Green Sabotage as "Terrorism"

[laststeamtrain]

Green Sabotage as "Terrorism"

By MICHAEL DONNELLY

Whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.

--New Hampshire Constitution Bill of Rights, Article 10



"The message to the community is we will not tolerate acts of violence to affect public
debate."

--- Federal Judge Ann Aiken

With the hectoring tone of a petty hall monitor, Clinton Judge Ann Aiken let out what the Operation Backfire/Green Scare prosecutions are really about. In an era of state-sponsored terrorism as "liberation," where the United States has over 700 military bases in over 140 countries, a US judge actually deems the minor league violence of a handful of young, misguided idealists "terrorism" and scolds the larger, non-indicted community those activists came from this truly belongs to Orwell, Kafka, Cheney or Gonzales.

Just what "Community" is the judge chastising/profiling? The Eugene, Oregon community of radical environmentalists in particular, eco-activists in general and/or anyone who ever justified destroying the property of those who they viewed as oppressors. We're not even talking about those like Golda Meir or Osama bin Laden who justified not just property destruction, but attacks on the persons of their enemies. All that ever happened in the Operation Backfire cases is property damage. Not a single person was hurt in any of the arsons.

The SUV-driving, suburban soccer mom-with-six kids judge has made a number of strange comments from the bench. She's gone so far as to tout Al Gore as an alternative model of activism! She told folks who burned a feral horse slaughtering plant that they "should have started a fund and bought and fed the horses." She told defendants that once they serve their time, they cannot join animal protection or other activist groupsbut, the Sierra Club or Audubon Society would get an exception!

But, none is more telling than her pronouncement putting "the community" on trial. She's even warned that "Civil Disobedience has no place in a Democracy." Tell it to the Founders.


<more>
http://www.counterpunch.org/donnelly05262007.html

[seemslikeadream]

1. Who is responsible for the terrorism in Congo?

WHO?

[Kagemusha]

2. Terrorism's usual definition is otherwise criminal violence for political ends.

Gonna claim that this wasn't political?

[uberllama42]

3. I always say that the Fort Dix plot was not terrorism

I know it's a Grammar Nazi-esque complaint, but terrorism is violence against civilians. The Fort Dix Six were planning a laughable assault on an active military base. Certainly their activity was illegal and they deserve to be punished, but they are not, strictly speaking, terrorists.

[ixion]

4. "Civil Disobedience has no place in a Democracy."

:wtf:

I would beg to differ (vigorously) with this assertion. Civil Disobedience is the heart of democracy, the Id to the superego of the pompous institution of government. More importantly, civil disobedience is NOT a crime. That's why it is called CIVIL disobedience, rather than CRIMINAL disobedience (whatever that may be).

So this judge should really step down, because she is obviously no longer a rational person, IMO.