Discovery Channel and the Real Eco-terrorists

Eco-terrorist is a label that has been thrown about to make those that try to protect the environment seem like fanatics; it doesn’t apply to all environmentalists of course but they do try to use the guilt by association tactic. The Mass Media ignores the real problem of the destruction of the environment and the related atrocities including wars for oil or other reasons that accompany it. Nor do the Mass Media put much attention to terrorism when it is directed at those that are trying to protect the environment. I have seen numerous reports of this over the years but most of them have been low profile and I can’t remember many sources off the top of my head. I tried to google environmentalist killed and was flooded mostly with stories about James Jay Lee; which isn’t surprising but going through to page 5-10 or more does turn up a few more important cases. A closer look will surely indicate that this is a much bigger problem than the Mass Media is implying. This is certainly because the Mass Media is controlled by the same multinational corporations that are benefiting from the environmental damage. There are environmentalists all over the world that are being intimidated by terrorists and the Media isn’t paying attention. This usually happens in the third world where people have little or no political power and the big corporations often work with other less scrupulous groups to do their dirty work. They are like the Corleone family who has lots of “buffers.”

This is an incredibly successful misrepresentation of the term Eco-terrorist. They even define it this way on Wikipedia without much if any attempt to inform the public about those that are being terrorized not because they are destroying the environment but because they are trying to protect it. The official Eco-terrorists for the most part are involved in the damage of property not terrorizing people. There are a few exceptions like James Jay Lee of course but they are very rare; not nearly as common as those that intimidate the environmentalists and receive little or no coverage from the Mass Media. This doesn’t even count the enormous amount of damage being done by the multinationals to the environment and the enormous amount of people dying as a result of this damage. One of the highest profile movies about this subject was “Fire on the Amazon” staring Sandra Bullock. This shows how people were terrorized in the Amazon when they tried to protect the environment. This may have been based on a true story or at least inspired by many. This is a rare look at the subject which has been almost fort=gotten by most people. Of course there is a more popular one starring Julia Roberts in “Erin Brockovich. This wasn’t so much about terrorism although there was some intimidation. The difference seems to be the fact that this happened in the USA and the corporations knew they couldn’t rely on terrorist activities. It may seem shocking to think that corporations rely on terrorist activities; that isn’t the way we usually think of them. However it shouldn’t. Many of the most powerful multinational corporations use these tactics on a regular basis abroad however they use other organizations to do their dirty work and in many cases when it suits their purposes they rely on the US military.

Now a week after the incident at the discovery channel the attention from the Mass Media has dropped off already. They did little or nothing to determine if he had any legitimate complaints. A close look at his manifesto indicates that he doesn’t present himself very well and even if he does have legitimate complaints it will be easier to figure them out for yourself than to rely on him to define them. The use of the term Manifesto which the Media adopted can also be misleading; this goes back to the communist manifesto which was portrayed as fanatical. This needs work as well but it wasn’t fanatical; a manifesto just means they put their ideas down in writing; it doesn’t automatically mean they are bad ideas although the Media only attaches this term when they want to demonize something. At the same time they have reported on several environmental disasters and treated them as isolated incidents. They have done little or nothing to determine if there is a trend or to examine the cumulative effect of all the damage that is being done to the environment. When they discuss Global Warming or climate Change they spend much more time discussing the controversy then they do trying to sort the details out. They have more than enough information to know that there is an enormous amount of damage being done and the impact on the majority is devastating in more ways than one but those in power benefit from the business that profit from the industries that destroy the environment. They continue doing nothing to try to inform the public about many of the most important issues that affect the public.

This is another example of the typical use of terrorism by the Mass Media and the government; if you use violence or something that can be portrayed as violence to challenge the powers that be you will be labeled a terrorist. However if the government or their allies uses much more severe violence to support their goals they’re freedom fighters or defenders of democracy whether or not this actually helps the public or advances democracy is irrelevant.

For articles on true Eco-terrorism:

http://groups.google.com/group/frontera-list/browse_thread/thread/2447fd0a4d4fb8fb
http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2004/712/
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0314-don_julio.html
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/entertainment/julia-roberts-to-play-shot-environmentalist-joan-root-in-biopic_10050007.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/wild-life-and-brutal-death-joan-root-filmmaker-ane-conservationist-449781.html
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070721/69398692.html
http://globalgeopolitics.net/wordpress/2010/08/27/mexico-environmentalist-peasants-seek-justice/
http://www.hcn.org/issues/21/610
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/ecology/JaredDiamond4.htm

For James Jay lee’s manifesto see:

http://www.savetheplanetprotest.com/

For related blogs see:

http://zacherydtaylor.blogspot.com/2012/12/environmental-apocalypse.html
http://zacherydtaylor.blogspot.com/2015/03/bp-is-just-tip-of-iceberg.html

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