Anti-Life Philosophy.

"[Environmental groups] are missing the boat because picking up the garbage is not the issue, having sewage treatment plants is not the issue -- those are really details of the bigger issue. It's like trying to talk about a pimple when you really have [overpopulation] cancer."

-- Jean-Michel Cousteau.[2]

We are all fellow travelers on Spaceship Earth. However, we have abused our planet beyond its ability to sustain us. People are a cancer upon this world, because we needlessly destroy nature and its works wherever we congregate.

The worst of our transgressions involves eating and otherwise mistreating animals, which is revolting in the extreme. We should treat our fellow beings with respect and love -- not eat them!

Such atrocious treatment of our fellow beings never took place when the ancient Pagan religions were observed. Animal and planet abuse only began with the advent of Christianity.

How can you anti-choice people call yourselves "pro-life" when you eat meat and wear leather shoes? You're being hypocritical!

Introduction.

A truly 'enlightened' society must, by definition, care for and feed its most helpless or oppressed members. However, national pride notwithstanding, the United States is anything but an enlightened society.

Our nation is a strange wonderland of inverted social values where caring has gone awry, and compassion is extended only to those persons -- and species -- that are considered "trendy" or 'Politically Correct.'

Summary of the Gaia Philosophy.

BE A HERO, SAVE A WHALE

SAVE A BABY, GO TO JAIL

-- Operation Rescue T-shirt.

The Roots. The "mainstream" animal rights movement and the "mainstream" environmentalist movement share similar philosophies. Their outlooks, although opposed by many, generally attempt to balance the rights of mankind and the rest of nature, and recognize that it is in man's own best interests to preserve and nurture his environment.

However, the motivations and logic of the extreme animal rights and environmentalist movements are different in nature.

The "extreme" wings of both movements generally share the belief that the Earth is our "mother" in the literal sense, because it is a colossal living organism ("Gaia") that is progressing towards its own divinity ("theagenesis").

Although the 'Gaia' hypothesis has, in one form or another, existed almost since the beginning of recorded history, it has enjoyed a resurgence as an important foundation of the "New Age" movement. 'Gaia' was re- postulated in 1973 by 'evolutionary biologist' Lynn Margulis, professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amhurst. The word is Greek for Mother Earth, or "The Deep-Breasted One."[3]

On Becoming 'Little Gods.' Another primary tenet of "New Age" thinking holds that it is natural that individual human beings can themselves become gods on earth, because (or, perhaps, in spite of) their ability to think.

If the earth can become a 'god,' and if human beings can become 'gods,' it is also logical (in a "New Age" manner) to assume that the intermediate link between humans and the living earth -- i.e., animal and plant life -- must also share in this "potential divinity."

Therefore, any imposition of man's will on either animals or earth is considered by the radical animal rights and environmentalist groups to be unacceptable meddling and an obstruction of other entity's personal "vision quests," or progressions towards divinity.

As Peter Singer says in his 1975 book Animal Liberation , "It can no longer be maintained by anyone but a religious fanatic that man is the darling of the whole universe, or that other animals were created to provide us with food, or that we have divine authority over them, and divine permission to kill them."

The Anti-Christian Core. The radical animal rights and environmentalist movements believe that literally every being on earth is itself a type of divinity or "potential divinity." Since all objects we produce are extracted from natural resources, some even believe that such objects interfere with the earth's quest for its own godhood.

In other words, everyone and everything is a god, potential god, or part of a god or potential god.

This omnitheistic paganism is naturally antithetical to any monotheistic concept, and especially to the Christian religion, which teaches that the One God created everything, and reserves divinity to Himself.

So it is not surprising that there are absolutely no real Christians among the ranks of the radical animal rights and environmentalist groups. Such radicals are atheistic, anti-theistic, or paganistic in their outlook. This worldview is reflected in their writings, and in media coverage of their activities.

For example, Ted Turner, the Cable News Network anti-life propagandist who commonly refers to pro-lifers as "bozos," said that "The Christian faith -- the Judeo-Christian tradition -- says that God gave dominion over the planet to human beings; as for animals, they don't count for anything. That's another reason I didn't want to go there [Heaven]: No trees, no animals, just these fundamentalist Christians."[4]

By the way, 1990 'Humanist of the Year' Turner is the person who brought us the propagandistic "Captain Planet" cartoon show. This thinly- disguised political pitch features six children, all of whom hail from idyllic countries -- all except the American kid, Wheeler, who is shown fighting for his life against muggers in a filthy New York City slum. By vivid contrast, Kinka is a Soviet child from a beautiful cottage in the midst of a flower-filled field that invariably has thousands of butterflies in it.

Yeah, right (see the descriptions of several incredible Soviet ecological disasters later in this chapter -- it's a miracle that any butterflies survive in the former Soviet Union).

When the kids get into trouble they can't handle by themselves (which is often), they are backed up by the magic powers of the Earth Goddess Gaia -- the "New Age" patron saint -- whose voice is supplied by virulent pro- abort activist Whoopi Goldberg.

Turner, of course, claimed that he used only "totally impartial" advisors for his show. These paragons of fairness included Carl Sagan, who brought us the bogus "nuclear winter" theory, and Peter Dykstra, the head of Greenpeace.[5]

What of the Year? Time Magazine's bizarre 1988 "Planet of the Year" issue lay bare the strange pro-nature and anti-Christian philosophy of the animal-rights and environmentalist movement; "Humanity's current predatory relationship with nature reflects a man-centered worldview that has evolved over the ages ... In many pagan societies, the earth was seen as a mother, a fertile giver of life. Mortals were subordinate to nature. The Judeo- Christian tradition introduced a radically different concept. The idea of dominion (engendered in the book of Genesis) could be interpreted as an invitation to use nature as a convenience. Thus, the spread of Christianity, which is generally considered to have paved the way for the development of technology, may at the same time have carried the seeds of the wanton exploitation of nature that often accompanied technical progress."

The magazine is predictably crammed with lurid color photographs of oil slicks, dead and rotting animals, toxic poisons leaching into the soil, smog, Everests of trash, and starving children (but nothing about aborted preborn children, naturally)!

The moral of the story, of course, is that society must turn away from outmoded Christianity and eventually towards a one-world government, enforced birth control, and abortion.

Pro-Animal and Anti-Jew. It is fashionable for animal rights activists and environmentalists to beat up on Christians, but their latent anti-Semitism must be expressed in more careful and discreet terms.

Sylvia Cohen, an observer of extremist cults and political movements, noted in the June/July issue of Midstream Magazine that "There is a distinct and explicit anti-Jewish tone: These Animal Rights activists apply the imagery drawn from the Holocaust to describe conventional farming, fishing and the killing of animals for food; they use the same imagery in harassing Jewish biomedical researchers and they direct recurrent attacks on kosher slaughter ...

"There is a disturbing intolerance in the Animal Rights movement towards those who disagree with its philosophy, and an unmistakable tinge of antipathy towards Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Its criticism of Christianity usually centers on Paul, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas for their views on the relationship between man and beast. There is a sharper edge of intolerance towards Jews."

And Racists (and Nationalists), Too. Not only are radical animal rights and environmental activists openly anti-Christian and covertly anti- Semitic, they hold deeply rooted racist beliefs as well.

David Foreman, founder of Earth First!, has said that famine ought to be allowed to run its course in Ethiopia, and has also called for an end to immigration from Mexico and Central America.[6]

Taking his cue from Margaret Sanger, Adolf Eichmann, and other eugenicists, Edward Abbey, author of the ecotage novel The Monkey Wrench Gang , complained of the wilderness degradation caused by "millions of hungry, ignorant, unskilled, and culturally-morally-genetically impoverished people."[6]

And Chris Manes, author of Green Rage , wrote a column for the Earth First! Journal asserted that AIDS could assist in population control, thus lessening the "ecological load" caused by human beings on this planet.[6]

The racism of the movement's leaders inevitably has a profound impact upon the directions taken by these radical groups. It seems that environmentally destructive actions undertaken for the benefit of rich, upper-class Whites receive much less emphasis from these groups than those taken to assist the underprivileged.

Civic leaders from San Francisco envisioned a badly-needed development consisting of 12,000 moderate-income houses and apartments on San Bruno Mountain five miles south of the city. This development would have greatly relieved the shortage of housing for low-income families in the Southern part of the county. But, when environmental activists discovered that the area was a nesting place for the rare Callippe Silverspot Butterfly (which has a life span of exactly one week), they raised such a ruckus that the development was reduced in size by more than 80 percent -- to only 2,200 units.

San Mateo County Black activist Cliff Boxley railed against this "green bigotry," saying that "Conservationists are more interested in saving the habitats of birds than in the construction of low-income housing."[7]

On the international scene, DDT was found to thin the shells of the eggs of several species of birds, so the insecticide was not only banned in the United States, but companies manufacturing it were prohibited from shipping it overseas. Until DDT was extensively used in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), there were between two and three million people afflicted with malaria. This disease was wiped out by DDT. After the ban, the incidence of malaria once again exploded, and thousands died every year from the disease.[8] This disaster was simply ignored by the radical environmental groups, who apparently covet bird's eggs above thousands of human lives.

Hopelessness and Nihilism.

Out of Place and Out of Time. When people begin to see themselves as morally equal to or lower than animals, a certain inevitable depressive world outlook must result. After all, if we are not the supreme creation of God, then we are a cancer. If we do not occupy a privileged place on this earth, we occupy the lowest rung of existence because we cause more damage than any other species. If we desire to escape responsibility in sexual and other matters, we may assuage our consciences by accepting culpability for 'destroying' our planet -- a psychological ploy called "substitution" that allows us to take no concrete action other than being politically correct in our speech.

Despairing Statements. The attitude of "man as disease" is reflected in many statements made by animal rights activists such as Ingrid Newkirk, who once said that "We [humans] have grown like a cancer. We're the biggest blight on the face of the earth."[9] Although not an activist by any means, even Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once remarked that "I see no reason for attributing to man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or a grain of sand."[10]

Some environmentalists even wish for death -- not only for themselves, but for the entire human race. For them, the world is an unending circus of horrors, to be endured and survived until the blessed release that is afforded by the end of their lives.

Bill McKibben writes in The End of Nature that "We are not interested in the utility of a particular species or free-flowing river, or ecosystem, to mankind. They have intrinsic value, more value to me than another human body, or a billion of them. Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet ... Somewhere along the line -- at about a billion years ago, maybe half that -- we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the earth ... Until such time as homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along."[11]

Vehemently Yours. Perhaps the most extreme statement of this nihilistic philosophy was made by what has to be the world's ultimate anti- life group -- The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, or VHEMT, pronounced "vehement" for short.

Anti-people crusader Les U. Knight, Portland, Oregon substitute teacher and founder of VHEMT, said in his newsletter These Exit Times , that "The hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens -- us ... When every human makes the moral choice to live long and die out, Earth will be allowed to return to its former glory. Each time another one of us decides not to add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom ... No matter what you're doing to improve life on planet Earth, I think you'll find that phasing out the human race will increase your chance of success."[12]

Knight seems not to notice that people will have a hard time 'improving life on planet Earth' if there are no people left to do the work!

The Roots. Dr. Frederick Goodwin of the United States Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration struck at the root of such a hopeless Weltanschauung (world outlook) when he said that "At its core, the animal-rights thesis is a degradation of what it means to be human. As a psychiatrist, I see in that a kind of giving up on the human endeavor, a sense of hopelessness and despair."

The Desires. One of the most interesting and concrete results of this hopeless worldview is the ridiculous vision for the future of mankind that many environmentalists hold. These visions are translated into wildly inaccurate predictions that even the most disreputable psychic would disavow.

It is also important to note that these predictions (some of which are shown in Figure 91-1) actually represent the type of society and world that the radical environmentalists and animal rights activists hope will come into existence through their efforts.

FIGURE 91-1

FRIGHTENING VISIONS:

PREDICTIONS BY ANIMAL-RIGHTS ACTIVISTS AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS

"The central fact is that the earth's climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity."

-- Newsweek Magazine, April 28, 1975. Quoted in Brent Bozell, "Environmental Inaccuracy: Who Cares?" Conservative Chronicle , June 17, 1992, page 18.

"The atmosphere may be reaching the limit of its capacity to absorb emitted carbon dioxide without falling into a disastrous greenhouse effect."

-- Newsweek Magazine, June 1, 1992. Quoted in Bozell, op.cit.

Jay Forrester predicted in his doomsday tract The Limits to Growth that the world would run out of gold in 1981, mercury by 1985, tin by 1987, zinc in 1990, petroleum by 1992, and copper, natural gas, and lead by 1993.

Paul Ehrlich predicts in his book The Population Bomb that 65 million Americans will die of hunger by 1985. He also said in 1968 that "The battle to feed humanity is already lost ... we will not be able to prevent large-scale famines in the next decade." By the next decade, of course, weight reduction clinics were everywhere and diet books consistently made best-seller lists. Never one to give up, Ehrlich in 1980 bet economist Julian Simon a thousand dollars that the prices of five strategic metals -- tungsten, copper, nickel, chrome, and tin -- would rise. All five fell, and Ehrlich paid up.

-- As described by syndicated columnist George Will. "'Earth Summit' Already Loses Luster With Environmental Pessimists." The Oregonian , May 31, 1992, page E3.

Due to the increasing severity of the food shortage, the following will be a typical menu by the year 1990;

Slug Soup

Wasp Grubs Fried in the Comb Termites Bantu

Moths Sauteed in Butter

New Carrots with Wireworm Sauce

Fricasseed Chicken with Chrysalides

Cauliflower Garnished with Caterpillars

Slag Beetle Larvae on Toast Chocolate Chirpies

-- Ronald L. Taylor, author of Butterflies in My Stomach . As described in David Wallechinsky and Amy and Irving Wallace. The Book of Predictions . New York: William Morrow and Company, 1980, 513 pages, $12.95.

By 1995, worldwide compulsory birth control will be instituted. By 2000, the PLANNED PLANETHOOD (!) movement will triumph over all other systems of thought. In the same year, the control of conception will be removed from personal choice. Males will be sterilized at age 14 after depositing a semen sample in the frozen gamete bank. Conception will require approval of a state or federal committee, which will first investigate the genetic health of the two proposed genetic parents and will license conception only if the parents are of superior "stock." By the year, artificial insemination will be widely used to produce genetically superior offspring -- Margaret Sanger's dream of a "race of thoroughbreds" will finally become a reality.

-- These are among the many predictions by Judith Wurtman, G. Harry Stein, Robert Francoeur, John Catchings, Frederick Davies, Robert Truax and Jerrold S. Maxmen, as described in Wallechinsky and Wallace, op.cit.

The Objectives of the Movements.

"[We desire] an end to all commercial logging ... the elimination of the automobile, coal-fired power plants, and manufacturing processes using petrochemicals ... and, most important[ly], the reduction of the human population to an ecologically sustainable level."

-- Christopher Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the Unmaking of Civilization .[13]

Headline Grabbers. The vast majority of animal rights activists certainly have their hearts in the right places. They work quietly to better the lot of sick and abandoned wild and domestic animals, and help limit unnecessary damage to valuable species for the sake of biological diversity and humanitarianism.

However, as always, the radical fringe of any movement gets all the press. In the case of the animal rights and environmentalist movements, five percent of the people agitate for extreme, unworkable, and even harmful objectives.

These animal rights extremists demand that the eating of meat and the wearing of natural furs be outlawed; that all pet ownership be banned; that all zoos be dismantled; that no hunting or farming (even dairy farming) be allowed; and, of course, that all animal experimentation cease immediately.

Earth First! charter member Christopher Manes goes even further. He asserts that man must return to a nomadic hunter/gatherer existence and that we must recognize the "civil rights" of "tree people" and "rock people." In other words, human beings 'oppress' rocks when using them to construct roads or buildings!

It boggles the imagination to try to estimate how many people heap the ultimate indignity on "sand people" daily by using them for cat-box filler.

Manes' book (for which thousands of "tree people" made the ultimate sacrifice) acknowledges that ecoterrorism has caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage and numerous murders and maimings.

Earth First!, by the way, is one of the sponsors of the ecophile's version of Woodstock, the "Mississippi Redwood Summer," where speakers equated trees with disenfranchised Blacks.

No Exceptions. For animal rights extremists, there can be no exceptions to their rules. The president of Friends of Animals, the appropriately-named Priscilla Feral, says that "Animal experimentation is just plain wrong. Human beings have no right to the knowledge gained from experimentation on animals, even if it is done painlessly."[14] This attitude is remarkably similar to that of the scientists who believe that medical knowledge gained by the Nazis during their hideous experiments on human beings should be off-limits to modern researchers,

Ingrid Newkirk of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), states flatly that pet ownership is "... an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation."[14]

Even the very mainstream Humane Society's literature states flatly that "There is no rational basis for maintaining a moral distinction between the treatment of humans and other animals."[14]

Such attitudes, if codified, will inevitably lead to expensive, useless and ludicrous results. As always, if we want to see the future of our society, we must look to Sweden, where the Animal Bill of Rights dictates that each pig must have a separate bed, which ideally must be changed each night.[14]

The Maltreatment of Animals.

"In time, we'll look on those who work in animal laboratories with the horror now reserved for the men and women who experimented on Jews in Auschwitz ... That, too, the Nazis said, was 'for the greater benefit of the master race.'"

-- News release from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.[15]

Laboratory Experiments. Nothing agitates animal-rights groups more than the use of animals in laboratories for purposes considered 'frivolous' by the activists. This is natural because, in their minds, the sacrifice of one being for an equal or lesser being is illogical and evil.

The posters and advertisements used by animal-rights people invariably portray the 'hard cases,' or those animals that people can most readily identify with: Puppies with big, sad eyes, cats, and apes. However, of the 60 to 90 million animals 'used' (and killed) each year for research and testing, about 90 percent are rodents, which are certainly not photogenic and therefore rarely used in animal-rights literature and publicity.

The director of the National Anti-Vivisection Society acknowledges that the number of animals he quotes as being used by researchers each year is much too high, a tactic identical to that used by pro-abortionists who claimed that "5,000 to 10,000 women used to die each year from illegal abortions." He also coaches his followers to "Never appear to be opposed to animal research. Claim that your only concern is the source of the animals."[16]

Small mammals are 'used' to test the toxicity of colognes, cosmetics, food colorings, and many other substances ultimately intended for human consumption. Among other testing methods, these compounds may be injected into the animal's esophagus or dripped into its eyes. Many of these cosmetics have been proven toxic when the mammals experienced convulsions or died. The practical effect of these tests was to prevent toxic or even deadly items from reaching the human market.

Animal research has led to vaccines against polio, measles, mumps, diphtheria, whooping cough, and rubella. It has led to cures for smallpox effective diabetes treatment, and the discovery of at least three lifesaving antibiotics.

Surgery on animals has led to the development of techniques for implanting cardiac pacemakers, for reattaching severed limbs, and for transplanting hearts, lungs, kidneys, and liver. Animal research also produced the cure for acute lymphocytic leukemia in children.

The animals themselves also benefit from animal research. Such research has led to immunizations against distemper, anthrax, rabies, tetanus, and feline leukemia.

According to the 1988 National Academy of Sciences report on animal research, "Animal experimentation has contributed to an increase in average life expectancy of about 25 years since 1900," a claim backed up by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who estimates that animal research has added twenty years to the average person's life in the last two generations.

Despite PETA propaganda that claims otherwise, a 1988 American Medical Association survey found that 97 percent of the country's 570,000 doctors support animal research.

One interesting group that supports animal rights in general but opposes the radical animal-rights movement is iiFAR (incurably ill For Animal Research), Post Office Box 1873, Bridgeview, Illinois 60455.

Maltreatment of Farm Animals. Other cases of animal maltreatment are less justified in the eyes of animal-rights activists and probably in the opinion of a large segment of the public.

For example, since farm animals are not currently protected by Federal legislation, virtually any mistreatment short of outright intentional torture is tolerated.

From the age of three days, veal calves are commonly confined in 22- inch wide crates, and they are not allowed enough room to walk or to even turn around. Their constant liquid-only diet inflicts permanent diarrhea upon them. This and the fact that they never see the sun guarantees the desirable white (anemic) meat of the so-called "milk-fed calf."

But Why All the Fuss? There is undoubtedly a tremendous amount of cruelty inflicted upon animals in this country.

And why not?

If we, as a nation, have so callously displayed our disregard for the welfare of our own species through abortion, forced sterilization, infanticide, euthanasia, and genocide, why should we place a higher priority on lesser species? We should instead strive for consistency and become 'equal opportunity abusers,' with no particular regard for any species.

The public is constantly exposed to a parade of horrific visions of war, disease, and destruction on television while a large percentage of our people have obtained an abortion or assisted in obtaining one. We have become jaded by death. Why should we become excited about the killing of animals, even if such killing is cruel and entirely unjustified?

Mainstream Animal-Rights Tactics.

"We are trying to pretend that the environment can be handled by becoming again children of nature. You know children of nature today play electronic guitars. Every time I hear an anti-technology ballad sung on an electronic guitar with the latest amplifiers, I kind of wonder."

-- Professor Peter F. Drucker, who offered the nation's first college course on the environment in 1947.[17]

CPCs for Apes. As with most other movements, the vast majority of animal-rights groups and individuals employ legal, low-key means to protect various species of animals that are in danger, either as individuals or as a species.

For example, Alan Sweatt's San Antonio farm "Primarily Primates" houses about two hundred former pets and circus animals that were retired rather than euthanized. This makes his facility roughly the equivalent of a crisis pregnancy center.

Some of his apes had endured torment for years at the hands of circus trainers or sadistic and neglectful private owners. Sweatt invests considerable time in his attempts to "detraumatize" these animals, with impressive results.

"Rescue Missions" for Animals. There are many other parallels between the animal-rights movement and the pro-life movement. However, some of the illegal tactics routinely employed by animal-rights groups would never be tolerated if pro-life activists used them.

For example, it is common for the Animal Rights Front (ARF) and other groups to block hunters from entering Connecticut game preserves with their cars and bodies. If the hunters do manage to gain entry, the activists dog their heels all day and make enough noise to scare away deer and other game.

This is essentially the animal-rights equivalent of the pro-life "rescue mission." Yet no animal-rights activists have ever been hit with an injunction or a multi-million dollar Federal anti-racketeering lawsuit, and their activities are tolerated by police and game wardens.

Endangering People to Save Animals.

"Their tactics are clear. Work to increase the costs of research, and stop its progress with red tape and lawsuits."

-- Nobel laureate Dr. David H. Hubel.

Introduction. The most extreme "Meat is Murder" people, including such organizations as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), routinely break into and destroy research labs, vandalize veal farms and rustle cattle, and spray graffiti everywhere with virtual impunity.

Why is this behavior winked at by authorities?

Because animal rights is a 'trendy' Neoliberal cause.

Attempted Murder By Nail Bomb. The overt expression of the radical animal-rights viewpoint has sometimes taken murderous directions.

Leon Hirsch is a businessman whose company manufactures surgical instruments used in transplants. This company primarily tests these instruments on approximately 1,000 abandoned dogs annually. Hirsch, who has also received numerous death threats, found a remotely-controlled nail bomb outside his home in 1988. Experts say that this bomb would have killed him had it detonated. The perpetrator, Fran Trutt, pleaded 'no contest' to charges of attempted murder, possession of explosives, and bomb manufacturing.

Trutt received a sentence of exactly one year in prison.[18] Contrast this to the sentences received by pro-lifers who endanger only property : Four years in prison for Joan Andrews, who caused $215 damage to an abortion suction machine in Florida, and 20 years for Curt Beseda, who torched an Everett, Washington abortion mill. Nobody was hurt in these latter two incidents. The reason that pro-lifers receive much more severe sentences than animal rights activists who commit the same act is that the pro-lifers represent a more credible threat to an institution that the government is deeply committed to supporting: The abortion/population control complex.

In a separate incident, a bomb being transported by two Earth First! members exploded prematurely in California, and the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner immediately painted it as an FBI attempt on their lives.

A typical Earth First! magazine reads more like Soldier of Fortune : A single recent issue featured stories on activists sinking whaling ships, smashing computers and chainsaws with sledgehammers, destroying logging equipment, getting into fistfights and gun battles, getting blown up by bombs, and even performing the equivalent of a kamikaze mission by standing under falling trees.

Lab Trashing. It is interesting to examine the direct-action tactics used by animal rights activists to accomplish their goals.

Alex Pacheco, a charter member of PETA, got a job with research psychologist Edward Taub in Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1981. Taub studied monkeys under a National Institute for Health grant in order to try to find ways to allow stroke victims to regain the use of paralyzed limbs.

When Taub took a vacation, Pacheco provided false information to police that resulted in confiscation of all of the lab animals and the charging of Taub with 119 counts of cruelty to animals. It took Taub five years to clear himself of all charges in court, while the animal rights people continued to phone and mail him death threats.

On October 26, 1986, members of the Animal Liberation Front, which is listed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as one of the ten most dangerous terrorist organizations in the country, broke into research buildings at the University of Oregon at Eugene and destroyed microscopes, an electrocardiogram machine, an incubator, a sterilizer, and an X-ray machine, and stole 150 research animals. More than a dozen projects were trashed, including neuroscientist Barbara Gordon-Lickey's research into visual defects in newborns.[19]

In 1988, animal-rights activists destroyed the epilepsy and Alzheimer's research laboratory at the University of California at Los Angeles. The leader of the responsible group received a sentence of 45 days in jail, with most of the time off for good behavior. None of the other 'raiders' were punished or even charged with a crime.

Contrast this to the 2-1/2 years actually served by Joan Andrews (mostly in solitary confinement) for damaging a suction machine in a Florida abortion mill, and multi-year sentences doled out to nonviolent, nondestructive pro-life rescuers on their third or fourth misdemeanor trespass conviction.

On April 3, 1989, the ALF broke into four buildings at Tucson's University of Arizona, smashed medical equipment, spray-painted graffiti like "Nazi" and "Scum," and stole or released 1,231 animals. They then torched two of the research buildings, causing $200,000 in damage. One of the 15 projects halted involved research on creating an effective disinfectant for Cryptosporidium-contaminated water that would save thousands of lives in developing countries. The ALF 'commandos' unwittingly released 30 mice infected with the virus, an incurable strain of diarrhea that is invariably fatal to AIDS patients and malnourished children.[20]

On July 4, 1989, members of the Animal Liberation Front broke into a Texas Tech University laboratory and destroyed more than $70,000 worth of medical equipment. They stole five cats being used by Dr. John Orem in researching Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), which kills more than 5,000 babies every year. The destruction wrought by the ALF halted Orem's progress entirely. Nobody will ever know how many babies died as a result of ALF's attack.

The ALF is particularly active in Great Britain, where its attacks occur on a weekly basis. For example, during the Christmas 1988 season, it firebombed and destroyed five department stores and fur sellers. Bombs were defused at two other sites. These actions may very well resulted in massive loss of human life. The ALF and the Animal Rights Militia have also taken credit for acts of arson that destroyed a San Jose meat company.[21]

Other Acts of Terrorism. The above acts are by no means the only anti-personnel actions that have been carried out by radical animal rights activists. Other violent attacks include the following.

* In June of 1990, a British veterinarian was severely injured when her car was bombed. An animal rights group claimed responsibility, and a member of the group who called in to a local radio talk show said that it was "unfortunate that she survived." An Animal Liberation Front caller on another show said of another researcher, "The sooner he is killed, the better."[19]

* Also in June of 1990, animal rights activists tried to kill a Bristol University researcher with a car bomb, but instead blew up a 13-month old baby in his carriage nearby. The baby survived with burns, shrapnel wounds, and a severed finger.[19]

* On May 2, 1980, a crew of U.S. Forest Service personnel were using backpack-mounted sprayers to apply herbicide to an area of young conifers in the Siskiyou National Forest. They were confronted with 80 angry environmental activists armed with knives and clubs, who promised to "split your heads." The crew attempted to escape, but was trapped by the mob. The head of the team shouted that they would end the spraying, saying later that "If I hadn't done it, someone would have surely been badly hurt or killed."[22]

* In May of 1982, ecoterrorists bombed four British Columbia Hydro 500- kilovolt transformers, causing $6 million in damage. Police received a letter from an environmental group that called itself "Direct Action," and which condemned 'patriarchy' and read "We must make this an insecure and uninhabitable place for capitalists and their projects. This is the best contribution we can make towards protecting the earth and struggling for a liberated society."[22]

* In May of 1981, radical environmentalists destroyed a $180,000 helicopter leased by Publisher's Paper Company for the purpose of spraying brush control herbicides on a commercial Douglas Fir plantation near Toledo, Oregon. A letter from the "People's Brigade for a Healthy Genetic Future" claimed responsibility.[22]

* In January of 1981, ecoterrorists destroyed Montana Power Company's timber-truss Franklin Bridge, the only vehicular access to the Rattlesnake Wilderness and National Recreation Area.

* Earth First! member Judi Bari, a pro-abort who has tried to disrupt pro-life events in the past, was blown up when a nail bomb she was transporting in her car detonated while she was driving it. She claimed that she had no knowledge of the existence of the bomb in her car, and blamed it on a (conveniently unnamed) "right-wing fundamentalist with a history of violence."

The 'Ecotage' Phenomenon.

Introduction. As described above, some extremist animal rights activists and environmentalists attempt to murder human beings, an activity that is rightly classified as 'terrorism.'

Other environmentalists engage in 'ecotage' or 'monkeywrenching,' which is the destruction of equipment and supplies used by loggers and other groups that present an immediate perceived threat to a specific segment of the ecosphere.

These activities are not intended to harm human beings.

To make the difference more understandable to pro-lifers, clinic bombing is the anti-abortion equivalent of 'ecotage.' Any attempt to kill or mutilate abortionists would properly be classified as murder or terrorism. Of course, all pro-life activities (even silent prayer) have been labeled "terrorism" by pro-aborts, and this propensity for exaggeration has muddied the waters considerably.

Origins of the Submovement. Many animal rights/environmental extremists point to Edward Abbey's 1975 book The Monkey Wrench Gang (a action-adventure novel about a band of "ecoteurs") as the spiritual beginning of their movement. This is reflected in Earth First!'s motto, "No compromise in defense of Mother Earth!"

Advocating Destruction. Not only do some animal-rights activists destroy property and endanger lives, they proudly revel in the resulting publicity and urge others to violent action in their publications.

The Anarchist newsletter Business As Usual parrots the same Marxist psychobabble that the extreme Neofeminists do: "Real freedom in our lives cannot be achieved without the massive escalation of attacks on the capitalist system of oppression."[23] The magazine proudly lists dozens of attacks on department stores, supermarkets, and fast-food outlets that its writers judge to be supporting cruelty to animals.

Edward Abbey (mentioned above) claims that "I'm not advocating illegal activity, unless you're accompanied by your parents -- or at night."[22]

And David Foreman, founder of Earth First!, says that "I would not encourage anyone to monkeywrench; that is an entirely personal decision. More importantly, I would not want to discourage anyone from monkeywrenching. Those willing to commit ecotage are needed today as never before."[23]

Substitute the words "bomb abortion clinics" for "monkeywrench" in the above quotes, and then imagine how the environmental/population control people would react!

It is not only individual environmentalists who advocate and encourage destruction of property. The 25,000 member group Environmental Action sponsored an 'ecotage' contest, where participants wrote up their ideas and submitted them. The group published the best ideas from the contest in its 1971 Pocket Book Ecotage! [22] George Foreman also published a book entitled Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching , which contains chapters on road and tree spiking and the destruction of bulldozers and aircraft.[23]

What would the reaction of the media be if radical pro-lifers published a Clinic Bombing Manual for Babysavers?

Is there really any doubt?

No Fur-Wearers, Please. A popular target of animal-rights activists are fur-wearing women. For example, Trans-World Unlimited sponsors "Fur- Free Friday," an annual New York City parade that has for years been led by talk-show host Bob Barker. During this procession, participants routinely assault and spit on women wearing fur coats. Furriers have had their windows smashed and their property vandalized; in one instance, animal- rights vandals slashed and destroyed $400,000 worth of furs.

This type of activity clearly violates the Neoliberal 'Prime Directive' of consistency because, as Utne Reader author Richard Ryan points out;

"It's not hard to see that the attacks on fur-wearing females (as opposed to leather-wearing men) play simultaneously on cheap populism and cheaper sexism. You can scream at women in mink coats emerging from ritzy department stores and be fairly certain they're not going to physically retaliate ... It would be more interesting to watch zoophiles gathered in front of a biker bar, hollering slogans at the leather-sporting clientele as they swagger up to their Harleys.

"But we're not likely to see that anytime soon, are we?"

No Condemnation. It is significant indeed that none of the 'mainstream' environmental groups like the Sierra Club or the National Wildlife Federation have ever condemned either specific acts of ecotage or the practice in general.[22]

If we use the logic of pro-abortionists -- that any pro-lifers who do not vigorously condemn clinic bombings in fact support them and are therefore also contributing to "an atmosphere of intimidation and harassment" -- we may also conclude that the mainline environmental groups support eco-terrorism.

The Role of the Media.

Despite their terroristic tactics, the ALF and other organizations are often lionized in the press. Contrast this to the American media's treatment of people who take pains to destroy abortion mills when nobody is present.

As additional evidence of bias, the media simply will not tolerate any depiction of the results of the act of abortion itself. In nearly one hundred documented cases from all over the country, pro-lifers have attempted to purchase advertising that features graphic photographs of aborted preborn babies -- and, in the vast majority of cases, they have been turned down, because, as the media censors say, such material is "in bad taste."

Curiously, the media seems to have no trouble at all in publishing garish photographs of current war scenes, the effects of the atomic bombs on people at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or even of dead Jews stacked like cordwood at Nazi concentration camps in the aftermath of World War II.

And the 'mainline' media also accepts for publication the most graphic and revolting imaginable photos proffered by animal rights groups;

* A graphic ad in the April 16, 1989 issue of the New York Times , paid for by the International Wildlife Coalition, featured closeup photos of butchered elephants. The title of the ad was "African Chainsaw Massacre." A nearly identical photo by the African Wildlife Foundation in their Times (Sunday Edition) ad of February 12, 1989, showed an extreme closeup photograph of an adult elephant with the entire front half of its head hacked off. This ad was entitled "Today, in America, Someone Will Slaughter An Elephant -- For a Bracelet."

* Another popular ad featured in many major newspapers showed a monkey apparently being stretched and crushed to death by a crude mechanical apparatus. This ad, entitled "Dear President Bush: Animals, Too, Need a Kinder, Gentler World," was signed by, among many others, Paul and Linda McCartney, Doris Day, Ryan O'Neal, Abigail Van Buren ("Dear Abby"), John Denver, James Coburn, Kim Basinger, Loretta Swit, Angie Dickinson, Ali MacGraw, Telly Savalas, Whoopi Goldberg, and Elvira, many of whom regularly march for "abortion rights."

* "Citizens for Environmental Responsibility" displayed a color photo of a dead, oil-caked seal in their April 24, 1989 Washington Post "Boycott Exxon" ad.

The Environmentalism/Abortion Link.

"Every time you turn on an electric light, you are making another brainless baby."

-- Environmental activist Helen Caldicott.[24]

The Basic "Logic." It is curious indeed that pro-abortion groups hysterically denounce pro-life clinic bombers for endangering human lives, but support with their silence the destruction of research laboratories, massive endangerment of human life, and the release of deadly diseases by animal-rights activists.

There is compelling evidence that some animal-rights activists truly believe that the life of an animal is much more important than the life of a human being. For example, some animal-rights extremists condemn the "crime of vivisection" as immoral and unscientific, asserting that they would prefer experimentation done for the sake of human beings to be performed on human beings.

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