[Vision2020] Enabling terrorism

[Paul Rumelhart]

I'd never studied Earth First! before, so I was curious.

Here is an article describing a tree-spiking incident that resulted in 
one man being cut badly and getting his jaw broken.

http://www.iww.org/unions/iu120/local-1/EF/JBari11.shtml

It's not clear if it was EF! or not, but it does seem clear that they 
did advocate that kind of action with a manual and even tree-spiking 
"workshops".    

Here is a manual that was allegedly written by the Unabomber that 
describes in detail how to fight motorcyclists in the forest.  It is 
ostensibly a manual of what to do if enemy soldiers invade on 
motorcycles, but that's obviously a thin cover for the real intention of 
hurting motorcyclists by such means as spiked boards, pits, computer 
monitors or TVs buried face-up just under the ground, and piano wire 
strung between trees, all in order to stop people from terrorizing 
chickens or for flipping off the author one too many times.

http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/efdm/efdm.html

 From what I've read lately, though, it is likely that the majority of 
advocates of tree-spiking are targeting the machinery and not 
necessarily the loggers.  So I guess I would file them under criminal 
nutcases rather than terrorists, although the motorcycle manual leaves 
me with a bad taste in my mouth.

I do agree that the word "terrorist" is being watered down in it's 
meaning, but I'd place the blame at the authorities for calling every 
event that inconveniences them "terrorism".  For example, the two guys 
that placed the advertisements for the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" show 
that caused the Boston authorities to freak out about a terrorist device 
are not "terrorists".

Paul


Andreas Schou wrote:
>>  I believe that describes rather well what ELF, ALF and Earth First! do.
>>     
>
> Whoa, whoa, whoa.
>
> Earth First? They've done *criminal* things in the past (largely
> sabotage of machinery), but in what sense are those things
> "terrorism?" They don't even spike trees.
>
> I'm really concerned about right-wing definition creep when it comes
> to terrorism (c.f. "narcoterrorism"), because -- whether we like it or
> not -- we have authorized military and intelligence responses to it.
> I'm dead set against allowing military and intelligence responses to
> vandalism, on whatever scale.
>
> -- ACS
>
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