideological supports direct action and economic sabotage. They began labeling the above-ground supporters of those movements as terrorists. A turning point was the conviction of the SHAC 7 for running a controversial website that vocally supported a wide range of tactics.
- More guilty by association. This is now. The guilt by association is spreading from those who vocally support direct action (and, like the SHAC 7, perhaps even publish anonymous communiqués) to those who are merely lawfully protesting as part of the same campaign. In the SHAC 7 case, the government argued that the defendants were conspiring to promote illegal activity by running a website. In these recent arrests, the government is arguing that the First Amendment activity itself is terrorism because its part of a campaign that involves illegal tactics.
- Expand the net. With the latest arrests, the government is still trying to play up the fact that illegal actions have happened recently in California, including bombings that have been recklessly attributed to animal rights activists. The next step is to completely drop that pretext. In other words, the next step is to go after people who are using their First Amendment rights and are not engaging in home protests, chalking sidewalks or wearing masks. This is the same expansion of the net that happened during the Red Scare: targeting writers, speakers, journalists, and public figures. I feel strange writing this but, in many ways, the next step is to go after people like me.
- Repeat. This process will be repeated for different organizations and different types of people (activists, non-profit leaders, writers) and it will be repeated for other social movements. The government is not establishing these legal and legislative precedents simply to abandon them once the animal rights radicals are imprisoned. The legal latticework will be used against the next social movement, and the next, and the next. This has happened in every era of government repression throughout history: once those in power discover tools for silencing one opposition group, they never stop there.
