Letters to the Editor
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Actually, o ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have all accepted this was terrorism without hearing a single word from the defendants about their intent.
doesn't matter. Once you step onto someone else's property and mess with their stuff, you're in defiance of the law.
You can make your own choices for your own life and belongings. But you can't take other people's stuff and blow it up.
Many college buildings have hard working grad students in them all night long, all weekend long 24/7. When I was in undergrad we used to sleep under our studio desks rather than walk home at 4am. Saying it was 3am in no way guarantees it would be empty. Anyone who chooses to blow up a college building is attempting murder since they don't know if there's anyone in the building.
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Is the government pursuing these cases with balance?
...because I want to hear stories of such massive, conspiritorial operations directed at the insane Christian terrorists around the country who have been killing mothers, daughters, husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons for decades in violence against family planning clinics. Or perhaps those same fanatics directing and propagating violence against homosexuals. Because any time someone commits violence against someone they've been told to hate by a religion, they're acting on behalf of an organization to the same, or greater, degree than any environmental activist.
Sounds severe when the shoe's on the other foot, eh?
The types of environmental activists discussed here are breaking the law, there's no question about that. But groups who target people for harm and death--and anti-abortion groups do exactly that, every day--are inherently more dangerous to human life than any environmental group. As such, they should be focused on much more intently by the state.
What chills me about what's discussed in this story is that it's another example of property, and the right to make unlimited wealth, being valued more by society than the individual or nature itself. These inhuman, amoral corporate interests are granted the state of "victimhood" over the rights of those who are helpless to defend themselves. And the men with the money always expect the real, living, breathing humans to just roll over and accept their second-class status.
We think of guerilla action as something that only happens elsewhere in the world. But the more that the helpless are devalued by power structures, the more of this type of resistance we're going to see in the decades ahead. How do you think this country was formed in the first place? It's in our DNA.
One day, our descendants will look back on how we've treated animals, ecology, and each other, and will shake their heads that we were so insanely cruel, careless, and in denial about the effects of our actions on the world. In our heart of hearts, we know the types of things that ELF and others are fighting against are wrong, and should be fought against. It's to our collective shame that we turn away and ignore the greed and destruction that these activists are giving their lives to resist.
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@Saleem Government credibility in criminal prosecutions
Whatever the particulars of the feds behavior investigating this case, I think we may agree that the government has undermined its credibility in regards to the rule of law in criminal investigations.
The feds basically want it both ways. They want to secretly monitor all the information on the internet and not tell us how they use it. Then they want to turn around and claim they followed proper rules in investigating cases. Particularly in "terror" cases, it is entirely reasonable to assume that they are lying or obfuscating about their evidence and methods, since secrecy about sources and methods is part of the overall anti-terror strategy. A good way to coverup secret methods is to find the same information through a legitimate source.
It is an incredible affront to civil liberties to define as terrorism crimes committed by citizens for political reasons. And that includes crimes against abortion clinics or environmental targets or white supremacy or what have you. Yes the feds should go after arson done for any reason. But the "terror" logic just applies Gitmo jurisprudence to US citizens.
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Advocacy not Journalism
The purpose of this article is to generate sympathy for Briana and outrage against the legal system that convicted her. Tullis has no interest in telling the reader "facts" that run counter to this purpose. This is Advocacy not Journalism. I am surprised at the number of readers that have fallen for it.
I don't know if she is guilty or if she was dealt with fairly but I do know there was a lot more to this case than Tullis lets on. IF there really is a problem with the case against Briana then Salon should assign a REAL journalist who can get to the bottom of it. This sort of thing is right for Fox News but I expect more from Salon.
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But the act wasn't directed at an otherwise uninvolved civilian population with the intent of inducing panic and swaying public opinion. It was directed at the environmental research itself, with the intention of stopping it by reducing it to hot ash.
sure it was aimed at innocent people. The rumored research (which didn't exist) would have been taking place in ONE lab. The rest of the building, the other 100 rooms WERE blown up for no reason. Post docs trying to finish research by a deadline to get a grant had their hopes dashed. REsearchers trying to CURE CANCER lost all their data. Poor students with scholarships have to retake classes they could ill afford because their experiments were all ruined, data lost, research ruined. Innocent people trying to make the world a better place because a Heroin addict told people there was a bad man in there. (He may have know that wasn't true).
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Cosmic Mojo on murder
Anyone who chooses to blow up a college building is attempting murder since they don't know if there's anyone in the building.
No, it's reckless endangerment. Which is also not terrorism. If you're going to bandy semantics, get your terms straight.
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since you asked...
"Eric Robert Rudolph (born September 19, 1966), also known as the Olympic Park Bomber, is an American Christian terrorist,[2][3] who committed a series of bombings across the southern United States, which killed three people and injured at least 150 others. He declared that his bombings were part of a guerrilla campaign against abortion and what he describes as "the homosexual agenda." He spent years as the FBI's most wanted criminal fugitive, but was eventually caught. In 2005 Rudolph pleaded guilty to numerous federal and state homicide charges and accepted five consecutive life sentences in exchange for avoiding a trial and the death penalty. Rudolph was connected with the Christian Identity movement;[3] today, he self-identifies as a Catholic.[4]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Robert_Rudolph (click link at my signature)
Mind you, I don't think much of a defense of someone's violent actions that bases itself on allegations of the impunity or leniency provided to others involved in similar conduct. I think it's an invalid and irrelevant misdirection. But in this case, you don't even seem to know your history.