Every activist should know sht the FBI says.

I tried to resist. I really did. But when I jokingly posted on the GreenIsTheNewRed Facebook page that I wanted to make a “Sh*t the FBI Says” video, ya’ll went nuts about the idea.

Like the videos that started the trend, it’s pretty goofy. But sadly, it’s all based on statements the FBI has made in court, in the press, or to activists themselves (I’ve heard quite a few of these myself).

So on a serious note…

After you watch the video, please check out this great Know Your Rights booklet.

Thanks to Chris, Greg, Michael, Shannon, Brad and everyone else who helped out in the f-f-freezing cold. Please like this on YouTube or Facebook if you think they should wear the fake mustaches every day.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here are some of the articles that inspired this video:

* “FBI Looking for Informants to Infiltrate Vegan Potlucks”

* “Eric McDavid Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison as a Terrorist”

* “FBI: “Eco-terrorists” Are Bigger Threat Than Osama bin Laden, Hate Crimes, and Attempts to Assassinate Obama”

* Jordan Halliday prohibited with associating with the “Vegan Straight Edge”

* “Activist Secretly Videotapes FBI Visit”

* “IRS Suicide Pilot Is Not a ‘Terrorist,’ But Environmental Activists Are?”

* “FBI Harasses Sociology Professor Who Has Spoken Against Labeling His Student a ‘Terrorist’”

* “Discussion of Government Surveillance of Activists with Will Potter, Former FBI Agent, ACLU and More”

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.

Whoa. It’s like my two primary interests in life, milkshakes and “eco-terrorists,” have gotten together and had a t-shirt baby.

Awesome shirts made by Sip, an all-vegan milkshake and juice cart in Portland, Oregon. I hear it’s a limited run, so if you’re interested stop by or order them online from Sip.

Part of the reason I love visiting Portland is that there are so many amazing people starting their own businesses, and not abandoning their ethics, their community, or their smart-ass senses of humor. If you’re ever in town, please support Brian at Sip, along with all the great folks at Food Fight, Herbivore, Sweet Pea, Scapegoat Tattoo, Red & Black… the list goes on and on.

On another note, when’s the last time you wrote a letter to a political prisoner? Check out the sidebar full of websites, and send them a note. And I really… can’t… resist… saying this: pour out a vegan milkshake for your eco-terrorist homies.

Andy Stepanian is one of the SHAC 7 and a former prisoner at one of the secretive prison facilities called Communications Management Units. He has a powerful new article at the Huffington Post telling the story of his time there:

When it was hard for me to find vegan food in prison Abu-Sayyaf used to bring food to the bars at the front of my jail cell. He knew I was a strict vegan and that I abstained from the consumption of all animal products. He used to read all the ingredients on packages and even then double check with me if the food was something that would fit my diet. I am sure that in the government’s eyes they assume that Abu-Sayyaf wanted something from me in return, but in reality Abu-Sayyaf only wanted to make sure that I was safe, healthy, well fed, and taken care of.

Before Abu-Sayyaf was an inmate in a secretive US political prison called a “Communications Management Unit” Abu-Sayyaf was a computer programmer for a software company in Florida…

There are 70 other men in situations like Abu-Sayyaf’s split between the populace at the Marion CMU facility and a second CMU facility in Terre Haute, Indiana. These are 70 stories of doctors allegedly breaching economic sanctions to deliver penicillin and insulin to children in need, or anti-war tax protestors, not stories of car bombers, hijackers, or the incidents that most of us have come to identify as terror-related. These are 70 stories that our government is ashamed of, and hopes to keep tucked away within these restrictive, secretive, purely political prisons, out of the reach of the media, out of the reach of visitors, away from the touch of their families and children, hampered by vetted mail, a lack of telephone communication, and — worst of all — severed from constitutionally protected rights of due process.

Please share this Huffington Post article on Facebook and Twitter, and then submit a comment against the government’s proposal to make these political prisons permanent. For background on the proposal: Government Acknowledges Secretive Prisons for “Domestic Terrorists,” Proposes Making Them Permanent.

CNN has a great article up, “Global bake sale is ‘sweet’ vegan activism.” It features the fantastic Jasmin Singer of Our Hen House, who has what may be the best quote I have ever seen on CNN:

(CNN) — When animal rights activist Jasmin Singer found herself face to face with a scientist who conducts animal testing, a cupcake was exchanged instead of harsh words.

“A good vegan cupcake has the power to transform everything for the better,” Singer said. “It’s almost like a political statement with icing.”

The accompanying slideshow has photos of vegan bake sales, including one in New York City where the lovely Sarah is wearing a “domestic terrorist” apron from GreenIsTheNewRed.com!

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.”

Sarah Kramer makes “domestic” terrorism look good.

Check out some of her fantastic vegan cookbooks below, including Vegan a Go-Go and the classic How It All Vegan. If you buy them through these Amazon links, a portion will be donated to GreenIsTheNewRed.com.

And holidays are coming up, folks, so show the domestic terrorists in your life you love them. You can order an apron at GreenIsTheNewRed.com/blog/shop. Every penny goes back into website costs, flier distribution and other projects related to exposing the Green Scare and campaigns to label animal rights and environmental activists as eco-terrorists and domestic terrorists.

Thanks very much to Sarah for having the same twisted sense of humor that we do.

By former Los Angeles Times cartoonist Tony Peyser:

Eric McDavid was just sentenced to 20 years in prison, as a “terrorist,” in a case that would never have been possible without a “confidential source” known only as Anna. She was paid by the FBI. She provided the group with bomb-making recipes; at times financed their transportation, food and housing; strung along McDavid, who had the hopes of a romantic relationship; and poked and prodded the group into action. In a rare declaration to the court, a former juror called the FBI an “embarrassment.”

Well, that former juror isn’t alone in her assessment of how the FBI plays fast and loose with the law in hopes of landing convictions. A 2005 analysis by the inspector general of the Justice Department, looking at 120 cases, found that FBI agents regularly ignore regulations for handling informants. The inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, found that:

FBI agents violated procedures in 87 percent of the cases, including some in which informants allegedly engaged in illegal activity without proper oversight or permission…

The inspector general also faulted the FBI for “consistently failing to obtain advance approval to listen in on informants’ conversations.”

The FBI attributed many mistakes to “complicated paperwork requirements,” and says the administrative errors have been corrected.

As we saw in the McDavid case, though, there’s much more going on at the FBI than paperwork problems. The use of Anna, a provocateur, wasn’t a clerical error. It was part of a deliberate, calculated, and coordinated effort to infiltrate activist groups and land “terrorism” convictions, even if it means breaking the rules and provoking criminal activity.

But now that Anna, the “eco-terrorism” informant, has had a profile in Elle, and says that she might be burned out, the feds might have a problem. Informants are “critical to the FBI’s ability to carry out our counterterrorism, national security and criminal law enforcement missions,” a top official said. And it looks like the FBI needs some new blood.

I got word from the Twin Cities Eco-Prisoner Support Committee that a local activist was approached by the Joint Terrorism Task Force and asked to become a paid informant. Here’s more from the activist about the encounter:

“Then for twenty minutes they flatter me about how my personality and appearance are perfect matches for what is required in some espionage dealio. They wanted me to crash vegan potluck parties and get into the inner circle of terrorists because supposedly terrorists are trusting and I’m “trustable, easy going, funny,” and a bunch of other flattery. Every time they said “vegan potluck” I chuckled, but their faces showed they weren’t kidding. They said “vegan potluck” half a dozen times. They really feared vegans and their violent conspiracies to blow up buildings in protest to the republican national convention.

So after twenty minutes of bewildering suckups, they ask me if I’m in. They say there’s compensation if I assist in someone’s arrest. I say “ummmmmmm I’ll pass.” She says, “That was the fastest anyone has ever rejected me,” and then tried for ten more minutes to get me to change my mind before saying, “Really: think about it. We could really use you.”

I wonder if this is what the FBI means when they say, “By working in domestic terrorism investigations, you get to see the First Amendment in action.”

But who am I kidding, forget the First Amendment. Getting paid to infiltrate vegan potlucks? That sounds like the best job ever! Of course, it might be hard to stomach the free food knowing that it’s wasting valuable anti-terrorism resources on harassing social justice groups, and that you’re violating people’s privacy and trust for a few bucks.

But if you find it hard to swallow that spying on vegan potlucks is part of the “number one domestic terrorism threat,” just remember folks like Anthony Bourdain who say vegetarians are “terrorist scum.” Just take a look at soft-core eco-terrorist propaganda like 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 gay.

I’m not one to judge. This is a tough call. I wish you all the best of luck in weighing Constitutional concerns against getting paid to eat TVP chili and, if you’re lucky, some chocolate-chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles.

If the FBI comes knocking on your door about potlucks and protests, call the National Lawyers’ Guild “Green Scare” Hotline, 888-NLG-ECOLAW, and let us know at GreenIsTheNewRed.com.

You know, when I started GreenIsTheNewRed.com I was actually concerned about the site being too much of a “specialty” publication. All “eco-terrorism” and civil liberties, all the time. Fine by me, but niche markets can reach an extreme (not that I have anything against magazines like Coin Collector, Air Traffic Management or Crochet World, mind you).

Little did I know I’d actually get to write about film, sexuality and now…gourmet food?

Get this. Anthony Bourdain, a chef and TV personality, says vegetarians “are the worst kind of terrorists.” Joshua Valocchi at Philadelphia Weekly asked about what Bourdain calls a “plague of vegetarians”:

“These fucking people are not really all about us not eating duck liver,” snarls Bourdain. “No, no, no. They don’t want us eating any animal product whatsoever.

“When they win this tiny battle, they’ll move to the next one, like freeing the lobsters.

“These people,” says Bourdain, “are the worst kind of terrorists. And they must be stopped.”

Really? The “worst kind of terrorists”? The DHS threat level is clearly upside down. Green and red need to be inverted. Move over Al Qaeda, your bombs and guns and planes flying into buildings are no match for tofu terrorists.