Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Discrediting Citizen Activism
Eleven misguided young people recently indicted for arson as activism are in big trouble. As Geov Parrish observes in the following article, "Why? Because it's very, very useful for the government to label these folks domestic terrorists or ecoterrorists rather than what they are: activists whose fanaticism led them to actions that didn't physically injure anyone, didn't truly terrorize anyone, but, as with any arson, inconvenienced, saddened, and enraged the people connected to the torched buildings and objects....
...As the widespread use of the label ecoterrorist suggests, the government loves this sort of thing. As with another Eugene export, the anarchists who smashed windows during the 1999 anti-WTO protests in Seattle, these fires legitimized for many an overreaching persecution of all activists by law enforcement. ...Today, programs like the Pentagon's counterintelligence TALON unit, which has gathered the names of thousands of peaceful antiwar protesters and other activists get funded because some general or some Justice Department or White House lackey can point to the threat of domestic terrorists. ...
It's all very, very useful. This is why, when law enforcement infiltrates activist groups—whether it was the Industrial Workers of the World a century ago, peaceniks in the 1960s, or animal-rights groups today—often as not, they encourage the group or its members to engage in property destruction. It's a means to an end: the discrediting of citizen activism, and the further expansion of state power.
...They [the arsonists] are idealistic fools, but they are not terrorists."
http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0604/geov-parrish-2.php
...As the widespread use of the label ecoterrorist suggests, the government loves this sort of thing. As with another Eugene export, the anarchists who smashed windows during the 1999 anti-WTO protests in Seattle, these fires legitimized for many an overreaching persecution of all activists by law enforcement. ...Today, programs like the Pentagon's counterintelligence TALON unit, which has gathered the names of thousands of peaceful antiwar protesters and other activists get funded because some general or some Justice Department or White House lackey can point to the threat of domestic terrorists. ...
It's all very, very useful. This is why, when law enforcement infiltrates activist groups—whether it was the Industrial Workers of the World a century ago, peaceniks in the 1960s, or animal-rights groups today—often as not, they encourage the group or its members to engage in property destruction. It's a means to an end: the discrediting of citizen activism, and the further expansion of state power.
...They [the arsonists] are idealistic fools, but they are not terrorists."
http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0604/geov-parrish-2.php
