Posted on 08/02/2004 3:26:28 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Amidst the government warnings that al Qaeda has targeted America for further attacks was a news story concerning another kind of terrorism, some of whose perpetrators were indicted on May 26. They were members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC).
Federal authorities in New Jersey and three other states charged that the defendants, six men and one woman, belonged to SHAC and had engaged in acts that included vandalism, sending threatening letters, making threatening phone calls, home invasions, and physical assaults. "Their business, quite frankly, is thuggery and intimidation", said US Attorney Christopher Christie at a press conference following the indictments.
The domestic terrorism perpetrated by groups like SHAC, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and Earth Liberation Front (ELF), has until now involved 190 investigations into their activities, but with the exception of one or two among them, has not resulted in the kind of arrests that made headlines.
SHAC was formed in 1999 in England to put the parent company of Huntingdon out of business and this company’s business is the vital testing of new life saving pharmaceuticals. Its US laboratory in Somerset County, New Jersey, like its British counterpart, uses thousands of animals, mostly rats, for such testing. The five-count indictment asserts that the defendants crossed the line from civil demonstration to domestic terrorism, i.e., criminal acts.
Tracking down the members of ALF and ELF has taken on a new priority among federal law enforcement authorities. These and other domestic terrorists have committed more than 1,100 criminal acts in the United States since 1976, resulting in damages that are conservatively estimated at $110 million. In August 2003, they burned to the ground a 206-unit apartment complex that was under construction in San Diego, causing $50 million in damage. That same month, a bomb exploded at the biotech Chiron Corporation’s Emeryville, California, business office. There were no casualties, but the bomb did a lot of property damage. In September, ALF terrorists destroyed much of the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine’s office in Baton Rouge.
In April 1999, ALF terrorists vandalized a cancer research center at the University of Minnesota, destroying the work of university researchers seeking ways to treat brain tumors.
ALF, ELF and SHAC do not care about humans who would benefit from medical research, nor do they care about the need for the building of apartment complexes and new homes for a growing population. Nor should we be surprised to learn that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has admitted to donating $1,500 to ELF in 2001. According to the Center for Consumer Freedom, PETA also donated at least $70,000 to ALF.
A PETA spokesperson, following the arrests, referred to the defendants as "longtime activists" and asserted they were "well respected." There is a significant difference between activism and criminal behavior, or support for it. The PETA spokesperson said they suspected "the government’s motives and wonder if the right of freedom of association and free expression is now being stripped away in this country." This is a mere smokescreen for the true nature of their activities.
The ability of PETA to manipulate the media is well known. Less well known, however, is the true agenda of these organizations or their increasingly violent methods of achieving it. PETA should be considered an unindicted co-conspirator.
ALF and ELF are terrorists, no less than al Qaeda or any other organization that uses violence. In 2003, the groups claimed responsibility for 75 actions, striking against fur farms, logging operations, Forest Service facilities, slaughterhouses, and other targets throughout northwestern states. With few arrests, they were becoming more and more emboldened.
Even the Sierra Club, an environmental organization, felt compelled to disassociate themselves. "The ELF are not environmentalists. They are arsonists," said Carl Pope, the head of the Sierra Club. Not true. ELF and ALF are environmentalists and reflect the fundamental objective of all environmental organizations to shut down every manner of business and economic activity deemed to threaten the earth by their use of its natural resources. The Sierra Club and other so-called conservation groups are engaged in efforts to put as much of the US landmass off limits to any use for any reason. In this, they are often aided by federal programs that actually fund this effort.
One can only hope these indictments lead to many more. It is essential that Americans wake up to the threat the entire environmental and animal rights movements pose to property rights, research that will benefit those suffering from cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease. Veterinary research, with considerable irony, has also been targeted.
So, while Americans worry about when or where the next Islamic Jihad attack may occur, we have been waiting since the late 1970s for a long overdue crackdown on these other terrorists.
"Endangered Species" Cost USA Billions
At a time when this nation is engaged in a war, putting the lives of its soldiers in harm’s way to end the threat of Middle Eastern terrorism, it would seem inconceivable that it would also be wasting billions to protect some species of salmon or the shortnose suckerfish. But it is.
Unfortunately, when the truth is revealed, the mainstream press often ignores it. For example, on April 14 of this year, the Pacific Legal Association, in association with Property and Environmental Research Center (PERC), released a study that demonstrated the mind-boggling costs of the Endangered Species Act.
"PERC researchers found that the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) grossly underreported federal and state ESA costs in its recent report to Congress, and completely ignored the private economic and social costs of ESA compliance, which together easily total billions of dollars a year."
The PERC researchers based this finding on a December 2003 FWS report to Congress, "Three-Year Summary of Federal and State Endangered Species Expenditures, Fiscal Years 1998-2000." According to FWS, the federal and state expenditures totaled $610.3 million. PERC estimated the real costs to be as much as four times greater; more in the area of $2.4 billion. When you add in the private costs to those of government expenditures, the total "may easily reach or exceed $3.5 billion per year."
There is something obscene about this, considering the many other priorities of our nation. As the Pacific Legal Foundation report notes, "People have lost their jobs, businesses, homes, farms, and even their lives to protect plants, insects and fish," said Emma T. Suarez, an attorney for the Foundation. It is the story of a government more committed to so-called endangered species than to its citizens and to the economy upon which government depends.
Indeed, the story of the entire environmental movement is about the steady degradation of the American economy and other nations around the world. It is an attack on capitalism designed to thwart access to natural resources, and attack agriculture, ranching, the production of beneficial chemicals and pharmaceuticals, transportation, and every other element of the economy.
The FWS report managed to omit critical information in its 2003 cost report.
Only "estimates" of costs to taxpayers, not actual costs, were provided.
The report ignored government-wide costs, neatly skirting the many federal agencies and departments affected by the ESA reported expenditures and noting only costs that were "reasonably identifiable" for individual species. That’s a hole big enough to drive a truck through.
Costs to state and local entities for implementing species recovery were also ignored, along with those represented by ESA-caused interference with the building of schools, hospitals, roads and other infrastructure projects. Also ignored were the costs to private landowners. The study noted that "75% of all listed species have portions or all of their habitat on privately owned land and the FWS regulates 38 million acres of private land through conservation plans. Landowners are not compensated for their losses from ESA regulations that prohibit them from using their land productively." These costs are enormous.
It is little wonder that the costs of housing, old and new, are soaring. ESA regulations are widely used to deter the creation of new housing stock despite the obvious need of a rapidly growing population. Nor are the other economic and social costs from regulatory burdens placed on agricultural production, water use, forest management, and mineral extraction included in the FWS report. If they were, the public would be in the streets demanding an end to ESA.
The FSW report did not take into consideration lost jobs, lost business, and lost tax revenues. If it did, the ESA would be rescinded within days. One famous example was the hoax about the "endangered" northern spotted owl. "At least 130,000 jobs were lost when more than 900 sawmills, pulp, and paper mills closed in mid-1990 to protect" the owl. In California, ESA-mandated water reductions in the Westlands Water District cost the state economy more than $218 million and 4,500 jobs statewide" according to the PERC study. The federal government was estimated to have lost about $2.3 million revenue as a result.
The Endangered Species Act has proven to be an expensive and destructive failure. Despite listing 1,260 US species as of December 2003, only fifteen were "delisted" and those mainly because the original data citing them as endangered proved to be inaccurate!
Environmentalism is not about caring for the needs of human beings or our nation’s economy. It is just the opposite. It is not some benign movement, but rather a malignant cancer that destroys lives, jobs, and the quintessential basis of our economy, the rights of private property owners.
Easily 90% or more of all the species that ever existed on earth are extinct. It’s called survival of the fittest and has been going on since life on earth began. It is worse than a conceit to think that government can "save" a few species; it is an arrogant and dangerous notion that seeks to replace the goals of the environmentalists with the process of nature.
Betcha it's ok with ELF and SHAC to do fetal research though.
maybe Huntington and a couple of other testing companies and the Big boys- Merck and Phizer etc. could run a few advertisments about eco and animal terrorists. They can afford it and they should be telling this story- In prime time where home bodies are listening and see the result of wackos and RATS.
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