The Big Picture

Some of you out there wonder why this site exists at all. Who cares about Boks, LAAS, ADL, ALF, Ferdin, SHAC et al, and regard them as a bunch of cranks of no import?

You would be mistaken. The ADL-LA and ALF and similar organizations across the country are the vanguard for a growing revolutionary movement that plans to radically remake this country by any means they think necessary. The ADL-LA/LAAS struggle locally is only one small arena where they develop new methods of extortion, terror and other ways of manipulating individuals, corporations and government.

As the website http://www.targetofopportunity.com/ correctly points out, corporations, AND local governments roll over and play dead when confronted by these organizations with their new array of revolutionary tactics. Brownshirt terrorism has morphed into cyberterrorism. The City of LA has, until recently, had no success in dealing with ADL-LA and ALF. The recent conviction of Pam Ferdin and Jerry Vlasak only gives them an opportunity to grandstand.

LAAS employees are harassed and many feel terrified. City officials have no overall strategy for dealing with these groups torn between freedom of speech principles, and the need to maintain order and peace.

You may think this means nothing, but it is not. It is a big deal and should be thought of that way. The FBI considers animal and eco activists the second most dangerous groups of terrorists in the country, even ahead of all the right wing, neo Nazi, Aryan Brotherhoods, KKK types. Why is this? Because they use the concept of animal rights as an excuse to form increasingly effective networks of budding revolutionaries. Most everyone loves animals and hates abuses and cruelty. They have a locked in and highly impassioned power base and appeal.

If there is any doubt about the growing power networks of these groups, we only have to look at their advisory boards; they are filled with celebrities that tinny-minded people think are second only to the Pope or Bill Gates in terms of being role models and founts of knowledge.

On the Advisory Board of Sea Shepherd Society alone, we find Pierce Brosman, Martin Sheen, Richard Dean Anderson, Linda Blair, James Cromwell and Rutger Hauer just to name a few. PETA has five times as many celebrities involved in various capacities.

Jerry Vlasak has been and probably still is involved with all of the players in these organizations.

Personally, I think the country needs MAJOR changes. I think animal rights and welfare should be a central core value along with universal health care, a more egalitarian distribution of income and educational opportunities, control over corporate power and abuses, reversing the Republican rapacious destruction of the environment, and financially re-invigorating government in the role of enabling and helping people, after years of Republican starvation.

But, we are dealing with revolutionaries where the raison detre is animal liberation, a noble purpose I share, but implementation is through tactics and strategies that hurt and kill animals in ways that animal welfarists do not. An example is ADL-LA/ALF actions against Ed Boks. This is training for them, a pseudo cause to crystallize and refine political action, but acting in ways that impede rapid progress towards No-Kill.

The real question YOU need to ask is do you want to ignore them and see what happens? Do you want to join THEIR revolution, because it will never be yours, they have set the agenda and appointed the key players? Or, do you want to oppose them by stomping them while they are still small and uncoordinated? This would be the Republican approach so deftly refined by the Ashcrofts, Cheneys and Bushes.

Then again, if they are suppressed, without these radical leaders, how does one make change? How can we really help the animals in both the short and long term? What are the alternatives? How do we expand the cracks within and between ruling ideologies and competing power structures to create real change given the Weltanshauung of indifference and helplessness?

Is it to be a revolution from below as has fueled most revolutions in the past, a coup led by Lefties likeDean andGore, will it be a spiritual struggle that lasts many lifetimes, or will it never happen at all? You decide.