This video is from the plenary session at the 2010 national animal rights conference in Washington, DC. I talk about the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, secretive political prisons called Communications Management Units, and how we must respond.

Thanks to Mark Hand of Press Action for posting the footage.

Chances are, you have never heard of the Inkerman Group. I certainly hadn’t, until I began researching the web of faceless “risk mitigation” companies that help corporations identify threats to their profits.

These companies produce briefing documents that identify business “threats,” including special interest groups, key activists, and legislation. It is a niche industry built upon fear: the business of risk mitigation depends upon the identification of a constant stream of threats. Corporations commission briefing documents which identify (or create) threats to corporate interests, which leads corporations spending money addressing these threats, which leads to more reports… you get the idea.

This financial motivation to identify threats results in some interesting reports. For instance, I previously wrote about the Society of Toxicology commissioning a “threat analysis” that included such detailed information as who animal rights activists are dating.

It is impossible to know the true scope of these reports, and the impact they have had on the broader political climate of the Green Scare. It is fair to say, though, that for many corporate executives, these think tank documents may be the only exposure they have had to the history, motivation and tactics of the animal rights and environmental movements. They are a critical component of broader efforts to label activists (the “threats”) as “terrorists.”

One such report is by the Inkerman Group, called “The War on ‘Eco-Terror’: An analysis of the use of anti-terrorism legislation on activist movements in the UK & US.” It was sent to me with the request that I not identify the commissioner of the report. (The report, from 2007, is marked “confidential” and does not show up in a search of the Inkerman website, but a Google search of the volume number returns a back-end link to the source document on the Inkerman server. Good thing Inkerman is not a security firm, I guess.)

Like many other risk analyses, the Inkerman report is hilariously bad at times. The authors of the report appear to either be quite clueless about the true nature of the radical environmental movement, or quite malicious in their attempts to label mainstream, non-violent tactics as “terrorism.”

For instance, its timeline of “eco-terrorism” begins with the formation of the Sierra Club in 1892, and the formation of the Humane Society of the United States in 1954.

It goes on to identify key developments in the radical environmental movement, including… stickers.

Towards the end of 2000, a new form of eco-terrorism emerged in the US against Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs). Activists, some reportedly part of the ELF, decided to demonstrate against the environmentally-unfriendly vehicles by placing homemade stickers on them. These ‘Mad Taggers’, as they became known, used to sticker the cars in question, chosen at random with messages such as “I’m Changing the Climate. Ask Me How”, “Bin Laden Used Your Gas Money”, “If You Love America, Get Rid of Your SUV” and “I Don’t Care About the Air”.

However, despite these claims and despite the financial interests involved in this report, the authors do not side in favor of more “eco-terror” legislation.

The introduction of new anti-terror laws seems only to be further complicating the definition of terrorism and what constitutes it, rather than clarifying it. This inherently implies that the Government is still struggling with legally defining the term ‘eco-terrorism’.

In today’s terror climate, the authorities’ fear that terrorist individuals and organisations may ‘slip through the net’ has justified the use of wide-ranging legislation against activists. Many times, actions of ‘eco- terrorists’ are perpetrated to induce fear, and this should rightly be clamped down upon and prosecuted. However, where peaceful protest such as the Camp for Climate Action 2007 intends not to disrupt or threaten human security, the threat alone of anti-terrorist legislation being used against protest is extreme. The issue lies in the blurring of lines between those extremists willing to carry out eco-tage, and those looking to undertake peaceful protest, which should be encouraged in a democracy. This is especially problematic where the two kinds of protests exist side by side at a demonstration, or within groups.

In contrast with the US, which declares eco-terrorism to be the most serious form of domestic terrorism today, the UK must respect the fine lines between democratic voice, illegal activity, terrorism and scare- mongering. [Emphasis added]

Unfortunately, corporations in the United States have not gotten the memo.

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 one of the most evil books ever,” said Glenn Beck, holding up a copy of The Coming Insurrection. (The video starts at 2:30). He then held up a copy of We Are an Image From the Future as he went on a nonsensical tirade against the threat of “communists” who want to destroy families.

For the most part, I think it’s a waste of time to get wrapped up in Glenn Beck’s nonsense. Being absurd and bombastic is this guy’s shtick. He has made millions doing it. When people start calling books “evil,” though, I think that’s reason to pay attention.

We should be concerned when people like Glenn Beck call books “evil” because people like Glenn Beck don’t read. For instance, the books he railed against were not written by communists, but by anarchists, a point which AK Press addressed in a very well-crafted response.

Or, perhaps Beck and his producers have read the books, know what they say, and they just don’t care. I really have no idea.

It’s hard to tell if people like Beck are stupid, or evil, or both. And that’s why, when I watched the clip above, I felt like I was watching a skit.

Give Glenn Beck a British accent, and is he not the spitting image of Lewis Prothero in “V is for Vendetta,” the scare-mongering talking head keeping an Orwellian country in perpetual fear?

The over-the-top hysteria; the scare-mongering against immigrants, unions, and anyone who is an “other”; the warnings that American values and families are under attack… it just doesn’t seem real. It is too much. Too far. It doesn’t seem real because we’ve seen this before, in films and literature whenever an artist wants to create an exaggerated, larger-than-life symbol of freedom sacrificed in the name of fear.

More and more, it feels like we are living fiction.

Remember when someone set fire to so-called “green” mansions in a Seattle suburb? The builders of the Street of Dreams rushed to label it “eco-terrorism” by the Earth Liberation Front, and so did the FBI. They pointed to a banner left at the scene that said, “Built green? Nope Black!” At the time I wrote that the crime seemed out of place with other ELF crimes, and questioned why developers and law enforcement were rushing to label it “terrorism.” [For an in-depth look at the case: "Before the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle, Bringing Out the T-Word."]

Recently one of the builders, Grey Lundberg, was charged with sales tax fraud, and more than a dozen counts of first-degree theft. From The Herald:

An arsonist on March 3, 2008, destroyed many of the Street of Dreams homes near Echo Lake, including one built by Lundberg. The fires occurred two months after state officials opened their investigation of Lundberg.

The theft charges filed Thursday do not implicate Lundberg in the Street of Dreams arsons.

Lundberg, then owner of CMI Homes Inc., was widely quoted at the time of the arsons talking about the loss of his company’s $2 million property, a home called the Urban Lodge.

Lundberg hasn’t been convicted of these charges, and even if he is, being convicted of tax fraud doesn’t mean he is guilty of insurance fraud. But it does raise some serious questions about the alleged ELF arson.

More importantly, it is yet another reminder (much like the recent case of Michele Basso) of why the press, law enforcement and politicians shouldn’t be so willing to buy the soundbites of people who have vested interests in labeling activists as terrorists.

Michele Basso labeled the activists who protested her cruel experiments as terrorists.

Basso testified about her firsthand experiences with “animal rights terrorism,” such as receiving unwanted magazine subscriptions, home demonstrations, and local activists campaigning to open a museum. She has never been the target of violence, and said of this campaigning: “…I can’t stress the critical impact that this has had on me and my ability to do my work.”

Well, it looks like animal activists were not nearly as great a threat to Basso’s career as Basso herself.

She was recently suspended from working with animals, a “rare move prompted by what officials called a ‘clear pattern’ of problems with animal welfare.” According to the Wisconsin State Journal:

University administrators say researcher Michele Basso has had a bumpy history, citing a lack of respect for veterinarians, incomplete record-keeping and instances where monkeys developed brain injuries…

It is unusual for the university to suspend a main researcher’s work with animals, and officials say they only do so when they perceive that the risks to animals outweigh the benefits to science and medicine…

In other words, university officials came to the same conclusion as the “terrorists,” that the results of Basso’s experiments were not worth the cruelty.

Examples like this illustrate the government’s backwards priorities. Rather than catering to special interest groups and labeling political activists as “terrorists,” perhaps lawmakers should be listening to, and acting on, their concerns.

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.”

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”?