Equating eco-activists with terrorism is now commonplace

[G_j]

ENVIRONMENTALISTS ON THE FRINGE
Michael J. Kavanagh, Grist Magazine

Equating eco-activists with terrorism is now commonplace
among conservative mouthpieces and the FBI alike.

http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/23477/

What liberals and their allies in the environmentalist wacko movement fail to understand is: their message has gotten out. Their anti-capitalist, socialist, gloom-and-doom, fear-based, lunatic ravings have been amplified -- and Americans understand exactly who they are, and what they're about. As the "Mr. Big" of the vast right-wing conspiracy, I am proud, ladies and gentlemen, to play a major part in the exposé leading to their depression.
- Rush Limbaugh April 25, 2005


Currently, about 20 million people tune in to Rush Limbaugh every week. His lingo is now conservative lingua franca. Limbaugh figured out that if you repeat your best lines -- e.g., "environmentalist wackos" -- often enough, they become more than just funny catchphrases; they become a reconfiguration of reality and a call to arms. In his world (and it's a world in which a lot of people live), you can't be an environmentalist and escape wacko-ism.

In Limbaugh, a large group of Americans who felt their country was being taken away from them found an emotional outlet. If his facts didn't always ring true, his anger did. Limbaugh proved that someone with a quick wit and a microphone could wield tremendous power, and his success spawned a legion of copycat shows across the country.

One of them is hosted by John Stokes of KGEZ in Montana's Flathead Valley. Stokes is featured in the new PBS film The Fire Next Time, which premiered on July 12. The documentary was made by Patrice O'Neill and The Working Group, a film company that also works with communities to overcome intolerance. The film follows several groups in Kalispell, Mont., over a two-year period in which their community goes up in flames -- figuratively and literally -- over conflicts about environmental preservation
..more..

[zbdent]

1. I said this as the "Patriot Act" was being debated

that the Rush Limbaughs of the US would make a tree-sitter a "terrorist" and a KKK Member a "Fine upstanding citizen".

[dweller]

2. a short thread about this

last evening.
concerning Kalispell Mont.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4086433

dp

[lapfog_1]

3. Back when Dennis Miller first got his idiotic talk show

he went on Leno and did a set on the humor of Global Warming (mostly
about the "wacko environmentalists" and what not). I hope somebody
saved a copy of that bit for him... and takes him to Alaska or
Siberia sometime and shows him the drained lakes and melted permafrost and the disappearing glaciers. And plays his little
comedy bit on a portable TV (or laptop) for him there.

These asshats that made a joke out of the environment and those
that care about set back reasonable discourse on the subject in
this country by decades... possibly until it will be too late to
do anything about it.

[blindpig]

11. better

put him on an island where the polar bears are starving because they can't access seals for lack of sea ice.

[leftchick]

4. and Eric Rudolph is an "Olympic Bomber" in news reports

And Tim Mc Veigh was the Oklahoma City "bomber". They are certainly Not referred to as what they are...
christian fundamentalist TERRORISTS!

Has anyone in the environmental movement killed anyone? One person?

[moggie]

7. I've posted this before

But I think it's apposite to post it again. Here's a quote from a New Scientist article by Jeremy Leggett:

When I visited America during my time working for Greenpeace International in the 1990s, time and again people would say to me "we really don't approve of the way your organisation blew up that French ship", or words to that effect. It happened once at the end of a meeting with a lawyer in Philadelphia. He was defending Lloyds of London against a suit filed by Exxon after the Valdez oil spill. He wanted to thank me kindly for all the excellent free technical information I had furnished him with in support of his defence, but he really hadn't enjoyed having to talk to me because my people had murdered somebody in New Zealand.

How could it be, I used to wonder, that Americans got the French secret service's sinking of the Rainbow Warrior the wrong way round so consistently? I encountered the phenomenon in no other country. I never knew why for sure and still don't. Whatever the explanation, it happened so many times to me and my colleagues that I had to conclude it was something cultural.

One man died in the DGSE's sinking of the Rainbow Warrior.

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. The right creates its own reality, which is often the exact opposite of the truth.

[leftchick]

9. thank you for that

I think the "right" is always on the opposite side of the truth!

[CWebster]

5. The propaganda of the Right...

has framed reality and truth as a Leftist crusade. Reality is given the same weight as reactionary lies and accusations. And here is the tragedy--Democratic politicians depend on the effective efforts of the Right to frame the debate as their own frame of reference. They pander to power brokers at the expense of the public, still spinning their wheels with Clinton-era triangulation strategy. A prime example is John Kerry's ongoing claim that he could execute the nightmare of Iraq better than Bush. That is unspeakably pathetic.

[acmejack]

6. This exactly what drives me further to the left

Kerry and his ilk prove that they are pawns of the military industrial complex. The people are against the war but hey, it's great for business. If there is a dollar to be made the people's interests are shunted aside until such time as they are convenient, say around election time. Of course those interests are forgotten as soon as the campaign ends.

[JCMach1]

8. Amen... one of Kerry's biggest problems....!

[Darwins Finch]

10. Ecowarriors are the worst kind of terrorist...

...they attack capitalism, which is sacrosanct above all else.

:sarcasm:

Really, it's no different than calling people who fileshare "dangerous criminals". The greatest crime in our country is interfering with the free flow of profit. It was inevitable that these kind of appellations would occur, and indeed they'll only increase as our political machinery continues to be subsumed by the corporate monolith.