If destroying property is considered terrorism how about destroying the environment?

[Bandit]

If trashing an SUV or even an SUV lot is considered terrorism how about clear cut logging? Or how about bottom trawling by huge trawlers. Or huge corporate smokestacks putting out tons of carbon particulates. Tell you the truth it terrifies me at what is being done to our environment for the sake of "jobs" and money. Bottom trawlers drag huge nets across the bottom of the ocean and destroy everything in their path. clear cut logging brings a tear to my eye. IMO corporate polluters are terrorizing our planet. My grandchildren are terrified at Global Warming. Actually terrified...Yet our government wants to list any who fight back against polluters as terrorist...Up is certainly down in this new Bush* Amerika we now live in..

[RB TexLa]

1. So everyone who drives a car will be put in prison?

[Bandit]

3. You can certainly choose what type of car you drive.

Many if not a majority have quite extensive emission controls in place.

[originalpckelly]

5. So if we don't drive the kind of car you want us to, you have the right to destroy it?

[Bandit]

21. Some people really have a warped view of things

:shrug:

[malaise]

2. Only the Decider and his goons have the

right to define what is terrorism. :sarcasm:

[Igel]

28. But what if you have 500k self-appointed "deciders"? n/t

[malaise]

30. Until they take him out in chains

he'll decide.

[originalpckelly]

4. "If destroying property is considered terrorism"

What was the motive behind the destruction of the property? Was it mere vandalism, done without regard to feelings of the owner's feelings, or was it specifically targeted to cause people to feel a certain emotion, and then take a certain course of action?

[Bandit]

22. Basically I did this post in reards to another post about an SUV that was vandalized

People in that post were calling it a form of terrorism. The Bush* Administration has said they considered ELF a terrorist group. People in that other post had the view that just the act of destroying property was terrorism even if no people were involved. I was just carrying the argument a little farther as one other poster had already done. If just the act of destruction is considered terrorism than IMO destroying a forest or a sea bottom fits the bill.

[rinsd]

31. Is vandalizing a synagogue with swastikas terrorism if no one was hurt?

Is vandalizing a bar that caters to GBLT with epithets about LGBT terrorism if no one was hurt?

Is vandalizing a mosque....

You get the idea.

[originalpckelly]

34. I'm glad you see this too. Terrorism is just a tactic, an awful unjust tactic...

it is not really about killing people, but making people afraid and forcing them to submit to someone else's will. That itself may be defined as plain old tyranny.

[originalpckelly]

33. Are they doing that for anything other than selfish gain? No.

That motive is no different than a common robber, or a person whom may vandalize property to somehow gain for themselves (possibly for entertainment.)

However, when someone is not just targeting a particular piece of property for personal gain, but seeks to use the destruction of that property to cause terror in their victims, then it becomes terrorism. Irregardless of how honest and high the goals of the terrorism may be, the act of terrorism itself defiles any good intentions the terrorist had.

In a democracy, the methods used to achieve the ends are as important, if not more so, than the ends themselves. A dictator can write just laws, but the process used to arrive at those laws is inherently unjust. It must always be a process where people willingly accept and understand that they must change, and they must have a completely free choice to change, for that change to be lasting and legitimate.

These so-called "eco-terrorists" may claim to protect the environment, but because they are intimidating people, even bad people, into a particular path, they are anti-democratic.

Were that sort of approach to be widely adopted by various other causes, the quality of American life and the freeness of this nation, while already compromised by President Bush and his cabal of corporatists, would be even more severely compromised.

Part of democracy is being able to disagree and be wrong, and learn the error of one's ways and make amends.

[bryant69]

6. Yeah amazing that they would criminalize destruction of property for political ends

Consider this - every day Republicans are pushing programs that hurt Americans and wreck the world; so why is it illegal for me throw a molotov cocktail through the local Republican Party Headquarters? After hours of course; I wouldn't want to hurt anybody.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[originalpckelly]

10. And what about the firefighters whom might have respond to put out the fire?

You can never really commit an act of political violence that doesn't end up hurting someone at some point. What if one of those firefighters putting out the fire at the RNC headquarters has some part of the structure fall on him/her and dies?

[bryant69]

14. Well firefighters shouldn't have to work to protect evil organizations like the Republican Party

But ok, maybe a molotov cocktail is a bad idea; how about I fill their offices with millions of locusts?

Bryant

[taterguy]

16. How are you gonna train the locusts to stay just in that office?

[bryant69]

23. I could fill it with something Locust like to eat - like wheat or something. n/t

[taterguy]

24. An infinite suppy of it?

Sounds very complicated.

Perhaps you should direct your energy and creativity to doing something positive.

But that's just my opinion and I could be wrong.

[bryant69]

25. This is positive - screwing with Republicans is very positive. n/t

[taterguy]

7. There are ways to fight back that don't involve violence and destruction

Replace your car with a bicycle

Get involved with your local government and see what you can do to make your area more hospitable for folks who don't want to drive.

Just a thought

[slj0101]

8. It's been shown that factory farming is horrible for the environment.

Let's blow up some of those chickens. Better yet, firebomb some soccer mom's car at the local supermarket. That'll show 'em. :eyes:


Sorry, but that is a reach. Nothing justifies violent measures (semantics aside, vandalism on that scale is a violent act).

[Igel]

29. Boycott all factory food.

Just don't eat it.

Any of it.

And nothing in cans. Cook all your own food from fresh ingredients. Grind your own organic whole wheat flour. By hand.

Now, I've known people to do precisely that. They were all in a very odd breed of fundamentalism.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

9. No, Destroying The Environment Is Not Terrorism.

It's something that is horrible to see and that we aim to protect, but it still wouldn't be terrorism since there is no agenda that is attempted to be gained through intimidation/fear.

[Forkboy]

11. Have you been reading The Monkey Wrench Gang again?

Edward Abbey by Grotus

I know what's right
I know what's wrong
What would you do if someone was strangling your mother? Just stand there?
Well, someone is
I know what's wrong
The disruption of destruction is not violence
It's self-defense
I know what's right
The ghost of Edward Abbey says to me:
You're never a product of their world
Unless you want to be.

[NotGivingUp]

12. Destroying the environment is a crime against humanity. nt

[dkofos]

13. Corporations destroying the environment is OK. Didn't you get the memo

from KKKarl??
Just don't try to disrupt a business!!

[kenny blankenship]

15. The environment isn't owned by anybody so it is not a crime

the Ownership Society will change all that though! (So get onboard with the team for the Big Win.) When everything--everything you can conceive of air, earth, water, even ideas-- is owned by someone, no one will be able to touch anything without either paying a fee (to the lawful owner) or committing a crime of trespass, vandalism, or theft. Everything you do will be a transaction, with rigorous accounting standards. It's like God will be watching you at every moment, but this God will have a right to initiate electronic drafts on your checking account.

See now? George W. Bush is a bigger environmentalist than even that sore loser Al Gore.

[The Stranger]

37. I think you have it exactly backwards: The Environment belongs to all.

So no one can harm it without paying reparations to everyone else.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. Ahem.

[originalpckelly]

18. Boston Hummer Party?

I'd attend that one. :-)

[Tulum_Moon]

19. The environment belongs to all of us

I don't think there is anything wrong with trying to protect it as you would your own home. Destroyers of the environment get no sympathy from me.

[JacquesMolay]

20. Well, that's just business...

...n/t

[greyl]

26. Shut your mouth! Destroying the environment is Holy work to our culture. nt

[ItNerd4life]

27. Mother Earth needs to get her panties in a wad

and start striking back at some of these people.

But that's just my opinion.

[mondo joe]

32. By all means, work to make environmental harm illegal.

While people are acting within the law it's hard to make a charge of terrorism.

[chaska]

35. Everybody who participates in this thread must READ DERRICK JENSEN.

[The Stranger]

36. Especially considering the fact that the ENVIRONMENT IS OURS.

EVERYONE'S. Yet somehow people here just don't seem to get it. They see someone do something "violent" and all the sudden are attacking, attacking, attacking.

Actually, doing so rather violently.

[Jackpine Radical]

38. If you can prove you made a profit while trashing the environment,

it's just another form of liquidating assets. Not only legal, but admirable to any right-thinking (or far-right-thinking) economist.