‎About 100 protesters in France occupied a bullring to non-violently stop the barbaric bullfight.

In response, bullfight supporters punched, kicked and beat them as they were locked-down and immobilized.

Which ones are the “violent extremists”?

Source: Animal Equality

Industry groups and right-wing opportunists have rapidly mobilized to label James Lee a “radical environmentalist” in order to push their political agenda. Absent from this media frenzy, though, is any rational look at the difference between a “radical environmentalist” who uses extreme tactics, and someone struggling with serious mental illnesses who latches on to environmental issues.

For James Lee, the Discovery Channel was a personal obsession. It consumed him, and came to be the focus of all things wrong in the world. It was a personal campaign led by he alone. While some commentators have been quick to point out merits to the concerns Lee raised about overpopulation, Lee’s “manifesto” was not grounded in reality. For instance, he demands that the Discovery Channel “keep out the fraudulent peace movements.” He says, “They are liars and fakes and had no real intention of ending the wars. ALL OF THEM ARE FAKE! On one hand, they claim they want the wars to end, on the other, they are demanding the human population increase.”

He also makes racist comments about “stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth.” However, Lee served time in prison for smuggling immigrants from Mexico. As psychologists and psychiatrists have told ABC News, these are the words and actions of an individual in need of help, possibly suffering from paranoid schizophrenia; there is no rational explanation for such a mental disconnect between words and actions.

Talking heads have been name-dropping “The Unabomber” and drawing comparisons to James Lee. That’s a comparison worth exploring. Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, killed three people and injured twenty-three in his twenty years of bombings. As his crimes continued, the usual suspects were labeling him an “eco-terrorist” and trying to connect him to the mainstream environmental movement (which is happening now, as well, and I’ll be writing about that in a future post).

However, today Kaczynski is absent from nearly every chronology of the radical animal rights and environmental movements, including those created by industry groups and the government. Kaczynski was the target of the most intensive manhunt in the FBI’s history, but the bureau’s “Chronological Summary of Terrorist Incidents in the United States 1980-2005” does not mention him once; in Congressional testimony and FBI news releases on “eco-terrorism,” the bureau has said “these terrorists haven’t taken lives.” In Congressional hearings, government documents, think tank reports, and terrorism timelines, Kaczynski is always absent.

While his manifesto argued for the dismantling of industrial civilization, he made clear he did not consider himself part of any social movement. In a journal entry he wrote, “I believe in nothing… I don’t believe in the cult of nature worshipers or wilderness-worshipers.”

All but the most extreme industry advocates have treated him as a serial killer or an individual in need of mental help. During his trial, Kaczynski fired his attorneys because they argued that he was insane. It was later revealed that Kaczynski was a volunteer in mind-control experiments sponsored by the CIA.

Michael Mello, author of the recently published book, “The United States of America vs. Theodore John Kaczynski,” notes that at some point in his Harvard years–1958 to 1962–Kaczynski agreed to be the subject of “a psychological experiment”. Mello identifies the chief researcher for these only as a lieutenant colonel in World War II, working for the CIA’s predecessor organization, the Office of Strategic Services. In fact, the man experimenting on the young Kaczynski was Dr. Henry Murray, who died in 1988.

Lee’s sister-in-law described how his mental health deteriorated after the death of two people he loved, and that he was incapable of having a healthy relationship with his family or others. In a letter written when in prison for trafficking immigrants, Lee was already thinking of his own end:

“When I get out of prison, I undoubtedly will have the same personality traits as I had before. I wish I could point a finger at someone or something and magically be someone else…. I don’t know if my life will end with a happy ending, but all I ask is for an ending that is not in prison.”

There has been buzz on various websites and email lists, animal rights and environmental activists who do not agree with what James Lee did, but are not sure how to speak about these events because “there was a little truth in what he said.” I think it’s important to be honest and forthright about this. Recognizing that there may be some seeds of true in the hysteria of people like James Lee, or even the Unabomber, does not mean ignoring their sicknesses or supporting, in any way, the strange fruits they produced.

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”?

A White Supremacist and Holocaust denier, James W Von Brunn, opened fire at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. this afternoon, wounding at least one person before being shot in the head. That makes the second violent attack by right-wing extremists in about three weeks.

Meanwhile, the “radical” animal rights and environmental movements have not harmed a single human being in their 30-plus years of existence. Yet they are the FBI’s “number one domestic terrorism threat.”

On top of this, the Holocaust Museum–one of D.C.’s most popular tourist destinations–was full of school children. And it’s not the first time Brunn armed himself in the nation’s capital:

In 1981, von Brunn entered the Federal Reserve in Washington with a shotgun to make a citizens arrest, he later said, to protest about high interest rates. He was sentenced to 11 years in jail.

Will the government and the press respond the same way they did in the murder of Dr. Tiller, and not label it “terrorism”?

How do you think the government and the press will respond?

We recently looked at why the government and the press (outside of some bloggers and opinion columnists) have not labeled the murder of an abortion provider as “terrorism.” It’s important to remember, though, that this isn’t an isolated incident. The word terrorism is used by the FBI and Department of Justice only when it fits a certain political agenda.

The government has systematically labeled animal rights and environmental activists who have never harmed anyone as “the number one domestic terrorism threat.” Yet the term is not applied to individuals who have committed much more serious (and often violent) crimes either for personal gain or for right-wing motives.

Here are 30 cases that the government has chosen to not label as “terrorism”:

1. Plotting to assassinate the president.
2. Beating African-American voters because they voted for Obama.
3. Threatening to assassinate the President and detonate C4 at the Mall of America.
4. Making death threats against biologists to “kill the enemies of Christian society.”
5. Attacking a black man with a chainsaw because of his race.
6. Using a noose to assault a black man at the Pentagon.
7. Tying up a black student and taunting him with racial epithets as part of a high school graduation party.
8. Smuggling “shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, and other military weapons.”
9. Leaving an incendiary device at a federal courthouse.
10. Placing a pipe bomb near a hotel and then calling in a bomb threat.
11. Making bomb threats on an airplane.
12. Impersonating an armed federal agent.
13. Shooting at FBI agents in a drive-by.
14. Threatening federal agents with an assault rifle.
15. Offering to sell your own child for sexual purposes.
16. Attempting to buy a 9-year-old girl for sex.
17. Selling a 5-year-old for sexual purposes.
18. Forcing a young woman to engage in prostitution through force, fraud and coercion.
19. Kidnapping 3 children.
20. Sending white powder to John McCain’s presidential campaign with a note reading, “Senator McCain, If you are reading this then you are already DEAD! Unless of course you can’t or don’t breathe.”
21. Mailing 65 threatening letters to financial institutions with white powder.
22. Mailing the Social Security Administration and saying ““I’m going to blow up your office and the IRS office as well.”
23. Sending more than 25 threatening letters to federal, state, and local governmental agencies containing fake Anthrax.
24. Sending a white powder through the U.S. mail to the Internal Revenue Service with a note that says “YOU HAVE BEEN EXPOSED TO ANTRAX DIE!”
25. A former sheriff’s deputy forcing a teenage girl to perform sexual acts in his patrol car.
26. Three police officers shooting a 92-year old woman at her home “during the execution of a search warrant obtained by the defendants based upon false information.”
27. Using “deadly weapons including firearms, baseball bats, machetes, bottles or knives in the commission of numerous murders, attempted murders and assaults…kidnapping; obstruction of justice; and witness tampering.”
28. Stealing cattle for personal profit.
29. Setting fire at a petting barn and killing more than 40 animals.
30. Setting dozens of fires that caused “incalculable suffering.”

Of course we could keep going, there’s no shortage of examples to draw from. To be clear, I am not arguing that all of these examples are in fact “terrorism” (I’ll be outlining what I think are the top criteria for defining acts of terrorism in a future article). But if the government defines “terrorism” so broadly as to include releasing mink from fur farms and protesting legally while wearing masks, then why don’t any of these qualify?