Spokespersons for Sarah Palin and Tea Party groups have bristled at the suggestion that their violent rhetoric may have contributed to the recent shooting in Arizona that left six people dead and Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in critical condition. The topic is, for the most part, being treated with kid gloves in the press, and the “terrorist” label is conspicuously absent from the discussion.

However, animal rights and environmental activists have been labeled as “terrorists,” and sent to prison, for much, much less.

The murder attempt of Gabrielle Giffords needs to be put in a political context: Sarah Palin’s PAC used this map with gun targets on lawmakers, including Giffords; Palin has repeatedly used the rallying cry “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!”; Tea Partiers have carried assault rifles to political rallies; and militia members have urged followers to vandalize the offices of politicians (including Giffords), which they have done.

As I have reported here many times previously, none of this is being labeled terrorism by the government. Meanwhile, the animal rights and environmental movements are labeled the “number one domestic terrorism threat.”

To draw an even more specific comparison: the SHAC 7 were convicted of “animal enterprise terrorism” for running a website which posted the names and addresses of individuals tied to the animal testing lab Huntingdon Life Sciences. They were not charged with any act of property destruction, they were charged with “conspiracy” on the grounds that they should be held accountable for the actions of others in the same movement.

To be clear, I am not arguing that Sarah Palin should be accused of terrorism. However, such a stark hypocrisy needs to be addressed.

Simply put:

If Sarah Palin cannot be held responsible for the actions of those who visit her website, neither can animal rights activists.

And if animal rights activists are terrorists for running a website listing “targets,” then Tea Partiers and Sarah Palin, who have gone much further, must be labeled terrorists as well.

UPDATE: Well, it was only a matter of time. At least one person is proposing prosecuting Palin as a terrorist and using the SHAC 7 case as justification. It’s this type of sweeping application that SHAC 7 attorneys have been warning about for years.

“Am I on a terrorist watchlist? Will I be labeled a terrorist?” Activists ask me questions like this all the time. Now you can find out if you are a terrorist using this convenient flow chart!

Click on the image for the full-sized version. And scroll down for information on why the chart flows the way it does…

For more information on each segment of the chart:

• When are Militias and Tea Party Members “Terrorists”?

• Arizona’s “Show Me Your Papers” Law is About More than Immigration

• They Start With “Eco-terrorists,” then There’s a “Blurring of the Lines”
  
• An overview of how animal rights and environmental activists are being labeled the top domestic terrorism threat: “What is the Green Scare?”

The terrorism rhetoric of corporations is absurd and can be funny at times, but it has dangerous consequences if we allow it to go unchecked. For example, there are secretive political prisons on U.S. soil for “domestic terrorists.” Daniel McGowan, an environmental activist, is housed there. Please follow this link and submit a comment against the government’s proposal to make them permanent.

Seven members of Greenpeace have been arrested for painting anti-drilling slogans, in crude oil, on a drilling support ship in the Gulf.

Greenpeace says the ship is scheduled to sail to the Arctic this summer, so they rappelled down the side and painted “Ban Arctic Drilling” in oil on the side of the Shell-owned ship.

According to the New York Times, the New Orleans Joint Terrorism Task Force of the FBI “is looking into the matter” of whether the non-violent activists will face terrorism-related charges.

If you’ve been to GreenIsTheNewRed before, you know “terrorism” laws have been recklessly used against non-violent activists for years. The scare-mongering around this disaster has been particularly bold, though. Just a few weeks ago, Rush Limbaugh was trying to blame the oil spill on “eco-terrorists.” Now, in the wake of the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, we are to believe it is the activists, not the oil corporations, who are the criminals?

Phil Radford of Greenpeace put it well:

“It is outrageous that prosecutors would confront peaceful protesters with such a heavy hand while not a single BP executive has been charged for the devastation they have wrought on the Gulf of Mexico and the people and animals that depend on it…”

Thanks to B. Shuga for the link.

Twenty years ago today, Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney, two prominent Earth First!ers, were in Oakland protesting clearcutting. They had been on the road organizing Redwood Summer, a campaign to save old-growth forests inspired by the Freedom Summer of the civil rights movement.

Bari had already received dozens of death threats for her campaigning. She had drawn quite a bit of attention from opposition in the logging industry because of her effective organizing. As kp wrote in the Earth First! Journal recently:

She brought us lessons from her background as a labor organizer and analysis that helped evolve our radical thinking both philosophically and strategically.

The two were in Bari’s Subaru station wagon when a pipe bomb exploded underneath her, injuring Cherney and nearly killing her. Hours later, while Bari was still in Oakland’s Highland Hospital, local police arrested them and said they had knowingly transported the bomb—that they were responsible for their own bombing. Police dropped those charges weeks later, but this was just the beginning.

Bari and Cherney sued the police and the FBI, alleging false arrest, slander, and conspiracy. They said the government refused to follow any leads in order to smear them. In the opening statement of a two-month trial the prosecutor compared Bari and Cherney to domestic terrorists.

In 2004, fourteen years after the bombing, the federal government agreed to pay $2 million to settle the civil suit, and the city of Oakland agreed to a separate $2 million payment.

It might seem odd that I wanted to mark the 20th anniversary of such a violent and tragic event. I know that I write about plenty of depressing, negative news on this site, so why add to that?

This bombing should be a reminder, I think, of two things. The first is of how far corporations and law enforcement are willing to go in order to silence dissent. This buzzword “eco-terrorism” is often used alongside the word “violence,” but the violence has not flowed both ways. Environmentalists have been assaulted and killed, and they have not responded in kind; that is not the behavior of “terrorists.”

The second reminder is much more important. Experiencing a bombing like this, and surviving, must be a traumatic experience. On top of that, the victims were labeled terrorists and demonized in the press. Bari and Cherney, and all of Earth First!, had to deal with public relations attacks alongside the violent attacks, and through this their campaigns continued.

In this context, I think this is an anniversary worth celebrating, one of resilience and courage in the face of seemingly unrelenting violence and repression.

It’s always a challenge to explain the “Green Scare” and this website quickly and succinctly. I was playing around with YouTube’s new “SearchStories” channel, and gave it a shot by focusing on misplaced government priorities. And it’s 35 seconds! Let me know what you think.

Oh, and there are plenty of links on the YouTube page, explaining each line of the video.

Tea Party poster.

By contrast, the “number one domestic terrorism threat,” according to the FBI, is the animal rights and environmental movements.

Here is a side-by-side comparison of three recent right-wing cases which have not been labeled terrorism, and how they compare to activist cases that have.

• Militia member incites brick attacks on lawmakers’ offices. Mike Vanderboegh, former militia member from Alabama, urged readers of his blog to throw bricks through Democratic offices in response to health care legislation. “So, if you wish to send a message that Pelosi and her party [that they] cannot fail to hear, break their windows,” Vanderboegh wrote. “Break them NOW…” The call to action worked: in the week that followed at least 10 lawmakers had offices vandalized or received death threats.

  Six animal rights activists were convicted of “animal enterprise terrorism” for doing much less. They were part of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, and ran a website that posted personal information about executives tied to the controversial lab Huntingdon Life Sciences. They posted both news reports of both legal and illegal actions, and supported all of it. They also published essays about why they support non-violent direct action and sabotage. They were sentenced to between 1 and 6 years in prison. And the former militia member? He hasn’t even been arrested.

• Plotting to attack Muslims and police, and use a weapon of mass destruction. The Christian militia group called Hutaree is shown in one of their promo videos here. According to The New York Times, the defendants were “part of a group of apocalyptic Christian militants who were plotting to kill law enforcement officers in hopes of inciting an antigovernment uprising, the latest in a recent surge in right-wing militia activity.”

  The New York Times doesn’t call this racist, political violence “terrorism.” Yet a group of environmentalists who sabotaged property as part of the Earth Liberation Front, without harming or intending to harm a single person, were smeared as terrorists immediately upon arrest. The Times used the word in the headline, throughout the story, and in all subsequent coverage.

• Urging Tea Partiers to “reload.” Sarah Palin told a rally of 8,000 tea-partiers: “It’s not a time to retreat. It’s a time to reload.”

  Animal rights activists have been charged with terrorism for much less fiery speech. The AETA 4, for example, are not accused of property destruction or threats of violent. They are being charged under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act for protesting and chalking slogans on the streets using children’s sidewalk chalk.

  To be clear, I am not arguing that Palin’s comments should be labeled terrorism. But what do you think would happen if an animal rights activists or environmentalist made the same comment, but about animal researchers?

The word terrorism is inherently malleable. There is not one true meaning of the word, no universal criteria for its application. However, these dramatic disparities extend far, far beyond any natural difficulties in using the term fairly.

People are being singled out for selective prosecution because of their politics and their threat to corporate profits. Once convicted, they are then being singled out again; Daniel McGowan, one of the Earth Liberation Front defendants, is in a secretive experimental prison called a Communications Management Unit.

Meanwhile, groups that pose a much more serious threat to human life, and have a demonstrated history of violence, go untouched. If the word terrorism is rhetorically and legally applied to non-violent animal and environmental activists, it must also be applied to much more dangerous groups.

That being said, it is not enough for us to respond by saying “They’re terrorists too!” or “We’re not terrorists, they are!”

Clamoring to label others as terrorists misses the point, which is that the word, the most dangerous and powerful term in the media and in our legal system, is nothing more than a fluid brand to attack the enemy of the hour.

A man intentionally flew his airplane into an IRS office in Austin as a part of suicide attack yesterday, and left behind a manifesto outlining his anti-government grievances, but politicians and the press are somehow unsure about whether it should be labeled terrorism. Meanwhile, a bill was introduced in Washington State this session labeling civil disobedience and First Amendment activity as “eco-terrorism.”

It’s not an isolated instance. Across the country, at the state and federal level, both pre-9/11 and post-9/11, corporations and the politicians who represent them have campaigned to label animal rights and environmental activists as the “number one domestic terrorism threat.” Even the most radical underground groups like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front have never harmed a human being.

Yet those who have murdered abortion providers and flown planes into building escape the label.

Let’s take a closer look at the systemic disparities.

These have all been labeled terrorism in the press, state houses or the courts:

• Washington “Eco-terrorist” Bill Includes Civil Disobedience and First Amendment Activity
• Utah Bill Would Make Environmentalists Like Tim DeChristopher “Eco-Terrorists”
• Animal Rights Activists Charged As Terrorists for Chalking Slogans on Public Sidewalks and Wearing Masks at Protests
  
• Canadian Politician Says PETA Throwing a Pie is Terrorism
• ELF Activist Receives Longer Prison Sentence Than Racists Who Attempted to Assassinate Obama
• Ag Industry Calls for Prosecutions of Undercover Animal Activists
• Appellate Court: Encouraging Civil Disobedience is Not Protected Speech

According to the FBI, none of these recent crimes are terrorism:

• Threatening to kill or injure police officers at a public tax protest assembly called a “Tea Party”
• Louisiana Man Convicted of Civil Rights Violation in Connection with Cross-Burning
• E-Mailing Threatening Communications to Judges
• Threatening Employees of Latino Civil Rights Organizations
• Man Held Hostages at Gun Point inside Post Office
• Homeland Security Says Timothy McVeigh Isn’t a Terrorist, But Peace Activists Are
  

Focusing scarce anti-terrorism resources on animal rights and environmental activists, while there are clearly domestic groups who have, and will continue, to carry out physical violence, puts all Americans at risk. Perhaps if the government spent less time preparing for attacks by environmentalists, events like this could be prevented.

New video shows Japanese whalers changing course to intentionally ram the Sea Shepherd’s Ady Gil as the high-tech ship sat idly in freezing waters.

The ship was destroyed and a Sea Shepherd crew member suffered cracked ribs, according to news reports. What’s even more disturbing is the Japanese ship, which was many times the size of the Ady Gil, refused to acknowledge a distress call from the environmental activists.

According to the Japan Times:

Watson, speaking from aboard the ship Steve Irwin, also said Sea Shepherd put out a mayday distress signal “but the Japanese fleet refused to acknowledge that and just kept going. It was a hit and run.”

The Japanese whalers have long been attempting to label the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as an “eco-terrorist” organization because of its campaigns to directly intervene in the illegal slaughter of whales. They have gone so far as to call Animal Planet a terrorist organization, for airing a TV program about the group called “Whale Wars.” And even when they shot Captain Paul Watson, they still maintained that it was the environmentalists, not the whalers, who were the “eco-terrorists.”

This is perhaps the most disturbing incident to date of the reckless violence of the whalers, not only against the whales but against anyone who tries to halt them. They directly threatened the lives of non-violent activists, destroyed their ship, then left them in freezing waters and ignored a distress call.

Which is the terrorist organization, again?

Three animal rights activists were shot with brass pellets during a recent protest against puppy mills in Santa Monica, California. According to local news outlets, the police are investigating the shootings as an assault with a deadly weapon.

About 20 activists were protesting Aquarium & Pet Center in Santa Monica, which they say sells dogs bred in puppy mills in inhumane conditions.

Carole Raphaelle Davis, the West Coast director of the Companion Animal Protection Society, said store employees have threatened the protesters and were seen laughing after three activists were hit.

The shooting resulted in minor injuries, including welts.

“It’s shocking to think that people would try to intimidate people or cause them harm simply because they expressed their views,” said WeHo council member Jeffrey Prang, who has been working with the group to write a municipal ban on the re-selling of any pets except bred or rescued animals in West Hollywood.

The incident is disturbing enough on its own, but it needs to be put in a broader context. The animal rights and environmental movements are labeled the “number one domestic terrorism threat,” according to the FBI. Some elements of those movements have engaged in property destruction, economic sabotage and arson. In the history of the U.S. animal rights movement, though, not one person has ever been targeted with physical violence and no one has been shot.

If an animal rights activist had committed a crime like this, against an animal researcher for instance, they would undoubtedly be prosecuted as a “terrorists” under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.

In fact, the government’s threshold for what constitutes “terrorism” is much, much lower when it comes to the conduct of animal rights and environmental activists. Right now, four animal rights activists in California are facing charges under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act for chanting and chalking slogans on the sidewalk. They’re being labeled “terrorists.”

Incidents like this should be it abundantly clear that there are two systems of law in this country. One is for the wealthy, the corporations, the animal research industry. If they are under attack, they can lobby for new terrorism legislation and pressure the politicians and government officials who represent them to crack down on the “terrorists.” They can carve out special crimes to protect them, and only them.

The other system of law is for everybody else. If they are under attack–through violence, not just home protests or economic sabotage–well, it’s just business as usual.

So what do you think? Will the government labeling this violent, politically-motivated crime “terrorism”?

Continuing the theme of the last few weeks, here’s another one for the Blatant Hypocrisy file. Photos surfaced that show Jessica Alba “defacing Oklahoma City property with posters of a great white shark.” The posters were about the declining numbers of the species, and were glued to a downtown bridge and at least one billboard.

Property destruction in the name of the environment. Sounds like what corporations call “eco-terrorism,” right? American Idol star Carrie Underwood was called a terrorist for much less. But no, for Jessica Alba (pictured here in her Earth Liberation Front starter kit, minus the black mask of course) it’s just “vandalism.” And she doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist.

Geez, I’m getting more and more confused by all of this. I think I’m going to come up with some kind of flow chart to determine who gets labeled a terrorist. For instance: “Are you totally hot and famous?–If so, congratulations, you’re not a terrorist!”

UPDATE: To be absolutely clear, I am NOT saying that she should be labeled an “eco-terrorist,” or that anyone should. My reason for making this post is that, to me, this example shows how opportunist the “eco-terrorist” rhetoric is. When it’s useful and convenient, the term is applied (to increase prison sentences, to smear activists, to chill dissent). When it could backfire (labeling a prominent figure that way, and exposing to a wider audience how absurd all of this is) there’s nothing but silence.