Tell Congress: Stop the rush to erode our civil liberties

Have to agree with Richie on that one.

Lite version:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_a_New_American_Century

My gawd, man. Do you really believe what you're saying? How is "less liberty" the conservative position? What is freedom without the right to live a life free of prying governmental eyes? By all means, let the goverment pry when there is reasonable suspicion, but not just for the hell of it simply because "they can." Further, it's the sixteen suset clauses of the PA that are of most concern to me. I can live with many remaining components of the PA.

As for the BF quote, Ardith pretty much summed up my sentiments. And, are you telling me that life under British colonial rule in the 18th century was "safer" than our comfy 21st century American lives?

Some days only a sickeningly cute plushie hug will do.

Excellent post! Call me a pessimist, a dick, a liberal, whatever - but the day we start changing the way we live our lives, the terrorists have won.

It may have been in the planning for a while, but you must admit it was enacted in a relatively short period of time.

Certainly 9/11 enabled acceleration of any such idealogy (PNAC).

"“The process of transformation is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.”

(from “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century” by the PNAC)

I am fully aware of PNAC.

Chip, could you all elucidate a bit on why you're quoting me?

I am relatively sure we are on the same side of the fence with respect to PNAC.

Basically, What I am saying - is that I agree, this was a plan waiting for a "Pearl Harbor", to soften the dissenting opinion, and that the terrorists are loving every minute of the results - an even split between conservatives and liberals, with a apparent endless blockage of left vs. right sewage clogging everything. We are steeped in it, and it is not healthy..

Sow the seeds, sit back, and watch as they tear themselves apart.

Cool link, thanks for posting.

Alex Jones of Austin, the "infowars" guy, also has posted some articles on his site about the PNAC agenda. Here's just one (reprinted from the Guardian).

http://www.infowars.com/articles/sept11/meacher_war_on_terror_bogus.htm

Crazy how all this can be ignored so systematically by the worlds media.... Im not so sure its all about oil though, I honestly think its about greedy men and women who cant see past their own lifetime money grabbing, if they truely cared about our future energy needs then surly they would put more investment into new energy forms R&D and less into the death machine they call laugably "defence".. the maths just doesnt add up at all

I know we are. That was more for the benefit of anyone unaware of PNAC, and that quote in particular. You just provided a perfect opportunity it interject it

The Patriot Act concerns me, but not as much as the fact that the Executive branch has somehow gained the power to label anybody an "enemy combatant" (including U.S. citizens), with no requirement to justify that label, and thereafter imprison them indefinitely with no access to counsel, no charges, and no trial. That was quite definitely an outcome that would have sent Ben Franklin and the other founders off to grab their muskets and bag some redcoats.

In February 2001, Huntingdon's managing director in Great Britain, Brian Cass, was badly beaten outside his home by three masked assailants swinging baseball bats. Shortly after the attack, British animal rights activist David Blenkinsop, a friend of SHAC-USA's Kevin Jonas, was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison for the assault. At around the same time, Andrew Gay, Cass' marketing director, was attacked on his doorstep with a spray that left him temporarily blinded, writhing on the ground in front of his wife and young daughter.
Ronnie Lee, one of the British founders of the ALF, applauded the beating of Cass. “He has got off lightly,” Lee said. “I have no sympathy for him.” Joining in the jubilation were some American eco-radicals. “If it happens and it works,” Last Chance for Animals boss Chris DeRose said of attacks like the Cass beating, “then that's great.”



Ted Kaczynski during admitted that he was in contact with EarthFirst! during his Unabomber days. In fact, he found at least one of his targets - Thomas Mosser, a New Jersey advertising executive, who was killed instantly when he opened a package from the Unabomber - by reading about Mosser's firm in the EarthFirst! journal.
In his manifesto, Kaczynski sounded for all the world like an eco-extremist as he took credit for Mosser's violent death: “We blew up Thomas Mosser last December because he was a Burston-Marsteller executive. Among other misdeeds, Burston-Marsteller helped Exxon clean up its image after the Exxon Valdez incident.” Officials noted that Kaczynski misspelled the company's name - it should be Burson, not Burston - precisely the same way that EarthFirst! did. They also noted that, as reported in the Washington Post, the EarthFirst! journal got it wrong: Burson-Marsteller “never worked for Exxon on the spill.” Thanks to incorrect information from EarthFirst!, Mosser was killed for something his company never did.


Frustration with the slow pace of nonviolent change appears to be epidemic in the movement. In September 2001, ALF co-founder Ronnie Lee told Jane's Intelligence Review, “So far no one on the other side has ever been seriously harmed or killed. But that may now change.” It didn't take long for Lee to be proved right. This May, as the debate over “eco-terrorism” raged in the United States, an apparent “eco-assassination” in Europe sent shockwaves through the environmental activists and their targets. Less than two weeks before voters in the Netherlands would choose a new government, animal-rights activist Volkert van der Graaf allegedly pumped six bullets into Pim Fortuyn, a right-wing anti-immigration candidate for prime minister.
Van der Graaf may have been enraged by Fortuyn's support of pig farmers in a debate with animal rights activists. Fortuyn's death at the hands of a veteran activist spawned a wave of “I-told-you-so” editorials in European newspapers, which have sharply criticized the escalating violence of radical activists in recent years, warning that murder was the next step. Fortuyn, a dog lover whose environmental views were generally more moderate than his hard-right stance on immigration, had expressed similar exasperation earlier in the campaign, telling the green group Milieudefensie, “I'm sick to death of your environmental movement.”
Could eco-activism spawn another van der Graaf - or another Kaczynski - in the United States? If it happens, don't expect the ALF or ELF to take responsibility. The groups' guidelines for cell members always include a crucial escape clause, like this one in “Frequently Asked Questions About the Earth Liberation Front”: “If an action similar to one performed by ELF occurred and resulted in an individual becoming physically injured or losing their life, this would not be considered an ELF action.”

No he is a spokesman for American Logging over Forin Logging for environmental reasons. In the US when we do log we no longer clear cut. Were South American countries are clear cutting the Rain Forest. He has worked with Logging companies but he does not work for them.

Animal rights, not environmentalists. Also not lethal.



But not a member of any organization. And reading a publication or website hardly constitutes being "in contact".



Again, your uncredited source (an industry-funded propaganda organ, if I judge the tone correctly), deliberately commingles the animal rights movement with environmentalism. And again, not the work of any organization, but of a lone sociopath.

Lies and distortion, distortion and lies. Guilt by association, smoke and mirrors. These are tools used by slick PR hacks to smear concerned citizens fighting for the future of our planet. Don't be suckered into their paranoid delusions.

In fact, the 32-year-old van der Graaf was the founder of Zeeland's Animal Liberation Front before he went on to found Milieu Offensief (Environment Offensive). His story reads like a cautionary tale, especially now that the American ELF and ALF seem to take their cues from the Europeans.
While van der Graaf was an avowed enemy of factory farming, most of his attacks on farmers had been peaceful. Environment Offensive filed more than 2,200 lawsuits against big farming interests. “His weapon was the law,” a member of Environment Offensive told Dutch television.
But van der Graaf was apparently provoked to more drastic action by his frustration with fighting “the system.” When Dutch police searched the suspect's home after Fortuyn's murder, they found documents linking van der Graaf to a recent outbreak of direct-action attacks on a mink factory and a poultry farm. They also found that van der Graaf apparently hadn't intended to stop with Fortuyn: He had floor plans of the homes of three of Fortuyn's fellow List Party candidates for the parliament.

He works for a group funded by the timber industry, what we refer to as an "astroturf roots" organization (an industry mouthpiece posing as a grassroots effort). He has abandoned ecology based on sound science in favor of parroting the baseless claims of an increasingly ravenous industry. He has zero credibility except to his industrial masters.

You feel this way because you disagree with him. I agree and I am a eco person and I am a Eng and can understand what I am reading. Not that you don't.

Sometimes business people murder each other. Sometimes jealous lovers murder each other. Sometimes people of various ideologies murder each other. Does that mean that the FBI should start monitoring all business people, idealogues, and people in love as potential terrorists? No? Then why treat environmentalists or animal rights activists differently? The answer has everything to do with the ideology of those in charge.

And maybe that frustration was fueled by his well-documented bouts with mental illness. Again, this is an isolated incident of a deranged individual acting on his own, not because he's an environmentalist but because he's a sociopath. Pretending otherwise would be to admit that the Republican Party is guilty of serial killing because certain serial killers turn out to be registered Republicans. Logical fallacy: category error: composition.

You said list one. I did it and you keep saying no. Own up I gave you one.

Patrick Moore's continuous bashing and misrepresentation of all other sectors of the environmental community is not conducive to that community treating him with kid gloves. It is particularly galling to those of us who have formal training in ecology and natural resource management. His views may deserve consideration, but as long as he continues his strident and unfounded attacks against the environmental movement, those views will be dismissed.

I said



This wasn't an environmental action. It may have been motivated in part by van der Graff's view on animal rights (related but different cause), but his obsessive-compulsive personality disorder is probably more to the point.

Kaczynski is a stronger case for your point. Again, I'd say he was a solo psycho who could have just as easily fixated on any cause you'd care to name. But he fixated on the environment, so he arguably meets the criteria I set forth.

There is a difference here. Eco-Activist are organization that has been known to do things that are not above board like fire booming, tree spiking, and braking and entering to list a few. This is all terrorism. They have also been know to send letters that imply but never spell out personal harm. They should be watched if this is in any way condoned. When you say, “Well he is not a member of our group but the guy he beet deserved it and maybe more” is in the eosins of it condoning it.

Now want to talk about fucked up? The Nazi and white pride groups are not on the Tarrist watch list. Pro-life groups are also not on the list. I think all 3 belong on the list because of the things they have done in the past or there members do because of the eosins of there message. Take the Nazi guy here in Chicago that talked about how some people should not be alive. So a member went out and killed said people. Well it’s the same with the eco people. If you are pushing a agenda and when people get hurt and you don’t come out against it you are condoning the action and this is a fine line that in my personal opinion should not be walked. If I was part of a Pagan group and found out a member did something to a Anti Witch group and the Pagan Group didn’t come out angst it I would walk. My Karma does not need the baggage.

If an organization has a proven track record of condoning violence or terrorism then they should be watched, but this isn't what is happening. Groups are being watched who have no such record. What terrorist acts have the ACLU committed aside from pissing off conservatives and religious fanatics?