By Selwyn Duke
Well, it's about time. PETA, which stands for "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals" is finally coming under scrutiny for being a supporter of terrorism. Critics of the group are calling for the termination of its tax-exempt, non-profit status. While PETA has long been involved in nefarious activities, it has been difficult to pin anything on it until the discovery of "a smoking gun:" a $1500 donation that PETA made to ELF [The Environmental Liberation Front]. The FBI states that ELF is one of the largest domestic terrorist groups, with numerous cells operating throughout the country. ELF has perpetrated acts such as burning down buildings and blowing up SUVs; in fact, it has claimed responsibility for torching a ski resort in Vail, Colorado, and a US Forest Service laboratory in Pennsylvania, causing $12 million and $700,000 in damage respectively.
Of course, violence and vandalism perpetrated by left-wing extremists is nothing new; from fire-bombing a MacDonald's restaurant and fur stores to spiking trees so as to cause injury to lumberjacks, the American landscape has been rife with examples of violence committed in the name of liberal causes. The extent of this violence may come as a shock to many people though, and for good reason: the media have once again violated their mandate to bring people the Truth - instead, they've been suppressing it for the purposes of buttressing their liberal agenda. If you don't believe me, just consider the amount of exposure this story has gotten from the mainstream media, and contrast that with what would happen if the transgressing organization were the Christian Coalition or the National Rifle Association. Could you imagine the hue and cry that would ensue if one of these two conservative entities had given money to a terrorist group? If this happened, I can assure you that the Sam Donaldsons and Cokie Roberts of this world would be likening the group to the Taliban.
Yes, there is a tremendous media-driven double-standard with respect to this, and it's never more evident than in their coverage of pro-life movement inspired violence. Whenever a violent act is committed at an abortion clinic it's disseminated to the ends of the earth, while we hear nary a word about the far more numerous acts of environmentalism inspired violence. It's not hard to understand why the media behave in this manner; after all, the media are composed mainly of liberals who have sympathy for liberal causes and animosity for conservative ones. Consequently, they want people to believe that most all violence emanates from the right and that the left is just as peaceful as a dove. They do this for two reasons: it serves to discredit conservative causes and lend credibility to liberal ones, and it causes people to advocate using the law to clamp down on these "dangerous" right-wingers. Case in point: because of the disproportionate amount of attention paid to violence at abortion clinics, we now have a law dictating that you can't protest within 100 feet of one. Think about it: you can protest in front of any establishment you wish EXCEPT an abortion clinic - this is an unfair double-standard that I believe is un-constitutional, but regardless, it is the handiwork of our propagandizing media. I'm sure they're very proud of themselves though, because they and their radical-environmentalist friends like PETA have a lot in common. For instance, the media don't really care about the fate of unborn babies, and as for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, well...they're not much for the ethical treatment of people - some of their representatives have actually claimed that a baby has no more of a right to live than a rat.
Another example of the media's double-standard was their behavior when reporting on the Timothy McVeigh/Oklahoma City bombing incident. They actually went so far as to pillory talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy for possibly having inspired such acts with their anti-government rhetoric. Ok, now you may say that's entirely possible, and I may even agree - after all, everything we say and do can influence others. But, if this is the case, then the media should have taken Al Gore to task in the same measure. What am I talking about? Well, you may remember Ted Kazinski - otherwise known as the "Unibomber." In his little shack in the woods they found a number of books, among them being Al Gore's work "Earth in the Balance" with a number of passages highlighted - we didn't hear much about this though. But, again, it's easy to understand why the media wanted to sweep this under the rug as much as possible. You see, McVeigh was a right-winger and the Unibomber was a left-winger, and they dislike Limbaugh and Liddy but like Al Gore.
As I have said before, the mainstream media are shameful in their failure to do their all-important job. By injecting editorializing into what should be hard news for the purposes of targeting opponents, they have forfeited any claim to legitimacy. They behave no differently than an eight year old who snitches on a classmate he doesn't like, while saying nothing about someone he does like who's guilty of the same thing. Don't misunderstand me, the media's job IS to snitch on people, but they're supposed to demonstrate a little more maturity than an eight year old and do it in an even-handed manner. The only good news here regarding the news is that the mainstream networks have seen their ratings drop precipitously, as cable and alternative arms of the media have made inroads into their territory. I hope this continues, because the only way to put an end to their insidious charlatanry is to turn the dial. We must demand journalistic integrity and refuse to lap up the Joseph Goebbels-like propaganda that the media elite wants to spoon feed to us.
