Thursday, April 21, 2005
When activism goes really, really wrong
The leader of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is standing by a board member who has spoken approvingly of assassinating people in order to protect animal life.
Paul Watson, who founded and remains the primary voice of the anti-sealing group, says he supports Jerry Vlasak, a California physician, who once told a conference that assassination would be an "effective tactic" against researchers who use animals in their experiments. Apparently the man in the photo below should have someone take a bat to him.
This story is just bizarre. It is one thing to disagree with an issue and protest it. For example, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) often come up with gimmicky slogans and use celebrities to make their point. It is, however, another to protest it (while condoning, even advocating, violence). There is a line where activism becomes lunacy and too many protesters often cross it.
Remember 1998 in Buffalo (this is just one of too many examples on this subject) when a doctor, who performs abortions, is gunned down outside his clinic? How about when students took a battering ram to a hotel where the government caucus was meeting?
Why can't more protests involve this instead of violence?
Paul Watson, who founded and remains the primary voice of the anti-sealing group, says he supports Jerry Vlasak, a California physician, who once told a conference that assassination would be an "effective tactic" against researchers who use animals in their experiments. Apparently the man in the photo below should have someone take a bat to him.
This story is just bizarre. It is one thing to disagree with an issue and protest it. For example, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) often come up with gimmicky slogans and use celebrities to make their point. It is, however, another to protest it (while condoning, even advocating, violence). There is a line where activism becomes lunacy and too many protesters often cross it.
Remember 1998 in Buffalo (this is just one of too many examples on this subject) when a doctor, who performs abortions, is gunned down outside his clinic? How about when students took a battering ram to a hotel where the government caucus was meeting?
Why can't more protests involve this instead of violence?
# posted by Shaky @ 6:32 p.m. 
