Grist.org is featuring a discussion I had with Robert Jensen, who is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Citizens of the Empire (among many books). I think the interview turned out really well, and is particularly relevant in the wake of Tim DeChristopher’s sentencing. I hope you’ll check it out. You can read the full interview on Grist, and here’s an excerpt:

Q. Whatever one thinks of the specific analyses or tactics of groups such as the Earth Liberation Front, the accelerating pace of ecological collapse suggests their call to consciousness about the larger living world is more important than ever. After your investigation into the Green Scare, what is your assessment of the likelihood the culture will listen?

A. As the scale of the ecological crisis we are facing becomes more apparent, and as the backlash against social movements that are challenging our self-destructive culture intensifies, it is difficult to not feel dark, to feel helpless. I certainly feel that way quite often — not just because of the content of my own work, but from the near-blackout in the mainstream press. Unfortunately, I do not see any of this changing anytime soon. As the ecological crisis accelerates, the accompanying crackdown by corporations and people in power will intensify as well. The people who have the most to lose will cling desperately to that culture as it is threatened, and this includes not just CEOs but much of the overwhelmingly privileged United States and so-called First World.

After all of that, this will probably sound quite odd, but in the face of this I would argue that there are reasons to be inspired. Through my work, and in particular through book and media tours, I have been fortunate to meet people all over the country from diverse backgrounds. What has been striking to me is that, even if people are unfamiliar with the Green Scare or the targeting of political activists, they are rarely surprised. People may not know the specifics, but they know that corporations have more power than people. They know the scope of ecological destruction is increasing. They know we have no choice but to change but that people in power will not change willingly. I’m not convinced that the question at hand is whether or not the culture will listen, because I think that so many people already feel this. I think the question is: Will we find the courage to be heard?

I recently interviewed with Dylan Powell about the AETA 4, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, Obama, mainstream media, and DC hardcore. I think it turned out to be one of the most interesting radio discussions I’ve been part of, because Dylan is so well-versed on these issues and we had a great conversation trying to pull it all together. Please check it out on the Vegan Police Podcast. And please skip through the section that reveals how much of a nerd I am.

McDonald’s has rolled out a new logo in France, replacing the iconic red background of the golden arches with green. Here’s some info from ZLOK design blog, and here is where I saw the story originally (although I can barely stumble through the French!), at TerraEco.net.

There has been so much fluff news lately about “easy ways to go green.” You know what’s an even easier way to go green? Changing a logo. And adding some hippies into your advertisements! If anyone has friends in France, I would love to hear more about how this transparent green-washing has been received there.

News like this is a little bit outside the normal content of the website, but I think it’s striking how environmental activists are the “number one domestic terrorist threat” at a time when nasty, multinational corporations are simultaneously climbing all over each other to appear “green.”

At a recent Green Scare benefit, I met two amazing activists from Colombia who are working with a few independent media projects, including Radio Libre. They’re raising awareness of the Green Scare, and how activists in the U.S. are being labeled “eco-terrorists,” because they feel many of these scare-mongering tactics can be exported to other countries.

The brief interview, available here, is in both English and Spanish.

There’s an article in Spanish at NYC Indymedia, and here is a Spanish write-up from Radio Libre:

Las corporaciones y los politicos estan tachando a los activistas de “eco-terroristas” y amenazas de seguridad nacional en Estados Unidos. “Green Scare” traduce amenaza verde y es asociado con el terminos Red Scare o Amenaza Roja, termino que se usa para describir el vergonzoso periodo en E.U desde 1917 a 1920, y de 1947 a 1958 cuando la xenofobia y la paranoia hacia infiltración comunista eran usadas por el estado para encarcelar los tales llamados radicales, comunistas y cualquiere persona acusada de ser “Rojo” o “Roja”.

Hoy en dia el termino Amenaza Verde se refiere a las batallas legales y acciones extrajudiciales por parte del gobiero de E.U en contra del movimiento ecologista y el movimiento por los derechos de los animales a partir del 2002.

A raiz de esto, un numero de presos politicos en E.U cumplen condena acusados de conspirar para realizar una acción, sin siquiere haberla planeado o ejecutado, estan presos por el simple hecho de pensar.

Mas Información:
http://www.greenisthenewred.com
http://www.myspace.com/green_scare

Escuche la entrevista o descargue y difunda el audio aqui:
Entrevista a Will Potter

Oh good grief, I knew I spoke too soon when I posted about the new “comedy” based loosely on non-violent activists being labeled “terrorists.”

Looks like the “eco-terrorism” buzz has also been milked for a romance novel. Ugh.

The blurb for Leave No Trace by Lynn Romaine:

For undercover DNR agent Nick Seek, what begins as an investigation of ecoterrorism in the Ozarks turns deadly when she becomes a suspect and a target for murder.

Her uncle dead, her aunt missing, a regretted night of passion, and Nick flees, running from the law, a murderer, and her inner fears, searching for answers.

Hawt.

I’m starting to think I’ve chosen the wrong career. Anyone have other ideas of how to cash in on this government repression and the “Green Scare”?

So the SHAC 7 are in prison, as “terrorists,” for running a controversial animal rights website. Defense attorneys are appealing, and it could be a landmark First Amendment case. But apparently civil liberties are SO not entertaining… instead, according to the Hollywood Reporter, it’s fodder for a comedy:

Lionsgate has acquired worldwide rights to “Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty,” a spec script by first-time screenwriter Adam Sachs.

The script — described as a quirky, elevated comedy in the vein of “Thank You for Smoking” — centers on an unlikely friendship between a lonely reporter and an outspoken teen who bond during an animal-rights protest.

Sachs graduated from Harvard last year with a major in Earth and planetary science and had been writing for the Harvard Lampoon. He said he penned a humor piece for a Web site that caught the attention of Energy Entertainment’s Adam Marshall.

Have no fear, though. An ambitious scare-mongerer, Wesley J. Smith, has already confirmed that the film will, in fact, depict the activists as “terrorists”:

I heard from a correspondent who says he is the author of the script. Apparently, SHAC is not the hero. From his letter to me: “Dear Mr. Smith– I found your post about my script (during a round of self-googling — alas, such is 21st century life) and I just wanted to allay your fears: the script does depict SHAC as a terrorist group, and the hero of the story is a teenager who finally stands up to them in order to save an animal testing lab.”

Apologies to everyone for the lack of posts lately. I had to back away from the site because I’m trying to get another project rolling–cross your fingers on that one, and hopefully I’ll have exciting news to announce in coming months.

Fortunately for GreenIsTheNewRed.com, though, the “War on Terrorism” is a bit like a case of herpes: it never really goes away. I can step away from the site for a few days and come back to festering sores like this one, from Fox News:

For nearly seven years, the nation has turned its terror focus on Al Qaeda and the hunt for Usama bin Laden. But there is a domestic terror threat that federal officials still consider priority No. 1 — eco-terrorism.

The torching of luxury homes in the swank Seattle suburb of Woodinville earlier this month served as a reminder that the decades-long war with militant environmentalists on American soil has not ended.

“It remains what we would probably consider the No. 1 domestic terrorism threat, because they have successfully continued to conduct different types of attacks in and around the country,” said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko.

Way down in paragraph seven we learn that, “So far, no one has been killed.” (Minor, inconvenient detail, huh?)

From the statements of the FBI and government officials, it looks like they have two reasons for this never-ending war on “eco-terrorism.”

The first is that, unlike bank robbers or pedophiles, environmentalists that commit crimes are not motivated by selfish interests. Members of the Earth Liberation Front are motivated by what they see as a higher purpose: stopping destruction of the planet. As a result, “every time a fire breaks out and somebody takes a spray can and writes ‘ELF’ or ‘ALF’ on there, then everybody gets all excited that ‘Oh this movement has started back up,’” said Bob Holland, a retired arson investigator. “The movement never really left.”

The second reason, it seems, is that the underground groups are smarter than the Feds. According to federal investigators, the only reason the government was able to round up and charge environmentalists with serious property crimes, as part of “Operation Backfire,” is because some of the defendants cooperated with the government. The lead arsonist, Jacob Ferguson, agreed to wear a wire and entrap his friends in exchange for a reduced sentence (yet to be determined, but it looks like nothing), and many of the defendants agreed to cooperate soon after their arrest. It’s chilling to think that the biggest roundup of so-called “eco-terrorists” in history, a roundup trumpeted in press conferences and sound bites, was only made possible by pressuring defendants to turn against each other. Holland said: “In Operation Backfire, we saw a sophistication that we’ve never seen in any type of a radical organization, and frankly, if somebody hadn’t turned, we wouldn’t have enjoyed the success we’ve had with that.”

In light of that, I really loved this “Artifacts From the Future” artwork by Paul Davidson in the latest issue of Wired. (Click the image for a much larger view). It’s an updated version of Risk (sponsored by CNN) for 2027. Global warming has put much of the world under water. But if you look closely under the “nationless combatants” section, it includes the “eco-liberation front.” I don’t know what’s more depressing, the fact that the war on eco-terrorism may still be going on, post-environmental collapse, or that the “sentient robot legion” receives more armies per turn.

It reminded me of that annoying children’s song, which I took the liberty of upgrading to fit this political climate:

“This is the war that never ends,
It just goes on and on my friend
Some people started fighting it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue fighting it forever just because—

Yesterday’s Seattle Times article by Jonathan Martin and Mike Carter raises some good points about the recent arsons outside of Seattle, arsons that the FBI and industry groups like the National Association of Home Builders have rushed to label as not only an Earth Liberation Front action, but “eco-terrorism.”

Some highlights:

“This could be insurance fraud; it could be something to do with the housing market,” said Charles Frahm, the FBI’s deputy assistant director for counterterrorism operations in Washington, D.C.

At the Street of Dreams, a bedsheet painted with “ELF” and a message rejecting “green” building practices was left. Although such signs are an “ELF” calling card, federal agents are not assuming there is an active ELF cell in the area, Frahm said.

So at this stage, they can’t rule out any possibility, including “that ELF is being used in an attempt to misdirect the investigation,” said David Gomez, the FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge.

[That's an interesting change in tone from what federal law enforcement was saying immediately after the blaze.]

Thanks to Jonathan Martin for the critical article, and for interviewing me:

Will Potter, a freelance journalist in Washington, D.C., who has covered the fringe environmental movement since 1999, said it may be a mistake to take the lack of communiqués as a sign that ELF isn’t alive and well. In fact, the silence may represent an evolution in the group.

In the past, prosecutors used the news releases and manifestos to argue for boosted prison sentences under terrorism laws, Potter said.

“Activists may be realizing it’s just one more fingerprint tying them to the crime,” he said.

“Or it means there it is not an ELF action.”

And:

They’re not going to be motivated by their fear; they’re motivated by the ideology,” Potter said.

Unfortunately the little mainstream media coverage of so-called “eco-terrorism” has been the unquestioning use of the T-word to describe sabotage and property crimes. (The recent cases in Seattle and now in Michigan are great examples of the press getting so wrapped up in the sexiness of that story that civil liberties implications are nowhere to be found). It’s great to see folks using community media and other outlets to get a more critical discussion going. From Worcester Indymedia:

In this clip from the cable access program Soapbox, Ron Madnick of the ACLU and Anne Lewenberg and Rachel Hamilton of Worcester Global Action Network discuss the Green Scare and voice disapproval of S.1959, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007.

I’ve noticed that there’s a tendency, when people speak critically about the use of “terrorism” legislation and rhetoric to chill dissent, to act as if this is something that rose from the ashes of 9/11. As if the political opportunism we’re seeing now can only be explained as some kind of outgrowth of that tragedy. That’s true, in some ways, in that 9/11 has been exploited by politicians and corporations to push their political agenda. But that political opportunism was taking place long before 2001.

Today’s news about the arrests for a 1999 arson at the University of Michigan is a good example of that. The FBI and law enforcement held a press conference today trumpeting that “domestic terrorists” have been indicted. But that rhetoric, that PR tactic, was in use back in 2000, right after the arson.

CBS News ran a two-part series in early 2000 called “Green Terror.” The opening of the CBS piece called the MSU arson “sabotage,” then the tone shifts to labeling it “terrorism”:

A terrorist group claimed it set the fire specifically to stop the work of those who study genetically modified food.

“I lost basically my entire professional life,” says Ives. “I lost every paper I ever wrote that analyzed the benefits and risks of this technology.”

CBS went on to report:

Now, federal investigators say the violent, radical green movement has a new mission. “It seems to me as if anybody who’s engaged in genetic research is potentially a target” says Stephen Peifer. Peifer, a federal prosecutor in Oregon, is presenting evidence against the ELF to a federal grand jury. He believes that “Sooner or later there will be human injury, or perhaps loss of life if this continues.”

This was 8 years ago. And in that time, the Earth Liberation Front, even the most extreme and potentially dangerous acts of sabotage committed by that group, has not lived up to that expectation. Not one person has been harmed. I think that’s important to remember as we see the words “terrorism” and “violence” batted around in soundbites.

As an aside, this is the same Stephen Peifer who was the Assistant US Attorney in the “Operation Backfire case,” a string of ELF actions in the Northwest. During a “terrorism enhancement hearing” for those cases, you might remember, Peifer told the court, “This is not a political prosecution.” Really? It’s been 8 years. And in that time, terrorists have flown planes into buildings. Murdered innocent people. Sent anthrax in the mail. Created “dirty bomb” plots. Distributed video communiques vowing more attacks on innocent people. And still, the government has escalated sabotage in the name of the environment to the level of “number one domestic terrorism threat.”

Anyone else still believe this isn’t political?