Will Potter, a journalist who follows civil rights and green rights-- who has also followed the SHAC 7 trial-- gives a good analysis of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act: Green is the New Red
He says that the new bill changes nothing for the direct action activists; they have long been outlawed: groups such as the Animal Liberation Front.
He points out that the major purpose of the law is attack pacifist activists who use civil disobedience as developed by Thoreau, Martin Luther King, and Gandhi. The act says that because actions like sit-ins may cost a corporation revenue they are terror; the act targets mainstream non-violent activism.
It also confirms that sanctioning cruelty is a priority of the US government-- to be kind, according to congress, is to be cruel. This policy resembles the first defense of hunters; if you tell hunters that killing is cruel, then they will tell you that you are for hurting their feelings. Hunters have homicidal thoughts as often as not; what they won't tell you, or maybe they will if you ask, is that you very likely deserve to die for being so cruel as to criticize their cruelty.
As a veteran of the terror attack on the WTC on 9/11/2001, I know what terror is. Congress and the courts are simply liars; they are using our fears of terror to protect cruelty, a form of terror in of itself, albeit to animals. Civil disobedience is not terror; police brutality is.
Terror, as practiced by experts such as bin Laden, specifically targets the glands in the center of the brains of a population with the stress of horror so as to inflict them with post traumatic stress disorder.
Any other use of the word terror is an insult to all the people who have made sacrifices as rescuers, in wars, or in defense of others; they are heros and have very likely suffered trauma disorders. The US congress has chosen to insult the most dedicated and loyal members of American society. In many respects, this act of congress has nothing to do with eco-terror.
Another equally sickening aspect of the bill was support for the it by the ACLU. In a letter that was used to endorse the bill written by the ACLU, the writers offered the following contradictory text:
Hubert H. Humphrey once said "Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent and debate."
~and~
When Congress singles out a group on one side of a debate for criminal penalties, it must be careful to avoid silencing the discussion, dissent and debate that is so fundamental to our freedom.
Full text:http://www.aclu.org/images/general/asset_upload_file809_27356.pdf
Here the ACLU admits that they act is purely unconstitutional: the government, as if you don't know, cannot under the laws of the land single anyone out for punishment specifically because their beliefs. Furthermore, humane beliefs are spiritual and faith-based in nature; the first amendment protects faith as much as free speech.
In this I actually see a silver lining to this anti-terror bill. Like Bush's arrogant abuse of the American people shows the true agenda of the American elite, this bill shows the world how sick the US goverment has become. It show's how cruel and ignorant elected officials are, and how vulnerable they have made the nation to the new, or neo, terror: complete control by multi-national corporate control.
Congress and the courts (not to mention the ACLU) have traveled so far away from the intent of the Constitution and the rights amendments (which are the basis for the Charter of the UN as well as most national constitutions) so as to put into affect the 2nd amendment-- the right to take military (malitia) action against treachery coming across the borders (globalism) and pure corruption within the nation (today's congress).
If you are interested, I have created a group based on Shay's rebellion and the Whiskey rebellion. These rebellions were a reaction to the corruption and chaos that followed the American revolution; they forced the formation of the constitutional conventions.
These rebellions, described as anarchy, stabilized the US.
