It’s great to see the book getting positive reviews from a wide range of audience. Here a few new reviews I wanted to highlight:

The libertarian Reason Magazine connects these issues to its readership (who, I think it’s safe to say, are not often fans of animal rights activists or environmentalists), and warns: “Potter makes a strong case that the authorities have exaggerated the threat such activists pose… the encroachments he laments are part of a larger expansion of federal police power, one that affects the right as well as the left.”

The Earth Island Journal has a lengthy review in the Winter 2012 issue, and called it a “deeply troubling account of the federal government’s crackdown on the radical environmental movement.”

And on the Literary Animal blog, Sangu Iyer writes:

“Green is the New Red embodies one of my favorite forms of writing. It is part memoir, part history, part investigative journalism. Belonging to the school of “new journalism,” where an author acknowledges his role in the story, this book  is a thrilling read for both its exhaustive research and the intimate nature of the telling…. Released in the year of several global political uprisings and the Occupy Wall Street Movement, Green is the New Red is particularly relevant and insightful reading for all concerned citizens questioning corporate power.”

This event has been a long time in the making, and I’m excited it has finally come together. The Center for Constitutional Rights is hosting a discussion, “Red to Green: Political Panic from McCarthyism to ‘Eco-Terrorism.’” Robert Meeropol, son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, will be speaking about the Red Scare, and I will be discussing the targeting of environmentalists and animal rights activists (the “Green Scare”). Daniel McGowan’s wife, Jenny Synan, will be talking about Communications Management Units.

There will also be a huge raffle, organized by Family and Friends of Daniel McGowan!

It should be a great evening, and great discussion particularly in light of the crackdown on Occupy Wall Street across the country.

Please RSVP and spread the word on Facebook.

Full details below from the Center for Constitutional Rights:

I’ll be speaking in Maine on Monday, November 14 at 7pm. It’s free and open to the public, so if you’re in the area I hope you’ll considering coming out!

From the University of Southern Maine’s press release:

The University of Southern Maine will host a public lecture with award-winning journalist Will Potter at 7 p.m., Monday, November 14, Luther Bonney Hall, USM Portland.  In his lecture, Potter will discuss his new book, “Green is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege.”  This event is free and open to the public…

This lecture is sponsored by the following USM departments and programs: the Department of Criminology, the Department of Economics, the Honors Program and the Department of Political Science.  For more information about the lecture, please contact Dusan Bjelic, professor of criminology, at 699-8271.

 

I had the pleasure of speaking with Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan on their podcast, Our Hen House. It was a great discussion! We talked about why animal activists should join Occupy Wall Street, the possible resurgence of ag-gag bills, and the importance of vibrant, grassroots activism.

Here’s an excerpt:

Jasmin: “…what kinds of activists should AR activists focus on?”

Will: “I do my best to refrain from trying to answer that, because I don’t think I am any more of an expert that anyone listening to this program. I don’t intend that as the total cop out it sounds like, but — I don’t know what the right way to social change is. Through my work I try to raise the point that I don’t think any of us do. I think we all should do what we find most appropriate, given our skills, given our resources, and give our passions. The reason I pursue my work as a form of activism, journalism as activism, is quite simply because I didn’t know what else to do. And I think a lot of people are feeling that way… We all have to find our niches.”

You can listen to the entire show at Our Hen House. My segment of the radio show starts at about 32:34. I hope you’ll listen, and also check out the other Our Hen House podcasts. Jasmin and Mariann offer a wonderful self-reflective voice in the animal rights movement.

I’ll turn one of the questions over to you all: What do you think are the greatest challenges facing the animal rights and environmental movements?

Miami! I’ll be in town for the Miami Book Fair International the weekend of November 19-20. I’ll be speaking on an environmental panel with Juliet Eilperin and Ellen Prager on Sunday at 11am. Ok, so my perspective on this panel might be a tad bit, um, different. But it should be fun.

I hope to also have time to hear Leslie Marmon Silko and Chuck Palahniuk, among the many great authors who will be there.

Hope to see you there!

I’ll be speaking at Pacific University on November 10th, as part of the university’s In Your Face lecture series. It’s quite an honor: previous speakers in the series have included Christian Parenti, Robin Hahnel, Dave Zirin, Judy Giles, and Heather Rogers. If you’re in the Portland, Oregon area, I hope to see you there!

Nov 10, 2011, 7:00 PM
Marsh Hall (Taylor Auditorium [216] ) – Forest Grove

Nationally acclaimed speaker Will Potter to give the sixth annual In Your Face lecture, Green Is the New Red: How Corporations Turned Environmentalists into Eco-terrorists. Free and open to the public.

Free admission

A light reception with food and drinks will follow.

Will Potter is an award-winning independent journalist and author based in Washington, D.C.

His latest book, Green is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege, looks at the use of anti-terrorism resources to target environmentalists and animal rights activists. He examines how the word ‘eco-terrorist’ is used to push a political agenda, instill fear, intimidate and silence dissent, creating a “Green Scare” not unlike the “Red Scare” against Communists that preceded it.

Potter is an expert on at the nexus between environmentalism and terrorism. His work has appeared in publications like the Chicago Tribune, the Huffington Post, and the Vermont Law Review. He has also testified before the U.S. Congress about his environmental reporting.

Please RSVP for this event on Facebook!

Monthly Review, a socialist magazine, has a posted a thoughtful review/discussion of my book by Paul J. Comeau. It’s wonderful to see these issues being discussed in increasingly diverse circles. Here’s an excerpt:

It is a chilling thought that these laws, which criminalize the protest of the animal industry as “terrorism,” are only a breath away from being reconstituted into laws criminalizing protests of any and all corporations, no matter how grossly irresponsible or harmful their actions may be in their endless drive to increase profit. It is hubris like this that destroys not only acres of forests and kills innocent animals, but also disrupts whole economies and drives thousands out of work and out of their homes, while simultaneously criminalizing any challenges to these practices.

You can read the full review here.

VegNews, one of the most popular vegetarian/vegan magazines, has a great review in the current (Sept-Oct) issue. Green Is the New Red is the editors’ pick:

“Journalist and blogger Will Potter’s Green Is the New Red reads like a spy-thriller novel and would be much more enjoyable if it were. Green is an expertly detailed, 100-percent factual account of how corporate interests created the term ‘eco-terrorism’ in the 1980s, then led the march to the passage of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that criminalizes and characterizes First Amendment free speech as terrorism. Potter makes a compelling argument that what’s happening in the 21st century to environmental and animal advocates is a replay of Joseph McCarthy’s communist ‘red scare’ of the 1950s. If you read one book in 2011, make it this one. Then act.“

You can order a signed copy from this site or from Amazon.

I’ll be speaking at the Baltimore Book Festival on Sunday, September 25th on a panel looking at state repression across social movements. It should be a great discussion, with Susan Rosenberg (author of An American Radical: Political Prisoner in My Own Country) and Dominique Stevenson (co-author of Marshall Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther). It has been organized by the kind folks at Red Emma’s bookstore. If you’re in the area, I hope you can make it! Here’s the event page on Facebook.