Mickey Z

Cool Observer

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Green Scare

Before we get to imaginary terror, here’s someone living under the Israeli bombs (paid for by US taxpayers) in Gaza:

Top 5 Lies about Israel’s Assault on Gaza
More graphic images here
(Thanks, Mew)

We now return to the fabricated fear:

The term Green Scare refers to “the federal government’s expanding prosecution efforts against animal liberation and ecological activists, drawing parallels to the “Red Scares” of the 1910’s and 1950s.” This term gained notoriety in 2002 in the wake of the February 12 congressional hearings titled “The Threat of Eco-Terrorism” which discussed groups including the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).

Here’s how it’s all explained by Green is the New Red: “The animal rights and environmental movements, like every other social movement throughout history, have both legal and illegal elements. There are people who leaflet, write letters, and lobby. There are people who protest and engage in non-violent civil disobedience. And there are people, like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, who go out at night with black masks and break windows, burn SUVs, and release animals from fur farms. Animal rights and environmental advocates have not flown planes into buildings, taken hostages, or sent Anthrax through the mail. Yet the FBI ranks them as the top domestic terrorism threat. And the Department of Homeland Security lists them on its roster of national security threats, while ignoring right-wing extremists who have bombed the Oklahoma City federal building, murdered doctors, and admittedly created weapons of mass destruction.”

“As a society we need to imagine others’ horrors as our own,” suggests Kelly Overton, Executive Director of People Protecting Animals & Their Habitats. “What if the sex worker was our child? The homeless woman our mother? The research dog our family pet? The unjustly imprisoned activist our child? Only when we decide the pain and humiliation of others is not worth economic gain will the need for rights, human and animal, disappear.”

The broader our vision - the more open our minds - the better we are able to recognize reality and take action.

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