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I thought SF was still the left-leaning, animal loving, hippy city it was when I lived there, but today' editorial in the SF Chronicle leads me to believe that psychologically they are in the same boat mentally as Cleveland or Oklahoma City.
Get this, they are for declaring war on the animal rights terrorists who are disrupting scientific research that helps everyone, and further stomp on our First Amendment and Fourth (I think) rights to free speech and privacy.
The Editorial:
For all the national chatter that persists about international terrorists striking the United States, this weekend's firebombings in Santa Cruz offered us a frightening reminder that our greatest dangers may be right here at home.
The perennial nature of these attacks on scientists who conduct animal experiments, and the increasing sophistication of the devices being used to attack them, speak to catastrophes in the making. But where is the outrage, and where are the wars to protect scientists like Feldheim?
We're not talking about real, actual wars - we've got enough of those already. But Feldheim was right to say that the citizens of Santa Cruz and the city's elected officials need to "step up" and condemn this sort of violence. We would expand the scope to say that all citizens and elected officials need to be emphatic in saying that this is unacceptable and step up their willingness to defend scientists struggling to do their research.
For example, why didn't the Santa Cruz coffee shop remove the threatening animal-rights pamphlet that listed the names and addresses of 13 researchers - and call the police? Why can't Internet service providers threaten those who post threats, bomb recipes, and information about animal researchers with cessation of their services - and then follow through with that threat? And where are the moderate voices in the animal-rights community, when they're needed to straighten out someone like Dr. Jerry Vlasak of the Animal Liberation Front, who didn't claim responsibility for the attacks but called them "necessary?"
If these seem like drastic maneuvers, think again: This country has taken far more invasive steps in its "war on terror," with less productive ends and far less justifiable means. Here what's at stake is the ability of scientists to do their jobs - and the ability of the rest of us to benefit from their work.
Quietly, for many years now scientists have been abandoning their research in response to threats and bombs. These kinds of attacks place public health at risk in every way imaginable. The sooner we take steps to protect our scientists, the sooner we'll realize we're also protecting ourselves.
Commentary:
Notice how the editor claims a Molotov Cocktail is an "increasingly sophisticated device." A Molotov Cocktail is a glass bottle filled with gasoline wrapped in a burning rag. Hmmm. Maybe that is sophisticated for someone in Cleveland.
It is also very interesting to note--and I don't know how true it is--that "scientists" have been abandoning research in response to threats and bombings. Notice the editorial makes no mention of what kind of scientists these are they want to protect, or what their research entails.
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You terrorists don't like it much when the grown-ups threaten to discipline you, do you?
ReplyDeleteGeez Ed. Your not sounding very peaceful today. What would your pajama clad Zen buddies think of that.
ReplyDeleteLA ACO
According to the LA Times, about one of the scientists targeted:
ReplyDeleteUCSC biologist David Feldheim, whose Village Circle home was targeted, performs research on mice to understand how brain connections form during development. Feldheim and his wife and two young children escaped their house on a fire ladder from a second-story window.
The Chronicle's article did not mention Feldheim's full line of animal research.
ReplyDeleteEd is correct. The people who spend their time (and very likely our money) coming here to call people exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech "terrorists" are uniformly uninterested in what these scientists are actually DOING to the animals.
ReplyDeleteSo, unconscionably enough, are the so-called "reporters" who might as well drop the pretense and take the payoffs for reporting only the corporations and universities' version of the story.
No one goes after these "scientists" for no reason. And NO ONE starts with violence. They start with letters and phone calls and protests. They show pictures of animals being shocked, and poisoned, and vivisected so you can have minty-fresh breath and a shiny car. Then they see that these corporations know FULL WELL what they are paying their "scientists" to do. They know that the LD-50 test means shovelling enough poison into a group of animals that half of them die, i.e. "Lethal Dose - 50 PERCENT"
People resort to violence or threats of violence only in desperation, after their calls to conscience are IGNORED by people with no conscience, who are only interested in raking in enough corporate subsidies and government grants to support their little lifestyles - with no regard to the pain and death their spurious "experiments" cause.
I'm guessing those scientists' children think animals right activists are bad, scary people right now. But someday, just like O.J. Simpson's kids, they are going to realize who the real killers are, who the really bad, scary people are -- and Mom and Dad are going to have to explain how they were morally justified force-feeding mice and rabbits and cats and monkeys and dogs poison, or cutting them open, or shocking them, or poisoning them with tobacco.
Good luck on that day, when the kids finally see Mom and dad for what they really are.