Undoubetedly this is right when you consider the tactics of the ALF. However, what I am concerned about is 'suspect-creep'. Note in this article how noting a few animal liberation extremeists then starts to include eco-activists, and before you know it, anyone who is green is going to be suspect. USA war on terror will soon include me as a potential Guantanamo Bay internee -I suspect it won't matter that I eschew violence; the mere fact of being included in a group of people some very small minority of whom have advocated or used violence will be enough. After all that's how it's been for Muslims ... As one animal rights campaigner said: "If they think we are terrorists then they probably think Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are terrorists as well" That person was joking, but actually I don't rate USAmerican officialdom for having a sense of humour. So yes they probably do, especially as a few months ago Greenpeace was in the US courts for alleged offences, that was thrown out but it may not be the last time ...
Is the Bush regime's way of dealing with dissent over the environment? Let's hope I'm wrong.
John Lewis, the FBI's deputy assistant director for counter terrorism, told a Senate committee: "... most animal rights and eco-extremists had so far refrained from violence targeting human life, but added that this could change. 'We have seen an escalation in violent rhetoric and tactics,' he told the Senate environment and public works committee. 'Attacks are also growing in frequency and size,' he said, adding that it was plainly a matter of luck that nobody had been killed. 'Once you set one of these fires they can go way out of control.'
You can see the trajectory of that kind of remark especially when unsympthetic US redneck neo-cons get hold of it in the popular press and media ....
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | FBI calls UK animal activists terrorists:
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20 May 2005
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"Spend and tax" not "tax and spend"
I got a response from my MP which got me kind of mad. You'll see why as I reproduce it here. Apologies for the strange changes in types...
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I've been watching the TV series 'Foundation'. I read the books about 50 years ago (I know!) but scarcely now remember anything...
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from: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/online/2012/5/22/1337672561216/Annular-solar-eclipse--008.jpg -
"'Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell yo...
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The FBI stance is amusing. Once again we have the equivalent of question time in parliament tactics -- vilify the opposition, engage in name calling, create a straw man, exggerate, substitute rhetoric and propaganda for any substantial analysis.
My wife and I both completed the first animal law course in Australia at the University of NSW in a summer semester intensive during February. The issue of animals and human use of them (morally, legally, philosophically and theologically) is not something that can be reduced to "animal rights = fanaticism = terrorists".
A spectrum of viewpoints exists from the welfare approach (which promotes humane kindness but allows for medical experiments on animals; animal liberation, animal rights, abolitionists and so on. And the philosophical views encompass Kantian, utilitarian-consequentialist views, Marxist, neo-pagan, pantheist, panentheist, vegan, vegetarian, Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Islamic, Jain, Hindu views.
I believe that theologically animals must come into focus, in view of eco-spirituality and in view of the moral problems associated with nano-tech, cloning, stem-cell research, diminishing eco-systems and natural resources, capitalist greed in industrialised farming, and so on.
While Andrew Linzey holds a chair in animal theology, the church in many sectors is, as usual, dragging her pews behind her trying to catch up with the 1950s, that it is largely oblivious to the problems. And when media images fixate on a propagandistic portrait, juxtaposed with rhetorical words, it is easy to dismiss the issue because of the word-image associations generated in our electronic age of communications.
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