You freakin' terrorist hippies....

[Viking12]

The Terror of Our Ways
Conflating environmentalists and terrorists is all the rage
By Michael J. Kavanagh

-snip-

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 premieres Tuesday, 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.

-snip-

On environmentalists, Stokes has this to say: "Eradicate 'em. Their message stinks. They're destroying America. And it all came out of the Third Reich. You know, the Third Reich was born out of the environmental community. I don't make it up. It's there." Stokes attends town meetings, holds rallies, and burns green swastikas to protest what he sees as the tyranny of liberals, the U.S. Forest Service, immigrants, the government, and, of course, the people he refers to as "eco-Nazis" and "green Nazis."

-snip-

It's not true, but it doesn't matter: with his rants, Stokes has placed environmentalism squarely in the middle of the most charged discourse in post-9/11 America -- the one revolving around the word "terrorism." And while Stokes seems extreme, these days, the jump from environmentalist to terrorist is not as uncommon as you might think. It's not just Stokes who's warning his listeners; it's also Joe Friday.

-more-

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/07/08/kavanagh/index.html

A fairly coordinated push by the feds -- assisted by far-right media types -- to hype "eco-terrorism" as the next big domestic threat. This serves three overlapping goals:

* It stokes fear and anxiety about terrorism generally, which can only serve the interests of the executive branch of government.

*Classifying acts as terrorism rather than simple crime (arson, theft, vandalism) substantially expands the police powers that can be brought to bear, in terms of surveillance, search and seizure, etc.

*It demonizes a political force that has sought, and in many cases successfully secured, legal and regulatory restraints on corporate power.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/7/8/171658/2983

[kenny blankenship]

1. Why Mandrake, Do you realize

that FLUORIDATION ECOTERRORISM is the most dangerous, most monstrously conceived Communist plot we've ever had to face?

Something tells me Mr. Stokes is perserving the purity of his precious bodily fluids, up there in the Flathead Valley of Montanny.

[Viking12]

2. Of course, the irony is that those ore inclined to "terrorist" activity

are anti-environmentalists.

It's the unapologetic Stokes who sponsors burnings of green swastikas, and who blandly disavows any hateful intent while broadcasting the home addresses of environmentalists, calling them "the enemy."

That means that people like sawmill supervisor Scott Daumiller and his friend J.B. Stone, who are in the forefront of the local anti-environmental movement, and Joshua Closs, a young guest music DJ at the station, find Stokes' provocations compelling. At the same time, people like ex-cop Kitterman, environmentalists Keith Hammer and Mike Raiman, and teacher Randy Hansen, feel themselves suddenly in physical danger. What had been a sharp disagreement between neighbors suddenly emerges as a possibly violent conflict with volatile, extremist forces.

Nothing was more telling — and is more disquieting in "The Fire Next Time" — than the community's reaction to discovery of Project 7, its cache of guns and its hit list. The targets, after all, were not distant officials or outsider bureaucrats. They were everyone's longtime neighbors, including popular Police Chief Frank Garner and Sheriff Jim Dupont. And while many citizens, like Brenda Kitterman and newly elected Mayor Pam Kennedy, felt immediately moved to rally in protest, there was a degree of denial about the potential danger. Those accused of being terrorists were also neighbors, who had carved out a place for their views in public meetings and on the radio. For elected officials like Pam Kennedy and Gary Hall, the daily blast of on-air attacks turns public life into a risky proposition, given the real threat from Project 7. The result was also a spreading fear as people began to weigh the costs of speaking out.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2005/thefirenexttime/about.html

[thegreatwildebeest]

5. Point well made...

...that all "eco-terrorism", which mostly consists of petty vandalism and arson of unoccupied cars or unconstructed buildings, has never included other human beings. The right wing militia movement, though not very successfully, has tried to basically shoot its way to political conclusions, with body bags, not burnt car wrecks. If militia members have failed in the past, its merely because of stupidity and getting caught. And while its funny to say that they're probably not smart enough to pull anything they plan off, theres no reasonable expectation that that will always be the case, or that one will slip through and actually end up killing alot of people.

[funflower]

3. The word "ecoterrorism" shows up ALL the time on our local news.

[funflower]

4. Eco-nazis, eco-commies, eco-terrorists...

What'll we be next year?

[cprise]

6. Remember when the Third Reich was a homosexual plot against humanity?

Yes, I do... that was back in the 90s.

Now its environmentalists. New decade, same game.