Only days after the attack on the World Trade Center, I was solicited to join a terrorist group. I do not exaggerate – I was asked to contribute to, or to join, a fanatical leftist terrorist organization, recruiting not in some dark alleyway, but on the campus of my university. That group, of course, was Greenpeace, an organization since described by one of its co-founders as “a band of scientific illiterates who use Gestapo tactics” in enforcing their vision of environmental purity. There are groups far worse than Greenpeace, though, including the Earth Liberation Front, whose spokesman, Craig Rosebraugh, recently testified before Congress – or, rather, hid behind the Fifth Amendment rather than answer Congress’ questions. In written testimony, Rosebraugh “fully praise[d] those individuals who take direct action, by any means necessary, to stop the destruction of the natural world and threats to all life. Long live all of the sparks attempting to ignite the revolution!”
Ecoterrorism has been a growing concern for several years. Terrorists have destroyed university laboratories and genetically modified test crops. Incidents of “tree-spiking,” intended to cause injury or death to lumberjacks date back over a decade. And then, of course, there was the Unabomber, whose murder by mailbomb earned him a skit on Saturday Night Live, presenting him as the Cute Wacko at his college reunion party. (Curiously, SNL made no similar elbow-in-the-rib jokes about Timothy McVeigh.)
Terrorism isn’t just part of the environmental movement. The terrorist tactics of political correctness have been chroni-
cled by many journalists – college students are encouraged to shout down speakers who dissent from the “acceptable” line on affirmative action or multiculturalism. I myself once received death threats for an article I wrote in college liken- ing the racism of Louis Farrakhan to that of the Nazis. One reason I suspect the John Walker Lindh story has raised emotions to such a pitch is the discovery by many parents that their children are being essentially taught that such tactics are acceptable, so long as they are in the service of leftist causes. Immediately following Sept. 11, Professor Richard A. Berthold of the University of New Mexico sparked outrage
Only days after the attack on the World Trade Center, I was solicited to join a terrorist group.
among parents when he said “Anyone who can blow up the Pentagon would have my vote.” The terrorists who disrupt every meeting of the WTO – smashing the windows of Starbucks or McDonald’s – are college students whose professors have taught them to accept such “activism,” or even encouraged them to participate in it themselves. As a matter of fact, in February, an lS-year-old named Sherman Austin was found to be hoarding bomb equipment – and posting bomb-making instructions on a website – while he protested at the World Economic Forum. “Taliban,” we are told, comes from a word for “scholar.” It really is a small world after all.