"Will our elected officials cower in the corner as eco-terrorists enforce their demented vision on the nation through violence and intimidation?"
Reporting on the growing incidence of terrorism by fanatical environmentalists, Tom DeWeese of the American Policy Center notes that "more than 1400 attacks, as well as the use of threats and extortion, have been documented against businesses and private property owners over the past several years." DeWeese compares contemporary eco-terrorists to revolutionary groups of the 1960s like the Weathermen Underground. "They advocate the violent overthrow of the old order," he observes. "They communicate through dispatches placed in radical publications. They hide in safe houses and live and work in 'cells.' Many use aliases to hide their identities."
Writing in a recent issue of The DeWeese Report, Tom DeWeese cites the radical green group Earth First as a focal point for eco-terrorism. "Earth First communicates with the network of eco-terrorists through its publication Earth First Journal," he contends. "It reports on the activities of other eco-terrorists and runs 'how-to' articles to bring ideas and continuity to its nationwide network. It tells how to spike trees. It prints lists of 'enemies of the earth,' prints articles raving against modern society, and advocates war against it."
DeWeese charges that "Earth First terrorists have burned livestock auctions, tried to blow up nuclear reactor facilities, shot privately-owned cattle found grazing on federally-owned allotments, and threatened the lives of corporate executives. The cadre of eco-terrorists is on the rise," he warns. "Now joining forces with the eco-terrorists are the equally violent animal-rights terrorists."
DeWeese wonders why eco-terrorism is "not discussed and not investigated. Though lives have been lost, property destroyed, citizens intimidated, and elected officials publicly attacked, little is being done. When organized crime threatened the nation," DeWeese observes, by way of contrast, "Congress hauled those racketeers before hearings televised to the nation. When communism threatened our national security, the FBI ran a relentless campaign to expose communist activity. Where is the outrage?" he demands. "Where are the hearings? Where is the protection of the law?" DeWeese recommends that "a nationwide crackdown [be] ordered, with bounties put on the heads of the ringleaders of these groups."
There is a mechanism ready at hand for launching a crusade against these scofflaws, and we owe a debt of gratitude to the National Organization for Women (NOW) for bringing it to our attention. NOW recently succeeded in having the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) applied to pro-life protesters who block the entrances to abortion mills. The judge's dubious decision is likely to be appealed, and overturned, but NOW's novel use of RICO suggests other innovative possibilities. After all, the terminology of this catchall anti-racketeering statute could more logically be interpreted to cover the activities of eco-terrorists, whose threats and assaults and vandalism most definitely betray a pattern of extortion. The money trail, moreover, reinforces the racketeering angle, since certain seemingly respectable corporate interests financing these radical groups actually stand to profit from the nefarious practices of their beneficiaries.
