Seeing the Green Scare as a Cultural or Religious War
Sep 12th, 2006 by Will Potter
There’s an article floating around by Alex Epstein of the Ayn Rand Institute (Ugh, I know, but stay with me here) that reveals a lot about the goals of the New McCarthyists in this Green Scare:
Animal rights terrorists are often cast as “extremists” who take “too far” the allegedly benevolent cause of animal rights. But… the terrorists’ inhuman tactics are an embodiment of the movement’s inhuman cause.
…While these terrorists should be condemned and imprisoned, that is not enough. We must wage a principled, intellectual war against the very notion of animal rights; we must condemn it as logically false and morally repugnant.
People ask me all the time why corporations and politicians spend scarce anti-terrorism resources going after animal rights and environmental activists that have never killed anyone. After reading about all the legislation, court cases and general harassment, they often say something like, “Ok, so some property crimes have taken place by some activists, but I don’t understand such a disproportionate response against all activists.”
My response is generally that corporations see their profits at stake, and politicians, in turn, need to protect the profits of the corporations that support them. But it goes much deeper than that, I’m realizing. I still can’t completely put my finger on it, but these New McCarthyists feel that more than money is at stake here.
They see it as a new culture war, in a way. To people like Epstein, it’s not just about profits. It’s about a way of life. The War on Terrorism is merely a tactic to fight an ideological war against those who challenge the notion that humans have the right to subjugate the environment or animals to their own selfish interests. Environmental activists and animal rights activists are not merely seen as “pro-environment” or “pro-animal,” they’re seen as “anti-human.” They’re seen as a threat to the sanctity of human life.
To some, the activists are a threat to the deeply-held religious belief that humans were created by God to hold dominion over all other species, and use them for whatever purposes they choose. It’s hard to do that when pesky activists are willing to put their freedom on the line to challenge that dominion.
If we begin to look at this Green Scare as exactly that– a moral war influenced by religion– it takes on even stronger parallels to the Red Scare. I visited the new National Portrait Gallery this weekend (highly recommended if you haven’t gone) and a few quotations on the walls of the presidential gallery caught my attention. I tracked down one of them (or a variation, perhaps).
Replace “communism” with “environmentalism” or “animal rights activists” and tell me if I’m just imagining things:
Our religious faith gives us the answer to the false beliefs of Communism… I have the feeling that God has created us and brought us to our present position of power and strength for some great purpose.
President Harry Truman, Public Papers of the President of the United States: Harry S. Truman - 1951 U.S. Gov. 1966 pp548-549
there is but the fact that the ELF is nothing more than a mafia of organized arsonists, and the members of Peta fund their arson. Thus, they are terrorists.
peta doesnt care about the enviornment, all radical ANIMAL rights activists hate PETA. the arsons carried out by the ELF are carried out by small groups of people with cheap tools such as cans of gasoline, theyre not funded by a large conspiracy of activists, that would make it far too easy to track and arrest people.
Terrorist is a far over used word. While some acts such as bombing a large number of innocent people to strike fear into the populous is terrorism, throughout history people have branded their political opponents terrorists. Those fighting with Ghandi for the independance of india were considered terrorists, but you would never hear someone today calling peace loving ghandi a terrorist. The actions of the ELF and ALF have a specific purpose, which is to do what they can to save the earth or to save animals. Whether you call them terrorists or heroes does not matter, their actions are no meant to instill fear into people, but to fight for their cause.
I am a new yorker and to be honest, peter young liberating some minks, and planes flying into buildings are so incredibly different that it is sick to consider them at the same level. I would consider nazi groups and groups such as godhatesfags.com much more dangerous than animal rights activists because they have stated aims of eliminating whole groups of people, not trying to save this planet that human beings have been destroying.
The parallels between the rise of the Third Reich of Nazi Germany, wherein systematic blaming (propaganda) and elimination of Rights (creation of exclusionary laws) for certain groups of people eventually led to people being considered vermin, sounds terribly like what is beginning to happen to animal advocates and environmentalists. Some of my family survived Nazi Germany.
I can not urge you strongly enough to look at history so you understand how to peacefully stop this growing wave of anti-compassionate sentiment towards people who care about the natural world that is beginning to engulf this country.
I can not urge you strongly enough to address the public’s conscience through talking to neighbors, speaking out, writing, politic’ing, … to reverse the growing wave of intolerance, to reverse the incarceration of advocates who stood firm on the legal side of the line in their peaceful conviction to protect animals and the environment, to reverse the movement of the line of law that crossed over them, to bring the line of law back to a place where compassion is not a crime.
These are the times that tea parties are about.
Recalling a phrase,
“If you are not concerned; you are not listening.”
[...] Hoot. And then perhaps you’ll become a true believer, convinced that this “War on Terrorism” is a culture war. After all, you must understand that tofu makes you [...]
Oh Please….. not a quote from the Any Rand Institute - now there might be a grand place to start looking for “terrorists”.
For health & heart…. Go VEGAN!
” Animal rights terrorists are often cast as “extremists” who take “too far” the allegedly benevolent cause of animal rights. But… the terrorists’ inhuman tactics are an embodiment of the movement’s inhuman cause.
…While these terrorists should be condemned and imprisoned, that is not enough. We must wage a principled, intellectual war against the very notion of animal rights; we must condemn it as logically false and morally repugnant. ”
Now that’s sickening. The whole religious belief that ‘God put animals on the earth for our use’ is completely inaccurate. If one were to follow a religion as it should, they probably wouldn’t be eating animal products at all. Animals are God’s creatures, to disrespect them is to disrespect God. Disrespect can be taken in a few directions - not letting them live as they would without our interference (example - letting them roam a farm vs. confining them in cages) or eating them at all. I take the second route, but I feel that the first route is much more doable for most people. If you’re gonna eat animal products, you better buy it from a local farmer that lets his animals live as they should rather than confine them until he kills them.