Environmental and Animal Rights Extremism, Terrorism, and National Security

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Environmental and Animal Rights Extremism, Terrorism, and National Security

Elzbieta Postuszna

ELESEVIER

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Acknowledgments

The majority of the ideas included in this publication were elaborated during the realization of a research project dedicated to single-issue extremism and terrorism carried out under the leadership of Dr. Jacek Posluszny and financed by the Polish National Centre for Research and Development, and earlier by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland. I would like to thank him for inspirational discussions and critical reviews. Although our assessment of many aspects of the phenomena discussed in this book often differed tremendously, the polemics we had have greatly contributed to my research and still make me critically think about some of the theses included in the book. The opinions, reflections, and conclusions I arrived at were presented in numerous lectures and publications on problems related to Security Studies in the period 2004-2013. This book closes a certain phase of my work on issues linked to single-issue extremism and terrorism from the perspective of the research on security of the social status quo. This enclosure opens a new perspective — a critical one.

Introduction

Extremist trend in the broadly understood ecological movement occurred in the second half of the twentieth century. Of course, before that time there had been cases of violent acts committed in the name of natural environment and animal rights protection. They were, however, spontaneous and sporadic actions and did not lead to the creation of lasting organizational forms. The reasons for the emergence of environmental and animal rights extremism (given a general name of “ecological extremism” in this book) seem to be relatively different, although one can point at shared literary inspirations, which treated the issues related to animal and environment protection as one.[1]

The sources of environmental extremism should be looked for at the beginning of the 1960s. It was then that the existence of a correlation between increasing environmental exploitation and the growth of prosperity was questioned for the first time. Moreover, an awareness of the possibility of an ecological crisis began to disseminate among a larger public (especially in the United States). People began to realize that if this crisis occurs, it will present a threat to all species on earth. The emergence of ecological consciousness quickly resulted in particular actions of preservative nature. Already in the second half of the 1960s consumer movements in the United States started to loudly demand the right to “a physical environment that would correspond to the needs of the human organism and a high quality of life.” Numerous organizations sprang up like mushrooms with the goal to lobby for the natural environment. In spite of the movements’ intense activity, their actions did not bring the expected results. Anyhow, it did not satisfy all members, who more and more often demanded more radical forms of fighting for environmental preservation. As it seems, the turning point in the formation of green extremism was the 1979 Forest Service decision, called RARE II (“Roadless Area Review and Evaluation II”), to allot 36 million acres of forest land for commercial exploitation.[2] The decision was a great shock for some environmental activists because it not only demonstrated the lack of ecological consciousness of the agency, but it also showed the weakness of the traditional environmental organizations, which were unable or unwilling to defy it (due to, e.g., their connections with large corporations and governmental agencies, as well as considerable internal bureaucracy). In a burst of general discontent caused by that decision and adverse climate surrounding the “legal environmental organizations” many smaller and larger groups were founded, and their only goal were resolute (and not necessary legal) actions against rampant indifference toward the natural environment.

Among those groups, Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front became later the most famous.

In the case of extremism in fighting for animal rights, giving reasons for its emergence is not that simple, for it is difficult to pinpoint a turning point that could be regarded as the “ideological trigger” of animal rights radicalism. It is probably so because arriving at radicalism was rather of evolutionary, not revolutionary character - it was a consequence of progressively wide-ranging and audacious postulates regarding the broadening of moral horizons so that they would comprise all discriminated groups of beings, including those that are unable to articulate liberation slogans by themselves. The animal rights movement was born in the nineteenth century in England. And in spite of the fact that at the beginning the source of its motivation were not animals but humans - more precisely, their spiritual and moral development[3] - this “narrow anthropocentric perspective” was quickly abandoned in favor of full equality in respecting the interests of all animals (both human and nonhuman). This is how in the 1970s the heretofore most radical and at the same time the most conspicuous claim of the contemporary “liberation movement” was formulated - the claim stating that discrimination against a creature only on account of its species is a prejudice as immoral as racism or sexism. It is worth mentioning that contrary to environmental extremism, which was prompted by the awareness of ecosystems being endangered (hence, it may be considered in the categories of species’ struggle for survival), radical movement of animal protection came into being as a result of an altruistic in its nature and autonomous in its progress (although historically determined) development of moral consciousness (aiming at the broadening of the moral community).[4] In the second half of the twentieth century this development brought about a real outbreak of radical animal rights groups fighting for a total ban on exploitation and killing of animals. Among those groups, the Animal Liberation Front, the Justice Department, and the Animal Rights Militia became the most prominent ones.

Ecological extremism has not yet been defined in the subject literature. However, it can be defined as having, propagating, and realizing radical environmental or animal rights beliefs. There are, nonetheless, different terms used in the subject literature in regard to extremist activities of the groups fighting for animal rights or natural environment protection. Sean Eagan, for example, refers to both types of groups by interchangeably using three terms: (1) “environmental terrorism,” (2) “eco-terrorism,” and (3) “ecological terrorism,” which he (not entirely consequently[5]) applies to denote “an environmentally oriented subnational group [acting] for environmental-political reasons” (Eagan, 1996). Whereas other authors (Laquer, White, Liddick, Griset, Mahan), as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), use the term “ecoterrorism”[6] to describe the activities of radical animal rights and environmental groups.[7] Using a common term in relation to the actions of the protectors of the natural environment and animal rights (also known as animal liberationists) may be justified by the fact that many organizations of both types stay in close cooperation because their goals are in many ways convergent. In spite of that concurrence with regard to the goals and similar organizational structure, there are significant tactical and ideological differences between radical animal rights and environmental activists, which preclude their total convergence. This is probably the reason why many researchers (Mullins, Kushner, Bolz, Dudonis, Schulz) distinguish[8] between ecoterrorism understood as violence in defense of nature, and animal rights terrorism or animal rights groups terrorism defined as violence in defense of animals (Mullins, 1997; Kushner, 2003; Bolz et al., 2005).

It should be noted that the most important of such “ideological differences” (which at the same time is a criterion for distinguishing between environmental and animal rights extremisms) consists in different placing of values. Animal rights defenders see the value only in individually living and feeling beings, while environment defenders place it in the natural world as a whole. It is noteworthy that this difference has a significant practical importance. For animal liberationists, every animal possesses the inalienable right to live that should be respected by the human being. Environment defenders, on the other hand, permit killing animals by humans if, of course, it serves meeting their living needs (understood more or less broadly) and does not disrupt the ecological balance. The differences between the two types of groups pertain also to the attitude toward violence and the tactic that stems from it. Paradoxically (taking into account the fact that they allow the possibility of killing), environmental groups in their fight for “restoring ecological balance” use almost exclusively indirect violence based on ecological sabotage, whereas animal liberationists, apart from indirect violence, use also, although in a limited scope, direct violence targeted at humans (who as sentient beings do belong to the value universe, but under certain circumstances they can be excluded from it due to their “evil deeds”). (Table 1.1).

Table 1.1 The Division of Extremism and Terrorism with Respect to the Ideology and Relation to Violence

Ecological Extremism/Ecoterrorism
The division with respect to ideology and relation to violence
	Environmental extremism/environmental terrorism	Animal rights extremism/animal rights terrorism
The sphere of ideology The sphere of action	Holistic placement of values (killing is an ecosystemic element; therefore, under certain circumstances it should be allowed) Indirect violence (sabotage)	Individual placement of values (killing sentient beings is ethical evil) Indirect violence (sabotage) and direct violence (threatening, battery)

Source: Own elaboration.

Not all authors who write about radical animal rights and environmental groups are willing to use the term “terrorism” to describe their actions. Gus Martin, for example, qualifies the activities of both types of groups as “leftist single-issue extremism” (Martin, 2003a). Christopher C. Harmon also has serious doubts with regard to the sense of using the term “terrorism” in relation to radical animal rights and environmental groups. He believes that activists motivated by animal rights and environmental issues do not possess the inclination to carry out actions that are usually described by that term. The very character of their activities may be taken as an evidence for that - they do not aim at destruction of democratic order, nor do they support killing or any other forms of battery. Although they do cause fright by destroying property, their goal is not to arouse mass fear but to bring about the “disruption of actions” of certain classes of people (foresters, lumberjacks, entrepreneurs) and that way to induce a change in the politics of the government (Harmon, 2000). A similar opinion was expressed by Leonard Weinberg and Paul Davis, according to whom “an act of terrorism is not, as is sometimes believed, the same as ...the sabotage of public or private property” (Weinberg and Davis, 1996; Eagan, 1996). Bron Taylor also points at the inadequacy of the term “terrorism” in relation to the actions of radical animal rights and environmental movements. In his opinion, “despite the frequent use of revolutionary and martial rhetoric by participants of these movements, they have not, as yet, intended to inflict great bodily harm or death” (Taylor, 1998). Of course, the ones who protest the loudest against using the term “terrorism” are the activists of ecological groups. They believe that using this term to characterize actions not aiming at natural beings but at the unanimated ones, which are harmful to the former ones, is an abuse that stems from the anthropologically oriented moral perspective. This mindset creates the wrong perception of violence and terrorism, that is, as something that may occur only in reference to humans and their property and not as pertinent to other nonhuman beings. In the opinion of environmental and animal rights radicals, the rejection of anthropocentrism must necessarily lead to accepting that the “real terrorists” are not those who protect the “oppressed and persecuted beings” (nature and animals) but those who benefit from their “exploitation” (Best, 2004).

Obviously, the discussion on whether something is or is not terrorism may be reasonably led only based on clearly established criteria of that phenomenon or on a well- constructed definition.[9] The problem is, there are many such criteria and definitions[10] and there is no consensus (both in the academic and political circles) as to which of them could be regarded as commonly accepted. A way to tide over this definitional and terminological impasse is to call for statistical analysis to itemize the most frequent elements in dozens of existing definitions. In their book Political Terrorism, Alex Schmidt and Albert Jongman developed such statistics on the basis of 109 most often accepted terrorism definitions. The components that occurred consistently, as it transpired, in over 50% of definitions were: violence (83.5% of definitions), political character of the phenomenon (65% of definitions), and fear (51% of definitions) (Schmidt, 1988).

Will we find all those elements in the ecological radicals’ actions? An attempt to answer that question is not as simple as it may seem. (It necessarily depends on various worldview judgments, with which one approaches the activity of the animal rights and environmental movements). Among the aforementioned elements only the adjective “political” seems not to raise any doubts or controversies. It is a fact that the ecological radicals’ actions can be understood only in the context of the political goals they strive for. However, it is worth mentioning that these goals are not always deep social or political transformations. Sometimes they simply come down to introducing certain legislation (such as the ban on any kind of violence toward animals).

Quite controversial could be, however, the issue of using violence and fear by ecological radicals. The activists themselves think that their actions are not based on violence, nor do they generate it. The idea behind those actions, they claim, is ecological or animal rights sabotage that is not aimed at people or any other forms of life but only at unanimated objects (machines, billboards, high-voltage lines, buildings, equipment) with the help of which “life is being terrorized and destroyed.” Another reprehensible abuse, they believe, is the opinion that they consciously and willingly disseminate fear, which is a reason why public opinion treats them as terrorists. This opinion, they claim, is both wrongful and false because the goal of the “truly dedicated animal rights and nature protectors” is not to cause negative emotions of that kind but to make people aware that if they do not give up their malefic activities, “their working conditions will degrade” and the profits will decrease considerably (Bernstein, 2004).

Should we really believe ecological radicals that their activities have nothing to do with fear and violence? The question about fear being an element connected with certain actions is in fact a complex one and touches upon two issues, which can be best expressed by the following questions: whether raising fear belongs to the scope of the goals the radical environmental and animal rights groups want to achieve, and whether these groups’ actions may lead to the emergence of such a feeling in people who are potential victims of their attacks? Since the first question is related to intentions, it seems quite difficult to give a precise and binding answer. Moreover, these difficulties can be deepened by the fact that contemporary ecological organizations are not coherent and centrally governed any more, but they are a network of loosely connected (or not connected at all) individuals and groups that function as leaderless resistance. In spite of these problems, it is almost certain, it seems, that at least some of the existing ecological groups consciously use methods that lead to intimidation. Contamination of products in supermarkets, sending razors supposedly infected with the HIV virus, threatening phone calls and letters are just a few of many examples of activities where the motivation of spreading fear is rather clear. It should be noted that a large majority of ecological radicals condemn acts of that kind and limit their own actions to sabotage. These actions, according to the assumptions of the majority of ecologically motivated saboteurs should be carried out with the compliance of all safety rules, that is, in such a way that no living being would be harmed or killed. However, in spite of the undertaken precautionary measures, it happens that serious injuries occur during the action, both on the side of saboteurs and noninvolved strangers. And that, independently of the saboteurs’ intentions, necessary leads to the development of fear and endangerment.

The question whether the activity of an ecological extremist is violence, or not, seems quite easy to answer based on the established definitions of violence. In literature on terrorism it is commonly accepted that violence takes place where a human being is attacked (direct violence) and where somebody’s property becomes the target (indirect violence). Many “official” definitions of terrorism also emphasize the need for such an understanding of violence. A definition coined by the FBI is a good example here: “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”[11] However, this kind of terminological decisions, although commonly accepted, cannot be fully satisfactory. Their basic drawback is equalization of individuals and groups that use only sabotage and carefully avoid harming other beings (both human and nonhuman) with those who turn to direct violence in the attempt to reach their goals. Such an equalization seems to be not only wrongful but also not fully semantically justified. Terrorism is not a regular term. This word brings about strong negative connotations; it is associated with horror, ruthlessness, and death, as well as with the necessity of undertaking firm and often brutal defense actions to counter it. Hence, using the term in relation to the groups that operate in accordance with the nonviolence principle not only causes the sense of certain inadequacy but it may also provoke actions that can trigger “true” violence from those relatively “moderate” groups, violence that will not be aimed at inanimate artifacts but humans. In this book, in order to avoid problems of that kind, I will use three terms: (1) terrorism (or ecoterrorism), while referring to actions of groups or individuals using direct violence; (2) sabotage (or ecosabotage), while referring to actions of those who use indirect violence; and (3) extremism (or ecological extremism[12]), while referring to both groups, as well as to those whose direct actions do not fall within any of the aforementioned terms but who are followers of radical ideas or ideologies.[13]

However, labeling the activities of animal and environment protectors as terrorism may also raise controversies due to another reason. According to some researchers of terrorism, violence, in order to be qualified as such, must be committed by an organized unit that possesses a sort of a nucleus of conspiratorial structure, as well as an identifiable leadership hierarchy (Hoffman, 2006; Friedland, 1992; Lodge, 1981). Of course, it is difficult to criticize definitional decisions. It seems, however, that such an understanding of terrorism is somewhat anachronistic. The changes that have taken place in the framework of organizational structures should, as it seems, incline toward a change in looking at terrorism, especially in terms of broadening the scope of the term in such a way that it would include a wider spectrum of phenomena than it used to.[14] Since the mid-1980s, with the development of new communication technologies, and later the Internet, the majority of secret groups (both terrorist and extremist) have started, mainly due to safety reasons, to resign from hierarchical and centrally governed structures in favor of looser structures, as decentralized as possible, and quite often truly horizontal, without clear governance or control centers. Many animal rights and environmental organizations (including the largest ones: the Animal Liberation Front, Earth First!, and the Earth Liberation Front) have also followed that path by giving up stable organizational structures and replacing them with the network structure - a loose configuration of small, autonomous cells (individuals or small groups) that are not managed by any governing or activity-inspiring decision center. Sometimes they have totally resigned from any form of governance and have introduced the so- called leaderless resistance. The autonomous cells themselves, which exist in the framework of network structures of leaderless resistance, have nothing in common with hierarchy or any other form of leadership. They are either egalitarian-oriented groups of activists (who often meet extemporaneously in order to carry out a particular action) or independent individuals who act alone and do not communicate with other proponents of the cause.

A number of doubts may also be caused by the classification of the activity of radical protectors of animals and the environment. The majority of researchers put it into the single-issue terrorism category,[15] or (less often) treat it as single-issue extremism.[16] There have been many attempts to define single-issue terrorism. At the beginning of the 1980s Alex P. Schmid and Janny de Graaf were among the first ones who put it forward. They defined single issue-terrorism as “ad hoc terrorism by one or a few individuals advocating coercively that the state grant some privilege to a group with which the terrorist sympathizes” (Schmid and de Graaf, 1982; Gurr, 1989). G. Davidson Smith (from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) proposes a somewhat different approach: “The term ‘Single Issue Terrorism’ is broadly accepted as extremist militancy on the part of groups or individuals protesting a perceived grievance or wrong usually attributed to governmental action or inaction” (Smith, 1998, 1990). Later authors did not use these rather general and thus imprecise characterizations and considered single-issue terrorism as different from other forms of terrorism due to its focus on resolving one particular issue.[17] David Veness (from the Metropolitan Police Service), for example, in his article “Single Issue Terrorism” defines it as follows: “Single issue terrorism may be defined as the adoption of the full arsenal of political violence towards the promotion of one political subject. This issue need not be strictly aligned to any political or religious ideology. Hence, supporters are narrow in their focus on the single issue but broad as regards the delivery of their message” (Veness, 1996). It is defined quite similarly by the analysts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation - probably the most experienced institution in counteracting the development of terrorism of this kind (mainly due to the fact that the majority of ideologically motivated violent acts classified as single-issue terrorism have taken place on US territory). In various FBI publications the following elucidation of that phenomenon recurs: “Special interest terrorism differs from traditional right-wing and left-wing terrorism in that extremist special interest groups seek to influence specific issues, rather than effect widespread political change. Special interest extremists conduct acts of politically motivated violence to force segments of society, including the general public, to change attitudes about issues considered important to their causes” (FBI, 1999).

Nowadays, within the framework of considerations on single-issue terrorism, not only extremist activities of animal rights and environmental activists are examined but also extremist activities of the defenders of the so-called “conceived life,” defined in the subject literature as “antiabortion terrorism” (Posluszny, 2005, pp. 16-17) (which is however not discussed in this book). Due to unknown reasons, wise-use terrorism, racist terrorism, and feminist terrorism, which, in fact, do focus (in their pure forms) on a single issue, are not included into the singleissue terrorism category.[18] In the case of antiabortion terrorism or animal rights terrorism it would be rather difficult not to agree with the claim that we deal here with a classic example of terrorism (or extremism) aiming at attaining one defined goal (single issue) - in the case of antiabortion terrorism the goal is obviously to introduce a complete ban on abortion; in the case of animal rights terrorism the goal is to grant animals the rights to life and development, which would be comparable to the ones human beings enjoy. Wise-use terrorism aims at reduction of environmental restrictions and racist terrorism at excluding racially different people form social life.[19] The instance of environmental terrorism is slightly different. In my opinion, not all organizations dabbling in that type of terrorism can be indubitably described as concentrating in their activities on one particular issue. For if we take a closer look at the tasks some radical environmental organizations want to accomplish, it becomes clear that although their goal is to protect the natural environment (in this sense they focus on a “single issue”), many of the activists believe that this goal will be reached when particular (usually very radical) sociopolitical transformations come into being, that is, when many various “concrete cases” are resolved. A good example of such an organization is, I think, Earth First! - one of the largest, oldest, and at the same time the most famous extremist environmental groups. In spite of the fact that from the world view perspective this group is of pro-environmental character, it does not limit itself to carrying out a single, narrow-ranged task. On the contrary, its goals include multifarious issues, like a ban on natural environment devastation, reconstruction of social awareness, a decrease of population growth, thorough reconstruction of society, or eradication of technological infrastructure. Due to the multiplicity of the goals and the fact that they concern the whole socio-political reality, not only its selected fragments, Earth First! (as well as many other extremist environmental groups) should be classified rather as one of the extremist organizations of the revolutionary (transformational) type, which aims for total changes in the world, than as the more modest single-issue type, which (according to the accepted definition) focuses on resolving one particular issue (Table 1.2).

Naturally, it should be remembered that all typologies are, first and foremost, tools used to sort out and explain the researched reality. It should be also remembered that they model and simplify at the same time - they are ideal models, which simultaneously clarify and distort the image of reality by introducing often arbitrary assimilation of various, although in certain respect similar, phenomena. The task of the researcher is, when possible, to avoid oversimplifying analysis and to look more carefully at such “mixed phenomena” that do not entirely fit into the idealizing model (Figure 1.1).

Although ecological extremism is a worldwide phenomenon, in this book I will concentrate mainly on its manifestations in the United States and the United Kingdom. This choice is prompted by two issues. First, these are the countries where ecological extremism was born and has been developing since; second, the large majority of source materials, including the subject literature, pertains to these countries.

Table 1.2 The Division of Terrorism in Respect to the Nature of Goals

Terrorism
Division with respect to the nature of goals
Multiple-issue terrorism	Single-issue terrorism
It is characterized by a comprehensive endeavor at transforming the society, at sorting out a number of issues Left-wing terrorism, e.g., the Red Brigades Right-wing terrorism, e.g., the Italian National Front Religious terrorism, e.g., Jemaah Islamiah National-religious terrorism, e.g., Hamas Environmental terrorism{1} Goals: restoration of wild areas, transformation of social consciousness in the ecological spirit, decreasing the natural growth, eradication of technological infrastructure, going back to the tribal way of life, e.g., Earth First!	It is characterized by an endeavor at sorting out one single issue Animal rights terrorism Issue: granting animals the rights comparable with those given to people, e.g., the Animal Liberation Front Antiabortion terrorism Issue: introduction of an absolute ban on abortion, e.g., God’s Army Wise-use terrorism Issue: lifting the bans preventing exploitation of the natural development, e.g., Yellow Ribbon Racist terrorism Issue: restoring the racial segregation, e.g., Ku-Klux-Klan Terrorism of a small part of environmental defenders Issue: countermining the development plans of the city of Tucson, e.g., the Eco-Raiders (In the past - feminist terrorism Issue: fighting for women rights, e.g., the Women Social Political Union, Rote Zora)

Ecological violence is neither a marginal phenomenon, nor is it on the decline. A constant growth in the rate of ecologically motivated crimes, their progressive radicalization, the diversity of their forms and manifestations, and a steady evolution of methods and tactics used by individuals and groups make it necessary to look at ecoextremism as a phenomenon that is dynamic and subject to change in time and space and difficult to be unambiguously defined. As such, it requires that the researcher not only employs interdisciplinary research methods but also adopts a broader security-oriented perspective.

Such an approach is fostered, as it seems, by the evolution that has taken place during the last two decades in the understanding of the notion of security within the international relations studies, especially within security studies. This evolution was determined, above all, by the transformation of the political reality after the fall of the so-called “bipolar order,” and, to a smaller extent, by the changes that occurred in security studies. It took place, as is commonly known, in several spheres: (1) in the sphere of the so-called content of security understood as a set of protected values (the direction of changes: the state - the society, its prosperity, quality of life); (2) in the sphere of perception of dangers (the direction of changes: military aggression - terrorism, natural disasters, economic breakdowns, ecological crisis); and (3) in the sphere of methods and means used for protection (the direction of changes - creating military potential - prevention, global political solutions, using special force units) (Madej, 2007).

Within security studies, comprehensive security conceptions, in the subject literature often described as realistic or traditional, came into existence directly after the Second World War, when a new cold war reality was being formed, concentrated around the threat of bipolar armed conflict. These conceptions were characterized by a belief about a state-centered nature of international relations, which were understood and defined almost exclusively in categories of military power. The content of the notion of security (that set of protected values) was, above all, the survival of the state (usually the national state) within the preferred borders, as well as maintaining the highest possible level of political independence. Such understanding of the notion of security had its consequences in regard to identifying a potential threat, which for the proponents of the traditional (realistic) conception meant, first of all, a danger of military aggression of other state or states (usually bipolarly subordinated), and that meant that resolving the threat of armed aggression became possible only by enlargement of armed forces and forming politicalmilitary alliances.

The end of the cold war and the collapse of the bipolar world order have undoubtedly changed the broadly understood environment of security, and in consequence, the understanding of the notion of security itself. As a result, the state-centered coldwar paradigm that treated the state as the only subject of security has been abandoned in favor of the multicentric approach.[20] This departure from the old paradigm meant broadening the scope of the protected values with values like prosperity and society’s quality of life, which cannot be fully secured by military means. That way, two contemporary partially complementary understandings of security have been formed: (1) hard security, which comprises mainly the military sphere, and (2) soft security, which comprises the demographic, cultural, economic, and ecological spheres. In time, more and more importance was attached to the second approach, what in consequence influenced the perception of potential threats now identified as terrorism, economic crisis, natural disasters, economic breakdown, or ecological crisis, rather than military aggression. The defense against them could not be built up only by enlarging the military potential. Broadly conceived prevention, global political solutions, or in case of conflict, the use of Special Forces units turned out to be a better solution.

The result of the transformations briefly described earlier is the broadening of the scope of the notion of security, especially in its subjective aspect that comprises the following spheres: military, political, social, economic, cultural and ecological, as well as abandoning the one-dimensional way of grasping it and adopting the holistic and multifaceted approach.[21] From the security perspective, it makes it possible to take into account various phenomena, which previously lay in the margins of security studies, or even outside of its scope. Undoubtedly, one such phenomenon is ecological extremism in its two manifestations, namely environmental and animal rights extremism, especially its most radical dimension - ecoterrorism.

The importance of the threats related to ecoterrorism is demonstrated by the fact that out of 112 attacks classified by the FBI as terrorist and mounted in the United States in 1986-2005, 57 were carried out by groups or individuals motivated by environmental or animal rights ideology (Figure 1.2) (U.S. Department of Justice, 2009, 2012).

In May 2001, the Director of the FBI, Louis Freeh declared before the Congress that the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front (the two most radical organizations of the environmental and animal rights profile) represented “the most active extremist elements in the United States.”[22] In 2005 John Lewis, the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI, in his testimony before the U.S. Committee on Environment and Public Works, pointed at the phenomenon of ideological radicalization that may lead the environment and animal rights activists to turn to direct violence, that is, intentional and open attacks on people.[23] The response to the threat of broadly conceived ecoextremism was adopting a number of legal acts such as the Animal Enterprise Protection Act (1992), the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (September 8, 2006), the Ecoterrorism Prevention Act (2004). As it seems, the importance the FBI appoints to the threats posed by ecoextremists stems not only from a growing number of attacks but also from two phenomena, which are dangerous for security: (1) the fact that those groups give up the traditional hierarchical structure in favor of leaderless resistance, and (2) more and more frequent occurrences of joining (by creating “loose alliances” with various other groups on the basis of common interests) with the anti-globalization movement. There is no doubt that such “innovations” within the extremist ecological movement (which can be a challenge for the services responsible to counter it) makes it necessary to work out new security strategies, at the national and the international level.[24] In order for such an elaboration to be possible, the very phenomenon must be thoroughly examined and probable scenarios of its development sketched - this is what I attempt to do in this book.

An initial analysis of the ecological extremism phenomenon serves as a base for formulating the research problem, which can be expressed by the following question: What is the nature of ecological extremism, what direction will it evolve in, and is it possible to distinguish some continual developmental tendencies?

The main goal of the book, the response to the research problem thus formulated - the explication of the sources, nature, and powers fuelling the development of ecological extremism - requires reaching four goals, closely linked to each other: (1) explaining the mechanisms governing the functioning of the extremist wings of the ecological movement, (2) identifying and describing the ideological, tactical, and organizational changes that have occurred in it, (3) recognizing the factors responsible for a rapid (during the last 25 years) increase of direct and indirect violence used by this movement, and (4) answering the question, which of the radical wings of the ecological movement (animal rights or environmental) and under what conditions may radicalize their actions in the future.

The summary of the goals just presented indicates that the book will be of both explanatory and predictive nature. I will try to present and explain the origin and essence of the described phenomena and processes, as well as to formulate prognoses for the future. It is worth mentioning that so far no comprehensive theory on ecoextremism has been created. Moreover, no one has attempted to apprehend ecoextremism in the context of other phenomena and processes (globalization, Internet wars, consciousness changes related to the protection of broadly understood nature, or the development of new information, and communication technologies). This book is meant to fill this gap.

The work is based on various sources,[25] which may be divided into several groups. The first group consists of scientific studies - monographs, anthologies, articles published in academic journals. It should be noted that in spite of the fact that the problem of ecological extremism has been gaining in importance, the subject literature is still not sufficiently rich. Indeed, there are a certain number of valuable studies (mainly articles) dedicated to particular theoretical issues and activities of specific groups (I refer here mainly to the works of Martha Lee, Bron Taylor, Rachel Monaghan, Robert Garner). There is a lack, however, of monographic studies, which would include theoretical grasps, or at least a coherent and complex description of ecoextremism, as well as a readable analysis of threats related to it (Donald R. Liddick’s Eco-Terrorism. Radical Environmental and Animal Liberation Movement is an exception to this rule - it incorporates an attempt at a description of the phenomenon that interests us here; however, it is not sufficiently comprehensive and deepened).[26] Apart from the studies dedicated to the issues of extremism and ecological terrorism, I also made use of a rich theoretical literature on the transformations that had taken place in the organizational structure (in functions, tasks, and communication of its particular elements), in the strategy and tactics of the secret groups’ actions, and the consequences of these changes for broadly understood security (the core of that literature are, above all, the works of John Arquilla, David Ronfeldt, Sean Edwards, Michele Zanini, Wayman C. Mullins, Jonathan R. White, Luther P. Gerlach). Numerous studies on globalization processes and their influence on the development of threats of terrorist nature also had a significant meaning for this book, both as a source of inspiration and knowledge (especially important were here the works of Brynjar Lia and Manuel Castells). In the second group there are reports of analytical centers, statistical materials, and published opinions of experts on terrorism. The majority of the reports were created by government agencies, such as the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In my work I also occasionally used reports issued by some private centers, although, always after a critical selection and analysis. The third group of sources, which I relied on a lot, were program and propaganda materials of particular groups and the so-called narrative sources: “testimonies” - confessions of anonymous members of the ecological movement, autobiographies, diaries, polemical writings, and memoirs. A part of these materials is being published on webpages, another part - in a traditional form, and yet another part was passed on to me in private e-mail correspondence. The next, the fourth group consists of the so-called document sources - official documents, court files, transcripts of trials and interrogations, as well as materials of the normative-legal and official nature. Under the last group come the press and agency materials. I use them very seldom, usually when I want to learn about the attitude of the media toward a given phenomenon or to confront several sources in order to check, for example, the information on the unfolding of an incident (unfortunately, there are many factual inaccuracies in many scientific publications - quite often they provide incorrect dates, places, number of participants, etc.).

Difficulties related to the content, scope, and the number of the aforementioned materials can be divided into two kinds: (1) witnesses’ reports and other sources of information often contradict with each other, sometimes due to the deficiency of human memory, and sometimes because people may intentionally bend the facts in one’s own (usually ideological) interest. (2) Quite often the authors (including academics) lack neutrality in their approach, which should be a feature of an objective researcher, and that often leads to a distortion of the actual picture of the phenomenon. Taking these into account, my task while writing this book consisted in identifying the most credible reports and data (on the basis of the knowledge about the author, their source of origin, the moment of their emergence, and socio-political circumstances), confronting them with other sources, and distinguishing the facts from ideological propaganda (related to the only “right” worldview held by a particular author).

In spite of the fact that the goal of my research was reaching an objective truth, in the process I have tried not to impose on myself in advance any universal methodological standards, which would later force me to formulate certain theoretical judgments, with regard, for example, the choice and number of the methods used, as well as the accepted theoretical conceptualizations. In the research practice it means adopting an attitude close to theoretical pluralism, but without the voluntarist anarchism characteristic to it. Such an attitude is defined, above all, by the openness to the multitude of alternative grasps of the research problems, which serve as both external standards of criticism and imagination extending “orientation points.” It is also defined by the fact that it allows the possibility to change the methodology, even while conducting the research procedures. A philosophical basis of this approach is the Feyerabendian view that bias is uncovered not by analysis but by contrast (Feyerabend, 2002). This is why the multiplicity of various methodological or theoretical approaches, even if they are adopted only for a while, will neither impoverish nor darken the final picture; on the contrary, they will enrich and clarify it by bringing in a particular epistemological perspectivism that allows to grasp the reality in the multifaceted light of truth. The consequences of adopting such a cognitive attitude in my research were twofold. First, I decided to go beyond a simple monistic perspective that inclines the researcher to depict the phenomenon from the point of view of only one discipline. Second, it was my intention to come up with a non-one-dimensional depiction that would be created through many dimensions and many domains, especially philosophy, political science, and sociology.

Ecological extremism is an extremely complex phenomenon. This is why, in the opinion of the author, the research perspectives cannot be of a homogeneous character but they must complement and interpenetrate one another. It is impossible, for example, to understand and therefore to appropriately conceptualize political aspects of the ecoextremists’ actions without an in-depth analysis of the philosophical and ideological foundations of their activities. This, in turn, requires a closer look at the transformations that have taken place in the social and moral (and also, to a lesser extent, technological) domains, and this translates into the necessity of entering other disciplines, like sociology, history, or cultural studies. The author believes that such a contravention of the “purity” of disciplines does not have to condemn the researcher to a superficial and flattened grasp of the topic. On the con trary - many significant theories and conceptualizations occur at the interface of various disciplines. Hence, limiting oneself in the research process to only one discipline and its proper research methods is necessarily connected with narrowing the cognitive fields, and therefore with a simplified grasp of the researched phenomenon. The author intends to avoid it.

The book consists of five parts. In the first part, I introduce the problematic aspects of ecoextremism and reflect on the sources of political violence, especially extremism and terrorism. The basis for my considerations are here both sociological conceptions, which try to explain the origins of these phenomena by a social structure, and psychological or “psychologizing” ones linking the inclination for persecuting with the existence of the phenomenon of subjective undervaluation. In this chapter, I want to present my own intake on extremism, which is based on the resentment theory.

The second part is dedicated to the phenomenon of animal rights extremism. In the first chapter, I try to show the development of the animal rights ideology from its origins, that is, the moment when the first shy attempts of including animals into the sphere of morality took place, up to the times of open articulation of demands for granting them rights and liberties comparable with those people retain. The second chapter is concluded with an analysis of the most radical beliefs of the animal rights nature included in the so-called Declaration of War. The second chapter contains the history of the origins and development of animal rights activism. I discuss in it, among other things, the emergence of animal rights activism, the most important legislative initiatives since the beginning of the nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth century (i.e., till the moment when first radical groups were established) and the appearance of two streams within the movement - “animal welfare” (fighting for the well-being of animals) and “animal rights” (fighting for their rights). Above all, however, I try to demonstrate how the animal rights movement underwent radicalization and new groups emerged, which were willing to undertake direct actions in the name of defending animals. In the third chapter, there are considerations and analyses of various manifestations of pro-animal violence. The chapter is divided into two parts. In the first, I try to show the methods and tactics of actions of the most important terrorist and sabotage animal rights groups, such as the Animal Liberation Front, the Animal Rights Militia, the Justice Department, and Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty. In the second part, I focus mainly on animal rights activists’ motivations, the ways they themselves interpret their actions, their relation to violence, organizational structure, and the impact of that structure on the strategy of actions.

The third part of the book is dedicated to the phenomenon of environmental extremism. The chapters it consists of correspond, in regard to the addressed topics, to those from the second part. Thus, in the first chapter, I will write about the emergence and development of the environmental ideology, about its most radical manifestations, and some of its socio-political consequences, which may be derived from it. The chapter is concluded with a reflection on the influence of radical ideas on the development of violence in the environmental movement. In the second chapter, there is a sketch of the history of the origins and development of the environmental activism. I discuss there, among other things, the most important legislative initiatives, which preceded and often determined it, various, often antagonistic visions of protecting the nature, and finally, the forming of the so-called radical current, from which environmental extremism arose in the second half of the twentieth century. The third chapter includes detailed considerations about the latter phenomenon. I will try to present and analyze there the way of functioning, the methods, and strategy for actions of the largest extremist environmental groups, such as Earth First!, the Earth Liberation Front, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, their relation to violence, the approach toward some social problems, organizational structure, and relationships with the revolutionary ideologies.

Parts four and five are, to a large extent, of both analytical and prognostic nature. I am mainly interested here in a diagnosis and closer circumscription of the developmental tendencies proper for ecological extremism. In the fourth part, in the first chapter, entitled “Leaderless Resistance and Internet Wars,” I will discuss the transformations that have taken place within the organizational structures due to the development of the new media (especially the Internet), and the consequences of these changes for the proliferation of ecologically motivated violence. (I discuss here, among others, the changes of moving from the traditional hierarchical and centrally governed organizational structures toward “looser” structures, as decentralized as possible, like chain network, nodes structure, all-channel structure, hybrid structure, or leaderless resistance). The second chapter is entitled “Lone Wolves - the Cases of Theodore Kaczynski and Volkert van der Graaf” and it complements these considerations. I discuss and analyze there the most dangerous example of leaderless resistance, namely the activities of the so-called “lone wolves” - entirely independent individuals, who act alone and do not communicate with other proponents of their cause. In the fifth part, in chapter one entitled “New Terrorism - Conditioning, Directions of Development” I will be examining changes in the sphere of security, which have occurred as a result of globalization processes and the development of new information technologies. I will be particularly interested here in the impact of the two processes on the tactics and methods used by secret groups. The second chapter entitled “The Future of Ecological Extremism” serves as a recapitulation. I will try there, on the basis of the acquired knowledge about the ideology, current methods of action, and the organizational structure to draft a future development of ecological violence. In particular, I will be interested in answering the question, which of the radical wings of the ecological movement (animal rights or environmental) may radicalize their actions in the future. The book ends with “Summary,” where I briefly report on the results of my research.

2. Extremism: A Theoretical Perspective

2.1 General characteristics of extremism

The term extremism comes from the Latin word “extremus” signifying the outermost, the furthest, the extreme. Its antonym is the center, usually understood as moderation. Extremism as a notion considered in the political domain refers to those beliefs and actions that are within the border of the axis reflecting a broad political spectrum with its center as a reference point (Tokarczuk 2004; Backer, 2004). Political extremism as such may be a feature of beliefs (ideologies and convictions) as well as a feature of behavior. In the first case it means professing some radical forms of thought; in the second, using radical (usually not socially accepted) methods and means.

Those who are willing to link extremism with a certain type of belief, usually emphasize its oppositional (antisystemic) character toward the convictions dominant at a given place and time, identified as the centrist (pro-systemic). Such perception of extremism makes it a relativistic category (Jakubowska, 2005, p. 12; Herbut, 2002). At a certain place and time some ideologies simply gain social support and become pro-systemic, just to later become, at a certain place and time, the subject of contestation as something that is essentially antisystemic (extremist). From that perspective, the pro- and antisystemic character of a given ideology is based on social popularity, measured by the number of its proponents and adversaries, and not on the content of the ideas that built that ideology.[27]

There are, of course, attempts to “go around” this relativism. One of them is Philip Tetlock’s conception, which is based on formal analysis (Tetlock, 1993). According to this theory, extremist ideologies, unlike the moderate (centrist) ones, are of a very simple structure. For they are based on only one value that has the overriding status in relation to all remaining values (e.g., egalitarianism, the nation, or God can be such values) (Durrheim, 1997). This value is usually absolutized and the beliefs related to it are acknowledged as the only right ones. Any deviations are perceived as wrong and harmful, which results in a low level of tolerance toward other competitive values. Proposals to solve social problems are also characterized by a low level of complexity. They have the form of a simple recipe, more or less directly referring to realization of the adopted paramount value (Jakubowska, 2005, p. 14). Moderate ideologies, on the other hand, are based on many equivalent, sometimes even contradictory values. This is why there is a natural inclination for tolerance, where moderate ideologies rule. Also, such ideologies usually do not offer any simple solutions to social problems.

Another attempt to avoid relativism is the conception of Milton Rokeach. Contrary to Tetlock, Rokeach focused, above all, on the axiology of radical ideologies. He analyzed the works of representatives of four political ideologies: communism, socialism, fascism, and capitalism, and came to the conclusion that all of them refer in some way to two values: equality and freedom. However, they do it differently. In socialism, both freedom and equality are regarded very high; fascism holds them both in low esteem. Capitalism considers freedom to be very valuable but does not appoint much significance to equality. Communism does not appreciate freedom but places a high value on equality. According to Rokeach, communism and fascism are extremist ideologies because they both negate freedom, which leads to limitation or even elimination of civil rights inherent to individuals (see Rokeach, 1973).

But extremism is something more than just a feature of ideology. It is also a characteristic of human behavior. As noted by Jakubowska, extremist behavior may take both the conventional form (when it occurs within the framework of institutions recognized by law) and the unconventional one (when it occurs without their agency). In the latter case, it can manifest itself as legal activity compliant with the binding legal norms (e.g., petitions, demonstrations), as well as illegal activity - taking place with violation of the law (occupation of buildings, illegal strikes, sabotage, terrorism). Of course, politically motivated legal activities, due to obvious reasons, are very rarely labeled as extremism - as opposed to illegal activities that contest the existing democratic political system (or a part thereof), notably those that are based on violence, and especially those of terrorist nature (Vohryzek-Bolden et al., 2001).

Among the researchers dealing with the phenomenon of extremism there is a rather common consent that extremism does not always have to manifest itself in radical political (legal or illegal) behaviors,[28] or even to be linked with a particular extremist ide- ology,[29] although it quite often is the case. In accordance with this conceptualization, extremism also occurs where the actors are not actively involved observers of political reality, which does not mean that they do not have a personal (usually based on strong emotions) relationship with it. Of course, in that case, extremism demonstrates itself as a certain attitude (style of functioning) that is based on the personality structure, rather than as a collection of some particular opinions or political behaviors. In favorable circumstances this attitude can be activated, which may, in turn, lead to adopting certain political beliefs (reflecting the personality structure) and taking corresponding actions; although, of course, it does not have to happen. Undeniably, it is difficult to provide a comprehensive characterization of the extremist attitude. Depending on the ideological option that a particular extremist is involved in, it may indeed look slightly differently. In spite of these difficulties, many authors have tried, independently of the content of the political ideology and the historical context, to distinguish a universal set of features that would help accurately characterize that attitude.[30] Among the features most often named in this context are the following:

1. Absolutizing own goals, beliefs, methods of action and not allowing any dissent from them;

2. Problems with the acceptance of ambiguity combined with a fanatic search for certainty;

3. Intolerance toward all other beliefs and attitudes but one’s own (denying others the right to be different in the sphere of beliefs and lifestyles);

4. Inclination to distort the beliefs of others by false rhetoric and logic, selection and censorship of information;

5. Rejecting all forms of critique;

6. Perceiving opponents as the embodiment of all evil;

7. Manichean way of perceiving the world;

8. Thinking in the “end of the world” categories (apocalypse, global crisis, ecological catastrophe, nuclear war).

2.2 The sources of extremism

At least since the 1930s scholars have tried to examine the sources of extremism, that is, who, in what conditions, and under the influence of which factors becomes an extremist. The first attempt to diagnose this problem was made by Wilhelm Reich, who in his work Massenpsychologie des Fascismus blamed the authoritarian society (i.e., one where hierarchy-based type of family and a strong repressive religiosity suppress natural sexual desires) for adopting extremist attitudes (which he identified as fascism and communism) by members of that society. In Reich’s opinion, family and religiosity, by means of restrictive commands and prohibitions, induce a strong sense of guilt, which leads to suppression of sex drive and the concomitant aggression. The latter, in a symbolic form, is given vent in certain extremist ideologies, such as fascism or communism, which allow the open expression of aggression toward some groups.

In the 1940s Reich’s ideas were developed in Erich Fromm’s psychodynamic concept of authoritarian character (Escape from Freedom, 1941). This theory presupposes that all mechanisms regulating human behavior are of unconscious nature and that early childhood experiences have a strong influence on shaping human drive structure, and as a result, on human behavior in various spheres of life, including the political one. Authoritarian character, according to Fromm, is a dynamic construct that is based on two complementary pursuits: on masochistic depreciation of one’s own value (selfaccusation, dwelling on the feeling of inferiority, the desire to subject oneself to authority) and a sadistic desire for domination over others (discrimination, exploitation, humiliation). In Fromm’s opinion, such character develops if the values important from the point of view of a given group are endangered, for example when a certain social class is in danger of impoverishment and degradation (this danger is usually experienced by an individual through the mediation of family). Authoritarian character, and in consequence adopting Nazism, which for Fromm is a form of political extremism, in such a situation become a form of defense against the sense of threat from the hostile and unfriendly world. Nazism allows for an unthreatened realization of sadomasochistic endeavors. The faith in the superiority of one nation that should rule the world and the negation of national minorities is a fulfillment of sadistic desires, and the submission to the superior authority (the leader) is a manifestation of masochistic strivings. Although the latter endeavor gives the sense of security, it also inclines one to the escape from freedom and one’s own self (see Fromm, 1994).

Fromm’s considerations of the roots of authoritarianism (equated by him with extremism) found their continuation in the research carried out by Adorno et al. (1969) (The Authoritarian Personality). In their analyses of the conditions shaping the authoritarian personality these scholars left aside the cultural and economic factors and focused mainly on the family and educational system. They believe the authoritarian personality, which later generates radical beliefs and actions, develops in the family where there is a special emotional atmosphere that directly stems from a clearly marked hierarchical structure (the superior role of the father, the inferior one of the mother and children) and from inflicting severe punishments by the parents. In such an atmosphere a child usually experiences a sense of hostility toward the parents (especially the father). However, this feeling is repressed due to the fear of punishment and the father figure is idealized. Thus, a positive image of the father develops, and later, in adult life, it is transposed onto certain authorities that represent political power. These authorities are, however, not random. The research carried out by Adorno and his coauthors showed that strong intensity of authoritarian qualities is closely correlated with the inclination to bias toward national minorities, with approval of hierarchy, with conservatism, and with excessive religious rigorism, that is, with qualities that induce adopting extreme right-wing political beliefs. This statement has been arousing controversy from the very beginning. As Jakubowska (1999, p. 154) notes, later research on authoritarianism suggested that right-wing and left-wing extremists may share similar mental characteristics; the differentiating elements occur only in different types of authority they are obedient to and in the object their hostility is targeted at.

The depiction of authoritarian personality created by the aforementioned researchers was criticized by the creator of the theory of dogmatism (see Rokeach, 1960, The Open and Closed Mind, who claimed that the scales for measuring authoritarianism that they constructed are to a large extend contaminated by a right-wing perspective (the focus on racial discrimination and hierarchical social and family relations) and on that account they can be employed only in relation to that perspective, not to, for example, communism, whose representatives showed low levels of dogmatism in Adorno’s research. Hence, the yield results may describe only radical right-wing antidemocratic ideologies, which undoubtedly limits the explanatory potential of the theory. The theory of dogmatism proposed by Rokeach was supposed to go beyond these limitations. In accordance with this theory, an individual may stand for democratic beliefs and be against racial segregation, and at the same time be entirely closed to other ways of grasping the world and be intolerant toward those who do not share their vision of reality. Dogmatism is a feature of human mentality that can be captured in the following categories: closeness (high level of dogmatism) and openness (low level of dogmatism). Higher level of dogmatism appears if the mind demonstrates inclination to perceiving the world in an undifferentiated way (especially with regard to beliefs that are not accepted), recognizing the world as something that is threatening (suspiciousness), narrowing the time reference to one time perspective (the past, present, or the future), as well as idealizing authorities and avoiding critical analysis of one’s own beliefs. According to Rokeach, there is a much higher level of dogmatism in the case of left-wing and right-wing extremists, than in the case of nonextremists (although right-wing extremists are much more dogmatized). The most visible consequence of that fact is closeness to new information and experiences or seeing the world in the black or white categories. Rokeach saw the sources of dogmatism and, in consequence, extremism, in the fear that appears in certain particularly defined educational circumstances. These conditions are characterized by rigorism and social homogeneity.[31] Rokeach’s research also demonstrated that the level of dogmatism is dependent on whether the child is subject to the influence of the closest family only (parents, guardians), or if the child can acquire patterns of behavior from people outside of that circle. The more people the child identifies with, the smaller the level of dogmatism in their future life.

Another noteworthy attempt to understand the roots of right- and left-wing extremism is the concept of tender- and tough-mindedness formulated by Hans Eysenck. According to him, tough-mindedness is connected with the occurrence of features, such as focusing on concrete issues, interest in the material side of reality, low level of empathy, egotism or instrumentalism in relation to others, and no restraint in regard to manifesting aggressive impulses. Tender-mindedness, on the other hand, is characterized by focusing on theoretical considerations, by high level of empathy, altruism, attachment to normative issues, and low inclination to express aggressive impulses. As the research showed, political extremists are usually characterized by tough- mindedness, people acting in moderate organizations are difficult to diagnose, and the ones not involved politically mainly represent tender mentality (see Eysenck, 1954). In Eysenck’s opinion, the development of both tender- and tough-mindedness is influenced by factors of biological nature, as well as by certain social mechanisms. Research on the latter demonstrated that the influence of the system of rewards and penalties experienced by individuals, as well as the influence of certain associative stimuli, is of particular importance here. On the basis of his research, Eysenck came to the conclusion that women are usually characterized by tender-mindedness, and men by tough-mindedness. He noticed a similar difference between the representatives of the middle class and the working class. The people from the former were also characterized by tender-mindedness, and the ones from the latter - by tough mindedness. In his explanation of this state of affairs, Eysenck stated that in the process of bringing up women and people from the middle class, the emphasis is placed primarily on submission to the rules of social coexistence (especially the open manifestation of hostility is subject to punishment). There is no such emphasis (or it is very weak) in the case of boys and workers’ children, who are allowed to relatively freely exhibit hostility or adopt a casual and hedonistic approach to social norms. In consequence, they are far less reluctant to break the rules of social behavior and undertake violent actions.

2.3 Violence and extremism

Of course, violence is not used by every single person in whom the “extremist type of personality” dominates. It seems that “something more” must occur to bring about that violence. So, is there a predictor of terrorist actions? What are the factors that influence their occurrence? Is there a trigger of radical behaviors? Why do people become terrorists?

It is often claimed that entering the path of radical actions is connected with the occurrence of a catalyzing event. A direct harm (animosity, the sense of being subject to injustice or violence) or experiences related to the harm suffered by others may be such an event. That incident becomes such a strong ordeal that the individual under its influence decides to break up with the previous “moderate way of functioning” and espouse radical actions. A model example of that pattern is the event known under the name of Bloody Sunday, which took place on January 30, 1972. During a peaceful protest march against the law enabling the authorities to intern every Irishman suspected of terrorism, the soldiers of the First Battalion of the Parachute Regiment killed 13 demonstrators. This situation inclined many moderate Republicans to get involved in terrorist activities on the Provisional IRA side (Horgan, 2005, p. 75). Some personal reports and testimonies of ecological extremists seem to confirm the role of the catalyzing incident as a factor able to push an individual toward extreme actions (often based on direct violence). One example of such event could be the following childhood experience of Paul Franklin Watson (who called himself “pirate”), the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who in adult life sank nine and damaged around 12 whalers in defense of marine mammals. Patricia Chisholm reports: “After moving from Toronto to Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, when he was 6, Watson spent his summers at the nearby family cottage. One year, he befriended a local beaver, who, he says, “probably had more personality” than most of his playmates. By the next season, trappers had killed all the beavers. Infuriated, the 9-year old boy enlisted his brothers and sisters to destroy the trap lines” (Chisholm, 1990; Eagan, 1996). John Prestige underwent a similar experience: hunters killing a pregnant hind led him to establish the first sabotage animal rights group in 1963 - the Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA). The examples of that kind are, of course, numerous. The Internet is full of testimonies of eco-warriors who describe the traumatic character of such experiences. However, it should be noted that there are certain controversies in regard to the role of the catalyst event as an inducing factor of the later extremist or even terrorist actions. Sometimes the importance of the experienced incidents is exaggerated by the subject, and the events are falsely ascribed the function of the only causative factor. Such behavior of the subject, as scholars emphasize, is usually connected with the readiness to diminish one’s own responsibility and with the wish to get rid of discomfort in view of the consequences of one’s own actions and the negative opinions of others. The fact that many radical activists perceive their own violent activity as a provoked reaction caused by the injustice and hostility of the world, that is, an inevitable reaction to the unbearable situation (one’s own or somebody else’s) (Taylor and Quayle, 1994), should motivate the researcher to approach the presented triggering events in a careful (distrustful) way. However, it does not mean that they should be entirely ignored.

Although the catalyst events sometimes play the role of an igniter, it seems that much more often people gradually become active extremists. It usually happens as a result of many small incidents, one’s own reflections or readings (but also in this case one may have doubts whether those nonpersonality factors should be acknowledged as the only ones). The activists themselves provide us with many examples of such “gradual becoming.” Adriana Faranda, a former member of the Red Brigades, described her becoming a terrorist in an interview given to Alison Jamieson in the following words: “Countless others lives in Rome at the same time as me: kids of my age who weren’t as involved as me, either in the political struggles or in the choices of the successive years. I suppose really it was the way I experienced the events of that time, my own personal stand-point on the problems, the crises, the hopes and the expectation that we had as well as what was happening outside which determined that particular path... there were lots of little steps which led to where I ended up... it wasn’t a major leap in the true sense of the word” (Horgan, 2005, p. 84). A similar way of looking at their own “history of becoming a radical activist” can be found among many radical ecological activists. Many of them, like an anonymous activist of the ALF, directly say that “There was no specific event that led me to become an animal activist.”[32] In the majority of such cases the “small steps” way leading to ecoterrorist activities began with an accidental interest in ecological (environmental or animal) topics, through the participation in subcultures (often in straight-edge[33]), in the vegetarian movement or in humanitarian organizations. It is also a fact that eco-warriors, in their testimonies, emphasize the deterministic character of events leading to their radicalism by claiming that they have always “felt forced” to follow this path. They usually place the moral blame for such state of affairs on their enemies - large corporations, the pharmaceutical industry, capitalism, or the thoughtless consumption-oriented society.

Researchers of terrorism seldom explain radical behaviors by referring to situational factors (including the catalyzing events). The tendency to explain such behaviors by referring to internal features, especially personality ones, is much more popular.[34] This kind of tendency, as it is often claimed, is a result of the attribution mistake.[35] It was particularly characteristic for psychological research carried out in the 1970s - when terrorism was believed to be related with psychopathy - and in the 1980s and 1990s - when paranoia was considered to be its probable cause.[36] Both these perspectives were frequently criticized due to their simplifying character, as well as flawed methodology.

The alternative to the abovementioned concepts is the belief that terrorists are in principle normal individuals who cannot be characterized by means of some specific features of personality. This opinion is shared by many researchers. In the 1970s, after conducting a research on the Quebec Liberation Front, Gustav Morf stated that he did not observe any traits of terrorist personality (Morf, 1970). A similar conclusion was drawn by a German psychiatrist, Wilfried Rasch, who examined 11 RAF members and on that basis declared that he did not discover any signs of psychopathy, paranoia, fanaticism, or neurosis (Rasch, 1979). The two psychiatrists Lyons and Harbison, who carried out comparative studies of 47 political murderers and 59 nonpolitical murderers in Northern Ireland, similarly stated that the representatives of the former group suffered from mental disorders far less frequently than the “ordinary murderers” (see Harbinson and Lyons, 1986). This opinion was also expressed by Ferracuti in his studies on Italian left- and right-wing terrorists - he writes: “rarely suffer from serious personality abnormalities” (see Ferracuti, 1982). A researcher of terrorism, Paul Wilkinson, claims that we know enough about terrorists’ behavior to reject simple hypotheses about “terrorist personality” or phenotype (see Wikinson, 1977). Taylor and Quayle hold a similar view: “With rare exceptions, and contrary to popular misconceptions (...) terrorists are neither madmen nor blind bigots. They have considerable insight into their own actions, and often show a striking awareness of how others view them. In the main, they have come to terms with the violence they commit, and are able to justify it in terms of their own perception of the world” (Taylor and Quayle, 1994, p. 103). The psychiatrist Philip McGarry, who worked with terrorists from Northern Ireland, stated plainly: “in main they are quite ordinary people” (Ryder, 2000).

Explaining terrorist behavior solely in the personality categories (especially when it takes on a generalizing overtone) may raise some doubts (especially in the light of certain studies). The easiest way of expressing these doubts is by asking the following question: is it true that all terrorists are “different” (pathological) personalitywise? As far as I know, there are no studies (and even due to practical reasons there cannot be any) that would allow such a generalization (for we do not have enough case studies). On the other hand, there are research results that negate this thesis. Of course, it does not mean that a certain number, or maybe even the majority of terrorists do not exhibit pathological features or internal personality mechanisms that predispose them to ideologically motivated radical behaviors. However, there are strong indications that apart from those there are also terrorists who do not show any traits of pathology or mental illness. If so, then their readiness to undertake actions based on violence must be explained in a different way than in the case of ill or pathological individuals.[37]

Among researchers dealing with the psychological foundations of terrorism, from the very beginning of their studies, there has been a tendency to go beyond the narrow “personality-oriented” pattern of explanation (which characterizes the terrorist as someone entirely “different” psychologically), toward more “process-oriented” perspectives, that is, such that put emphasis on a mutual and constant relation between the outside environment and the psychological sphere. This tendency is manifested in two concepts, each of them having ardent supporters and opponents. There are, of course, the frustration-aggression theory and the concept of narcissism. They have not been criticized to the same extent as the previous theories, although some say that they are part of the “personality paradigm” as well.

The frustration-aggression theory (created by Dollard et al. (1939) and further developed by Berkovitz (1962, 1989)) explains aggression as a reaction to frustration, appearing when the possibility of achieving important personal and social goals is blocked. According to Dollard: “(...) aggression is always a consequence of frustration. More specifically (...) the occurrence of aggressive behavior always presupposes the existence of frustration and, contrariwise, that the existence of frustration always leads to some form of aggression” (Dollard et al., 1939; Schmidt, 1984). In reference to political violence the theory has been developed into the hypothesis of relative deprivation, formulated by Ted R. Gurr in his book Why Men Rebel. Relative deprivation is a feeling of being deprived of something we have a true right to. Such feeling, as Gurr writes, is not based on the objective state of affairs but is a result of the individual’s subjective perspective - someone may be subjectively depreciated in relation to their expectations, while somebody else sees their situation as satisfactory, and vice-versa, what is perceived by the observer as a severe insufficiency or absolute deprivation does not have to be perceived as such by the subject experiencing these circumstances (Gurr, 1970). This is why not everybody reacts in a similar way to the dearth and evil they experience. If the discordance between the expected values and the obtained values reaches a critical level, people experience frustration, and as a result they turn to political violence.[38]

The concept of narcissism-aggression links the existence of aggression with the occurrence of narcissistic disappointment defined as a deep and long-lasting harm done to the image of self, which has its source in the inability to fulfill the expectations set by the ideal ego or the particular desired standards of behavior. According to the proponents of this theory (Lasch, 1979; Crayton, 1983), the result of such disappointment is narcissistic aggression driven by the need for protection of the self from the destructive self-condemnation, directed mainly toward those objects that represent properties imposed by the ideal ego or those desired standards.[39] Channeling that aggression toward “extrinsic objects” is very useful for the subject. Thanks to that measure the subject may regain the faith in their own strength and the lost self-esteem. According to Pearlstein (1991), putting the narcissistic aggression “at the service” of political terrorism is extremely attractive for the subject also because it allows to build a new better identity - strong and omnipotent - upon the ruins of the old impaired self, as well as to build close and gratifying relations with the terrorist group. In the opinion of Crenshaw (1986), people who manifest narcissistic tendencies usually have emotional deficiencies, which render them blind to negative consequences of their actions. Post (1987) believes that such people have separated unwanted characteristics of themselves and project them onto groups, which afterward become the targets of their aggression and violence.

Both the frustration-aggression and the narcissism theory advert to the subjective feeling of being undervalued as the factor that pushes the subject toward hatred and violence. The research conducted on terrorists’ biographies proves the causative role of that feeling. The majority of these studies are concluded with the statement that terrorists are people who have experienced deep humiliation in their lives, which made them question the value of their selves.[40] This humiliation quite often took place in the early phase of life. On the basis of the interviews conducted with the leaders of the IRA, the psychologist Jeanne Knutson stated that they “all had been victims of terror themselves, all had experienced violations of their personal boundaries, that damaged or destroyed their faith in personal safety” (Volkan, 1997, p. 160). This violation usually entailed being beaten or abandoned by parents, parents’ divorce, sexual harassment or rejection by the peer group. Studies examining West German terrorists from the Red Fraction Army and the 2 June Movement showed that the majority of them came from incomplete families (25% lost one or two parents before they turned 14), 71% experienced a major conflict in their lives (33% with their parents), one-third of the terrorists ran afoul of the law in their youth (see Post, 1998). In Gallimore’s opinion, the common feature of all terrorists is a personal trauma experienced in adolescence: “the terrorist personality appears to develop from a painful and dysfunctional childhood in which the individual forms personality and identity disorders. The terrorist responds to his personal identity problems and attempts to strengthen his troubled internal sense of self by seeking power to hurt and by expressing entitlement to power. These psychologically damaged individuals seek power and sanction for their violent actions through membership in groups and organizations that give them a sense of shared identity in an attempt to replace their flawed personal identity” (Gallimore, 2002). Akhtar (2002) speaks in a similar tone: “most major players in a terrorist organization are, themselves, deeply traumatized individuals. As children they suffered chronic physical abuse and profound emotional humiliation. The “safety feeling,” which is necessary for healthy psychological growth, was thus violated. They grew up mistrusting others, loathing passivity, and dreading the recurrence of a violation of their psychophysical boundaries. (...) To eliminate this fear, such individuals feel the need to “kill off” their view of themselves as victims. The only way to accomplish this is to turn passivity into activity, masochism into sadism, and victimhood into victimizing others. Hatred and violent tendencies toward others thus develop. Devaluing others buttresses fragile self-esteem. The resulting “malignant narcissism” renders mute the voice of reason and morality. Sociopathic behavior and outright cruelty are thus justified.

2.4 Resentment, extremism, terrorism

The connection between the inclination to harass and the subjective feeling of devaluation is not a new discovery (see Rothman and Lichter, 1982; Post, 2007). One of the first scholars to notice that relation was Friedrich Nietzsche. However, Nietzsche did not stop at this banal (from today’s perspective) conclusion. Contrary to many previous and later thinkers, he also named the reason why these two phenomena are closely linked. This reason, he believed, is resentment toward all those who are perceived as better. Nietzsche claimed that at the basis of resentment lays a prevalent feeling of helplessness, which arises when the individual is unable to achieve values important for them.[41] Such feeling of helplessness is not shared by all people but only those who, due to their various mental or physical defects, suffer long-lasting depreciation or inability to independently create and affirm their self-value and who have a limited capability of dealing with challenges they are presented with by the reality that is tailor-made for people who are free from those defects and incapabilities. Thus, weak and inapt people have to suffer and this suffering is extremely painful because it is based on the negative self-image.[42] The suffering is always accompanied by strong enmity, both toward the world where the values apply that are unreachable for them, and toward those who represent those values. Naturally, hatred generates the yearning for revenge but in this case it cannot be directly satisfied. Of course, the sources of such lack of satisfaction may be various. However, it most often stems from the fear of acknowledging to oneself one’s own inferiority or from the fear of confrontation with the “better one” who lives in “praise and glory” but does not deserve it according to that “worse” and unprivileged one. This fear has one significant feature (especially if it lasts long): it strongly threatens a positive self-esteem, it poisons, raises doubts, hurts. A human being who experiences it has to undertake some actions - they have to set up (unconsciously, of course) strategies that will enable them to reconstruct the lost sense of dignity. One of such strategies is suppression of hatred, anger, envy, or of lust for reprisal. Thanks to such “operation on emotions,” the source of those emotions, their direct painful cause (a particular situation or the perpetrator of suffering) is forgotten. Of course, the suppression does not eliminate the envy, anger, or the lust for reprisal. These emotions still exist. They are, however, less “legible,” less clear, and thus it is easier to tear them away from their real resentful origin; it is easier to interpret them or to give them a new direction. The suppression does not “take care” of everything. The repressed emotions still “subcutaneously” influence the psyche; they still hurt, bring about bitterness, rankle, make the individual unhappy and, of course, remind them that they are worse from others. And after all, the person of resentment desires one thing only (something that is, as a matter of fact, quite fundamental) - they want to live a life that is considered valuable. However, such life would require them to satisfy their natural, spontaneously generated desires. And that in their case is impossible. This is why they suffer, feel worse, dislike all bearers of the desired but unattainable values.

How can one deal with an overwhelming feeling of inferiority? The person of resentment cannot obtain the values they long for through actions that are directed outward. He or she will also not satisfy their second most important wish - the need to destroy those who are bearers of these values and at the same time the object of the individual’s unfading hatred. Yet, the conflict between desire and helplessness is staved off. The durability of the circumstances generating negative emotions and their constant suppression eventually lead to the situation where the consciousness begins to strive to overcome the tension between desire and incapability, which ultimately leads to cognitive disturbances that are based either on an erroneous assessment of particular phenomena - the sour grapes effect - or based on a false identification of values - the revaluation of values effect.

The disturbances of the first kind usually occur in the first, early stage of forming resentment. When one futilely tries to obtain a particular object (or merely envies people who possess it), they take comfort in the conclusion that they have strived for something that actually does not have the coveted value or that has it to a lesser extent than they have previously thought. This is a situation known from the story about the fox and sour grapes. Let us notice that in the described case we are not dealing with an adulteration of values but only with a different perspective on the qualities of things. For the value of the “sweet taste” (beauty, wisdom, strength, skills) in the grapes is recognized here. After all, the fox from the story does not claim that sweet taste is without value. He only states that these particular grapes (human being, thing) are not sweet.[43] The strategy of this kind gives the subject certain significant “benefits,” one of which is the reduction of the tension between the strong desire for some object and the experienced helplessness. If such desire becomes “unmotivated,” then the tension between it and the incapability weakens, in consequence of which the degree of unpleasantness declines and the sense of life and strength grows (Scheler, 1972, p. 95). Another equally significant “benefit” is the possibility to pour scorn on all those who were previously perceived as the bearers of the desired values. Now they (not me) are worse and it is them (not me) who should feel bad. However, it is important to note that at this stage of development of resentment there is no drive to destroy people or possessions (the objects of resentful hatred) yet. In the opinion of the resentful individual, they do not possess valuable but unattainable values that arouse envy, anger, and regret. And if they do not have them, one may pass them by with indifference, or even pity them.

Still, resentment can not only induce false beliefs about the qualities of things. It may also lead to changes in the ways one experiences and recognizes values. The essence of these changes, defined by the resentment researchers as “revaluing,”[44] lies in the depreciation of the order of values unattainable for the individual but desired by them, and establishing in its place a new order, that is, such where the values possessed by the subject (earlier perceived as the source of life’s failures causing suffering and the sense of inferiority) become identified with that which is positive, good, valuable. At this stage of resentful development the sweetness of grapes is not negated anymore. Indeed, it is even willingly acknowledged that grapes are sweet (and that person really pretty). Sweetness, however, has ceased to be a positive value - sweetness is futility, which every “decent person” should quickly turn away from, just like from those in whom “sweetness” and other “bad values” found their manifestation. Now they are allowed to have their “positive values,” but under the condition that they constantly condemn themselves for them. Regardless of what they do, they will be evil and worthy of contempt in the eyes of the resentful subject. This is the way how the resentful subject’s desire to avenge their own humiliations and insults is satisfied and their sense of dignity rebuilt.

The strategy of revaluing values (consisting in depreciation of the desired but unattainable values and glorification of those that the subject feels condemned to because of who they are) is, of course, a distortion of real desires and aspirations. Nevertheless, it is on its account that the person of resentment stops feeling the envy and anger resulting from the lack of certain values - the value of those values is being depreciated, and hence, the people who are the bearers of them do not (at least on the conscious level) cause anger and lust for reprisal. At most, they become miserable in the eyes of the person of resentment. From now on the only and indisputable object of pride will be the values that are represented by the subject. Moreover, on their basis he or she will build their new psychological and axiological “spine.” Now they can “punish” and “lecture” in the conviction that it is their “bounden duty” and not private, purely subjective right to vengeance; now they can deliver “justice,” also in extreme forms.

I do not believe it is a coincidence that people driven by resentment have a clear inclination to absolutize their value systems in the form of particular ideologies. Naturally, such ideology is not perceived by them as a means of realizing certain interests but as the only acceptable interpretation of the absolute truth. Although the process of absolutizing values under the influence of resentment is of individual nature (it is also, in some way, an elitist phenomenon), the results of this process are not. “Absolute, resentment-generated values” relatively easy gain social acceptance and become the sole signpost, the only acceptable way of ordering reality for the broad masses. It probably happens because the very feeling of resentment is quite common in society. It was pointed out by, among others, Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Scheler, Max Weber, and contemporarily also by Roger Scruton. In the opinion of the latter, resentment is the foundation (emotional source) of all totalitarian ideologies, such as communism and fascism. These ideologies are accepted because they rationalize resentment and unite around a common cause the people who feel it the strongest. They, too, aim at making resentment a tool of social control and order while building totalitarian systems, which take down the old resentment-channeling structures (the law, authority figures, privileges, hierarchies). When the institutions are overthrown, resentment takes their place “as the ruling principle of the state.”[45] According to Roger Scruton, resentful people can recognize no authority or rightful government - there is only “pure power” embodied in the desire to entirely control everybody. People who gain such power usually eradicate mediating institutions and create a system where only “purely forceful relations” count, which leads to taking centralized control over everyone. Admittedly, in this approach the ideology embodied in resentment appears not as a means of revaluing values, but as a smokescreen for forces that have nothing to do with any values; which in themselves (and for themselves) strive for gaining the “total dominance” - transgressing all “regular,” sanctioned, traditional remnants of the old order (in Nietzsche’s terminology such pursuit is called “will to power”).

The resentment theory has been repeatedly used in psychological and social analyses. Since the very first studies of that phenomenon a belief has persisted that this conception possesses high explanatory potential, both in psychological and social research. It has also been used to explain the issues of extremism and terrorism, which are of interest to us in the present book (Langman and Morris, 2002). The motifs raised in the development of the classical resentment theory played an important role also in the previously discussed conceptions that tried to unveil the sources of ideologically motivated violence.[46] The key issue for this conception - the issue of defending the self - plays a significant role not only in psychological applications of the resentment theory, but also when it is used in analyses of social phenomena - it is a foundation of thinking about resentment. However, it is difficult to express it in terminology characteristic for psychological analysis, where it has a narrow, psychological usage. It is impossible to transfer this conceptualization onto the domain of social analyses, but what can be transferred there, is the principal idea hidden behind the notion of the defense of the self - the idea of the fight for stability of the constitutional elements of the human being - the sense and the will of sense. These notions fill the construct that substitutes the self in the sphere of social analysis with relatively the most concrete content. In comparison with the notion of the self, it is very unclear, but it seems that it cannot be any clearer if it is supposed to encompass incomparably more complex phenomena. Identity (broadly understood - so as to include the link between the psychological and the social), because that is what the discussion is about, may be subject to the same processes as the resentful self, as suggested by the researchers dealing with group inferiority and its consequences (ressentiment and the conflicts stemming from it). So far, to the best of my knowledge, no one has taken a closer look at the social phenomena that are the subject of this book in the context of research on res- sentiment. However, there have been analyses of the issues regarding problems with identity, which are crucial for the ressentiment theory (in this field). Resentment not only implicates distortion of the image of the world by creating a form of a “double axiological consciousness” (constituted by two separate reference spheres: the sphere of authentic values - those that were the subject of the original unsatisfied desires and aspirations, and the sphere of unauthentic values - created as a result of resentful distortion of values), but it also generates certain problems with identity (with the internal system of the self), which is unable to cope with the loss of faith in one’s own integrity and in axiological strength.

Going somewhat beyond what Nietzsche and other authors comprised in their works, one may, as it seems, demonstrate why resentment must be accompanied by fundamentalism (understood broadly as the belief that one has obtained the absolute truth), when it may coincide with fanaticism, and in what “psychological circumstances” resentment can generate extremism and the inclination toward vio- lence.[47] In one of my research projects such an attempt was made (Posluszna and Posluszny, 2009, 2005; Posluszna, 2008). In accordance with the line of this research on resentment, the key role in the explication of the process of value transformation in defense of the self is played by the issue of validation of desires, goals, and values. By way of polemic with probably the most popular conceptualization of resentful revaluing, which is based on the idea of the divided self (where contradictory value systems clash like two conflicted subjects),[48] this research made an attempt at unveiling the mechanisms governing the “fabrication” (to use Nietzsche’s terminology again) of resentful values.

At this point there is no escape from the banal conclusion that the most significant element of this process consists in discarding the values and desires possessed prior to the act of revaluing (negation of the desires and values that led the subject to the state of an endangered positive self-image) - these can be called “original values and desires” in contrast to “secondary values and desires,” which take place of the former ones as a result of the revaluation. (The ressentiment human beings cannot satisfy their desires by realizing their own value system. Their positive selfimage is thus endangered. The need for a positive self-evaluation cannot be fulfilled. Therefore, they have to eliminate everything that threatens the positive selfimage and counteract the frustration of the need for positive self-assessment. They counteract it by consciously renouncing the desires they are not able to gratify. The place of the original desires, which are the source of problems with self-affirmation, is taken by the secondary desires, which are supposed to solve those problems).[49] In this conception, the essential role is played by “validation,” which must accompany the renouncement and condemnation of the original desires and values, so that the secondary (compensatory, resentful) desires and values can begin functioning in the mind of the ressentiment person. The former cannot be simply superseded by the latter; more is needed - the faith in the necessity of the “change” that this validation is supposed to enable. The relevance rank of validation is very high. It decides about the security of the resentful value system. New values cannot take the place of the old ones without any explanation why it must happen. This explanation (validation) cannot be like any other. It has to be unrivalled. It affects exceptionally important issues - desires, values, the goal and sense of life - key elements of what we call identity. This is the reason, I suspect, for the necessity of strong protection of resentful desires and values in this conception. Their validation must have a special character - they have to “outrun” the competition. Anything that the subject comes up with may compete with other ideas. Competition is lethal for validations. The aim of the validations is to give an answer to the question, why act in a particular way and not differently? They serve to strengthen the “acting in a particular way” and weakening the “acting differently.” They are to fight against the competition in the battlefield of explanations. Safety in that matter does not consist only in erasing explanations that accompany the one that should win - for the sake of self-assessment of the subject who plays such game with themselves. Securing the safety of the compensatory value system means doing everything that is possible in order to eliminate not only the real competition but also the potential one. The only validations of desires and values that stand the chance of disposing of not only real but also potential alternatives, are the fundamentalist ones, that is, such that in the ideal case sanction a value forever, everywhere, and for everyone; in reality we will probably encounter diverse variations of that configuration of absolutistic claims. To put it more simply, after a few less significant explanations, the original desires and values do not need validations; they gain them later on, at the stage of revaluation, when the resentful subject has to justify the necessity of exchanging them for the secondary desires and values. At this point there is a clash between these two products of the subject’s mind. However, one of them - validation of the secondary desires and values - has to gain a higher status in order to go beyond the area of potential rivalry (which is brought about by the simplest, natural question: why would the new desires and values be better from the old ones?). That status is granted in the act of “discovering” something that is important always, everywhere, and for everybody - something fundamentalist. After such “discovery,” the question about the superiority of the new values can be cancelled. At that point it is obvious that what was earlier has no importance in comparison to what came into being as a result of revaluation. The content validating the secondary desires must significantly surpass (in the ressentiment person’s mind) with its axiological power the validation of the original desires, which was fabricated by the subject. If it was not so, if the validation of the original values (fabricated after resentful revaluation) could outdistance the validations of the secondary values, the ressentiment person would not be able to fully console himself or herself; it would be prevented by the doubts accompanying such “rivalry” of validations (see Posluszny, 2008; Posluszna and Posluszny, 2006; Posluszna, 2006).

That is how resentment relates to fundamentalism. It is, as it seems, a noncontingent relationship. It stems from the nature of the process of revaluing values in defense of positive self-assessment, and thus, in defense of the self, if we assume (like many psychologists working in the field of the so-called psychology of self) (Tesser, 1988), that it does play a crucial role in defense of the self. It is different in the case of the relation between resentment and fanaticism. Both phenomena - fundamentalism and fanaticism - defend the validations of desires and values. They also defend them in similar situations - the rivalry of validations. Fundamentalism “defends” the validations of the secondary (resentful) values against the doubts, which could arise from the comparison with the validations of the original desires, if the former were not granted the absolute status. Fanaticism also defends the validations of resentful values, but in different circumstances - when the first line of defense fails, when “cracks in fundamentalism” appear.[50] For the latter can easily deal with nonfundamentalist validations of desires and values (within the framework of internal rivalry of validations in the process of creating new values - “resentful revaluation”), but it may show weakness if there is another fundamentalism in play, when a more serious rivalry of validations occurs - the external one, that is, the rivalry of fundamentalisms. From this perspective fanaticism is a response to the danger of nihilism, that is, the fall of validations of the secondary desires and values. (They fall due to the doubts that may emerge from the rivalry of validations). Such form of nihilism is the most interesting for us because of its role in the constructed conception. Fanaticism does not relate to resentment as closely as fundamentalism does. It may occur, but does not have to. As Jacek Posluszny writes:

“It can be said that the role of fanaticism is building up the walls defending the resentful subject against the doubts related to the rivalry of validations; the graver and stronger the doubts, or the larger the number of doubts, the more severe the form of fanaticism and the higher and more solid the defense walls. The more serious the doubts and the bigger their number, the stronger the resentful subject believes in everything that gave them the peace of positive self-assessment, that allowed them to free themselves from the suffering stemming from the sense of inferiority, from not being able to satisfy the lust for power. All beliefs (both apologetic and critical) supporting resentful values and desires are sharpened. The solidification of fanaticism that appears along with the need for defense of the endangered resentful system of desires and values means the strengthening of fundamentalism which is the principal tool for resentful “revenge” on the order of desires and values which was the source of the sense of inferiority and the suffering of the ressentiment person. Fanaticism is related to resentment only through the danger of nihilism. It is not entwined with resentment like fundamentalism is. If there is no threat of destroying the validations of the resentful desires and values, then there is also no need to strengthen the faith in their righteousness and “undoubted” character. It does seem possible. However, it is likely that as a result of the “rivalry of fundamentalisms,” the resentful system of desires and values will need “fanatic reinforcements.” In the end, the relation between ressentiment and fundamentalism is necessary, and the relation between ressentiment and fanaticism (like between ressentiment and nihilism) is only very probable”

Extremism and violence appear in this theory in a quite natural way, as derivatives of problems with validations of resentful values, just as accidentally (and nonaccidental at the same time - through a natural, but not necessary connection) as the relation between resentment and fanaticism. The criticism of ressentiment, which is key for understanding the Nietzschean attack on compensatory adulterations, is based on the idea of destruction of validations. Troubles with validations are troubles with sustaining faith. Sharpening the faith is a response to those problems; it is a form of defense, an internal response to internal problems with the faith, which have their source outside of the subject - in the rivalry of validations. In this perspective, a direct strike on resentful values comes from the outside, unlike in the most widespread approaches to the issue of criticizing resentment, which assume that the beginning of the process of eradicating resentful values see is within the subject - who is “broken” by ressenti- ment, for example, as a result of entanglement of two contradictory value systems (the conscious and the unconscious one). Here, a different situation occurs - the res- sentiment person may be a stable subject in certain circumstances and unstable and endangered in others - and this is how it is in the world, where there is a growing competition of fundamentalist validations and knowledge about them. The attack comes from the outside and the counterattack will be launched outward in order to defend the endangered internality - the faith. Analogically to other situations of wavering faith, for instance those described already in the 1950s by Leon Festinger’s team in the work that today is counted among the classics of social psychology: When Prophecy Fails (Festinger et al., 1956). The results of the studies described in the book show how it is possible to fight against the weakening of faith by actions that aim at strengthening it; how the doubting subject may intensify their faith through their actions. (By undertaking actions in the name of values that the subject began to be doubtful about, the subject convinces himself or herself that these values are worth believing in). If to that rather simple idea we add the type of psyche where ressentiment develops (jealousy, will of revenge, Schadenfreude, etc.), we will be able to link that phenomenon with extremism and with the violence stemming from it. (Extremist behavior, for example, using violence, can be supported by fanaticism of the doubting subject, which may put them in an unequivocal situation, on account of which the source of doubts and hesitations is eliminated. An unequivocal situation, which is usually difficult after, for example, an act of violence, may become for the agent a lesser evil than doubting in the foundations of their self-assessment - the secondary values. For it eliminates what puts that self-assessment in peril - the doubts. This form of strengthening the values can weaken the agent - socially, legally, and so on, as it is often the case, for example, as a result of committing penal acts, but it builds them up mentally by erasing doubts, because then there are no alternatives left - one can follow just one path.) The actions undertaken in the name of fundamentalism supporting (by nature) resentful values and aiming at introducing black and white valuations and uncompromising condemnations in accordance with this fundamentalism, are the ultimate resort for the doubtful ressentiment person who tries to obscure the doubts and save the impaired identity through his or her actions. One thing is certain, namely, that extremism based on resentment cannot be bridled with the help of concessions and negotiations. Resentful extremism requires total (uncompromising) changes. It also desires destruction - all residues of the old order (the symbol of the original values), which it feels related to through resentment. If reality is black or white, there is no place for attempts to reach an agreement or for any other actions based on the idea of compromise. In the fight against resentful extremism, the only possible actions are the preventive ones, and these have to be undertaken much earlier - before resentment goes into the phase of revaluing values, before it unites with fundamentalism and fanaticism and launches the attack (Figure 2.1).

3. From the Compassion Principle to the Conception of Rights: Ideological Development of the Radical Wing of the Animal Rights Movement

3.1 The anthropocentric paradigm

On November 5, 2001 a British animal rights activist Barry Horne (sentenced to 18 years of imprisonment for sabotage actions involving incendiary bombs) died in prison during his fourth hunger strike, the goal of which was to make the Labour Party keep its promise of establishing a governmental vivisection commission. Although Horne’s sacrifice may seem quite shocking in the light of the ruling anthropocentric paradigm, probably just few people would hold it as absurd or madness. No, granting animals rights comparable to the ones enjoyed by humans, and thereby including them into moral community, has not yet become a reality (it is not known whether it will ever happen). However, the rigid qualitative division into humans and animals belongs to the past (does not the theory of evolution teach us about the existence of the interspecies continuity?), just like the belief that human beings, due to their species superiority, have the right to exploit animals without any restriction. It has come to pass quite recently. Until approximately the mid-nineteenth century the beliefs on ways how animals should be perceived and treated were in principle similar. An animal was believed to be a qualitatively distinct creature and hence it was not included in the area of morals. This viewpoint was of course justified in many different ways.

In antiquity one of the most influential justification had its ideological source in the biblical image of creation. In the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, by creating human beings “in his own image and likeness,” God gave them the right to rule over “the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, (...) and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Anon, 2005a) and thus elevated them above all animals, as well as the whole natural world. In the “original condition” this dominion was of a rather symbolic nature. The first people, as stated in the Book of Genesis, did not kill animals and were herbivorous. However, due to the fall of man for which, according to the Bible, the woman and the animal were responsible, the ban on killing was lifted (Singer, 1991, p. 187). God himself covers Adam and Eve with animal skin, and then accepts from the pious Noah the burnt offering of “every clear animal and of every clean bird.” Finally, he gives him his blessing and once more confirms Noah’s rule over the world of nature: “God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered’ (Anon, 2005b).”

Another influential justification came from Aristotle. It was based on the vision of the world as both hierarchical and purposeful. According to the philosopher, the hierarchal character of the world (defined as the Ladder of Life - Scalam Naturae) is based (and will always be) on a different understanding capacity - human beings as the only entirely intelligent creatures are at the highest point of the hierarchy, other beings (including animals), depending on the level of the understanding capacity, are respectively lower. There is nothing accidental about Nature and its doing. The Ladder of Life is purposeful. All the organisms “designed” by nature came into existence for a certain reason - the purpose of the lower ones (nonrational and less rational) is to serve the higher (more rational) ones. Lower animals, in accordance to Aristotle’s rationality hierarchy, by nature should serve humans as a tool and source of food (Jowett, 1999, p. 13). It is worthy to add that Aristotle used a similar argument to justify slave trade in Greece. There is nothing immoral, he believed, in this kind of trade. Because the slaves, just like animals, by nature have a smaller capacity of reasoning, than the free people. This is why their necessary fate is to be a “living tool” in the service of the truly rational people (Jowett, 1999, p. 7).

Aristotelian belief in the purposeful nature of the relation between particular beings, as well as their hierarchal position toward themselves, is also present in the way of thinking prevalent in the Middle Ages. In the opinion of one of the most renowned Christian philosophers of that era, St. Thomas Aquinas, the human being possesses unlimited right to exploit animals. There is no sin in using a thing “in accordance to what it was made for.” “The order of things is such that the imperfect are for the perfect (...). (...) [T]hings, like the plants, which merely have life, are all alike for animals, and all animals are for man. Wherefore it is not unlawful if man use plants for the good of animals, and animals for the good of man, as the Philosopher[51] states (Aquinas, 2014a).” However, there is also another reason why we can freely use animals without any moral anxiety. Animals do not possess the rational soul, which is the only thing that survives, Aquinas believes, the death of the body. Therefore, we should not be worried that the vengeful souls of the killed animals would haunt us in the afterlife. In his opinion, not even their slightest part is able to get there. Hence, are we allowed then to treat animals cruelly? Although inflicting suffering to unreasoning animals cannot be treated as a sin, there are some reasons against cruelty toward them. Aquinas claims that an animal, even if it is not in a possession of a human being, can always be put to a good use. Inane hurting or killing animals turns out to be “the temporal loss of man (Aquinas, 2014b, p. 490).” Moreover, the habit of cruel treatment of animals may in time distort the character and lead to cruelty toward people. With no doubts, the latter must be classified as sin (Serpell, 1996).

Anthropocentrism of medieval philosophy and ethics was not given up in the time of the Renaissance. On the contrary, thinkers of that era enthusiastically emphasized an exceptional character of human nature (human rationality, free will, intrinsic dignity) and contrasted it with a mindless and limited animal nature. An extreme form of this way of thinking manifested itself in Rene Descartes’ philosophical system believed by many animal lovers, not without a good reason, to be the source of particularly harming superstitions about animals. Descartes, as many scholars of that time, was fascinated by the achievements of a newly established discipline - mechanics. He came to the conclusion that the principles of this field of study can be used to describe the functioning of all material beings in the universe. For Descartes the world was entirely devoid of spiritual features. The bodies of animals and humans work in accordance with fully comprehensible simple mechanistic rules. Such a belief led to the decisive rejection of nature as a living organism - the vision, it should be added, still present in scholastic thought. Descartes was of the opinion that the human being truly differs from animals - they are mindless unconscious automata, while humans possess the rational soul that will not cease to exist when the body dies. One of the consequences of the conviction that animals are not conscious was the belief that they are unable to feel pleasure or pain; their reactions are purely automatic - they are governed by the same mechanical principles as a mechanical organ or clock. The “functioning of animals” is far more complicated than the functioning of any other mechanisms because the former are God’s, not human creation.[52] The belief that the animal is an automaton unable to experience any suffering served as an excuse for the seventeenth-century physiologists (who called themselves Cartesians) to conduct vivisection on animals. Ironically, the anatomic and physiological data they collected pointed at numerous similarities between animals and people and thereby allowed to justify later the same capability to feel pleasure and pain among animals and humans.

Although in the eighteenth century no radical change occurred in the way animals were perceived, on account of the biological discoveries, the animal capability to experience suffering was rarely questioned. It did not mean, however, that people at that time were ready to grant animals any sorts of rights - the top thinkers were still far away from statements like that. In spite of that, they were willing to negatively evaluate all acts of conscious and unnecessary cruelty toward lower creatures. Immanuel Kant, for example, argued that although humans have no direct duties in regard to animals, which are, he believed, just a means to an end, not the end in itself, they have the duty toward their own humanity.[53] Cruel treatment of animals would indicate its degradation and may also contribute to brutal treatment of other people. A similar view was held by another Enlightenment philosopher, David Hume, who in his Enquiry

Concerning the Principles of Morals wrote that “we should be bound by the laws of humanity to give gentle usage to these creatures (Hume, 2014).”

The outlooks just described were questioned for the first time in 1789 by Jeremy Bentham in his book Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. In “Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence,” one of the chapters of this publication, he expresses the idea that has become the key-stone of the present-day animal rights movement’s worldview: “It may one day come to be recognized that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose the case was otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer (Bentham, 1879)?” Bentham’s line of reasoning is quite clear - the discrepancies that are usually conceived to be the reason for species differentiation, that is, the language or reason, should have no significance in defining the set of beings that are to become the subject of the law. Being able to experience pleasure and suffering, and nothing else ought to be the sole important criterion of belonging to the moral community. This claim is often perceived as a straightforward rejection of the humanist anthropocentric principle. It is based on the belief that there is an inalienable qualitative difference between humans and animals, which as a consequence constitutes a moral difference between them. Bentham was a utilitarianist and hence strongly believed that the most unethical act is such that results in the occurrence of the largest suffering regardless whether it is experienced by a human being or animal. On the other hand, he held the view that the human nervous system is much more complex, sophisticated, and sensitive. And because of that fact, Bentham ultimately argued that although this difference is utterly quantitative, not qualitative, inflicting pain on the human being is much worse, than inflicting it on lower organisms. The demand to extend the array of beings entitled to rights may be also found in the theory of an Englishman, John Lawrence. He was a strong opponent of slave trade and a fighter for women’s rights. In 1796 he published a book entitled A Philosophical Treatise on Horses and on the Moral Duties of Man towards the Brute Creation, where he claimed that such properties as the capability to live and feel, as well as intelligence, which Lawrence believed was also a feature of animals, necessarily imply the rights. Every country, if it strives for a system based on the principles of justice and humaneness, must take into account animal rights. Animals should be protected against “useless and abominable cruelty.” It should be mentioned that the “rights” Lawrence postulated did not include legal life protection for animals. He had nothing against killing animals for food, if it is done quickly and painlessly. However, he protested against bull-baiting and rooster fights, although he had no objections in regard to fox hunting (Nash, 1989). As soon as three years after Bentham published his book, an anonymous treatise written by a Platonist philosopher from Cambridge, Thomas Taylor came out under the tell-tale title A Vindication of the Right of Brutus. The tome was an obvious pastiche of two other quite famous publications of that time - Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (1791-1792) and A Vindication of the Rights of Women penned by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792). In his pamphlet Taylor promised to demonstrate that all the beings commonly perceived as nonrational (animals, minerals, ores) are in fact equivalent to humans. It was, of course, an overt mockery. The aim and the main idea behind Taylor’s book was to expose the utter absurdity of the attempt to grant certain human groups (women, slaves) natural rights. The possibility of including animals in the sphere of rights was not even taken into account. Taylor would have been really surprised if he had known that exactly one hundred years later, in 1892, his fellow countryman, Henry Salt would publish Animals’ Rights Considered in Relation to Social Progress. In this book Salt very seriously addressed the idea of expanding natural rights and postulated the necessity of including animals. For him the claim that animals should have rights is an irrefutable dogma. Salt was strongly convinced that there is a direct relationship between moral development and an increase of love for animals. Moreover, moral development cannot be stopped; it is immanently inscribed in the sense of history. The evolution of democratic societies toward equation of the status of people must, sooner or later, incorporate animals as well. The turning points in that process is always the realization that the oppressed belong to the circle of the same community as the oppressor, and the development itself advances from an unclear feeling of sympathy to the clear conception of rights.[54] According to Salt, this process must lead humankind to ascribing to animals the fundamental value of democracy, namely the individuality, and hence, the right for unlimited development of personality, which stems from it.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the campaign carried out by the proponents of animal rights to change the attitude toward animals gained unexpected support from science. It happened thanks to two books that revolutionized the way the relationship between humans and animals was perceived. These books were of course Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species (1859) and The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871). At the source of their revolutionary character was the belief that all biological organisms, including the human being, are a result of accidental natural processes. We all participate in the fight for survival. The organisms possessing physical and behavioral features that make them adapt better to survive and reproduce are going to transfer their advantageous qualities to their progeny in the future. As it is often emphasized, a total lack of the notion of purposefulness in this theory is one of its constitutional aspects. The theory entails a resignation from the idea of intention, ultimate causes or a progress toward a higher purpose - in the natural environment accidental changes foster biological changes. Therefore, there is no reason to call for any causative or purposeful forces in order to explain those changes. Of course, such a vision of reality must have been a real turning point. Before the theory gained popularity the majority of theologians had used the concept of purposefulness in their arguments for the existence of God. Moreover, it was a common belief that it is animals’ and plants’ destiny to fulfill certain Creator’s intentions, such as, among others, the service to the human being. When the notions of purpose and intention were eliminated on account of Darwin’s theory, the idea of the highest Creator must have necessarily got weakened. As a consequence of the latter came the infringement of the image of humankind as a supreme species. In such a way all organisms: humans, animals, and plants have become a part of the very same process - the process of evolution.

3.2 Postanthropocentric perspective

At the beginning, the intellectual upheaval caused by Darwin’s theory did neither influence the comprehension of the relation between humans and animals, nor the one between humans and nature. The ultimate acceptance of the theory did not mean the resignation from the privileged position of humans in regard to other beings. However, it had, without any doubts, an impact on the breakdown of religious beliefs, which place humans outside of the natural world. It also largely contributed to the increase of the interest in biological sciences, ecology, and animal protection. In spite of those changes the majority of thinkers up to the mid-1970s stood on a firm and safe (as it was believed) ground of anthropocentric humanism, the foundation of which was the conviction that “man always has the priority.”

In the beginning of the 1970s many scholars[55] began to make this commonly accepted belief widely criticized. The person who provided probably the most forcible critique was an Australian philosopher, Peter Singer. Singer, who is still regarded as a spiritual leader by the moderate branch of radical animal rights organizations, definitely rejects the reason as a relevant criterion of participation in the moral community of equal beings. In his opinion, being’s ability to experience pleasure and suffering should be decisive when it comes to its “significance” and determinate its status as a legal person. Singer claims that this ability is the only defendable limitation of respecting interests of others. The attempts to delineate this borderline by different features, like for example intelligence, rationality, skin color will always be arbitrary and therefore unjust.

For Singer the potential to feel is a necessary and sufficient condition of having interests, and if the interests are of the same importance, then they should possess the same value and be equally respected regardless of whether they are of human or animal interests: “If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering - in so far as rough comparisons can be made - of any other being (Singer, 1976).” The principle of equal respect of interests (mentioned by Singer in the quotation) requires from us to follow in our attempts to counteract suffering only the intensity of the suffering, not the species of the suffering being. The disparities between particular organisms (humans and animals) can be a reason for a different treatment only if there is a factual difference in the intensity of the experienced suffering. To invoke one of Singer’s most famous examples, if one had to conduct a painful experiment and had had to, for that purpose, kidnap random people from public places, their suffering would be undoubtedly greater than the one of animals kidnapped in the same manner. It is so because another suffering would be added to the suffering coming from the fact of being kidnapped, namely the one caused by fear of being kidnapped, which an animal, due to the lack of such knowledge, cannot experience. On the other hand, if one had to keep a wild animal in a cage for a while, the animal would suffer more, than a human being who is able to understand that the imprisonment is only temporary. Of course, Singer does not encourage any of those “cruelties,” although he acknowledges that there are sound reasons for choosing animals over adult humans for experiments (if they should be allowed at all). Still, if we agree for such experiments we should be willing to carry them out also on infants (most likely on orphans) or mentally disabled because they are, just as some animals, not aware of what is happening to them. The belief that infants and mentally disabled are untouchable due to the fact that they belong to the human species, is, according to Singer, a manifestation of species discrimination (species chauvinism), which in terms of morality is not any different from racism or gender discrimination. Speciesism[56] is a concept that human beings have the right to treat the representatives of other species in a way that would be judged as wrong, if humans were treated this way. In Singer’s opinion, beings belonging to the human species may be given priority only in certain cases, namely, when the level of the experienced pain is higher, than in other species (“Pain and suffering are bad and should be prevented or minimized, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the being that suffers. How bad a pain depends on how intense it is and how long it lasts, but pains of the same intensity and duration are equally bad, whether felt by humans or animals” (Singer, 1995)). Singer, who is a utilitarianist, believes that in situations of conflict we should always be guided by the utility principle, which imposes taking into account the possibly largest dominance of good over evil.

Although the features such as intelligence, consciousness, and the ability to enter emotional relations with others should not be significant in the case of inflicting suffering (or counteracting it), it is not the case, Singer believes, in situations of taking life. For, it is not an expression of speciesism to believe that the life of a self-aware being, capable of abstractive thinking and planning the future possesses a higher value, than the life of a creature that does not have these features.[57] The beings of the first type Singer calls persons. In that way he introduces the distinction between two classes of creatures, whose killing is of entirely different moral status: (1) the class of beings able to plan their own future and who are self-conscious (to this category belong: humans 3 years old and older, apes, and many other higher mammals); (2) the class of creatures able to experience pain but who neither possess self-consciousness, nor have any expectations regarding the future (here Singer enlists: infants, humans with strong mental disability, and lower animals). According to Singer, there is no admittance for killing a being regardless of the category it belongs to. Even if animals have no desires regarding the future (have no awareness of existing in time) and are not aware that the life they are fighting for is their own, they should have the right to stay alive (Singer, 2002, pp. 228-229). Becoming a strict vegetarian is the only way to respect this right by a human being.

This transition has not yet come to pass and the fate of the animal rights movement is still uncertain. Singer in his publications tries to point out similarities between the animal protection movement and the contemporary movements for the liberation of women, black, or gay people. In spite of clear correspondence, there is, according to Singer, a significant difference between those movements. The movements fighting for eradication of discrimination of human minorities consist of individuals who are personally interested in realizing goals expressed by the movement, and who are able to articulate their interests by themselves (Singer, 2002, p. xxiii). Therefore, they have big chances to succeed. The fight for liberating animals will be a much more difficult task because it will require a much higher level of altruism of the beings from the outside of the circle of the discriminated group. The potential beneficiaries of this fight cannot protest in their own name, and that is why the cause will require fully engaged defenders. When it comes to the fight itself, Singer clearly advocates for peaceful methods. In his opinion, any kind of violence (even the one carried out in the name of protecting animals) is a misappropriation against the ideal laying at the foundation of the animal liberation movement - ending any kind of suffering.

An interesting modification of Singer’s standpoint are the views of another animal protector - Tom Regan, the author of All that Dwell Therein(Regan, 1982, p. 5) and The Case for Animal Rights (Regan, 1988). According to Regan, Singer’s utility principle that orders behaviors that would secure a possibly largest advantage of good over evil, takes into account the interests of everyone involved, and treats equal interests equally is not a sufficient foundation for animal protection. The reason for that is that Singer cannot demonstrate that cruel exploitation of animals (especially those in laboratories and industrial faming) is contradictory with utilitarian aspirations to produce the maximal advantage of good over evil. Had he wanted to do that, he would have to give a detailed description of how to treat animals but also of broad consequences of such treatment for all other beings. That is, Regan claims, impossible (e.g., Singer would have to show that resignation from intensive industrial breeding or from using animals for research brings about a larger good, than that coming from the current treatment of animals). Because of these limitations of utilitarianism duties toward animals should be based, in Regan’s opinion, on solid foundations, namely, on the assumption that animals are entitled to certain rights. The source of these rights is possessing the intrinsic value. The human being has intrinsic value regardless of whether they are good or useful for others because they are the subjects of life (it does not matter whether it is a good or bad life). Animals in this respect are not any different (at least those who belong to higher vertebrates). They are the bearers of intrinsic value as well, and hence they have the right to not be treated in a way that neglects their intrinsic value. Animals have an inalienable right not to be harmed. Regan claims that such an inalienable right of the individuals (human or nonhuman) usually has the priority over the collective interest. However, this right may be suspended in certain cases but only when it would prevent a much larger harm of other innocent persons from happening. The farming/breeding industry, pharmaceutical industry, or whale industry, in order to suspend that right and justify the harm inflicted on animals, must prove that such action is justified by other morally significant facts, for example by the fact that it prevents larger harm of other beings.

Although the latter statement seems to open the door for some forms of exploiting animals (e.g., medical experiments), Regan stays at a position that is quite rigorous. According to his point of view, it is forbidden to objectify animals but also animals are treated as moral equal with human beings. In such a way an animal ceases to be merely a part of nature and becomes a unitary being, an individual that fully belongs to the moral universe. Such an individualization of the animal bears consequences for the evaluation of the moral aspect of the action carried out in the name of animal protection. If animals are individuals that have the right to keep their bodily integrity (and hence a full right for protection), then the person who infringes that right without an important existential reason does deserve to be called the aggressor. Should not the aggressor be neutralized, or even killed in extreme situations?

In spite of the fact that the opinions of Singer and Regan in regard to the moral status of animals may seem quite shocking, in the light of the established anthropocentric paradigm, they are not currently the most radical worldview option. Among the views on the matter I know of, the most radical ones may be found on the pages of the famous A Declaration of War, a book with quite a suggestive subtitle - Killing People to Save the Animals and Environment.[58] The content, in spite of a ban on its publication in Canada and the UK, is well-known to the radical animal rights defenders.

The Declaration, as its author (or authors)[59] claims, is a presentation of a program of “a group of people who were once members of the Animal Liberation Front” (calling themselves “Liberators”), who left the Front because they had considered its actions not radical enough and thus ineffective. According to the “Liberators,” the only way to end the cruelty targeting animals and at the same time “to stop the ecological annihilation,” is to bring down the “system,” in which this inequality is inscribed. Liberators believe that the system is not only a particular socio-political structure but above all it is permanently embodied in the human mentality certain way of thinking and evaluation characterized by feigned sensitivity to the suffering of others, specific egoism, and ecological stupidity. According to the liberators, these features are to some extent “genetically” ascribed to our species. Therefore, it is impossible to eliminate them without destroying the foundations it is based on, that is, without the complete elimination of the whole human species.[60]

It is interesting that in their worldview the author(s) of A Declaration of War clearly refers to deep ecology - a radical trend in ecological thought, which constitutes a worldview basis for environmental protection in extremist movements. The major feature of deep ecology is a nonanthropological approach toward ecological problems. This position consists in perceiving all ecological perils as a consequence of the accepted in the past presupposition that the benchmark of all rights and values is the human being with human inborn supremacy in relation to every nonhuman being. According to the proponents of deep ecology, the result of that false assumption is an exploitative approach toward nature, which is treated merely as “resources,” as well as the pernicious belief that degradation of the natural environment can be stopped within the framework of the up-to-date socio-economic development, which requires only a correction of the warps that accidentally occurred in the frame of the properly defined goals. Deep ecology places itself in the opposition to such a way of conceiving nature. The theory strongly postulates a total rejection of the old anthropocentric paradigm that situates the human being above or beyond nature and names it its master. The solution is to begin thinking in a “biocentric” way that presupposes that the human being is merely a small element of the “large biological society,” which consists of not only organic creatures, like, viruses, plants, and animals, but also of natural nonorganic beings, like rivers, mountain ranges, or glaciers.

In a chapter of the Declaration dedicated to the foundations of the liberationist worldview titled “This World is Meant for all Beings,” there is an overt and radical condemnation of anthropocentrism,[61] as well as at least two out of three principles- claims that deep ecology is composed of, namely the “principle of mutual relation between things,” according to which things should be perceived not as individuals that are something in themselves but in the categories of mutual relations with other things, and the “principle of biocentric egalitarianism” that emphasizes the necessity of granting all biosphere elements the same rights to live and attain their own individual developmental forms.

However, it does not mean that the liberators should be recognized as “followers” of deep ecology. After a closer look at the treatise, it turns out that the proclaimed by the liberators principle of biocentric egalitarianism gives equal rights to live to all beings, including humans, but merely “potentially.” Because of its “evil nature” humans should be excluded from the universal equality and be treated as world-threatening wreckers. Another ideological difference between the proponents of deep ecology and the liberators is the attitude toward killing. According to deep ecologists, killing and even exploitation or oppression are regular forms of participation in the ecosystem and if they really serve satisfying the vital needs, they should be ethically accepted. On that account, deep ecologists accept humans killing living beings, if of course it serves to satisfy their vital needs and does not disturb the ecological balance. The liberators, on the other hand, are against killing of “innocent creatures,” among which they list all sentient beings with the exclusion of the representatives of the human species. The latter, as it was mentioned already, the liberators believe, should be eradicated from the surface of the planet earth.

The liberators are well aware that it would be impossible to carry out a massive extermination - the opponent is much stronger in numbers and in economic terms. They rather count here on human self-destruction, than on their own perpetration. Because it is impossible to ultimately resolve the problem of animal oppression and devastation of the environment, the liberators propose to concentrate on the improvement of the current state of affairs. They believe it can be achieved by adopting a twofold strategy: a “passive” and an “active.”

The “passive” strategy of fighting “animal oppressors” should consist in boycotting the political and legal system that sanctions exploitation of animals and destruction of the natural environment. In other words, the liberators postulate breaking all relations with civilization - not using cars, not paying taxes, and so on (they allow for occasional usage of them only if it aids their fight, for example, buying explosives or using a car for escape). In the liberators’ opinion, the retreat of valuable individuals (the ones sensitive to the suffering of others and brave enough to pursue the noble goal of the liberation of animals) from society has to necessarily lead to the degeneration of humankind, which, unable to fight against “corruption, greed, and vanity” will quickly tumble down into the abyss of “ecological and moral self-annihilation.” The “active” strategy of fighting for animal rights (called “military interventionism” by the liberators), on the other hand, is a strategy that consists in using force, both indirect (targeting things) and direct (aimed at an individual human or a group of humans). What is recommended within this strategy is, first of all, bringing forth various acts of sabotage[62] (freeing animals from “the places of torment,” destroying cages and experiment equipment), eliminate those who contribute the most to the suffering of animals (experimenters, farmers, butchers, hunters), intimidating those who would like to follow in the steps of the latter, and those who use the services provided by them (meat consumers, pharmaceutical companies). It seems rather symptomatic that the liberators in their fight completely reject any form of propaganda actions aimed at teaching society about proper relations with animals. They believe that such “information-oriented activity” would be quite risky but also ineffective - “animal oppressors” will never be able to comprehend the extent of their cruelty and any attempt to contact them brings the risk of exposure. The most effective and at the same time morally right way of fighting is from the “underground.” Therefore, the liberators should never “sign under their work,” as members of the Animal Liberation Front do, nor inform public about the danger they are threatened with (as the Animal Rights Militia sometimes does). There should be no command center in the organization, nor any form of formal structure because it increases the risk of invigilation. The liberators are of the opinion that the fight should be kept up individually or with a group of trusted, similarly thinking comrades.

The Declaration provides an utterly fundamentalist vision of the world. According to this point of view, the reality is divided into two disjoint spheres: the sphere of ideal and harmonious being, which is equated with the world of nature (especially with the animal world), and the sphere of chaos and decay, which is embodied by the contemporary egoist and violence-based industrial civilization. This Manichean bisection of reality is also projected onto the human world. The people, accordingly, are split into the “good ones,” who are sensitive, brave, and harmoniously living with nature, and the “bad ones” - insensitive, and/or cowardly ignoramuses, who treat animals and the whole natural world only as a means for their usually ignoble goals. The latter are unable to accurately recognize the values in the world and this is why the “morally right” way of conduct have to be imposed on them by force.

Of course, it would be a mistake or even an abuse to claim that the postulates contained in the Declaration are commonly accepted among the animal rights activists. Although open voices of support for those ideas occur on the Web pages of the leading animal rights groups (radical and moderate), it happens extremely rarely (on the other hand, there are not so many condemning voices, as well). Therefore, one may think that the Declaration is merely a brochure of insignificant meaning (written by an animal rights fundamentalist or, as some claim, by a provocateur to discredit the movement), if not the fact that for years it has been translated, printed, distributed, and sometimes discussed by numerous animal rights groups. It seems very improbable that it is so because of the sensational character of its message, which by many animal rights activists may be perceived as inconvenient or even discrediting. It should be assumed, it seems, that these postulates are in a way (at least on the ideological level) quite attractive for part of the animal rights defenders.

The fact that the Declaration can be appealing should come as no surprise. The majority of the theses present in the treatise stems from the same ideological trunk as the claims of the moderate and peace-oriented part of animal rights protectors. This common ground is the principle of respecting the right to live and self-realization of all sentient beings - animals and people. The individual and autonomous value is appurtenant to these beings; the value that is independent from their ecosystemic importance or the level of intellectual development. As it is the case with the majority of this kind of ethical statements, the principle lays a duty on those who identify with it to oppose any attempts of breaking it, that is, hunting,[63] medical experiments, industrial breeding, or using animals for entertainment. A key question in this context seems to be the one about the conditions and ways in which that duty should be fulfilled. In human society (and from within anthropocentrism) it is quite commonly believed that in a life-threatening (our own or someone else’s) situation caused by an “unjust aggressor” it is allowed to react to the attack with force, and in some cases even to take the aggressor’s life (if there is no other way). According to some radical animal rights defenders, there are no reasons not to act in such a way in cases when animals are in danger and humans are the aggressor.[64] Making a reference to the holo- caust[65] by no accident is a constant motif in the animal rights literature. The message behind those holocaust references, contradictory to the official declarations, is both simple and suggestive - animals, just like the prisoners of the concentration camps, are defenseless victims of unjust aggression. Therefore, they are in need of care and protection. In consequence, there must be fully committed human defenders who, in spite of personal risk, would grab weapons for the cause of animal defense, who will oppose the “evil of anthropocentrism” in all its forms and variations, even if it means resorting to violence.

4. Animal Rights Movement: Foundation, Development, and Radicalization

4.1 The beginnings of animal rights activism

When people tell the story of western animal rights activism, they usually begin with the middle of the nineteenth century. Indeed, it was then that its first organized forms appeared. However, even earlier, there have been some (admittedly rare) instances of animal protectionism. In antiquity, the first one to openly call for the gentle treatment of animals was Plutarch. He reportedly did this not because he believed in the transmigration of souls, but on account of the rule of common kindness, which he wanted to extend to nonhuman creatures. In the Middle Ages, there were few known examples reflecting people’s concern for the lot of animals. St. Basil and St. Isaac the Syrian, in their prayers and sermons, encouraged kindness toward animals. There were others, like St. Neot, who went as far as to sabotage hunts, saving stags and hares from death. Similarly in the Renaissance the instances of animal protection were very rare. The 1567 decree of pope Pius V condemning bullfighting should be treated as an isolated case. Organized efforts in the service of animal rights did not exist yet at that time. At most, we can speak of cases of individual activism, like the one of Leonardo da Vinci, who reportedly used to purchase birds in cages in order to set them free.

The first known legislative initiative that tried to limit cruelty toward animals was the legal code entitled Body of Liberties, passed in the Massachusetts colony in 1641. That collection of 98 “liberties” drawn up by the Puritan minister Nathaniel Ward included two clauses protecting animals. And thus in the paragraph entitled “Off the Bruite Creature,” section 92 reads: “No man shall exercise any Tirranny or Crueltie towards any bruite Creature which are usuallie kept for man’s use.” Section 93 features more specific remarks: “If any man shall have occasion to leade or drive Cattel from place to place that is far of, so that they be weary, or hungry, or fall sick, or lambe, It shall be lawful to rest or refresh them, for competant time, in any open place that is not Corne, meadow, or inclosed for some peculiar use” (The Massachusetts Body of Liberties, 2014). Section 92 was applied at least in one case, namely in an instance of cruelty towards an ox.

In Europe, law concerning animals has obviously existed before the beginning of the nineteenth century, but its main purpose was the protection of humans against damages caused by animals owned by other people or the protection of animals that were somebody’s property. In 1749, a man from Gloucester who wanted to take revenge on the owner of a mare, killed that mare and was subsequently sentenced to death pursuant to the Black Act of 1723. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the law was kinder to perpetrators of such acts. In 1806, the jury in Sussex sentenced the perpetrator who spilled sulfuric acid on a dog to pay £5 in damages to the dog’s owner. Sometimes attempts have been made to counteract cruelty toward animals (which was very common at that time) on account of the moral dimension of cruelty, as well as the danger that cruel behaviors may later be redirected at humans. In 1766, in Leipzig, a coachman’s helper was sentenced to 12 weeks of imprisonment for riding a horse to death, and in 1789 Emperor Joseph II banned baiting animals for sport (46 years before the introduction of such ban in England).

The intellectual transformation that took place at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (criticism of Cartesianism, the call for a return to nature, pantheism, humanism) resulted in specific actions aimed at improving the lot of animals. The first bill (drawn up by William Pulteney) whose purpose was to outlaw bull-baiting, a quite popular practice in England at that time, was presented to the House of Commons as early as 1800. The bill found no understanding - neither in the English parliament, nor in the media who portrayed it as an attempt to limit the personal freedom of individuals.[66] In 1809, Lord Thomas Erskine (Bentham’s friend) brought a bill before the parliament to outlaw “willful and wanton”[67] cruelty toward animals bred by man. The bill was passed by the House of Lords, but rejected by the House of Commons.

The first success in the field of legal protection of animals came on June 22, 1822. It was then that the English parliament passed the bill brought by Richard Martin (an Irish landowner and member of the Gaillimh county assembly, also known as “Humanity Dick”) banning the cruel treatment of some of the domesticated animals (horses, donkeys, mules, oxen, cows, sheep) that were property of other people.[68] If the perpetrator incriminated in such “cruel treatment” was captured, they were liable to pecuniary punishment not higher than £5 and not lower than 10 shillings or to imprisonment not longer than 3 months.[69] In 1833 and 1835 the act was supplemented with two amendments that prohibited beating and throwing stones at cattle, baiting, and organizing fights of dogs, bulls, bears, roosters, as well as keeping animals in slaughter enclosures for more than 3 days.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, animal defenders in Great Britain turned their attention to vivisection. In 1857, English opponents of “extremely cruel experiments” on horses (repeated vivisection) carried out in veterinary schools in France sent a delegation to Napoleon III with the request to abolish such practices.[70] In 1874 animal defenders and a certain part of British society opposed to demonstrations of the influence of alcohol on the development of epilepsy in dogs carried out during a meeting of the British Medical Association by a French scientist Eugenie Magnam. In the climate of moral contempt for vivisection shared by a large part of society, in 1876 another important legal act was passed in England, the “British Cruelty to Animals Act,” which limited experiments on animals. According to that act, vivisection could be performed only in licensed medical centers and only when the animal’s pain could be minimized with appropriate anesthetics.

One of the most important modern animal welfare acts passed in Great Britain (which in a way replaced all previous legislation) was undoubtedly the Protection of Animals Act of 1911.[71] The fundamental assumption that the entire act was based on, was the acknowledgement that animals’ suffering caused by cruel behaviors, such as beating, kicking, torturing, terrorizing, or neglecting, is always worthy of consideration, as well as (which was especially emphasized) “unnecessary.” In reference to the 1833 and 1835 regulations, the Protection of Animals Act prohibited animal fighting and baiting. It also banned transporting animals in ways that may cause their “unnecessary suffering,” carrying out operations without “due concern and humanitarianism”[72] as well as intentional poisoning of animals without well-founded reasons.[73] In the cases of confirmed cruelty, the act gave courts the right to impose fines in the amount of £2000 and/or to sentence the culprit to 6 months of imprisonment, as well as to take away the animals kept by them. It is worth mentioning that the act, despite its unquestionable advantages, posed certain interpretation problems connected with the vague notion of “unnecessary suffering,” and broadly speaking, the entire notion of “animal welfare.” Some people claim that legislation based on the notion of “unnecessary suffering” will never be able to provide sufficient protection to animals, as it can always be interpreted so as not to collide with human interests. Others represent the view that the notion’s vagueness is an advantage, because it enables the application of the notion to many different situations and gives the courts the opportunity to take into account the knowledge about animal suffering, which is constantly changing, and society’s idea of what “unnecessary suffering” is (see Garner, 2004, p. 85; Francione, 1995; Radford, 2001).

4.2 The organizational perspective

Legislative initiatives were not the only form of activity of animal rights defenders. Only 2 years after the 1822 act was passed, its creators Richard Martin, William Wilberforce, and Thomas Fowell Buxton founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (after 1840 called the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals - RSPCA) in Great Britain. It is noteworthy that until the end of the nineteenth century this first European animal rights organization focused solely on acts of cruelty that were committed by members of lower social classes (animal baiting and fighting), entirely disregarding those committed by members of higher classes (races, hunts).[74] As a result of the lack of condemnation of “blood sports,” some disappointed members of RSPCA founded the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports[75] in 1924.[76]

Increased concern about the suffering of laboratory animals caused the foundation of the first antivivisection organizations in the 1870s. In 1878, the suffragette France Power Cobbe founded a society for counteracting vivisection in Great Britain, and she named it the Victoria Street Society. When the society, under the management of Stephen Colridge, focused on minimizing the suffering, rather than on full abolition of animal vivisection, Cobbe founded a new abolitionist organization - the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, which exists to the present day.

Legislative changes in Great Britain influenced other north European countries. First acts prohibiting the cruel treatment of animals were passed in Saxony (1830), in Prussia (1838), and in Wurttemberg (1839). At the same time, the first animal welfare societies came into existence. In 1837, pastor Albert Knapp founded the first German animal protection society in Stuttgart. Other German cities followed in his footsteps - Nuremberg and Dresden in 1839, Berlin, Hamburg, and Frankfurt in 1841, Munich in 1842, and Hannover in 1844. In Switzerland the first animal welfare societies were founded in Bern (1844), in Basel (1849), and in Zurich (1859). Scandinavian countries also became interested in the legal protection for animals. The first Norwegian animal welfare society was founded in Oslo in 1859, and the first Norwegian act protecting animals was passed in 1842. In Sweden, the first organizations acting for “animal well-being” (later called “animal welfare organizations”) were founded in Gothenburg (1869) and in Strangnas (1870), whereas the first act preventing excessive cruelty toward animals came into force in 1857. In the same year a similar act was passed in Denmark.

Legislative changes of pro-animal character did not pass by the United States, although it has to be admitted that the source of the first acts protecting the animals was not the activity of reform movements, but the desire to modernize the state legal codes, whereby English models were often used. Harassing horses, sheep, and cattle was first recognized as an offence in 1828 in New York. A similar act was introduced in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Wisconsin in 1835. In the late 1830s, first grassroots initiatives began to appear. In 1837 in Boston, the clergyman Charles Lowell gave a series of sermons against the cruelty toward animals, and at the beginning of the 1840s and 1850s some people started to undertake private initiatives to protect birds and horses. These endeavors did not turn into an organization until the mid-1860s, when a rich New Yorker named Henry Bergh, after consultations with RSPCA leaders in London, decided to found an American version of that society. On April 10, 1866 a charter was passed of a new organization henceforth known as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty - ASPCA. I believe it is worth emphasizing that the charter itself included the very first “Universal Declaration of Animal Rights” in the world, which Bergh later described as “Animals’ Declaration of Independence,” suggesting that it should be cherished like Jefferson’s Declaration. Bergh, similarly to most animal defenders of his time, substantiated his activism primarily with humanitarian considerations. According to him, cruelty toward animals corrupts and brutalizes social life. A society that does not make the necessary effort to put an end to it faces the risk that cruelty toward people may develop, which can lead to a civilization decline and collapse. In 1867 and 1880 Bergh tried to bring about the introduction of antivivisection legislation. However, he did not succeed in that endeavor.

It is worth mentioning that the animal protection movement was one of the first to initiate the fight against child abuse. In 1874 Henry Bergh won a lawsuit against the caretaker of an abused child, filed on the basis of the New York animal protection act. In the years that followed, other court cases of that kind took place, which gave the impulse for the foundation of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Soon a British version of that society was founded by the RSPCA - the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (see Singer, p. 222). Bergh’s organization activism soon attracted followers. In 1868, a prominent Boston lawyer named George T. Angell, influenced by press reports of horses dying in races, founded the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The organization’s activities included publishing a magazine that promoted kind-heartedness toward pets and putting pressure on the legislative organs, so that they pass laws regulating the issues of animal care, transport, and slaughter. Within the following 10 years, almost every big city in the northeast had its own SPCA. On the West Coast, the first SPCA was established in San Francisco in 1868.

The development of interest in animal protection, which was characteristic for the Victorian times, clearly slowed down at the beginning of the twentieth century, which was followed by a period of long stagnation. Social unrest, as well as World War I and II were, as is commonly claimed, the main reason for that state of affairs. The state of stagnation did not, however, involve all European countries. In the 1930s significant changes were introduced into the law on the protection of animals in Nazi Germany. The lead Nazis like Hitler, Himmler, and Goering, inspired an act passed in Germany on November 24, 1933 (das Tierschutzgesetz) which, for the first time in world history, spoke of the protection of animals in the language of their rights. Less than a year later, on July 3, 1934, the act was supplemented with provisions limiting hunts (das Reichsjagdgesetz), and subsequently, on July 1, 1935, with provisions on the protection of nature (das Reichsnaturschutzgesetz). In comparison to the acts of the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, which prohibited only such cruelty that was publicly inflicted upon domesticated animals, German law went much further. Not only did it do away with the distinction between domesticated and wild animals, it also penalized all acts of their ill-treatment, irrespective of whether they were committed publicly, or in the privacy of one’s home (see Ferry, 1995).

Henceforth, cruelty toward animals was punishable not in order to protect humans from viewing bestial behavior, nor because of the danger that such behavior might be transferred onto other humans. According to the authors of the 1933 act, animals’ suffering is bad in itself, because the animals themselves are valuable beings. The right to protection is a simple consequence of their intrinsic value. Every animal should have that right, regardless of whether it belongs to higher or lower species, whether it is domesticated or wild, useful or harmful to humans. It has to be admitted that such formulation of the question of value was very innovative at that time. And although German legislation did not equal German citizens with animals, giving the latter the right of protection on account of their intrinsic value was the first step toward overcoming anthropocentrism.[77]

4.3 Animal liberation movement

The period of stagnation in other countries lasted until the end of the 1960s, when the animal movement started developing rapidly. It is difficult to indicate a turning point that could be considered the “ideological trigger” of that dynamic development. It was probably, to a large extent, a consequence of growing demands concerning the broadening of moral horizons.[78] Obviously, there were also other reasons for the increasing interest in the “animal issue,” independent of the evolution of the moral perspective. The most important of them include final rejection by the scientific world of the paradigm of an essential, impassable difference between the human and the animal being, the emergence of the countercultural slogan of the “return to nature” in popular culture, questioning by the new feminist movement of the so-called “masculine values” (of the macho culture), such as power and violence, expansion of values based on sensitivity and compassion, popularity of holistic philosophies that emphasized the importance of the way things are produced and how that process influences the world of nature, and finally, criticism of instrumentalism, which prioritizes technology, production, and profit over social and spiritual needs.

The growing interest in animal protection, which took place in the 1960s, primarily involved English and American organizations. Garner provides the following list: among 35 pro-animal organizations, selected based on the large number of members, resources, and high prestige in society, 8 were established in the nineteenth century, 8 between 1902 and 1945, only 1 between 1945 and 1960, and between 1960 and 1990 as many as 18 such organizations were founded (6 in the 1960s, 5 in the 1970s, 3 in the 1980s, and 4 in the 1990s). It was similar in the United States, where in the group of 37 big animal welfare organizations, 5 were established between 1860 and 1990, only 1 between 1900 and 1950, and between 1950 and 1990, as many as 31 (5 in the 1950s, 4 in the 1960s, 11 in the 1970s, and 11 in the 1980s) (Garner, 2004, pp. 45-47).

The increase in the number of organizations was accompanied by the increase in the number of their members, whereby the largest growth was noted in conservation organizations (which deal with the protection of wild species, mainly on account of the role they play in the ecosystem). And so, for example, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in the 1930s had only 4000 members, whereas in 1971 it already had 98,000, in 1983 it had 300,000, in 1987 it had 561,000, and in 1995 it had as much as 890,000. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) expanded their member base from 120,000 in 1971 to 220,000 in 1995. Within the same period of time, the number of members of the Friends of the Earth (FoE) increased from 1000 to 110,000, while the Royal Society for Nature Conservation (RSNC) grew from 64,000 to 250,000 members. The increase in the number of members in organizations of the pro-animal type (i.e., ones that deal solely with animal protection) was much less rapid, although doubtlessly significant. Around 1978, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), currently one of the most famous antivivisection organizations, had 4000 members, while in 1986 it already had 8000 members, and in 1989 it had 12,000. It was similar in the case of the League Against Cruel Sports, which had 6000 members in 1950, in 1982 it had 12000, in 1989 it had 15,000, and at the end of the century it had around 20,000. Animal Aid began its activity in 1977 in Jean Pink’s small flat, but 2 years later, due to the increasing number of members, it had to rent an office. Around 1983 the number of its members was 10,000, and at the beginning of 1990 it grew to 16,000 (see Garner, 2004, p. 48).

The increasing membership in organizations of the pro-animal type and of the combined pro-animal and environmental type was accompanied by the growing social support, as a result of which these organizations had more and more financial resources at their disposal. Also in this respect the leaders were wildlife protection organizations. In 1996, the most well-known proenvironmental organizations in the United States had the following budgets: The Nature Conservancy $312 m, National Wildlife Fund $63 m, Sierra Club $44 m, and National Audubon Society $42 m. In 1990 in Great Britain, the budget of the World Wide Fund was £22 m, and the budget of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was £22.4 m. The resources of the largest pro-animal organizations were slightly smaller, but also considerable. In 1996 in the United States, the budget of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) was $31 m, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) $18 m, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) $13.4 m, and the American Humane Association (AHA) $6 m. In Great Britain, the revenue of the largest and oldest pro-animal organization, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, amounted to £21.7 m in 1990, and in 2002 it grew to £66 m. Revenues of other organizations were much more modest (e.g., the well-known and respectable Anti-Vivisection Society had only £1.4 m at its disposal in 2002).

Increasing membership and wealth were not the only, and especially not the most important changes that took place after 1960 in the animal movement. It seems that equally important changes concerned the category of objects that were to be protected. In the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth century, animal protectors were mainly interested in domesticated animals (horses, dogs, cats, only rarely birds). The activities of most pro-animal organizations at that point involved rescuing homeless dogs and cats from the streets and placing them in shelters, educating society in order to arouse sympathy toward animals and stigmatizing the most cruel cases of their public harassment. Whereas “cruelties” committed in slaughterhouses, during hunts, in laboratories or in farms, or even those less hidden - in zoos or in rodeos, were rarely the object of any significant interest of animal lovers. That state of affairs changed at the beginning of the 1960s. It was then that the attention of animal activists turned toward farm[79] and wild animals for the first time. Broadening the scope of species to be protected influenced the specialization within pro-animal organizations. Currently, pro-animal organizations in Europe and in the United States represent a wide range of perspectives and approaches.

For instance, there are organizations dealing with one specific type of exploitation, such as vivisection (National Anti-Vivisection Society, New England Antivivisection Society, Britisch Union for the Abolition of Vivisection), factory farming (Farm Animal Reform Movement, Human Farming Association, Farm Sanctuary, Farm Animal Care Trust, Compassion in World Farming, Farm Animal Rights Movement) or the fur industry (Lynx). Others deal with protection of a particular species of animals, for example, Humans against Rabbit Exploitation, Friends of the Wolf, Wolves and Related Canids, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, International League for the Protection of Horses.

Some animal rights organizations focus on specific actions - bringing about proanimal legislation and fighting for animals in courts (National Alliance for Animal Legislation, Society for Animal Protective Legislation, Humane Legislative Network, Animal Legal Defense Fund, United Action for Animals, Animal Rights Law Clinic), distributing educational materials (Argus Archives, Animal Rights Network), or providing shelter to particular types of animals (Primarily Primates, Horse Sanctuary, Farm Sanctuary, Wolf Sanctuary).

The animal welfare movement also includes organizations that combine fighting for animal rights with other liberation issues (Feminists for Animal Rights, Gays and Lesbians for Animal Rights, Incurably III United against Vivisection) as well as organizations that combine the concern for animals with religion (International Society for Religion and Animal Rights, Unitarian Universalists for Ethical Treatment of Animals, Buddhists Concerned for Animals, Jews for Animal Rights). Some organizations are connected with particular occupations, for example, Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Veterinarians for Animal Rights, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and Actors and Others for Animal Rights (see Finsen and Finsen, 1994, p. 73).

There are also organizations that focus on individual campaigns, such as putting an end to animal testing (Coalition to Abolish the Draize), putting an end to sending animals from shelters to laboratories (Pro Pets), prohibiting experiments on animals in classrooms (Student Action Corps for Animals), or banning hunts (Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting, Hunt Saboteurs).

4.4 Animal welfare vs. animal rights

When categorizing organizations within the animal protection movement, it is important to consider the ideological division into organizations of the “animal welfare” and “animal rights” type.[80] The animal protection movement, which developed in the nineteenth century in England and the United States, quite quickly split into two trends. The first one, called “animal welfare movement” called for humane treatment of animals. Its followers (“animal welfare groups”) focused mainly on improving the life conditions of animals, and represented the view that their treatment should be motivated by compassion and concern. They believe animals deserve to be treated in a humane way, but as they are not equal to humans, they cannot have rights. Organizations representing the animal welfare ideology claim that animals’ interest is very important, but it should be subordinate to human interest. For that reason they focus on improving the life conditions of animals, but they do not negate the necessity of their exploitation.[81] Although animal welfare organizations began their activity from protecting farm animals, toward the end of the nineteenth century, they focused primarily on companion animals (mainly dogs and cats).[82] Organizations of that type often cooperated with local authorities to establish shelters and clinics for homeless animals. The second trend, referred to as “animal rights movement” or “animal liberation movement,” promoted the necessity of complete abolition of animal exploitation. Its aim was not to merely improve the conditions that animals are “used” in, but to radically change the

way humans perceive them. According to adherents of this trend, animals should have the right to respect and dignity comparable to those that humans enjoy. Animal rights organizations do not recognize the idea of moral superiority of humans. They claim that animals, like humans, should have the unrestricted right to life and development of their potential, which obviously excludes any form of their exploitation. Under no circumstances can they be treated as the object of human domination. Animal rights activists are especially interested in laboratory, farm, and wild animals.

The relations between animal rights activists and animal welfare activists are usually based on a considerable amount of mutual distrust, which sometimes even turns into hostility. There are a number of reasons for that. Activists of the first type usually think that the funds collected by animal welfare organizations contribute to the welfare of animals only to a small extent, and are often simply wasted, and even embezzled. In 1988 George Cave (the founder of the animal rights organization called “Animal Rights Mobilization!”) established the Coalition Against Animal Welfare Fraud, whose aim was to disclose information on the high earnings of welfare organizations employees and on embezzlements that they commit (it concerned mainly a big organization called “Humane Society of the United States”).[83] Animal welfare activists, in turn, claim that the attitude and activity of “animal rights radicals” destroys the positive view of the movement in the society and discourages people from acts of charity toward animals themselves. In such situation, they think that the only possible reaction on the part of the “legitimate” pro-animal organizations is a far-reaching distance. A good example of such distance can be the joint resolution of presidents of HSUS, ASPA, and Massachusetts SPCA (“Resolution for the 1990s,” published in the New York Times), in which they criticized the methods used by animal rights activists, or the (accidentally disclosed) memorandum of the HSUS president John Hoyt to the Secretary of Agriculture, in which he dissociated himself from the previous memorandum of Alex Hershaft - the president of the radical FARM (Garner, 2004, p. 65). Such declarations and acts obviously did not contribute to any understanding between the animal rights and the animal welfare movement. Aversion between these two types of groups was increased by the fact that prominent activists often left animal welfare for animal rights organizations. The example of Helen Jones is noteworthy in that respect. In 1954 she quit the American Humane Association and subsequently she founded the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). However, in 1957 she left that group as well, and later founded probably the first organization to openly fight for animal rights - the International Society for Animal Rights.

Despite the rising popularity of the animal rights movement, most organizations of the pro-animal movement still identify with the traditional welfare ideology. An example of such organization can be the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), founded in 1951 in Washington. Its major goal is to reduce pain and fear inflicted upon animals, to eliminate cruelty toward farm animals, and to promote the humane treatment of laboratory animals. A similar approach to animal protection is represented by the British Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments (FRAME), which was established in 1969. The goal of this welfare organization was financing and promoting research on alternative methods of carrying out experiments - in opposition to those that involve suffering and death of animals. But FRAME does not demand a ban on animal testing - it represents the view that until alternative methods have been discovered, animals can and even have to be used. The American Medical Research Modernization Committee and the British Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) have identical aims. The latter, as the animal rights theoretician Richard Ryder claims, had “an almost fanatical determination not to be fanatical” (Garner, 2004, p. 52, 53) and not to engage in any disputes on animal testing. A similar strategy was adopted by a different British organization, the Human Slaughter Association (HSA), which does not participate in the moral debate on killing animals for meat, but focuses on the promotion of humane ways of animal slaughter. One of the largest welfare organizations, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) considers its primary goal to be the prevention of suffering and abuse of animals, but it does not oppose “lawful and appropriate” use of animals in order to acquire meat, leather or wool (but it does oppose breeding animals for fur).

4.5 Toward radicalism

Although, as I already stated, the dominant trend within the pro-animal movement has been the “animal welfare movement,” since the mid-1970s, a second trend has been gaining popularity (especially in the United States) - the animal rights movement. The spiritual leader of this movement is, apparently justly, seen in Peter Singer, although he (being a utilitarist) did not use the notion of right, but the principle of equality in examining the interests of all parties. Philosophical nuances are not really important in this case. For many animal rights activists, Peter Singer’s “Animal Liberation” was the very book that gave a theoretical structure to their convictions, which were often not yet clearly defined. At the same time, a lot of people found it to be an important (sometimes even the main) source of inspiration. (Naturally, there were other publications that also had a considerable influence on the development of the movement, including Ruth Harrison’s 1964 “Animal Machines,” which was a fierce attack on the cruel treatment of animals in farms, or the 1970 “Man’s Domination” by Monica Hutchings and Mavis Caver, which made a big impression on animal welfare activists as well.) One of the prominent animal activists, Jean Pink, claimed that she founded Animal Aid (in 1977 in Great Britain) after she had read Singer’s book. According to Alex Pacheco, the co-founder and chairman of People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, Singer’s book was the book that taught him how to “combine emotions and reason” and showed him “how one can realize their convictions” (Oliver, 1993, p. 5).

The American human rights activist Henry Spira was also clearly influenced by Singer’s ideas. A year prior to the publication of “Animal Liberation,” Spira read Singer’s article in the New York Review of Books, and subsequently he attended his lectures at a New York university. Spira considered everything Singer said to be “important and moving.” According to him: “Singer described a universe of more than 4 billion animals being killed each year in the United States alone. Their suffering is intense, widespread, expanding, systematic, and socially sanctioned. And the victims are unable to organize in defense of their own interests” (Spira, 1985; Wand, 2003, p. 21). Spira claimed that traditional organizations campaigning for their welfare are not able to considerably improve their fate: “The standards strategy of animal welfare groups seemed to be send out literature saying: ‘Look how the animals are suffering. Send us money!’ And then, next month, the group would use the money to send out to the converted more descriptions of atrocities in order to generate more money to mail more horror stories. Moreover, interest was focused largely on the 1% of animal suffering most conducive to sentimental fund-raising efforts - that of dogs, cats, seals, horses, and primates. Thus, the 99% of animal pain suffered by animals in factory farms and in the laboratories, by species who did not make it in the popularity list, was ignored” (Spira, 1985; Wand, 2003, pp 21, 22).

In 1976 Spira, along with a few New York pro-animal groups, organized an 18-month- long picket in front of the American Museum of Natural History, aiming at putting an end to the 20-year cycle of experiments on cats[84] carried out in that museum, and he presented a report on those experiments to the public opinion. He also managed to convince Congressman Ed Koch that the experiments had to be stopped. After Koch’s report, 112 members of Congress questioned the sense of the experiments, and as a result the National Institute of Health withheld their funding of the research. About a dozen months later the laboratory was closed. As Lawrence and Susan Finsen state in their book “The Animal Rights Movement in America,” Spira’s campaign prompted the American press to use the term “animal rights activists” instead of “animal lovers” for the first time (Finsen and Finsen, 1994, p. 61). Spira’s next campaign was equally successful. It was directed against the Metcalf-Hatch Act passed in the state of New York in 1952.[85] The act allowed scientists to take animals that nobody collected from the city shelters, and use them for medical testing. Spira’s activity combined with the activity of the Society for Animal Rights and of Citizens for Animals, brought about a repeal of the act in 1979.

Not all “animal lovers” contented themselves with protests and pickets. In May 1977, two students - Kenneth W. Le Vasseur and Steven C. Sipman (who called themselves “Undersea Railroad”[86]) freed a couple of dolphins that professor Louis Herman from the University of Hawaii had been training for 8 years. After performing the act, the two “liberators” went to Honolulu, where they called a press conference to explain their motives. Although Le Vasseur and Sipman were not affiliated with any pro-animal organization, their explanations clearly fit into the “animal rights” rhetoric. They explained that the act was not stealing, but returning to the dolphins their inherent freedom that they are justly entitled to - and so the students’ act should not be considered criminal.[87] Apparently, the court before which they were tried did not share their opinion, as it passed a suspended sentence of 6 months of imprisonment for the two “liberators” (Nash, 1989, p. 186; Wand, 2003, pp. 164-173).

Naturally, it is difficult to determine to what extent these first actions influenced the development of the animal rights movement. The fact is that since the beginning of the 1980s there has been a dynamic development of organizations that demand a full abolition with respect to animals and that are ready to fight against all kinds of violations of their “inborn rights,” irrespective of whether those violations are justified by important interests of humanity.

One of the most prominent organizations that were founded at that time was PETA. PETA was established by two pro-animal activists, Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco, in 1980. It became renowned through an action carried out in 1981 by Pacheco, who stole and handed over to the media materials on “inhumane conditions” that 17 monkeys were kept in by the Edward Taub’s Institute for Behavioral Research in Silver Springs in Maryland. As a result of the scandal that broke out after the press published those materials, the National Institutes of Health withheld the Institute’s promised funding and punished it with the first sentence for cruelty toward animals in the history of the United States.[88] In 1983 PETA disclosed the practice of shooting at homeless dogs by the army in order to study the influence of bullets on muscle tissue. PETA organized a campaign that prompted the Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger, to issue a moratorium on those experiments. In 1984, PETA brought about a termination of experiments of Thomas Gennarelli from the University of Pennsylvania, which consisted in inducing head injuries in monkeys and subsequently studying their brain damage. The campaign organized by PETA was possible thanks to a previous action of the Animal Liberation Front, whose members stole video tapes from the laboratory showing pictures of cruelty toward animals.[89] These recordings were so incriminating that the Secretary of Health and Human Services cancelled Gennarelli’s grant. These actions that unmask the truth, as well as others of educational and propaganda character (including those that consist in raising the awareness of consumers with regard to the necessity of using products that were not tested on animals or in organizing concerts that promote animal rights), brought popularity to the organization, which quickly translated into an increase in the number of its members and supporters.

Currently, PETA is the largest animal rights organization (with over 1.8 m. members and supporters) with its main seat in Norfolk (Virginia) and with branches in Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, India, and in the Asia-Pacific region. In the 1980s many smaller organizations were founded (such as Animal Rights Mobilization!, also known as Trans-Species Limited, established in 1981 by George Cave in Pennsylvania; In Defense of Animals established in 1983 in California on the initiative of Elliot Katz; and Farm Sanctuary established in New York in 1986 by Gene Baur and Lorri Bauston), which, similarly to PETA, tried to fight against all forms of animal exploitation through campaigns and propaganda actions.

That fight, to the astonishment of many animal welfare activists, quite often ended in spectacular success. In 1988, Trans-Species Unlimited organized a picket that lasted several months and prompted a scientist from Cornell University to decline a grant of $530,000 that he received for research on cats’ addiction to barbiturates. At the beginning of the 1980s, Henry Spira organized a coalition against the Draize Test and the LD50 test[90] (Coalition to Abolish to Draize Test), which called on Revlon (the largest cosmetic company in the United States) to allot a tenth of 1% of their revenue to develop alternative methods of research. When Revlon refused, the Coalition’s activists organized a happening ridiculing the company’s actions. The happening proved to be successful - Revlon allotted the requested amount to develop alternatives. Other companies, like Avon and Bristol-Myers, followed in its footsteps. On the rising tide of interest in alternative research methods, many scientific magazines were started, including: “In-Vitro Toxicology,” “Cell Biology and Toxicology,” or “Toxicology in Vitro.” Soon corporations such as Avon, Bristol-Myers, Mobil, and Procter & Gamble began using alternative methods in their laboratories, thus reducing the number of animals subjected to testing. In 1988, an international campaign against Benetton, coordinated by PETA, made the company stop carrying out tests on animals. A month after that, a famous lotion producer - Noxell Corporation - announced that they would be using a screening test that would reduce the number of animals used in product testing by 10-20%. In 1989 Avon, Revlon, Faberge, Mary Kay, Amway, Elisabeth Arden, Max Factor, Christian Dior, and a few smaller cosmetics companies declared that they were stopping or suspending all animal testing. That same year the European Commission, which supervised safety tests in 10 countries of the European Community, proclaimed that it would encourage all member states of the OECD to use methods alternative to Draize and LD50 tests.

In the second half of the twentieth century, the growing popularity of the animal movement induced a reaction from its opponents. At the beginning that reaction was quite modest, mainly reduced to lobbying in the parliament. However, at the beginning of the 1980s the first organizations of clearly anti-animal character began to be established, such as the American National Association for Biomedical Research, whose main aim was to fight public complaints and the claims of the pro-animal movement, or the British Research Defence Society. The latter was founded already in 1908, and subsequently it merged with Animals in Medicines Research Information Centre, established by the pharmaceutical industry in the mid-1980s. It is noteworthy that these organizations, along with civic groups, such as Putting People First in the USA or Seriously III for Medical Research in Great Britain, quickly adopted the methods used by pro-animal activists, like using spiteful slogans or sticking propaganda posters (in the anti-animal version these often featured pictures of defenseless people, mainly children, who were supposed to be beneficiaries of animal testing). Anti-animal organizations developed further in the 1990s, when three organizations - British Field Sports Society, Countryside Movement, and Countryside Business Group - merged into Countryside Alliance (CA). That group became famous, for (among other things) organizing numerous anti-animal marches, one of which (organized in 2000) was attended by 400,000 people, as well as for donating around £1 m to a campaign that promoted hunting, and only £250,000 to transport, housing construction, animation of rural areas, which were supposed to be its primary domains of interest.

Almost from the very beginning the animal rights movement has used many different methods, both legal and illegal. The former category includes demonstrations and protests targeted against companies and institutions that directly exploit animals (pharmaceutical, fur, food-processing industry, circuses), against parties intermediary to their exploitation (freight companies), and against those who commission others to exploit animals. Another popular method that meets the criteria of being legal (although it can doubtlessly be considered controversial) is when pro-animal activists find jobs in research facilities and production plants in order to gain information on procedures (and violations thereof) used in the treatment of animals. In the United States this method was successfully used by Alex Pacheco who found employment in Edward Taub’s laboratory and collected materials that later served him to accuse Taub of cruelty. There was a similar case in Great Britain, where Zoe Broughton, thanks to her employment in the Huntington Life Sciences laboratory, filmed cruel behavior of the laboratory employees toward dogs. The legal category also includes interfering with hunts, usually by making noises that scare the animals (although in the United States there are some laws prohibiting the harassment of hunters).

Among the illegal methods (i.e., such that lead to intentional violation of the law) used by the pro-animal movement, various forms of nonviolent civil disobedience are especially popular. The most common actions in this category include occupation and blockades of medical facilities and railroad crossings where transports of live animals were to go through (this method was successfully applied in 1984 in order to put an end to financing experiments at the University of Pennsylvania). They also include breaking into laboratories (without causing damage) in order to gain information and free the animals. Another illegal method is deliberate damaging of property - damaging laboratory equipment, breaking windows at butcher’s and furrier’s shops, painting furs with spray, and sealing door locks of companies that are “hostile toward animals.” The list of illegal methods can be concluded with methods that result in a threat to life and health of people. They include real or alleged pollution of products (mainly in supermarkets), planting firebombs in fur shops, planting bombs in scientists’ cars, making threatening calls and writing threatening letters (often sent to families of the person accused of cruelty toward animals), and physical attacks (assaults, wounding).

Naturally, animal activists differ in their assessment of the efficacy of the aforementioned methods, as well as their answers to the question which of them can be considered morally acceptable (the assessment is largely dependent on the assumed worldview). Most animal welfare activists are eager to reject the aforementioned methods entirely (both legal and illegal ones), as they believe that the only legitimate strategy of fighting for the improvement of the lot of animals consists in legislative and educational actions, as well as methods involving various forms of caring for and controlling animals (shelters, animal population control). Animal rights defenders represent the view that legislative and educational actions, due to their compromise character, only slightly contribute to the improvement of animals’ condition, and for that reason they have to be expanded by adding (or even replaced with) more radical activities that are always characterized by higher efficacy. However, efficacy is certainly not the only criterion in choosing particular methods. Equally important for a vast majority of animal rights activists is the moral aspect of the methods used, and especially the question whether the methods are legal or illegal, and also (or maybe above all), whether they involve some form of indirect violence (targeted at property) or direct violence (targeted at people). Most animal rights activists (including those who undertake only legal activities) are inclined to accept and even support various forms of civil disobedience, at the same time renouncing any forms of violence (which does not mean that they will not justify their use in some cases). Not everybody assumes that “moderate” point of view. Some animal rights activists claim that they cannot limit themselves to “peaceful methods” as the only acceptable methods of activism. According to them, in the situation of a deficiency of public interest in animals’ lot,[91] and in the face of the ruthlessness of institutions and companies that gain direct profits from the exploitation of animals, there is a necessity of resorting to radical methods, including the use of force.

5. Violence in Defense of Animal Rights

5.1 Hunt saboteurs association

In one of the brochures distributed by the animal rights group Trans-Species Unlimited, its founder George Cave describes his “boundless rage” concerning the way animals are treated: “rage at the researchers responsible for inflicting tortures, rage at our society for condoning and even encouraging such ruthless exploitation, rage at the failure of our movement to put an end to those atrocities, and rage at myself for succumbing all too often to feelings of desperation and hopelessness in the face of the holocaust of suffering animals (Cave, 1985; Jasper and Nelkin, 1992, p. 42).” Of course, rage described by Cave does not always lead to radicalism. However, it quite often is a strong impulse, which in favorable circumstances can turn into a will of action and can motivate specific acts, which are not always socially accepted. That was probably the kind of impulse that brought about the foundation of the first pro-animal group to resort to direct action in defense of animals - Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA).

HSA was established in Great Britain in 1963 on the initiative of John Prestige (a journalist from Devon), who, outraged over a bestial act of killing a pregnant hind by hunters, decided, along with a group of friends (Ken Wanstall, Leo Levis, and Cebo family members) to “save the lives of hunted animals by legal, nonviolent, direct means and to bring the attention of People and Parliament the barbaric cruelties involved in the hunting of animals until such time as these practices are banned by law (Ryder, 2000, p. 167).” Indeed, most of their methods in the fight against “the barbaric custom of hunting” were of a rather peaceful character. Those methods mainly involved disrupting hunting trips - by making noises that scare the animals, blocking access roads, luring tracking dogs with special whistles, erasing tracks by using anise, spoiled herrings, or smoke bombs (sometimes there were also minor skirmishes with the hunters - usually provoked by the latter). After 1965, the activists started to use small acts of sabotage consisting mainly in damaging appliances used in hunting (usually shooting positions). Prestige’s group, active mainly in Somerset and Devon, quickly attracted followers in other parts of Great Britain. In 1964, similar groups began to appear in Birmingham, Hampshire, Surrey, and Luton, and together with Hunt Saboteurs they created an informal (but efficient) network of activists.[92]

5.2 Band of mercy

In 1972, the founder of the Luton group - a student of law Ronnie Lee, and his friend Cliff Goodman (and probably another three activists), convinced that there is a necessity of undertaking more resolute actions in defense of animals, founded a group called Band of Mercy. This group’s activity was intended to realize the rule of “active compassion,” according to which one should always stand up for the “oppressed animals” with full awareness of their intrinsic rights. These actions were targeted only at property. Violence against people, as Ronnie Lee regretfully recalls, was decisively rejected by the group’s members: “We decided that our campaign should be against property and that no violence should be used against people, except in self-defense. For some of us, this was for moral reasons, but for others it was purely tactical. I personally now regret this, as I feel there would have been a place for the limited use of violence against animal abusers.”[93]

The first actions by the members of Band of Mercy were focused chiefly on the protection of game. They involved damaging off-road cars, ships, and equipment used during hunts and leaving moralizing advice and explanations of the aims of the action. However, within short time, the activists got interested in laboratory animals. The first sabotage actions “in defense of their rights” took place in November 1973. They involved two subsequent arsons of the laboratory owned by Hoechst Pharmaceuticals. The laboratory was located near Milton Keynes and was under construction at that time. The damages resulting from this sabotage action amounted to £46,000. After performing that action, the group issued the following press release about their motives: “The building was set on fire to in an effort to prevent the torture and murder of our animal brothers and sisters by evil experiments. We are a nonviolent guerrilla organization dedicated to the liberation of animals from all forms of cruelty and persecution at the hands of mankind. Our actions will continue until our aims are achieved (Best and Nocella, 2004, p. 70).” Between June and August 1974, Band of Mercy members carried out over nine raids, during which they burned two sealers, vandalized a shop selling hunting weapons, and damaged a few buildings and vehicles belonging to companies that dealt with vivisection or supplied animals to research laboratories. During one of such raids on Oxford Laboratory Animal Colony in Bicester, Ronnie Lee and Cliff Goldman were captured and subsequently (in March 1975) sentenced to 3 years of prison for causing damage amounting to £50,000. After having been conditionally released in 1976, Lee founded the biggest extremist group of animal defenders yet - the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).

5.3 Animal liberation front

ALF’s main goal consists in opposing all forms of exploitation of animals by humans. Arkangel - a magazine on animal rights defense - describes the strategic aims of the group in the following way: “the Animal Liberation Front carries out direct action against animal abuse, rescuing animals and causing financial loss to animal abusers, usually through the damage and destruction of property. Their short-term aim is to rescue as many animals as possible and directly disrupt the practice of animal abuse; their long-term aim is to end all animal suffering by forcing animal abuse companies and individuals out of business (Wicklund, 1995; Monaghan, 1999).”

The object of ALF’s attacks are the pharmaceutical, fur, and meat industries, as well as research centers, zoos, fast-food companies, racetracks, and circuses. Not all targets are attacked with the same frequency. A major part of the attacks (about 80%) is targeted at research facilities that perform experiments on animals (universities, private and public research centers), food producers, and fur retailers. Admittedly, most actions are characterized by a grand scale, which testifies to the professionalism of those who prepare them. Crucial in this respect is the cooperation of people employed in the institutions that “harm animals.” Such people, called “hands,” usually start to cooperate on their own initiative, often as a result of having observed the “drastic forms of animal exploitation,” which lead them to the conclusion that “this exploitation is morally unjustifiable.”[94] Most actions of the ALF are carried out under the cover of night, after a long observation of the area. There is no single imposed pattern for conducting such actions. They should, however, be organized in accordance with the rules of safety, set out in the so-called “Ten Rules for Direct Action”: “(1) Make sure the operation will be effective. Never waste time with an operation which you feel will be ineffective; (2) Hit the enemy where they least expect it and where it will hurt the most; (3) Almost all sabotage should be carried out at night; (4) Timing must be perfect, as the longer the operation takes the greater the chances of something going wrong; (5) Work only with people you trust, undercover cops who infiltrate activist groups are extremely dangerous. Work in small groups or cells, consisting of no more than four to six people; (6) All operations should be simple and fast, and several means of escape should be planned; (7) All equipment should be concealed. Volatile substances should be handled with extreme caution; (8) All groups should have a leader. He or she should be picked for their leadership qualities and will make all decisions; (9) The need for secrecy is obvious. Security and secrecy must be maintained without reservation. If it is not, you deserve to be caught; (10) Any member who breaks the code of the group must be cast out immediately and permanently.”[95]

In the 1970s, the actions of the British ALF focused chiefly on setting animals free, and on small interventions categorized by the police as “minor vandalism.” The methods most frequently used at that time included: setting animals free, sealing door locks, damaging equipment, and scratching and breaking windows. It is worth adding that despite the modest scope of methods, the damages (mainly resulting from the loss of animals) suffered by companies and institutions were quite significant - already in the first year of its activity, the ALF caused damages estimated at £250,000, and later that amount steadily grew. ALF members did not avoid activities of happening character. In January 1977, three ALF activists broke into the crypt of St. Kentigern’s Church in order to profane the tomb of Robert Peel - England’s legendary hunter and folk hero. After smashing the tomb and digging it up, ALF members threw a stuffed head of a fox inside (Arnold, 1997, p. 209).

That relatively mild period of ALF’s activity came to an end in early 1980s, when “new people” started to join the organization. According to Kim Stallwood (1980s activist of BUAV, an organization that supported ALF financially at that time), they were chiefly young, jobless anarchists who viewed the fight for animal rights in the broader context of fighting against capitalism, state, and militarism (Stallwood, 2004, pp. 83-84). They were the reasons why the actions of setting animals free and minor sabotage actions were slowly supplanted by large-scale and very expensive “economic sabotage” involving arson, planting explosives and firebombs, as well as damaging (mainly laboratory) equipment or walling in windows in butcher’s shops. Currently, in Great Britain, the number of operating ALF activists is estimated at 2500, while the “hard core” of the organization is constituted by 250 activists, out of whom only 50 to 100 are ready to use explosives and firebombs (Monaghan, 1997; Garner, 2004). There are also people who support ALF financially, by donating money via the ALF Supporters Group (ALFSG). According to Henshaw, toward the end of the 1980s there were about 2000 such people (Henshaw, 1989, p. 133). Despite the modest number of active members, the British ALF has always been marked by organizational efficiency and by the ability to effectively mount resistance to law enforcement bodies. According to David Hardy, there are a number of reasons for that (Hardy, 1990, p. 22). First, ALF is organized in small, independent cells, which do not have a hierarchical distribution of orders, and in consequence it is difficult for the police to uncover them. Second, ALF has developed relations with legal groups that provide them with money, although officially, during the conferences these groups organize, they lament the “excesses of radicals” (which does not prevent them from using certain “hauls” of ALF, like videotapes, photos or notes stolen from laboratories). Third, ALF and their supporters acquire influences in, and even take over old animal welfare organizations. (Those organizations possess significant financial resources, which they have been generating for decades, as well as a steady income from grants, the useful image of being “reasonable,” and often a small number of members, who are easy to be dominated.) In Great Britain, the ALF managed to take control over organizations like British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) or National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS).

The British government was quite slow to react to that change in tactics of proanimal groups. Not until the end of 1984 (i.e., a whole 8 years after ALF was founded) was there a Scotland Yard brigade created, which was supposed to gather intelligence on pro-animal extremism. In 1986, that brigade became an autonomic entity named Animal Rights National Index (ARNI), responsible for creating databases on proanimal organizations as well as protecting researchers and scientists who might be the target of pro-animal radicals. ARNI’s responsibilities also include the infiltration of the ALF. It does not, however, prosecute individual crimes (US Department of Justice, 1993, p. 14).

Losses resulting from economic sabotage are usually very high. The most “expensive” sabotage actions attributed to the British ALF include vandalizing the London Medical College in October 1986 (losses: £2M), arson of 17 trucks owned by the Unigate Dairies company in August 1999 (losses: £1M), burning 24 ships and a hangar owned by the Oxford University in July 2005 (losses: £500,000), liberating 150,000 fish owned by Kames Marine Fish Farm and destroying ships, cranes, and the office in August 2006 (losses: £500,000), vandalizing a greyhound racetrack in Armadale twice - in February and in August 2006, arson of 6 trucks loaded with eggs owned by Deans Foods company in October 2006 (losses: £250,000), arson of two tractors and containers owned by Field Farm in Appleton in May 2007 (losses: £500,000).

Not all ALF members thought that economic sabotage is the best way of fighting with “animal oppressors.” Some of them claimed that the time had come to resort to more resolute forms of fighting, which included direct violence. Such convictions apparently met with a favorable response, as since mid-1980s there have been various occurrences of violence targeted against people. Admittedly, that violence was not of a very brutal character. It usually involved threats, bullying, and relatively harmless assaults, although sometimes it came to more drastic acts of violence. In January 1985 the flats of two scientists (John Vane and Warwick Dench) affiliated with the Wellcome Foundation research center, were showered with Molotov cocktails. An unknown group, called the ALF, owned up to the act (Henshaw, 1989). The most sensational acts of violence attributed to ALF include releasing false information to the press about poisoning Lucozade, a popular drink produced by the Smith Klein Beecham company - after receiving that information the company was forced to take 5 million bottles off the shelves, which caused losses in the amount of £9M (November 1991); kidnapping a British reporter who wanted to infiltrate the ALF, and burning the letters “ALF” onto his back, by two unidentified men (1999); on September 7, 2005 - planting a firebomb (which contained 2 l of gasoline) in GlaxoSmithKline employee’s house in Beaconsfield - the worker himself was not present at that time, but his wife and daughter were home (the reason for the attack was the company’s cooperation with Huntingdon Life Science - an international company performing experiments on animals); between December 15, 2000 and February 21, 2001 - sending 15 explosives to various people employed in companies that exploited animals - one of such appliances wounded the leg of the daughter of a man employed in a company dealing with pest control (the perpetrators were never found, but the British police is inclined to attribute that act to ALF members).

5.4 Animal rights militia

In the first half of the 1980s, in England, a new group began its activity, which quite radically broke with the rule of not doing harm to living creatures. That group assumed the name of Animal Rights Militia. It is difficult to determine the organization status of ARM. Some scholars (Henshaw 1989; Geldard, 1989) suggest that ARM is not a separate organization, but a part of ALF, created only so that it can take responsibility for actions that stand in contradiction to ALF’s rule of not harming people. However, it is difficult to assess the accuracy of this hypothesis. It is true that most ALF members officially dissociate themselves from actions carried out by ARM. However, such declarations do not have much value. ALF is not an organization in the traditional sense, because it does not have any solid structure. As a result, membership in that group is purely declarative - it does not involve any formal affiliation. The most significant effect of that is the fact that most cells are not in touch with, and do not know much, about one another.

Contrary to the actions of the ALF, which admits to carrying out 15-20 attacks per night, ARM’s activities have never had a serial character. They have always been single attacks aiming predominantly at intimidating current and potential “foes of animals.” ARM’s first action was probably carried out on November 30, 1982 in England. On that day, letters containing explosives were sent to the offices of the leaders of four main political parties. Three of them were neutralized and the fourth one exploded in the hands of a clerk, causing minor injuries (Ezard, 1982). At the beginning, members of animal rights organizations did not fully believe in the existence of ARM - some concluded that the attack on politicians was a provocation in order to compromise the movement, or they thought it was done by the IRA. The latter hypothesis was soon rejected. Not long after the first attack, a similarly constructed bomb was sent to professor Roy Calne, who worked in Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge (and was a pioneer in kidneys and liver transplantation), who cannot have been the object of interest of the IRA. For the next two years, ARM has not owned up to any actions. After that period, ARM not only resumed their previous methods of fighting, but also extended their repertoire by adding new elements, like blackmailing, bullying, assault, and planting bombs under cars. The group’s most peculiar actions include informing the media (November 18, 1984) about poisoning chocolate bars produced by the Mars company (which was accused by animal activists of commissioning experiments on monkeys) with rat poison. The company was forced to take the “suspicious” batch of products off the shelves, and as a result incurred financial losses in the amount of £3M. Ultimately, ARM’s action was crowned with success - soon after it had been carried out, Mars resigned from any experiments on animals. A similar action was carried out in 1992 by the Canadian ARM. Its members made public the information that 87 chocolate bars produced by the Cold Buster company were poisoned with oven cleaning liquid and placed back on shelves (samples of the poisoned bars were sent to the media). (Smith, 1992). According to ARM, bars produced by the company were the effect of the work of Larry Wang - a scientist from the University of Alberta, who had been experimenting on animals for 16 years and in the course of his experiments the animals were frozen, starved, and fed drugs. One of the “poisoned” bars was examined by the police. As it turned out, the bar contained a solution of alkali metal hydroxide, which could cause burning sensation upon consumption. The company that distributed the bars was forced to take tens of thousands of bars off the shelves in 250 retail points in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The factory manufacturing the chocolate bars stopped the production, which resulted in a temporary termination of 22 employees. Ten days later, The Edmonton Journal received a letter in which ARM confirmed “the contamination claim as a hoax” and warned that unless the company stops exploiting animals, “the next time action is taken, it will not be a hoax (Smith, 1992).” At the beginning of the 1990s, ARM’s attacks grew considerably stronger. They usually involved using firebombs and were targeted at the shops of the Boots company, the Cancer Research Fund Shop, as well as Fads DIY and Halfords

(Boots had shares in the two latter ones). One of the elements of the campaign consisted in circulating information that Boots’ toothpaste was poisoned with mercury (Monaghan, 1997). In 1998 ARM threatened to kill 10 people connected with the “vivisection industry”[96] if Barry Horne (sentenced to 18 years of prison for carrying out a series of firebomb attacks in 1994, causing losses in the amount of £3M[97]) died as a result of his hunger strike. Barry Horne stopped his strike after 68 days, so it is hard to judge if those threats could have been put into practice.[98]

5.5 Justice department

Justice Department appeared in Great Britain around 1993. In many respects, the methods used by the new pro-animal group, resembled the ones used by ARM. They were mainly assaults, blackmail, and relatively harmless bomb attacks.[99] JD’s first action consisted in sending a few bomb parcels to people involved in “bloody” field sports, like hunting or fishing. The parcels did not reach the addressees - they exploded in a sorting office in Watford. After the action, JD issued a typical statement: “We’ve sat back for years and watched AR activists ask nicely for all the abuse to stop - the more daring risk their lives and liberty but still the unacceptable number of tortured animals keeps rising (...). We won’t be asking anyone to stop messing with animals and make no more excuses for our violent intervention - they’ve had it too good for too long. NO MORE TORTURE. NO MORE LIES (Monaghan, 1997).” Between October and December 1993 the group took responsibility for 31 attacks using bombs hidden in poster tubes and videotape boxes. Hunters were not their only target. People connected with experiments on animals and with the fur industry were also attacked. In 1994 the group owned up to 100 such attacks (Monaghan, 1999). JD soon expanded the range of their methods of harassing the alleged “foes of animals.” In September 1996, following ARM’s example, they started using various forms of blackmail, which included sending envelopes with razor blades soaked in rat poison to clothing suppliers, along with leaflets that read as follows: “Dear animal killing scum! Hope we sliced your finger wide open and that you now die from the rat poison we smeared on the razor blade. Murdering scum that kill defenseless animals in the thousands every year across B.C., for fun and profit do not deserve to live. We will continue to wage war on animal abusers across the world. Beware scum, better watch out, you might be next!

Justice Department strikes again (Arnold, 1997, p. 118).” In sending their letters, JD applied a clever method. In the place where the details of the sender of the letter are usually provided, JD members wrote the name of a different “foe of animals.” So if the addressee did not decide to collect the letter, it was sent to the alleged original sender, who in reality was just another potential target of the group’s attacks (Smith, 1998). In 1996 similar attacks were carried out on well-known fur industry representatives - this time with the use of razors allegedly soaked in HIV-positive blood. In 1999, the “Justice Department Anti-Fur Task Force” attacked American fur industry representatives with “letter-traps.” The leaflets that were attached to the parcels included (apart from the demand to stop activity by 2000) a description of bombs that would be sent to the addressees unless they comply with the ultimatum.

Although ALF was established in Great Britain, it very quickly expanded its activity to the United States (1982). Half of over 300 actions carried out in the United States by 1993 (by ALF or by individuals connected with the organization) can be categorized as minor vandalism (consisting in, among others, making graffiti,[100] breaking windows, and sealing door locks). A major percentage of actions consist in stealing animals and setting them free - 25%. Activities that posed a threat to people constituted 9%. Only 8% of documented actions from that period caused big damage and disruption of commercial and research activity. They were probably the reason why the FBI categorized ALF’s activity as “domestic terrorism” (US Department of Justice, 1993). The most frequent targets of attack are university facilities and buildings - 20% of confirmed incidents; 16% of incidents were targeted at fur companies and shops, 14% at private residences, 11% at butcher’s shops and supermarkets, 9% at food factories, and 7% at private research centers (US Department of Justice, 1993, p. 11).

Probably the first action of ALF in the United States was the one carried out in December 1982, consisting in liberating 25 cats kept by Howard University Medical School. Similar “liberation” actions were also conducted in Howard University, in Bethesda Naval Research Institute, in various branches of University of California, University of Oregon, University of Pennsylvania, Texas Tech University, in SEMA laboratories, in Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (Best and Nocella, 2004, pp. 21-22). The organization won renown in May 1984 when they broke into University of Pennsylvania’s laboratory and destroyed equipment (by pouring chemical substances into computers, among others) worth $60,000, and stole 60 h of recordings that documented 6 years of drastic experiments on monkeys. The recordings were handed over to PETA and were used in making and publicizing a film called “Unnecessary Fuss,” which caused the laboratory to close down. The most expensive acts of pro-animal sabotage in the US undoubtedly include the arson of the veterinary diagnostics center of the University of California in Davis and the destruction of 18 vehicles (April 16, 1987). The losses incurred as a result of that attack amounted to about $5M. (That very attack was the first one to be categorized by the FBI as “domestic terrorism.”) In April 1989, during a raid on the University of Arizona in Tucson, ALF’s activists set a few buildings on fire and liberated 1200 animals, causing losses in the amount of $250,000. After that action, the ALF issued the following statement: “The Arizona raid was conducted the liberation both as an act of mercy and compassion for the individual animal victims, and also as a part of larger international campaign against the scientific/medical industry’s misguided, antihuman, antiearth, profit-oriented practices of vivisection, biotechnology, and synthetic pharmaceutical research (Strand and Strand, 1993).” Only a few months after that action, in July of the same year, ALF’s activists broke into the office and the laboratory of Texas Tech University Health Science Center in Lubbock, destroying equipment worth around $70,000, stealing research documentation and “liberating” five cats. That attack also caused a 1-year-long stoppage in research works. The losses resulting from the stoppage and the necessity to buy and install new equipment amounted to a million dollars (US Department of Justice, 1993, p. 23). In November 1996, a fur storehouse owned by the Alaskan Fur Company in Minnesota was set on fire. As a result of that act of sabotage, the company incurred losses in the amount of $2,250,000. In August 1997 activists set fire to a McDonald’s restaurant in Utah (losses: $400,000). In April 1999 a neurological laboratory owned by the University of Minnesota was vandalized (losses: $700,000). In March 2003 a slaughterhouse of Rancho Veal in Petaluma, California was set on fire (losses: $250,000). In November 2004, ALF set 400 laboratory animals free and damaged equipment owned by the Department of Psychology at the Iowa University (losses: $450,000).[101]

At the beginning of the 1990s, the actions of American ALF were focused on a campaign targeted at the fur industry and research facilities that supported it. The creator and coordinator of that campaign, which was known as “Operation Bite Back,” was Rodney Adam Coronado (former activist of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society - an organization known for attacks on fishing vessels and whalers). The campaign began on June 10, 1991 with the arson of the facilities at the experimental mink farm owned by the Oregon State University, and the destruction of files and videotapes documenting the research. The attack caused losses in the amount of $75,000 (according to ALF it was $150,000[102]) and as a result the facility was shut down. Five days later ALF activists set firebombs in Northwest Farm Food Cooperative in Edmonds (which produced feed for fur farms). In August of the same year the research laboratory owned by the Washington State University was the target of attack. The damage amounted to $100,000. In February 1992 the creator of Operation Bite Back, Rod Coronado, and two animal rights activists (probably also ALF members) set fire to a mink research center owned by the Michigan State University, causing losses in the amount of $200,000 and destroying data collected during 32 years of experiments.[103] For his offence, Coronado was sentenced (on March 3, 1995) to 57 months of prison, 3 years of probation, as well as a fine in the amount of $2M (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2002). Coronado’s arrest did not deter other activists involved in Operation

Bite Back. In 1995 the campaign was relaunched under the name of Operation Bite Back II. This time, its main goal was not economic sabotage, but large-scale “liberation actions,” consisting in setting as many animals as possible free. Activities within Operation Bite Back II are still continued today.

In 1993, close cooperation was established between ALF and a radical environmental organization called Earth Liberation Front (ELF). Initially, that cooperation consisted in placing information on the activity and ideology of ELF on ALF’s websites. In the mid-1990s the two organizations started carrying out actions together, such as arson of the wild horse enclosure owned by the Bureau of Land Management in Oregon in November 1997 (losses: over $474,000), and in July of the same year, arson of a horse slaughterhouse in Redmond (losses: $1M), arson of buildings of the US Department of Agriculture Animal Damage Control in Olympia in June 1998 (losses: $23,000,000), arson of a McDonald’s building in Tucson in August 2001 (losses: $50,000). The Federal Bureau of Investigation estimates that in the period from 1996 to 2002, ALF and ELF have committed over 600 crimes in the United States alone, causing damages amounting to $43M (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2002).

Despite the considerable level of activity of animal extremists in the United States, documented direct attacks on people or threats of using violence against them occur relatively rarely. From this point of view, American animal extremists are decidedly different from their British colleagues, who quite often resort to various forms of direct violence. The most dramatic attempt at applying this kind of violence in the United States was, as far as I know,[104] the incident that happened in November 1988, when Fran Stephanie Trutt was captured in the territory of the United States Surgical Corporation - a company that used dogs to test surgical staples - when she was planting high-class explosives with a remote detonator under the parking spot that belonged to the facility’s manager Leon Hirsch. For her offence, she was sentenced (in April 1990) to 14 months of prison and 3 years of probation. In July 1998, directly after the act of breaking into Texas Tech Health Science Research Center, dr. John Orem, who conducted research there on the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, received death threats along with a condom allegedly infected with HIV. Death threats were also directed at scientists from Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, Harvard University, National Institutes of Health, and Cornell University (Guither, 1998, p. 158). In February 1990, the dean of the Veterinary School of the University of Tennessee, dr. Hyram Kitchen, was shot on his private farm. A month earlier, the local police department received a warning from the FBI National Crime Information Center that animal rights extremists were threatening to kill the dean within 12 months (this information was also confirmed by letters addressed to the University of Tennessee). The investigation did not lead to any arrests; neither did it confirm the conjecture that animal rights groups could have had anything to do with the murder (US Department of Justice, 1993, p. 16; Tweeten, 2003).

5.6 Stop huntington animal cruelty

Direct actions, both in the United States and in Europe, began gathering new and previously unseen momentum in 1999, with the initiative called Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty (SHAC). “SHAC” exists simultaneously as the name of the campaign of direct actions targeted at the Huntington Live Sciences enterprise and as the name of the organization established for the purpose of carrying out that campaign. The creators of SHAC were activists from the British animal protection movement - Greg Avery and Heather James, who had the experience of organizing campaigns in the 1990s with the aim of the liquidation of two companies involved in breeding laboratory animals - Consort Kennels and Hill Grove Farm. In 1999, after having watched a film (made by PETA) showing animal abuse in Huntington Life Sciences laboratories (the biggest laboratory in Europe conducting experiments on animals in order to test various products for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, established in 1952), these activists decided to use their experience against that very company. The SHAC organization was established in England and that was where it struck HLS for the first time. However, the company operates not only in England, but also in the United States (in New Jersey), under the name of Princeton Research Center. That was the reason for establishing an American cell of SHAC in January 2001. The Central European cell of the organization was located in the Czech Republic. A Polish cell of SHAC was soon to be established.

SHAC’s attacks are targeted not only at HLS laboratories (accused by SHAC of killing 180 thousand animals a year, including dogs, cats, and monkeys), but also at companies that commission them with conducting research and at institutions that in any way support their activity. It is worth adding that the targets of SHAC’s attacks are not only collective bodies (companies, institutions), but also individuals directly or indirectly affiliated with HLS. According to SHAC, the level of affiliation with the company does not make any difference - everyone who in any way contributes to animals’ suffering in HLS laboratories, even if they are only an owner of a pub, or a delivery person, becomes an accomplice to the “crimes committed there.” Those who decide to “provide services to HLS,” are subjected to various “forms of pressure,” such as putting their addresses and telephone numbers online (often with the comment: “wanted for complicity in torturing animals”), sending threatening e-mails to “collaborators” and their families, hacker attacks, planting bombs in cars, relatively harmless assaults, and making graffiti on buildings and vehicles.

It has to be admitted that many actions of SHAC were crowned with success. In 2000, the organization obtained a list of HLS shareholders (including those who acquired shares from third-hand sources), and subsequently published it in Sunday Telegraph. The publication made the price of HLS shares fall rapidly. The company was saved from bankruptcy by a loan in the amount of $33M from the American investment bank Stephens, which shortly became the target of SHAC’s attacks. In 2002, after a series of attacks on their branches and employees, Stephens resold the shares at a loss.[105] After the campaign against Stephens, SHAC targeted its efforts against Marsh, HLS’s insurance company. The campaign started by sending a list of the company’s offices and home addresses of their employees to SHAC activists and supporters. Soon afterward, Marsh employees began receiving threatening letters (one of the directors even got a letter with the information that he was to be the target of a terrorist attack; another’s house was covered in notices reading “Puppy Killer” or “We’ll be back”[106]), some of them were even harassed in the vicinity of their homes. In July 2002, smoke bombs were thrown into the company’s offices in Seattle. Toward the end of 2002, the company issued a statement that it would no longer insure HLS. In August 2005, Leapfrog Day Nurseries - a British nurseries network that distributed child care vouchers among HLS employees - received letters from SHAC activists, reading as follows: “Not only you but your family is a target. Sever your links with HLS within two weeks or get ready for your life and the lives of those you love to become a living hell.” (Liddick, 2006, p. 47). Leapfrog Day Nurseries obeyed the warning and broke off any contact with HLS. The list of companies that resigned from cooperation with HLS under the influence of SHAC’s campaign is, of course, much longer. During a meeting of the US Committee on Environment and Public Works (October 26, 2005) dedicated entirely to SHAC’s campaign and HLS’s financial situation, John Lewis, Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI, said that around 100 companies stopped cooperating with HLS, including Aetna Insurance, Citibank, Deloitte&Touche, Johnson and Johnson, and Merck (Lewis, 2005).

In their fight against HLS, SHAC activists resort to more brutal forms of direct violence as well. In February 2001, an SHAC activist, David Blenkinsop, and his two masked colleagues seriously beat up the HLS Managing Director Brian Cass, using bats. A passer-by who tried to intervene was attacked with tear gas (Green, 2004). On June 26, 2001, a group that called itself “Pirates for Animal Liberation” tried to sink a yacht owned by the management of the Bank of New York (a few days earlier five branches of the bank were vandalized). The reason for the attack was the Bank’s ties to HLS.[107] On September 26, 2003, the explosion of a small bomb destroyed the windows and the plaster on the walls in the main headquarters of Shaklee Corporation in Pleasanton (California) - a company producing diet supplements, connected with HLS. On August 28, 2003, two home-made shrapnel bombs exploded inside the main headquarters of Chiron Corporation in Emeryville (California). Chiron - a biotechnology company - had an agreement with HLS on performing experiments on animals with the use of chemicals that it produced itself. The group that owned up to both these actions was called “Revolutionary Cells Liberation Brigade.”[108] According to Chiron’s representatives, the bomb attack followed a series of incidents including dropping red fruit in front of the house of one of the company’s directors, burning the inscription reading “puppy killer” with acid on the car owned by another director, leaving smelly packages in letterboxes owned by the company’s employees.[109] On August 7, 2005, at the house of Paul Blackburn, who was an employee of GlaxoSmithKline (a client of HLS), a firebomb was detonated, containing 2 l of petrol and around 4 lb of explosives. At the moment of detonation, Blackburn’s wife and child were home. ALF owned up to the attack[110], and afterward issued the following statement: “GSK, we realize that this may not be enough to make you stop using HLS but this is just the beginning. We have identified and tracked down many of your senior executives and also junior staff, as well as those from other HLS customers. Drop HLS or you will face the consequences. For all the animals inside HLS, we will be back (West, 2005).”

The dynamic development of pro-animal extremism, which took place in the 1980s and 1990s in England and in the United States, caused the governments of those countries to take steps to limit the activity of pro-animal radicals. On August 26, 1992 in the United States, “The Animal Enterprise Protection Act” (AEPA), a new act signed by president Bush, came into force. According to the new law, everyone whose activities disrupt the functioning of institutions and companies that use animals, and cause damage amounting to over $10,000, was subject to a fine or to one year of imprisonment. The act also provided for the penalty of up to 10 years of imprisonment if such disruptions cause injury or death of a person (US Department of Justice, 1993, p. 1). Legislative actions directed against pro-animal radicals appeared on the state level as well. Between 1988 and 1993, 32 states passed laws aiming at the protection of research laboratories, farms, zoos, circuses, and other enterprises of that kind from “violence and destruction inspired by animal rights groups” (it was done by Massachusetts and Minnesota (1988); Indiana and Utah (1989); Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland (1990); Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin (1991); Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia (1992); and Florida and Maine (1993)). In November 2006 the Senate passed another act aimed against animal rights activists (and also environmental activists), with the telltale name: “Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act” (AETA). That act significantly raised the penalties for “intentionally causing material losses,” “injuring a person,” and “placing a person in reasonable fear of bodily injury or death,” and provided for, among others, the penalty of up to 5 years of prison for causing damages in the amount of $10,000 to $100,000, up to 10 years of prison for damages over $100,000, and up to 20 years of prison for damages over $1M.[111]

Also in Great Britain the authorities took vigorous steps toward combating animal extremism. However, here legislative changes were introduced mainly based on already existing acts, such as the Public Order Act of 1986, Criminal Justice and Police Act of 2001, Protection from Harassment Act of 1997, and Malicious Communication Act of 1988. Amendments introduced into those acts largely contributed to extending the police’s authority with respect to detaining or arresting illegal demonstrators, people illegally entering and occupying buildings, as well as those who in any way contribute to generating a sense of threat. Indeed, only six months after their entry into force, which happened on January 20, 2004, the police made as many as 140 arrests of pro-animal activists (a year before in the same period only 34 people were arrested).[112] In April 2005 the British parliament passed the “British Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005” - one of the most important aims of this act was to protect companies and research institutions (such as Huntington Life Sciences) from “criminal” or “unlawful” acts of animal extremists (such as threatening employees or their family members, or preventing companies or people from entering into an agreement, or causing a premature termination of an agreement). According to the act, such deeds were subject to the penalty of 5 years of prison.[113] Police units themselves were also visibly reinforced. Apart from the Animal Rights National Index (ARNI) unit, established in the 1980s, whose task was to gather intelligence on pro-animal groups and to infiltrate the ALF, in March 2004 another special group was established, called “National Extremism Tactical Coordinating Unit” (NETCU). Its job was to provide local police units with information on the tactics used by animal rights activists and to cooperate with the companies that were at risk from animal extremists.

5.7 Animal rights radicalism from the psychological, organizational, and motivational perspective

Studies on the social and psychological profile of a typical member of organizations fighting for animal rights show that they are usually young people - average age is around 29 years (over 60% are women), leading the so-called “alternative lifestyle” (which manifests itself, among others, in disdain for career issues, following the vegetarian diet, and a “loose” approach to material issues).[114] According to David Barbarash (spokesman for the North American ALF between mid-1999 and 2002), only a small percent of ALF is constituted by members of races other than white.[115] David Henshaw states that ALF spokespeople are usually slightly older than its ordinary members. People who have the experience of being recruited by ALF claim that the recruiters were usually men or women between 30 and 40 years of age (Henshaw, 1989, p. 52). Most ALF members maintain intensive social contacts with other group members (they listen to similar music, read the same books, travel together, sometimes are active members of legal pro-animal or environmental organizations). Their daily life is largely focused around their activity in the organization, such as meetings, discussions, and field actions. It is worth emphasizing that members of such groups do not isolate themselves from the outside world. Similarly to their “colleagues” from radical environmental groups, they have normal family and social relations with people who are not members of the organization (they celebrate anniversaries and holidays, they accept financial aid from their families and sometimes are even supported by them[116]). Even when they decide to live in relatively isolated communes (which does not happen very often), they do not resign from regular contact with the world. Not much is known about the internal discipline in radical pro-animal organizations, except for one rule - “No snitching.” The ones who break that rule, can easily become the target of persecution by their former colleagues (Monaghan, 1999). The alleged snitches are sent dummy bombs with a threatening note that says that the next bomb will be real, and their names are published in animal rights magazines, as well as online,[117] often their cars and homes are vandalized.[118]

It would be hard to provide the exact number of members of each radical proanimal organization, because there are no official lists. In any case, they are not organizations in the traditional sense of the word. Rather, they are decentralized, loosely connected, and antihierarchical groups of activists who are ready to perform sabotage actions and (so far) relatively “mild” acts of violence in defense of animal rights. It seems that the reasons for the lack of centralization are the ideological antihierarchization (e.g., ALF activists believe that any established hierarchy sooner or later has to lead to spiritual ossification) and tactical considerations. Undoubtedly, organizations with pyramidal structure are at much bigger risk of being kept under police’s surveillance than organizations that do not have such structure. In a pyramidal structure, an effective agent can easily screen all levels below their own, as well as threaten those above. The danger of infiltration is much lower in the case of “organizations” where individuals or small numbers of groups not only do not have a central governing body, but also act without any structural connection with each other. This way of viewing organization is evident, for instance, in ALF’s policy statements, according to which “Any group of people who are vegetarians or vegans and who carry out actions according to ALF guidelines have the right to regard themselves as part of the ALF.”[119] If someone wants to join the ALF, they do not have to enroll, pay membership fees, or attend meetings. They also cannot (at least not directly) contact the local ALF cell.[120] It is sufficient to act in accordance with the guidelines published on ALF’s website (and earlier - in bulletins). A good testimony confirming that way of viewing “organization” by the ALF is the following statement of a young woman who owned up to sabotage actions targeted against McDonald’s: “At one point, I wrote an animal rights group letting them know that I would be willing to help them raid a lab. Needless to say, that letter went unanswered. Finally, I realized what I was doing. I was waiting for someone with a plan to drop in out of the blue and ask me to join in a lab raid. Now stop and think about this. Would anyone who put hundreds of hours in planning a covert, illegal direct action that could land them in prison for years risk asking a basic stranger for help simply because he or she is a vegetarian or belonged to the local animal rights chapter?! NO! (...) So (...) how do you, end up “joining” the Animal Liberation Front? That’s easy. Come up with your own plan!”[121]

According to Barbarash, ALF activists usually act during the night, in groups of two to eight, or even more people. But it sometimes happens that smaller actions (like painting walls with spray) are carried out by one person. The groups themselves decide what their target and methods shall be: “Each individual cell decides for themselves what they’ll focus on, and what tactics they will use. One cell might decide to focus on chicken liberation and may choose to raid a factory farm and save some chickens. Another ALF group might choose fur farming and release mink. Yet another might target meat trucks with incendiary devices. Because of that absolute autonomy on the part of the individual cells, you never know who or what the ALF will target.”[122] According to David Henshaw, a British local ALF group usually consists of six to seven people, and when it starts to grow, it splits into smaller groups. Each group usually has a spokesperson whose aim is to pass information on their acts to the media, as well as to pass that information on to Ronnie Lee or his office, which “was always a moveable feast, settling one time in the head office of the BUAV, and then above an Italian restaurant (Henshaw, 1989. p. 51).”

Despite the declared antihierarchical approach and the corresponding “structure,” the activity of pro-animal extremists does not seem to be entirely amateur or spontaneous. The professional character of some actions suggests that even if they are carried out by autonomous cells, these cells have to cooperate with some external structures that support them logistically and financially. Such structures are probably the “support groups” that form the “second circle” of the radical ecological movement: ALF Supporters Group, BUAV[123] (described as the Sinn Fein of the animal rights movement, and especially of the ALF), or PETA. They are a certain kind of liaison between the underground organizations and society. Their goal is to explain the political motives of direct actions, to pass anonymous press releases on to the media, to collect money, to support the arrested activists, to issue the bulletin that is supposed to be a means of communication between all interested parties. Of course, not all existing ALF cells can count on the help of “support groups.” Such help, even if it was possible in practice, would soon put the sponsors at risk of problems stemming from the penal law, which they (for obvious reasons) want to avoid. It seems that only “distinguished” activists can count on their help - those who have already demonstrated their uncompromising conduct and gained renown for spectacular liberation or sabotage actions.

They are the organizers of large-scale campaigns, such as SHAC or Bite Back, and coordinators of many smaller ones. Their acts and words are quoted in all online magazines on pro-animal direct actions. And they are the hard core of ALF. Among organizations that provide support to underground groups, the most active one seems to be PETA. That organization is especially known for the help it provides to convicts; for example, in 1986 it aided Roger Troen, an ALF member who was suspected of carrying out an attack on the University of Oregon, by donating $60,000 to him; in 1988 it supported Fran Stephanie Trutt, who tried to kill Leon Hirsch, by donating $7500. PETA also organizes press conferences, during which it publicizes documents from “raids,” obtained from the ALF. It is worth mentioning that such “publiciza- tion” usually happens almost immediately after the attack. When ALF set fire to the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of California in Davis (April 16, 1987), PETA issued a statement and publicized a videotape from the action on the following day. When documents were stolen from dr. Adrian Morrison’s office at the University of Pennsylvania (January 14, 1990), PETA had copies almost immediately afterward. Immediately after the raid on Texas Tech University Health Science Center (July 1989), PETA called a press conference on behalf of ALF, and subsequently it filed a suit against the research facility based on documents obtained during the burglary. There are countless examples of cooperation between ALF and PETA. The connections between the activists of the two organizations are also close - Alex Pacheco and Rod Coronado (who is an active member of ALF) work closely together; a similar cooperation connects Pacheco and Ingrid Newkirk with Kim Stallwood (ex-member of ALF and friend of ALF’s founder, Ronnie Lee); Gary Yourofsky is active in both organizations (he was sentenced for breaking into a farm in Canada and is also known for his unequivocal comment on the possibility of killing researchers who conduct experiments on animals). Close relations between individual members and the active exchange of information and goods suggest that the boundaries between ALF and PETA are fluid.[124] In actual fact, between the two organizations there is no clear division that would be based on ideological differences or membership issues. It even seems that PETA is a kind of “aboveground” agency of ALF, established so that it can represent its interests and enable the transfer of potential activists.

“On the outside” with respect to “warrior groups” and their satellite support groups, there are the traditional animal rights organizations, which usually have nothing to do with violence. These organizations officially deny participation in the attacks and any forms of cooperation with extremist groups.[125] However, they rarely decidedly condemn them. The violence itself (especially the one consisting in sabotage actions) is viewed in an ambivalent way by those organizations: on the one hand they condemn it due to the illegal character of the actions and the risk of putting the life and health of people at risk, but on the other hand it is considered (at least by some activists) to be an effective form of fighting against the evil impersonated by those who exploit and kill animals.

Undoubtedly, an important psychological problem that members of radical proanimal organizations need to face consists in dealing with the conflict that arises from the clash between the self-image of a moral individual who is at war for noble reasons with the image of a criminal, even a terrorist, that the society has of them. According to the criminologists Gresham Sykes and David Matza (1957), in individuals who for various reasons decide to breach social norms, the juxtaposition of these two contradictory images creates a state of constant cognitive dissonance, which causes them to implement techniques of neutralizing the features that are inconvenient for them. Sykes and Matza name five neutralization techniques: “denial of responsibility” - thanks to this technique, the perpetrators of the illegal acts view themselves as a victim of certain circumstances that they actually had no influence on; “denial of injury” - the perpetrator denies that their actions harmed somebody or caused damage; “denial of the victim” - the perpetrator comes to the conclusion that the injured person is not an innocent victim, but someone who fully deserves what happened to them; “condemnation of the condemners” - this technique induces the perpetrator to conclude that those who condemn the perpetrator’s actions do it out of spite or because they want to dismiss their sense of guilt; “appeal to higher loyalties” - this is an attempt at justifying illegal acts by pointing out that they will result in reaching a greater good. Even a cursory browsing through the statements or publications of radical animal rights activists shows that out of the mentioned neutralization techniques, the ones most often applied are the “appeal to higher loyalties” and the “condemnation of the condemners.”

In their appeal to higher loyalties, pro-animal radicals usually depict themselves as those who participate in bringing about a higher moral order (an order which, in their view, is not to be found within the current interpretation of morality). They consider animal liberation itself to be not only a moral obligation, but also the next logical step toward reaching moral progress: “In this endeavor, they [defenders of animals - E.P.] unleash a frontal assault on the prevalent mentality that says animals are objects, resources, or property, and they advance the universalization of rights that is the key marker of moral progress (Best and Nocella, 2004, p. 12).” Activists usually compare themselves to members of anti-Nazi resistance, to abolitionists from Underground Railroad, or to fighters for the rights of oppressed minorities. Their motives (like the motives of these mentioned groups) are always pure and righteous, and they themselves are worthy of the highest respect: “the ALF participates in what we call economic sabotage: we destroy property used to abuse, torture, and kill animals. We draw parallels with the freedom fighters in Nazi Germany, who liberated prisoners of war and destroyed equipment used by Nazis to torture or kill their victims. There was moral justification for taking action then, and we believe there is today as well.”[126] “In this conception, animal liberationists continue a hallowed line of heroic visionaries, the Suffragettes fighting in the early twentieth century, those in the 1960s engaged in the Civil Rights Movement, and, perhaps most fittingly, the courageous men and women who harbored Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe (Bernstein, 2004).”

The technique of “condemnation of the condemners” enables a shift of attention from the “dubious evil” done by the activist to the “real evil” done by others. They are depicted as “law breakers,” “destroyers,” “murderers,” and terrorists and they deserve society’s condemnation, which currently unjustly befalls the real defenders of the “moral good”: “We should never feel like we’re going too far in breaking the law, because whatever laws you break to liberate animals or to protect the environment are very insignificant compared to the laws that are broken by that parliament of whores in Washington. They are the biggest lawbreakers, the biggest destroyers, the biggest mass-murderers on this planet right now.”[127] “It is an Orwellian irony that violence and dangerous science are commonly considered beneficial while the resistance to this activity is considered terrorism. Delving beyond these considerations and focusing on the current government definitions unexpectedly shows that HLS is an international terrorist organization, and that SHAC is using counterterrorism in its attempt to save countless animals and protect human lives.” (Philips, 2014). “Huntingdon is the poster child of an abhorrent, unnecessary and wasteful industry that not only murders millions of innocent, suffering animals, but dooms countless humans to their own unnecessary suffering, because scarce health care dollars are wasted on useless animal research and testing” (Vlasak, 2005). “The real violence, the real terrorism, stems not from anyone like Jerry Vlasak, but rather fur farmers, vivisectors, hunters, trappers, sealers, whalers, managers of factory farms and slaughterhouses, and the corporations that profit from the misery and bloodbath of the ongoing animal holocaust” (Best, 2008).

These quotations depict the way how animal activists and their supporters try to cope with the painful dissonance between the positive self-image and the negative image attributed to them by society. As a result of the neutralizing efforts, sabotage, and even violence against humans, become justified - that way the cognitive dissonance disappears, and the positive self-image is salvaged. The disappearance of the dissonance is accompanied by a division of the world in which the activists live and act, into two opposing spheres: the sphere of evil (consisting of people who intentionally exploit and kill animals as well as of those who, in their ignorance, accept those acts) and the sphere of good (consisting of all those who consciously reject any violence against “nonhuman living beings”). Between those spheres there is no grey area, there is no space for mediation or working out a compromise. In the world of radical animal activists, everyone, whether they want it or not, is on one of the sides.

I believe it is worth emphasizing that ALF has always considered its sabotage activity to be completely devoid of any elements of violence. According to prominent members of the organization,[128] violence is present only in actions that involve attacking living creatures that are able to feel joy and sadness.[129] Actions of a military character, in which the objects used for harming animals are destroyed, are (in ALF’s view) purely defensive and they can in no way be compared to bloody terrorist attacks carried out by the IRA or ETA. It is also important to note that not all sabotage techniques are commonly accepted. For instance, arson arouses considerable controversy. Many activists claim that this technique can be dangerous to many small animals living in the torched buildings, and for that reason it should be removed from the list of acceptable tactics. That view is represented, among others, by Robin Webb (who runs the Animal Liberation Press Office and is suspected by the police of being a member of the ALF). “In my opinion, arson does not fall under the classification of ‘damage of property’ but rather, actions that endanger life. The ALF is proud of its claim never to have harmed human life but arson has, almost undis- putedly, taken life, whether it be a mouse, rat, or spider. One cannot check every nook and cranny of a department store or broiler shed; the presence of a small creature is not as obvious as that of a human and they do not understand fire alarms and emergency exits”[130] Although such opinions are not isolated, ALF has not yet abandoned the technique of arson; what is more, the frequency of using arson seems to be slowly, but steadily growing.

5.8 Justification of violence

ALF has always declared that the ideological basis of its functioning is the rejection of any form of violence targeted against humans. It is very probable that this declaration illustrates the line of thought of most activists who consider themselves members of that organization. But there are also others (and their number has been growing since the mid-1980s) who question that opinion in a less[131] or more open way, and as a result are inclined to accept different (more or less drastic) forms of violence against people. One example of such acceptance is the comment made by one of ALF activists, Tim Daley: “In a war you to take up arms and people will get killed, and I can support that kind of action by petrol bombing and bombs under cars, and probably at a later stage, the shooting of vivisectors on their doorsteps (Hardy, 1990, p. 15; Monaghan, 1999).” Daley’s statement is by no means one of the most radical. In 2003, during an animal rights conference, Jerry Vlasak (an American surgeon and spokesman of the North American Animal Liberation Press Office) stated that violence in pro-animal actions is justified both from the ethical and pragmatic point of view. According to him, the ethical justification of violence is based on the necessity to acknowledge the fact that the suffering of defenseless creatures is, by nature, shameful and scandalous, and the inability to prevent it with the use of legal means forces the true animal defenders to resort to radical methods, including those that allow for direct violence - assaults or murders. But violence in defense of animals, according to Vlasak, can be justified also due to its pragmatic dimension. For it is one of the most effective ways of stopping those who, motivated by economic reasons, contribute to animal oppression (vivi- sectors or entrepreneurs), as well as those who do it unwittingly - usually because the dominant anthropocentric world view freed them from the responsibility for the suffering of other, nonhuman beings (ordinary consumers who use animal products and all those who treat animals as tradable goods): “And I don’t think you’d have to kill - assassinate - too many vivisectors before you would see a marked decrease in the amount of vivisection going on. And I think for 5 lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million nonhuman animals” (Best, 2008). Vla- sak’s comment was neither sporadic, nor accidental. In 2004, in an interview for BBC radio, as well as in another one, given a few months later to an Australian TV channel, he sustained his statement, although with the reservation that he himself does not encourage such violence. However, he believes it is a certain necessity, born out of the need to oppose the oppressors. And just like it is accepted in reference to various national independence movements, it should also be accepted in reference to animal rights movement: “In any struggle against oppression, historically speaking, from the days of slavery in America to the days of apartheid in South Africa, violence has been necessary. I don’t see the animal rights struggle for liberation as any different from any other struggle that has gone on throughout history.”[132] “If you look historically, at all the struggles against oppression, whether it was against apartheid in South Africa, slavery here in America, other struggles in Northern Ireland, Ireland, Iraq, Vietnam - everywhere that there’s been struggles against oppression and for liberation, violence has been used. And, by the way, they are using violence on their side all the time. They [animal oppressors] are using violence in laboratories where they kill all these animals in slow tortuous ways, and they are using violence against animal rights campaigners. At least a dozen animal rights campaigners have been killed by the animal abusers, but yet no-one seems to be talking about that.”[133]

Probably the strongest expression of approval for Vlasak’s views can be found in an article written by a radical animal rights activist, professor Steve Best, entitled “Who’s Afraid of Jerry Vlasak?” Best claims that the justification of pro-animal violence is based on two assumptions, commonly accepted by animal rights activists: the right of all living creatures to equal treatment (anti-speciesism) and their right to self-defense. As animals are unable to exercise their right to self-defense on their own, we need to extend the notion (“extensional self-defense”), so that it can justify the activities of people intent on defending them (“proxy agents”). According to Best, the rule of “extensional self-defense” is a reflection of the necessary self-defense stipulated in penal codes, which can be evoked whenever the prosecuted believe that their illegal action was a necessary act of protection and when the evil caused by refraining from the illegal act is bigger than the evil that consists in breaking the law (Best, 2008). Best states that violence used by ALF or SHAC is an example of exercising the right to “extensional self-defense” and for that reason it is necessary and justified at the same time (“if violence is needed to save an animal from attack, then violence is legitimate as a means of self-defense for animals” (Best, 2008)).

Of course, it is hard to judge, to what extent Vlasak’s or Best’s views are shared by radical animal rights activists. So far few activists have spoken their minds on the subject. Among the few comments that I managed to find, the tone of a certain understanding, and even approval, dominates, weakened only by the reservation that justifying violence does not mean that one should encourage people to use it. That last declaration should not be interpreted as reassuring in the context of the activists’ assumptions. The consequences of those assumptions are unambiguous. For if we acknowledge, like Vlasak or Best (and along with them, many animal rights activists), that animals, like humans, have the same right to equal treatment (based on their ability to suffer), then we also have to acknowledge that their (often cruel) exploitation is evil and comparable to the harm suffered by slaves on plantations or prisoners in concentration camps (“We destroy property used to abuse, torture and kill animals. We draw parallels with the freedom fighters in Nazi Germany, who liberated prisoners of war and destroyed equipment used by Nazis to torture or kill their victims. There was moral justification for taking action then, and we believe there is today as well”[134]). If we additionally assume (like at least some animal rights activists do) that one has to oppose that evil with all their might, that is, by using all possible and adequate means, then using violence against people (as the ones who are to blame for that evil) starts to appear as the highest moral obligation (“If any animal dies in agony because we have failed, through ridiculous ideology, to use adequate force against its torturers, then we are ourselves responsible for the creature’s torment”[135]).

So far (except for relatively minor assaults or accidental injuries) there have been no serious acts of violence that could be attributed to ALF. However, it is important to note that attributing anything to ALF is very difficult, if only because of the content of their ideological declaration, according to which every action of violence against a human or animal is not the work of the ALF, and the person taking part in it is not the ALF mem- ber.[136] In consequence, it is the type of the action that determines whether the person is a member of the ALF or not. Undoubtedly, a declaration of this type, in combination with the amorphous organization structure, makes it easy to dissociate oneself from unpopular activities. But the amorphousness itself, which in some situations can be an asset, carries certain risks as well. The lack of a central, structured authority means that in practice, ALF has little control over the actions of potential activists who consider themselves to be its members. And although the organization can always “dissociate itself” from them, claiming that they do not meet the “membership criteria,” it is also true that if there are many “unorthodox members” (and it should be noted that the number of such members is steadily growing), it can lead to a permanent “organizational dilution” and embarrassment of the entire organization. These phenomena (if they ever occur) can in turn cause a loss of ideological control over the movement, and ultimately, a full individuation in the actions taken, including the ones based on direct violence. But are such actions acceptable at all, based on the pro-animal ideology? Let us turn our attention to the fact that the “nonviolent” rule is not an element of the animal rights philosophy, but an additional claim, formulated and accepted by individual organizations, independently of the content of the pro-animal doctrine. The philosophy itself does not feature elements that would cause violence to be decidedly excluded. What is more, some claims of that philosophy are undoubtedly susceptible to various extremist interpretations. (According to one of those interpretations, killing morally significant individuals, that is, ones who possess full moral value, is treated as the biggest crime that should be firmly opposed, also when using means that are based on violence). So if the philosophy does not provide its followers with intrinsic ideological “brakes” that would prevent them from using violence, then in the situation of a loss of reasons not to use it (so far ALF has played the role of the provider of such reasons), escalation of violence becomes, in my opinion, more than probable. Of course, escalation of violence does not need to be of quantitative character. The quantity of acts of violence (especially those involving sabotage) may retain a given level for a certain period of time, or even, due to the lack of a coordinator of such actions (if the superior structure disintegrates), it may slightly drop - although in view of the general tendency it does not seem likely. However, what may occur is a radicalization of the violent attacks themselves and an open rejection of the prohibition on injuring and killing people.

6. Radical Ecology - Ideological Development of the Radical Wing of the Environmental Movement

6.1 Toward radical ecology

Aldo Leopold, one of the first representatives of the American ecology, considered as the father of deep ecology, in his famous essay “The Land Ethic” describes “the modern attitude of the human being towards nature” in such a way: “When god-like Odysseus returned from the wars in Troy, he hanged all on one rope a dozen slavegirls of his household whom he suspected of misbehavior during his absence. This hanging involved no question of propriety. The girls were property. The disposal of property was then, as now, a matter of expediency, not of right and wrong. Concepts of right and wrong were not lacking from Odysseus’ Greece: witness the fidelity of his wife through the long years (...). There is as yet no ethic dealing with man’s relation to land and to the animals and plants that grow upon it. Land, like Odysseus’ slave-girls, is still property. The land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations (Leopold, 1991).” As Luc Ferry justly pointed out (Ferry, 1995, pp. 59-60), the words of Leopold can be concluded in a simple, yet difficult to accept for some way - just as people were able to reject slavery due to moral reasons, we should now take a step forward and admit that nature is not our property, but it possesses an autonomic value and it is good itself. This revolutionary ascertainment was not particularly popular in Leopold’s times. It remained unpopular until the late 1960s, when together with the socio-cultural shift and growing awareness of the possible run-down of natural resources (which could cause an economic and ecological crisis), appeared a new sensitivity and a new look on the human-environment relation.

The theoretic basis of this new outlook appeared at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. The first work that firmly influenced the ecological awareness was the book Silent Spring written by Rachel Carson and published in 1962. According to Macnaghten and Urry (1998), it became the hallmark of the nascent environmentalism. Carson, who is considered to be one of the so-called “prophets of annihilation,” described in the book the influence of insecticides, such as DDT and aldrin, on the natural environment, and during a longer period, on the life support system itself. Carson claims that the current situation of the human being and the whole environment is extremely challenging. The greed and egoism of the deadly pesticide industry, and technical progress, which became a part of the after-war world, are not easy to stop. Because of that the natural world and us ourselves are in a deadly danger, which cannot be reversed easily. Although Carson’s book gained great popularity (over 500,000 copies were sold) it is not a critical work. It did focus the attention on the civilization threat on the ecosystem; however, it did not cross the boundaries of the current anthropocentric paradigm.

Undoubtedly, one of the most crucial works of the 1960s was a rebellious essay “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis” of Lynn White, who wrote it in 1967, and which due to its criticism of anthropocentrism became the foundation of “new ecology (White, 1967).” In his work White asks: why do people of the Western civilization exploit nature so much that it threatens not only single ecosystems, but also the whole life in the world? Later the question was considered crucial by numerous radical ecologists. The answer White gives strikes not only the foundations of western religiosity, but also what people tend to call humanity. According to him, the Judeo- Christian religion due to its severe dichotomy between the human and the natural world has been the impulse for mindless and dangerous nature exploitation. White claims that according to the sacred texts, people (endowed with a soul, and unique in their expectations of redemption) are the sovereigns instead of being a part of nature, which is created to be the source of benefits for them. This kind of dualism, which causes indifferent and sometimes hostile attitude toward nature, can be the reason for a future ecological crisis. The crisis will be irreversible unless the dualistic, religiously motivated paradigm that generates it is rejected.

How can the dualistic paradigm be eliminated? White himself does not reveal any practical tips about the way of achieving it (besides the rather general postulate that, similarly to Saint Francis of Assisi we should build a “democracy of all creatures”). However, it was clear for numerous contemporary “ecological thinkers” of White. The first logical step toward the abolition of the separation between the human being and nature must be granting nature legal personality. The first idea of such a “granting” occurred in 1964 when Clarence Morris, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania published an essay: “The Rights and Duties of Beasts and Trees: A Law Teacher’s Essay for Landscape Architects,” in which he postulated giving rights to “birds, flowers, ponds ... feral beasts, outcroppings of stone, primeval forests and sweet country air (Morris, 1964; Nash, 1989a).” Despite a radical content, the essay did not meet with a great response. Finally, in 1972 the postulates of Morris were considered again. This happened because of the popular article of Christopher Stone, a law professor, entitled: “Should Trees Have Standing? Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects.” The inspiration for the article was a legal dispute between Sierra Club, the oldest[137] and perhaps the most influential pro-environmental organization of America, and Walt Disney’s enterprises. The dispute began in 1970, when the U.S. Forest Service allowed Walt Disney Enterprises to build a ski resort with a chain of hotels and playgrounds on the wild ground of the Mineral King Valley in Sierra Nevada. Outraged, Sierra Club appealed claiming that the venture will destroy the primeval beauty of the valley and will jeopardize the ecological harmony of the grounds. The appeal was rejected in September 17, 1970. The reason for that was the fact that Sierra Club did not possess any legal title in order to file a complaint since the matter was not directly violated. Due to the fact that the court’s decision that the case was supposed

to be the subject of an appeal, Professor Stone, who earlier lectured ecology basis at the University of Southern California, published an article, first in “Southern California Law Review” and then as a book, which postulated giving legal rights to “forests, oceans, rivers, and other so-called ‘natural objects’ in the environment - indeed, to the natural environment as a whole (Stone, 1974).” Stone’s argumentation to allow natural beings legal rights was a clear reference to Aldo Leopold’s reasoning. A constant motive of both argumentations is the conviction that in the course of time, what seemed to be unthinkable in other epochs (the rights of women, slaves, prisoners, children, and lunatics) at some point became reality. According to Stone, this shows that the line of demarcation, which separates the beings with rights from those that do not have them, is not something permanent and it can be moved at any time. However, are there any conditions that need to be fulfilled in order for a being to “have rights”? Stone claims that there are three such conditions: a being must commence legal actions in its own defense, the court must announce that the damage regard the being itself, and that a possible redress should be given to that being. The whole case is an attempt of proving that trees and other natural objects can fulfill the encountered conditions, can be represented (also other “insensate” beings) by their representatives, who are able to establish rational relations, for instance by ecological organizations. The representatives should always support the right of self-determination of those beings, in other words, of realization of their natural potential, regardless of whether it is profitable for a human or not (they could claim, for example, damage on behalf of fish living in polluted ponds, regardless of whether fishermen would suffer loss due to the pollution). Stone goes even further: she claims that natural grounds should be proportionally represented in the legislature (for example, Alaska a bigger one than Rhode Island due to a higher number of forests and waterfalls). Does it mean then that people should not use nature for their own benefit? According to Stone, giving nature rights does not mean inability to obtain profits from it; indeed, people have rights while other people use their work. Therefore, nature can be used but cannot be exploited. It would violate its right to realize its own growth potential. Stone’s reasoning did not convince all the judges. On April 19, 1972, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal filed by Sierra Club; however, it was not a unanimous rejection: 4 of the 10 judges voted against Stone’s arguments, two abstained from voting, and three voted in his favor (Ferry, 1995, p. xviii). Although the second case was lost in court, Mineral King was saved. The costs of the long-lasting trial made Walt Disney Enterprises withdraw from the resort construction, and the valley itself was annexed into Sequoia National Park in 1978.

The postulate of granting rights to natural beings, in spite of the fact that it was a crucial step toward exceeding the boundaries of dualism, did not mean its complete abolition. Indeed, trees and ecosystems are granted with rights, which can be compared to human rights; however, the moral value of all the beings and their homogeneity are not equal (for instance, based on the statement of the holistic unity of ecosystem). A human, a stone, and individual ecosystems are clearly separated from one another and it is not really known what their moral relation toward one another is. Despite the radical essence, Stone’s idea cannot be described as antidualistic or antihumanistic. The first and, as it seems, the only idea, which could be described with such terms, is deep ecology, commonly considered as the outlook basis of the ecological extremism.

6.2 Deep ecology

A Norwegian philosopher, Arne Naess, used the term “deep ecology” for the first time in 1972 to describe a new direction of ecological philosophy (a new ecological paradigm), which was aspiring to a partial formulation of the relation between the human being and the world of nature. After some time, the term became commonly used. Today not only is it used with reference to Arne Naess’ philosophy (and the output of his students and coordinators), but also with reference to the broad mental trend, whose principal feature is nonanthropocentric attitude toward ecological issues (Ferry, 1995; Taylor, 2000).The attitude is based on perceiving all ecological threats as a consequence of a presumption that the point of reference of all the rights and values are people with their natural superiority toward anything that is not human. Deep ecology supports the change of this false presumption (Devall and Sessions, 1995, p. 66). This presumption, according to deep ecology, is a creation of societies overwhelmed with “prevailing obsession,” not being able to acknowledge the fact that in reality there are no preferable beings (more important, better, greater than others) (Devall and Sessions, 1995, p. 68, 71). The human being (considered both as a kind and an individual) is only a member of the “biological society” consisting of both living organisms, such as bacteria, birds, and whales, and unanimated beings: rivers, mountains, and icebergs. All beings possess a unique value: all of them are sacred since they participate in the sacred cycle of life. For deep ecology, this strange to anthropocentrism belief of sacredness of all the lives (or even better: “natural being”) should become a starting point for all pro-ecological actions. A characteristic for deep ecology feature is a belief in the necessity of a thorough rebuilding of modern “technocratic-industrial” societies. Some of the most common propositions are: creating alternative communities, limiting production and consumption, moderate technical use (in the radical version - a complete resignation), stabilizing population level (in the radical version - lowering the population number with force methods), replacing the Judeo-Christian monotheism (patriarchal, based on the dualism of reality and a monolinear concept of time) with pantheism or holistic metaphysics.

Deep ecology understood in this way opposes “shallow ecology” (mainly by its followers), whose characteristic feature is that it perceives nature and its issues only through the prism of human’s interests. Shallow ecology is based in a traditional, anthropocentric way of thinking and it sees a person as a being, which due to its ability to distance from a biological life cycle and to all particularities that are created by each being, is placed to a certain extent beyond and above nature (Capra, 1987). According to shallow ecology the human as a supra-natural being is in a privileged position in relation to other beings, all of which belong to the world of nature. While reaching specifically human aims, the human being does not have the duty to pay attention to those beings, unless they turn out somehow useful. The issue of natural environment degradation in shallow ecology is considered as solvable within the limits of traditional anthropocentrism and it is not necessary to resort to social or political solutions. It is effective enough to take legal actions to replace an impulsive exploitation of natural resources with “rational, efficient, scientific/technological management (Devall and Sessions, 1995, p. 56).”

After the short explanation of the differences between each of the ecologies (deep and shallow), I would like to get down to detailed theoretical questions that are characteristic for deep ecology only. It is worth emphasizing the fact that the ideas of different philosophers of deep ecology are not uniform; they differ from one another by the degree of radicalism and their attitude toward different problems. Despite some differences, there is a clear common core between them - a common philosophical and ideological attitude, to which refer almost all the followers of deep ecology. This attitude consists of three statements, which need to be discussed.

The first of the statements says that it is necessary to break with the view that claims that all things are of a separate quality, and are autonomous wholes. The foundation of this view is insincere and, what is even worse, it leads us toward the ideological trap of individualism. According to the theorists of deep ecology, things should be perceived and understood not as individuals that exist on their own, but they should be thought of in the category of relations with other things - things are not in fact “things,” but a network of mutual connections between things. Arne Naess explicitly explains the thought in the article “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement”: “An intrinsic relation between two things A and B is such that the relation belongs to the definitions or basic constitutions of A and B, so that without the relation, A and B are no longer the same things. The total-field model dissolves not only the man-in-environment concept, but every compact thing-in-milieu concept - except when talking at a superficial or preliminary level of communication.”[138] It is worth paying attention to the fact that the relational model of reality that Naess writes about does not only destroy “the concept of the human being in environment,” but also challenges our deep-seated conviction that the basis of our own, particular “Self” is solid and independent from other elements of the world substantial undertow, which creates our being identity. For Naess and other deep ecologists it is a false conviction, raised from human’s vanity and the desire of ruling the world. If human beings want to avoid an ecological catastrophe and regain the harmony with the world and with themselves, which was lost on the threshold of civilization, they should oust it from their awareness as soon as possible, and face the fact that it is only an element of a bigger connection network, and nothing more than that.

Ousting the conviction of the existence of things that possess spontaneous properties cross-refers to another crucial for deep ecology statement - in the literature on the subject it is very often described as the norm of biocentric equality.[139] The statement is in fact a postulate, which preaches a moral obligation to grant rights for all the other elements of the biosphere (in case of inanimate beings to “exist”) and to reach own, individual forms of growth. To be precise, each form of a being (both living and inanimate) should have the right to live and properly (from its point of view also “normal”) function in the ecosystem, which means that sheep should be sheep, wolves should be wolves, rocks should be rocks, and people should be people.[140] The life of each of those beings is valuable and sacred regardless of their category.

The norm of biocentric equality formulated in such a way can naturally bring some doubts, which could be enunciated in the form of two questions: (1) does not the right to live and grow conflict with a quite obvious fact that some beings in order to survive and grow, must annihilate others? (2) Do human beings fulfill their individual form of development and growth while exploiting or even thoughtlessly destroying nature?

The answer to the first question given by deep ecologists is that killing, or even exploitation and oppression, are normal forms of participating in the ecosystem (Naess, 1973, p. 95), and if they help to satisfy the vital needs (basic needs that help exist), they should be ethically accepted.[141] In a normal, unmodified ecosystem all the beings coexist in a harmony of their vital needs - an antelope eats grass; a lion eats an antelope; a tsetse fly and a precivilization human kill a lion.[142] Each of those creatures, while living in harmony with other forms of life, satisfies its vital needs and pursues its potency - its individual (yet specific) way of handling life and pursuing proper hap- piness.[143] According to most deep ecologists, there is not in fact any exploitation or real domination in this unmodified ecosystem. They claim that in order to discuss either of them, basic vital needs must be exceeded; however, this never occurs in the natural environment (unimpaired by a human).

Arne Naess, the founder of deep ecology, sees the question of exploitation differently. He claims that the perception of the world of nature as a place where the general rule is exploitation and dominations, comes from a limited perspective, which is based on the mentioned nonrelational (unitary) view of environmental reality. The view will change when we use a wider perspective, when we stop seeing particular organisms as isolated individuals for whom it is destined to either be a victim or its oppressor, or start to see the holistic and relational dimension of its existence. According to Naess, the adoption of this holistic and relational perspective will cause the fight to survive that exists in nature (and which we are willing to encapsulate as a form of exploitation and repression) to be seen as a cooperation and coexistence.[144]

The answer to the second question is based on a radical distinction between the mentioned “vital” needs and “nonvital” needs (excessive), whose satisfaction does not serve a biological survival, but only obscures the feeling of spiritual emptiness. According to deep ecologists, a modern human being, who lives away from nature, is not able to find his or her own real definition of happiness, which for deep ecologists is always based on creating a strong relation with nature. Because of that it seeks for something that would be its makeshift. Such a makeshift can be found in a consumable lifestyle, which requires a growth of the need of material well-being and raising the standards regardless of the price that nature has to pay.[145] According to Arne Naess, the consumable lifestyle based on needs’ egoism, which carries exploitation and environmental destruction, does not help a human being’s self-realization. It is quite the opposite - this style of living contradicts the internal being - the real “self.”

However, what is this “self” and what is the way to self-realization? Let us try to answer this question using the words of Arne Naess, who says in the text “SelfRealization: an Ecological Approach to Being in the World”: “Human nature is such that with sufficient all-sided maturity we cannot avoid ‘identifying’ ourselves with all living beings, beautiful and ugly, big or small, sentient or not (...). Traditionally, the maturity of the self develops through three stages - from ego to social self, and from social self to metaphysical self. In this conception of the process nature - our home, our immediate environment, where we belong as children - is largely ignored. I therefore tentatively introduce the concept of an ecological self. We may be in, of, and for nature from our very beginning. Society and human relations are important, but our self is richer in its constitutive relations. These relations are not only relations we have with humans and the human community, but with the larger community of all living beings (Seed, et al, 1988).” According to Naess, a part of human’s ego is the need of full broadening to other beings. In order to realize this deep need of ego, people should stop seeing themselves as isolated and competitive individuals and start identifying with the whole world, which incorporates both human and inhuman beings (Devall and Sessions, 1995, pp. 66-67). This kind of identification, according to Naess, eliminates in an obvious way the action of human beings, which could damage nature in any way. When people destroy nature or excessively exploit it, they misappropriate their own potency of their individual form of development and growth.[146]

This is where another statement of the ecological outlook should be discussed - “ecological holism.” Its creator and a great supporter was Aldo Leopold, who is commonly considered to be the precursor of deep ecology. For Leopold, similarly to other philosophers of deep ecology, nature is not an ordinary collection of live and inanimate beings, but a biogenic whole,[147] infinitely greater than its human individuals and nonhuman beings, which as a whole possesses features that cannot be compared to the features of its components (i.e., they are not the total of properties of each of its part). A simple ethic implication of such a conviction, which is accepted by most of ecologists, is a belief that nature as a whole possesses a higher moral value than its individual components. It means that nature is the one that should be respected and protected. Its less perfect components should be treated as of a secondary importance. According to Leopold, the aim that should be pursued by ecological philosophers is a foundation of the ethic that would consider the well-being of the natural environment as the greatest good. Leopold himself founds this ethic by formulating ethical imperatives, which allows estimating human behavior by virtue of its value for the biotical whole. In the collection of essays “A Sand County Almanac,” Leopold says “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise (Leopold, 2001).” Another follower who was expressing the idea of ecological holism is Bard Callicott. The philosopher in one of his articles attempts to explain the meaning of ecological holism in the example of the difference between the liberationist movement (a movement that fights for animal rights) and an environmental movement alleging deep ecology (Callicott, 1979). According to Callicott, the first mentioned movement places the moral value in individuals only, and its only aim is broadening the category of beings that possess animal rights - a creature, whose rights have been wanting, and which, according to liberationists, due to the ability of having needs and feelings should have rights. For Callicott, the characteristic feature of liberationism is individual attitude, which is shown in the belief that life and well-being of individuals is of a priority character - an individual has the right to protect them even when it is necessary to violate the good of a community it belongs to. The second of the mentioned movements claims that the greatest moral good is the biotical whole.

Its main goal is protecting integrality and variety of ecosystem from particular interests of one of its components. The good of individuals is obviously crucial - only if it contributes into the ecosystem’s well-being, and only when it does not trigger a conflict with it. One of the expressions of respect for ecosystem is the attitude toward so-called “artificial species.” For deep ecologists wild animals possess a greater internal value than domestic animals, whose invasion into the world of nature is considered as something destructive and contradictory with environmental ethics. Another interesting aspect of the ecosystem cult is the relation between endangered species, which are granted with a special status. In the situation when the “interest” of those species triggers a conflict with the interest of unendangered species (for instance, when edelweiss is endangered by grazing sheep), according to deep ecologists, the conflict should be solved in a way that the interest of endangered species is first taken into consideration. Of course, animal rights defenders would never approve of such an attitude.

It is clear to notice the fact that among the discussed three main deep ecology statements, the most “dangerous” (i.e., subjects of extremist interpretations) is the last one. It is important to realize its possible consequences. First of all, due to the different ecosystem values of each of the components for the whole, it should be considered that those of them, which are lower links of a food chain, are of a higher value than those that are on top of the chain. In fact, not all the components contribute equally into the behavior and well-being of the whole; for instance, ocean plankton and soil bacteria are crucial for the ecosystem functioning, while humanity’s existence is not. Second of all, due to the ecosystem’s integrality, a life of an endangered representative should be of a higher value than the one of the human being, whose species is not endangered. Third of all, due to the fact that the human being is a threat to the whole ecosystem and does not seem to be a crucial part for its functioning, it can be predicated that it would be better for the ecosystem that humankind thoroughly disappeared from the world. It is fascinating that numerous deep ecologists are not willing to notice those consequences, or simply ignore them. It seems that this happens due to at least two reasons: they somehow challenge the biocentric equality rule, and are of an antihuman character. It is difficult to state how strongly the members of radical ecoterrorism organizations, such as “Earth First!” and “Earth Liberation Front,” accept the presented way of thinking. However, it is true that anti-anthropocentric threads constantly appear in the statements and official declarations of moderate ecoterrorism organizations. It is worth familiarizing with four of the thesis of Dave Foreman and Howie Wolke included in “Statements of Principles,” whose anti-anthropocentric character should not arouse doubts: “Humankind, through overpopulation, anthropocentrism, industrialization, excessive energy consumption/resource extraction, state capitalism, father-figure hierarchies, imperialism, pollution, and natural area destruction, threatens the basic life processes of EARTH. All human decisions should consider Earth first, humankind second. The only true test of morality is whether an action, individual, social or political, benefits Earth. Humankind will be happier, healthier, more secure, and more comfortable in a society that recognizes humankind’s true biological nature and which is in dynamic harmony with the total biosphere (Lee, 1995).”

A crucial element of the system of convictions of almost all followers of deep ecology (especially those who dabble in ecoterrorism) is a belief in the coming ecological catastrophe, which will shake the whole ecosystem in a radical, or even irreversible way. Is it possible to avoid the catastrophe? According to radical ecologists it is possible on the condition that a modern human being, today possessed by immoderate force of technical civilization, and used to confronting his or her will with natural forces, will change the idea of the world, and, as a consequence, will create new ethics, which will be the basis for deep political changes.[148] According to most radical ecologists, this new ethics should be based on the recognition of the superiority of the nature values instead of humanity values. The most significant consequence of such recognition is the fullest turn of the humankind to nature, assimilation and functioning according to its rhythm. The ethics will not obviously be easy to realize. In practice, it will require humans to control the phenomena that are out of their control - excessive birthrate and hysterical pursuit of economic growth (Capra, 1988).

There is quite a strong difference in opinions about the methods and limits of influencing those phenomena. Moderate faction of the followers of deep ecology claims that it needs to be done in a peaceful and evolutionary way, through shaping ecological awareness, which presupposed that the “material standard of living should be drastically reduced (Devall and Sessions, 1995, p. 75)” and to use the appropriate demographic politics. The radical faction of the followers of deep ecology, which is the one I am interested in for obvious reasons, considers such methods as ineffective, and pronounces for violent, antidemocratic, and revolutionary means of stopping the mentioned threats. According to radical ecologists, it is insufficient to slow down or even stop their growth, since the whole human history needs to be reversed.

There were two main postulates of “reversing history”: (1) The postulate of returning to the world that existed in a distant past and to the life on the level that barely allowed existence (creating self-sufficient villages without technology and industry, and restoration of wilderness areas with endemic flora and fauna), which is closest to the world of nature (Foreman, 1988; Manes, 1990). (2) The postulate of radically bringing down the number of the human population through various forms of demographic compulsion.

Some pro-environmental extremists manifest a skeptical approach toward the possibility of fulfilling these postulates within the confines of a liberal-democratic society, which, according to them, cannot afford the necessary radicalism in the face of an ecological crisis. According to them, the ecological situation requires radical solutions, and those can appear only where it is not crucial to take into account the consumer-oriented will of the majority.

Hans Jonas, considered as one of the theorists of deep ecology, claims that only the pressure of the government guarantees a change in our relationship with the world. In his book The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age, which is considered as one of the most critical works of the German Left Party, Jonas compares two types of governmental organizations: (1) the totalitarian state based on Marxist ideology, and (2) the democratic state with free-market economy. He claimed that only the first type gives a chance to elaborate a corrective program, and enforce necessary, yet unpopular decisions. According to Jonas, the fact that such a possibility might appear is conditioned by the structure of a communist state (the central system of administration, which does not require previous grass-roots permission; central planning helps avoid mismanagement, which is very often a result of the competition and market production focused on artificial creation of consumer needs), and its ideological layer, which agitates for healthy abstinence and “living for the entirety” with the means of “emphatic moralism (Jonas, 1979).” A belief that deep ecology postulates cannot be realized in the democratic-liberal states is quite popular among the radical followers of deep ecology; however, as far as I know, they have not worked out a specific vision of a future order, which would help realize pro-environmental postulates.

6.3 6.3 Anarchist social ecology

A belief that in case of an ecological crisis, radical changes of political and social character must be introduced is not popular among deep ecology followers only. Murray Bookchin, a founder and main ideologist of the so-known anarchist social ecology, which is exceptionally close to modern Earth Liberation Front activists, shared a similar opinion at least since the early 1960s. Bookchin claimed that in order to avoid the coming crisis and to save life on Earth, it is not enough to improve the current environmental protection system. Changes must reach the roots of the system and, what is extremely crucial, must also be of a thorough mental and awareness character. According to Bookchin, in order to choose the right direction, it is necessary to reach the source of ecological issues and to understand what the connection is between human ideals and destructive environmental changes. Bookchin, as opposed to White, did not see this connection on a religious notions level. For him, they are not the source of the problem. The source of the problem is the hierarchy and domination: two pillars of the modern, anti-ecological society. According to Bookchin, hierarchy and domination are not necessarily connected with the social functioning. They did not exist in the early, preliterate societies. Indeed, there were some dissimilarities between them, such as age, sex, and religious relations; however, they did not cause a greater innercommunity diversity. Such a condition did not last long. Together with the increasing role of the elder, this organic, internally welded entirety broke. Bookchin claims that this was the beginning of the domination of men over women, elder over younger, one ethnic group over another, the rich over poor, and, in the end, human being over nature. Hardship and war strengthened such domination, and caused fixed hierarchy frames. Today hierarchy and domination penetrate all of the aspects of life; they are also extraordinarily destructive for life. A society can continue its way to destruction; it can also change its relations with the world of nature and itself, destroy class and economical inequalities, which are recently sanctioned by the oppressive capitalistic state, and enter the kingdom of freedom, that is, build a real community, which would be, similarly to ecosystems, “diverse, balanced, and harmonious.” There are not any half reforms that could be effective. According to Bookchin, “ Conventional reform efforts, at their best, can only slow down but they cannot arrest the overwhelming momentum toward destruction within our society. At their worst, they lull people into a false sense of security. Our institutional social order plays games with us to foster this passivity. It grants long-delayed, piecemeal, and woefully inadequate reforms to deflect our energies and attention from larger acts of destruction (Chase, 1991, p. 77).” “Our world,” as Bookchin claims: “will either undergo revolutionary changes, so far-reaching in character that humanity will totally transform its social relations and its conception of life, or it will suffer an apocalypse that may well end humanity’s tenure on the planet (Bookchin, 1981; Merchant, 1992).”

It is pointless to look in Bookchin’s texts for specific clues about the course of the revolutionary process, or the shape of the future, hierarchy- and domination-free society. However, a broad outline is clear. The basic aim of the revolution is replacing “false morality” of the contemporary world with a holistic, pro-environmental ethics, which will be filled with respect and love for all people and the whole nature. According to Bookchin, it means in practice a negation of old hierarchic structures, which cemented countries, cities, centralized economy, bureaucracy, patriarchal families, and the market. The negation of the state is anarchism, which is “a situation in which men liberate all the immediate circumstances of their everyday lives”; negation is “a community-decentralized social environment”; the negation of bureaucracy is “a situation in which representation is replaced by face-to-face relations in general assembly of free individuals”; the negation of the centralized economy is “regional ecotechnology - a situation in which the instruments of production are molded to the resources of an ecosystem”; the negation of a patriarchal family is “liberated sexuality, in which all forms of sexual regulation are transcended by the spontaneous, untrammeled expression of eroticism among equals”; and the negation of the market is “communism, in which collective abundance and cooperation transform labor into play and need into desire (Bookchin, 1986).” The introduction of those revolutionary terms will not be an easy task. The system cannot be overthrown easily. The only certain thing is that mellow strategies are not effective; it is high time to reach for such a strategy that will be more effective - nonviolent direct actions. “To be effective, however, we must break away from conventional reformism and energetically adopt much more powerful nonviolent direct-action resistance strategies (Chase, 1991, p. 78).”

Although Bookchin’s concept and deep ecology have a lot in common (praising decentralization and direct actions), they are not closely related. Bookchin himself decidedly retorted from deep ecology during The First National Green Gathering in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1987 (both from the version proposed by its theorists, and the Earth First! activists’ expansions). Bookchin called it internally contaminated and politically dangerous. This belief Bookchin developed in his further works and speeches. He claimed that the social and deep ecologies he represented were in fact greatly antagonistic, and deep ecology itself is not only a radical, pro-environmental philosophy, but it is also potentially an antisocial and antihuman ideology.

Did Bookchin have grounds for such “drastic” statements? It is a fact that since the mid-1980s, numerous Earth First! activists formulated many controversial expressions, which were concerning social issues solutions, such as hunger and overpopulation. Dave Foreman, when asked about the issue of hunger in Ethiopia, answered that the best solution for this problem is allowing nature to what it needs to do. Edward Abbey suggested to hand everybody who comes to the United States a shotgun, and send them home to introduce political and social changes. Manes speculated the beneficial influence of HIV on the overpopulation issue (the ideas will be explained in detail in the chapter regarding environmental extremism). Bookchin knew these concepts and roundly criticized them. However, according to Bookchin’s works, the concepts do not constitute the basic difference between these two ecologies, and they also did not cause such a rapid condemnation of deep ecology. What they caused was a thoroughly different perception of the socio-ethical ideal. In case of deep ecology, this ideal is identified with nature, and nature is what we all should turn to, to obtain inner peacefulness and harmony. The more we conform to nature as a society and as an individual, the more morally ideal our world and our lives in it will be. For Bookchin such a location of the ideal is the evidence of deep misanthropy and pessimism in relation to the human being, which penetrate the philosophy of deep ecology. What is more, it is also the evidence of being involved in the hated dualistic perspective (deep ecology, while condemning civilization growth and pursuing perfect unification with nature, according to Bookchin, in fact opposes nature, and all that what is good for the human world - the source of evil and destruction. Because of that, it refers to the rejected old dualistic paradigm, which is somehow copied and cemented to it.) Bookchin claims that societies cannot be reduced to nature only, and cannot be adjusted to. It is a unique creature that “advances beyond a mere reproductive group toward institutionalized human relationships, and from a relatively formless animal community (Bookchin, 2014),” in spite of the fact that the emergence of a society is a natural fact, which is derived from the biology of human socialization. For Bookchin the ethical ideal should not be sought in nature, but in nature and society. The ideal is created as a consequence of synchronization and peaceful coexistence of two zones, which are different, yet closely related - the human, social zone, which is the domain of freedom and imagination, and the biological zone, with its variety of forms, and uncontrollable fertility. (“Clearly, we must bring humanity’ s uniqueness as a species, marked by rich conceptual, social, imaginative, and constructive attributes, into synchronicity with nature’s fecundity, diversity, and creativity (Bookchin, 2014)”). All ideologies that familiarize with this fact are equally wrong and dangerous.

Does deep ecology in fact deserve the label of being dangerous, as Backman wants it? The answer to this question is more complicated than it might seem to be. It is true that deep ecology combines some elements, which could justify Bookchin’s opinion. Anti-individualism and antihumanism, animosity and even hate toward contemporary times, deep pessimism toward the idea of growth, and finally, biocentric location of the moral ideal, which can provoke to antihuman preferences; these are all possible causes of extremely radical actions and ideas. On the other hand, what balances those elements and traps them is the idea of “sanctity of life.” Of course, the sanctity of life refers mostly to the ecosystem. This most perfect “super-organism” possesses the highest moral value and it should be protected in the first place. However, other beings mostly[149] participate in this sanctity - by themselves, and also as a part of a bigger entirety. They also have the right to growth and bodily inviolability. For deep ecologists, the human being is “problematic”; it is a part of nature, but also crosses it due to its secondary needs. As a part of nature it obviously requires protection, and as a being that destroys nature it deserves condemnation, or even excluding it from the biological community. Those two outlooks on the human being both overlap and deadlock each other. However, the deadlock situation does not need to be permanent. If the level of environment degradation finally threatens the biotical whole instead of particular parts of the ecosystem, it is highly possible that the second view on human beings will turn out victorious.[150]

7. Environmental Movement: The Origins, Development, and Radicalization

7.1 Conservationism vs. preservationism

In spite of the fact that the environmental movement formed only just in the 1960s as a reaction to a rapid pace of nature’s devastation, the interest in nature protection occurred already in the mid-nineteenth century. According to Macnaghten and Urry, the first organizations of nature enthusiasts established at that time were inspired by the fear of a negative influence of industrialization and urban sprawl (Macnaghten and Urry, 1998, p. 35). In 1865 the Commons Preservation Society was formed in England. Its role was to protect London’s public areas from urbanization, and to provide London’s citizens with recreational areas. Later, in 1889 the Selborne Society for the Protection of Birds, Plants and Pleasant Places, and in 1895 the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest and Natural Beauty, were formed. In 1892 John Muir (considered by numerous environmental activists as one of the precursors of environmental ethics) founded the Sierra Club organization in the United States, whose main goal was to protect the Sierra Nevada from the influence of progressive industrialization. Together with the environmental organizations, the first pollution control acts were introduced: the Smoke Nuisance Abatement Act in 1853 and the Alkali Act, which contributed to the foundation of the Alkali Inspectorate, the first government department to fight against environmental pollution.

The drive to protect the environment was not an action of a protective nature only. It was also a desire to oppose the culture of enlightenment that assumed conquering nature to be a necessity driven by the development of human societies. One of the first to openly negate this idea was David Thoreau, an American philosopher, who was elaborating on the “Over-soul” philosophy. It is a spiritual and moral strength, which, he believed, penetrates everything and is present in every living being. According to this philosophy, the human being is only one of the components of the natural world, while the Earth is an autonomous, organic, and spiritually filled being. Thoreau was also one of the first philosophers who, on account of moral reasons, questioned the devastation of nature. He also strongly criticized the federal government actions and the industrialists who, in his opinion, falsely believed that natural resources are inexhaustible. When one farmer lumbered the forest and destroyed the undergrowth, Thoreau wrote: “If some are prosecuted for abusing children, others deserve to be prosecuted for maltreating the face of nature committed to their care (Torrey, 1906;

Nash, 1989, p. 37).” This statement was quite shocking in Thoreau’s times and surely did not help him gain popularity.

During that time much more influential was an American thinker who worked on ecological matters, the author of Man and Nature; Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (1864), namely George Perkins Marsh (1865). He, just like Thoreau, considered the necessity of protecting nature to be a moral obligation. According to him, however, it is the obligation not to nature itself, but to our fellow human beings who might suffer from the lack of natural resources. In order to avoid this, according to Marsh, our planet will recover with the means of a planned control of technology. This belief, known as conservation, became the predominant approach to nature and to our duties toward it for many years.

It also strongly influenced the politicians of the United States. In 1972, the federal government decided to form the first national park in the world in Yellowstone. More or less at the same time Carl Schurz, the Secretary of State of the Interior, started supporting the idea of the federal forests protection. In 1891, the United States Congress ordered the use of public areas as forest reservoirs, later known as “national forests.” One of the great supporters of the conservationism idea was President Theodore Roosevelt who, immediately after taking office in 1901, declared that environment protection would be one of his main priorities. The president kept the promise and because of that, the area of the national forests was extended from 42 million acres to 172 million acres. He also convinced Congress to create six new national parks and 51 National Wildlife Refuges, and in 1906 he signed the Lasey Antiquities Act into law, which allowed him to create 18 national monuments in the Western United States. In 1905 Roosevelt also formed the U.S. Forest Service, the first state agency to administer forests in the United States. The first Chief Forester of the Service was a conservationist, Gifford Pinchont, whose attitude toward forestry was filled with pragmatism based on the idea that nature and all of its resources are a deposit that needs to be administrated wisely, in a way that it is not destructive for human health. In 1908, Roosevelt and Pinchont organized the Conservation Conference in the White House. During the Conference a lot of influential politicians and activists were presented with the main presuppositions of conservationism. John Muir, who was representing the opposite views on the environment protection, was not invited to the Conference. Pin- chont, together with Roosevelt, considered, according to the idea of conservationism, that forests and meadows under the supervision of the Forest Service should be administrated in a profitable approach for recent and future generations. The consequence of such an attempt was opening national forests for commercial activities, such as mining, woodworking industry, and farming. Muir’s opinion was quite the opposite. He claimed that forests and other wild areas are valuable as they are and should exist for their own benefit only, without the commercial interference of human beings which, according to Muir, always led to abuse and destruction. This kind of attitude was later called preservation. Not inviting Muir to the Conference is considered by some of the researchers of the ecological movement as the first shot in the battle between two opposite standpoints: conservationism and preservation.

The conflict between these two contradictory points of view aggravated in 1913 when the clerks from San Francisco decided to build a dam in the Yosemite National Park, which meant inundating the picturesque Hetch Hetchy Valley. John Muir, who thought that the construction would damage the intrinsic value and unique beauty of the valley, strongly protested against it. Although the protest turned out ineffective (The Congress passed a law that enabled building the dam), the idea of preservation gained publicity. One of the biggest promoters of it soon became Aldo Leopold, who at that time was a manager in the U.S. Forest Service and was responsible for reducing the number of predators in the national forests, among others (mainly to increase the number of deer for hunters). Leopold questioned the conservational point of view. Within the confines of the federal program of hunting predators he killed a wolf. However, when he saw “a fierce green fire dying in her eyes,” he realized how wrong the politics of the Forest Service were. Soon after that event he began working on founding an area of wolf protection[151], and in 1935 he contributed to the foundation of The Wilderness Society. In 1940 Leopold wrote a collection of essays “A Sand County Almanac,” which is still considered as the first manifesto of the preservation philosophy. The book, besides the postulate of expanding the moral community to all natural beings, contains also the definition of the ecological good. According to the definition, “a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise (Leopold, 2001).” The consequence of the way of establishing ecological good was moving the value from individual beings to the holistic entirety. It was also of a great importance for the future environmentalism development, especially for its radical wing.

In England, the environment protection movement commenced at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was mainly a nostalgic desire to strangulate the bond with the past and rebuilding the so-called “English style of life,” mostly associated with living in the country, away from the malignant influence of a city and industry. During that time a few organizations were founded, for whom the fight for environment protection meant restoring dignity and the harmony of an English province; In 1924, the Ancient Monuments Society was founded, in 1926 the Council for the Preservation of Rural England (CPRE), in 1931 the National Trust for Scotland, and in 1935 the Ramblers Association. One of the biggest conflicts in the 1920s was the case approved by Baldwin’s government project of creating the electric energy network of over 3728 miles. The supporters of the project claimed that the traction network would lower unemployment and would cause economic growth, while the opponents, who were activists of the new movement of environment protection, were pointing out the fact that such a network would cause destruction of the beauty of a natural landscape. The protesting groups, known as the “antitraction movement,” were active in the area of South Downs, Lake District, New Forest, and London. The distinguished intellectuals, such as Joseph Kipling, Hilaire Belloc, and Jon Keynes, were engaged in the action. When Times started coordinating the antitraction movement, the whole world began discussing the issue. In spite of the fact that the movement failed, the question of the limits of modernization was strongly raised. In the 1930s, according to Macnaghten and Urry, the environment protection movement became less of an issue of modernization criticism; however, it was more of a concern about the uncontrolled growth. Organizations such as the previously mentioned CPRE and the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) began demanding an integrated planning system, which would rationally allow founding new cities and national parks in the wilderness areas. During the interwar period, the sensitive question of access to the natural environment was raised. It became substantial in accordance with the increasing affluence of society and the new passions for “nature expeditions.” As a result of the popularization of the ideas of an egalitarian nature, such as socialism and communism, more and more people claimed the right to unrestricted wandering in the green territories, which caused massive intrusions in the private areas in the 1930s (the most famous one in 1932 in Kindler Scout).[152]

7.2 The birth of environmentalism

World War II and the after-war rebuilding in the 1940s diverted the attention of society and politicians from the environmental problems for some time, although not for long. The appearance of the environmental activism in the 1960s was mostly a reaction to the increasing environmental threat, resulting from such negative phenomena as overpopulation, run-down of natural resources, species extinction, and water and air pollution. The awareness of the increasing crisis has been reflected in academic publications, commonly called “the prophet of destruction,” which focus on the problems related to environmental pollution, the use of modern technologies, and population overgrowth.

The publication, which contributed to a better awareness of the danger and, indirectly, to the development of the modern environmental movement (environmentalism), was the book Silent Spring written by Rachel Carson published in 1962. Carson proved in it that the common use of pesticides and herbicides is a remarkably harmful procedure both for humans and for other species of fauna and flora (especially for birds). The book met with a vivid reaction of the fertilizer industry representatives, who accused Carson of being a part of a communist conspiracy, which was supposed to ravage American agriculture. President Kennedy did not share the same opinion. After reading Carson’s book, he appointed the President’s Science Advisory Committee, whose aim was to research the consequences of pesticides use. One of the indirect results of the Committee’s actions was passing 40 bills, which were regulating its usage. Another immensely important publication of that period was the book Population Bomb written by Paul R. Ehrlich, published in 1968. The author’s focus was on the problem of the constant increase of population, especially in the Third World countries. Ehrlich was predicting that in case the number of births was not regulated, in the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of millions of people would confront the disaster of starvation. The attempt of precluding it, based on technology, would not only fail, but also worsen the current situation due to the fact that the intensified food production would cause soil erosion, which, according to Ehrlich would influence even greater starvation, natural disasters, and a nuclear war.[153] Another “prophet of destruction” was Barry Commoner, the author of two popular books: Science and Survival and Closing Circle. He was warning against the destructive consequences of modern technologies and their products, such as pesticides, synthetics, plastic, and radioactive waste. These substances regularly let into the environment could upset the fragile balance of the ecosystem and could result in an ecological catastrophe. The awareness of their harmfulness only, according to the author, would not be of any use because the motive force of their production is the capitalistic greed and the lust for profit. Because of that the only solution is depriving private corporations of the influence on production and passing it on the socialist government.

The alarmist predictions of the book had some influence over the imagination of some politicians and businessmen. In 1968, Aurelio Peccei (the President of Olivetti), gathered a group of scientists, industrialists, and politicians in order to understand the dynamics of “the global system.” This is how the Club of Rome was founded. It was an organization consisting of several dozens of scientists and practitioners. It dealt with analyzing the dynamics of population growth until the end of the twentieth century in the perspective of threatening dangers. The first publication of the Club of Rome was The Limits to Growth report published in 1972 (Meadows et al., 1972). The report was based on a computer simulation and it inspected the main trends that could be a threat to population development - increasing industrialization, population growth, malnutrition, exhaustion of nonrenewable resources, and increasing destruction of the natural environment. The authors of the report claimed that if those negative trends would remain unchanged, during the next hundred years the limit of growth of human societies would be reached. This might result in a great shortage of food, the drop in reproductive ability, and rapid reduction of the population number.

On April 22, 1970, an event took place, which had an active influence over the developing environmental movement at that time, mainly in the United States. The event was Earth Day, an immense environmental manifestation[154], participated in by over 20 million people in 1500 camps and 10,000 schools in the United States. The objective of the manifestation was expressing disapproval of environmental destruction. To the surprise of the organizers, the event proceeded in a carefree and cheerful atmosphere. The participants were collecting garbage, planting trees, decorating themselves with flowers, and parading down the streets (the biggest parade was organized in Manhattan, where 10,000 people marched down 5th Avenue). There were also some happenings. In San Francisco, the “Environmental Vigilantes” group spilt oil in front of the Standard Oil Company in order to protest against the coastal water pollution caused by the company. In Tacoma, Washington a hundred high school students rode horses down a highway to speak out against pollution caused by automobiles. In White Paints, New York students repainted the ruins of a railway station and cleaned the garbage around it (Shabecoff, 2003). Generally, in spite of the picnic character of the event, it turned out to be a great marketing success and it contributed to a significant popularization of the environmental idea in the United States and worldwide.[155]

In 1972, another event of the same importance for environmental history took place - the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm participated in by 113 countries, including developing countries. Some of the most important results of the Conference were the concern of environmental protection becoming a basic function of a country (environment protection was supposed to be an integral part of national politics), the elaboration of a set of rules of the environmental protection politics - “The Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment” (also called “Stockholm Declaration” of June 16, 1972), and the foundation of the United Nations Environment Programme, which is a specialized UN agency to generate international solutions for global problems.

The threat of an approaching catastrophe affected the imagination of ordinary people as well. More and more people became interested in the problems concerning the destruction of the natural environment, especially the pollution of groundwater and air, radioactive waste storage, and oil-polluted seas. The most stimulating factors that influenced people’s imagination were such “ecological tragedies” as The Torrey Canyon oil spill on the Cornwall coast of the United Kingdom in 1969 (where 40,000 tons of oil spilled into the sea), The Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969 (before the leak caused by a blow-out was stopped, 11.5 million liters of oil had spilled into the Pacific Ocean), Great Lakes oil spill, and the Minamata mercury contamination in Japan.

In the 1960s in the United States, the concern about the future of natural resources influenced passing numerous acts that were supposed to protect nature from excessive exploitation. In 1964, the “Wilderness Act” was passed, which was considered by some people to be the turning point in the process of the environmental movement development. The act enabled legal protection of 9.1 million acres of wilderness areas and allowed activating the mechanism of including other areas in the future. Taking into consideration the fact that the protected grounds we entirely closed for industrial exploitation, and extracting resources was greatly limited, the “Wilderness Act” can be recognized as a rare case of the victory of preservation over conservation. On January 1, 1970, President Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), where all the laws of the environmental politics of the United States are included. One of the most significant effects was establishing the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), which was supposed to coordinate environmental efforts on the federal level and order the managers of great governmental projects to consider their influence over the natural environment and search for environmental alternatives. In 1973, Congress passed another crucial law, the Clean Water Act, which regulated the question of governing water pollution and the restoration of polluted water bodies in order to use them recreationally. The same year, another law came into force, the Endangered Species Act, which enabled classifying species as endangered without considering economic factors.

7.3 The birth of environmental radicalism

At the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s several civil organizations were founded in the United States and were actively fighting for elimination of harmful substances from the human environment: in 1970 the Campaign Against Pollution (CAP) was founded in Chicago and in 1969 the Group against Smog and Pollution (GASP) was founded in Pittsburg. The latter organization, which was initiated by an asthmatic housewife, was remarkably active in lobbying for changes in local and state legislation concerning fresh air protection from industrial pollution (Gottlieb, 1993). Another crucial phenomenon was Ralph Nader’s consumer advocacy group, which consisted of small consumer groups, independent of the state and large companies, working under the common name of Public Citizen. The objective of the group was a fight for respecting consumer’s rights, realizing the idea of self-government, and setting standards as to allow a properly high-quality of life, which was supposed to be guaranteed by an appropriate environmental protection legislation. The group became famous for creating an analysis of Congress’ actions, which were directly associated with environmental protection. The analysis included a critical judgment, exposition of the mechanisms of eliminating uncomfortable for industry projects, and also suggested its own solutions for environmental protection (Jawlowska, 1981). Another famous initiative of Nader’s group was publishing a report concerning air pollution, called Vanishing Air, which contributed to the foundation of the Coalition for Clean Air, an organization consisting of numerous environmental groups interested in lobbying for fresh air protection. In the early 1970s, besides larger organizations focused on cooperating with the government, there were also appearing smaller groups of activists trying to attract media’s attention through direct actions. In Miami, Florida a group called “Eco-Commando Force 70” was pouring yellow paint into sewers to show how it reaches the ocean. In Michigan the “Billboard Bandits” group appeared, which, with the help of chain saws, was cutting roadside billboards. In Minnesota a group of farmers called “Bolt Weevils,” as a protest against the installation of electric-power transmission, which they considered as harmful, during 2 years destroyed 15 supporting poles and also conducted smaller sabotage actions. The actions ceased only after 200 state police officers, an FBI unit, and private security agents arrested 140 farmers.

The 1960s and 1970s were the time of essential changes in the existing environmental protection movement. First of all, the range of questions and problems that environmental organizations were dealing with changed. Till the end of the 1960s the object of interest had been the valuable environmental territories and wild fauna and flora. At the beginning of the 1960s, however, a new generation of questions appeared and they were not focused on a particular area or particular species, but the entire ecosystem. Those questions were mainly relating to the appearance of new hazards, whose sources were chemical and radioactive substances “carelessly” let into the natural environment. The old and distinguished conservation organizations, such as the Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, Wilderness Society, and Natural Wildlife Federation, were not indifferent to those issues and quickly included them into their interest list. Such procedures allowed them to begin a closer cooperation with new environmental organizations, which focused mainly on the new-generation problems.

The environmental organizations founded in the late 1960s and early 1970s were directing their campaigns mostly against environmentally harmful social practices. They did not aim, however, directly toward nature’s attractive places or species, which obviously does not mean they were of a lesser importance. Contrary to the conservation organizations, which were generally cooperating with the state (consulting and privately negotiating with clerks), the environmental organizations turned to society and the media in order to pressure the bodies responsible for causing ecological problems. Most probably, the first environmental organization, the Environmental Defense Fund, was founded in the United States in 1967. Soon after that similar organizations were created: Friends of the Earth in 1969, Environmental Action and the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1970, and the Environmental Policy Institute in 1972. The organization that was developing most dynamically was Friends of the Earth. Its first office was opened in San Francisco in 1969; the next ones were London and Paris. In Great Britain, Friends of the Earth became famous due to its campaign against the Decision of the Cadbury Schweppes to switch bottles from returnable to nonreturnable. The campaign, which was based mostly on educational media actions, unexpectedly caused an enthusiastic social response. According to Walt Patterson, “On a sunny Saturday in May 1971 a procession of a hundred friends returned 1500 nonreturnable bottles to a Schweppes headquarters. The striking visual metaphor - a forecourt entirely covered with discarded glassware - received press and TV coverage not only nationally but internationally ... In the ensuing weeks groups calling themselves “Friends of the Earth” suddenly sprang up all over the UK (Patterson, 1984; Macnaghten and Urry, 1998, p. 52).”

Another crucial change was the developing professionalization within the environmental organizations, both in the new ones, often described as environmentalist, and in the older, conservational ones. Until the 1960s organizations such as the Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society, and the Wilderness Society were quite small civil organizations, whose actions in the political zone were limited to lobbying campaigns. Volunteers did most of the administrative work. The number of paid employees was extremely low. On the other hand, as long as the organizations were protecting natural areas and their fauna and flora, such a number was high enough. The new generation of problems, however, was more complicated. Dealing with them required engaging experts, especially scientists and lawyers; what was needed was a new employment structure. This way the organizations, which had consisted of amateurs, turned into professional expert groups, professionally taking care of issues of environment protection.

Another essential shift, which appeared in the 1960s and 1970s, was an increase in the number of environmental organization members. The beneficiaries of this growth were mostly old conservational organizations (formed before World War II or shortly after); however, new organizations were growing as well. The first wave of growth took place in 1960-1969, when “old organizations,” such as the Sierra Club (formed in 1892), the National Audubon Society (1905), the National Park & Conservation Association (1919), Izaak Walton League (1922), the Wilderness Society (1935), the National Wildlife Federation (1936), and the Defenders of Wildlife (1947), became seven times as big, growing from 123,000 to 819,000 members. The second wave of growth in 1969-1972 made the old organizations increase their number from 819,000 to 1,065,000 members. New, barely opened environmental organizations, such as the Environmental Defense Fund, Friends of the Earth, Environmental Action and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Environmental Policy Institute consisted of 52,000 members during that period. During the third growth wave in 1972-1979, the number of members of the conservation organizations increased from 1,065,000 to 1,444,000, and the number of the environmentalist organizations increased from 52,000 to 132,000. Generally, in 1960-1979 the number of environmental activists grew from 123,000 to 1,576,000, which is seven times more than the number at the beginning of those organizations (Dunlap and Mertig, 1991).

Since the end of the nineteenth century until the beginning of the 1970s, the aim of the environmental organizations was to establish relations “based on mutual understanding” with the state. Usually, conflicts were avoided and nobody questioned the directions of progress. During that time, the basic tactics of the environmental organizations was lobbying. However, at the beginning of the 1970s, “new activists” appeared who were usually young, dynamic, and very often deriving from students’ movement and the counter-culture of the late 1960s. Those “new people” were not easily satisfied with “gentlemanly talks” with the government. They wished for more confrontational actions. Numerous organizations at the beginning of the 1970s, influenced by them, started reaching for new, unfamiliar until now tactics, such as legal disputes and mass protests. Naturally, it was not enough. For many, this kind of action was still considered as conciliatory, not spectacular enough, and not effective enough. They needed more bold and uncompromising actions.

7.4 Greenpeace

The formation of Greenpeace was the response to this kind of need. The organization derives from the “Don’t Make a Wave Committee,” founded in 1969 in Vancouver, Canada by the former activists of Sierra Club, frustrated with the lack of reaction by the organization to American nuclear attempts. The tests were conducted on the island of Amchitka in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. The name of the group referred to the danger of strong earthquakes caused by nuclear explosions (several dozen times stronger than the one in Hiroshima), which could result in enormous waves on the Pacific Ocean. The scope of the organization was to reach the island of Amchitka and protest against the conducted tests. The ship with a group of 12 people sailing to the island was called “Greenpeace.”

During the first excursion the aim was not reached. When the crew was reaching the Aleutian Islands, they were informed about the tests in Amchitka being postponed. The crew was soon arrested by the coast guard for not notifying the authorities of their arrival in Akutan. Despite not reaching their goal, the excursion attracted the attention of media, which helped collect funds needed for organizing another excursion to the Amchitka region. This time the crew was 1100 miles away from the island when the test was conducted. The action became a sensation in the Canadian and American media and gained the favor of public opinion. Soon, the American government announced that it would cease the nuclear weapon tests in Amchitka, and make the island a harbor and an oasis for birds.

Soon after the event (1971), “Don’t Make a Wave Committee” changed its name to the Greenpeace Foundation and commenced its longest and most dramatic campaign, whose aim was to block above-ground nuclear testing conducted by France on Moruroa Atoll in the southern Pacific. In 1972, the Greenpeace boat, led by David McTaggart, reached the distance of 50 miles away from the testing place, where a French minelayer damaged it. In 1973, McTaggart organized another expedition to the Moruroa region. Yet again, the expedition failed. The ships of the French Navy stopped its participants and McTaggart was severely beaten by the rangers. The incident was touted by Greenpeace and attracted the attention of the media. Shortly after, the expedition and the French government actions became public and both sides of the Atlantic Ocean were commenting on them. In September 1974, during The United Nations General Assembly, France declared conducting all the nuclear tests underground. The declaration did not quiet the protests. In the mid-1980s protests escalated when it turned out that the Moruroa region was severely radiated and the radiation level was constantly increasing. In order to block further nuclear weapon attempts, Greenpeace organized another ocean expedition. In 1985 “Rainbow Warrior,” a ship supporting Greenpeace’s actions, sailed into the Moruroa region.[156] The excursion did not reach the testing area. On July 10, 1985 in the harbor in Auckland, New Zealand, French commandoes planted explosives underneath the ship. The explosion made the ship sink and kill Fernando Pereira, a member of the ship crew. The sinking of the “Rainbow Warrior” caused outrage of the public opinion and growth of people’s interest in Greenpeace’s actions. Soon, New Zealand’s police captured two French commandoes, which ultimately confirmed the engagement of the French Special Forces in the sinking of the ship. At that time the French journals informed of the affiliation of the Minister of Defense, Charles Hernu, to the attack. Hernu had to step down from his position and for some time it was believed that the same thing would happen to President Mitterrand. Greenpeace’s actions against nuclear testing rested on returning to the place of the explosion and were continued in the future, for instance, at the Florida and Nevada deserts.

The protests against nuclear energy were not the only point of interest of Greenpeace. In 1973, the organization commenced the first educational actions, which were supposed to show the cruelty of whale hunting. In 1974, the first confrontations against the Soviet whaling fleets in the North Pacific took place. During this campaign the Greenpeace activists would approach whales on small pontoons and covered them with their own bodies from harpoons. Similar tactics were used during the confrontation with the Japanese, Icelandic, and Spanish fleets. Drastic photographs taken during those actions were shocking to the public opinion and made the activists seem likeable due to their “defenselessness and hostility” in spite of being faced with armed harpooners. By the end of the 1970s Greenpeace had become quite a sizeable organization (with around 8000 active members (Perkowski and T^czy, 1999, p. 29)) with a substantial developmental potential. In the Netherlands, where the campaigns of Greenpeace enjoyed great popularity, the number of the organization members was increasing by 1000 a month. Another action of Greenpeace in 1993, aimed at the Norwegian whaling industry, had quite an impetus and gained international recognition. The action’s purpose was to boycott all the products of Norwegian origin. Norway had to face the loss of £37M due to the participation of the following countries: Italy, Great Britain, United States, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, and Austria. In Germany, due to the efforts of Greenpeace, the trade agreements with Norway were blocked, causing Norway’s losses in the amount of £20M. The Burger-King chain, which at that time owned over 6500 restaurants worldwide, decided to join the boycott and broke their trade agreement with Norway. In the mid-1970s Greenpeace took up the action to fight against seal hunting. Besides propaganda actions, the organization members used quite a controversial tactic from the standpoint of their opponents: they sprayed seals with paint, which was hard to remove, yet absolutely harmless, making their fur utterly useless for salesmen.

In the mid-1970s Greenpeace also started actions against throwing radioactive and toxic waste to the sea. The activists were blocking ships with poisonous cargo in harbors and would not let throwing it into the sea by sailing into the drop zone. This tactic was used for the first time in 1980 against the ships of the Bayer company, which was throwing 550,000 tons toxic wastes every year. It was used for the second time in 1979 against the British ship “Gem,” which was transporting radioactive waste. Another tactic in the fight against environment pollution used by Greenpeace was clogging the drain of sewer pipes. It was used against the Caltex company, which was processing petroleum, and against the steelworks in Port Kembla, Australia.

In its “Mission Statement,” Greenpeace declares to be “an independent campaigning organization, which uses nonviolent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and to force the solutions which are essential to a green and peaceful future. Greenpeace’s goal is to ensure the ability of the earth to nurture life in all its diversity.”[157] This kind of declaration does not, naturally, reflect the whole specification of Greenpeace. Greenpeace works internationally, as opposed to other great national organizations, such as the British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Italian Legambiente, the American Sierra Club, and the German Naturschutzbund. In 1991, Greenpeace had 40 offices in 30 countries[158] and over 4,834,000 members in 158 countries (Papadakis, 1998) (in the following years the number of members started decreasing quite considerably; in 1992 it was 4,298,000, in 1993 it was 3,700,000, in 1995 it was 3,091,000, in 1999 it was 2,377,000, in 2000, after a period of decrease, the number of members started increasing to 2,478,000, in 2001 it was 2,647,000, and in 2004 it was 2,984,000 (Eden, 2004)). Another crucial feature of Greenpeace, which distinguished it from other environmental organizations, especially those formed in the 1970s and the later environmental extremist groups, was its hierarchy structure. As in large international corporations, the most crucial initiatives need to be accepted by the administrative body. There is a quite precise division within the organization into those who deliberate onto the campaign and watch its course, and those who execute the planned actions, collect funds, and recruit new members.

Another characteristic of Greenpeace, which differentiates it from, mainly, traditional “central groups,” is using the tactic of a “direct approach to a problem (Scarce, 1990, p. 51).” The activists appear wherever a problem arises and wherever it is mostly visible - it could be the middle of an ocean, where a nuclear explosion is supposed to take place, or a factory that pollutes the environment with toxic waste. Their priority is to uncover “misdeeds” caused by state-owned and private companies and institutions. According to Paul Wapner, the activities of Greenpeace are best described as “bearing witness.” Bearing witness is “a type of political action, originating with the Quakers, which links moral sensitivities with political responsibility. Having observed a morally objectionable act, one cannot turn away in avoidance. One must either take action to prevent further injustice or stand by and attest to its occurrence. (...) Direct, nonviolent action (...) is a vehicle for confrontation and an outreach to other citizens. For Greenpeace, such action includes climbing aboard whaling ships, parachuting from the top of smokestacks, plugging up industrial discharge pipes, and floating a hot-air balloon into a nuclear test site. Such actions create images that can be broadcasted through the media to spark interest and concern of the largest audience (Wapner, 2003).” The ability to use media knowingly in order to publicize its campaigns has always been an asset of Greenpeace. Of course, in the 1970s, groups of activists were not able to reach media and public opinion with their “bearing witness” due to limited communication capacities (at that time the Morse code was used mostly). Some information was waiting for many weeks before it was passed onto one of the organization’s offices. Together with the progress of new media, the communication problem was not an issue anymore. Today, the activists of Greenpeace are equipped with a satellite network and the Internet, which allow them to report the current progress of their actions (the activists often take professional journalists to their expeditions) and reach almost everybody around the world. The ability to publicize their actions has some influence over the popularity of the organization itself, which brings considerable income, mainly due to donations and money collections (in 1998 the yearly income of Greenpeace was over €110,000,000, in 2000 over €143,000,000, in 2002 over €165,000,000, and in 2004 €162,000,000).[159]

It would be quite difficult to define precisely the group of views that Greenpeace identifies with. During the first years of its work, the organization was mostly anthropocentric - its main aim was to fight for health and life of human beings. This kind of attitude is well illustrated in the report of Ben Metcalfe, one of the 12 participants of the expedition to Amchitka in 1971: “Our goal is a very simple, clear and direct one - to bring about a confrontation between the people of death and people of life. We do not consider ourselves to be radicals. We are conservatives, who insist upon conserving this environment for our children and future generations of man (Greenpeace, 1999; Vohryzek-Bolden et al., 2001, p. 162).” However, in the mid-1970s (most likely due to environmental ethics), the objectives of its actions and ethic interests were broadened. Then, according to Robert Hunter, one of the founders of Greenpeace, the notion of the sacredness of human life has been broadened to include all forms of life, and the basic ethical relation has become not one between humans but the relation between the human being and the earth (Nash, 1989, p. 179). Indeed, the “ecocentric attitude” is clearly visible in the Declaration of Interdependence of 1976, where it is stated that “Ecology has taught us that the entire earth is part of our “body” and that we must learn to respect it as much as we respect ourselves. As we love ourselves, we must also love all forms of life in the planetary system - the whales, the seals, the forests, and the seas (Greenpeace, 1993).”

Not everybody believes in the value of the “ecological declarations” of Greenpeace. Numerous environmental radicals claim that the goal of the actions of Greenpeace is for human’s benefit, which means that that they are not actually placed in a wider ecological perspective, which includes all of the natural, living, and inanimate beings. They also allege the ecological attitude of most of the “activists,” whose activities come down to paying monthly fees, which is supposed to soothe their conscience. Paul Watson, one of the former leaders of Greenpeace and also a great critic of this organization agrees with such an opinion: “If you leave conservation and environmental activities to the professionals, it’s sort of like leaving medical stuff only to your doctor or legal stuff to your lawyer - you’re going to be in the dark about what’s going on. That is one of the problems about these big organizations. People send in their annual dues to appease their conscience and that’s it. ’That’s okay. I’m a member of Greenpeace. I’m a member of the Environmental Defense Fund. I’m doing my part.’ Meanwhile they’re working in a factory destroying the ozone (Scarce, 1990, p. 55).” For the activists connected to the radical movement, the hierarchy structure of Greenpeace is a factor, which does not allow quick and flexible action, especially when dealing with local issues, demanding intuition, and stimulation of the local people (Scarce, 1990, p. 52). Another criticized issue, which is controversial from the ecological point of view, is spending the assets of Greenpeace on such matters as lobbying letters, on which thousands of dollars are spent every year, and the majority of which is left without any response and thrown away. Another doubtful tactic for the radicals is the pacifist policy of Greenpeace, which allows only “tentative victory,” which does not change the “power structure” responsible for environment destruction. Another mistake is excluding sabotage actions from the “nonviolent” strategy which, according to them, should certainly be a part of them since they are aimed at artifacts only, not at any natural beings. Many companies and institutions, obviously, do not share such an opinion (for instance, the Clorox Company (Eagan, 1996) and the Japanese Fisheries Agency[160]). Those companies and institutions were the object of Greenpeace campaigns, and often call them in media an Eco terrorist.

7.5 Wise Use

Constant progress and the increasing popularity of the environmental movement, and ecological legislation adopted by numerous governments, which limited business abilities to a certain extent, caused the formation of the opposition in the mid-1980s, which was questioning both ecological rules and the whole subordinated politics. In Eastern Europe the opposition was never of a mass character. It was mainly consisting of business representatives, for whom they were creating temporary lobbying coalitions. The situation was quite different in the United States. The opposition there, to a large extent, was of a rank-and-file character, consisting of farmers, miners, developers, huntsmen, off-track car drivers, and libertarians, supporters of a free market, who would find ecological actions threatening to their businesses and to the free market, and religious fundamentalists, who considered environmentalism a form of neopaganism. The core of the movement, known as Wise Use, is several dozens of organizations in the role of “propaganda centers,” animators and coordinators of different ventures. The largest organizations of such a type are the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise (working mostly in favor of “free business” and fighting against so called “ecoterrorism”), National Inholders Association/Multiple-Use Land Alliance (demanding free access to national parks and federal reserves), Blue Ribbon Coalition (representing mainly offroad vehicle drivers and the representatives of wood economy and mining), and People for the West (representing the interest of the mining industry).

Wise Use is usually considered as an anti-environmental movement and, in spite of the fact that many environmentalists are for such a classification, the members of the movement think of themselves as more of the inheritors of the conservation tradition. The name “Wise Use” is a reference to the statement of the US Forest Service’s Chief Forester, Gifford Pinchot, who stated in 1907 that “Conservation means the wise use of the earth and its resources for the lasting good of men. Conservation is the foresighted utilization, preservation and/or renewal of forests, waters, lands and minerals, for the greatest good of the greatest number for the longest time (Pinchot, 1947).” Despite the fact that the attitude of Wise Use’s members differs, depending on the particular question, there are two rules they all need to agree on. The first is that the private property is a basis of freedom of an individual and there cannot be any limitations to its administration. According to the other rule, the access to public areas should not be limited by any means, also for commercial enterprises, such as mining, wood economy, petroleum industry, and motorized recreation.[161]

According to the report of “The Wise Use Movement: Strategic Analysis and Fifty State Review (Wilderness Society, 1993),” published in 1993 by the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research organization, the animators of the Wise Use movement, in order to attract a high number of participants, formed three different messages. The first one of them, which is aimed at the enthusiasts of the rightists, claims that human values, culture, and tradition are considerably more crucial than the life and prosperity of inhuman beings. The second message is a thesis that great environmental groups (such as Greenpeace and Sierra Club), the government, and media have a pact that aims at depriving citizens of their innate rights. According to the authors of the report, the message is directed toward the representatives of local communities. The third message, directed toward the anthropocentric audience, claimed that human beings and nature can exist in a productive harmony, and all the environmental issues can be solved with the means of science and technology. Harmony does not mean existential equality of human beings and nature - the former, due to their intellect, are and always will be dominant, and nature itself exists for human beings.

Ron Arnold and Alan Gottlieb, the main ideologists of Wise Use, claim that the movement should grow from the ground up and should be based on the throngs of local activists who, through legal and peaceful actions, will demand from the government and the government compliance agencies the introduction of satisfactory regulations mostly aimed at environmentalist restrictions and radical, ecological groups, blamed for ecoterrorism by the activists of Wise Use (Arnold, 1987; Arnold, 1997). Indeed, the anti-environmentalist ideas attract a vast group of their opponents, who are recruited from various groups and social classes.[162] However, not everybody believes in the spontaneous character of the movement and its legal and peaceful nature. According to David Helvarg, the author of the book The War Against the Greens, the Wise Use movement is not a ground-up organization, but a kind of a curtain (“astroturf,” meaning artificial grass), behind which a great business is hidden (Helvarg, 1994, pp. 120-122). Carl Deal shares this opinion in his book The Greenpeace Guide to Anti- Environmental Organizations (Deal, 1993). The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility organization (PEER), which monitors the actions of Wise Use, publishes a number of aggression acts on its websites, such as planting bombs, shooting buildings, beating, and intimidation most likely by the Wise Use supporters, which are aimed at the public institutions protecting natural resources.[163] Helvarg also enlists a number of examples of aggression, such as intimidation, arsons, assaults, rapes, even murders, whose targets were the people engaged in the environmental movement.[164]

The creation of anti-environmental opposition, such as the Wise Use movement in the United States, decisively influenced the formation of the environmental movement. It allowed building the ideological opposition - “we-they,” which stimulated the formation of the feeling of solidarity and the consolidation within the movement (Gerlach, 2001). It is true, however, that numerous propaganda publications of the environmental movement use this opposition to present the ideological enemies as the soul of all evil, and themselves as honest and rightful nature protectors. It is also true that, since the mid-1980s, the environmental movement has become a significant force that the government and private businessmen have to respect. During this period of time the radical wing has been formed, willing to use any form of indirect violence in the name of nature.

8. Violence in Defense of the Environment

8.1 Monkeywrenching

In the 1970s a new type of violence appeared in the United States and it was based on the outlook on life that could be described as violence in defense of the natural environment. (Soon after that the issue also affected most developed countries of Western Europe and Australia). The phenomenon of such “pre-environmental” violence in the literature on the subject is usually called “environmental terrorism,” “ecological terrorism,” and simply, “ecoterrorism” and defined, according to Elizabeth L. Chalecki in her report “A New Vigilance: Identifying and Reducing the Risk of Environmental Terrorism,” as “the violent destruction of property perpetrated by the radical fringes of environmental groups in the name of saving the environment from further human encroachment and destruction” (Chalecki, 2002; Eagan, 1996). It is worth pointing out the fact that such terms (“ecological terrorism” and “ecoterrorism”) are not always used in this exact manner. Although quite rarely, it still happens that some authors use the term ecological terrorism aka ecoterrorism not to define violence caused by the desire of protecting nature, but to fight against it. One of them is Daniel M. Schwartz, who in his work “Environmental Terrorism: Analyzing the Concept” presents ecological terrorism, which he also calls “environmental,” as the “environmental destruction of the threat thereof” (Schwartz, 1998).

The terms “ecoterrorism” and “ecological terrorism” are very commonly used as a symbol of actions based on violence committed in order to protect the environment and animal rights. Using this common term to describe the actions of the defenders of the natural environment and animals (also called liberationists), as I have mentioned before, is based on the fact that numerous organizations consisting of the defendants of those two types cooperate with each other since their aims are somehow convergent. Despite the convergence among the defenders of animal rights and the defenders of the natural environment, there are quite considerable ideological differences between them,[165] which prevent them from a complete unification of the organizations. What is more, numerous researchers incline toward the distinction between ecoterrorism as a form of violence to protect nature and terrorism of animal rights, and simple animalistic terrorism as violence in animal defense. I would like to emphasize that in this chapter I will focus on violence as a form of protecting the natural environment, which I will be calling “extremism” and “pro-environmental terrorism,” sometimes “ecoterrorism” as well - according to the popular custom.

A vast majority of the actions taken to protect the natural environment from ecoterrorists is of a pro-environmental sabotage character, which they tend to call “monkeywrenching” and “ecotage.” There is a great number of various forms of monkeywrenching. The most controversial among the popular ones are arsons (mainly of health resorts, tourist centers, and “great constructions”), “spiking trees,”[166] removing signs from ski routes, damaging heavy machinery and billboards,[167] and removal of electric power transmission.

Barry Weisberg, the vice director of the Bay Area Institute and a critic of capitalism, was the first to call to introduce sabotage actions around January 1970. Weisberg responded to the plan on April 22 Earth Day by claiming that “the authentic pro- environmental movement” would be able to grow only on the condition that those who care about the natural environment will not limit their actions to education, but will do “something very basic and revolutionary at the same time” - the ecological sabotage. It is hard to tell how strongly those words affected the pro-environmental activists. It is true, however, that a year later a group of the organizers of Earth Day formed the “Environmental Action” group, which started publishing books encouraging using ecological sabotage. In the same year Earth Tool Kit was published (1971). In 1972 Ecotage! came out. Its title, the combination of words “sabotage” and “ecology,” became a term used to describe actions aiming at the destruction of all the subjects that are used to destroy nature. Both listings encouraged to perform “direct actions,” which “could be violent or nonviolent” but they “must be carefully planned to avoid confusion and to generate the right results among a larger group of people” (Long, 2004, p. 17).

The term monkeywrenching (which derives from the name “monkey wrench” - the basic “tool” of ecotagists) became commonly used in the mid-1970s because of Edward Abbey, the author of the well-known “ecotage novel: The Monkey Wrench Gang” (Abbey, 1975). The book describes adventures of a small team of four “nature lovers” (Bonnie Abbzug, Doc Sarvis, Seldom Seen, and George Washington Hayduke), who traverse the southwest areas of the United States (Arizona and Utah) while committing numerous sabotage acts, such as destroying bridges and heavy machinery and burning billboards. The group also considers blowing up the dam in Glen Canyon and “‘liberating’ the Colorado River from the stillness of Lake Powell” (Nash, 1989).

The actions of the main characters of Abbey’s novel became the source of inspiration for many groups fighting for the natural environment. Undoubtedly, Dave Foreman, the founder of the extremist pro-environmental organization Earth First!, was under its strong impression. At the beginning of 1982 he started publishing detailed instructions of the ecological sabotage in a column called “Dear Ned Ludd” in the “Earth First!” magazine. It is worth paying attention to the characteristic title of the column, especially that the novel of Edward Abbey’s was also dedicated to Ned Ludd. Ned Ludd has been the idol of the anti-industrial environment protectors since the beginning, and, most likely, will always be. As it is commonly known, Ned Ludd was a legendary leader of English workers, who at the beginning of the nineteenth century resorted to destroying stocking frames in order to protest against the industrial revolution. The revolution caused bankruptcy of small family businesses, which forced their owners and workers to take jobs in large factories on humiliating terms. The “Luddite” movement was formed in 1811-1813 and it became a well-organized army, which was considerably, yet temporarily, popular among the local community. Its actions were mostly threatening the owners of factories to destroy their machines, forcing them to improve their working conditions, and sometimes closing them and ceasing industrial production (Arnold, 1997, p. 233).

Numerous present ecofighters consider the Luddites of the beginning of the nineteenth century as the first antitechnology spurt and the first example of monkeywrenching in human history. According to some authors, very often incorrectly, the difference between the Luddites and the monkeywrenching activists is greater than (perhaps accidental) the similarities between them. Ron Arnold, the author of the popular work Ecoterror. The Violent Agenda to Save Nature. The World of the Unabomber shares this opinion. He claims that the most significant difference between the Luddites and the monkeywrenching actions can be noticed in their goals. The actions of the latter ones are not aimed at the existential problems, such as unemployment, bad work conditions, and the lack of social benefits; it is also not a protest against money and social benefits since they scorn such matters. Monkeywrenching is heading for a deeper change (possibly a civilization change); a thorough abolition of the industrial civilization, which is considered to be an enemy and the source of all evil (Arnold, 1997, pp. 234-235).

Several years after the publishing of Abbey’s novel, another exhaustive publication about monkeywrenching came out - a handbook of ecological sabotage, Ecodefense. A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching (Foreman and Haywood, 1985), which was sponsored by the said Dave Foreman. Ecodefense is a book of a vast range of issues. Not only does it include technical instructions about the methods of making explosives, destroying different machines and devices, and “general tips” on the most efficient methods of “annoying rascals” who harm Mother Earth, but also presents ideological and moral justification of monkeywrenching. According to Foreman, who is also the author of one of the chapters of the book - “Strategic Monkeywrenching,” monkeywrenching is the most ethical method of counteraction to the growing destruction of natural diversity and the wilderness. The ethical character of monkeywrenching is based on two properties. The first aims at the protection of and saving the highest good - Mother Earth. The second property lacks in violence due to the fact that it is not aimed at the natural world but at the artificially created tools of its destruction (Foreman, 1991).

I would like to stop for a moment at the second property. The contained statement has quite an interesting justification and its character could be described as “religious - mystical.” For Foreman and many other ideologically engaged monkeywrenchers of Earth First!, the activities relying on destroying machines and objects that are dangerous to the environment have never been only a strategy but an attempt of a new arrangement of the world. They are supposed to put the world in the order that used to exist in it in the first place, but which was lost in history due to human’s actions.[168] For the supporters of this standpoint, the destruction of machines is not violence but the only correct and necessary method of bringing back their original form, their true nature, which was brutally taken away from them. This way of thinking is well illustrated in Dave Foreman’s statement: “[a] bulldozer is just iron ore (...). It doesn’t want to be up here destroying the earth. All we’re doing is liberating its soul, allowing it to find its true self (...), and go back into the earth” (Lee, 1995. p. 56). The activists of the “Earth Liberation Front” also share the belief that ecological sabotage has nothing in common with violence. According to Elaine Clone, the spokesperson for the organization, the pro-ecological sabotage based on destroying properties “targets the motive behind environmental destruction: profit (...) I don’t consider damaging property to be violence. The end goal of the ELF is to save life on this planet, to stop violence. If we are concerned about violence, then we have to be serious about stopping environmental destruction” (Amster, 2006).

The belief that the tactic of monkeywrenching has nothing in common with violence has been numerously questioned, also by the members of the groups that have used it in the past. There are two reasons that can explain it. First of all, the monkeywrenching tactic, although it was supposed to be aimed at living beings, including Homo sapiens,[169] ran a high risk of danger for both outsiders and the monkeywrenchers themselves. Second, the act of destroying properties has always been questionable. Not everybody was able to agree with Foreman’s statement that the destruction of human artifacts has nothing in common with violence.

In spite of countless doubts, which appeared quite often in the eco-extremist circles, monkeywrenching became the most common method of fighting with the hated enemies of nature. What is more, it was exceptionally effective. Because of the fact that most of the attacked corporations and businessmen try to avoid publishing the information about their financial losses, it is hard to present precise data. The public opinion only receives a general, approximate estimate. According to one of them, presented by the Association of Oregon Logger, an average monkeywrenching action causes the damage of $45,000 and entails the loss of $15,000 caused by the outage (Lee, 1995).

It is also hard to state when the first pro-ecological sabotage action took place. It is greatly likely that it was led by Edward Abbey, the founder of monkeywrenching. Supposedly, he took away 10 billboards in New Mexico in 1958 and then in 1969,

together with a group of friends, destroyed measuring pickets to protest against a road construction. However, those actions did not become renowned and if not for Abbey’s book they would probably never be noticed. Marc Gaede, a Marine Corps veteran who was working as a curator at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, was most likely the first one to lead a monkeywrenching action that was noticed by the media and the police in the fall of 1970. Gaede, who later became known to the media as the “Arizona Phantom,” was outraged at the federal project to build a strip mine on Navaho and Hopi land near the Utah border. He decided to take actions to protest against the efforts. He went to the rail line under construction between Lake Powell and Black Mesa, where at night he poured sand and sugar into fuel tanks and cut hydraulic hoses on backhoes. Sometime after this event, he established his own three-person group, “The Black Mesa Defense Fund,”[170] joining with the American Indian Movement to protest construction of mines in ecologically significant areas (Chase, 1995).

Gaede was not the only activist to use ecosabotage while fighting for environmental protection. In the early 1970s an anonymous saboteur, known as the Fox, performed sabotage actions against a corporation from Chicago, which was polluting the environment with their sewage. The Fox was responsible for such actions as plugging sewage pipes with haystacks and stones, plugging chimneys with special caps, and inundating the Chicago office of the U.S. Steel vice-president with sewage collected from a factory in Gary, Indiana. Mike Royko, a columnist of Chicago Daily News, secretly interviewed the Fox. He described this “Antipollution Zorro” as “an ordinary soft-spoken citizen,” who is “approaching middle age, has a respectable job, a family, and has never before gone outside the law.” When asked by the journalist about his motives, he said, “I’ve always lived in Kane County and I remember how beautiful it was” (Long, 2004, p. 18).

Almost a year after Marc Gaede’s ecotage action, a five-person group, EcoRaiders, was formed in Arizona. Its members were students of Del Oro High School: John G. Walker, Gary E. Blake, Chris Morrison, Patrick G. Salmon, and Mark Quinnan. They were attempting to stop the urban sprawl of Tucson. The main attack targets of EcoRaiders were developers, companies, and institutions that were responsible for the growth of Tucson’s suburbs. At that time Tucson was a small town of about 40,000 inhabitants, located in the basin of the Santa Cruz River and the Rillito River. According to Eco-Raiders, the expansion of the town should be ceased immediately due to the fact that it would harm the desert flora. The actions taken by the organization consisted of breaking the windows of real-estate offices, removing measuring pickets from constructions, pouring liquid lead into keyholes, destroying electrical installations and water supply systems in the buildings for sale, pouring sugar and sand into the tanks of bulldozers that were preparing the construction areas, and destroying billboards. EcoRaiders also took actions of a happening character against companies causing natural environment pollution. One of the actions took place in 1972. The activists of EcoRaiders dumped thousands of discarded bottles and cans at the doorstep of a soft-drink bottler company. The Sheriff’s office formed a nine-person group, the Special Problem Task Force, whose target was working out and capturing EcoRaiders.

Chris Morrison was captured first and revealed the names of the remaining four members. They were captured on September 18, 1973. The EcoRaiders’ activism lasted three years only. The developers, suppliers, companies, and institutions had to pay about $2M for the damage caused by them. Although the organization’s basic target was not reached, as they did not slow down the urban sprawl of Tucson, according to Arnold (1997) Ron Arnold (1997, p. 205), it influenced ecological awareness of Tucson’s inhabitants and entrepreneurs, who started including environmental policies and landscape planning in their plans.

8.2 Sea shepherd conservation society

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS), formed in 1977, was the first ecotage group to exceed the borders of the United States, making ecoterrorism an international phenomenon and issue. The organization was Paul Watson’s initiative. Paul Watson was one of the three founders of Greenpeace, who was ousted due to his violent beliefs, which were conflicting with the nonviolent doctrine of the organization, and the protest, during which he sank clubs used for killing seals. Contrary to Greenpeace, Watson claimed that activists should not conduct peaceful actions only, but they should develop a new strategy based on ecotage, since only such a strategy could permanently discourage environmental destruction. He believed that “respect for life takes precedence over respect for property which is used to take lives” (Watson, 1993, p. 172), it is crucial, however, to remain cautious while performing direct actions, so none of the participants suffer. Such an attitude resulted in the formation of five rules of direct actions: “(1) No explosives. (2) No utilization of weapons. (3) No action taken that has even a remote possibility of causing injury to a living being. Respect for life must always be our primary consideration. (4) If apprehended, do not resist arrest in a violent manner. (5) Be prepared to accept full responsibility and suffer the possible consequences for your actions” (Watson, 1993, p. 174). After forming SSCS, Watson bought a sea vessel with the funds from Fund for Animals and immediately sailed to the sea with some volunteers in order to stop “pirates” hunting such ocean animals as whales, dolphins, and seals. The first large action supposedly took place on Portuguese waters in 1979. Watson’s vessel sank “Sierra,” a whaling ship of 678 tons. The next year four other vessels were sunk and other “smaller” actions of stopping Canadian seals hunting took place. After one of those actions in 1983, Watson was arrested. It turned out that he became quite popular among some of the media representatives. Mike Farrell, one of the actors of M*A*S*H, posted his $10,000 bail. Another actor, Harvey Korman, raised money for Watson on a quiz show and donated the winnings of its celebrity players to environmental and animal rights groups. Watson intensified his actions when the International Whaling Commission announced a memorandum on commercial whaling in 1986. It also turned out that, despite the USSR’s memorandum, Japan, Norway, and South Korea were still organizing forbidden hunts. In the same year the Sea Shepherd carried out one of the most costly and destructive actions.

On November 8, 1986, two activists of SSCS broke into a whale processing plant near Reykjavik and for 2 h were destroying cooling machines, engines, pumps, laboratory appliances, and computers. The damage caused by them came to $1,800,000. Then, the ecotagists entered two vessels at dockside, removed safety bolts, and scuttled them during 40 min, causing the damage of $2,800,000. What is more, one of the ecotagists was Rod Coronado, who in the early 1990s was a spokesperson for ALF, and then spent a long-term sentence in prison for dropping two incendiary devices in the diagnostics laboratory at Michigan State University (Long, 2004, p. 27). Besides sabotage actions, SSCS runs campaigns against Japanese ocean-going whaling expeditions and Canadian seal hunting. SSCS’s name appeared on the front pages in October 1998, when its members pledged to stop the revival of the whaling ritual of an Indian tribe Makah in New Bay, Washington, which was guaranteed by the 1855 treaty. The attempt of baffling the hunt was strongly opposed by the tribe, which stoned the ship of the organization and hurt two crewmembers. After the incident the members of SSCS agreed not to enter the Makah land. During 30 years of the Sea Shepherd’s existence, it performed numerous sabotage actions, scuttled 10 whaling vessels and damaged over 12, and destroyed several fishing nets. Although not all the actions of the group went according to the third rule of safety, nobody was killed or seriously injured during that period.

8.3 Earth first!

However, SSCS was just an introduction to “true ecotage” actions. A few years after the group was formed, Earth First! was founded in 1980 and became one of the biggest and most resilient ecotage organizations that ever existed.[171] Its founder was Dave Forman, who had been involved in ecological lobbying in the Wilderness Society, a pro-environmental organization founded in 1935. The foundation of Earth First! was the effect of a deep disappointment in the politics of the Forest Service, a forestry agency of Jimmy Carter’s government. In 1979, it decided to spend 36,000,000 acres of forest areas for commercial exploitation (11,000,000 acres were assigned for future management, and only 15,000,000 became a protected area). This decision, known as RARE II (“Roadless Area Review and Evaluation II”) shocked most of the ecological activists not only because it exposed the “lack of ecological sensitivity,” but, what is even worse, was an evidence of weakness of the traditions of environmental organizations, which were not able, or did not want to oppose it.[172] According to Dave Foreman, the founder of the organization, in case of a “crisis” of traditional (and at the same time legal) methods of natural environment protection, it was necessary to use more radical methods, which would allow an effective cease of a destructive activity of large corporations, and which would be acquiescent to the government agencies. It is worth mentioning that the faith in the effectiveness of the “radical methods” slowly began weakening, making room for moral motives. An uncompromising fight for environmental protection started being considered mostly as a moral duty, which should be fulfilled regardless of reaching the aims in the future perspectives.[173] In April 1980 Foreman left Wilderness Society and together with his four friends[174] he went to the Pinacate Desert in Mexico, where they made the decision to form a new, radical pro-environmental organization.

The first actions of this new organization were not “extremely radical”; they were more of a symbolic happening character. The first of them took place on April 28, 1980, which was only three weeks after founding Earth First! Its aim was to raise a plaque commemorating Victorio, a warrior of the Apache tribe, who destroyed a mining town to protect the mountains “from mining and other destructive activities of the white race” (Lee, 1995, p. 32). The following action of Earth First! was definitely more spectacular. Its target was the dam in Glen Canyon, a place hated by almost all environmental activists. On March 21, 1981 (during an equinox[175]) 75 members of Eath First! staged an antidam protest on a bridge on the Colorado River. At the same time a five-person group entered the center of the dam and dropped a 300 foot long black sheet of plastic, which appeared as a “crack” in the middle of the concrete block. Despite the local police and FBI action, the happening perpetrators were not captured. The action itself unexpectedly attracted the attention of the media and resulted in a greater number of the organization’s members.[176]

The members of Earth First! did not limit their actions to happenings only. At around the end of 1981 they started using more radical methods of fighting the “enemies of Mother Earth,”[177] such as removing signs from skiing routes, taking down and destroying billboards, and the most controversial one, “tree spiking.” The members of Earth First! called such methods “monkeywrenching” and, more rarely “ecotage.” It had, in fact, a spiritual overtone (Lee, 1995) and according to Dave Foreman it was of a religious sacrament character (not in an unnatural sense).

Not all the Earth First! members were using the monkeywrenching technique. Some of them preferred to use more moderate methods of fighting for the environment, such as roadblocks, occupancy of “hostile to environment institutions and companies,” and protesting marches. They considered monkeywrenching as an excessively radical method due to its violence and the risk it takes. The negative attitude of some of the organization members toward monkeywrenching surprised its followers, who claimed that the method had nothing to do with violence. Dave Foreman strongly opposed such perception of monkeywrenching. He believed that violence is used only in those actions, in which life is destroyed, especially the “life” of the highest value - wilderness. Besides its moral character, monkeywrenching was supposed to be of a spiritual character. It was a method of affirming the connection between monkeywrenching activists and nature. Most likely this is the reason for comparing it by some of the Earth First! members to jihad - “Monkeywrenching is more than just sabotage (...). This is jihad, pal. There are no innocent bystanders, because in these desperate hours, bystanders are not innocent” (Taylor, 1998). The mentioned jihad should not be understood as a violent fight. The statement is not only about “jihad of sword,” but also, or even mostly about “jihad of heart,” which is a deep internal transformation in the way of thinking and feeling, without which sabotage acts would be regular vandalism.

Monkeywrenching actions are mostly taken alone or in very small groups. Due to the invigilation risk, monkeywrenching activists do not discuss them during their meetings. Most of the participants of such meetings do not know who is in charge of each action. The solitary and secret character of monkeywrenching has, undoubtedly, an influence on creating a romantic legend, whose main characters are the arrested or hurt monkeywrenching activists. There are songs and stories honoring them, which are presented during the group meetings and are published in the newsletters of the organization.[178]

Elaborating a common strategy of actions has never been easy in case of Earth First!, especially after 1983, when the organization was joined by a “new generation” of ecowarriors. They were different from the “old members” in numerous ways, such as age, origin, and focus on different ecological problems. Those differences caused the division into two groups, which in the course of time began a dispute - a “biocentric” faction and a faction of “social justice.” The biocentric fracture consisted of the members of the first-generation of Earth First! They were mainly over 30 years old; most of them were from the southeastern part of the United States, and most of them before joining Earth First! had worked in traditional ecological organizations. According to them the basic and only aim of Earth First! should be a fight to maintain the well-being of a biocentric whole. The fight should be conducted according to the idea of monkeywrenching. The “social justice” fraction consisted of younger people (20-year-olds or people in their early 20s), who joined Earth First! between 1983 and 1985. Most of them came from the West Coast (mostly from Oregon and California), where they had actively participated in peace and abortion-rights movements. For them the ecological crisis was only one of numerous world problems, which could be dealt with by means of education. Although they participated in monkeywrenching actions, they definitely preferred civil disobedience. At the beginning both of the mentioned fractions cooperated with each other in harmony. This cooperation did not last a long time. After 1987, animosity transpired between them and caused an internal split, at the end of which most of the biocentrists left Earth First! in 1990.

While describing Earth First! it is crucial to pay attention to a strong antihierarchal attitude of its members, which results from the belief that a set hierarchy ruins real spontaneity and brings torpor and numbness. According to Dave Foreman, “when you take on the structure of the corporate state, you develop the ideology and the bottom line of the corporate state.”[179] Despite such an attitude, the members of Earth First! are willing to accept ad hoc leadership especially when a leader is a person of a “rich” sabotage past (people who had been hurt during sabotage actions and those who had been questioned by the police were exceptionally respected).[180] The idea of antihier- archism has not been practiced since the beginning of the group’s formation. Earth First! started its ecoextremism actions as a “centralized” - to a certain extent - group. During the first years of its existence (since the first general meeting of “Round River Rendezvous” on July 4, 1980), EF! was managed by two administrative bodies. The first one was “Circle of Darkness,” a national coordinating committee (Lee, 1995), which was responsible for the fundamental organization issues (assets, fees, newsletters, etc.) (Arnold, 1997, p. 231). The second body was “La Manta Mojada,” an eight-person group of advisors to the “Circle of Darkness.” Alongside with the growth of the number of EF!’s members, the organization was becoming more and more decentralized. The declaration of February 6 and 7, 1982 was an ideological support of the process. During those days the leadership of Earth held a meeting in Eugene, Oregon during which they stated that each of the individuals is not a member of EF! but they are Earth First! itself and that they are not bound to Earth First! by a membership, but by their ideals. During the meeting in Eugene the leaders decided to change the centralized organization into a loose chain of scattered local cells. Most likely in the mid-1980s both structures administrating EF! Disappeared - the centrally administered organization changed into a decentralized movement consisting of more and less-dependent cells.

One of such EF! cells was Evan Mecham Eco-Terrorist International Conspiracy (EMETIC). EMETIC was founded in October 1987. Its founders were Dave Foreman, Marc Davis, Margaret Miller, Marc Baker, and Ilse Asplund, who formed the radical elements of Earth First! The group became known on November 7, 1987 by their action of damaging a chairlift in the Fairfield Snow Bowl ski resort (the resort’s loss was $200,000). In 1988, the uranium mines near the Grand Canyon became the target of their attacks. The mines belonged to the Energy Fuels Nuclear. The members of EMETIC damaged 34 transmission poles by the southern and northern border of the Grand Canyon. In the same year the Fairfield Snow Bowl was attacked again - the group cut the bars supporting the chairlift with carbide lamps. The activities of EMETIC did not last long. Due to the actions of Michael Fain, an FBI agent, who was infiltrating the group for a long time, its three founders Marc Davis, Margaret Miller, and Marc Baker were captured in Wenden on May 30, 1989 during a sabotage action of cutting power lines leading to the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant. As it later turned out, the sabotage was supposed to be a rehearsal before an attack on a nuclear installations in California, Arizona, and Colorado. The arrests ceased the task force’s actions. In 1990, after a series of arrests and disputes about the ethical aspects of monkeywrenching, a part of EF!’s members, together with Foreman left the organization. Those who remained resigned from this tactic, claiming that educational and propaganda actions will be more useful for environmental protection.

The basic philosophy of the members of Earth First! is undoubtedly deep ecology.[181] The members of Earth First!, similarly to other followers of this philosophy, consider that humans at some point in history broke their connection with nature claiming that it is just a matter that can be changed by them as its owners. This kind of “elevating” attitude toward nature had far-reaching consequences. At that moment, placed by radical ecologists in the final phase of the Pleistocene, human beings started the exploitation of nature, which caused losing its internal balance expressed in the increasing ecological crisis. According to Earth First! members, if humans do not change their attitude toward nature, if they do not change the arrogance of the anthropocentric perspective into the rightful biocentric perspective, the crisis will turn into an ecological catastrophe, which will destroy all life on Earth once and for all.

However, how can perspectives be changed? The theoreticians of deep ecology mostly claimed that it could not be done through education. This opinion was shared only by a part of Earth First! members belonging to the “social justice fraction,” which rarely dealt with monkeywrenching. Earth First! activists of the “biocentric” fraction, for whom monkeywrenching was a basic means of the fight for nature protection, did not believe in an enlightening power of mild persuasion. They claimed that only an external compulsion could force the masses to drop the anthropocentric perspective and its most dangerous product, which is the modern industry consumption civilization. Monkeywrenching for them was a way of pressuring society, so they would finally start fighting the two biggest “diseases” of modern times: overpopulation and industrialism.

It is crucial to add that the biocentric fracture of Earth First! did not consider monkeywrenching as the only causative power, which could lead to civilizational transformation. Another power of equal importance was supposed to be an ecological catastrophe, which would destroy the basis of industrial civilization once and for all. Earth First! members of this fraction believed that, despite the fact that it could destroy the “industrial Moloch” in the end, it could also potentially be extremely dangerous for the whole biosphere. Because of this fact its course must be stopped at all costs, extorting fixed socio-political changes from society. One of the most crucial changes of this matter was supposed to be a radical reduction of the human population. It might be worth mentioning that in modern times one of the first people to encourage performing such a reduction was Thomas Malthus, an economist and cleric. He was the author of a classic book An Essay on the Principle of Population, written in 1798. Malthus proves in it that an uncontrolled population growth usually involves shortage of consumer goods, which can lead to undesirable phenomena, such as epidemics, starvation, and death. Although Malthus doubted that population could protect itself from the consequences of overpopulation, he claimed that people should be encouraged in spite of all the obstacles to start using methods of depopulation, such as sexual abstinence and late marriage.[182] The ideas of Malthus began a new movement of Malthusianism, whose different forms were an inspiration for many ecological movement members. The members of Earth First! agreed with the necessity of introducing those ideas into life as well. They were discussing, however, the ways of their implementation. One of the best-known and most radical suggestions came from Christopher Manes, who in his article “Technology and Morality” advised that the fight against overpopulation[183] should take place through the rejection of the “modern medical technology.” According to the article’s author the modern birth control is “internally contaminated” due to “linked to the technocratic control responsible for the ecological crisis” (Manes, 1986; Lee, 1995, p. 93). Since “technological solutions to technological problems do not work” (Manes, 1986; Lee, 1995, p. 93), the solution to the question of overpopulation might happen only through natural selection. According to Manes, since the Pleistocene epoch until the Middle Ages population remained stable due to the high death rate of newborns. This “praiseworthy balance” was lost in the modern times due to the progress of medical science. Since then children, who would have to die in natural conditions, could live and reproduce as adults. According to Manes in the circumstances of an enormous overpopulation of modern times, the only sensible solution is “technology dismantling,” which allows ill children to live. This kind of dismantling, according to Manes, would not be difficult due to “The technological complex is more fragile than its discourse lets on. We have seen in the area of wilderness preservation how monkeywrenching succeeds in undermining the plans of corporations” (Manes, 1986; Lee, 1995, p. 93). In order to regain “population stability,” which was lost in the Middle Ages, Manes suggests to protect the areas where mortality is natural; close technologically controlled areas; fight technological development at universities, research institutions, and in large companies with the means of monkeywrenching; expand monkeywrenching to all urban areas; and spiritually reject technology (Lee, 1995, p. 93). In another article “Population and AIDS” (Manes, 1987; Lee, 1995) (published in an Earth First! newsletter), Manes (using Miss Ann Thropy pen-name) claims that biodiversity protection requires a radical decrease of human population. In this case, if AIDS managed to kill 80% of the world population, it would effectively weaken industry and allow saving the wilderness. The article ends with the statement “if the AIDS epidemic didn’t exist, the radical environment would have to invent one.” Another interesting statement of the same kind can be found in William Aiken’s work “Ethical Issues in Agriculture.” It claims that “massive human die backs would be good. Is it our duty to cause them? Is it our species’ duty, relative to the whole, to eliminate 90% of our numbers?” (Aiken, 1984). As far as I know, there have been no definite suggestions of the realization of this aim until now. Most of the statements I am familiar with are more of a “wishing” character. However, the lack of a definition is not the most crucial issue of this matter. The most important issue of the statements, quite disturbingly, is their antihuman message, which is an expression of a great distance toward an opportunity of preventing the ecological crisis.

Dave Foreman, the leader of Earth First!, although less radical, shared a similar opinion on overpopulation. He claimed that in connection with the constantly growing number of people, new means of stopping the process should be introduced. The suggested means were free contraception and abortion, deprivation of governmental aid for those who currently have more than two children, giving each woman the right of having only one child, offering $20,000 to those who will willingly undergo vasectomy, introducing obligatory vasectomy for those who have one child already, and forbidding any emigration to the United States (Foreman, 1983; Lee, 1995, pp. 62-63). Soon after that, another discussion began. It was questioned whether the members of EF! should reproduce due to overpopulation. Some of them claimed that overpopulation is such a terrifying issue that it is each member’s responsibility to undergo vaccination.[184] Others argued that it is advisable for EF!’s members to have children due to the fact that children brought up in the spirit of nature protection will become an elite in the future (after the civilization catastrophe) who will “understand their kinship with the earth” (Noos, 1984) and will be able to set the right means of restoration of our planet’s well-being.

Another constant change that Earth First!’s members fight for is abolition of all the industrialism forms, which, as they claim, is the basic cause of all the evil in the world.

It might seem interesting that the ecowarriors of Earth First! were inspired by Ned Ludd - a legendary leader of English workers, who at the beginning of the nineteenth century were breaking stocking frames and setting large factories on fire hoping to stop the “industrial revolution.” For the members of Earth First!, the Luddite movement at the beginning of the nineteenth century was the first antitechnological shift and the first example in history of monkeywrenching. This is also why they should consider it as the ideological point of reference of the modern radical ecologism. The announced abolition of industrialism was supposed to be based on liquidations of roads, mines, and waterpower stations, resignation from using mechanical tools and vehicles, and prohibition of chemical substances and modern agriculture. Although the members of Earth First! were occasionally arguing the issues of political structure of an ideal anti-industrial society (its peak period was between 1985 and 1987, when the members were regularly debating them in the Earth First! journal), the main assumptions of the shape and functions were commonly accepted. It was supposed to be a society based on the example of primitive societies. It was also supposed to consist of small, loosely connected groups occupying themselves with fishing, hunting, collecting, and cultivating small ecological farms. Such societies were self-efficient - only occasionally did they exchange produced goods. Due to large distances between each group, they were rarely contacting one another. Only once a year their members would meet at the ruins of abandoned towns in order to organize festivals of moral, spiritual, artistic, and intellectual revivals. The lack of hierarchy was supposed to be the fundamental feature of a life in a community. Each of the communities would make free and democratic decisions, focusing on common prosperity of all earthly beings. The Earth First! members decidedly rejected the existence of some over-communal government, which would coordinate the lives of each of the communities and control their “ecological loyalty.” According to EarthFirst!ers the presence of such an organ would not only be against the politics of deep ecology, but also would turn out to be utterly unnecessary due to the fact that individuals who live in total harmony with nature and are spiritually fulfilled cannot be willing to resign from the delighting existence in accordance with nature.

8.4 Earth liberation front

The second largest organization, which consisted of radical environmentalists, is Earth Liberation Front (ELF[185]). It was founded in Brighton, England in 1992 by former members of Earth First!, who were not satisfied with the lessening radicalism of the movement. ELF’s aim, similarly to EF!, is not only environmental protection from great industry and modern agriculture intrusion. According to Peter Chalk, an expert of international crime and terrorism of the Washington-based RAND Corporation, “For the ELF, saving the roughly 10% of American wilderness that remains is not enough. The goal is, and can only ever be, to restore the environment in its entirety - to recreate ecosystems that they believe have been despoiled by the immoral and selfish actions of the human race. This is to be achieved by adopting an uncompromising stance on the environment and by emphasizing direct action over lobbying and legal forms of protest (which are generally viewed as biased in favor of government and industry), even if this might result in death or injury” (Chalk, 2001).

The American branch of ELF started its activity in October 1996 by firebombing a truck in Detroit, Oregon and the arson of a forest station in Eugene, Oregon, which belonged to the U.S. Forest Service (damage of about $5M). Both English and American branches use various sabotage tactics, mainly arson, which is one of the most costly ones. It is crucial to pay attention to the fact that the radical animalistic organizations are not eager to use this tactic. Such an attitude might be connected with the deep ecology (holistic) outlook, according to which only ecosystems possess autonomic value, while other beings are “axiologically dependent” and their value relates to the ecosystem value. This is why unintentional killing or hurting of small creatures in comparison with arson in the name of saving the whole ecosystem seems at least forgivable. Another popular tactic is “mechanical sabotage,” which is expensive mechanical devastation or damage of equipment, vehicles, and buildings, and vandalism, which is causing damage of lower value - breaking windows and spraying slogans. ELF’s members use tree spiking and the Internet sabotage less commonly than Earth First!ers.

The targets of ELF’s attacks are mostly timber companies, genetic engineering institutions, developers, car dealers, electric energy producers and distributors, and, most importantly, various state-owned and private structures embodying the greed and injustice of the capitalist state (U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2014).

Arson is used mostly in campaigns against “urban sprawls,” which are considered as a waste and unnecessarily intervenes in natural ecosystems. The attacks’ targets are buildings in their final construction phase, and are very often located in Long Island, New York; Chico, California; and Michigan. This sabotage method was used during the attack on the ski resort in Vail, Colorado in October 19, 1998.[186] Its aim was the protection of areas inhabited by lynxes and its direct impulse was the legal defeat of local environmentalists who attempted, at first in a thoroughly legal way, stopping the expansion of the ski resort into valuable ecological grounds. The judge allowed the construction. A few days later the resort’s restaurant, four hotel buildings, and three chairlifts were destroyed during an ecotage attack. Monkeywrenchers caused damage valued at $12M. A few days after the attack, a public message was announced to warn the resort’s owners and skiers from similar attacks in the future - “We will be back if this greedy corporation continues to trespass into wild and unroaded areas. For your safety and convenience, we strongly advise skiers to choose other destinations until Vail cancels its inexcusable plans for expansion” (Lenhart, 1998). The action caused $12M in damages and at that time was considered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as one of the most destructive terrorist attacks in the history of the United States. However, the arson of the ski resort in Vail is not the most costly attack of a pro- environmental sabotage anymore. Recently, the arson of a condominium and a crane in San Diego on August 1, 2003, during which the ELF members placed a banner saying “If you build it, we will burn it” (Cherry, 2001). The damages totaled $50M. In the course of time, these kind of actions became extremely popular among ELF: on December 9, 2000 ELF put an apartment building on fire during its construction in Middle Island, New York (damages: $200,000); on December 29, 2000 ELF put four mansions on fire in Mount Sinai, Long Island (damages: $160,000); on March 21, 2003 they put two houses on fire in Superior Township, Detroit (damages: $1M); on April 4, 2003, two houses in Macomb County, Detroit were burned (damages: $700,000); on September 19, 2003 four houses were put on fire in San Diego (damages: $1M); and on June 14, 2004 a warehouse in West Jordan was burned (damages: $1.5M). On April 13, 2004 ELF put on fire a house in Washington and attempted to put another house on fire in Sammamish, an Eastside suburb of Seattle. ELF left a banner outside the latter house saying “Where Are All The Trees? Burn, Rapist, Burn” (Bach, 2005) (damages of $300,000). On June 27, 2006 ELF set a house on fire in Guelph, Ontario, Canada during its construction (damages of $200,000). In January of the same year a mansion was thoroughly burned in Camano Island, Washington (damages of $2M). The mentioned examples of actions targeted at “urban sprawl” are among the most costly ones. Most of the actions of such a character are, of course, less expensive; however, there are very many of them.

Other targets of attacks are research institutions that deal with genetic engineering. According to ELF, there is a direct connection between using animals, environment destruction, and genetic modification of organisms. All of these actions, according to them, are an expression of the anthropocentric vain and arrogance, which leads directly to ecological destruction. They should also be put to an end by definite monkeywrenching actions (anti-GE/GMO actions - antigenetic engineering / genetically modified organism actions). Here the basic ecotage method is arson as well, although it is often supported by vandalism acts. On December 31, 1999 ELF put on fire the archives and equipment of agriculture offices at Michigan State University (damages of about $500,000).[187] On July 21, 2000 ELF cut thousands of experimental trees in the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Biotechnology Laboratory in Rhinelander in Wisconsin - the action was targeted at bioengineering and it caused damages of $1M. On June 1, 2001 ELF set on fire an office and 13 trucks of the Jefferson Poplar Farms in Clatskanie, Oregon and at the same time burned the office of Toby Bradshaw, who worked on genetic modification of trees at the Washington State University (damages of $3M). On May 21, 2001 ELF damaged the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture in Seattle (damage of $5.4M). On January 26, 2002 ELF burned down The Microbial and Plant Genomics Institute at the University of Minnesota (damages of $800,000) (Leader and Probst, 2003).Many of ELF’s attacks are targeted at the dealers of luxurious sports cars and sport utility vehicles (SUVs). On March 20, 2001, ELF set on fire 26 SUVs that belonged to the Romania Truck Center in Oregon (damages of $1M). On January 1, 2003, four new SUVs were set on fire in Girard, Erie (damages of $90,000). On August 22, 2003 about 40 HUMMER and SUVs were burned in West Covina, California. On some of the cars such captions could be found: “Fat lazy Americans” and “ELF.” The damages caused by this one action are estimated at $2M (Anti-Defamation League, 2014). On August 4, 2004 ELF set HUMMER cars on fire in Liberty Lake.

ELF also owned up to many other attacks on forestry enterprises. Amongst the most costly ones are setting on fire the headquarters of the U.S. Forest Service in Medford (damages of $500,000); setting on fire the office that belonged to the Boise Cascade Corp. in Oregon, dealing in forestry on December 25, 1999 (damages of about $1M); and arson at the United States Forest Service Northeast Research Station in Irvine, Pennsylvania on August 11, 2002 (damages of $700,000).

A separate group of ELF’s targets are companies and institutions blamed for generating and preserving social injustice. On June 28, 1998 this group was joined by the Mexican consulate in Boston, whose walls were painted red and covered with words “Viva EZLN!” (The Zapatista Army of National Liberation). This attack, according to the organization’s announcement after the action,[188] was a protest against the Mexican government which, according to ELF, oppresses the rural population of Chiapas. A Nike store in Albertville, Minnesota became the target of another action. The company was accused of exploitation of the employees in their foreign factories and of contributing to the globalization process. The attack on April 2, 2001 turned out to be a failed attempt of arson, which did not cause any serious devastation besides a few minor damages of the equipment. ELF announced the same day that the attack was a support of the action against The Free Trade Area of the Americas, which was supposed to take place in Canada the same month.[189]

The members of ELF are mostly teenagers or are in their early 20s. They usually are white men of the middle class, often previously having worked in legal environmental organizations (Stoner and Perlstein, 2005). As far as their outlook is concerned, they are closest to anarchism and left-wing radicalism. The activists of ELF perform their actions mainly at night, usually alone or in small groups (from two to six people) formed ad hoc. Their names are not published; other members do not know them either. Very often the attacks are performed in two distant locations, which makes the job of the police and other institutions fighting such actions exceptionally difficult.

Most of the ELF actions are preceded by preparatory actions, which consist of learning the grounds and gathering information about the target and its owner. They also very often infiltrate the target company or agency by placing in a “nice employee,” who has access to some “embarrassing” for the company information.

Similarly to ALF, ELF also can be characterized by the lack of a set, centralized, hierarchy, and, as a result, the lack of the organization hierarchy.[190] According to Peter Chalk in the previously quoted work “U.S. Environmental Groups and Leaderless Resistance,” it perfectly matches the philosophy of the extreme environmentalists, according to which only highly decentralized societies function in a desirable way - according to nature - unlike the centralized and monolithic ones, which function against it. The activists of ELF work in small units, which do not communicate with one another, usually not knowing anything about one another - “By operating in cells (small groups that consist of one to several people), the security of group members is maintained. Each cell is anonymous not only to the public but also to one another. This decentralized structure helps keep activists out of jail and free to continue conducting actions.”[191] On the ELF website, which plays a fundamental role in keeping contact between the activists, the organization discourages potential activists from joining the existing units (such attempts, according to the website’s authors, are not only fruitless, but also extremely dangerous for ELF). The members of ELF usually take this advice and start working alone or in a trusted group. According to Bob Holland, a police detective from Eugene, Oregon, who has been infiltrating ELF for years, the ELF activists “know each other and don’t tolerate strangers” (Barcott, 2002; Leader and Probst, 2003). Although ELF does not accept officially any formal structures, its members eagerly use the services of the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office (NAELFPO) - an “above-ground” structure, whose headquarters is in Portland, Oregon and which deals with publicizing the conducted actions, publishing and spreading the literature, and mediation between activists.

Although saving the natural environment is undoubtedly the basis of the sabotage actions of ELF, it would be too much of a simplification to state that the environmental aims are the only aims for them. ELF perceives its actions as a much wider issue. For the organization the care about the environment consists of numerous essential social factors, and limiting their actions to the care about the environment would mean limiting the whole perspective and depriving this care of self-realization. The fight, in order to be effective, has to be performed on many fronts, both on the “pure-ecological” one and on the social one. It must focus on the most crucial issue, on the direct cause of the ecological and social problems, which is the rapid and unconditional abolition of capitalism. From the very beginning, ELF has been characterized as an anticapitalistic and antisystem organization. It is clear in one of the first announcements of ELF on the Internet from 1997, which is also considered as an ideological manifest of the organization: “Welcome to the struggle of all species to be free. We are the burning rage of this dying planet. The war of greed ravages the Earth and species die out every day. The ELF works to scare the rich, and to undermine the foundations of the state. We embrace social and deep ecology as a practical resistance movement. We have to show the enemy that we are serious about defending what is sacred. Together we have teeth and claws to match our dreams. Our greatest weapons are imagination and the ability to strike when least expected. Since 1992 a series of earth nights and Halloween smashes have mushroomed around the world. Thousands of bulldozers, power lines, computer systems, buildings, and valuable equipment have been composted. Many ELF actions have been censored to prevent our bravery from inciting others to take action. We take inspiration from Luddites, Levellers, Diggers, the Autonome squatter movement, the ALF, the Zapatistas, and the little people - those mischievous elves of lore. Authorities can’t see us because they don’t believe in elves. We are practically invisible. We have no command structure, no spokespersons, no office, just many small groups working separately, seeking vulnerable targets and practicing our craft. Many elves are moving to the Pacific Northwest and other sacred areas. Some elves will leave surprises as they go. Find your family! And let’s dance as we make ruins of the corporate money system .. ,.”[192] It is important to emphasize the fact that the ELF’s members do not want to destroy the capitalistic system only, but they want something much more crucial - a definite liquidation of profit as the motive of all the spheres of social life (“The ELF realizes that the profit motive, caused and reinforced by the capitalist society, is destroying all life on this planet”) (Pickering, 2007, p. 47). It is hard to tell how this liquidation would work in practice, if it was a deeper spiritual-moral transformation of the whole society, or if it was a liquidation of profit from the acceptable social practices. Two great followers of this liquidation are Craig Rosebraugh and Leslie James Pickering, who both were the spokespersons for ELF in 1997-2001. They are rather restrained while explaining the issue. Other main activists of ELF do not give any details that could cast light on the question. It is crucial to notice that, despite the fact that the ELF members condemn for aiming at making a profit, finding it a factor that could cause environment’s destruction, they base the efficiency of their sabotage actions on its existence: “Using real direct action in the form of economic sabotage, the ELF is treating what the greedy entities care about: their pocketbooks. By inflicting as much economic damage as possible, the ELF can allow a given entity to decide if it is in its best economic interest to stop destroying life for the sake of profit” (Pickering, 2007. p. 48). In April 2003, Craig Rosebraugh and Leslie James Pickering formed the Arissa organization. Its aim is to create appropriate intellectual conditions to abolish capitalism in the future and its biggest follower - the government of the United States, accused by ELF of imperialism and world terrorism.[193]

It seems unlikely that the ELF members had a coherent vision of abolishing capitalism. From the Internet posts and letters written by prominent activists a conclusion may be drawn that they do not care about slow system and mental evolution, but what they do care about is a rapid revolutionary transformation. Moreover, the transformation does not need to be conducted according to peaceful means. However, it is difficult to find a suggestion about such a process. In March 2004, Leslie Pickering said in a TV interview, “Violence is a necessary element of an oppressive struggle (...) to overthrow an oppressive government (...) [ELF is] only part of a larger building revolutionary movement that won’t stop until it has a successful overthrow of this country” (Anti-Defamation League, 2014). Another crucial member of ELF, Craig Rosebraugh, claims in his book The Logic of Political Violence, “a revolution in the United States must be comprised of a variety of strategies - but it cannot be successful without the implementation of political violence” (Rosebraugh, 2004b). Praising violence is not present only in the statements of prominent activists. Sabotage actions also are of a more and more aggressive rhetoric. After the arson of the U.S. Forest Service in Irvine, Pennsylvania on August 11, 2002, ELF announced “In pursuance of justice, freedom, and equal consideration for all innocent life across the board, segments of this global revolutionary movement are no longer limiting their revolutionary potential by adhering to a flawed, inconsistent ‘non-violent’ ideology. While innocent life will never be harmed in any action we undertake, where it is necessary, we will no longer hesitate to pick up the gun to implement justice, and provide the needed protection for our planet that decades of legal battles, pleading, protest, and economic sabotage have failed so drastically to achieve” (Anti-Defamation League, 2014; Pickering, 2007, p. 38). Despite the threat in the announcement and the quoted statements, risky methods used by ELF (mostly arson) and the breadth of the actions taken, nobody has ever been severely injured or killed, which could be assigned for the organization. The founders of ELF have never allowed such a possibility to arise. It must be admitted that the organization has, so far, followed the fixed rules, according to which each member is supposed to “inflict economic damage on those profiting from the destruction and exploitation of the natural environment, (...) reveal and educate the public on the atrocities committed against the earth and all species that populate it, (...) take necessary precautions against harming any animal, human and non-human” (Leader and Probst, 2003).

According to the presented characteristics, both Earth First! and Earth Liberation Front are organizations that cannot be classified as “single issue” terrorism which, as in the terminology, does not aim at the broad socio-political transformations, but concentrates on solving a single issue. Although, from the outlook point of view, they are groups of an environmental character, their actions are not limited to conducting a single great action. It is quite the opposite; they take various actions, very often of a revolutionary character (transformations), such as introduction of a ban on natural environment devastation, restoration of wilderness areas, remodeling social awareness, socio-political transformations - EF! and ELF, decreasing population growth, liquidation of technological infrastructure - EF!, and fight against capitalism and globalization - mostly ELF; however, EF! also condemns those two phenomena. Due to a large number of those aims and the fact that they both concern the whole socio-political reality and not its particular fragments, EF! and ELF should be, in my opinion, classified as extremist organizations of a revolutionary type, which aims at the whole world’s transformation, not as a single-issue organization, which according to its terminology, concentrates on solving a single issue. Of course, revolution and many-sidedness of the aims can influence the attitude toward violence. It seems that it is much easier to be motivated with stimuli of various sources than when the stimulus comes from one source only (a single issue). I would like to pay attention to the fact that so far for the Earth First! and Earth Liberation Front activists they are not equal sources - until now the dominant aim has been the fight for environmental protection. At this point, however, the element that saves them from using direct violence is deep ecology focused on life’s sacredness. Naturally, “life” itself is understood by the followers of deep ecology with reference to the ecosystem - the total of all ecosystems, the primary whole, which is of a higher moral value than all individuals that are a part of it. (The value of other natural beings, both living and inanimate ones, is based on ecosystem). However, they also (only as a part of the whole) participate in the sacredness of life. This kind of convictions can be a strong restraint from direct violence in relation to a human being who, although goes beyond the vital needs toward insignificant, excessive needs, is undoubtedly an element of the ecosystem that participates in the same means as other elements of the sacredness of life. However, this restraint might stop working when not only single elements of the ecosystems are in danger (since they do not possess autonomic moral value), but the ecosystem as a whole. Then activists will conduct actions, which will not be a more or less risky sabotage, but real violence aimed at humankind.

9. Leaderless Resistance and Netwars in the Activities of the Ecological Movement: Extremist Wings

9.1 Traditional structure

Extremist groupings, similar to other undercover groupings (both terrorist and criminal ones) have to develop their own organizational structures in order to ensure their existence and simultaneously realize planned goals. The form of organizational structure obviously depends on many variables: number of members, external conditions, strength and type of social support, proneness to infiltration by enemies of the organization, its financial condition, available technologies, world view, and many other factors. Even though particular extremist and terrorist organizations usually work out different types of internal structures, according to many researchers, there is a common, solid benchmark valid for each of the structure. This is a four-level pyramid.

The pyramid is a hierarchic formation.[194] At its top there is its command, which is responsible for strategy, planning, assignment of tasks, creation of support networks - “active supporters” and control of subordinate levels. Similarly to other hierarchic structures (armed forces, administration, or large corporations), this part of the pyramid is sparsest even though they simultaneously hold most of the power. The second level of the hierarchic pyramid comprises the active personnel. This is the “armed force” of the terrorist or extremist organization that is responsible for direct accomplishment of assigned missions. It is also common that among the active personnel there are members of the commanding staff. In this case it usually translates into increase in internal discipline and improved information flow. They possess one or more specializations - this depends on the size of their organization. The third level are the active supporters that address themselves to gathering and communicating information, supplying hiding-places, making new contacts, and to other issues loosely connected with logistics. This level is crucial for the whole structure. It is hard to imagine that without it a long-term campaign could be conducted. The fourth and the largest in numbers[195] part of the pyramid structure are the passive supporters. Their role in the organization is usually limited to logistical and financial support. Contrary to active supporters they are not in regular and direct contact with members of the other structure levels. They are also often not aware of the fact that they are members of an organization. A basic unit of a secret organization is a cell composed usually of four to six people (naturally the number of people in a cell may be significantly higher). In general, cells have a determined specialization - this can be intelligence, tactics, propaganda, or logistics. Sometimes groups of cells having distinct specializations create higher-level units - columns (Burton 1976; White, 2002, pp. 36, 37). This however is not a rule. Some groups doubt in strategic efficiency on the columns, particularly during large operations, when activities of many columns have to be coordinated. Therefore, have they been already created, they are usually used as operational support forces (Figure 9.1).

In case of legal, pyramidal structures (like national administration authorities or the military) a structure allowing the commanding body to command and maintain control over activities of the remaining elements enables to obtain high effectivity and efficiency of the structure. In case of illegal, undercover operating organizations that are always prone to the risk of being unmasked, high efficiency is usually achieved at the cost of resistance to counteractions of law enforcement agencies. Leading an illegal group usually requires staying in direct or indirect contact with other grouping members. As, in the case of intense communication, there exists a high risk of being unmasked that could endanger the whole hierarchic structure, undercover organizations usually limit communication to the absolute minimum and give particular subgroups quite a high level of autonomy. This relative autonomy is usually connected with the introduction of a decentralizing element into the hierarchic entirety. It may always be a peril to the organizational unity and can hinder to some extent communication, control and widely understood governance (including so important tasks like fundraising, logistics, and organization of training camps). Terrorist organizations usually accept the risk, keeping in mind and being right, that the former in general will allow to increase the total security level. Decentralization (meaning that few people know many organization members) enhances security, but makes it more difficult to properly manage it and, what seems to be particularly important for undercover organizations, to keep discipline.[196] Hence, the main problem every undercover organization is confronted with is the answer to the question, how to ensure structural efficiency in conditions of secrecy, while simultaneously not allowing the organization to be unmasked and disbanded.

The pyramid model is not an adequate structure for all illegal terrorist or extremist organizations. According to Wayman Mullins secret organizations built on this model would quickly dissolve. The reason would be the fact that the leader is bureaucratically separated from some members of the pyramid. He/she would be deprived of full control over the actions of pyramid members. He/she would also not be able to prevent penetration of the organization by third persons. In fact, by Mullins, the most suitable model for describing secret organizations is a circle with the leader or commanding body located in its center and cells attached to it directly (see Mullins, 1997, pp. 134, 135). I shall not dispute with the Mullins model in this work. I would only like to note that his critique of the hierarchic pyramid are based on an incomplete understanding of the structure. The pyramid model does not correspond to the interrelationships between the commanding body, active cadre, active supporters, and passive supporters. The pyramid shows only the functions of respective levels and, what may be called the “significance levels,” what often corresponds to the commanding structure. The commanding body (the leader or a group of leaders) and cells located in the structure levels may be interrelated in many ways. It may be so that leaders contact all the other pyramid level members directly or just some of them. Some of the active cadre could be in contact only with the commanding body, others only with some of the active supporters. Obviously, the quantity of such combinations is large. It also usually depends on how the efficacy of these actions is perceived by the commanding body.

9.2 Toward new forms of organization

At the end of the 1960s, two American researchers, Virginia H. Hine and Luther P. Gerlach, conducted a research on the organizational structure of several contemporarily new-born social movements (Gerlach and Hine, 1970). It showed that their structure was neither bureaucratic nor amorphous, but segmentary (it comprised many various groups that appeared and disappeared, were joined and divided, expanded and diversified), polycentric (within the structure there were often many temporary and competing leaders and influence centers), and integrated networks (is composed of loosely integrated nets with various connections based on interrelated membership, common activity, reading, common ideals, and opponents). According to the mentioned researchers, polycentric, segmentary, and integrated networked (in short SPIN) organizations form, due to their capability of liberating personal involvement of members and of adaptation to varying external conditions, allow for much better tackling of miscellaneous endangerments (both internal and external) than former structures, usually strongly hierarchic and centralized. Therefore, the influence of the latter will slowly diminish and of the former will extend.

The forecasts were particularly precise for widely understood ecologic movement. The movement, from its birth, evolved toward a SPIN structure (the evolution proceeded both in legally operating and those against the law) becoming a segmentary, polycentric, and integrated network. Segmentation in ecologic movements is expressed by “permanent changing” of structures. Permanent changing of structures means that groups composing the movement are in constant motion - they are constantly dividing, joining, and generating new forms that are also subject to changes. This mobility causes many people to belong to many groups at the same time. It is also common that a person leading one group is a regular member of another. The case of Rodney Coronado seems to be a good example here. While he was the leader of the ALF, he worked simultaneously in many pro-environment groups (i.a. the Earth Liberation Front, Earth First!, and the See Shepherd Conservation Society). Another example could be Mike Roselle, cofounder and one of the most important members of Earth First! and the leader of Ruckus Society and Rainforest Action Network, as well as an active member of Greenpeace. According to Luther Gerlach there are four reasons for segmentation in the ecologic movement: personal power, motivating particular persons to own search for “proper” ways of reaching own established aims; preexisting cleavages that arose due to socio-economic discrepancies; competition common among movement members, particularly among their leaders (its goal may be to improve the status, influence, to attract media or to satisfaction being the result of confidence in their own efficiency in realizing group aims); and ideological differences concerning, for example, the course and character of socio-political changes that would be beneficial to the environment. It should be noted here that one of the most significant reasons for the formation of those differences is the lack of permanent (accepted by all movement members for both environmental and animal rights activists) ideological explanation of philosophical assumptions (obviously differing for environmental and animal rights activists) that were the basis for the movement.

Polycentrism in case of the ecologic movement means that there is no leader or central influence center that could manage, coordinate, or motivate to action. There is nobody, who could represent the whole movement or its major part. Even though members of ecologic movements often accentuate their counter-leadership and counter-hierarchy attitude, they usually accept some forms of leadership as long as it is not permanent and does not destroy “the spirit of egalitarianism and mutual respect,” which are particularly important for participants in environmental movements. Leadership in ecologic movements usually depends on the situation and leaders usually emerge, when a difficult situation for the movement is present and disappear after it has been tackled. According to Luther Gerlach, the deceptive impression that there are specific leaders on top of ecologic movements derives from the fact that “the situational leaders” are often invited by the media to programs and quoted, as if they were actual leaders (Gerlach, 2001). In reality it is very scarce that one person is considered to be a leader of a group (or its major part). Consequently, there exist simultaneously many leaders (many commanding centers) having quite limited influence on the whole movement or on its part. This influence does not enable them to make decisions on behalf of everyone, and even though sometimes “the situational leaders” are able to tackle some protests, they do not control the rise of a new protest or grassroots initiatives.

Groups that compose an ecologic movement are not usually isolated from each other. On the contrary, they create integrated networks based on nonhierarchic and informal connections. According to Luther Gerlach there are at least four of such connections. They are made due to “personal contacts,” “wandering preachers,” “large meetings,” and “communication technology.” The grounds of “personal contacts” are various social and emotional relationships, for example, friendship, marriage, neighborhood, or consanguinity. Even, when a group is divided or disbanded, those personal connections remain and may be the seed of new groups. “Wandering preachers” are people who are extremely active in spreading the ideological message and in transmitting information. They are usually members of many groups (both legal and illegal) and often are leaders in one of them. “Large meetings” not only integrate the ecologic movement “on the inside,” but also “open it” on various external connections (the yearly Earth First! Reunion named “Round River Rendezvous” could be a good example here). The importance of the latter became particularly conspicuous in the middle of the 1990s, when people connected with antiglobalization movements started to play a significant role in ecologic movements. The influence of “communication technology” is priceless. It has enormous influence on the development of internal and intergroup connections by giving the group members the opportunity to exchange information and views and, what is particularly important for activist of illegal organizations, coordinate and conduct actions together. Currently, the Internet plays a particularly significant role among communication technologies.[197]

9.3 The influence of the internet on the development of organizational structures

The impact of the Internet and other communication technologies reaches much deeper than it is usually thought. Seemingly, its clearest sign is abandoning traditional hierarchic and centrally managed structures toward “looser structures,” as highly decentralized as possible or even horizontal ones - without clear management or controlling bodies.[198] According to many researchers, this is not an unstable phenomenon, but a steady trend bound with the future of terrorism. Rand Corporations analysts John Arquilla, David Ronfeldt, and Michele Zanini share the idea. According to them “Terrorists will continue moving from hierarchical toward information-age network designs. Within groups, ‘great man’ leaderships will give way to flatter decentralized designs. More effort will go into building arrays of transnationally internetted groups than into building stand-alone groups” (Arquilla et al., 1999). Similarly, Michel Whine sees the future of terrorism in his paper “Cyberspace: A New Medium for Communication, Command, and Control by Extremists” that indicates crucial - from the extremists point of view - advantages of new information and communication tools: “ICTs offer a new dimension for political extremists and terrorists. They allow the diffusion of command and control; they allow boundless new opportunities for communication, and they allow the players to target the information stores, processes, and communications of their opponents. The information revolution is enhancing the importance of all forms of networks, and it favors their growth by making it possible for diverse and dispersed actors to communicate, consult, coordinate and operate together across greater distances and on the basis of more and better information than before” (Whine, 1999).

But the information technology revolution allows for something more, namely, conduction of war activities of a new type - activities based extensively on using social involvement and noncentralized organization structure and information flow. This new type of war activities, as well as respective newly born form of conflict, are named in the literature as “the netwar.”[199] It is a common belief that the netwar is a conflict of a quite low intensity due to the use of nonmilitary means (i.a. information and cybernetic tools) and involvement of noncentralized, socially recruited (or maybe a better notion would be self-recruiting) units and groups. This opinion seems to be at least risky. It includes neither strong social mobilization, present due to the possibility of gathering (thanks to new media) “for the case” a wide, even global auditory, nor increasing significance of new organizational forms - new network designs, which are safer (considering resistance to invigilation) and more effective (regarding capability of inflicting high loses while minimum measures are engaged) than foregoing hierarchic structures (Figure 9.2).

“Network designs” (network organizational structures) may take many forms (Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 2001). In “chain networks” or “line networks,” communication between particular cells (exchange of goods and information) will run along cells connected only with adjacent units. This type of network structure is most common for smuggling gangs. Another relationship type is a nodal network (“star network,” “hub network,” “wheel network”). Here, communication between the cells and coordination of actions depends on the central unit, on a particular intermediate node that has the function of supplying information and goods. This is not, however, a hierarchic communication. It is possible that particular units are not aware of the existence of the others. This type is mostly abundant in cartels or franchises as well as terrorist groupings. Another connection type is an “all-channel network” or “full-matrix network.” In this case, all units are interconnected. There are no particular nodes and the communication between selected points of the network may take place independently on all other units. Most commonly, this type is present among militant groups (in particular “single-issue groups”[200]) that are highly decentralized and computerized.

These three network connection models exist also in hybrid systems incorporating two or three connection forms in one structure (or even network and hierarchic at the same time). Combined organizational structures may differ on various levels of operation - on the highest level that may work according to one of the network organizational forms and have a hierarchic order of the network units, or the opposite.

Hierarchic organizational structures may also use their network organizational forms of one of their elements. They may do it permanently or temporary, for example, when a task has to be done, which could not be attained efficiently by a hierarchic body. There are many possibilities (Figures 9.3 and 9.4).[201]

Among all those simple or hybrid organizational forms, the all-channel network is definitely the safest one. Chain networks are easy to paralyze, at least temporarily; aiming at one of the links, nodal networks are easily destroyed by attacking the central body. An all-channel network, even if one cell is attacked, still may function and it would probably regenerate quickly.

9.4 Leaderless resistance

Seemingly, all-channel network structures would be the best (and safest) way of decentralization. This, however, is not true. Presently, we are observing the development of a new form of activism that is probably the epitome of the “decentralized model” concept. The core of the new form is abandonment of all formal/informal structures and extreme individualism in the execution of established tasks. In other words, connections that always bound specific cells of the network are not important any more. The only things that counts is the common ideology and respective deeds and actions. There are no links between the cells anymore. There only exist sources giving off ideas (they can be ephemeral) and people willing to implement them.

In fact, in the second half of the 1980s many organizations started, in lieu of centralized and hierarchic structures, to adopt looser and more elastic structures, which are less subject to be deconstructed but simultaneously prone to fall apart. The main reason was the effectiveness of authorities who, after a time of stalemate and gaucheness in the 1970s, learned how to efficiently gather information, infiltrate, and liquidate extremist and terrorist groups. “The loosening” of structures was not an effective protection against infiltration. Those, who were the first to realize this and offer a solution were the founders of the International Service of Information, colonel Ulius Louis Amoss and a radical activist of the American Right, Louis Beam. Both are known for the development of a strategy known as “leaderless resistance.” This strategy assumes abandoning all hierarchic organizational structures that are to be substituted with a loose configuration of small, autonomous cells, units or small groups that are not commanded by any decision-making center specialized in managing hierarchic organizational structures. According to Beam, who lined out his concept of leaderless resistance in 1983 in an essay titled Leaderless Resistance, the concept of leaderless resistance mean totally dropping out the organization theory: “The orthodox scheme of organization is diagrammatically represented by the pyramid, with the mass at the bottom and the leader at the top. This fundamental of organization is to be seen not only in armies, which are of course, the best illustration of the pyramid structure, with the mass of soldiery, the privates, at the bottom responsible to corporals who are in turn responsible to sergeants, and so on up the entire chain of command to the generals at the top. But the same structure is seen in corporations, ladies’ garden clubs, and in our political system itself. This orthodox ‘pyramid’ scheme of organization is seen basically in all existing political, social and religious structures in the world today from the Federal government to the Roman Catholic Church. The Constitution of the United States, in the wisdom of the Founders, tried to sublimate the essential dictatorial nature of pyramidal organization by dividing authority in three: the executive, legislative and judicial. But the pyramid remains essentially untouched. This scheme of organization, the pyramid, is however, not only useless, but extremely dangerous for the participants when it is utilized in a resistance movement against state tyranny. This is especially so in technologically advanced societies where electronic surveillance can often penetrate the structure revealing its chain of command. Experience has revealed over and over again that anti-state, political organizations utilizing this method of command and control are easy prey for government infiltration, entrapment, and destruction of the personnel involved” (Beam, 1992). Jeffrey Kaplan in his paper being a historic outline defines “leaderless resistance” in a more blatant way: “Leaderless resistance may be defined as a kind of lone wolf operation in which an individual, or a very small, highly cohesive group, engage in acts of anti-state violence independent of any movement, leader or network of support. This violence may take the form of attacks on state institutions or operatives, or it may take the form of random targets of opportunity selected on the basis of their perceived vulnerability and their symbolic importance” (Kaplan, 1997).

Analyzing differences between conventional pyramidal organizations and groups “organized” by the “leaderless resistance” model, it is hard not to notice that the former are much more prone to miscellaneous forms of invigilation by the police. An efficient infiltrator of a pyramidal structure, if he/she manages to achieve a certain level of the hierarchic pyramid, then he/she can easily destruct all grades that are below his/her own level and endanger the levels above. The danger of infiltration is much less serious in case of “organizations,” in which single individuals or small groups not only not possess the organizational center, but also operate without any structural connection between them. In organizations of this type, the basic unifying element is the ideology, from which the movement members will cull knowledge on proper (i.e., efficient and morally legitimate) struggle methods. This ideology must obviously have its vital source. From the beginning of the 1990s this is the Internet.

9.5 Leaderless resistance in the ecoextremist movement

This way of conducting extremist activities is not new. Already in the 1980s some radical, pro-environment and animal rights organizations started to resign from any organizational structure. Actually, the transfer of the “leaderless resistance” rule to the ecological field took place even earlier - in 1972 due to a textbook titled Ecotage! edited by Sam Love and David Obst. There we read “The movement’s strength is that it is not formally organized and it cannot be stopped by elimination of key leaders. Though not rigidly structured, it is unified by a philosophy of respect for life” (Love and Obst, 1997; Arnold, 1997). Earth First! is a good example of abandoning formal structure. This organization (starting from June 4, 1980) was directed by two managing bodies: “Circle of Darkness” and “La Manta Mojada.”[202] In the mid-1980s (with the increase of members) both managing bodies faded and the organization transformed into a loose network of distributed cells, whose adhesion to the “organization” was based only on professed ideals and the readiness to make deeds determined by the ideals. According to the website of the grouping “Earth First! is a priority, not an organization. The only ”leaders“ are those working the most effectively. New ideas, strategies, and crucial initiative come from individuals, and all decisions are made within affinity groups based on preferred tactics.”[203] The reason for decentralization was the program antihierarchism (Earth First! activists believe that all specified hierarchies eventually must lead to spiritual fossilization) and tactical motivations. The ELF almost from the beginning of its existence stood for the leaderless resistance rule. According to the declaration published on their website, “The Earth Liberation Front is an international underground movement consisting of autonomous groups of people who carry out direct action according to the E.L.F. guidelines. Since 1997, E.L.F. cells have carried out dozens of actions resulting in close to $100 million in damages. Modeled after the Animal Liberation Front, the E.L.F. is structured in such a way as to maximize effectiveness. By operating in cells (small groups that consist of one to several people), the security of group members is maintained. Each cell is anonymous not only to the public but also to one another. This decentralized structure helps keep activists out of jail and free to continue conducting actions. As the E.L.F. structure is non-hierarchical, individuals involved control their own activities. There is no centralized organization or leadership tying the anonymous cells together. Likewise, there is no official ‘membership.’ Individuals who choose to do actions under the banner of the E.L.F are driven only by their personal conscience or decisions taken by their cell while adhering to the stated guidelines. Who are the people carrying out these activities? Because involved individuals are anonymous, they could be anyone from any community. Parents, teachers, church volunteers, your neighbor, or even your partner could be involved. The exploitation and destruction of the environment affects all of us - some people enough to take direct action in defense of the earth. Any direct action to halt the destruction of the environment and adhering to the strict nonviolence guidelines, listed below, can be considered an E.L.F. action. Economic sabotage and property destruction fall within these guidelines. (...)There is no way to contact the E.L.F. in your area. It is up to each committed person to take responsibility for stopping the exploitation of the natural world. No longer can it be assumed that someone else is going to do it. If not you who, if not now when?”[204]

Animal rights organizations undergo similar transformations. These are not organizations in the precise meaning of the word. They are rather decentralized, loosely connected (or not connected at all), and antihierarchy oriented groups of activists ready to perform acts of sabotage or quite gentle acts of violence in the name of animal rights protection. This way of understanding the concept of organization is noticeable in the “manifesto” of the largest extremist animal rights organization, the Animal Liberation Front: “The Animal Liberation Front is a nonviolent campaign, activists taking all precautions not to harm any animal (human or otherwise). Because the ALF actions may be against the law, activists work anonymously, either in small groups or individually, and do not have any centralized organization or coordination. The Animal Liberation Front consists of small autonomous groups of people all over the world who carry out direct action according to the ALF guidelines. Any group of people who are vegetarians or vegans and who carry out actions according to ALF guidelines have the right to regard themselves as part of the ALF” (Monaghan, 1999). Also Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, considering themselves for a legal, international campaign, does not have a permanent, fixed structure that could be called organization in the common meaning. Quoting one of their website of SHAC (in original spelling): “Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty is comprised of above ground volunteers who spearhead an international, legal campaign to close Huntingdon Life Sciences. We operate within the boundaries of the law, but recognize, and support, those who choose to operate outside the confines of the legal system. Big business has shown time and time again their lack of concern for ethics, instead focusing their attention on their profit. Often, simply targeting said business proves fruitless. However, as above ground activists have successfully targeted HLS’s financial pillars of support, undergound activists have too targeted HLS’s pocketbooks. Unidentified individuals as well as underground cells of the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front have engaged in economic sabotoge [sic] of HLS and their associates. They have also spent their time directly intervening and liberating the animals who are slated to die inside of HLS. [...] SHAC does not organize any such actions or have any knowledge of who is doing them or when they will happen, but encourage people to support direct action when it happens and those who may participate in it.”[205]

Abandoning formal organizational structures and implementation of “leaderless resistance” has many assets. For example, it is easy to negate any unpopular or undesired activities saying that they do not meet the idea criteria like the need for nonviolent execution of activities. Then, the activities cannot be considered as done by the organization. “Leaderless resistance” gives also the opportunity to recognize “as own deed” those activities that correspond to the accepted paradigm of direct actions (however, in reality they might have been done from other, nonecological reasons). In consequence, it is the type of action that determines if an action goes to the list of organization activities, or not. Obviously, the amorphism being in some situations a virtue, is also fraught with some dangers. Lack of a centrally leading authority means that organizations, like the ALF, the ELF, the SHAC or EF!, have very little control over the actions of activists regarding themselves as their members. And, even though they may always be disapproved, saying that they do not meet the “membership criteria” (they are not real members of the movement), when they are large numbers of “unrighteous members,” the whole organization may be discredited or undergo a permanent organizational fiasco. This could mean the end of the whole organization (even if it is a kind of a banner), but this does not have to be the end of the movement. And the movement does not involve leaders, hierarchy, connections. It is a spiritual community of individuals and groups taking the fight for common ideals. The way in which those common ideals should be implemented is shown to the movement members on anonymous websites, which are edited by the heaviest involved, anonymous activists as well as in anonymous statements and proclamations distributed on the Internet.

But can those quoted declarations be trusted? Are extremist ecologic groups only distributed groups of enthusiasts-amateurs working independently and not in touch with each other? I must admit that large amount of facts contradicts this idea. Primarily, many actions are professionally coordinated and are done with panache, which would be hard to achieve without logistic and training base. (Existence of the latter in the ALF was confirmed by many commentaries including the book of Ingrid Newkirk containing an interview with anonymous activist from this organization) (Newkirk, 2011). It is also an undeniable fact that the ALF and the ELF activists cooperate with each other constantly. They carry out common actions and do substantial damage, according to estimates equal to millions of dollars. It is hard to imagine that such cooperation could take place if there was no organizational bond between activists from both groups and if their participation was based only on virtual or spiritual adhesion.

It does not mean that “leaderless resistance” is only a useful fiction or propaganda declaration misleading the authorities. The number of actions reported every day in the whole world rather excludes that conventionally meant organizations were responsible for them (and if they existed, they definitely would be exposed quickly). “Leaderless resistance” is a fact. It seems, however, that this is not the only form of participation in an “organization.” Most probably, there are “network organisms” - permanent relationships of autonomous groups and people, who work in a decentralized and leaderless way (as we remember both leadership and hierarchy are strongly jettisoned by animal rights and environmental activists). Probably, the most appropriate model showing the idea of those relationships is a quite safe and “ideologically correct” allchannel network (the all-channel networks do not, naturally, exclude some forms of subordinate; their character is informal and variable though).

Independently on the analyzed model of interorganizational functioning, that is, both for the “leaderless resistance” and all-channel models, the internal communication problem among all the movement activists should be discussed in this context. In this case, the central place (but probably not the only) is taken by websites. These websites are in fact intermediate nodes in information exchange and simultaneously centers of ideological influence. Activists operating behind the facade of an organization convey information about their activity using anonymous, often coded information that subsequently is published on the websites (information about safety rules and pattern of information coding is on the websites as well[206]). Website administrators usually deny any implications to conduction or encouraging to direct actions, stating that they only guard freedom of speech, access to information, and public good.[207]

It is difficult to believe in the veracity of these declarations. Reports of the police show that many website authors (usually being press spokesperson for the organization at the same time) took part in illegal actions at least in the past. Most doubtful is the denial that the websites contain any form of encouragement to taking direct illegal actions. Actually, even a cursory scroll through these websites implies to affirm that their main aim is to induce the will of action in the “case supporters.” This target is, of course, achieved by various means and methods. One of them is to publish a list of people and companies, who according to ecological radicals are responsible for environment destruction or killing innocent animals (sometimes both). And so, on the website of the ELF we may find the list of “real eco-terrorists” including names and photographs of people (most often managers of large corporations), who are “known for” the destruction of the natural environment,[208] on the website of SHAC a list of “cruel companies and corporations” working under the aegis of or cooperating with HLS,[209] and on the website of the ALF the names of the largest companies performing “cruel practices” on animals (Animal Liberation Front, 2008).[210] Another measure of “calling for action” is to promote direct actions as “the only way” resulting from the need of termination of the “unjust” (shown abundantly in the pictures and described in detail), caused by “cruel and insensitive people,” usually representatives of large corporations or state institutions (very rarely these are private people). According to the website authors, actions of such people (named as “contemporary holocaust” (animal defenders) or “murdering the Mother Nature” (pro-environment activists)) must be stopped by aware and fully committed activists. The latter are presented as heroes and worshipped (this concerns activities sentenced to long-term prison in particular). Seemingly handbooks, instructions, and “statements” are also a means of encouragement to illegal actions. They contain information on safety measures (protection against infiltration, information coding, presentation of the authorities structure, and possibilities of legal protection), sabotage equipment making manuals (preparation of ignitable materials), conduct during action and when arrested by the police.[211]

I think that it can be stated that websites constitute a structure that is strongly similar to a nodal network. The node here is a specific Internet portal (emission source of fighting ideas and practical advice for making them come true), units that communicate with them (by sending information about performed actions and by asking both theoretical and practical questions) are specific cells (persons or groups) that work independently and do not consult their plans with any external leading organ or the Internet node spreading fighting ideas. The last feature differentiates an Internet nodal network from a typical nodal network that is most common in contemporary terrorist organizations. In the latter there is a strict dependence between the node and the cells. And, even though cells often have relative autonomy, it is never a full autonomy (this means that they do not operate separately, without being controlled by the commanding center located in the central node). Another feature that differentiates an Internet nodal network from a typical nodal network is the fact that the cells of an Internet network usually develop relationships (create a network) with many emitting sources of the idea they fight for (various portals of similar character). In this way they created something that could be named the multinodal network. It is worth noting that such network is very resistant to destruction. When one of the nodes is attacked,[212] others may function without disturbances participating in information and idea exchange.

Nevertheless, Internet nodal networks have another virtue - they enable mutual contact for all interested cells (contact: cell-cell). Due to Internet portals, individuals

or groups may freely participate in exchange of information, discussions or make new contacts. On the basis of a multinodal network they may create an all-channel network of private contacts without restraint.

In this way, the development of new organizational forms stimulated by the development of communication technologies (in particular the Internet) led to the creation of several types of connections:

1. In the field of direct actions - all-channel network (based on close relationships of the most active group of activists) and pan-network leaderless resistance (its core is the independent activity of anonymous cells connected only by the ideology).

2. In the field of flow of information - all-channel network (based on Internet portals spreading fighting ideas) and all-channel network (network of interpersonal Internet contacts).

Each of those network (nodal, all-channel) and pan-network “leaderless resistance” (distributed, totally individualized) formations is hard to eliminate in practice. Their combination makes them practically resistant to all forms of destruction or even in- vigilation. For how to control “the fighting ideas,” which play a crucial role in managing networks of terrorist activities operating according to the “leaderless resistance” model. And how to destroy the sole “leaderless resistance” if there are no connections between the groups? This disadvantageous state is even worse by the fact that “fighting ideas” are being implemented by “lone wolves” - fully independent individuals, not communicating with other assertors of the case and able to autonomously perform terrorist activities.

10. “Lone Wolves” Strategy: The Case of Volkert van der Graaf and Theodore Kaczynski

10.1 Terrorism of lone wolves

The concept of carrying out terrorist actions by lone individuals who are not linked to any organizations is not new. Its early beginnings can be found in the work of Mikhail Bakunin, a theoretician of anarchism who advocated the so-called “propaganda of the deed.” According to that strategy, individuals (and small groups), before they ultimately form a large organization based on hierarchy, should act independently, on their own initiative, without waiting for any instructions from above. Bakunin’s concept managed to inspire many assassins. However, the strategy of terrorist acts based on “individual activity” of the so-called “lone wolves” was really developed in the second half of the twentieth century, mainly by far-right theoreticians (especially white supremacists, antiabortionists, and supporters of racial divisions), such as Joseph Tommasi, Luis Beam, William Luther Pierce, Tom Metzger, or Alex Curtis.[213] There was one book that was especially important for the popularization of “lone wolf” activity; it was William Pierce’s Hunter. The novel described the lonely activity of the Vietnam veteran Oskar Yeager,[214] who used to kill “the colored” and Jews with the aim of reinstating racial segregation in the United States. According to Pierce, such activity is entirely safe, because the police is not able to “infiltrate the mind” (ergo, to control individuals who act independently). The model example of the “lone wolf” strategy is the terrorist activity of Eric Rudolf, who gained renown for acts, such as two bomb attacks on abortion clinics (during one of those, in January 1998, policeman Robert Sanderson was killed), planting a bomb during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics (2 people were killed and 111 were injured), and an attack on a gay club (five people were injured). Rudolf, like the Unabomber (who is discussed later), managed to escape law enforcement bodies for many years. Not until 2003 was he captured during a routine control.

Police analysts have not treated “lone wolf” terrorism seriously until the mid-1990s because they erroneously believed that only organized groups of militants can threaten public safety to a significant extent. There have also been doubts whether attacks of individual character can be categorized as terrorism at all. In consequence, in 1983, for example, president Reagan decided that attacks on abortion clinics should not be included in that category, as they are not carried out by “organized groups.” An assassination in Oklahoma City carried out by two people and a growing number of attacks on public institutions carried out by lone individuals seriously changed that line of thought. In 2003, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) admitted that lone extremists can pose a serious threat to the state in the coming years (Jonston and Risen, 2003). In 2007, the FBI Director Robert S. Mueller confirmed these predictions. “The threat of homegrown terrorists or extremists, acting in concert with other like-minded individuals, or as lone wolves, has become one of the gravest domestic threats we face” (Mueller, 2007).

Scientific literature provides hardly any studies on lone wolf terrorism. Some scholars do signal that such phenomenon exists, but very few of them have tried to examine it more closely, or at least provide its definition. Admittedly, the latter task is not easy, both due to the problems connected with the definition of terrorism itself, and because of the difficulty that lies in determining what “independent activity” (attributed to lone wolves) really means. Taking into account those problems, in the present thesis I shall define lone wolf terrorism as ideologically motivated direct violence aimed at targets that do not take part in fighting, applied by individuals who act independently, and are not members of any organized group that engages in terrorist activity.

In the ecological movement, there have been at least two cases of activity that can be categorized as lone wolf terrorism[215] - the case of Volkert van der Graaf and the case of Theodore Kaczynski (the Unabomber). These cases differ from each other in many ways. Kaczynski and his actions (which aimed at undermining the bases of industrial civilization and enabling a return to wild nature) can be categorized (with some reservations) as environmentalism, whereas van der Graaf was a declared animal activist; however, as he admitted himself, he acted not only in defense of animals, but also in defense of Muslims, whom he perceived as an oppressed minority (so it is fair to say that defense of animals was just one of his motives). Kaczynski has never been active in any environmental organization (although he was a sympathizer of Earth First!); van der Graaf was a member of the animal rights group called Vereiniging Milieu-Offensief which, however, did not (as far as I know) engage in any terrorist or sabotage activity. Finally, Kaczynski continued his terrorist activity for many years, while van der Graaf was prosecuted for a single attack.[216] Despite those differences, they have one thing in common - they both acted on their own and, as far as I know, they did not coordinate their plans with any organizations or other members of the movement.

10.2 Volkert van der Graaf

Volkert van der Graaf, the killer of Pim Fortuyn, was born in 1969 as a son of a provincial teacher in Middelburg in the Netherlands. He was a good student in high school, although a little introverted. But he was not perceived as a loner. He has always felt very close to animals. As a child, he resigned from fishing, because (as he claimed) he suffered at the sight of worms being hooked. When he was 15, he started working in a bird shelter, but he gave it up, as he could not stand the staff’s indifference toward the suffering of birds, which were dying of oil contamination, as well as the practice of setting mouse traps. As a 19-year-old, van der Graaf started studying Environmental Hygiene at an agricultural university in Wageningen (but he did not complete his studies). In that period, he switched from vegetarianism to veganism and started intense activity aiming at the abolition of all forms of animal oppression, as he considered animals to be equal to humans: “People think it normal that you eat animals and that you let fish suffocate in nets when you catch them. But inside me arose a sense of justice - such things shouldn’t be happening in a civilized country, I thought, but there is no one to stand up for them.”[217] Soon after beginning his studies, he joined the Dutch Federation Against Vivisection and the environmental organization Mileudefensie (Environmental Defense).[218] In 1992, van der Graaf founded the Vereiniging Milieu-Offensief (VMO) together with his friend van de Wouw. The organization established close relations with other pro-animal organizations, such as Bont voor Dieren (Fur for Animals), Mileudefensie, Foundation Lekker Dier, and Animal Freedom (Parker, 2005). VMO’s goal was to limit intensive cattle breeding. The organization’s tactics consisted in filing objections in court against farmers who applied for environmental licenses that would give them the right to expand their farms. Even when an objection was dismissed and a victory in the case was not probable, the organization lodged appeals, so as to protract the procedure as much as possible. The organization also used to sue officials for excessive support toward animal breeders. The breeders themselves thought that the organization’s activity harmed not only their businesses, but also the democratic procedures, which were overused in that case.

Volkert van der Graaf was one of the most committed members of the organization, to which he often devoted over 80 h of work a week. Some farmers used to call him fanatic. According to his friend Robert, the work for the animal cause was everything to him: “Volkert devoted all his time in doing stuff for VMO and animals. His life was all about that. Whenever a person like Fortuyn comes along and says fur animals can be breed again, I can imagine Volkert losing his temper.”[219] In 1996, VMO appealed against the decision of the Haderwijk town authorities, because the organization believed they illegally gave a farmer permission for increasing his livestock. VMO was represented in court by van der Graaf, who (during the trial) came into conflict with an environment official Chris van der Werken, because he concluded that van der Werken supports farmers. That same year, three days before Christmas Eve, van der Werken was shot from close range (like Fortuyn some time afterward) by an unknown individual. The bullets that the police found in his body were uncommon in the Netherlands. Bullets of the same type were later found in Fortuyn’s body. Van der Graaf was suspected of the murder, but the investigation was discontinued due to a lack of evidence.

Volkert van der Graaf’s victim, Pim Fortuyn, a politician and former university lecturer, was a colorful character who did not hesitate to act against the rules of political correctness. He did not hide the fact that he was gay. Fortuyn gained renown and considerable popularity when he ran an election campaign that featured a slogan about the demand for limiting the number of immigrants in the Netherlands. The media categorized these slogans as extreme-right and racist, and their author was compared to Haider and Hitler. Fortuyn himself did not encourage throwing out immigrants who already lived in the Netherlands, but wanted to prevent accepting others, especially Muslims, whom he considered to be at a lower cultural level from the Europeans. He even made Joao Varela (who came from Cape Verde) his deputy in the “Pim Fortuyn List” party. Fortuyn very rarely spoke his mind on “ecological subjects.” However, his comment on the ecological movement was often quoted in newspapers: “The whole environmental policy in the Netherlands has no substance any more. And I’m sick to death of your environmental movement.”[220] The media circulated the information that after winning the elections, Fortuyn planned to lift the ban on breeding fur animals.

Van der Graaf spent a lot of time preparing for Fortuyn’s assassination by, among other things, browsing the Internet for information on the victim and his place of stay. The attack on Fortuyn was carried out on May 6, 2002 in front of the 3 FM broadcasting station headquarters in Hilversum. Fortuyn was on his way out of the radio building and into the parking lot, when Volkert van der Graaf shot him in the back 6 times, and subsequently tried to flee the scene. But he was soon captured. Initially, van der Graaf testified that he killed Fortuyn because the latter wanted to do away with the law that prohibited breeding nutria. However, during the trial he said that his goal was the protection of Muslims, who could have suffered, had Fortuyn won the election. In his final declaration van der Graaf testified that he committed the murder to protect “the weakest part of the society,” which, according to him, included animals: “I saw him as a highly vindictive man who used the feeling in society to boost his personal stature. The ideas he had about refugees, asylum seekers, the environment, animals (...). He was always using or abusing the weak side of society to get ahead.”[221]

After arresting van der Graaf, at his home the police found evidence that he had probably taken part in a series of attacks on poultry farms, and in an action that consisted in liberating minks and setting fire to the plant where they were kept. They also found specific information on breeding farms, anarchist literature, and pictures of three members of Fortuyn’s party, which could suggest that Volkert van der Graaf had been planning other attacks. In his garage, the police found calcium hypochlorite and sulfuric acid, which (according to experts) can be used in building firebombs and explosives.

10.3 Theodore Kaczynski

Another “lone wolf,” Theodore John Kaczynski (also known as the Unabomber) - the man behind a series of bomb attacks carried out between 1978 and 1995, in which 3 people were killed and 23 were injured - was born on May 22, 1942 in Chicago, in a working-class family, which originally came from Poland. Already as a small child, Kaczynski was perceived as a very talented person, although at the same time a little “withdrawn” and very shy. After graduating from high school, he was granted a scholarship at the Harvard University. He completed his studies there in 1962 and obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Soon afterward, he transferred to the University of Michigan, where he wrote and defended his doctoral thesis in Mathematics, entitled “Boundary Function” (which reportedly solved a problem that one of his professors used to work on without success). In 1967, at the age of 25, Kaczynski was employed as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of California in Berkeley. However, his academic career did not last long. In the fall of 1969, Kaczynski handed in his notice, without providing any reasons for his resignation. Two years later he left Berkeley and moved to Montana, where he settled - near the city of Lincoln. In that period he took various odd jobs, but gave them all up, because he claimed he was exploited by his employers. In the mid-1970s Kaczynski briefly returned to his family home, but he did not manage to form close relations with his family. So he went back to Montana and bought a small summer cabin, where he lived until he was captured in 1996.

Kaczynski began his terrorist activity on May 25, 1978. It was then that he planted a package containing a self-made bomb in the parking lot near the building of the Department of Science and Technology at the University of Illinois. The package (with a stamp), addressed to professor E. Smith from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy (New York), was found by Mary Gutierrez, who took it home and then contacted Buckley Crist, an IT professor from the Northwestern University, whose name was written at the back of the package. Crist did not recognize the package and handed it over to a security officer Terry Marker. When Marker tried to open it, the bomb (whose construction was based on match heads) exploded, causing only superficial injuries. Immediately after that act, Kaczynski wrote in his journal: “I took the bomb over to the U of Chicago Circle Campus and surreptitiously dropped it between two parked cars in the lot near the Science and Technology Buildings. I hoped that a student - preferably one in a science or technology field - would pick it up and would either

be a good citizen and take the package to a post office to be sent to Rensselaer, or would open the package himself and blow his hands off, or get killed.”[222] A year after that event, on May 9, 1979, Kaczynski planted another explosive (hidden in a taped cigar box), this time at the Technological Institute of the Northwestern University. The box was found by John Harris, a student of Civil Engineering, who sustained minor injuries when he tried to open it (Douglas and Olshaker, 1996, p. 160). That event also prompted Kaczynski to write an entry in his journal: “I had hoped that the victim would be blinded or have his hands blown off or be otherwise maimed ... At least I put him in the hospital, which is better than nothing. But not enough to satisfy me. Well, live and learn. No more match-head bombs. I wish I knew how to get hold of some dynamite.”[223]

At that point, the police had not been inclined to attribute the attacks to the same perpetrator. They changed their mind after the third attack, carried out on November, 15, 1979. This time the target was an American Airlines passenger plane and the instrument was an explosive placed in air cargo sent by Kaczynski from Chicago to Washington. The explosive was equipped with an altimeter and blew up in the mail container when the plane reached the altitude of 2000 feet. As a result of the explosion, the pressure in the plane dropped and the room filled with smoke. None of the passengers sustained serious injuries (only 12 people were hospitalized due to smoke poisoning), but the plane had to make an emergency landing. After that incident, the FBI gave Kaczynski the nickname “the Unabomber” (it was created based on the words: “UNiversity,” “Airlines” and BOMbings), and Kaczynski wrote in his journal “In some of my notes I mentioned a plan for revenge on society. Plan was to blow airliner in flight ... Unfortunately plane not destroyed, bomb too weak.”[224]

During the next five years the Unabomber sent or planted another seven bombs targeted at airlines or universities (with a predominance of the latter). These bombs injured five people in total. The Unabomber’s first fatal bomb attack was carried out on December 11, 1985. The victim was Hugh Campbell Scrutton, owner of a computer store in Sacramento (California), who on that day found a piece of wood with nails driven into it, in front of his store. When he lifted it, the bomb (which contained nail pieces) exploded. The explosion ripped his chest open and tore his right arm off.

The victim died 30 min later. After that killing, there was a two-year break. On February 20, 1987, there was another attack, also targeted at a computer store (Salt Lake City, Utah). During that attack, the store owner Gary Wright sustained serious injuries to his face and his left arm. But this time there was a witness who saw the Unabomber. FBI created an identikit picture, but its publication did not contribute to solving the case. The victims of the two next attacks (June 22 and 24, 1993) were two research workers - the world-famous geneticist Charles Epstein, professor at the University of California, and David Gelernter, IT professor at Yale University. They both sustained serious injuries to their arms. After those attacks, Kaczynski wrote “I sent these devices during June 1993. They detonated as they should have. The effect of both of them was adequate but no more than adequate.”[225]

Before he was arrested in 1996, Kaczynski carried out two more bomb attacks - on December 10, 1994 and on April 24, 1995. Both were fatal. The victim of the first one was Thomas Mosser who worked in the management of Burson-Marsteller, a public relations company which, as it later turned out, was accused by Kaczynski and Earth First! of whitewashing the image of Exxon, the company responsible for contaminating Alaska’s Prince William Sound with oil. The second victim was Gilbert Murray - the president of California Forestry Association. This time, the explosion force was so big that Bob Taylor’s team (Taylor was a biologist who left the room 30 s earlier) was unable to find Murray’s body.

The Unabomber was arrested on April 3, 1996 in his cabin in Montana. But the reason for his arrest were not mistakes in preparation and performance of the actions, but Kaczynski’s correspondence with the media, initiated by him in April 1993. Especially interesting was one long letter written to New York Times on April 24, 1995, signed by “FC terrorist group.” The letter, which was a kind of declaration of world view, explained that the reason for Thomas Mosser’s death was his work for the PR company Burston-Marsteller (there was an error in the name of the company, which later served as proof in establishing what the links between the Unabomber and Earth First! were - E.P.), which was infamous for “whitewashing” the image of Exxon, and which was developing “techniques for manipulating people’s attitudes.” The author of the letter wrote that the goal of the “FC terrorist group,” which also called itself an anarchist group, was to destabilize the contemporary industrial society and, in the long run, to destroy it entirely. According to the Unabomber, it would be best to eradicate “all types of societies” and replace them with small, completely autonomous groups. Of course, that last statement resembles the views of the radical environmentalists form Earth First!, according to whom, the best form of social existence consists in living in small, isolated communes, which meet only once a year during a holiday that would celebrate the overthrowing of the old, industrial system. This is not the end of similarities with Earth First! views. At a later point in the letter, the Unabomber declared that he shall abandon terrorist activity as long as New York Times, Times, or Newsweek publishes his “extensive article containing 29,000 or 37,000 words.” However, he emphasized that the “promise we make concerns the cessation of terrorism, although we reserve the right to engage in sabotage.” The Unabomber defines terrorism and sabotage in a similar way to Earth First! and to other extremist ecological groups: “By terrorism we mean actions motivated by a desire to influence the development of a society and intended to cause injury or death to human beings. By sabotage we mean similarly motivated actions intended to destroy property without injuring human beings.”[226]

On that same day (April 24, 1995), the Unabomber sent a letter to the IT professor David Gelernter, who sustained serious injuries in the explosion of one of the bombs that the Unabomber constructed (1993). The letter featured criticism of Gelernter’s claim (published in his book “Mirror Worlds”) that the technological development of the computer-dominated world is inevitable. In his letter Kaczynski wrote “In the epilogue of your book you tried to justify your research by claiming that the developments you describe are inevitable, and that any college person can learn enough about computers to compete in a computer-dominated world. Apparently people without a college degree don’t count (...). In any case, being informed about computers won’t enable anyone to prevent invasion of privacy (through computers), genetic engineering, environmental degradation through excessive economic growth, and so forth (.). If the developments you describe are inevitable, they are not inevitable in the way old age or bad weather are inevitable. They are inevitable only because techno nerds like you make them inevitable. If there were no computer scientists there would be no progress in computer science. (.) but we do not believe that progress and growth are inevitable.”[227]

The Unabomber’s article entitled “Industrial Society and its Future” (later known as “The Unabomber’s Manifesto”) was published in New York Times and Washington Post on September 19, 1995. But before that happened, the FBI asked 50 professors from different universities to read the content of the treatise, in the hope that one of them could recognize a former student based on characteristic grammar forms. This attempt was not successful. It was Theodore Kaczynski’s brother, David, who recalled a similar antitechnology treatise written by his brother in 1971, and informed the police.

Although the Manifesto was probably written based on the Unabomber’s own experiences and reflections, it is hard not to notice certain similarities between his views and the ideology advocated by radical environmentalists from Earth First! Two threads are especially similar: (1) radical criticism of the industrial civilization and (2) positive valuation of wild nature. Similarly to Earth First! radicals, the Unabomber believes that constant technological progress has had a bad influence on human life, which became empty, apathetic, devoid of fulfillment, and dignity. If technological progress continues, this state of affairs will deteriorate, because it “will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering” (Kaczynski, 2012, p. 1). But why is it so? Kaczynski claims (apparently following in Nietzsche’s footsteps) that humans have a natural need for acquiring power, which can only be fully realized when their vital needs are fulfilled with a relatively big effort. But in modern society only minimal efforts suffice in order to fulfill vital needs, which is why people are unfulfilled, apathetic, and why they desperately look for artificial ways of satisfying the desire for power (such as research activity, acquiring wealth and prestige, and identification with large groups). According to Kaczynski, the depreciation of “real goals” set by vital needs destroys the most important thing - human freedom - which he defines as “the opportunity to go through the power process, with real goals, not the artificial goals of surrogate activities, and without interference, manipulation, or supervision from anyone” (Kaczynski, 2012, p. 11). Humans can return to the world of freedom. But in order to do that, they need to destroy the technological system and turn toward that system’s counter-ideal - wild nature. Until this point, the views of the Unabomber and Earth First! radicals seem to converge. The differences appear in the question of valuation of wild nature. Earth First! activists consider nature to be alive and sacred. It is a being to which the highest moral value should be attributed. Humans and other beings are valued in a way through their participation in the sacred cycle of life in harmony with nature (biocentrism). The Unabomber does not believe nature has absolute value,[228] and he does not think life is sacred. According to him, the goal is human autonomy, which is possible only when humans return to the bosom of nature (anthropocentrism). But humans have to pay the price for the return itself, which amounts to a significant number of human casualties (misanthropy - shared by Earth First! and the Unabomber).

Soon after Kaczynski was imprisoned, speculations about his connections to environmentalism began. Although the Unabomber did not quote any contemporary ecologists in his treatise, some people compared its content and form with Al Gore’s 1992 book entitled “Earth on Balance,” and also looked for the Unabomber’s links to Earth First! While comparing both books did not lead to any sensible conclusions, looking for connections between the Unabomber and Earth First! proved to be much more successful. Already in the early stages of the investigation, the Unabomber was induced to confess that after the 1995 killing of Gilbert Murray from California Forest Association, he wrote a letter to Earth First! signed as “FC.” It is also quite probable that in choosing California Forest Association as the target, he was guided by the “Eco-Fucker Hit List” published in 1990 in a radical environmental magazine entitled “Live Wild or Die” (sponsored by Earth First!). The list featured 75 companies that sponsored the 1989 conference of the wise use movement - National Wilderness Conference in Reno (Nevada). The list included California Forest Association and Burson-Marsteller, among other companies. Also during the investigation, Kaczynski admitted that he chose one of his (fatal) victims, a Burson-Marsteller manager, after he had read an article in Earth First! Journal. It does not seem that this declaration was a lie. In the letter addressed to New York Times (April 24, 1995) the Unabomber explained that he blew Thomas Mosser up “because he was a Burston-Marsteller executive. Among other misdeeds, Burston-Marsteller helped Exxon clean up its public image after the Exxon Valdez incident.”[229] The letter contained two inaccuracies. First, Burson-Marsteller had nothing to do with the said incident. Second, the name of the company was misspelled - the first element of the name contained the letter “t” (“Burston”), which was incorrect. Soon after the Unabomber’s arrest, the investigators found a copy of Earth First! Journal from June 21, 1993, where the company’s name (accused of “whitewashing” Exxon’s image) was misspelled in the same way as in the Unabomber’s letter. When the police was searching the Unabomber’s cabin, they also found a letter addressed to Earth First!, entitled “Suggestion for Earth First!ers from FC,” which confirmed that his knowledge about the Burson-Marsteller company stemmed from the Earth First! magazine. According to some scholars, there are also proofs that the Unabomber attended some of Earth First! meetings, including the one in November 1994 at the University of Montana, during which activists were forming the strategy against multinational corporations, as well as proofs that he was supported by Earth First!’s biocentric fraction (Lee, 1997). Barry Clausen, who was involved in the invigilation of Earth First! for a long time, claims that Kaczynski was also present on the conference organized by activists from the Native Forest Network - an organization that opposes the destruction of temperate forests (many of its members were concurrently members of Earth First!) (Clausen, 2000). From the very beginning, Earth First! has denied any links to the Unabomber. Craig Beneville, editor of Earth First! Journal, pointed out that “the Unabomber has been bombing people for a lot longer than Earth First! Has been in existence.”[230] A different editor of that journal, Leslie Hemstreet, claimed that associating the group with the Unabomber “is like blaming the pope for people who are killing abortion doctors.”[231] Judi Bari, at that time the most influential person in Earth First!, decidedly dissociated herself from the Unabomber, stating that “Bombing is outside of the ideology [of the group - E.P.], and always has been. It is outside the debate of even the most extreme person in Earth First!”[232]

It is worth adding that not all activists of the ecological movement dissociate themselves from any connections with the Unabomber. John Zerzan, one of the editors of Green Anarchy (a radical ecological-anarchist magazine) and organizer of antiglobalization demonstrations in Seattle in 1999, regularly corresponded with the Unabomber after his arrest and visited him in prison. In the spring of 2002, Green Anarchy listed the Unabomber as “prisoner of war” and published his article entitled “Hit Where It Hurts” (Kaczynski, 2011). In that article, Kaczynski called on anarchists to give up their attempts to attack the technological and industrial system based on values that are accepted by that system. Such actions, he claims, do not contribute to the system’s destruction; quite the opposite, they force it to introduce reforms, which make it stronger. In order to put an end to negative phenomena generated by the system, one has to attack not the things that the system can reform, but its “vital organs” - the industries of IT, communication, electricity propaganda, or biotechnology.

Of course, one could present certain reservations to the cases of lone wolf terrorism presented in this chapter. For instance, one could question whether the Unabomber was governed by “real” environmental ideology, or whether he was just a Luddite motivated by hatred toward technology, who adopted only some elements of that ideology. The case of Volkert van der Graaf is also not an entirely “model” one. According to his own declaration, he killed Fortuyn not only for pro-animal reasons, but also in defense of the “oppressed social classes.” However, these reservations do not change the fact that in both cases there is a close connection between the perpetrators’ world view and a specific ideology (environmental and pro-animal, respectively), and I believe this allows us to treat both cases as examples of ecological terrorism.

Will there be a dynamic development of “lone wolf” activity in the ecological domain (not necessarily linked with direct violence) in the future? It seems that such scenario is very probable, at least for two reasons. The first one is the creation (and constant development) of new information and communication technologies that enable relatively easy (and to a large extent anonymous) exchange of information. Of course, among those technologies, a special role is played by the Internet. Mark Potok, analyst from Southern Poverty Law Center, aptly notes that “The Internet is an important piece of the leaderless resistance strategy. It allows lone wolves to keep abreast of events, changes in ideology and discussions of tactics - all of which may influence his own choice of target. Far more than hard copy publications, the Internet allows the lone wolf to remain a part of a larger movement even though he attends no meetings, puts his name on no lists, and generally tries to remain invisible.”[233] I do not believe it is a coincidence that the number of lone wolf terrorist actions increased in the 1990s - the period when the Internet started to develop rapidly.[234] Another possible reason for a future dynamic development of ecological activity based on the “lone wolf” strategy is the positive valuation of that kind of activity within the movement itself. Most radical ecologists agree that taking up individual activity (both legal and illegal) is a proof of the highest involvement that a person can show. So it is no surprise that radical literature is full of appeals “not to look to others” and to undertake activity on one’s own. According to many radicals, such activity is “something highly noble,” and also relatively safe (mainly due to the difficulty of invigilation). The “Declaration of War,” regarded as one of the most radical ecological texts, also features encouragement to actions of that kind: “Remember, this is a war, and humans are the enemy. This also means that you should work alone or with one or two other tried and true friends. People have been known to turn on even the closest friends with little apparent provocation. The war you are fighting might provide life and death reasons for others to turn on you. It also implies that liberators have no leader. We are not organized in the traditional sense of the word. We are independent people accepting the responsibility of freeing our family members from human oppression.”[235]

It is hard to imagine that law enforcement bodies could effectively prevent individual actions, especially when the perpetrators do not inform the public of their intentions, and do not send any signals that could indicate those intentions. What makes it even more difficult is the fact that usually “lone wolf” strategy is chosen by individuals who are highly fanatic and who do not withdraw in the face of failure or lack of support from other members of the movement. As far as transfer of information is concerned, such individuals sometimes create a virtual all-channel network, or they content themselves with a node network or a multinode network. In the first case there is a chance that their Internet activity could be located and identified; in the second case (which is much more frequent), it is practically impossible. In that event, catching them becomes a matter of chance.

11. New Terrorism: Determinants, Working Methods, and Directions of Development

11.1 Globalization and terrorism

Terrorism (including ecoterrorism) is not an essentially determined phenomenon with fixed features and manifestations but is rather of a dynamic, rapidly changing nature that is difficult to be perceived unambiguously. Obviously, it does not mean that it is impossible to come up with a general and, thus, simplified characteristics of its internal transformations that have occurred during the last half-century. The most important of these are presented in Table 11.1.

Transformations within terrorism occur, as presented in Table 11.1, in many various spheres (however, it seems that the most significant appear in the organizational and communicational ones). To some extent, they are a consequence of terrorism evolution that has occurred on the motivational layer (extension of the goals spectrum, ideological universalism) but mostly, they result from the adaptation of terrorist groups to some continuously changing realities - political, economic, as well as cultural. These realities, after the downfall of the bipolar world, are currently becoming increasingly defined by two main factors: (1) globalization and (2) development of new technologies. These two factors will serve as a basis for my further considerations.

Globalization,[236] taking into account its various aspects and manifestations, belongs to the most significant determinants of new terrorism. Regardless of the fact that globalization is an economic, political, and cultural phenomenon, it is predominantly investigated by various scholars via its economic aspects.[237] It is described as the phenomenon connected with some internal transformations within capitalism, which are directed toward the international production network and have nothing in common with ethnic or national contexts. The source of those transformations consists in the appearance after World War II of some instruments and institutions responsible for the free movement of goods, services, and people across borders of nation states.[238] During the conference, held in Bretton Woods (New Hampshire, USA) in July 1944, two important institutions were established, namely, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The main purpose of their activities was to control and regulate various areas of international economy. In October 1947, in turn, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was signed by 33 countries. It aimed at liberating international trade and at eliminating barriers that prevented the creation of international cooperation (one of the effects, resulting from drafting the agreement, was the reduction of average duties by 10%). Finally, in 1994, following GATT, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established. Its goal was to eliminate limitations in intellectual exchange and in investments related to trade. All countries associated with the WTO are obliged to make their legislation in compliance with the norms of the organization and to grant trading licenses to foreign entities. The mentioned institutions are obviously not the only ones that act on account of removing barriers in the free movement of capital and services. Their influence, however, on the development of globalization is in many respects perceived as the most important one.

One of the political consequences of world trade liberalization (in terms of the research on the future of terrorism, which is the most interesting herein) is gradual loss of control over economic activities by nation states.[239] Certainly, national states still make decisions (that from the formal-legal point of view are of an independent nature) but they are increasingly limited by some international economic and political conditions. Taking into consideration these conditions, the states become less and less similar to the centralized, relatively autonomous authorities that are able to enforce their sovereign power within the borders of their territories. Being dependent on international institutions, they started to act like “conveyer belts” that facilitate transporting goods and capital within areas in which their jurisdiction becomes increasingly doubtful (Cox, 1987).

Table 11.1 Differences Between Traditional and New Terrorism

	Traditional Terrorism	New Terrorism
Organizational affiliation	Precisely defined and relatively permanent	Poorly defined, amorphous, heterogeneous
Form of organization	Hierarchic (subordination within the order structure)	Maximally flattened, based mainly on all-channel networks and leaderless resistance
Communication within organization	Direct, based on personal contacts	Various: direct and indirect, often depersonalized
Extent of activity	Limited, mostly local	Very broad, international
Size of organization	Small or medium-sized, with limited recruitment capacity	Small- or medium-sized, but with almost unlimited recruitment capacity
Targets	Carefully chosen group of individuals usually belonging to the ruling or privileged class	Wide spectrum of targets, usually chosen more or less accidentally
Financing	Low financial capability, obtaining funds from donations and extortions, sometimes by means of the so-called “expropriation,” rarely supported by the state	High financial capability, raising funds in various ways: donations, funds acquired by conducting criminal activities, but also thanks to some legally functioning entities, state support less significant

Source: Own elaboration.

The process of functioning economies outside of their national context (their sui generis deterritorialization) has a great influence on politics and culture. Changes they undergo are sometimes described in terms of disappearances, that is, disappearance of national and political independence, disappearance of nationally defined culture. As a result of those changes, the state ceases to control information flow and, consequently, the people (as well as the state itself) are more and more sensitive to global events (Blyth, 2004, p. 44). This process, of course, evolves gradually but still it is a permanent trend that significantly influences the reality of security, including the possibility of intensifying threats frequently referred to as asymmetric.[240]

The existence of international institutions, based on the idea of global economy, is not the only serious challenge that the nation states face. Another challenge, frequently mentioned in the subject literature, comes from growing in power non-national, globally connected actors, who act both legally (e.g., various activists operating within various networks or international campaigns, such as the Campaign to Ban Landmines), as well as criminally and illegally (e.g., the Al-Qaida terrorist network). At this point it is worth mentioning that contrary to traditional terrorist organizations (IRA, FARC in Colombia, and PLO in the Middle East) that were territorially oriented, new network terrorism (e.g., Al-Qaida) is no longer connected with a certain territory - it means that it does not operate within a certain territory and it does not have any territorial aims. Therefore, against this kind of terrorism, it is difficult to use armed forces or regularly organized forces of law and order. The access to strategic weapons (biological, chemical, or nuclear) of those non-national, illegal actors will, in turn, demand reassessing the former defense strategies.

The process of globalization, which mainly means the increase of mutual relations and interdependencies, will probably become more intense. The report Global Trends 2015,[241] sponsored by the CIA and published in 2000, confirms this tendency and suggests at the same time that this process may be even intensified to some extent. During his lecture at the London School of Economics, President Bill Clinton, while commenting on the events of September 11, 2001, noticed that “the world has grown increasingly interdependent and isolation is no longer an option.”[242] It means, in practice, that even if a state would like to close its borders against terrorists and dangerous infections, effectiveness of such solutions would be very limited.[243]

Globalization is a phenomenon closely interrelated with a new, arising form of a social (organization) structure defined as the network society. That structure, to put it shortly, is such a social construction in which the networked form of organization replaces other forms regardless of any economic, political, or cultural categories representing a traditional nation state. The factor that enabled the establishment of network societies was the appearance of network communication technologies and information distribution that shape the infrastructure of a larger, globally expanding system of social, political, and economic practices. According to Castells, the network society “is made up of networks of production, power, and experience, which construct a culture of virtually in the global flows that transcend time and space (Castells, 2010a).” Castells enumerates some features of such a society, namely, its economy is organized and oriented globally by means of a network structure; it is based upon information transfer; in this kind of society the traditional experience of time and space is blurred;[244] and finally (this feature is the most important for us), power is a function of the access to the network and the control of the transfer.[245]

The last feature reveals the dark side of a networked society. In this kind of society, network access, or precisely its transfer constitutes an exclusion barrier, a border separating those strong and weak, rich and poor. Castells argues that networks work as gateways, and within the network new possibilities are being constantly created. It is more and more difficult to subsist outside the networks (Castells, 2001). Being in the network does not mean, of course, equality. In principle, inequality is inscribed in the network, which is a result of various significance of particular nodes and nature of certain networks (financial, social, freight, cultural networks). Some of the nodes are “powerful” - they control and initiate transfers (corporations, large worldwide companies), whereas others are only recipients of the transfers (consumers) (Barney, 2004). These strong nodes will control access to the worldwide transfer network, excluding (to smaller or bigger extent) those who do not have the access or their access is somehow limited. That has, of course, consequences within political, economic, and social spheres. The excluded (individuals, classes, nations) create the “fourth world” consisting of “black holes in informational capitalism” (Castells, 2010b), namely, the areas inhabited by those who, from the point of view of those participating in the transfer network (mainly of great global capitalism), do not count much (due to their infinitesimal contribution to consumption and social life). The latter includes, for instance, homeless or those living in slums in Latin America or Asia. In this way globalization, represented in a transfer network, establishes a new, not that great brave world of poverty and exclusion. The world, which according to Castells, must naturally become a source of conflict.

Castells thinks that today we live in a special moment of history. Globalization and informationization initiated and created by wealth and power networks have completely changed our world. The abstractness of power in a computer network has induced a disintegration of previous social control mechanisms and political representation which, in turn, results, as Castells claims, in a common feeling of losing control over one’s own life, work, economies, government, and natural habitat. Moreover, the nation state (formerly the source of values and sense), being omitted by global wealth and power networks, has lost the ability to represent its territorially rooted communities. Therefore, it has become an “empty shell,” less able to serve as a point of reference. As a result, the world becomes alien for most people since any sources of power appear to be beyond reach. This state of affairs, according to Castells, has great consequences when it comes to the possibility of creating a collective sense or, to put it differently, establishing and preserving social identities.[246] However, in the new, globalized, individualized, and networked world, identities are no more needed. In Castells’ opinion, the following elements are necessary to function: primary instincts, power drive, and self-focused, strategic calculation. Nevertheless, the need of possessing the collective sense does not disappear. On the contrary, the lack of its institutionalized provider makes the need stronger and more demanding. That results in the appearance of collective identity expressions that challenge globalization in favor of cultural uniqueness and people’s taking control over their lives. Those new identities (called by Castells “resistance identities”) rebel against the domination of legal and global structures, as well as against powerlessness that they experience, and establish new sources of sense and values. Identity expressions may include either proactive movements, such as feminism and environmentalism, or reactive ones that refer to the tradition and the past, such as nationalism or religious fundamentalism. Both types of movements (and identities at the same time) question what has seemed to be difficult to be questioned before, namely, democracy that is based on the historical construction of the civil state, which is also questioned as the source of legitimacy. Alternative projects created by new cultural communes issue a challenge to the logic of new global order which is, in fact, considered by many as a disorder. This challenge is not a manifestation of powerless resistance of weak people but a real power that may become the basis for changes in the world. Unlike pluralistic civil societies, these new cultural identities, called by Castells resistance identities, show slight internal diversification and enable them to ensure a shelter and consolation. The resistance identities do not communicate with the state or any of its subordinated institutions. They do not communicate even with each other as they are built upon completely new values.

That is why their coexistence is rarely peaceful. However, it does not mean they are separated from the outside world. The resistance identities, as Castells assures, may generate project identities (cultural communities connected by the vision of changing previous structures) that aim at transforming society as a whole, consistent with the values of community resistance.[247] According to Castells, the project identities constitute not only radical ecology movements or the Zapatista insurgents, antiglobalization movements, but also the Japanese cult of Aum Shinrikyo. In such case, as it may be presumed, their internal power may strengthen and they might become new, autonomous sources of order and power.

As it may be seen, the vision of the world presented by Castells has little in common with the optimistic vision of the end of history described by Francis Fukuyama. The final point of the ideological evolution has not been reached at all. The liberal democracy and the free market are not subjects of conscious and unconscious human aspirations. At the same time, scientific and technical progress does not generate freedom automatically - the level on which the need of appreciation (the characteristic Nietzsche’s will of power) would be provided. Furthermore, harmony does not arise from the ideological and political chaos. On the contrary, there is a chaos of multiple identities (multiple points of reference) that compete with each other in the name of their uniqueness and conscious particularism. If the vision of Castells proves to be true (which, in the light of the conducted sociological studies seems to be quite probable), then it might be difficult to resolve the problem of extremism (at least in the nearest future). The identities are, indeed, the implementation of the only “right project” - they need, thus, to stay in a permanent conflict not only with the world they emerged from and which they contest, but also with all of what might be an alternative for this world. If so, there is no possibility to restrain them peacefully or to incorporate them into a common paradigm. The only possible option, available for them, is to fight for full domination and unquestionable prestige.

If the prognoses of Castells prove to be true and globalization leads to a great conflict (between the class of the excluded and the owners of the transfer network), then it might be probable that antihegemonic terrorism, directed against symbols of globalization including the United States and their satellites, will grow. Some of the authors claim even that globalization guarantees such a growth (Li and Schaub, 2004; Lizardo, 2006). Nevertheless, it is rather unlikely that this conflict would become a military one. The superiority of the West greatly excludes such a possibility. Some asymmetric conflicts should be rather expected (without a battleground or a front), in which an opponent will use some unconventional methods, such as the economic war (e.g., operations in a cyberspace destabilizing economic situations), the psychological war (e.g., propaganda actions), or terrorism (direct attacks on a structure of the particular state and its citizens). These conflicts will undoubtedly constitute a great challenge for the institutions of state defense, since new terrorist organizations (that were mentioned in Chapters 9 and 10) are not of a hierarchic nature, but they are rather networked and fully decentralized.

The implications of globalizations are perceived differently by Donald Black. Basing his concept on the social distance theory (mainly on the theory of Robert Sechal de la Roche), he claims that in order for terrorism to come into being, the particular “social geometry” is needed. The geometry in which victims and perpetrators belong to various ethnic, socio-economic, and cultural groups (they represent distinct identities, as Castells puts it) and they interact with each other only on a few levels. According to this concept, terrorism is unlikely to appear in homogenous societies. In this kind of societies, as Black describes, conflicts have always led to some milder forms of violence (riots, abductions, political murders, and formation of underground armies) that have not resulted in many civil victims (Black, 2004). Black claims that “social distance”[248] does not constitute the sufficient enough condition for “true terrorism.”[249] What needs to occur is the possibility of physical contact and closeness. For hundreds of years social distance was coinciding with physical distance, which made pure terrorism impossible.[250] Terrorism, in its “pure form” is an invention of the twentieth century. That was the time when the precontemporary barriers of physical distance were broken and consequently “socially” greatly distant groups connected. In the age of globalization this “direct contact” becomes even closer thanks to cheap and fast transport, new technologies, electronic communication, as well as opening borders. It seems that this situation may cause an increase in the intensity of terrorist attacks. This scenario seems to be compliant with the prognosis of the Global Trends 2015 Report that predicts that terrorists will try to reach for weapons of mass destruction.

According to Black, intensifying of terrorist activities is a short-term scenario. In a wider perspective, globalization together with its immanent attributes, that is, modern communication and removal of spatial barriers, will lead to the destruction of the socially determined geometry of terrorism (based on divergences and inequalities) and will put it into a “sociological nonexistence” (Black, 2004).

Consequently, the optimistic vision concerning the end of terrorism seems to be based on the conviction that globalization, leading to mixing up of cultures and people, must result in removing socially significant divergences that cause violence, at least violence of a terrorist nature. This thesis immediately raises some doubts. Indeed, globalization induces mixing up of cultures and people, but today it does not translate into abolishing of social distance or any form of integrity. Moreover, globalization by removing barriers in the transfer of capital, goods, and people influences, in different ways, various communities - in some of them this influence is connected with prosperity and in others it means standstill or even a downfall. In that way, social distance is not reduced at all but rather increases (proportionally to the distance between the rich and the poor). The drop in significance of nation states (primarily of their roles in world economy), frequently providing social privileges, does not reduce social inequalities. Although globalization annihilates cultural boundaries (or at least it tries to do that), it entails also the disintegration of social space which, in turn, results in fragmentation of this space, that is, in creating great “cultural enclaves” strongly defending their identities and avoiding other enclaves or the mainstream of mass culture. Globalization “mixes up people and cultures” - this is true; however, at the same time, it does not produce unity but rather an eruption of collective and individual identities. Despite of the fact that not all of them can be described in categories of social exclusion, it does not mean that they cannot become a source of terrorism. The difficulty of this kind would appear, for instance, in the case of radical ecologists or animal rights defenders who barely fit the category of the excluded - they usually are white middle class people (93-98%), who are well educated (most of them graduated from a university), living in cities, and operating new communication technologies with ease (Jamison, 1998; Shapiro, 1994). In their case, “the exclusion” is not a result of social distance. Nevertheless, it does not mean that the term “exclusion” is incorrect here. The process of globalization takes place on various levels and generates different kinds of depreciations. One of such “depreciations” is restricting real influence on crucial political decisions regarding, for example, environment or animal protection. The possibility of such an influence becomes weaker as nation states, in which the real scope of power has been transferred to other actors, increasingly “disappear.” On the other hand, we observe growing frustration and resentment among those who do not recognize in the democratic institutions of civil society any real power, which would be able to efficiently change the reality they do not accept.[251] The individuals of that kind are no longer helpless isolated outsiders but rebels who are sure about their beliefs, the right to follow them, and who also enjoy social support. From the end of the twentieth century on, in their fight against the unfavorable reality, they have at their disposal a greatly effective weapon, which is the Internet.

11.2 Internet and terrorism

The influence of the Internet on various extremist and terrorist groups cannot be ignored. The activity of such formations in the Internet began quite recently, but it is growing rapidly.[252] An example of such an activity could be the IRA propaganda campaign (set on the Internet) in which some information regarding the ways of preparing the Molotov cocktail, forgery, operations of counter-espionage, as well as creating fake identities were provided (Lia, 2005, p. 180). Other examples could be the initiative of racist and neo-Nazi circles, the Redwatch, which consist in collecting and posting surnames, phone numbers, and addresses of persons qualified as enemies of white people (left-wing, homosexual, feminist, and antifascism organizations), some periodicals (e.g., the periodical of Al-Qaeda Mu’skar al-Battar, published online at the end of 2003, or the radical animal rights Bite Back Magazine), reports, instructions (for instance, the course “How to prepare RDX-explosives” posted in 2004 on the pro-Al-Qaeda Arabic website http://al3dad.jeeran.com), or a detailed project of building the cruise bullet for $500 posted by the independent New Zealand scientists, video films, and handbooks (e.g., Anarchist’s Cookbook, Terrorist’s Handbook, Big Book on Explosion, Encyclopedia of Preparation for Jihad containing, among other things, the instructions concerning biological weapons) published by various radicals (animal rights and environmental activists as well).[253] The number of such “publications” is constantly growing and often they are of practical and instructional nature. Finally, thanks to the Internet some individuals, who have common tasks and goals, may create subgroups, meet each other, modify tactics, carry out actions, and then easily terminate relations and disperse again (Zanini and Edwards, 2001; Cohen, 2002). The Internet makes it also possible for the members of a network to stay anonymous.[254] However, the strength of interpersonal contacts seems to be more or less the same as in the so-called “real life.” Due to some new information and communication technologies, participants of “network meetings” have gained a new “communication integrity” and a new, so to say, “virtual identity.” One of the members of such a network expressed it in an interesting way: “All of my comrades and I, none of whom I have ever met face-to-face, share a unique camaraderie, feeling as though we have been friends for a long time. Selfless cooperation occurs regularly amongst my comrades for a variety of endeavours. This feeling of comradeship is irrespective of national identity or State borders” (Crawford, 1996; Whine, 1999). The Internet naturally constitutes a perfect propaganda tool. In the past, the members of extremist formations were forced to communicate through acts of violence, hoping that they would have captured the public’s attention so effectively that it would have been possible to provide information regarding the reasons of such activities and their ideological justification. Along with the birth of the Internet, the same groups are able to spread information directly, without modifications being previously introduced by media or centers of power (Conway, 2002; Anderson, 2003; Damphousse and Smith, 1998). The Internet also enables extremist messages to be spread globally. Previously, there were few potential recipients within the reach of radical ideas. Nowadays, finding them through the Internet is easy.[255] Finally, the Internet serves extremist organizations as the source of knowledge and a practical tool facilitating their activities. In that way, for instance, the Osama Bin Laden network obtained, from the documents available online, some useful information regarding the construction of the World Trade Centre and techniques of spraying potentially poisonous substances. The initiators of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon booked their airline tickets on the Internet (Booth and Dunne, 2002; Conway, 2002). At this point it is also worth mentioning that various organizations (Hamas, IRA, ELF) use Internet websites for obtaining funds and emitting appeals calling for support (logistic, technical, and the battle one).

11.3 Cyberterrorism

Furthermore, the Internet can be also used for offensive goals. For example, to attack IT systems or data of an enemy. This kind of activity is usually defined as cyberterror- ism.[256] The threat related to using the Internet by terrorists has been raised many times. Barry Collin from the Institute for Security and Intelligence in California, who coined the term “cyberterrorism”[257] in the 1980s, already in 1997 described three potential scenarios of a cyberterrorist attack. In the first one, terrorists break into a computer system of a cornflakes factory and increase the level of some chemical substances in each package. As a consequence, diseases and deaths occur. In the second one, terrorists destabilize a country by attacking its financial institutions and its stock market (Kushner, 2003). And in the third, they attack the airline control system, which results in a communication chaos.[258]

There are many benefits of using cyberterrorism, such as the following: (1) contrary to traditional (common) terrorism, it is relatively cheap because it is not necessary to use any explosives or any other means of destruction that are fairly expensive to construct, store, and secure. Moreover, it is not needed to secure logistic actions. (2) Cyberterrorism is relatively safe for people who carry it out.[259] It enables them to be anonymous to a great extent. There is no risk connected with operating in space - lack of borders, control barriers, and possibility of being recognized. (3) It enables the perpetrators to “strike” at a comparatively significant number of entities and to generate great financial losses that may result in a large-scale paralysis and chaos, which brings about what is really important for terrorists, namely, media attention.

Are terrorists actually willing to use the Internet as an important tool for their attacks? According to James Lewis from the Strategic and International Studies, it is rather not probable for two reasons. First, important elements of a critical infrastructure are well secured. Gaining access to computers does not translate into control over them (not to mention destroying them). Second, cyber-attacks do not have such a great political impact that terrorists strive for. There is no blood and victims’ moans to be heard. An attack may go unnoticed and that for a terrorist is a failure of the mission (Lewis, 2002, p. 8, 2004).

Although these arguments may be persuasive, it does not seem that terrorists are considering not using cyber-attacks at all, since they are, after all, a dangerous and convenient tactic. Some elements of infrastructure (waterworks, nuclear power stations) appear, in fact, to be well protected against such attacks but this is not the case of all of them (Lemos, 2007). No earlier than in 1997, the Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection ascertained that electronic money transfer, electrical networks, military networks, as well as other 911 elements of infrastructure were extremely sensitive to cyber-attacks.[260] IT security specialists variously assess to what extent the critical infrastructure is susceptible to attacks with the use of informatics technologies. Some are of the opinion that it is possible to cause certain destruction in the system since among wide information and communication technology connections some of them are systemically weak. These statements are based on various simulations (e.g., in the experiment called “Aurora Generator Test,” conducted in 2007 by the scientists from Idaho National Laboratories, or in the war game called “Digital Pearl Harbor” organized in 2002 by the U.S. Naval War College) verifying the threat of state networks penetrations. The other experts indicate some difficulties in generating such damages due to the problems related to the identification of weakly protected elements, the duplication function present in each system, as well as to the fact of human control over the systems (Lewis, 2002; Wilson, 2008, p. 20; Verton, 2003). Obviously, full protection of the infrastructure appears to be the matter of the future, particularly in the countries less developed in terms of the ITC systems. The example is easy to find - in 2010, a software bug called Stuxnet was able to infect control systems of the nuclear reactor and oil pipelines in Iran. Although, as it seems, the main task of the bug was to gather information and send them further, it also damaged the centrifuge for uranium enrichment and 60,000 computer systems in Iran (and by “ricochet” several dozens of computer systems in other countries as well).[261] In January 2011, the Russian ambassador to NATO claimed that the Stuxnet could have caused an ecological catastrophe similar to the one in Chernobyl. The threat was allegedly averted.

However, the fact that the bug had been able to infiltrate the computers of the nuclear power station may raise justified doubts because it may encourage terrorists (or other entities) to organize more attacks of this kind.[262] Nevertheless, cyber-attacks, in order to be effective, that is, to destabilize systems and to awake social anxiety, do not need to touch the infrastructure. It would be enough that they would generate great losses and be frequent. These conditions are now more than fulfilled. It is true that it is not always possible to ascribe an ideological motivation to some activities in cyberspace. It should be remembered that terrorists often do not “sign” their attacks, or they “sign” those that they did not participate in. Despite of these difficulties, the interest in the Internet as a tool for destabilization and terror constantly increases among rebels of various kinds (including terrorists and extremists).[263]

At the beginning of the twenty-first century (the article of James Lewis was published in 2003, i.e., relatively a long time ago), the number of cyber-attacks was comparably low and they were not threatening enough for particular systems.[264] However, the situation had been changing rapidly, long before the amount of attacks increased (Wilson, 2008, pp. 28-29). According to the research of the Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center (CERT/CC) in 1990, 252 cases of safety violation in cyberspace were noted; in 1991, 406; in 1992, 773; in 1994, 2340; in 1995, 2412; in 1996, 2573; in 1997, 2134; in 1998, 3734; in 1999, 9859; in 2000, 21,756; in 2001, 52,658; in 2002, 82,094; and in 2003, 137,529.[265] Since 2004, the CERT has stopped preparing this kind of statistics due to the high level of automation of the attacks, which makes gathering reliable data impossible. While analyzing the statistics, it should be noticed that, in line with the methodology adopted by the CERT, each single attack may be considered herein as an attempt to violate the safety of a certain computer, as well as to infect millions of computers. Furthermore, not each and every attack is reflected in the statistics, thus the real number of attacks may be significantly higher.

Moreover, it is worth noticing that after 2003 the cases of safety violation became extremely sophisticated and threatening. They were also undoubtedly of a global nature. A good example depicting this tendency is the bug called Slammer (commonly known also as Sapphire) that appeared on January 25, 2003. This bug, within 10 min, infected Microsoft SQL servers all over the world. The particular feature of this bug was the amazing speed of spreading - it doubled the number of infected computers within 8.5 s (the full speed of scanning - 55 million per second, the Slammer reached within 3 s). The most severe losses did not occur due to the takeover of the Microsoft servers as a result of an exceptionally large traffic in the Internet, on account of which many other servers went down, which caused various problems (e.g., many flights were cancelled). In 2003, two other dangerous bugs appeared, namely, Sobig-F and MsBlaster. The total loss resulting from the activity of these three bugs amounted to $36.1 billion. Although it is not known who created them, it might be suspected that some terrorist organizations (or their supporters), including pro-Islamic hacker formations, organized those at- tacks.[266] These speculations are, however, difficult to confirm.[267] Many sources indicate that terrorist organizations are significantly interested in new technologies, including the Internet (Nakashima, 2010). As early as in March 2002, the experts from the CIA, in a report for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence claimed that “Various terrorist groups, including al-Qa’ida [sic] and Hizballah, are becoming more adept at using the Internet and computer technologies. These groups have both the intentions and the desire to develop some of the cyberskills necessary to forge an effective cyber-attack modus operandi” (Verton, 2002). This opinion has been also confirmed by the FBI report in 2003, where it is stated additionally that the Al-Qaeda terrorists gathered information regarding the Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) - the system that is used in the United States for monitoring the most important elements of state infrastructure (Poulsen, 2002; Habiger, 2010). In March 2010 the FBI director Robert S. Mueller stated that the threat of a cyber-attack organized by the Al-Qaeda is “real and rapidly expanding” (Nakashima, 2010). The evidence for such interest may be for example a 259-page handbook of Arabic hackers that was posted on many pro-Al-Qaeda web- sites,[268] as well as many websites run by radical Islamists who teach hacker techniques in the service of jihad (Habiger, 2010).

Nowadays, the majority of cyberterrorist attacks are Denial of Service attacks (DoS). These are attacks on computer systems and network services that consist in generating enormous amount of data, which results in overloading applications to the point when they stop working. A kind of DoS attack (becoming increasingly popular) is the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). This attack is carried out from many places, usually by means of botnets, that is, a group of infected by malignant software zombiecomputers that are remotely controlled - obviously the users are not aware of it. It is worth mentioning that a botnet usually consists of many computers. For example, the Storm botnet, which was able to cut off the Internet in a country as large as the United States, was constituted by 1-50 million computer systems, which were interconnected thanks to the Storm Worm Trojan horse. The attacks with the use of DDoS were organized, among others, in Estonia in 2007.[269] Consequently, the Internet websites of the Parliament, the Ministry of Defense and Justice, as well as of the police and public schools were blocked (six foreign connections must have been closed by the Estonian defense system). The two biggest banks, namely, the Hanspank and the SEB Uhispank, stopped operating their online services and suspended all foreign transactions which, in turn, led to unspecified losses in the sector. The vice-director of the American Readiness Team Mike Witt stated that attackers used botnets, most of which were located in the United States (Waterman, 2007). Botnets were also used in the attack in 2008 in Georgia, where the most important government websites were blocked. According to the data presented by the Shadowserver Foundation (which deals with monitoring criminal activity in the Internet), the server that coordinated DDoS was located in the United States. This opinion was also confirmed by other specialists, among others by Jose Nazario from the Abror Networks, who added that in the attack on Georgia, the world’s greatest botnets were used (Nazario, 2008). Of course, an attack that for a few hours or days blocks a particular service through total degradation of the bandwidth or other resources is not the only way to use a botnet. It might also successfully serve as a tool for spying or destroying the infrastructure of the enemy.

It should be noticed that traditional botnets usually had a hierarchical structure, which was managed and controlled by the central instruction system called botmaster. Such a structure may seem (for the creator of a particular botnet) to be quite risky due to an invigilation risk (e.g., it is possible to perform a detection on the basis of some characteristic data streams that flow through the managed network). However, in practice, it is not that easy. A well-written bot hides its presence and helps other bots, with which it builds a network, to act the same. In order to achieve that, various traffic redirections, virtual routing protocols (nodes recognizing their own data packets through cryptographically testified signatures), as well as proxy servers are being constructed (L^cki, 2007). Furthermore, in the near future, as some security specialists predict, a new type of botnet may appear. It is supposed to be more sophisticated, more difficult to detect or follow. This new type will be based on peer-to-peer protocol and, considering its decentralized pattern of control, it will be challenging to localize or destroy it (Wilson, 2008, pp. 6-7). Some specialists are of the opinion that a well- constructed peer-to-peer botnet[270] is almost impossible to be closed since it guarantees full anonymity to its creator, who appears as a regular node in the botnet network

(Espiner, 2007; Lemos, 2006). In such a situation, the attackers cannot be identified and, what is more important, it is impossible to respond to the attack. The attacking side becomes almost a perfect all-channel network that cannot be destroyed.

In September 1999, six researchers from the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Irregular Warfare at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monetary based on their analyses prepared a report “Cyberterror: Prospect and Implications” (Nelson et al., 1999). They tried to answer the question which of the following terrorist groups: religious, single-issue (called also by researchers New Age), ethno-nationalist, revolutionary, or far right extremist will reach for cyberterrorism. In their research they applied a three- level scale (based on the analyses of goals, ideology, psychology, as well as perception of cyberterrorism strategic usefulness among a particular type of group), referring to the level of “a cyberterror capability:” “(1) Simple-Unstructured: the capability to conduct basic hacks against individual systems using tools created by someone else. The organization possesses little target analysis, command and control or learning capability; (2) Advanced-Structured: The capability to conduct more sophisticated attacks against multiple systems or networks and possibly, to modify or create basic hacking tools. The organization possesses an elementary target analysis, command and control and learning capability; (3) Complex-Coordinated: The capability for coordinated attacks capable of causing mass-disruption against integrated, heterogeneous defenses (including cryptography). Ability to create sophisticated hacking tools. Highly capable target analysis, command and control, and organizational learning capability.” (Nelson et al., 1999, p. ix). According to the researchers, single-issue terrorists (being analyzed in the report on the example of ALF), who are active in countries where information technology is well developed, are most likely to use, in a threatening way, information technology to support their operations, as well as communication and propaganda activities. They will use simple hacking techniques (“the simple-unstructured level”) that are cheap to use or obtain, and those that require advanced skills and can be used to attack various systems and networks (“the advanced-structured level”). They will refrain, however, from generating, by means of information technologies, a massive chaos as it stands against their ideology and the pattern of their past behaviors (the complex-coordinated level) (Nelson et al., 1999, p. x, 54-56).

Despite of some objections that may be formulated with regard to the mentioned analysis (treating various kinds of single-issue groups as something ideologically and organizationally homogenous, considering these groups only by referring to the example of ALF), the diagnosis pertinent to ecoextremist groups seems to be justifiable. For a long time these groups have been using the Internet as a tool for fighting the hated system. The use of the Internet may be yet either defensive (using commercially available encryption methods, e.g., Pretty Good Privacy to communicate in a network) or offensive (DDoS cyber-attacks). There are undoubtedly many reasons that make the Internet a very important means of communicating and fighting. One of the most important is a specific networked organizational structure based directly on the model of “leaderless resistance,” which was discussed in Chapter 10. The Internet enables particular nodes in the network to communicate freely and safely, and communication in a nonhierarchic dispersed structure guarantees effective actions. The groups organized in that manner have at their disposal an effective tactic defined in the strategic literature as “swarming.”

11.4 Swarming

The swarming tactic is nothing new. In history there are many examples of using it (Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 2000). However, no earlier than in the twenty-first century, due to the fast development of communication technologies that enable the use the power of small combat units, it can become an important element of strategy for centrally organized powers and for free, unaffiliated groups or social movements.[271] Swarming may be generally defined as a “seemingly amorphous” but essentially “deliberately structured and coordinated” strategic way to strike from many directions at a particular point or points by means of pulsing force.[272] A swarming attack usually consists of many pulses (strikes) separated from each other. Each pulse consists of the following elements: locate, converge, attack, and disperse (Edwards, 2000, p. 68). Pulsing is what differentiates “swarming” from “guerilla.” Both tactics are based on small, mobile, and difficult to locate units that are compliant with the rule “hit and run.” A “swarming” attack consists of many attacks repeated in a short period of time carried out in multiple directions and by several or even more units, while “guerilla” is based only on a few attacks (usually it is a ride or a trap) being performed by one or two units (Figure 11.1).

Speed and coordination of actions are decisive for a swarming attack. Sean Edwards notices “Swarm networks must be able to come together rapidly and stealthily on a target, then redisperse and be able to recombine for a new pulse. It is important that swarm units converge and attack simultaneously. Each individual swarm unit is vulnerable on its own, but if it is united in a concerted effort with other friendly units, overall lethality can be multiplied, because the phenomenon of the swarm effect is greater than the sum of its parts. Individual units or incompletely assembled groups are vulnerable to defeat in details against the larger enemy force with its superior fire-power and mass” (Edwards, 2000, pp. 68-69). The advantages of swarming attacks cannot be underestimated. Arquilla and Ronfeldt claim that a “swarm force will be far more stealthy, since its order of battle will be characterized by amorphousness,” at least to the eyes of the enemy. The small size and dispersed deployment of its units of maneuver will help to convey an image simultaneously stealthy and ubiquitous - a kind of “stealthy ubiquity.” Thus, the force will be largely unseen and undetectable, but it will be able to congeal and strike decisively anywhere in the battle space - with no limitation imposed by lines of fronts” (Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 2000, p. 46). “Amorphousness and elusiveness” are the assets that facilitate surrounding the target (encirclement), enable to attack simultaneously from many directions quite safely (simultaneity), as well as guarantee a quick withdrawal of units and their readapting for the next attack. It should be noticed that the primary goal of swarming is not to destroy the enemy physically (in circumstances of its military supremacy it would be impossible) but to disrupt its internal unity, especially when it is based on a broadly understood morale. A constant attack from multiple directions, even if it is performed with a low “fire-force,” makes a coordinated defense extremely difficult as it cuts off the enemy from its reserves and communication routes, but, above all, it causes stress and doubts in one’s own powers. Edwards notices that soldiers “who realize the enemy is in their rear become fearful that they will lose their means of sustenance and survival - food, water, ammunition, and a clear line of escape. For a soldier who is trained to fight linear warfare - to view the battlefield in terms of a single front, two flanks, and a rear - the appearance of enemy forces in the rear has a profound psychological effect” (Edwards, 2005, p. 116).

Historically speaking, the swarming tactic usually appeared in two forms: “cloud swarms” (massed swarming”) and “vapor swarms” (“dispersed swarming”). “Cloud swarms” take place when swarming units arrive at the battlefield as compact masses and then they disperse and operate as single parts in order to attack the enemy coincidentally from multiple directions. “Vapor swarms,” in turn, eventuate when the units are dispersed from the very beginning on the whole area of operation, then they converge and attack. They do not, however, form a homogenous mass (Edwards, 2005, p. xvii). Till the twentieth century, the dominant form of swarming had been a “massed swarming” that did not demand attacking units to be “in a permanent contact with each other.” The invention of radio communication meant that swarming carried out by geographically dispersed units became not only achievable, but also highly effective. Considering “vapor swarms” from the perspective of organization theory, it should be noticed that swarming units usually appeared as networks (e.g., squads in Somalia and Chechnya) or they were a hybrid - a combination of network and hierarchy (e.g., U- boots in the Battle of the Atlantic). Among the networked forms of organizations, the most popular was a hub network in which units or groups created a squad supervised by a leader who was more or less freely connected with other leaders (nodes). Leaders with their groups constituted, in turn, multinode networks that did not have, on the tactical level, a one, particular leader. Edwards rightly notices that such a network, in order to achieve operational cohesion, needs to ensure “that all nodes share common principles and goals” (Edwards, 2005, p. 93) (Figure 11.2).

The researchers just mentioned related the way of operation of swarming units mainly to forces functioning in a hierarchical system of orders, not necessarily in situational dependence on those powers (in case of attack, such units may have a high level of autonomy). However, the development of new communication technologies (including the Internet) and new networked organization forms enabled swarming to be used not only by the forces that do not answer to the “top-down” orders, but also those with no formal correlation. Adoption of swarming by various extremist and terrorist formations is nothing odd. Undoubtedly, this adaptation may be perceived as a natural reaction originating from the specificity of organization form chosen by them, namely, an all-channel network or leaderless resistance.

The schema of a swarming attack carried out by these groups is generally quite simple. The information regarding targets (including their name, localization, and the way they should be “hounded”) are posted on various portals, which play the role of the movement’s “ideological source.” This information is, in turn, replicated on other sister portals, more or less connected with the “source.” The information is transferred mainly by means of a multinode network (Internet portals) and an all-channel network (direct relations between participants of the movement). After spreading the information concerning “aims and methods,” the process of “plaguing” (pulsing) starts and it lasts many days, weeks, or even months (until the desired goal is reached). In case of ecoextremist groups, a nonvirtual (taking place in reality) swarming attack may be defined as various sabotage hits or sit-in actions that are performed by network-communicated, autonomous groups or units and aim at paralyzing the opponent’s activity by generating losses, which would make this activity to a large extent unprofitable.

Swarming attacks were probably introduced to cyberspace at the beginning of the 1990s by two groups: the Critical Art Ensemble and the Electronic Disturbance Theater. In 1998, the latter group made available the program FloodNet in its SWARM installation for 20,000 Internet users protesting against the conflict in Chiapas, which enabled them to block the Internet websites of the president of Mexico, the American Ministry of Defense, as well as the Frankfurt stock exchange. In the same year (on August 16, 1998), the Internet Division of the Animal Liberation Front announced a mass campaign consisting in, among others, the denial of service attacks, virus attacks, hacking Internet websites, as well as destroying data of those who conducted a business exploiting animals. The announcement was not an empty threat. In a short time, a series of attacks on companies and research institutions associated, according to ALF, with “anti-animal rights attitude,” took place. A good example could be a campaign, initiated by ALF in 1998-1999, in which “e-mail bombs” were dropped on the Swedish Research Institute Smittskyddinstitute (which was accused of carrying out experiments on monkeys). The campaign resulted in crashing the server and, in turn, paralyzing the work of the whole unit. Another example could be a global action of the Animal Liberation-Tactical Internet Response Network group organized in February 2001. With the use of the Internet and the FloodNet program the group arranged an Internet sit-in[273] against the largest stockholder of the Huntingdon Life Sciences - Stephens, Inc. of Little Rock, Arkansas. The action resulted in overloading and closing the system (Martin, 2003). Groups and units from all over the world (but mainly from Europe, Canada, and the United States) participated in those events (and also in many others). It does not seem likely that they knew one another directly or even that they were in a direct virtual contact.

There are no doubts that swarming performed by contemporary eco-extremist groups significantly differs from the traditional swarming described by military theoreticians. There are at least several differences but the most important ones refer to characteristics of the attacked target, the specificity of interrelations between units participating in the swarming action, and the way of coordinating the activities.

In the classic form of swarming, the target was usually active (military). It was aware of the threat, participated in fighting, and most importantly, it was able to react directly to the attack. New swarming units, recruiting themselves from ecologic radicals, target civilian institutions, which are neither able to perform an “attack” on their own nor to defend themselves against such attacks. Taking into consideration the fact that the number of potential targets is practically unlimited, the swarming attacks of a new type are incomparably safer for the attackers than those from the past, in which both sides were extraordinarily militant and oriented toward destroying each other. The level of safety increases even more when attacks take place using the Internet or a botnet.

Table 11.2 The Basic Differences Between Classic and Contemporary Swarming

	Swarming in the Past	Contemporary Swarming Performed by Ecoextremist Groups
Subordination structure	Swarming units subordinated (at least formally) to main leaders (top-down direction of orders)	Fully autonomous units (no orders from the top)
Targeted object	Active (participating in the fight), military	Passive (not participating in the fight), usually civilian
Attack area	Real battle field	Civilian space, frequently virtual
Communication	With the mediation of the center	All-channels network, and leaderless resistance
Number of swarming units	Very limited	Usually numerous with great increase capability
Type of attack	Direct, with the use of conventional weapons	Direct (sabotage) and by means of the Internet, denial of service attacks (frequently using botnet)

Source: Own elaboration.

In classic swarming, the groups performing attacks were both formally and tactically interrelated. Having been relatively small and organized around an existing order structure, they executed arbitrarily imposed orders, constantly coordinated the actions, and communicated with the “center” (from time to time at least), despite being, to a certain extent, autonomous. Contemporary swarming units, being either organized in an all-channel network, or in accordance with the leaderless resistance model, resign from the superior order structure and the coordination requirement. Thanks to that, they gain an unattainable for classic swarming feature, namely, the mass-scale. This characteristic makes swarming units invisible (such a unit can be created by anyone) for the opponent, at least before the beginning of the action. Their mobilization depends only on the strength of the ideological impulse, the source of which, as already described, is an Internet-based all-channel network that is extremely difficult to be controlled (the portals appearing and disappearing) (Table 11.2).

It is difficult to imagine an effective prevention against the new form of swarming (based on defenselessness of the target and a nonhierarchic organizational structure of the attackers), or more generally the new form of terrorist activity. Most of all, it is difficult to conceptualize that the fight against decentralized, autonomous, network-organized, and highly computerized terrorist units (groups or lone wolves) could be carried out by means of traditional preventive methods, which are mainly based either on invigilation of organizations or on human intelligence (i.e., means used for recognizing groups, working out

their structures, as well as for identifying their intentions), or on police and military operational activities (aiming at destroying a group or, at least, at foiling their plans). If old methods are not sufficient enough, it is necessary to search for new methods, adapted more to the changes that have recently occurred.

Developing a set of these methods is obviously a task for specialists. At this point, I would like to outline some directions of desired transformations that should take into account the essence of changes in the way the fight is fought and the opponent’s organizational structures. Two issues need to be considered in particular:

1. On the side of the opponent, nonhierarchic, networked, and frequently organized in accordance with the leaderless resistance model powers are involved in the fight and they are difficult to be defeated by means of classic, hierarchic structures.

2. These powers, united by the fighting ideas into an all-channel network, are dependent on the existence of that network.

The first issue induces a consideration of the possibility of perceiving the fight with terrorism exclusively through the prism of the role of hierarchically organized powers. There are many indications that the fight against the new, networked terrorism may be lost if it is based solely on hierarchy and top-down management. For, in such a case, it will not be possible to grasp the whole spectrum of events and to react flexibly enough to them. This problem has been mentioned in the text about network fights written by John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt in the 1990s “Hierarchies have a difficult time fighting networks” (Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 1999). Toby Blyth (2004, p. 45) also supports the statements and claims that the “use of hierarchical force against nonhierarchized targets may not be particularly effective.” Many premises indicate that rulers who would like to protect themselves from a network fight must adopt the model and strategy of their opponents. However, this is not an easy task in practice. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that powers of hierarchical nature could transform into their opposition. Nevertheless, presumably, the “adoption of the opponent’s structures” does not necessarily need to take place by transformation of the hierarchy into the network. Maybe a hybrid structure would be sufficient, that is, a combination of hierarchy and network. Some symptoms of such a spontaneous (for now at least) combination can be found in the cyber-attack on Estonia carried out by Russian hackers (including those in relation with the pro-Kremlin youth organization “Nasi”), a cooperation between civil volunteers and military forces in Estonia that took place after a cyber-attack on the infrastructure of this country, as well as some examples of cooperation between “watchdog” organization and the US government.

Due to the fact that a multinode Internet network is crucial for functioning of secret network structures that are, on that account, indestructible, it should be potentially considered as the target of antiterrorist activities. These actions should consist in monitoring and combating the sources of the fighting ideas. The monitoring may be based on either direct examination of Internet websites and portals by appropriately trained specialists, or on systems that would analyze communication and information data such as carnivore, keyboarding logging systems, or echelon. In spite of many controversies regarding the functioning of these systems, they constitute a source of concrete knowledge about extremist group activities and ideas circling in the Internet.

However, combating the sources of fighting ideas is far more challenging. Simply closing them does not seem a good solution for now, the more so as that they are capable of renewing (but probably such activities would, for sure, restrict the transfer of ideas and means). Due to the specificity of cyberspace and some legal problems, states themselves have limited the possibility to censor Internet resources or to eliminate “rebellious websites.” That is why some nongovernment subjects try to, often illegally, do it for them.[274] So far, however, their activities are rather limited. A solution could be employing indirect actions - with the mediation of alternative sources of ideological influence, as well as with the mediation of a number of preventive actions that would aim at neutralizing the effects of broadly understood exclusion generated mainly by the process of globalization.

12. The Future of Ecological Extremism

There are no doubts that ecological violence, indirect and direct, is neither a marginal phenomenon nor is it on the decline. It is enough to look at the statistics. As it follows from the data published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), there were 112 attacks classified as terrorist carried out in the United States in 1986-2005, and 57 of them were carried out by the groups or individuals motivated by environmental or animal rights ideology.[275] Moreover, these numbers are still growing. There were 9 such attacks in the United States in 1986-1997, while in 1998-2005 already 48 (U.S. Department of Justice, 2013). The general number of crimes committed in the United States in 1979-2008 by radical ecologists, according to the FBI, was 2000, and their combined cost was estimated at $110M (FBI, 2013). These statistics do not take into account less significant vandalism acts, small acts of violence toward people, or botnet swarming attacks. In accordance with the data from the Foundation for Biological Research, between 1981 and 2005 the organizations of ecological character committed 529 crimes in the United States, including 53 arson cases, 123 thefts, 36 bomb attacks, 238 vandalism acts, and 79 acts of harassment. A particular increase of the committed crimes occurred after 1999. There were only 7 of those in 1998 but in 1999 already 27; in 2000, 28; in 2001, 42; in 2002, 17; in 2003, 101; in 2004, 99; in 2005, 82 (Foundation for Biomedical Research, 2006). According to the data published by the Fur Commission - an organization representing breeders and farmers in the United States, ecological organizations all over the world carried out approximately 292 costly sabotage acts in 1980-2009 (133 in 1980-1999 and 260 in 2000-2009) (Figure 12.1) (Fur Commission, 2013).

The number of sabotage actions will probably not decrease in the coming years. The opposite tendency is more likely to occur, especially due to the constant broadening of goals of the extremist ecological organizations during the last 20 years. Nowadays, these organizations do not limit themselves to attacking ski resorts, deforestation companies, power lines, or laboratories, where experiments on animals are conducted. More and more often, big corporations, private houses, and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) are targeted but also (something that is a relatively new tendency) various symbols of capitalism. Of course, anticapitalist attitude is nothing new among radical ecologists and animal rights activists. It had existed earlier; however, the open declaration of those groups against capitalism and globalization took place in the late 1990s, especially after the protests in Seattle in the fall of 1999, when people closely linked to anarchism and alter-globalism began to gain influence in those groups. For them the liberation of the earth became closely connected with abolishing capitalism and social liberation. The way to realize those goals was not through slow reforms but through a revolutionary spurt preceded by massed attacks on elements of the capitalist system. That way of thinking is clearly seen in utterances of a former speaker for the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), Leslie James Pickering: “I do not believe that the actions of the ELF are strictly environmental in their scope. It has probably already become clear that I recognize the actions of the ELF as acts of revolution, not reform (...). The liberation of the Earth equals the liberation of everyone of us.”[276] It should be noted that not all ecological radicals are willing to link the liberation of the earth with social liberation. Many of them, especially the radical environmentalists, have ambiguous attitudes toward social changes which, according to them, rather slows the process of ecological destruction, than end it. They believe that the actions undertaken by ecologically oriented groups should be biocentrically oriented and focused exclusively on saving the ecosystem from the upcoming ecological catastrophe.

There are many indicators that among the radical ecological groups described here, the smallest radicalism potential is present in the environmentalist groups. These groups, so far, not only have not attacked humans but have not even considered committing actions, which could possibly bring any risk for human life or health. The reason for such a state of affairs lies mainly, in our opinion, in the philosophical worldview called “deep ecology,” accepted by these groups, according to which life is sacred and all the beings that belong to the world of nature (both, those animated and unanimated) share the same right for existence and realizing their own individual development forms. In the opinion of the proponents of that position destruction or killing of “natural” beings is acceptable (i.e., morally justified), if it serves satisfying the elementary life (vital) needs; in other cases it should be morally condemned. Such an approach toward the world of nature implies a particular behavior toward humans. For the followers of deep ecology, humans, who are part of nature (even when they devastate and destroy it), also have the right to live and to physical integrity. It should be candidly said that the latter belief is not shared by everybody. According to some radical ecologists, human beings have proved with their deeds that they have stopped to be a part of the natural world, and hence they are not entitled to protection and care the world of nature deserves. In the 1989 August issue of the Earth First! Journal “Gula” claims, for instance, that although life is sacred and cannot be the target of direct actions, it is highly doubtful that those who destroy the environment qualify as life forms (Gula, 1989). On September 3, 2002, after setting fire to a U.S. Forest Service research station in Irvine (Pennsylvania) on the ELF web pages an anonymous author placed the following declaration: “In pursuance of justice, freedom, and equal consideration for all innocent life across the board, segments of this global revolutionary movement are no longer limiting their revolutionary potential by adhering to a flawed, inconsistent ‘nonviolent’ ideology. (...) where it is necessary, we will no longer hesitate to pick up the gun to implement justice, and provide the needed protection for our planet.” (Earth Liberation Front, 2013). Also some of the leaders of ecoextremist groups seem to have certain problems with the affirmation of the nonviolence principle. Craig Rosebraugh, a former ELF spokesperson, stated for example in one of the interviews that “Terrorism can be OK, can be justified” and that planting bombs and attacks may be in certain circumstances accepted forms of self-defense in the battle against political oppression (Rose, 2003; Ackerman, 2003, pp. 145-146). These examples of the declarative departure from the nonviolence principle should not, however, veil the fact that a large majority of environmental radicals seem to be, up till now, strongly attached to that principle. And most probably, unless some new, additional circumstances occur (e.g., ecological crisis) they would not break it.

Another element of the radical environmental groups’ worldview should be discussed that might have had an impact on their so far relatively moderate actions. It is about the belief that nature is not an ordinary collection of animated and unanimated beings but a biogenic entirety that possesses higher moral value than the individuals it consists of. This thesis may incline the supposition that until human actions definitely and directly do not imperil nature in its entirety but may be detrimental toward some of its parts, which do not bear full and autonomous moral value according to the deep ecologists, one may expect (or at least hope for) that environmental organizations will employ safe, for human life and health, forms of persuasion. This situation may change if a serious ecological crisis occurs; such a crisis that would significantly endanger not only fragments of the ecosystem but nature in its entirety. In such circumstances, we believe, one may expect a significant radicalization of their actions. It should be added that the danger of such a crisis is constantly rising but when it reaches the critical point is a question of a subjective opinion. It may also happen that the crisis will be prevented in time (it is in the interest of the whole of humanity, and not the part of it that is ecologically sensitive) and the radicalization of the environmental groups’ actions will not take place. There is also a pessimistic scenario that is probable enough to be taken into account, namely, the crisis may be increasing and the radical ecologists may eventually ascertain that the only way to save “Mother Earth” are direct actions targeting people. What then would be the character of those actions? And who would be their target?

We should take notice of the fact that for many environmental radicals the source of evil is not only those who through their decisions and direct actions contribute to destruction of the natural environment. This evil is of much more total and collective character. And the human beings as the species are its embodiment. Human destructive activity is a testimony of the transgression beyond natural and the “truly good” order of nature toward unnaturalness, chaos, and death (toward the destruction of the whole biosphere). Turning back from that road is not a certain thing. It is possible that humans will never dispense with their “vanity” that pushes them and the entire world toward destruction. However, there still might be a rescue for the world of nature. This rescue is, according to some radical ecologists, a consistent opposition to the logic of anthropocentrism in all its manifestations and dimensions. The opposition may have, of course, a different character. It does not always have to be related with a destructive activity, although, undoubtedly, it may constitute an advantageous climate for it. An interesting instance of its occurrence was R.I.S.E.[277] - a small group of ecological extremists that in 1972, hoping for the extermination of the human species, which as they believed constituted a deadly threat for the planet ecosystem,[278] decided to reach for, in their opinion, the most reliable means -pathogens. The chances for carrying out that plan were rather small - the group had quite limited capabilities to store and multiply the pathogens. However, the two most active members of the group (who also founded the organization), Allan Schwander and Stephen Pera succeeded to get pathogens of typhoid, meningitis, diphtheria, dysentery, and botulin. They were supposed to be sprayed in supermarkets and large buildings with the use of special aerosols. When on January 7, 1972 the authorities of the Microbiology Department at Presbyterian St. Luke’s Hospital confiscated some of the germs, which had been illegally stored by R.I.S.E. in their laboratories, the group changed their plan to exterminate the whole world and decided to limit themselves only to five Midwestern states. Of course, the plan was never realized. On January 12, 1972, when one of the members came to the ER at the hospital and claimed to be infected with an unknown substance, the Chicago Police Department initiated an investigation. Soon, almost all the members of the group were imprisoned. It should be noted that it was not the only instance of using biological weapons by environmental groups. In 1981 an unspecified group “Dark Harvest” protesting against the contamination of anthrax on a small Scottish island, Gruinard Island,[279] during the Second World War, placed a container with soil from the island outside the Chemical Defense Establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire. A few days later a similar container was left in Blackpool where the Conservative Party, ruling at that time, was holding a conference.[280] In 1989 another unknown group, calling themselves “The Breeders,” sent letters to the mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, the media, and agriculture offices informing them about dispersing dangerous pests in the southern parts of California. The authors of the letters threatened that the dispersal would be continued until the authorities stopped spraying the fields with insecticides (Ackerman, 2003, pp. 159-160).

According to radical ecologists, however, the destructive character of human inclinations is not the only danger for the natural environment. Another peril, at least equally serious (if not more), is the uncontrolled natural growth of population that directly translates into pollution of the natural environment. In the radical ecologists’ writings the numbers occur, which determine the ideal quantity of human earth inhabitants (e.g., according to James Lovelock, it should be 500 million, according to Arne Naess, 100 million); there are also more or less concrete postulations regarding the ways to reach those numbers. It should be noted that the will to reduce the human population takes sometimes extremely radical, instigating forms, like in Craig Marshall or William Aiken’s statements, which are worthwhile to quote here; Marshall: “The problem is, we’ve gone too far already. There’s no easy solution. For life to survive as we know it, millions of people are going to have to die (...) I’m not saying anybody needs to be executed but there’s a need for decreasing the population” (Barcott, 2002; Ackerman, 2003, p. 151); Aiken: “In fact, massive human die backs would be good. Is it our duty to cause them? Is it our species’ duty, relative to the whole, to eliminate 90% of our numbers?” (Aiken, 1984; Ferry and Volk, 1995). There are many more statements of that nature. They may also be perceived as pretty scary. It would be however embezzlement, we think, to treat them as an announcement of a future, unavoidable reduction of the human species. The mentioned ideological beliefs, which compose the “deep ecology” worldview (first of all, the principle of inviolability of life) are, as it seems, a strong barrier that would not be easy to violate. What would happen if such a violation would occur? Then the dangers identified with the features of our own species (destruction and population expansion) may result in violence toward people, not of an individual (although it may occur) but of a collective character - it will consist in cumulative attacks on accidental targets, possibly including the use of biological weapons.

In opposition to the extremist environmental groups, which have, so far, avoided targeting people, the groups fighting for animal rights have often enough proven that they are ready to reach for various forms of direct violence in defense of their ideals. It should also be noted that violence targeting people during the last couple of years has undergone drastic escalation. While searching for the sources of that state of affairs one has to turn the attention to their worldview presuppositions. Contrary to the environmental groups, which hold “wellbeing” of the biotic entirety as the highest moral good, within the animal rights movements we deal with an individual placing of moral value, not a holistic one. A characteristic feature of liberationism is what can be called the “individual approach,” and which is expressed by the belief that life and well-being of the individual has priority - the individual has the right to defend them even if it necessarily entails a violation of the well-being of the ecological community the individual belongs to. Moral value is ascribed in this case, first of all, to the individuals, which by the animal rights activists are defined as all living beings able to feel pleasure and pain, and hence possessing interests (human beings, just like animals are of course such beings). Killing morally significant individuals (i.e., the ones bearing full moral value) is treated as the highest crime, which should be decisively and unabatedly withstood. Probably it is not an accident that in the radical animal rights activists’ writings and testimonies, the situation of animals (especially those kept in laboratories) is very often compared with the situation of prisoners of the concentration camps from the times of the Second World War. These comparisons are often accompanied by warlike rhetoric joined with a depreciation of those who are blamed for the actual state of affairs (vivisectors, pastoralists, mean consumers). From there it is just a step to creating the “executioner-victim” opposition, where one has to always take the side of the victim. It should be noted that in the set of views characteristic of liberationism there is no belief of inviolability of life as such.

The times when animals were believed to be merely tools and whose only purpose was to serve human beings are in the past. More and more people are willing to see animals as beings, which on account of their ability to experience suffering, should be granted with respect and protection, and even the right to life and uninhibited de- velopment.[281] Paradoxically the inclination to broaden the moral community has not resulted in the betterment of the fate of animals on a larger scale. It is true, however, that the life of domestic animals has significantly improved. Today the sight of a man beating a dog or a horse invokes, at least in the countries of the Western civilization, almost a common indignation. The situation of farm animals is different. Since 90 years ago belt-system production changed agriculture into agribusiness, animals’ life conditions have drastically worsened. In people sensitive to animal suffering such a state of affairs must necessarily elicit frustration and indignation, which may easily turn into the will to punish those who are the cause of animal suffering. Of course not everyone who believes that animals have the right to physical integrity will be inclined toward reaching for violence. The fact however that philosophical beliefs are a source of strong moral motivations, which translate into certain, sometimes even very radical, practical actions, cannot be flouted. For many people who see in animals creatures equal to human beings, using violence in their defense is not only morally permissible but is a measure of what is in the anthropocentric language often called humanity. Such a foundation of values makes the problem of animal rights extremism overwhelmingly difficult to solve - it is highly doubtful that societies would entirely give up animal exploitation (for, it is not in their interest), and the animal rights radicals would agree on any kind of correction of their views (any such correction would be a destruction of the basic presuppositions). This is the reason, we believe, for the current and future uncompromising and full radicalist attitude toward those who verbally or physically contribute to the oppression of animals.

Let us notice, however, that the evil the animal rights activists fight against has an individualized rather than collective character. In their writings there are not many references to collective responsibility and catastrophic visions of the end of the world. The “animal oppressors” have names and addresses. They are concrete persons, who by all means should be stopped, or maybe even “disabled.” Humanity as such is not an obstacle in accomplishing animal liberation. For humans and animals can live in harmony and concordance. Thus, it seems not likely that radical animal defenders are willing to choose the human species as their target. On the other hand, it can be assumed with high probability that violence directed toward the individuals accused of oppressing animals will not be decreasing but it may even, due to the progressively common attitude of questioning anthropocentrism, undergo quite significant escalation and radicalization.

Considering the possibility of the single-issue groups (animal rights, environmental, and antiabortion) becoming more violent, one should not forget, of course, about the noncentralized character of their internal organizational structure. Because mostly they are not groups in the traditional sense of the word but loosely mutually connected, or not connected at all, and groups or individuals operating by their own, without any guidelines from above. It is worthy to emphasize that decentralization of the structures does not mean that there is no possibility to coordinate actions. Many organizations carry out simultaneous attacks on the targets located at a large distance from each other. The ELF for example attacked simultaneously the Jefferson Popular Farms in Clatskanie, Oregon and the Center for Urban Horticulture at the University of Washington in the early morning of May 21, 2001 (North American Animal Liberation Front Press Office, 2013).

One of the consequences of resigning from the formal organizational structures is the lack of internal control over the actions of particular activists who are not pressured by the leaders imposing a certain type of behavior. The activists may be inclined to interpret the ideological guidelines (recommending for example nonviolent actions) according to their ideals. It should be added that some guidelines and ideological declarations sound at least ambiguous. The nonviolence principle ecological activists are so proud of is a good example here. Gary Ackerman (2003, p. 146) rightly observed that this principle does not command the activist not, under any circumstances, to destroy or hurt life but only to undertake all possible means to avoid it. As it seems, what the “all possible means,” constitutes depends on the risk assessment of particular activists.

The danger of such an unhampered approach and interpretation of guidelines recommending caution is balanced out to a certain degree by a free and vibrant debate within the movement. The debate does not serve only as an encouragement for the group or a strengthening of the accepted ideological positions, but it has an open character and, to a certain degree, is critical toward the previously accepted principles. It should be added that the majority of the activists do not close themselves in their own circles or avoid a broader contact with the world. The attitude of that kind usually does not conduce to the occurrence of the so-called “sect-like mentality,” so frequent in the groups of “fighting activists,” which so often brings forth an aggressive attitude toward the outside world. The case of antiabortion activists is different. There is no place here for openness or questioning ideological or practical guidelines for it would mean the rejection of the religious presuppositions they are based on. And that would be a kind of sacrilege that not one of the movement’s members would be able to support. In spite of the mentioned differences, there is an additional factor that is common for the ecological and antiabortion activists and which may be a generator of violence. This factor is to perceive oneself as a victim of persecution, and the group/organization/ movement as an “endangered fortress.” This conviction (common for all the discussed single-issue activists) is based on the fact that the authorities consequently and successfully pursue the extremists for the crimes they committed, which carry a penalty of long-standing imprisonment and large fines. Indeed, in the radical ecological or antiabortion literature and activists’ testimonies published on the Internet one may find numerous mentions indicating that single-issue radicals tend to see themselves as victims of persecution, which may probably generate a higher stress level and lead in result to an aggressive attitude toward the “opponents” (the persecutors and those who support them) who are often demonized and dehumanized.[282]

Of course, readiness for radical actions does not stem only from the nature of the characteristic features of a particular extremism. As I wrote before, behind such willingness usually there is a complex system of defense mechanisms, which quite often are a reaction on the experienced feeling of resentment.[283]

Resentment seems to be a psychic power that forces individuals and groups to overcome, in the name of maintaining the identity and positive self-image, a conformist anxiety and become what they want to become - the sole and the true creators of values and communal sense. In their case, reaching for violence becomes a way of dealing with both arising doubts and the resistance of the reluctant toward these values world. Due to the fact that the essence of resentment is a pursuit toward reevaluating the values (depreciation of the existing values and establishing the new, resentful ones), it has to lay at the fundaments of the acts, which aim at total social transformations. For, resentment as such does not aim at a change of some part of reality but at a transformation of the world in its entirety. It is impossible to control terrorism based on resentment by concession and negotiations because it is not interested in them. Resentment terrorism aims at total (uncompromising) changes. It aims also at destruction of all old order residua (symbols of unattained values) which, on the account of resentment, it feels connected to. Where there is a black and white reality, there is no place for attempts to come to an agreement or any kind of actions based on the idea of compromise. Therefore, it probably occurs more often in terrorism of the revolutionary type, than in single-issue terrorism. The latter, contrary to the former one, makes no total, transformational claims because it is focused on carrying out a single issue - on dealing with merely one particular fragment of reality (unless it is allied with a “transformational” ideology). Hence, it must be nonfundamentalist in its essence (i.e., resentment plays, if any, a marginal role in its forming). If this conception is right, then, there is a high probability that after carrying out that issue (or at least after introducing a number of compromise solutions) terrorism would be extinguished or at least largely reduced. Such a perspective seems impossible in the case of revolutionary terrorism (wide-ranged, resentful) that aims at total social transformation. For revolutionary terrorism these issues are only a pretext for the articulation of internal, stimulated by inferiority instinct, transformational claims. The need behind it (the need to devaluate the world that depreciates the “I”) is indeed unchangeable and always stays current - that is why fulfilling the articulated claims is not able to satisfy it. In the fight against resentful terrorism possible are, as it seems, only preventive actions but they should be undertaken much earlier - before resentment enters the phase of reevaluation of values.

At first sight this state of affairs may lead to a claim that single-issue terrorism is easy to resolve by complying with these few demands, which are the cause of the conflict. The reality, however, seems to contradict that claim, at least in the case of environmental protection terrorism and animal rights terrorism. In spite of the progress that has occurred in the area of animals and nature protection (in spite of successively satisfying the ecological demands, i.e., the single issues the ecological radicals fight for), the violence of the single-issue type groups has, as far, escalated and the number of their followers is on a constant increase. It can bring about many doubts, one of which (the most interesting in this context) must be pertinent to the fact, whether we deal here with a single-issue extremism. It is not so in all of the cases. For instance, not all radical ecological organizations are focused on resolving a single, particular issue. Some of them (e.g., Earth First! mentioned earlier) want revolutionary changes, whose aim is to transform the whole society, and not only a part of reality. It is also worth to mention that many ecological organizations adopt revolutionary slogans and ideologies from other movements (the fight against globalization or social injustice).

It does not yet mean that the old and new ideas are considered as equal. Ecologic ideas (both environmental and animals’ rights) are still treated by the organizations as the priority. It seems however that there is no “single-issue extremism” anymore. And so, it is hard to expect that “dealing with ecology issues” will lead to “calming down the movement” and, in result, to a decrease in the number of illegal actions. Summarizing, a question should be asked, whether extremism generated by resentment and inferiority complex can be handled at all.

There are two main types of antiterrorism strategies present in the literature. They were designed based on various psychological determent theories (stemming, obviously, from different concepts of personality): “denial strategy” and “reintegrative punishment strategy.”[284] The “denial strategy” is built mainly on the belief that no negotiations with terrorists should be conducted and that reprisal against them and their sponsors is highly efficient. Currently, countries that apply (at least declara- tively) the strategy are Israel and the United States (this country is however less dogmatic on this issue). On the other hand, the “reintegrative punishment strategy” does not prohibit negotiations with terrorists, who are to be convinced by various social incentives (e.g., nonpunishment or light-punishment declaration if terrorism is abandoned) to reintegrate with society. This strategy was successfully adopted by Italy in the 1980s against the Red Brigades. Both mentioned strategies are based on different deterring philosophies. “Denial strategy” assumes the human is a rational being that is ready to commit a crime only in case, when he/she calculates that prospective benefits overbalance the potential losses. It is believed here that criminal deeds can be prevented, when the criminals-to-be will not be able to fulfill their political tasks (what will take place, when his demands will be instantly rejected by the government) and the punishment will be quick and severe. Supporters of the “re- integrative punishment strategy” do not overestimate these utilitarian assumptions. According to them, terrorist acts are often caused not by declared political goals, but by deeply hidden frustrations, alienation, and inferiority resulting from an aforetime rejection (such rejection, as we know, may be a strong resentment source). These feelings may be evened up only during reintegration of the terrorist with society. Negotiations with terrorists may be considered as taking a step toward this reintegration, while no negotiations may lead to arouse the feelings and strengthen their attitude. Seeing both theories from the point of view of the resentment theory, an argumentative advantage of the “reintegrative punishment strategy” is conspicuous. They bring to attention the internal resentment-related emotions (i.e., frustration, alienation, or inferiority) that make an extremist or a terrorist. Resentment is, naturally, a complex phenomenon and may develop due to various deprivations - both personal and social. We have no influence of the former obviously. However, we may tackle the latter reasons of deprivation.

Even a superficial glimpse on the core of resentment leads to constatation that this phenomenon is difficult to be eliminated. The consciousness structure, into which the resentment soaked in, is highly complicated. Particularly, when there occur disturbances of the second order, that is, redefinition of values. In this case, axiological preferences potently obscure the hatred making it invisible not only for the others, but also for the mere consciousness. Therefore, it is not easy to expose units of resentment; it is also not easy to eliminate its culprits.[285] Therefore, can the problem of resentment be tackled at all? Definitely yes, but only when the inferiority problem is solved beforehand.

Decisively, the condition necessary for the inferiority feeling to appear is comparing oneself to the others. It is possible only when the comparing person’s consciousness comprises a monistic evaluation system (fixed norms and criteria for assessing what is/is not valuable) being the base for a secondarily formulated judgment “I am better or worse than she/he is”. Obviously, a world in which there are privileged criteria for assessing what is valuable is a world where some units cannot avoid being hurt. Moreover, when in the world, units are implanted with certain egalitarian ideas, in particular that they can be “an independent and valuable individual independently on the heritage, wealth, or connatural qualifications,” emergence of feeling of inferiority and respective resentment seems to be sure. Therefore, if we want to eliminate resentment from our social life, or at least minimize it, we must abandon “the only right assessment” criteria, motivate units deprived of specific values to develop certain aspirations, or create chances to achieve socially desired values.

Naturally, the second solution is not only utopist, but also due to axiological solutions constituting our culture, impossible to accept. The first option, forcing to create pluralism of aims and values offers some hope. The larger the pluralism (more levels of comparison) the lower probability for resentment occurrence. For when there are many different and equally valuable ideals or desirable values in a society, then due to large competition of other values and ideals, the inferiority feeling has low chances to appear. In this society, nobody will suffer due to the fact that he or she possesses a value A instead of B as both of them will be a part of two different sets of values. A vision of reality being the consequence of the first solution that is axiologically polarized has disadvantages. First, it is the danger of disappearance of the common-goal community crucial for development of society. It is hard to imagine a society accepting arbitrary objects of desire and yet able to develop dynamically. Definitely, a society composed of units believing in the same hierarchy of values (having the same criteria to determine what is desired) is a more efficient organism (coping with any problem easier) than one composed of units that do not believe or do not accept the hierarchy.

But do we have to relativize all ideals in order to find protection against resentment? Looking at its core in detail gives me the notion that this, in fact, is not necessary. As I wrote before, the direct cause of resentment is the feeling of powerlessness that develops when some, sometimes connatural, capabilities disable us to obtain the desired goods. Then, if we want to eradicate the powerlessness preventing resentment at the same time, we have to develop possibly large pluralism in the sphere of “unreachable” values, that is, values that you have no influence on (cannot be obtained with cleverness or hard work like race or social background). Nevertheless, this practice will not solve the resentment problem totally. The feeling of resentment may occur when the desired good is available and it seems unachievable only in the consciousness of the person (i.e., in a situation when a unit does not see any real possibilities of changing the unfavorable state of affairs). In this case, the successful fight with resentment is not to bring in pluralist perspectives, but it has to be focused on showing practical possibilities for overcoming the deprivation state and, in consequence, obtainment of the desired good. In practice this will need to recognize structures and situations producing the inferiority twinge, to select units prone to this twinge due to their unfavorable social position and to give them chances to overcome deprivation and obtainment of socially desired values, that is, the necessity to reach for third solutions.

One is certain. Independently of the reason why resentment was born (either due to objectively existing or subjectively generated impossibility), preventive actions like those focused on tackling currently existing resentment must be taken as soon as possible and before it rises to the level of certain cognitive illusions. First of all, these must be complex and consistent actions - they should encompass all spheres of life, where the inferiority feeling may constitute. They must be also constantly renewed. We have to remember that we cannot eliminate resentment once for all. The fight must be continued. If it is stopped just for a while then the structure causing it will be back. It will be reproduced quickly reproducing extremism and terrorism simultaneously.

Are we, as a society, able to withstand the attacks of the single-issue organizations? It seems that in the situation of decentralization of the old organizational structures and also the emergence of the new network and beyond-network formations it is not that simple anymore. The knowledge about these new formations suggests that their successful elimination should focus on targeting the emission sources of the “fighting ideas,” their Internet-based information and motivation centers. It is not an easy task. In practice it would mean the constant monitoring and even liquidation of the webpages containing extremist contents and messages. Due to the easiness of creating webpages and the new way of the activists’ actions, it seems, at least at the current stage of technological development, almost impossible.[286] Moreover, if the monitoring was conducted by the state authorities (assuming it was even possible) it would cause limitations to our freedom in the Internet for which the majority of us would probably have problems in agreeing with.[287] Of course, the actions of that type could cause some disruptions to the Internet and would not eliminate leaderless resistance, and obviously would not neutralize the lone wolves’ activity, which is free of any structural and formal limitations. Lone wolves are not, of course, entirely lone; they operate in solitude, when it is expedient, and sometimes they fit well in large groups where they assume the role of heroes, inspirers, and spiritual leaders. Their usually local activity may very quickly expand and gain global meaning because the information about their actions can just in a couple minutes circle the world on account of the Internet and other mass media. And once they begin to circulate, they can circulate infinitely, be reiterated (manifolded and multiplied) by accidental spokesmen of the case. In the informational and communicational network of the virtual reality the lone wolf’s real life deed begins to mean more than it does in reality, and drastically increases the ideological value of the act of violence. The heroes’ mail was always important. Today, due to the easiness of popularization, it has gained more significance. The multitude of information, the accessibility of that “commodity,” in other words, its overabundance, should lower its value and hence, it can be said, soften the seriousness of the situation and the efficiency of the influence. It is not so in the case of extremism because here the pieces of information do not compete with each other for attention, but a certain kind of synergy occurs - the synergy of anxieties that undermine the sense of security and in consequence contravene social order; it is grist to the extremists’ mill but also to all who are, for whatever reason, dissatisfied.

The accessibility to propaganda means much more nowadays than it used to. Low costs and the proliferation speed of radical messages are actually not significant details. Well, maybe in the case of the former it is an overstatement. Nevertheless, in comparison with the importance of how easy it has become to globalize the message (thanks to the Internet, of course), those two issues are not that significant even if we add the organizational simplicity of informing and communication (i.e., due to the almost universal accessibility to the tools and knowledge). Local activity easily becomes globally important. Minor clashes in places just a few people heard about mean incomparably more on the Internet than outside of it. Attacking the local “enemy of the Mother Earth,” “animal oppressor,”[288] is not an insignificant local incident. It concurs to the multiplicity of the actions of the whole movement; it determines its graveness and in consequence the potential of its impact. Local activities translate into the global importance and the Internet is, of course, the most essential transitory instrument. The Internet is for the movements not only a “power condenser” (which collects small “achievements” of the cells or individuals and transforms it into the strength of the movement), but also a kind of “ideological leader,” a source of inspiration and motivation, and most importantly, the foundation of the supranational, almost global community. Its binding capability is strong because it binds with the power of the ideals, which constitute the identity, hence, it somewhat binds with the power of identity (Castells, 1997). (This is a factor of growing importance in times when young people, who are the majority in the social movements, are able to relatively easy dislodge from local environment and all sorts of ties in order to, e.g., look for a place for themselves not only in another part of the country but more and more often in another part of the continent; for mobility is welcomed in the globalizing world.)

So, “the local” transforms extremely easily into “the global” and forces us to change our perspective of thinking about our safety. In the face of very wide-ranging activities of the new Internet social movements (forming the “internationals” on the basis of the connections that are much more “real,” than previously dominating ideological ones, because, for example, on the basis of common actions carried out in whatever random location on earth, which the ecological movement is famous for) it is impossible to think about safety in a narrow state-oriented and national perspective. This issue was undertaken many times in the cross-analysis of the problems of globalization and safety and the results coming from them seem to be easily carried out (a global perspective of thinking about safety is, as seems, widely accepted). It will be much more difficult to realize that what stems from the reflection of the increasing (in the information and communication era) power of the actions of lone wolves. The case of the “Unabomber,” exposed and apprehended (Douglas and Olshaker, 1996; Chase, 2003) partially “at his own request” (after the publication of the manifesto) (Kaczynski, 2013), or the Eric Rudolph’s case arrested 5 years after his last crime, shows how little can be done post factum, that is, after the decision of lone confrontation with society, state, civilization, or anything that we consider to be important, is made. Our anticipated helplessness that peers from various analyses of the extremists’ potential strengthened by the information and communication revolution will now increasingly remind us of itself and force us to reach much deeper in our research to the reasons of danger than we have been willing to do so far. It is not a very optimistic perspective; we have to get down to what is most difficult - to the sources of the problems, that is, their internal, usually psycho-ideological foundation. But today, as it seems, there is no other way. Without a thorough knowledge about the sources we will not be able to comprehensively react, just like we have not been able to do so thus far. But if it comes to a radical change of the configuration of power, due to the extremist network of the ITC age, we would not be able to control the social destabilization. We should react today when we are at the verge of such destabilization, when we begin to see it, because what we have after years of reacting post factum seems worthless in comparison with the power of the network, which spreads its wings. It seems that nobody doubts that networks will rule our social order after an ICT revolution. To secure their order, we should keep on working on discovering the sources of the phenomena for which chaos is a desirable, friendly force.

13. Conclusions

So far, the transformations that have been taking place in the radical ecological movement since the mid-twentieth century have not been taken up as a subject of deeper reflection by either scholars studying the problems of extremism and terrorism, or by the bodies responsible for developing security policies on the national and international levels. The reason for that lies probably in the fact that this movement has limited its animal rights and environmental activities to actions considered as relatively “moderate,” that is, such that they do not cause significant perturbations in the area of broadly understood security on the local or global level. However, as I have tried to demonstrate in this book, this “moderate character” may turn out to be unsustainable in a longer perspective. The collected facts and the analyses based on them indicate that actions of radical ecological groups may evolve in the undesirable - from the point of view of the law and security - direction toward activities characterized by a high level of direct violence. Moreover, the phenomenon of ecoextremism will probably soon become a global issue because of the importance of the problems it is based on, as well as due to the development of new media that serve as an efficient tool for operating and for disseminating ecological ideas. Then, it will be much more difficult to yoke or control it. In such a situation, the lack of interest in the problem of ecoextremism seems at least surprising.

My intention behind writing this book was to change this state of affairs by looking at ecological extremism as a phenomenon that is important, interesting, and incredibly complex; a phenomenon that may be grasped only by a multifaceted approach, and by bringing together the following aspects: psychological (because of the concept of defense mechanisms and resentment), organizational (because of the fact of netwars and leaderless resistance), and historical (as a certain kind of process closely joined with ideological and socio-political transformations, although a process that undergoes many difficult to identify modifications). It was a very difficult task due to the dynamics of the alterations that occur within the area of the examined phenomenon (in its organizational structure, its ideological dimension, and tactics), as well as due to the change of the international situation (globalization and fragmentation of social reality, decrease of the role of national states, disappearance of the geographical distance, and the fact that many social processes do not require a “territorial” component any more), which conditions to a large extent determines this phenomenon.

In the most general dimension this task consisted in elaborating possibly the most coherent and at the same time sufficiently broad concept of ecoextremism that would serve as an efficient tool for its characterization, as well as for identifying the main forms of threats related to it with a description of their specificity, and their political and security importance. In my work I also wanted to carry out more detailed tasks, which condition the realization of the main goal. They were defining the system of the notions that constitute the concept of ecoextremism (such as ecological extremism, ecoterrorism, single-issue terrorism/extremism, leaderless resistance, lone wolves’ terrorism); describing philosophical and ideological changes that have taken place during the last centuries in regard to the treatment of animals and nature, and grasping their essential features that could point at the direction of further development; individualizing the main developmental tendencies within the ecological movement; recognizing and describing the basic operational mechanisms of the radical ecological groups in the psychological, socio-political, “tactical,” and organizational domains; drawing out the factors that are responsible for radicalization of the tactics; recognizing and defining the role of netwars and leaderless resistance in the activities of the radical ecological groups; constructing a convincing, in terms of substance, prognosis about the type of fight and actual realization of the nonviolence postulate, taking into account the differences between environmental and animal rights extremisms; and drafting the scenarios for the development of ecoextremism and the ways to counter it.

It should be noted that research on terrorism and extremism (including ecoterrorism and ecoextremism, and broader, single-issue terrorism) does not have to be only of cognitive nature, but it may, or even should focus, in a longer perspective, on creating an efficient philosophy of battling it. Acquiring proper knowledge and formulating right claims about the essence of this phenomenon and its developmental directions allows us to work out an adequate perception of the risk, as well as to develop and enhance paradigms for actions, which would enable a reduction of the scope and scale of this phenomenon. These paradigms, in turn, do not have to come down to actions of typical antiterrorist nature (catching and “elimination” of the members of criminal groups), which in this work are considered as not very effective (due to the fact that the majority of extremist groups have abandoned organizational structures and exchanged them for the model of leaderless resistance). Those actions (legal, political, and psycho-educational) should be, above all, preventive and allow to fight terrorism at its origins, before it is able to generate its most radical currents and options of actions.

The concept of resentful revaluation of values I have been developing for the last couple of years played a key role in the conceptualization of the notion of ecoextremism. I employed it for psychological characteristics of the research subject and a conceptual differentiation between two significant, from the perspective of studies on extremism, especially on ecological extremism, phenomena: (1) resentment-free revaluation of values of “single-issue extremism,” where animal rights extremism was interpolated into, and (2) revolutionary “multi-issue extremism,” where I included a large part of environmental extremism, and which, in my opinion, has come into existence as a result of resentful revaluation. This differentiation has become a basis for constructing a hypothesis pertinent to two various ways of approaching those phenomena.

Two other conceptions played a significant role in my research: (1) the conception of netwar and (2) the conception of leaderless resistance. Both of them have been known for a while but they have neither been used (either of them, or both of them jointly), nor, all the more, developed in relation to the ecoextremism phenomenon. And in that field they have a particular explanatory power. Thanks to them I was able to construct, in a cognitively creative way, I hope, a model of network functioning of ecoextremist organizations. I did it on two levels: (1) on the level of direct actions (all-channel network, beyond-network leaderless resistance), as well as (2) at the level of the information flow (multinode network, all-channel network). Building such a model allowed me to further construct a dynamic conception of direct actions of a new type (swarming) and to formulate a prognosis about future activities of groups operating in accordance with the “leaderless resistance” model.

Due to the fact that the ecological extremism phenomenon consists of two phenomena (environmental extremism and animal rights extremism), the research I conducted had to be of a twofold nature. It required obtaining a lot of empirical data and information (including the historical ones), and then carrying out their detailed verification by comparative analysis and critique of the sources. Such obtained research material was then closely analyzed. The outcome of that analysis was the determination of essential features of the two phenomena formulated in a system of theorems, definitions (both persuasive and stipulative), notions, classificatory judgments, and hypotheses which, as a consequence, allowed me to recognize differences between them, and further, to formulate a relativized conception of their future development. At every stage of constructing this conception I validated it by employing the confirmation and corroboration methods.

Summarizing the research results presented in the book, it should be noted that ecoextremism is a phenomenon with a high developmental potential. It stems from many things. First, it derives from the fact that the groups of that nature adopted, as ones of the first, a network (within the framework of all-channel network) and beyond-network (leaderless resistance and lone wolves’ activity) way of operating that enables conducting of risk-free attacks, information exchange, or collecting funds. Second, the ideology that supports their actions (due to, i.e., the postulate of revaluation anthropocentrism and the declared humanitarianism in regard to animals and nature) is exceptionally attractive for many representatives of the Western world (especially those raised in the atmosphere of countercultural ideals). This is the reason why the circle of potential activists is relatively broad, and leniency of neighbors and society toward illegal acts is rather significant. Third, the development of new media, especially the Internet, has brought about the situation when these groups are able to conduct actions in an extremely efficient way (actions that could possibly be very destructive in the future) without undergoing the risk of invigilation (swarming, especially with the use of botnet). Fourth, radical ecological movement (especially in its environmental form) more and more often leagues together with the antiglobalization movement. It strengthens, in this way, its spiritual background. And that directly translates into the proliferation of goals and actions of the movement, as well as its inner-organizational dynamics, the most visible outcome of which is participation in many groups that often have various ideological messages.

In the light of the analyses carried out it should be stated that a growing developmental potential of ecological extremism (in its animal rights and environmental variants) may be joined, under certain circumstances, by a significant increase of violence, indirect and direct - the latter also in its collective and antihuman dimension. However, it should be clearly emphasized that this collective and antihuman dimension refers, above all, to environmental extremism which, as it emerges from my research carried out in the philosophical and ideological domain, is based, on the one hand, on a pessimistic vision of human nature (burdened with collective responsibility for the evil inflicted on nature) and catastrophic vision of the transformations of civilization, and on the other hand, on the belief about moral supremacy of a holistic entirety, which is nature. There are many indicators that in a “crisis situation” that would be posing a threat for this entirety (unbalancing the ecological equilibrium leading to a rapid destruction of ecosystems), this extremism will get rid of its rhetoric of “sanctity of life,” which for a long time has hindered it from attacking people. And because its representatives do not share a belief in “auto-repair” of the humankind (and in autorepair of the ecosystem), they will launch a decisive defense of the highest good that, according to them, is ecosystem. The usage of methods based on direct violence and targeting humankind for being a society of evil is very probable. Attempts of such attacks, as I demonstrated in examples in the previous chapter, has already taken place. It is very possible that they will occur again in the future. Contrary to environmental extremism, animal rights extremism appears less dependent on external phenomena (such as ecological crisis). Its radicalism, which is based on individual placing of moral value, is stimulated by an internal logic of its own ideological development. The latter is rooted in the belief about the intrinsic right of all feeling beings to life and self-determination. Although the animal rights ideology is uncompromising (killing morally significant, feeling individuals is the largest crime, and that is why the “oppressors should be severely punished”) and it is not limited by the axiom of “sanctity of life.” There is no pessimistic and catastrophic undertone in it, like it is the case with the environmental ideology. On the contrary, it offers a quite optimistic image of human nature - for it presupposes that humanity’s moral development must necessarily progress toward rejection of speciesism and granting feeling beings equal rights. On this account, it is difficult to imagine that it would become a stimulator of collective attacks on humanity as a species. It seems it is not an accident that there were no such attacks in the past.

In the end, it should be noticed that after rejection of anthropocentrism the two kinds of ecological extremisms are on the straight way to violence. So far, only in the case of animal rights extremism can one talk about multiple, and hence, as it seems, not accidental, violation of the declared “no hurting humans” principle. It is also confirmed by a statistical increase of indirect violence. The fact of more and more often connecting ecological ideas (both animal rights and environmental) with the ideology of antiglobalism, which is largely of revolutionary (transformative) nature, may cause a considerable anxiety. It bears consequences especially in the case of animal rights extremism for which it means going beyond the nonresentful in its essence “single issue” ideology toward the “multi-issue” ideology, which may translate in the future into broadening of the perspective of goals and demands (including those of resentful nature based on the revaluation of the existing values), as well as on the significant growth of revolutionary radicalism with its drive to alter the existing order.

The presented understanding of the ecoextremism phenomenon is not, of course, the only one possible. The conclusions do not exhaust the set of conceivable solutions of the problems linked to this phenomenon. Due to the adopted research approach (examining the phenomenon mainly in the ideological, psychological, and organizational dimensions) and the methodological apparatus (clear preference of qualitative methods) a number of issues must have been treated quite generally, sometimes frag- mentarily. I believe that it would be worthy to study the problems regarding the activity of Polish ecoextremist groups and their connections (ideological, organizational) with their counterparts in the world. It would be also interesting to examine (using qualitative and quantitative methods) how the support for radical ecological ideas develops in European countries (including Poland). I believe, or at least hope that this book (if only because it is the first monograph on extremism in Poland and the second one in the world) will facilitate the perception of the phenomenon to future researchers and in a broader perspective will contribute to the development of the studies on extremism.

References

Publications:

Internet Web Pages:

Index

A

Abbey, Edward, 113, 132, 134

Abortion clinics, 171

Ackerman, Gary, 213

Active strategy, 55

Adolescence, trauma in, 30

Adorno, Theodor, 24

Advanced-structured capability, 199

AEPA. See The Animal Enterprise

Protection Act

AETA. See Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act

Aggression, 23. See also Frustration

aggression theory; Narcissism-aggression

Aggressor, 53, 57

AHA. See American Humane Association

Aiken, William, 142, 211

Akhtar, 30

Alaskan Fur Company, 82

ALF. See Animal Liberation Front

ALF Supporters Group (ALFSG), 78, 90

Alkali Act, 115

Alkali Inspectorate, 115

All-channel network, 161, 167, 168, 170, 198

Altruism, 52

Amchitka, 123, 124

American Airlines, 176

American Humane Association (AHA), 65

American Medical Research Modernization

Committee, 68

American Museum of Natural History, 70

American National Association for

Biomedical Research, 72

American Society for the Prevention of

Cruelty (ASPCA), 62, 65

Amherst, Massachusetts, 112

Amoss, Ulius Louis, 162

Anarchist social ecology, 111

Angell, George T., 63

Animal activists, 74. See also Animal rights activists; Animal welfare activists

Animal Aid, 65, 69

The Animal Enterprise Protection Act (AEPA), 15, 87

Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), 15, 87

Animal extremism, Great Britain combating, 88

Animal liberation, 52

Animal Liberation (Singer), 69

Animal Liberation Front (ALF), 4, 15, 27, 71, 76, 203. See also Animal Rights Militia

cells, 90

on McDonald’s, 89

members of, 88-90, 93, 94

organization of, 89, 166

overview of, 76, 82

pyramidal structure of, 89

rule of, 88

sabotage of, 94

snitching and, 88

violence used by, 94, 96, 97

Animal liberation movement, 64

Animal liberationists, 4-6, 15, 79

Animal Liberation-Tactical Internet

Response, 203

Animal oppressors, 55, 79, 213

Animal rights, animal welfare vs., 67.

See also Anthropocentric paradigm;

Postanthropocentric perspective

Animal rights activism, 59, 65

Animal rights activists, 56, 70, 74, 91, 94, 96

Animal rights defenders, 108

Animal rights extremism, 3, 4, 19, 69, 88, 223

Animal rights extremists, 84, 90. See also

Animal Liberation Front; Pro-animal radicals

Animal rights groups, 4, 87, 211

Animal Rights Militia (ARM), 4, 79

Animal rights movement, 4, 45, 50, 73, 74

The Animal Rights Movement in America

(Finsen, L., and Finsen, S.), 70

Animal Rights National Index (ARNI), 78

Animal rights organizations, 166

Animal rights radicalism. See Animal rights extremism

Animal rights terrorism, 4-6

Animal welfare, animal rights vs., 67

Animal welfare activists, 74

Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), 68

Animals

aggressor towards, 53

animal liberationists on, 5, 6

as automaton, 46

baiting of, 59, 60

as beings, 212

discrimination against, 4

environment defenders on, 5, 6

exploitation of, 66

farm, 212

foes of, 80, 81

functioning of, 46

humans treating, 45

intrinsic value of, 52

laboratory, 62, 76

lovers, 70

as unitary being, 53

Animals in Medicines Research Information

Centre, 72

Animals’ Rights Considered in Relation to

Social Progress (Salt), 48

Anthropocentric paradigm, 4, 45, 50, 55, 141

Antiabortion activists, 213

Antiabortion terrorism, 11

Antiglobalism, 224

Antihegemonic terrorism, 190

Antiterrorism strategies, 216

Antivivisection organizations, 62

Appeal to higher loyalties, 92

Aquinas, Thomas, 46

Arissa organization, 148

Aristotle, 46

Arizona Phantom, 134

ARM. See Animal Rights Militia

ARNI. See Animal Rights National Index

Arnold, Ron, 129, 133, 135

Arquilla, John, 159, 201, 205

Arson, 94, 145

Artificial species, 108

ASPCA. See American Society for the

Prevention of Cruelty

Asplund, Ilse, 140

Assassination, 173

Association of Oregon Loggers, 134

Attribution mistake, 27

Authoritarian character, psychodynamic

concept of, 23

Authoritarian personality, 24

Authoritarian society, 23

Automaton, 46

AWI. See Animal Welfare Institute

Axiology, of radical ideologies, 22

B

Backman, 113

Baiting, 59, 60

Baker, Marc, 140

Bakunin, Mikhail, 171

Band of Mercy, 76

Bank of New York, 86

Barbarash, David, 88, 90

Bari, Judi, 179

Basil (saint), 59

Beam, Louis, 162

Bearing witness, 126

Behaviors, extremism as characteristic of, 22.

See also Radical behaviors

Beings, 50, 212

Benetton, 72

Beneville, Craig, 179

Bentham, Jeremy, 48

Bergh, Henry, 62, 63

Berkovitz, 29

Best, Steve, 96

Bias, 18

Billboard Bandits, 121

Bin Laden, Osama, 192

Biocentric equality, 105-107

Biocentric fraction, 139, 141, 142

Bipolar order, 13

Birthrate, 109, 110, 118, 211

Black, Donald, 191

“The Black Mesa Defense Fund”, 134

Black people, liberation movements of, 52

Blackburn, Paul, 86

Blackmail, 81

Blake, Gary E., 135

Blenkinsop, David, 86

Blood sports, 61

Bloody Sunday, 26

Body of Liberties, 59

Bolt Weevils, 121

Book of Genesis, 45

Bookchin, Murray, 111-113

Botmaster, 198

Botnets, 197, 198

Boundless rage, 75

Bradley, Tom, 209

The Breeders, 209

Bretton Woods conference, 185

British Cruelty to Animals Act, 60

British Fund for the Replacement of Animals

in Medical Experiments (FRAME), 68

British Research Defense Society, 72

British Serious Organised Crime and Police

Act 2005, 88

British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection

(BUAV), 62, 65, 78, 90

British Universities Foundation for Animal

Welfare (UFAW), 68

Broughton, Zoe, 73

BUAV. See British Union for the Abolition of

Vivisection

Bull-baiting, 60

Burger King, 125

Burson-Marsteller, 179

Buxton, Thomas Fowell, 61

C

CA. See Countryside Alliance

Cadbury Schweppes, 122

California Forest Association, 179

Callicott, Bard, 107

Calne, Roy, 80

Campaign Against Pollution (CAP), 121

Capitalism, 22, 149, 207

Carson, Rachel, 101, 118

Carter, Jimmy, 137

Cass, David, 86

Castells, 188

Catalyzing event, 26

Cats, 72

Cave, George, 68, 75

Cells, 90

Center for the Study of Terrorism and

Irregular Warfare, 199

Center for Urban Horticulture, 213

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 187, 196 CEQ. See Council on Environmental Quality CERT/CC. See Computer Emergency

Response Team Coordination Center

Chain networks, 161-163

Chalecki, Elizabeth L., 131

Chalk, Peter, 144, 148

Child abuse, 63

Children, 143

Chiron Corporation, 86

Chisholm, Patricia, 26

Chocolate bars, 80

CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency

Circle of Darkness, 140

Civil disobedience, 73

Clatskanie, Oregon, 213

Clausen, Barry, 179

Clean Water Act, 120

Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy

and Research, 129

Clinton, Bill, 187

Clone, Elaine, 134

Closing Circle (Barry), 118

Cloud swarms, 201

Club of Rome, 119

Coalition Against Animal Welfare Fraud, 68

Coalition for Clean Air, 121

Cobbe, France Power, 62

Cold Buster, 80

Collin, Barry, 194

Colorado, 145

Colridge, Stephen, 62

Commission on Critical Infrastructure

Protection, 195

Committee on Environment and Public

Works, U.S., 15, 85

Commoner, Barry, 118

Commons Preservation Society, 115

Communism, 22

Complex-coordinated capability, 199

Computer Emergency Response Team

Coordination Center (CERT/CC), 196

Conceived life, 11

Concentration camps, 211

Condemnation of condemners, 92, 93

Conservation, 116

Conservation Conference, 116

Conservation organizations, 65

Conservationism, preservationism vs., 115

Consort Kennels, 85

Contrast, 18

Cornell University, 72

Coronado, Rodney Adam, 83, 91, 136, 158

Council on Environmental Quality

(CEQ), 120

Countryside Alliance (CA), 72

Creature. See Animals

Crenshaw, 30

Crist, Buckley, 175

Critical Art Ensemble, 203

“Cyberspace: A New Medium for Communication, Command, and Control by Extremists” (Whine), 159

“Cyberterror: Prospect and Implications” (Center for the Study of Terrorism and Irregular Warfare), 199

Cyberterrorism, 194

D

da Vinci, Leonardo, 59

Daley, Tim, 94

Dam, 116, 138

Dark Harvest, 209

Darwin, Charles, 49, 50

Davis, Marc, 140

Davis, Paul, 6

DDoS. See Distributed Denial of Service

de Graaf, Janny, 10

Deal, Carl, 129

Debate, 213

Decentralized model, 162

Declaration of Interdependence of 1976

(Greenpeace), 127

“The Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment” (United Nations Conference on the Human Environment), 120

A Declaration of War: Killing People to Save Animals and Environment, 53, 56, 57, 180

Deep ecology, 54, 55, 104, 109, 110, 113, 141, 208

Democratic state, 110

Denial, 92

Denial of Service (DoS) attack, 197

Denial strategy, 216

Denmark, 62

Descartes, Rene, 46

The Descent of Man, and Selection in

Relation to Sex (Darwin), 49

Devaluation, harassment as linked with, 31

Direct violence, 15, 209, 211

Discovery, 37

Discrimination, 4

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), 197

Dog, 59

Dogmatism, 24

Dogs, 71, 73

Dolphins, 70

Domestic terrorism, 82

Don’t Make a Wave Committee, 123, 124

DoS attack. See Denial of Service attack

E

Earth Day, 119, 132

Earth First!, 3, 11, 137, 150, 165, 179

Earth Liberation Front (ELF), 3, 15, 84, 144,

165, 213

Earth Tool Kit, 132

Eco-Commando Force 70, 121

Ecodefense. A Field Guide to

Monkeywrenching (Foreman and

Haywood), 133, 134

Ecoextremism. See Ecological extremism

Ecoextremist movement, leaderless

resistance in, 165

Ecoextremists, 15, 208. See also Swarming

“Eco-Fucker Hit List”, 179

Ecologic ideas, 215

Ecologic movement, polycentrism in, 158

Ecological catastrophe, 109

Ecological consciousness, emergence of, 3

Ecological extremism, 4, 19, 20, 221,

223, 224

Ecological good, 116

Ecological holism, 107

Ecological radicals, 7, 15

Ecological terrorism, 4, 131

Ecological tragedies, 120

Economic growth, 109, 110

EcoRaiders, 135

Ecosabotage. See Sabotage

Ecosystem, 106, 108

Ecotage. See Monkeywrenching

Ecotage! (Love and Obst), 132, 165 Ecoterror. The Violent Agenda to Save

Nature. The World of the Unabomber

(Arnold), 133

Ecoterrorism, 4, 27, 131

Ecoterrorism Prevention Act, 15

Ecoterrorist, 127

Edwards, Sean, 201

Ehrlich, Paul R., 118

Electronic Disturbance Theater, 203

ELF. See Earth Liberation Front

EMETIC. See Evan Mecham Eco-Terrorist

International Conspiracy

Endangered Species Act, 120

England, 59, 60

Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

(Hume), 47

Environment activists, violence used by, 15

Environment defenders, on animals, 5, 6

Environmental Defense Fund, 122

Environmental extremism, 3, 19

Environmental organizations, 3-6, 121, 122,

123, 208. See also Deep ecology

Environmental protection movement, 117, 121

Environmental radicalism, birth of, 121

Environmental terrorism. See Ecoterrorism “Environmental Terrorism: Analyzing the

Concept” (Schwartz), 131

Environmental Vigilantes, 119

Environmentalism, birth of, 118

Equality, 22

An Essay on the Principle of Population

(Malthus), 142

Estonia, 197

“Ethical Issues in Agriculture” (Aiken), 142

Europe, animal rights activism in, 59-61 Evan Mecham Eco-Terrorist International

Conspiracy (EMETIC), 140

Exploitation, 66

Extensional self-defense, 96

Extremism, 8, 21, 26, 31, 41. See also

Ecological extremism; Political extremism

Extremist attitude, 22

Extremist behavior, 22

Extremist ideologies, 21, 22

Extremist trend, 3

Extremists, gradual becoming of, 27

Extrinsic objects, 30

F

Fain, Michael, 140

Family, 23

Fanaticism, 38

Farm animals, 212

Fascism, 22

FBI. See Federal Bureau of Investigation

Fear, ecological radicals using, 7, 15

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 8, 10,

15, 82, 171, 207. See also Kaczynski,

Theodore

Feminist terrorism, 11

Festinger, Leon, 39

Finsen, Lawrence, 70

Finsen, Susan, 70

The First National Green Gathering, 112

FloodNet, 203

FoE. See Friends of the Earth

Foes of animals, 80, 81

Foreman, Dave, 109, 113, 132-134, 137,

138, 140, 143

Forest Service, U.S., 3, 116, 137

Fortuyn, Pim, 173, 174, 180

FRAME. See British Fund for the

Replacement of Animals in Medical

Experiments

France, 60, 124

The Free Trade Area of the Americas, 147

Freedom, 22

Friends of the Earth (FoE), 65, 122

Fromm, Erich, 23, 24

Frustration-aggression theory, 29, 30

Full-matrix network, 161, 162

Fundamentalisms, 36-38

Fur, 125, 207

G

GASP. See Group Against Smog and

Pollution

GATT. See General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

Gay people, liberation movements of, 52

Gelertner, David, 176, 177

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

(GATT), 185

Genetic engineering, 146

Georgia, 197

Gerlach, Luther P., 157-159

Germany, 59, 62, 63

GlaxoSmithKline, 86

Global Trends 2015 (CIA), 187

Globalization, 185, 188

Goals, 7, 12, 16, 18

Goodman, Cliff, 76

Government, in deep ecology, 110

Great Britain, 59-61, 88

Greece, 46

Greenpeace, 123

The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental

Organizations (Deal), 129

Group Against Smog and Pollution

(GASP), 121

Gruinard Island, 209

Guerrilla tactic, 200

Guilt, 23

Gurr, Ted R., 29

H

Hands, 77

Harassment, devaluation as linked with, 31

Hard security, 14

Haywood, Bill, 133

Helplessness, resentment basis, 31

Helvarg, David, 129

Henshaw, David, 78, 88, 90

“Hierarchies have a difficult time fighting

networks” (Arquilla and Ronfeldt), 205

Hill Grove Farm, 85

Hirsch, Leon, 84, 91

“The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic

Crisis” (White), 102

History, reversing, 110

“Hit Where It Hurts” (Kaczynski), 180

HIV. See Human immunodeficiency virus

Hoechst Pharmaceuticals, 76

Holocaust, 57

Horne, Barry, 45, 80

Howard University Medical School, 82

HSA. See Human Slaughter Association;

See also Hunt Saboteurs Association

HSUS. See Humane Society of the

United States

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), 81, 113

Human Slaughter Association (HSA), 68

Humane Society of the United States

(HSUS), 65, 68

Humans, 5, 6, 45, 53, 55, 209. See also

Deep ecology

Hume, David, 47

Humiliation, 30

Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA), 26, 75

Hunter (Pierce), 171

Huntingdon Life Sciences, 85, 93, 203

Hunts, 73

Hybrid network, 163

Hypothesis, of relative deprivation, 29

I

Iceland, 136

Ideological trigger, 4, 64

Ideologies. See Extremist ideologies;

See also Moderate ideologies;

Totalitarian ideologies

Illegal activity, 22

IMF. See International Monetary Fund

The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age (Jonas), 110

Individual approach, 211

“Industrial Society and its Future”

(Kaczynski, T.), 178, 179

Industrialism, abolition of, 143

Inferiority, 216, 217

Innocent creatures, 55

Institute for Behavioral Research, 71, 73

International Monetary Fund (IMF), 185

International Society for Animal Rights, 68

International Whaling Commission, 136

Internet, 159, 161, 180, 192, 218-220.

See also Cyberterrorism

Internet Division, 203

Intrinsic value, 52

Introduction to the Principles of Morals and

Legislation (Bentham), 48

Irish Republican Army (IRA), 30, 80,

192. See also Provisional Irish Republican Army

Isaac the Syrian, 59

Italian terrorists, 28

J

JD. See Justice Department

Jonas, Hans, 110

Jongman, Albert, 7

Joseph II (emperor), 59

Justice Department (JD), 4, 81

K

Kaczynski, David, 178

Kaczynski, Theodore, 172, 175

Killing, 55, 106

L

Laboratory animals, 62, 76

“The Land Ethic” (Leopold), 101

Lasey Antiquities Act, 116

Lawrence, John, 48

Laws, against animal rights groups, 87

Leaderless resistance, 9, 162, 165, 199, 222

Leaderless Resistance (Beam), 162

League Against Cruel Sports, 65

League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports, 61

Lee, Ronnie, 76, 90

Leftist single-issue extremism, 6

Left-wing extremists, 24

Legal activity, 22

Legal environmental organizations, 3

Legal person, 50

Leopold, Aldo, 101, 102, 107, 116

Letter-traps, 81

Lewis, John, 15, 85

Liberation actions, 83

Liberation movements, 52

Liberators, 53, 57, 70

Life, 51, 113, 223

The Limits to Growth (Club of Rome), 119

Line networks, 161, 162

The Logic of Political Violence

(Rosebraugh), 149

Lone wolves, 171, 172, 218

Looser structures, 159, 162

Love, Sam, 132, 165

Lucozade, 79

Ludd, Ned, 132, 133, 143

M

Makah, 136

Malignant narcissism, 30

Malthus, Thomas, 142

Man and Nature; Or, Physical Geography as

Modified by Human Action (Marsh), 116

Manes, Christopher, 113, 142

Marsh, George Perkins, 116

Martin, Richard, 60, 61

Massachusetts, 59, 112

Massenpsychologie des Fascismus (Reich), 23

Matza, David, 92

McDonald’s, 82, 89

Mechanics, 46

Men, tough-mindedness of, 25

Metcalf-Hatch Act, 70

Michigan State University, 83

Middle Ages, 46

Middle class, tender-mindedness of, 25

Mitterrand, Francois, 124

Moderate ideologies, values basis of, 21

The Monkey Wrench Gang (Abbey), 132

Monkeywrenching, 131

Morris, Clarence, 102

Moruroa Atoll, 124

Mosser, Thomas, 177, 179

MsBlaster, 196

Mueller, Robert S., 171, 196

Muir, John, 115, 116

Multi-issue extremism, 222, 224

Murray, Gilbert, 177, 179

N

Nader, Ralph, 121

NAELFPO. See North American Earth

Liberation Front Press Office

Naess, Arne, 104-107

Narcissism, 30

Narcissism-aggression, 30

Nation states, 186, 187

National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS), 78

National Environmental Policy Act

(NEPA), 120

National Extremism Tactical Coordinating

Unit (NETCU), 88

National forests, 116

National Wildlife Fund, 65

Nature expeditions, 117

NAVS. See National Anti-Vivisection Society

Nazis, 63

Nazism, 23

Needs, 106

NEPA. See National Environmental Policy Act

NETCU. See National Extremism Tactical

Coordinating Unit

Netwar, 160, 222

Network designs, 161-163, 170, 218

Network organisms, 167

Network society, 188

Network structure, 9

Neurological laboratory, 82

Neutralization techniques, 92, 93

New activists, 123, 139

New terrorism, 185, 186

“A New Vigilance: Identifying and Reducing the Risk of Environmental Terrorism” (Chalecki), 131

New York, 119

New York Society for the Prevention of

Cruelty to Children, 63

Newkirk, Ingrid, 71, 91

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 31

Nihilism, fanaticism responding to, 38

9/11 terrorist attacks, 192

Nixon, Richard, 120

Nodal networks, 161-163, 169

Nonviolence principle, 213

Nonvital needs, 106

Norm of biocentric equality, 105-107

North American Earth Liberation Front Press

Office (NAELFPO), 148

Northern Ireland, 28

Northwestern University, 175

Norway, 62, 125

Noxell Corporation, 72

Nuclear tests, 123, 124

O

Obst, David, 132, 165

Odysseus, 101

On the Origin of Species (Darwin), 49

Operation Bite Back, 83

Operation Bite Back II, 83

Operation on emotions, 31

Organizational structures. See Structures

Organizers, 91

Orientation points, 18

Original values and desires, 37

Overpopulation, 113, 142, 143, 211

Over-soul philosophy, 115

P

Pacheco, Alex, 69, 71, 73, 91

Paine, Thomas, 48

Passive strategy, 55

PEER. See Public Employees for

Environmental Responsibility

Peer-to-peer botnet, 198

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

(PETA), 65, 69, 71, 72, 90

Personality, 27, 28, 29

Persons, 51

PETA. See People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

Philosophical Treatise on Horses and on the

Moral Duties of Man towards the Brute

Creation (Lawrence, J.), 48

Pickering, Leslie James, 148, 149, 207

Pierce, William, 171

Pinchot, Gifford, 116, 128

Pink, Jean, 65, 69

Pirates for Animal Liberation, 86

Pluralism, 217

Political extremism, 21

Political goals. See Goals

Political Terrorism (Schmidt and Jongman), 7

Polycentric, segmentary, integrated

networked (SPIN) organizations, 157

Polycentrism, 158

“Population and AIDS” (Manes), 142

Population Bomb (Ehrlich), 118

Postanthropocentric perspective, 50

Potok, Mark, 180

Preservationism, conservationism vs., 115

President’s Science Advisory

Committee, 118

Prestige, John, 26, 75

Pro-animal organizations, 64-66, 67,

92, 93

Pro-animal radicals, 92, 93

Proenvironmental organizations, 65

Project identities, 189

Propaganda, 171, 219

Protection of Animals Act of 1911, 61

Provisional Irish Republican Army

(Provisional IRA), 26

Psychodynamic concept, of authoritarian character, 23

Public Citizen, 121

Public Employees for Environmental

Responsibility (PEER), 129

Pulsing, 200

Pure power, 35

Pyramidal structure, 89, 155, 156

Q

Quebec Liberation Front, 28

R

Racist terrorism, 11

Radical actions, catalyzing event’s

connection with, 26

Radical behaviors, 27

Radical ecological movement, 90-92, 221

Radical ecology, 101

Radical ideologies. See Extremist ideologies

Radioactive waste, 125

RAF. See Red Army Faction

Rage, 75

Rainbow Warrior, 124

RARE II. See Roadless Area Review and

Evaluation II

Reagan, Ronald, 171

Red Army Faction (RAF), 28, 30

Red Brigades, 216

Redwatch, 192

Regan, Tom, 52, 53

Reich, Wilhelm, 23

Reintegrative punishment strategy, 216

Relative deprivation, 29

Religiosity, 23

Renaissance, 46

Research, 16, 18, 223

Resentment, 19, 31, 36-39, 41, 214, 215,

216, 222

Resistance identities, 189

Ressentiment theory. See Resentment

Revaluation of values, effect, 33, 34, 35, 222

Revlon, 72

Reykjavik, Iceland, 136

“The Rights and Duties of Beasts and Trees:

A Law Teacher’s Essay for Landscape

Architects” (Morris, C.), 102

Rights of Man (Paine), 48

Right-wing extremists, 24

Rivalry of fundamentalisms, 38

Roadless Area Review and Evaluation II

(RARE II), 3, 137

Ronfeldt, David, 159, 201, 205

Roosevelt, Theodore, 116

Rosebraugh, Craig, 148, 149, 208

Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty

to Animals (RSPCA), 61, 63, 65

Rudolf, Eric, 171, 220

S

Sabotage, 7, 8, 78, 89, 94, 145, 207

Saboteurs, 7

Salt, Henry, 48

Sanctity of life, 113, 223

“A Sand County Almanac” (Leopold),

107, 116

SCADA. See Supervisory Control and Data

Acquisition

Schmid, Alex P., 10

Schmidt, Alex, 7

Schwartz, Daniel M., 131

Science and Survival (Barry), 118

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

(SSCS), 136

Secondary values and desires, 37

Security, 13-15

Self, 35

“Self-Realization: an Ecological Approach to

Being in the World” (Naess), 107

September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, 192

Sequoia National Park, 102

Sex drive, 23

SHAC. See Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty

Shadowserver Foundation, 197

Shaklee Corporation, 86

“The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range

Ecology Movement” (Naess), 105

Shallow ecology, 104

“Should Trees Have Standing? Towards

Legal Rights for Natural Objects”

(Stone), 102

Sierra Club, 65, 102, 115

Silent Spring (Carson), 101, 118

Simple-unstructured capability, 199

Singer, Peter, 50, 53, 69

Single issue terrorism, 150, 215

Single-issue extremism, 6, 10-12, 213, 215,

222, 224

Situational leaders, 158

Slammer, 196

Slave trade, 46

Smith, E., 175

Smith, G. Davidson, 10

Smith Klein Beecham, 79

Smoke Nuisance Abatement Act, 115

Snitching, 88

Sobig-F, 196

Social distance, 191

Social geometry, 191

Social justice fraction, 139, 141

Socialism, 22

Soft security, 14

Software bugs, 195, 196

Sour grapes effect, 33, 34

Sources, 16, 18

Speciesism, 50

SPIN organizations. See Polycentric, segmentary, integrated networked organizations

Spira, Henry, 69, 70

SSCS. See Sea Shepherd Conservation

Society

Stallwood, Kim, 78, 91

“Statements of Principles” (Foreman and

Wolke), 109

Stephens, Inc., 85, 203

Stone, Christopher, 102

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), 85, 166

Storm botnet, 197

Strategies, 55, 216

Structures, 90, 140, 155-157, 159, 161,

162, 213

Stuxnet, 195

Suffering, 31, 61

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), 196

Support groups, 90-92

Swarming, 200, 204

Sweden, 62

Sweetness, 33, 34

Switzerland, 62

T

Taub, Edward, 71, 73

Taylor, Bob, 177

Taylor, Bron, 6

Taylor, Thomas, 48

“Technology and Morality” (Manes), 142

Technology dismantling, 142

“Ten Rules for Direct Action” (ALF), 77

Tender-mindedness, 25

Terrorism, 5-7, 29-31, 41, 82, 150, 185, 190-192, 214-216. See also Cyberterrorism; Lone wolves; New terrorism

Terrorists, 6, 28, 29, 199

Texas Tech University Health Science

Center, 82

Theory of dogmatism, 24

“This World is Meant for All Beings”, 55

Thoreau, David, 115

Total dominance, 35

Totalitarian ideologies, 35, 110

Tough-mindedness, 25

Toxic waste, 125

Traditional structure, 155, 156

Trans-Species Unlimited, 72, 75

Trutt, Fran Stephanie, 84, 91

2 June Movement, 30

U

UFAW. See British Universities Foundation for Animal Welfare

Unabomber. See Kaczynski, Theodore “The Unabomber’s Manifesto”

(Kaczynski, T.), 178, 179

United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, 120

United Nations Environment

Programme, 120

United States (U.S.), 62, 119, 120, 207

Universal Declaration of Animal Rights, 62

Unnecessary suffering, 61

Urban sprawls, 145

“U.S. Environmental Groups and Leaderless

Resistance” (Chalk), 148

Utility principle, 50, 52

V

Vail, Colorado, 145

Validations, 37, 39

Values, 21, 31, 33-35, 41, 222

van der Graaf, Volkert, 172, 173, 180

Vanishing Air (Public Citizen), 121

Vapor swarms, 201

Vereiniging Milieu-Offensief (VMO), 173

Veterinary schools, 60

Victoria Street Society, 62

A Vindication of the Right of Brutus

(Taylor, T.), 48

A Vindication of the Rights of Women (Wollstonecraft), 48

Violence, 5-7, 15, 26, 79, 84, 94, 96, 97,

131, 209, 211, 223

Vital needs, 106

Vivisection, 60, 62

Vlasak, Jerry, 94, 96

VMO. See Vereiniging Milieu-Offensief

W

Walt Disney Enterprises, 102

The War Against the Greens (Helvarg), 129

Watson, Paul Franklin, 26, 127, 136

Websites, 168, 169, 205. See also

Cyberterrorism

Weinberger, Caspar, 71

Whale hunting, 125. See also Sea Shepherd

Conservation Society

When Prophecy Fails (Festinger), 39

Whine, Michel, 159

White, Lynn, 102

White Paints, New York, 119

“Who’s Afraid of Jerry Vlasak?” (Best), 96

Why Men Rebel (Gurr), 29

Wilderness Act, 120

Wildlife protection organizations, 65

Wise Use, 128

“The Wise Use Movement: Strategic

Analysis and Fifty State Review” (Clearinghouse on Environmental

Advocacy and Research), 129

Wise-use terrorism, 11

Wolke, Howie, 109

Wollstonecraft, Mary, 48

Women, 25, 52

Working class, tough-mindedness of, 25

World Bank, 185

World Trade Center, 192

World trade liberalization, 186

World Trade Organization (WTO), 185

World Wide Fund, 65

World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), 65

WTO. See World Trade Organization

WWF. See World Wildlife Fund for Nature

Y

Yellowstone National Park, 116

Yosemite National Park, 116

[Back Cover]

[1] For example, Alexander Pope, John Muir or Albert Schweitzer may be mentioned here.

[2] RARE II decided to dedicate 11 million acres of that area for future development, and only 15 million were classified as protected area.

[3] The fight against cruelty toward animals was treated as fighting against evil in general, and corruption of human character in particular.

[4] Although the development of consciousness (expresses in slogans against species discrimination) can be treated as the basic factor generating animal rights extremism, it might not have been the only one. Animal rights literature provides us with many arguments that changes in the way animals are being bred, which have taken place during last century, could also be responsible. In the opinion of many animal rights activists, the conditions on breeding farms (compared with concentration camps) have become so inhumane that it naturally triggers the will to radical action, even in people, who under normal conditions would not get involved in animal defense.

[5] Eagan for instance presents the case of Fran Trutt as an example of environmental activity, but in fact her motivations were explicitly motivated by animal rights. See Eagan (1996).

[6] The FBI defines ecoterrorism as “the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an environmentally oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature.” Federal Bureau of Investigation. (February 12, 2002), Congressional testimony: “The Threat of Eco-terrorism,” http://www.fbi.gov/ news/testimony/the-threat-of-eco-terrorism.

[7] See: Statement of James F. Jarboe, Domestic Terrorism Section Chief, Counterterrorism Division Federal Bureau of Investigation Before the House Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Forest and Forest Health, February 12, 2002, http://www.cdfearchives.org/jarboe.htm, (accessed 11.02.2009) (Laqueur, 1999; Liddick, 2006; Griset and Mahan, 2003; White, 2002).

[8] However, none of the mentioned authors defines the criterion of such a distinction.

See “The A.L.F. UNMASKED - Interview with David Barbarash,” http://www.animalliberationfront. com/ALFront/Interviews/Interviewper cent20withper cent20Davidper cent20Barbarash.htm (accessed 14.02.2013).

[9] Of course, one cannot argue with the definition by turning to empirical data because at the ground of adopting it there is always the author’s terminological decision, which in principle is arbitrary and limited only by the reasons of scientific usefulness of the defined term.

[10] On different ways of defining terrorism (see Goldstick, 2002; Cooper, 2002; Martin, 2003b; Schmidt, 1984, 1988; Bernstein, 2004).

[11] Similar understanding of violence appears in the definition of terrorism formulated by the US Department of Defense: “The unlawful use of violence or threat of violence to instill fear and coerce governments or societies. Terrorism is often motivated by religious, political, or other ideological beliefs and committed in the pursuit of goals that are usually political.” (Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms p. 368, http://ra.defense.gov/documents/rtm/jp1_02.pdf) (see Ronczkowski, 2012).

[12] While referring to the activities of radical defenders of the environment I will also use the term “environmental extremism,” and the term “animal rights extremism” when I will discuss the actions of radical animal defenders.

[13] The latter notion, it has to be admitted, is not perfect due to its relative nature. Extremism is a term with clearly demarcated scope. The evaluation whether something is extremism, or not, depends on, as rightly stated by Roman Tokarczyk, the place on the axis with a scale that “spans across and starts with an extremist minimum, goes through the middle, and up to extremist maximum” [own transl.]. Extremism is also characterized by relativism in time and space. A phenomenon, which in one place and/or time is conceived as extremism, in other place and/or time is not (Tokarczyk, 2004; Hoffman, 2006; Friedland, 1992; Lodge, 1981).

[14] On different types of terrorism see: Kuba Jaloszynski, Zagrozenia terroryzmem w wybranych krajach Europy Zachodniej oraz w Stanach Zjednoczonych, Warszawa: AON, 2011.

[15] In the subject literature apart from the term “single issue terrorism” (terrorisme a cause unique or terror- isme lie a une cause particuliere, Terrorismus fur Einzelstreitfragen, terrorismo de causa unica), the term “special interest terrorism” is also used. Next to these two most popular ones there is a growing number of their variations, such as single-issue group terrorism, focused-issue based terrorism, special-issue terrorism, and so on (Anon., 1997; Taylor and Horgan, 2000; Al-Khattar, 2003).

There are also attempts to go beyond that terminological circle - the term “terrorism of the reduced conflict field” may serve as an example” (see Bolechow, 2002).

[16] My research on single-issue terrorism (which this book is a part of) was financially supported by the Science Fund as a research project no O N116 311538.

[17] It should be mentioned that terrorist or extremist groups focused on single issue are often a part of broader movements (for example fighting for a moral restoration or new socio-political order). However, as it is often emphasized that the aim of their actions is not to evoke a larger political change but rather to “resolve” one particular issue.

[18] According to Kai Hirschman, the term “single-issue terrorism” can refer also to some actions of antiglobalists. See Hirschman (2001).

[19] There is a certain temptation to count nationalist-liberation terrorism as single-issue terrorism. There are however some doubts. On the one hand, it seems that this kind of terrorism focuses on resolving one single issue - liberating the nation from the foreign occupation, but on the other, resolving that issue is related to comprehensive, wide-ranging transformations (although often it is not the goal, at least not as a rationale for action) of the functioning of the state and society.

[20] This phenomenon, undoubtedly, was fostered by an internationalization of threats, which was a result of globalization and political interdependence.

[21] Comprehensive characteristics of changes in the field of security, which occurred after the cold-war period was presented by scientists from the Copenhagen School. See Buzan et al. (1996) and Kostecki (1996) An attempt of reinterpretation of the notion of security was also undertaken in 1994 by the authors of the Report for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), where seven dimensions of security were distinguished. The latter partly overlapped with those formulated by the Copenhagen School, which listed the following aspects of security: economic, provision, health, personal, social, political, and ecological.

[22] “The Birth of a Buzz Word: Eco-terrorism,” The Indypendent, September 15, 2007, http://www. indypendent.org/2007/09/15/birth-buzz-word-eco-terrorism (accessed 27.01.2012).

[23] Statement of John Lewis, U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works Hearing Statements, 18.05.2005, http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=237817, (accessed 27.01.2012).

[24] Ryszard Olszewski rightly pointed out that “Molding the security policy, due to, above all, growing uncertainty in regard to forms and ways of using violence, enforces to create more and more scenarios - more or less dangerous, or more or less desirable from the political point of view” [own tranls.] (Olszewski, 2005).

[25] The scope of the term “source” is here broadly understood. In accordance with the author’s intention, it comprises both, the source materials, that is, the trace of human activity that is a subject of the direct interest of the researcher (documents, reports, testimonies, diaries, etc.), and all explanatory attempts of elaborating these materials by other authors (monographs, scientific articles, etc.).

[26] There is a number of monographs written by people actively engaged in the ecological movement, as well as by people who actively fight against it. However, it should be noted that those publications usually do not meet the requirements of scientific reliability mainly because they do not observe an axiologically neutral perspective of analyzes.

[27] In the 1970s Jim Sidanius was a propagator of this view defined as the “contextual” hypothesis (see Sidanius, 1978). Of course, some ideologies not always gain the status of being pro-systemic on account of social support; sometimes they are enforced (Sidanius, 1978).

[28] As Jakubowska writes, many people represent the so-called latent extremism. People of this kind not only do not act to promote any worldview but often are not even able to determine their own political orientation. However, they are mentally ready to adopt radical political attitudes (Jakubowska, 1999, p. 151).

[29] Laird Wilcox notices that extremism is rather an issue of style, not content. In his opinion, the extremist structure can be found not only “at the fringes of the political or religious spectrum, but sometimes in the ‘middle’ as well. AN individual who is uncompromisingly, intolerantly ‘centrist’ may be far more dogmatic and prejudiced than someone who adopts more radical views but does so in an open and tolerant manner. Consequently, a guarded middle-of-the-road position doesn’t necessarily provide a solution to extremism, and in some cases may only serve as a mask to conceal it” (Wilcox, 1992, p. 55).

[30] A very detailed description of the extremist attitude was provided by Laird Wilcox who characterized it with the help of 22 features (see Wilcox, 1992, pp. 56-61; McGuire, 1990; Scruton, 1982).

[31] Robert Altemeyer reached similar conclusions in his studies on right-wing authoritarianism. In the researcher’s opinion, social homogeneity coupled with parental domination and strict educational system foster the generation of authoritarian attitude (see Altemeyer, 1996, 2006).

[32] “Interview March 11, 2009,” Animal Liberation Front.Com. Worldwide News and Information Resource about the A.L.F, http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/Interviews/InterviewMar09.htm (June 24, 2014).

[33] Straight-edge is a socio-cultural movement that arose from the punk subculture in the United States in the early 1980s. Supporters of this movement categorically reject abusing alcohol, drugs, eating meat, using animal products and accidental sex (Haenfler, 2006).

[34] Apart from personal features, in the past, the researchers pointed to the causes of physiological nature, like deficiency of vitamins (Lombroso) or improper functioning of ears (see Hubbard, 1978). Hubbard suspected that inclination to terrorism may be a result of chemical substances like noradrenaline, acetylcholine, or endorphin in the body (see Hubbard, 1978, 1983).

[35] The fundamental attribution error is explaining behavior of other by referring to their internal features (who they are) and describing one’s own behavior by referring to situational features (events independent from us) (Silke, 2004; Horgan, 2005, p. 41).

[36] Nowadays, Walter Laqueur seems to be one of the supporters of the idea of interpreting terrorists’ behaviors as paranoia: “Madness, especially paranoia, plays a role in contemporary terrorism. Not all paranoiacs are terrorists, but all terrorists believe in conspiracies by powerful ??? hostile forces and suffer from some form of delusion and persecution mania” (Laqueur, 2001). On the interdependencies between terrorism and mental illness (see Taylor, 1988).

[37] This statement finds its reflection in the typology formulated by a psychiatrist Frederic Hacker who in 1976 distinguished three types of terrorists: criminals, crazies and crusaders. Criminals (the smallest group among terrorists) terrorize for profit or to satisfy a particular desire for revenge. Crazies are mentally unstable individuals for whom engagement in terrorist activity is caused by their disease. A separate (and the most numerous) group consists of crusaders. They are involved in terrorism mainly due to ideological reasons. For them violence is only a means to an end - the goal is to change the society or parts of it (see Hacker, 1976).

Ted Goertzel as well points at the necessity to identify different types of terrorists whose actions are motivated by various stimuli. He distinguishes three categories of terrorists: political strategists like Carlos Marighela, Osama bin Laden, radical theorists like Theodore Kaczynski, Abimael Guzman, and militant activists like Timothy McVeigh, Bommi Baumann. In Goertzel’s opinion, terrorists usually think rationally but that rationality occurs within a limited system of beliefs that may be irrational. Contrary to psychotics’ delusions, their belief systems are social constructs shared by many people. Joining a terrorist organization means accepting those beliefs and may be a result of both, frustration and anger, cool calculation, or various other factors (see Goertzel, 2002).

[38] Johan van der Dennen was critical of the frustration-aggression theory: “More than two decades of research has shown that frustration does not invariably lead to aggression, that frustration can lead to nonaggression, that aggression can occur without frustration, that in some cultures aggression is not a typical response to frustration, that some situations (such as threat and insult) can evoke more aggression than frustration (...).The widespread acceptance of the F[rustration]-A[ggression] notion is perhaps attributable more to its simplicity than to its predictive power” (van der Dennen, 1980).

[39] Robert Robins and Jerrold Post believe that the process of developing narcissism is triadic: “The narcissistic triad consists of (1) narcissistic entitlement, which inevitably leads to (2) disappointment and disillusionment at the frustration of insatiable narcissistic needs, which produces (3) narcissistic rage due to the rejection of the ‘entitlement’ (Robins and Post, 1997).

[40] In this context it is worthy to mention Howard Kaplan’s book entitled Deviant Behavior in Defense of Self, where he presents the theory linking negative self-evaluation with the phenomenon of defensive rejection of the group’s norms, the standards of which could not be met (see Kaplan, 1980).

[41] In Nietzsche’s theory, generally speaking, there are two analysis levels of the resentment phenomenon: psychological and historic-cultural. On the first level Nietzsche analyzes personality causes of resentment formation. For he believes that depravation in resentment is always generated by a particular psycho-physiological structure, not by external factors (social, political, or situational). On the second level, Nietzsche is interested in the way how resentful valuations influence the form of European culture and how they lead this culture towards a nihilistic fall. These levels, as it seems, are not treated by him as equal. Much more place in his writings is dedicated to the second level, what may indicate a greater importance given to these kinds of problems. Max Scheler, on the other hand, his analyzes of resentment joined together two perspectives: philosophical and sociological. Within the framework of the fist one the author of Ressenti- ment clarified and developed many Nietzschean claims and analyzes (unfortunately not without mistakes and ambiguities). Especially the way he showed how negative emotions: envy, hatred, jealousy, lust for revenge transform into resentment, as well as separation and description of developmental phases of that phenomenon are explanatory valuable. In the sociological perspective Scheler in his analyzes of the causes of resentment went beyond Nietzschean claims - he came to the conclusion that apart from psychological factors various aspects of social structure play an important role in the emergence and formation of resentment. Among these aspects are: age and sex structure, social roles structure, social positions structure (Scheler, 1972). Exclusively sociological conceptualization of the resentment phenomenon was presented by Max Weber. Contrary to Scheler, who saw many social personifications of resentment, Weber linked it with the axiological activity of the members of the lowest social classes. The latter believed that the reason for the inequality on earth was the sin and injustice of the privileged groups, which sooner or later must bring God’s vengeance. In Weber’s opinion, resentment finds its manifestations in ethical systems that contain glorification of suffering and the promise of abolishment of the hated social order. These ethics enhance the importance of suffering among the impaired classes and make them look for its deeper meaning and God given mission - the source of their virtue and dignity. Among the analyzed social ethical systems only in case of Judaism, Weber believed, resentment had a decisive influence on the doctrine (Weber, 1993).

[42] Nietzsche describes this suffering in the following words: “One does not know how to get free of anything, one does not know how to have done with anything, one does not know how to thrust back everything hurts. Men and things come importunately close, events strike too deep, the memory is a festering wound” (Nietzsche, 1979).

[43] It is worthy to mention that according to Max Scheler, the resentful situation of values in an object has the following structure: “A is affirmed, valued, and praised not for its own intrinsic quality, but with the unverbalized intention of denying, devaluating, and denigrating B” (Scheler, 1972, p. 67).

[44] In his book Nietzsche labels this strategy as “revaluation” and describes in the following way: “ Lies are turning weakness into an accomplishment, no doubt about it (...) and impotence which doesn’t retaliate is being turned into ‘goodness’; timid baseness is being turned into ‘humility’; submission to people one hates is being turned into ‘obedience’ (actually towards someone who, they say, orders this submission - they call him God). The inoffensiveness of the weakling, the very cowardice with which he is richly endowed, his standing-by-the-door, his inevitable position of having to wait, are all given good names such as ‘patience’, also known as the virtue; not-being-able-to-take-revenge is called not-wanting-to-take-revenge, it might even be forgiveness (...). They are also talking about ‘loving your enemies’ - and sweating while they do it. (...) They are miserable, without a doubt, all these rumour-mongers and clandestine forgers, even if they do crouch close together for warmth - but they tell me that their misery means they are God’s chosen and select, after all, people beat the dogs they love best; perhaps this misery is just a preparation, a test, a training, it might be even more than that - something that will one day be balanced up and paid back with enormous interest in gold, no! in happiness. (...) They are now informing me that not only are they better than the powerful, the masters of the world whose spittle they have to lick (not from fear, not at all from fear! but because God orders them to honor those in authority) - not only are they better, but they have a ‘better time’, or at least will have a better time one day” (Nietzsche, 2006)

[45] Scruton describes the resentment mechanism in the following way: “The vanguard begins by targeting the culpable group, class or race. This will be a group marked by its previous success, the fruits of which will be taken from it and either destroyed or distributed among the victors. The members of the group will be humiliated and even reduced to some kind of animal condition, in order to display the extent of their former presumption. Hence the Gulag and the death-camp arise naturally from the seizure of power, since they show the depth of the deceit that the world has hitherto practiced against those who now control it. Resentment does not rest when its victim has been deprived of his worldly goods. It seeks to deprive him of his humanity, to show that he was never entitled to possess the slightest share in the earth’s resources, and that his death is no more to be regretted than the death of any other kind of vermin” (Scruton, 2014).

[46] Especially in the conceptions of “frustration-aggression” and “narcissism-aggression.”

[47] The understanding of the crucial for this theory notions of fundamentalism and fanaticism does not differ from their vernacular comprehension. Their commonness may be represented by two short definitions from the online dictionary of English Dictionary.com “strict adherence to the fundamental principles of any set of beliefs” and “wildly excessive or irrational devotion, dedication, or enthusiasm” respectively.

[48] It is probably the most natural, “instinctive” way of thinking about resentment in the context of the problems it brings about.

[49] The basic assumption of Nietzsche’s theory is upheld here (one of his most famous idea that appears in different forms in various psychological theories), namely that behind all values and desires there is a hidden specific “meta-desire” - will to power, which almost directly was transported after Nietzsche’s death to the theories of his famous readers, like Alfred Adler - the creator of individual psychology (Adler, 1964) or Wladyslaw Witwicki - the creator of cratism theory (Witwicki, 1995). His characteristics of will to power (conceiving it as a general desire for superiority, domination on account of being better that can be manifested in different ways may take a form of various concrete desires of particular superiority - in something, anything: work, way of life, interpersonal relations, etc. - for everything may be valuable. General desires of superiority characterizes our nature, specific desires of superiority characterizes the accepted value system) refers only to a small portion of Nietzsche’s thought. However, it can be justified because the ressentiment theory is applicable to this fragment of reality - interpersonal relations, both in psychological and sociological aspects. He tries to resolve one of the most essential problems at the confluence of psychology and sociology - the issue of individual and group inferiority (Brachfeld, 1972). He shows that on that ground specific (defensive) value systems come into being.

[50] The power of internal psychological processes results in development of extremist personality but it does not mean that the individual openly opts for fundamentalism or fanaticism. Extremism, as I mentioned already, may be concealed, or it does not have to translate into political actions (it may, as well be realized in the private sphere). Therefore, it seems that apart from psychological factors there must exist also other external “situational” (political-social) predicates of extremist actions. Such predicates have of course always existed and will probably always exist. Typically, they include oppression, social inequality, the lack of access to certain commodities, or social impairment. What makes them different is their scope or the power of influence. This power most often is limited to relatively small societies or groups. It is not an accident that extremism and terrorism are described as the strategy of the weak, those who cannot manage in the framework of the conventional structures and methods of actions.

[51] Aquinas refers to Aristotle as The Philosopher.

[52] here are also less “mechanistic” interpretations of Descartes’ standpoint that acknowledge the possibility of animals being able to feel pain. One may argue whether these interpretations or rightful or not. There is no doubt that the contemporary to Descartes and later thinkers understood his thought in the spirit of “mechanism”. It is worthy to turn the attention to a Descartes’ telling utterance, where he points out the “practical benefits” of his beliefs: “my opinion is not so much cruel for animals as indulgent to men - at least to those who are not given over to the superstitions of Pythagoras (a vegetarian) - since it absolves them from any suspicion of crime when they eat or kill animals.” (Descartes, 2009; Kenny, 1970; Regan, 1982; Singer, 1991).

[53] In one of his writings Kant states: “So far as animals are concerned, we have no direct duties. Animals are not self-conscious, and are there merely as a means to an end. That end is man.” (Kant, 1963; Singer, 1991, p. 203; Kant, 2005; Regan, 2001; Piatek, 1998).

[54] Henry S. Salt states: “every great liberating movement has proceeded exactly on these lines. Oppression and cruelty are invariably founded on a lack of imaginative sympathy. (...) When once the sense of affinity is awakened, the knell of tyranny is sounded, and the ultimate concession of ‘rights’ is simply a matter of time.” (Salt, 1892; Silverstein, 1996).

[55] Among the ones who should be mentioned here are: Stephen R. L. Clark, Andrew Linsey, Tom Regan, and Richard Ryder.

[56] The term “speciesism” was coined by Richard Ryder in 1970. In one of his articles Ryder describes it in the following way: “Surely if we are all God’s creatures, if all animal species are capable of feeling, if we are all evolutionary relatives, if all animals are on the same biological continuum, then also we should all be on the same moral continuum - and if it is wrong to inflict suffering upon an innocent and unwilling human, then it is wrong to so treat another species. To ignore this logic is to risk being guilty of prejudice of speciesism.” (Ryder, 1979).

[57] Singer writes: “to take the life of a being who has been hoping, planning, and working for some future goal is to deprive that being of the fulfillment of all those efforts; to take the life of a being with a mental capacity below the level needed to grasp that one is a being with future - much less make plans for the future - cannot involve this particular kind of loss” (Singer, 2002, p. 21).

[58] The author of the Declaration, who call themselves “Screaming Wolf,” begins the treatise with the telltale dedication: “This book is dedicated to the animals who have been killed by human greed, selfishness, and bloodlust. In their names, and in the names of current and future generations of innocent beings who will suffer and die as a result of human brutality, the liberators are striking back. Our fellow creatures who have been mutilated, slaughtered, burned, poisoned, strangled, gassed, shot, electrocuted, microwaved, run over, skinned, eaten, enslaved, and domesticated are now being defended. Humans, beware!” Screaming Wolf, A Declaration of War: Killing People to Save Animals and the Environment. <http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ Philosophy/Legal/declaration%20of%20war_files/declaration%20of%20war.htm> (accessed 26. 05. 14).

[59] Sidney and Tanya Singer were probably the authors of the Declaration of War. (Arnold, 1997).

[60] Here are a couple of interesting passages concerning this issue: “Let me summarize this conclusion of people who have come to call themselves animal liberators. It will be direct, challenging, uncompromising, and frightening to all animal abuser and others invested in the system. Liberators believe in killing humans to save animals! If an animal researcher said: ‘It’s a dog or a child,’ a liberator will defend the dog every time. A liberator also believes that disposing of a few researchers will save even more dogs from their cruelty. Liberators have come to one unavoidable conclusion: HUMANS WILL NEVER MAKE PEACE WITH ANIMALS! It is not in their natures or in the nature’s of the societies they have created. In fact, liberators believe that if people really want to save the animals, they must stop wasting their time trying to improve the human race and its societies. They must declare war against humans.” And: “The opposition is stronger, better financed, and more numerous than animal defenders. Gains made are easily reversed. Animal abuse will go on until mankind becomes extinct, or the planet is destroyed. According to this extremist position, it follows that people who want to help the animals must not use their energy trying to change the system - that’s impossible. They must focus their efforts on rescuing as many animals as they can and give animal abusers as much trouble as possible - they must be liberators of animals! The purpose of this revolution would not be to discard the old powers and put in the new. According to the liberator philosophy, no human system will ever treat animals with respect. The animals simply need a continuous revolution to consistently, repeatedly, and uncompromisingly liberate them from human oppression. They need a revolution against human society because it is intrinsically oppressive. So long as there are people, animals will need this revolution.” Screaming Wolf, A Declaration of War: Killing People to Save Animals and the Environment.<http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Philosophy/Legal/declaration%20of%20war_files/ declaration%20of%20war.htm> (accessed 26. 05. 14).

[61] Liberators “believe it is because people see the world as a ‘natural resource,’ as a means to human ends. As a liberator sees it, the world has been defined by man to be for man. Placing man at the center of the world is called anthropocentrism. It allows humans to regard animals as ‘natural resources,’ objects for human use and consumption. (...)Liberators believe that the saints of mankind are still the sinners of the world.” Screaming Wolf, A Declaration of War: Killing People to Save Animals and the Environment. <http:// www.animalliberationfront.com/Philosophy/Legal/declaration%20of%20war_files/declaration%20of%20 war.htm> (accessed 26. 05. 14).

[62] The liberators who encourage to undertake sabotage acts recommend to use the book of Foreman and Haywood (1985).

[63] At this point it is worthy to mention that there is a considerable difference between animal rights defenders and extreme environmental activists. The latter (contrary to the former) are willing to accept hunting, if it is not for profit or entertainment but to satisfy the basic vital needs. They believe that in such a case it should be perceived as a regular form of participation in the ecosystem, and not as exploitation. Aldo Leopold, an early visionary of deep ecology was of the position that hunting was a deep spiritual experience. Today, many deep ecologists hold in high esteem the perspective of creating society along the lines of the forager model.

[64] The research conducted by Donald Liddick at the organized by PETA conference “Helping Animals 101” showed that 9.6% of its participants opted for using physical violence against people in animal defense (13% were for threatening with it, and 39.1% for carrying out various forms of sabotage even if it would involve unintentional danger for human health) (Liddick, 2006).

[65] See, e.g., How to do Animal Rights - And Win the War on Animals. <http://www.animalethics.org.uk/i- ch1-3-animalholocaust.html> (accessed 15. 05. 14).

[66] Foreign Affairs Minister, George Canning falsely assumed that the goal of the act was to ban populace assemblies that may lead to immoral behavior. He indignantly stated: “What could be more innocent than bull-baiting, boxing, or dancing?” Canning’s mistake was caused, as rightly pointed out by Singer, by a strong conviction that the action which sole victim is an animal is not worthy of an act (see Hansard’s Parliamentary History, April 18, 1800; Singer, 1991, p. 204). The Canning’s opinion was shared by the Times, which on April 25, 1800 wrote: “whatever meddles with the private personal disposition of a man’s time or property is tyranny direct” (Ryder, 2000, p. 79).

[67] Cruelty to Animals Bill, HL Deb., May 15, 1809, Vol. 14 cc553-71, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/ lords/1809/may/15/cruelty-to-animals-bill (June 13, 2014).

[68] The act entitled An Act to Prevent the Cruel and Improper Treatment of Cattle entered into force on June 22, 1822.

[69] Before he lost the place in the Parliament in 1826, Martin had tried to put an end to cruelty on animals not included in the 1822 Act. His endeavors however ended in fiasco.

[70] At that time British medical associations condemned vivisection without anesthesia.

[71] See Protection of Animals Act 1911, http://www.webtribe.net/~shg/Protection%20of%20Animals%20 Act%201911%20(1911%20c%2027(June 13, 2014).

[72] This provision was strengthened by the Acts 1954 and 1964, which commanded using anesthetics in such cases.

[73] This provision was strengthened by the Animal Act 1962 and the Game Act 1970.

[74] Two keys for the RSPCA figures - Richard Martin and Thomas Fowell Buxton loved outdoor activities like fishing or hunting.

[75] Later on the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports was renamed to the Against Cruel Sports (LACS).

[76] It was not the only conflict within the RSPCA at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In less than 8 years after the organization was established its second secretary, Lewis Gomertz came to the conclusion that he was not able to reconcile his strict vegetarianism and anti-vivisection principles with the organization’s approach to these issues. He left the RSPCA in 1832 and established the Animal’s Friend Society.

To understand the Nazi authorities’ attitude toward animals, see Sax (2000).

[77] Of course, the issue whether it can be treated as an impulse to the development of the animal rights movement remains open.

[78] What is meant here is the emergence of the awareness that a logical consequence of the development of the fight against racism and sexism must be the postulate to obviate this “last form of discrimination,” i.e., speciesisms (“species chauvinism”) (see Libby, 1998, pp. 53-54; Ryder, 2000, pp. 3, 4).

[79] A crucial role in generating the interest in this category of animals played a book of British author Ruth Harrison Animal Machines: The New Factory Farming Industry published in 1964. The book in an uncompromised way attacked cruel treatment of animals bred in large farms and caused creating a commission of inquiry in Great Britain known as the Brambell Committee (from the name of its chairman, a zoologist F.W. Rogers Brambell). The aim of the commission was to examine the conditions the animals were kept in on farms. The results of the examination were published in 1965 in a report that called for broad reforms in the breeding industry. This call for action did not go unheeded. Soon after the report was published the Farm Animal Welfare Council was established. The council was to advice the minister of agriculture, fisheries and food. Under the impetus of the government a ban on keeping calves in cages was introduced, as well as specific codes of practice for each farm animal species for were adopted. In 1968, the British Parliament made it illegal to cause animals “unnecessary pain and distress.” The afore-listed reforms inspired animal rights activists to coin the term “five fundamental freedoms” that referred to food animals: “freedom from hunger and malnutrition, thermal and physical discomfort, injury and disease, and fear, and freedom to express most normal patterns of behavior” (see Libby, 1998, pp. 56-57).

[80] It should be noted that not all researchers accept such a distinction. According to Andrew Rowan, much more precise is a division into those who are not willing to resign from the traditional approach to animals (based on the institution of shelter and animal exploitation), those who are willing to protect, to a certain degree farm and laboratory animals and intend to act within the frames of the existing system (in the ideological sphere they may be proponents of animal rights), and finally those who undertake confrontational actions to change the existing rules that lead to animal exploitation and who call for radical systemic change (see Rowan, 1993; Guither, 1998, p. 10).

[81] In Tom Regan’s opinion (an ideologist of the animal rights movement), the welfarists’ efforts aim at the improvement of the “corrupt system of exploitation,” and in consequence to “prolong injustice” (see Ragan et al., 1992; Guither, 1998, p. 9)

[82] It probably stems from the fact that the majority of animal rights activists live in cities.

[83] According to George Cave, the funds accumulated and defrauded by the traditional animal rights organizations should “be given to grassroots animal rights groups, which have a record of dedication and commitment to the animals.” Animal Rights Reporter, March 1989, p. 12 (Finsen and Finsen, 1994, p. 83).

[84] Experiments financed by government funds consisted of removing a part of cats’ brain and their olfactory organs in order to examine their influence on sexual behavior.

[85] The first act ordering handing over animals for experiments was passed in Minnesota in 1949, in Baltimore and Los Angeles in 1950.

[86] The name referred to the “Underground Railroad” - the network of abolitionists who in 1810-1850 help black escapees to get to free from slavery states.

[87] It was not the first action of freeing dolphins. In 1967, after many years of studying dolphins’ communication capabilities, a neuropsychologist, John C. Lilly came to the conclusion that they are creatures with remarkable minds and sensitivity (even when applying human standards). Therefore, they must not be kept in “concentration camps,” or be the subject of examination. Having drawn that conclusion, Lilly let free all the dolphins kept in the laboratory into the Atlantic Ocean, and closed his laboratory. Few years later he wrote an essay, where he called for cooperative model of research (dolphins would participate only if they wanted to and the laboratory tanks would be connected to the ocean) and granting dolphins rights as individuals (see Nash, 1989, pp. 185, 186).

[88] This sentence was later overruled on the basis of a legal argument according to which state acts banning cruelty toward animals do not refer to the experimentalists receiving federal funds.

[89] In the research documentation, it was stated that the monkeys would be anaesthetized before the injury. However, the registered on the videotapes’ material showed that it did not have place (the animals were conscious when the surgeons operated on their open brains).

[90] The LD50 symbol in the name means 50% of lethal dose, i.e., it kills the half of the researched animals. In order to establish it, accidentally chosen animals are being poisoned. The Draize’s test consists of instillation of a tested substance (bleach, shampoo) into a rabbit’s eye, in order to establish the level of irritation.

[91] Ingrid Newkirk’s statement is very telling: “because of humankind’s lack of moral - or even just plain - imagination, we activists have to tell people exactly what they should do. ... People have to be pushed:

society has to be pushed. Those who care deeply about a particular wrong have to pressure the general population” (Newkirk, 1988, p. 51; Oliver, 1993, p. 11).

[92] The members of Hunt Saboteurs Association were mainly young men (46% was below 25 years of age). What could be interesting is the fact that they came for the most part from working-class families (that differentiated them from the members of legal animal rights organizations of that time who recruited from the middle-class). It’s worthy to emphasize that the majority of them were well educated (59% had a higher education degree, 19% of them were students) (Ryder, 2000, p. 168).

[93] Direct Action History Lessons: The Formation of the Band of Mercy, and A.L.F. by Ronnie Lee, No Compromise, vol. 28. <http://www.nocompromise.org/issues/28ronnielee.html> (accessed 25.08.14).

[94] Quote from the personal Email communication with the author.

[95] Animal Liberation Front, People’s Agenda, July 1992, p. 9 (Guither, 1998, pp. 155-156).

[96] Only four names of people who were supposed to be attacked were publicly announced. They were to be: Colin Blakemore (a scientist specializing in vision), Clive Page (a scientist from the King’s College in London), Mark Matfield (from the Research Defense Society) and Christopher Brown (an owner of the Hill Grove Farm - a commercial breeder of cats for laboratories in Oxfordshire).

[97] Barry Horne was apprehended in the Broadmead shopping center in Bristol in July 1996. Before getting arrested he was able to plant two bombs and had four other explosives on him.

[98] Barry Horne once more took up a hunger strike in October 2001. It lasted only 15 days. Horne, emaciated by many starvations died of liver failure on November 5, 2001.

[99] The ALF clearly distanced itself from the actions of this new group and published on its webpages the following warning: “the D.J. is not part of the A.L.F. and does not follow the A.L.F.’s guidance of nonviolence towards humans;” (Arnold, 1997, p. 271).

[100] Among the most painted slogans were: “ALF,” “Meat is murder,” “Animal Auschwitz,” “Meat is death and you can be next.”

[101] Animal Extremist & Ecoterror Crimes, Fur Commission. <http://old.furcommission.com/attack/index. html> (accessed 24.08. 14).

[102] Operation Bite Back - Part I, Fact Sheet. <http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/biteback1. htm> (accessed 7.08. 14).

[103] Government Sentencing Memorandum in United States vs. Rodney Coronado (1995). <http://www. naiaonline.org/pdfs/coronadosentencingmemorandum.pdf.> (accessed 24.08. 14) (Liddick, 2006, p.43).

[104] Quite often doubts arise in regard to the violators’ true motivation. Therefore, it is not always possible to classify a given act as motivated by animal rights, or not.

[105] The Anti-Defamation League, Ecoterrorism: Extremism in the Animal Rights and Environmentalist Movement. <http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/Ecoterrorism.asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_ in_America&xpicked=4&item=eco> (accessed 26.08. 14).

[106] Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty Threatens Terrorist-Style Attack, Intelligence Report, Fall 2002, Vol. 107. <http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2002/fall/from-push- to-shove.> (accessed 26.08. 14) (Smith, 2010, p. 116).

[107] Animal Liberation ‘Pirates’ Sink Bank Exec’s Yacht, Asheville Global Report, August 2-8, 2001, No. 133. <http://www.theglobalreport.org/issues/133/nationalnews.html> (accessed 27.08.13).

[108] The Revolutionary Cells - Liberation Brigade threatened with stronger bomb attacks, unless Chiron and Shaklee broke all the relations with the companies conducting tests on animals. According to the FBI, the two attacks should be assigned to one person - Daniel Andreas San Diego. In spite of setting a prize of 250,000 dollars for any information about San Diego and putting him on the most wanted terrorists list in the United States, he has not been captured till today.

[109] According to Karen Dawn (2004) (an animal rights speaker), the attack was carried out by provocateurs who wanted to discredit the legal character of the SHAC activities.

[110] As it turned out, the perpetrator of the attack was Donald Currie, called the “Animal Liberation’s top bomber.” Currie was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment for a series of bomb attacks targeting the HLS employees in December 2006 (Addley, 2006).

[111] Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, GovTrack.us. <http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill= s109-3880> (accessed 31.07.14).

[112] Animal Welfare - Humane Rights: Protecting People from Animal Rights Extremism, July 2004, Home Office Police. <http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/jul/animal-rights.pdf> (accessed 2.08.14).

[113] Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, Office of Public Sector Information. <http://www.legislation. gov.uk/ukpga/2005/15/pdfs/ukpga_20050015_en.pdf> (accessed 3.07.14).

[114] The studies also show that the majority of the activists live in urban areas (Jamison, 1998).

[115] An Interview with David Barbarash, Earth First! Journal, July 2002. <http://www.animalliberationpressof- fice.org/Writings_Speeches/2005-03-12_InterviewDB.htm> (accessed 29.07.08) [the interview not any more available online].

[116] According to the researchers, one half of the ALF members of come from the working class, and the other half from the middle class. Most of them have a “secure job” and work as lawyers, teachers or officials (Guither, 1998, p. 153).

[117] North American Animal Liberation Front Press Office, 2008 Year-End Report on Animal Liberation Activities in North America, 2009. <http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/pdf/year_in_review1.pdf> (accessed 24.07.14).

[118] David Henshaw gives an example of Karen Wesley and Shane Wilcox - two teenagers, who after testifying at the police station became the object of a “hate campaign” involving threatening letters, breaking windows, and beating (Henshaw, 1989, pp. 75-76).

[119] The ALF guidelines may be found on: <http://envirolink.org/ALF/orgs/alforg.html> (Monaghan, 1999).

[120] A meaningful illustration to that statement may be a remark published in an Internet magazine supporting the ALF and probably run by its “members” - Bite Back: “Since there isn’t a way to contact the Animal Liberation Front in your area, it is up to each of us to take on the responsibility to stop the exploitation of our fellow animals. In the words of a convicted A.L.F. activist: ‘when you see the pictures of a masked liberator, stop asking who’s behind the mask and look in the mirror.’ ALF A, B,C’s, Bite Back. <http:// www.zinedistro.org/zines/49/alf-abcs/by/bite-back-magazine> (accessed 25.08.14).

[121] Letters from the Underground - Part 1, No Compromise, vol. 7. <http://www.nocompromise.org/ issues/07letters1.html> (accessed 25.08. 14) (Daniel, 2003).

[122] An Interview with David Barbarash, Earth First! Journal, July 2002. <http://www.animalliberationpres- soffice.org/Writings_Speeches/2005-03-12_InterviewDB.htm> (accessed 29.07.14).

[123] BUAV officially does not admit that they financially support the animal rights activists. They claim: “Our policy is to support the activists in their direct action tactics morally, but not in a physical or financial way. We give them space in our newspaper because we think they have a very important role to play.” (Guither, 1998, p. 154).

[124] Such opinion is held by, among others, Liddick (2006).

[125] It is rather difficult to judge whether such declarations are true. It is a fact that some organizations are quite well informed about the course of illegal actions, mainly thanks to the video cassettes delivered (supposedly anonymously) to them.

[126] Opening the Cages with the ALF. An Interview with David Barbarash, Published in The Earth First! Journal, Yule 2002. <http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=02/02/12/3076103&query=> (accessed 25.08.14).

[127] Paul Watson, quoted after: (Best and Nocella II, 2004, p. 21).

[128] The expression of such a worldview may be Ronie Lee and Gary Treawell’s declaration published in an anarchistic biweekly magazine Freedom in 1979: “The ALF is not violent in that much care is taken to prevent injury to people and many raids have been called off because of possible confrontation. In any case our aims are for human as well as (other) animal liberation. The AFL is destructive, but only to property used to inflict, promote or transport animal exploitation;” (Stallwood, 2004, p. 83).

[129] Also according to radical environmental organizations like Earth First! or the ELF (Earth Liberation Front) sabotage has nothing to do with violence. It does not generate it as well, they believe, because it is not directed toward the world of nature but only at unanimated artifacts, whose existence poses a danger to nature. Demolition of such things is not evil but a moral and necessary way to bring back their original unadulterated form, which was brutally taken away from them.

[130] “Is Violence in the Pursuit of Animal Rights Morally Justifiable?” Arkangel, No. 4; (Best and No- cella, 2004, p. 37).

[131] Chris DeRose, the director of the Last Chance for Animals, who was also suspected to be an ALF member, stated in the interview given the KRON TV4 in 1989 that killings motivated by animal rights protection are just a matter of time. He was of the opinion that the direct cause for violence escalation (as well as being prepared to justify it) will be a frustration stemming from too little changes of the legal system: “The system is not moving fast enough to make their changes, so people feel they have to take the law into their own hands,” “KRON-TV4 interview,” San Francisco, February 6, 1989 (Jasper and Nelkin, 1992, p. 50).

[132] Interview with Jerry Vlasek in BBC Radio 4’s Today, July 26, 2004 (Best, 2008).

[133] Ibid.

[134] Opening the Cages with the ALF. An Interview with David Barbarash, Published in The Earth First! Journal, Yule 2002. <http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=02/02/12/3076103&query=> (accessed 25.08.14).

[135] Ronnie Lee, quoted after Henshaw (1989, p. 101).

[136] This principle was plainly expressed by one of the ALF’s members in a TV interview: “If a human being is injured, it cannot be an ALF or ELF action. By virtue of the guidelines, it’s not an ALF action.” The Animal Liberation Front webpage, “Bradley’s Interview with an ALF Cell Member,” October 18, 2005. <http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/Interviews/ALFandBradley.htm> (accessed 17.08.12).

[137] The Sierra Club was founded in 1892.

[138] Arne Naess, “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement,” Inquiry, 16, Spring 1973, p. 95. An Australian philosopher, Warwick Fox, has captured the essence of Deep Ecology in the following way: “It is the idea that we can make no firm ontological divide in the field of existence: That there is no bifurcation in reality between the human and the nonhuman realms to the extent that we perceive boundaries, we fall short of deep ecological consciousness.” (Devall and Sessions, 1995, p. 66).

[139] There are also other terms used in the literature, like “ecological egalitarianism” or “biocentric democracy.”

[140] According to Arne Naess and many other deep ecologists, this right is founded on the belief about the immanent value of every being; value that does not depend on the level of organization and the being’s “objective” importance for the ecosystem.

[141] Gary Snyder puts it in a very interesting way: “All of nature is a gift-exchange, a potluck banquet, and there is no death that is not somebody’s food, no life that is not somebody’ death. Is this a flaw in the universe? A sign of the sullied condition of being? ‘Nature red in tooth and claw’? Some people read it this way, leading to a disgust with self, with humanity, and with life itself. They are on the wrong fork of the path”. (Devall and Sessions, 1995, p. 13).

[142] This example is taken from (Nash, 1989b, p. 147).

[143] Fulfilling one’s own life potential Arne Naess calls self-realization (Naess, 1979, p. 231-241).

[144] Arne Naess states: “the so-called struggle of life, and survival of the fittest, should be interpreted in the sense of ability to coexist and cooperate in complex relationships, rather than ability to kill, exploit, and suppress. ‘Live and let live’ is a more powerful ecological principle than ‘Either you or me’; (Naess, 1973, p. 96).

[145] In the opinion of Bill Devall and George Sessions (1995, p. 68), the technocratic and industrial society is to be blamed for the human being turning towards artificial, nonvital needs; this form of society enforces through propaganda and advertisement the increase of consumption on the new members: “In technocratic-industrial societies there is overwhelming propaganda and advertising that encourage false needs and destructive desires to foster increased production and consumption of goods. Most of these actually divert us from facing reality in an objective way and from beginning the ‘real work’ of spiritual growth and maturity.”

[146] According to Arne Naess, the transgression of the individual and species “self” may be obtained by breaking away from the narrow assumptions and values of Western culture, and, above all, by a “meditative deep questioning process” of asking the so-called “searching questions” about the fundamental problems of the environmental reality. (Devall and Sessions, 1995, pp. 65-67).

[147] Conceiving the earth as a biogenic entirety occurs also in the so-called “Gaia hypothesis” put forward at the beginning of the 1970s by James Lovelock, a British scientists working for NASA. According to this hypothesis the Earth (“Gaia” in Lovelock’s nomenclature) is not an agglomeration of animated and unanimated beings but a living mega-organism (p. x) “capable of manipulating the Earth’s atmosphere to suit its overall needs” (p. 9) and striving for optimal harmony, which fosters the development of life. Lovelock believed that it is in Gaia’s interest to always keep the entirety of life on Earth in a dynamic balance (homeostasis). If the balance is disrupted in a result pollution or a collision with a meteor for example, it usually leads to dying out of the species but not necessarily to the end of life on the planet. The fact that humans suffer severe losses because of the atmospheric pollution does not mean that the megaorganism would suffer similar loss. Gaia, he argued, has much higher adaptation capability and much larger resistance to all kinds of perils. From such formulated thesis one can draw a conclusion, a rather controversial one from the perspective of “ecological thinking,” namely that all ecological dangers and remedial actions are close to irrelevant for the global ecosystem, which is able to cope with new conditions and will “survive,” unlike some particular parts of the ecosystem, which do not possess such adaptation capabilities. (Lovelock, 2000).

[148] Of course, not every eco-terrorist organization shares this optimistic faith in humankind’s conversion to the new ethics, and by that in obviating the crisis. Some Earth First! members believe that the catastrophe of industrial civilization is inevitable and will most probably happen during the next several decades. According to them, there will be two direct causes responsible for such a state of affairs: depletion of earthly resources, that is, fossil fuels and the dying off of thousands of plant and animal species. Hence, in their opinion, it is their eschatological task to keep the remnants of wild nature to enable biodiversity to be reborn in the future (after a hundred or a thousand years). Apart from the negative side of the crisis, that is, the destruction of many plant and animal species, there is, many Earth First! activists believe, also a positive one - the transformation of consciousness and accepting by the whole (although pared down in numbers) humanity a biocentric perspective. In reality, it would mean going back to the old ways of tribal life, which is supposed to carry on in peaceful coexistence with all beings, but above all without industry and technology. On the account of a special emphasis put on fighting against industrialization Earth First! is often defined as an antimodernist movement. (Brasher, 2001, p. 18).

[149] The so-called “artificial species” may be an exception here because, according to some deep ecologists, they should have never come into existence.

[150] Then we could be threatened not merely by propaganda actions or worldview declarations but lethal attacks targeting people.

[151] These actions ended with success. The ban on killing predators in national parks was introduced during Franklin Roosevelt Presidency. At the same time the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service came to existence, the institution that established 160 new wildlife refuges.

[152] The protests related to the lack of access to the natural environment took place also in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of them occurred in the seaside regions of France. In 1965 in Saint- Raphael tourists manifested against building a wall blocking the access to the beach. The manifestation billowed into riots. In 1967, 2.000 people participated in a march in Loquemen, Cotes-du-Nord and demanded a free access to the sea. In 1970 tourists occupied a private beach in Juan-les-Pins (Marc, 1979).

[153] Garrett Hardin, a renowned ecologist, expressed very similar beliefs in his essay “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968). He predicted global destruction to be inevitable and claimed that the human species can survive only if people agree on “mutual coercion,” especially in the case of birth control.

[154] The event was coordinated by Denis Hays, a former Stanford University student and a senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson.

[155] Obviously, reactions to Earth Day were not all positive. Walter Hickel, the Secretary of the Interior, announced that day the construction of an 800-mile-long pipeline through arctic tundra in Alaska and the Department of Commerce issued a permit for constructing a large oil refinery in Honolulu (Hawaii). Many left-wing activists saw Earth Day as an attempt of turning away the media attention from the anti-war and anti-racist movements. The members of the Black Power and the Students for a Democratic Society openly boycotted the event.

[156] The name “Rainbow Warrior” probably came into being as a transformation of the title of the book “Warriors of the Rainbow,” which is a collection of Indian myths and legends. The book included more than 200 years old prophecies of an old woman from the Cree tribe, in which she described the times when the Earth is robbed from its all resources and almost completely destroyed. Then, the Indian spirits will teach white people respect and make Rainbow Warriors out of them (Perkowski and T^czy, 1999, p. 7).

[157] Our Core Values, Greenpeace International. <http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/about/our-core- values/> (accessed 31.08.14).

[158] The first Greenpeace cells were established in Canada and USA - 1971, the Netherlands, France, UK - 1977, Spain, Denmark - 1980, Germany - 1981, Belgium, Sweden - 1983, Argentina - 1987, Norway, Japan - 1989.

[159] Greenpeace Annual Reports: <http://www.greenpeace.org/international/about/reports> (accessed 8.08.14) (Eden, 2004).

[160] See: Greenpeace Rejects Terrorism Label, December 14, 2001. <http://archive.greenpeace.org/pressreleases/oceans/2001dec14.html> (archived from the original on December 4, 2008).

[161] It is worthy to mention here that Pinchot as a conservationist undertook action to limit the possibility for private entrepreneurs to take over federal forests.

[162] On the structure of the Wise-Use movement (Switzer, 19 97, pp. 200-208).

[163] Employee Violence Report Covering 2004 Incidents. <http://www.peer.org/watch/wiseuse/employee_ violence_report_upto2004.pdf> (accessed 13.07.14); see also Rising Tide of Violence. <http://www.peer. org/watch/wiseuse/violence.php> (accessed 13.07.14) (Vohryzek-Bolden et al., 2001, p. 151).

[164] The supposed killed person was Lerroy Jackson, a 40-year-old leader of environmental group fighting against deforestation - Dine Citizens Against Ruining the Environment (Helvarg, 1994, pp. 213-214, 374-375, 385-389, 422).

[165] One of such “ideological differences” consists in different placement of values. The defenders of animal rights see the value only in sentient beings, while the defenders of the environment place in the natural world as a whole. This difference in placing the value has a large practical meaning. According to the liberationists very animal possesses an inalienable right to live that has to be respected by the human being. The defenders of the environment, on the other hand, permit killing animals by humans, if it serves satisfying their vital needs (broadly or narrowly understood) and does not impede ecological balance.

[166] Tree spiking consists in injecting metal spikes into trunks of the trees that are supposed to be cut down. When the chain of a chainsaw hits it, it breaks, and quite often its parts injure the woodsmen. The most dangerous accident of that kind took place in 1987 when a twenty-three-year old logger was seriously hurt. One-inch-long spike thrust into the tree broke the chain and its metal pieces hit the lumberjack’s face and broke off a piece of his cheek and jaw, as well as knocked a few of his teeth out. Wood companies tried to take countermeasures and clamp down on these procedures by using metal detectors but that met with an outright response of the eco-terrorists who began to use ceramic or stone spikes.

[167] The fight against exceeding consumption is the main motive behind destroying billboards.

[168] This moment is usually pinned down in the Neolithic Age, when humans abandoned nomadic way of life and began farming.

[169] Among the objects that could not be targeted by monkeywrenching were also natural unanimated beings like mountain ranges, streams, sand dunes, etc.

[170] It is very likely that Dave Foreman, the leader and cofounder of Earth First!, was a member of this group.

[171] About Earth First! I wrote in the article “Earth First! Strategia i ideologia” (Posluszna, 2004).

[172] Of course, it was not the only reason for establishing Earth First! Another, undoubtedly, significant cause was the discontent with the compromise-oriented politics, carried out by legal ecological organizations, towards large industrial corporations and government agencies, as well as an excessive bureaucracy of those organizations.

[173] In the book I have already quoted, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior, Foreman speaks about the Earth First! eco-warriors’ fighting efficiency and the character of the motivation it should accompany it in the following way: “Perhaps it is a hopeless quest. But one who loves Earth can do no less. Maybe a species will be saved or a forest will go uncut or a dam will be torn down. Maybe not. A monkeywrench thrown into the gears of the machine may not stop it. But it might delay it, make it cost more. And it feels good to put it there” (Foreman, 1991, p. 34).

[174] These friends were: Ron Kezar - a member of the Sierra Club, Bart Koehler - until The RARE II working for The Wilderness Society, Mike Roselle - a member of many leftist groups, Howie Wolke - a representative of the Friends of the Earth.

[175] The equinox has a symbolic meaning for radical ecologists.

[176] After this action the number of Earth First! Members oscillated around 1000 people.

[177] Examples of particular actions can be found, e.g., in Badolato (1991) and Arnold (1997) Arnold (1997, pp. 193-281).

[178] The “Ballad of the Lonesome Tree Spiker,” a popular among the EatrhFirst!ers written by Mike Roselle and Darryl Cherney may serve as an example of that kind of creativity: “Well, I’ve spiked me some redwoods and I’ve spiked me some pines / And they’ve tried to stop me with rewards and fines / The cops and the Freddies are hot on my trial / But I’m a tree spiker and I’ll never get nailed.” Earth First! vol. 7 (3); (Lee, 1995, p. 55).

[179] Interview with Dave Foreman (Lee, 1995, p. 35).

[180] It is worthy to emphasize that members of the group do not limit their social contacts only to other members. They usually have regular family and social contacts with people from the outside of the organization. Even if they live in relatively separated communes, they do not resign from contacting with the world (most of them keep intensive social contacts with other group’s members). This “openness to the world,” and in consequence the lack of so-called “sectarian mentality” is without any doubts a pluralizing factor of the members’ worldview that does not allow them to get entirely closed in the scheme of the established doctrine. Fierce debates, which from time to time took place on the pages of the Earth First! Journal are a good example of that (Marangudakis, 2001; Taylor, 1998).

[181] The collection of Earth First! ideological presuppositions announced in September 1980 clearly refers to the principles of deep ecology: “1. Wilderness has a right to exist for its own sake. 2. All life forms, from virus to the great whales, have an inherent and equal right to existence. 3. Humankind is no greater than any other form of life and has no legitimate claim to dominate Earth. 4 Humankind, through overpopulation, anthropocentrism, industrialization, excessive energy consumption/resource extraction, state capitalism, father-figure hierarchies, imperialism, pollution, and natural area destruction, threatens the basic life processes of Earth. 5. All human decisions should consider Earth first, humankind second. 6. The only true test of morality is whether an action, individual, social or political benefits Earth. 7. Humankind will be happier, healthier, more secure, and more comfortable in a society that recognizes humankind’s true biological nature and which is in dynamic harmony with the total biosphere.” (Foreman, 1980; Lee, 1995).

[182] Malthus was faithful to his ideas and began to be sexually active after he got married when he was 40 (Karlen, 1996).

[183] Christopher Manes (1986) defined overpopulation in the following way: “any human population is overpopulated when it disrupts the cycles of nature so as to threaten to permanently reduce global diversity.” According to this definition, overpopulation is not only a domain of economically underdeveloped countries. In the industrialized part of the world it also exists because people consume there ten times more, than people from poor countries. Not only the number of people per square kilometer but also the quantity of the goods they consume should be taken into account when considering the problem of overpopulation (Lee, 1995, p. 92).

[184] Members of EF! have emphasized the fact that the impact of a middle class child on the natural environment is equal to the one created by forty children from the developing world. In Chim Blea’s opinion, such a child will become “One more to cause suffering. One more to suffer. Have your tubal ligation, your vasectomy now” (Taylor, 1991).

[185] The “ELF” acronym was used also by the Environmental Life Force - another extremist environmental organization. This organization was established in the second half of the 1970s in Santa Cruz, California. During one year of its activity it carried out several ecotage actions, that is, in 1977 a small pipe bomb was planted in the main office of the Published Paper Company in Oregon - the firm that had been responsible for spraying poisonous herbicides in forests. Another action consisted in putting fire on crop dusters. The organization did not operate for long - after arresting the founder of the ELF, John Hanna, the group fell apart. See: ELF: The Original Eco Guerrilla Defense Force, “Interview with ELF founder John Hanna” <http://www.originalelf.com/interview_with_elf_founder.html> (accessed 14.03.13).

[186] Interesting information about the attack may be found in Porter Wharton’s III (Senior Vice President of Public Affairs w Vail Resorts, Inc.) testimony given at the House Committee on Resources, Subcommittee on Forest and Forest Health (Oversight Hearing On Eco-Terrorism And Lawlessness, On The National Forests House, Committee On Resources, Subcommittee On Forests And Forest Health) on February 12, 2002; (Scherer, 2001).

[187] In October 1999, i.e., two months earlier the ELF sent warning to all the universities carrying out genetic research (Scherer, 2001). The attack on the genetic research institute at the University of Michigan was a protest against forcing the developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America and to cultivate GMO’s.

[188] An ELF Communique, June 28, 1998, in Pickering (2007, p. 11).

[189] An ELF Communique, June 28, 1998, in Pickering (2007, p. 29).

[190] Craig Rosebraugh (Rosebraugh was the ELF’s spokesperson; many information about this interesting activist may be found in the article “Ideologues Drive to Violence” written by Bryan Denson and James Long and published in the Oregonian journal on September 27, 1999) said: “There is no hierarchy, no physical group that they [the FBI] can see. You might have a cell operating, or 57 cells operating, where no one knows each other” (Chalk, 2001).

[191] See: Earth Liberation Front. <http://www.earthliberationfront.com/main.shtml> (accessed 14.10.08) (Leader and Probst, 2003).

[192] Anonymous communication, “Beltane,” 1997; quoted after Rosenbraugh (2004a).

[193] See “Craig Rosebraugh Former Press Officer, Earth Liberation Front, Ecoterrorism and Lawlessness on the National Forest,”(testimony given before the House Committee on Resources, Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, 107th Congress, 2nd Session), February 12, 2002, in Liddick (2006).

[194] There are, of course, many reasons why extremist and terrorist organizations choose a hierarchical pyramid. They are pragmatic (the possibility of coordination of actions and having control over the members) and ideological (e.g., the will to be perceived as a legal body that wages a liberation war - this is the reason why there are attempts to liken themselves to armed forces or state administration bodies (Madej, 2007).

[195] Wayman Mullins does not share this opinion and claims that the number of supporters of terrorist organizations (both the active and passive ones) seldom outnumbers the count of their active members (see Mullins, 1997, p. 134).

[196] In Jonathan White’s opinion, internal discipline may, under certain circumstances, endanger the unity of the organization and lead to its disintegration into many fractions: “There are two opposing dynamics at work, one pulling for cohesion and cooperation through fear and the other pulling for autonomy through decentralization and secrecy. Sometimes attempts at discipline backfire. For example, when leaders attempt to punish errant members by assassination, they may find themselves the target of disgruntled followers. As a result, large terrorist organizations frequently find themselves splitting” (White, 2002, p. 36).

[197] The beginnings of the Internet can be traced back to the end of the 1950s when in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an agency of the United States Department of Defense was established as a reaction to the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union (i.a. sending the satellite to the outer space was supposed to be the evidence of the USSR’s growing power). The goal of the Agency was to examine the possibilities of leadership and communication in case of atomic war. One of results of these studies was creation of the first computer network ARPANET in 1969.

[198] One more details about the influence of technological development on organizational structure see Bernat (2010).

[199] The concept of netwar was coined by the RAND Corporation analysts, i.a., John Arquilla, David Ronfeldt, and Michele Zanini in the books The Advent of Netwar, Countering the New Terrorism and Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy. The creators of the term, John Arquilla, David Ron- feldt in The Advent of Netwar define netwar in the following way: “the term netwar refers to an emerging mode of conflict (and crime) at societal levels, short of traditional military warfare, in which the protagonists use network forms of organization and related doctrines, strategies, and technologies attuned to the information age. These protagonists are likely to consist of dispersed organizations, small groups, and individuals who communicate, coordinate, and conduct their campaigns in an internetted manner, often without a precise central command. Thus, netwar differs from modes of conflict and crime in which the protagonists prefer to develop formal, stand-alone, hierarchical organizations, doctrines, and strategies as in past efforts (...). Various actors across the spectrum of conflict and crime are already evolving in this direction. This includes familiar adversaries who are modifying their structures and strategies to take advantage of networked designs - e.g., transnational terrorist groups, black-market proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), drug and other crime syndicates, fundamentalist and ethnonationalist movements, intellectualproperty pirates, and immigration and refugee smugglers. Some urban gangs, back-country militias, and militant single-issue groups in the United States have also been developing netwar-like attributes. The net- war spectrum also includes a new generation of revolutionaries, radicals, and activists who are beginning to create information-age ideologies, in which identities and loyalties may shift from the nation state to the transnational level of ‘global civil society.’ New kinds of actors, such as anarchistic and nihilistic leagues of computer-hacking ‘cyboteurs,’ may also engage in netwar” (Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 1996).

[200] This is a name usually given to radical animal rights (e.g., the Animal Liberation Front), environmental (e.g. Earth First!), and antiabortion (e.g., the Army of God) groups.

[201] In 1998 physicist Albert-Laszlo Barabasi and Eric Bonabeau used an Internet browser search through the World Wide Web and documented the connections between webpages. As it turned out, the majority of the analyzed webpages (approx. 80%) had fewer than four links, a small minority (0.01%) had more than 1000. The webpages (nodes) that possess exceptionally many links are significant binders of the network. Their existence prevents dispersion of singular nodes (with smaller number of interconnections) and enables the increase of efficiency and speed of transferring information. The well-equipped nodes, called hubs, constitute the scale-free network - a kind of network that is something between a node network and all-channel network. A scale-free network may be found in various areas of reality - in the interlinkages of webpages, in communication systems, in social and sexual relations, as well as in contacts of criminal and terrorist organizations. Proliferation of scale-free network, especially in the latter domain is not accidental because this network possesses at least two significant advantages. Basing the network on richly equipped nodes makes it particularly efficient in terms of communication, or at least much more efficient than in the case of random network, which is based solely on weakly equipped nodes. Moreover, a scale-free network is exceptionally immune to accidental malfunctions. In random networks a destruction of a small number of accidental nodes may easily cause a destruction of the whole network. A scale-free network is able to survive up to 80% of accidental failures. And apart from these unquestionable advantages a scale- free network has one serious fault. It is extremely vulnerable to an attack targeting the central nodes. In a simultaneous attack it is enough to eliminate from 5 to 15% of the existing hubs (the number obviously depends on the hubs’ connections numbers) to cause the destruction the whole network. From this perspective the elimination of the hubs may seem as priority. It does not seem however that such an elimination could lead to an ultimate decomposition of the network. Most likely, the disintegration would be temporary and the atomized cells (the nodes untouched by the attack) would, after a while, take on the hubs’ functions (see Barabasi and Bonabeau, 2003).

[202] “Circle of Darkness” was a kind of a national coordination committee, responsible for key organizational issues, for example, accepting new members, collecting funds from the outside of the organization, collecting member fees, and publishing a newsletter, “La Manta Mojada” (The Wet Blanket), was a secret advisory body to the Circle.

[203] Worldwide EarthFirst.org, About Earth Fist! <http://www.earthfirst.org/about.htm> (accessed 21.09.2014).

[204] Meet the ELF (from earthliberation front.com). <http://www.redwoods.edu/Instruct/JJohnston/ English1B/reading/elf/meettheelf.htm> (archived from: January 4, 2009); <http://www.azsj.org/forums/ showpost.php?p = 27891&postcount = 9> (accessed 21.09.2014).

[205] Direct Action - Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty. <http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/ SHAC.htm> (accessed 21.09.2014).

[206] A particularly rich set of guidelines may be found on the ELF webpages. See The North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office, Security. <http://www.elfpressoffice.org/security.html> (archived from: January 4, 2009); see also <http://www.elfpressoffice.org/securityarticle.pdf> (archived from: January 4, 2009); <http:// www.darknet.org.uk/2006/05/anonymity-hiding-your-identity-in-2006/> (accessed 21.09.2014).

[207] See No Compromise, Disclaimer. <http://www.nocompromise.org/index.html> (archived from: January 4, 2009); see also SHAC, Disclaimer. <http://www.shac.net/disclaimer/disclaimer.html> (archived from: January 4, 2009); see also The North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office, Disclaimer. <http:// www.elfpressoffice.org/disclaimer.html> (archived from: January 4, 2009).

[208] See The North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office, EcoTerrorists. <http://www.elfpressoffice.org/ ecoterrorists.html> (archived from: January 4, 2009).

[209] See SHAC, Current Targets. <http://www.shac.net/action/current_targets.html> (archived from: January 4, 2009); <http://www.shac.net/resources/newsletters/Newsletter57.pdf> (accessed 21.09.2014).

[210] See The North American Animal Liberation Front Press Office, Center for Consumer Freedom and Other Opposition Groups. <http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/center_for_consumer_freedom_exposed. htm> (archived from: January 4, 2009); <http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2005/06/3493.php> (accessed 21.09.2014).

[211] There are plenty of publications of this kind. This is why in this endnote I present only a few of the most suggestive ones (Animal Liberation Front, 2014a, 2014b; Earth Liberation Front, 2014a, 2014b).

[212] It should be mentioned that there are many of such attacks. During writing this chapter the webpage of the North American Animal Liberation Front Press Office was attacked and partially decomposed.

[213] For more detailed analysis of their views see Kaplan (1997).

[214] The character of Yeager was patterned after Joseph Paul Franklin - a notorious killer suspected for murder of 20 people in 1976-1980.

[215] There were, of course, many more cases of actions of that type, although the vast majority of the perpetrators were never identified. A case worth mentioning here is the one of Fran Stephanie Trutt who in November 1988 was apprehended on the parking lot of the United States Surgical Corporation (a company that used dogs to test surgical staples, while she was planting high-voiced explosives with a radio detonator targeting the facility manager Leo Hirche.

[216] It is suspected that van der Graaf committed other illegal acts as well. It has however not been confirmed.

[217] Volkert van der Graaf, quoted in: The Independent, May 8, 2002; quoted after: Instituutvoor Veiligheids - en Crisismanagement, Lone-Wolf Terrorism. <http://www.transnationalterrorism.eu/tekst/publications/ Lone-Wolf%20Terrorism.pdf>(accessed 18.08.14).

[218] It is said that a van der Graaf’s photo with him standing with a knife and wearing a shirt dripping with blood in front of the butcher store appeared in the animal rights magazine The Tasty Animal in March of 1990. See: InstituutvoorVeiligheids- en Crisismanagement, Lone-Wolf Terrorism. <http://www.transna- tionalterrorism.eu/tekst/publications/Lone-Wolf%20Terrorism.pdf> (accessed 18.08.14).

[219] Public Prosecution of the Netherlands, Closing Speech Public Prosecutor, April 1, 2003; quoted after: InstituutvoorVeiligheids- en Crisismanagement, Lone-Wolf Terrorism. <http://www.transnationalterror- ism.eu/tekst/publications/Lone-Wolf%20Terrorism.pdf> p. 46 (accessed 1.09.14).

[220] The Independent, May 8, 2002; quoted after: Instituutvoor Veiligheids- en Crisismanagement, Lone-Wolf Terrorism, p. 23. <http://www.transnationalterrorism.eu/tekst/publications/Lone-Wolf%20Terrorism.pdf> (accessed 18.12.12).

[221] Animal Rights Net, Volkert van der Graaf in Court. <http://animalrights.net/2003/volkert-van-der-graaf- in-court/> (archived from: December 18, 2012); see also <http://isteve.blogspot.com/2011/01/immigration- controversy-leads-to.html> (accessed 1.09.14).

[222] Theodore Kaczynski; quoted after Chase (2003, pp. 51-52).

[223] Ibid.

[224] Ibid.

[225] Theodore Kaczynski; quoted after Chase (2003, p. 72).

[226] Theodore Kaczynski, “New York Times Letter, April 24, 1995,” in Douglas and Olshaker (1996, p. 186).

[227] Theodore Kaczynski, “Gelernter Letter, April 24, 1995,” in Douglas and Olshaker (1996, pp. 181–182)

[228] This attitude toward nature is well shown by the following passage: “I believe in nothing ... I don’t even believe in the cult of nature-worshipers or wilderness-worshipers. (I am perfectly ready to litter in parts of the woods that are of no use to me - I often throw cans in logged-over areas or in places much frequented by people; I don’t find wilderness particularly healthy physically; I don’t hesitate to poach.)” In: Ted Kaczynski’s Journal; quoted in U.S. v. Kaczynski Government’s Sentencing Memorandum. <http://www. zodiackiller.com/mba/ozs/35.html> (accessed 3.03.13).

[229] Theodore Kaczynski, “New York Times Letter, April 24, 1995,” in Douglas and Olshaker (1996, p. 182).

[230] Craig Beneville, quoted after Long (2004, p. 55).

[231] Leslie Hemstreet, quoted after Long (2004, p. 55).

[232] Judi Bari, quoted after Graysmith (1997).

[233] Mark Potok, a statement given on September 9, 2001, quoted by Levin (2002).

[234] The example of the USA clearly shows how during the last couple of decades the number of individuals carrying out terroristic attacks only by themselves, with no external directives, has increased: 1940s - 1 case, 1950s - 1 case, 1960s - 2 cases, 1970s - 5 cases, 1980s - 6 cases, 1990s -13 cases, from 2000 to 2004 - 8 cases already.

[235] Screaming Wolf, A Declaration of War. <http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Philosophy/Legal/ declaration%20of%20war_files/war_3.htm#chap 6> (accessed 1.09.14).

[236] On different ways of interpreting the notion of globalization see Pietras (2002).

[237] Still, the economic aspect of globalization is the more apparent, but there are more and more voices pointing at other dimensions of globalization, for example, ecological, military, or socio-cultural. See Nye and Keohane (2004).

[238] Indicating the beginnings of globalization depends on the way it is defined. Most often they are placed after World War II, but some researchers date those beginnings much earlier, for example, in the period of great geographical discoveries, colonialism, or simply in the nineteenth century. The term “globalization” appeared in the scientific literature in the 1960s. See, among others, Kuzniar (2003).

[239] Another issue is the existence of the so-called failed states which, due to internal conflicts and globalization processes, have lost control over their territories. In a natural way, these states become a base for terrorist groups, which can carry out risk-free training camps or recruit activists there.

[240] On asymmetrical threats see Gawliczek and Pawlowski (2003).

[241] Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future with Nongovernment Experts. December 2000. <http:// fas.org/irp/cia/product/globaltrends2015/> (accessed 14.09.14).

[242] Bill Clinton, Lecture given in the London School of Economics, December 13, 2001; quoted after Lia (2005, p. 20).

[243] Even after the Gaza Strip had been closed by the Israeli army the Palestinians were able to overbear this barrier. In the mid-1990s, a United Nations police advisor in Gaza made an ironic remark that “the only thing the smugglers could not get into Gaza was a Boeing 737!” Quoted after Lia (2005, p. 20).

[244] Of course, people function in a real place and time, but the importance they ascribe to it is progressively smaller. The main reason for such a state of affairs is an immediate possibility of communication and transformation of information to long distances.

[245] Networks consists of three elements: nodes, ties, and flows. The flows are everything that move between the nodes via ties (data, money). The flows possess various value - they can be abundant, or not, important, or not.

[246] Castells defines identity as “the process of construction of meaning on the basis of a cultural attribute, or a related set of cultural attributes, that is given priority over other sources of meaning” (Castells, 2010b).

[247] Contrary to resistance identity, this kind of identities are not centered around the basis of their negligence by society (race, gender, minority - cultural, religious) but they create entirely new categories of identity.

[248] “Social distance” may refer to the lack of class, cultural, and functional (on the basis of the same activities) closeness.

[249] To describe it, Black uses two terms: “mass-casualty terrorism” and “pure terrorism.”

[250] According to Black, the exceptions were colonial communities, multi-ethnic communities in Indonesia, or ethnic enclaves in the Medieval Europe (Jews or Gypsies).

[251] However, the dependence of national states on external structures is not the only problem according to the animal rights and environment defenders. Globalization itself is a problem, and more precisely its negative influence on the natural environment stemming, among others, from moving production to the countries with lower ecological standards and exporting waste there. “Depreciation,” in this case, may arise also on the basis of the awareness that there is no real possibility to undertake actions against global processes.

[252] More about the ecological movement’s activities in the Internet in Pickerill (2003).

[253] According to Bruce Hoffman (1998), a special feature of the contemporary terrorism is shifting the emphasis from “professional terrorists” to “amateur terrorists” (i.e., those “with little or no formal connection to the existing terrorist group”).

[254] This goal may be attained, among others, by a software without the decipher key, with the help of which it would be possible to decode the transmission, or by using the steganography technique allowing to hide a particular datum in the file, for example, in a music file.

[255] Scholar Roger Eatwell enlists the following reasons for the popularity of the Internet among extremists: “(a) the low-cost and potentially high-quality presentation and distribution of information, (b) the ability to tailor messages to specific audiences who self-select the type of information they seek, (c) the ability to create an effective image of ideological community, and (d)the ease of global distribution across jurisdictional boundaries.” Quoted after Levin (2002).

[256] Among numerous definitions of cyberterrorism the most known is the one proposed by Dorothy E. Denning (2014), who defines it as “unlawful attacks and threats of attack against computers, networks, and the information stored therein when done to intimidate or coerce a government or its people in furtherance of political or social objectives. Further, to qualify as cyberterrorism, an attack should result in violence against persons or property, or at least cause enough harm to generate fear.”

[257] Some believe that the term “cyberterrorism” was coined as early as the 1970s. At that time, on the initiative of the U.S. Air Force, the first definition of cyberterrorism was formulated: “the use of information and information systems as weapons in a conflict where information and information systems are targets.” See Ronczkowski (2003).

[258] The third Collins’ scenario was realized as early as 1997, when a teenager from the USA (although having no political motivations) got access to the telephone network of a small airport in Worcester, Massachusetts, and for a few hours disrupted the communication with the control tower.

[259] According to the assessments, only 5% of cyber criminals are caught and sentenced. Also, cyber-attacks are rarely reported by the companies due to the belief that it may worsen their image in the public’s eyes. See Wilson (2008, p. 29).

[260] Such evaluation caused then President Clinton to order the establishment of the National Infrastructure Protection Center, whose goal was the protection of the most important elements of infrastructure (telecommunication, electricity transmission systems, or government protection centers).

[261] It is worthy to remind the reader that in June 1998 a group of international hackers calling themselves Milworm protested against nuclear tests. They attacked the webpages of an Indian research institute - the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) and published there the following information: “If a nuclear war does start, you will be the first to scream.”

[262] Iran przyznal: wirus Stuxnet uszkodzil naszq. elektrownie. Gazeta.pl/Wiadomosci, October 29, 2010. Available from: <http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/Wiadomosci/1,80591,8740012,Iran_przyznal__Wirus_Stuxnet_ uszkodzil_nasza_elektrownie.html> (accessed 24.09.14); see also WQglarczyk (2010).

[263] Community Emergency Response Teams, CERT Annual Reports. <http://www.cert.org/historical/annual_ rpts/> (accessed 27.09.14).

[264] One of the most serious cyber-attacks was infecting in 1999 over one million computers with the Melissa virus, which caused losses amounting to $80 million. In may 2000 the computer virus Iloveyou infected millions of computers, including the computers of the British Parliament and CIA causing global losses of $10 billion. One year later the virus Nimda caused losses amounted to $500 million. It is believed that the first terrorist cyber-attack was conducted in 1998 by a branch of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam that overflowed the Sri Lanka embassy with thousands of email, which read: “We are the Internet Black Tigers and we’re doing this to disrupt your communications.”

[265] CERT/CC Statistics 1988-2004. <http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=11142# incidents> (accessed 24.09.14).

[266] See Islamic hackers step up attacks. BBC News, October 29, 2004. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/ 2372209.stm> (accessed 28.09.14).

[267] Of course, many cyber-attacks are conducted by single hackers (often with no ideological motivation), for example, the person who in 2000 created the I love you bug was a young Filipino, and a teenager from Germany created the Sasser in 2004.

[268] Including the Muntadayat al-masada al-Jihadiyya webpage, http://www.alm2sda.net/vb/index.php (archived: March 11, 2004); see Lia (2005, p. 174).

[269] The impulse for carrying out the cyber-attack on Estonia was the announcement of the Estonian government about moving the monument of a Soviet soldier from the center of Tallinn to a military commentary. In spite of vehement protests of the pro-Kremlin youth organizations and pressure from Russia, the Estonian government did not change its decision. On April 27, at 10.30 P.M. the governmental portals were attacked with Denial of Service (DoS). The attack was initiated by a Russian organization “Nasi” but soon after many independent hackers joined in. The “cyberwar” lasted for three weeks. Eventually, Estonia, which economically and security-wise is dependent on IT systems, was able to defeat the crisis thanks to, among others, the establishment of a new unit - the Estonian Computer Emergency Response Team, which started to coordinate the defense actions. However, the belief in a relative IT safety has disappeared for good. The attack not only showed a weakness of a concrete country but also the entire NATO.

[270] Peer-to-peer is a model of network communication, where every element has the same capability to initiate communication in the network. In peer-to-peer networks the data exchange is always carried out without the mediation of the central server.

[271] Carlos Marighella, a Marxist revolutionary and author was one of the first who wrote about swarming tactic (Marighella, 1975).

[272] John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt define swarming in the following way: “Swarming is a seemingly amorphous, but deliberately structured, coordinated, strategic way to strike from all directions at a particular point or points, by means of a sustainable pulsing of force and/or fire, close-in as well as from stand-off positions. This notion of ‘force and/or fire’ may be literal in the case of military or police operations, but metaphorical in the case of NGO activists, who may, for example, be blocking city intersections or emitting volleys of e-mails and faxes. Swarming will work best - perhaps it will only work - if it is designed mainly around the deployment of myriad, small, dispersed, networked maneuver units. Swarming occurs when the dispersed units of a network of small (and perhaps some large) forces converge on a target from multiple directions. The overall aim is sustainable pulsing - swarm networks must be able to coalesce rapidly and stealthily on a target, then dissever and redisperse, immediately ready to recombine for a new pulse. The capacity for a ‘stealthy approach’ suggests that, in netwar, attacks are more likely to occur in ‘swarms’ than in more traditional ‘waves’ (Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 2014).

[273] Internet sit-in consists in blocking an access to a webpage for other users.

[274] In 1997, an Internet operator, the Institute for Global Communications, due to long-term attacks on its e-mail accounts was forced to close a webpage supporting the Basquean ETA.

[275] The following groups are most suspected of terrorism in the United States: the Animal Liberation Front, the Earth Liberation Front, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, Arissa, the Animal Rights Militia, the Band of Mercy, the Animal Liberation Brigade, the Vegan Dumpster Militia, the Sea Shepherd Conservative Society, and the Direct Action Front.

[276] Leslie James Pickering, “Final Statement of Leslie James Pickering as Spokesperson of the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office” in Pickering (2007).

[277] The name of the group was not identified with full certainty. On account of the information collected during the investigation what is known for sure is that “R” meant “Reconstruction,” “S” “Society,” and “E” “Extermination.” The sources do not explain the meaning of the “I”. See Seth Carus (2001).

[278] According to the six-page-long group manifesto, the human being is a danger to the whole natural environment. The only way to preserve the natural environment is to liquidate the human species excluding a small group of nature enthusiasts who are able to live harmoniously with nature. See Testimony of Steven Gajewski, Preliminary Hearing, February 8, 1972 r. pp. 400-404, in: Seth Carus (2001).

[279] In 1941, out of fear of Germany using biological weapons, the British government carried out experiments with anthrax bacteria, the result of which is that the soil on the island was fully contaminated.

[280] The organization demanded the complete decontamination of the island from the British government, which eventually happened. See Eagan (1996).

[281] There are no doubts that since the beginning of the twentieth century we have observed a phenomenon of “true love for animals.” In Western Europe and the United States the number of pets kept only for company is impressive. According to the data from 1994, in Western Europe there were around 36 million dogs, 36 million cats, and 173 million other animals like hamsters, guinea pigs, or parrots. In the United States the numbers were even higher - in around 56% of households there were 54 million dogs, 59 million cats, 16 million birds, and 7.3 million reptiles and amphibians. The numbers are still growing. The costs of keeping these “unproductive creatures” are enormous; for instance, in Northern America $8.5 billion is spent on food and $7 billion for veterinary care. But people tend to sacrifice not only money out of love for animals. More and more often they are ready to resign from their dietary habits, especially to give up eating meat. Without hesitation one may say that in the second half of the twentieth century vegetarianism has stopped being an “eccentricity” of the narrow intellectual elite and has become a more and more commonly practiced lifestyle. In England alone the number of vegetarians increased from 0.2% of the population in 1945 to 2% in the 1980s, to reach 7% in 1991. Three-quarters of vegetarians declare that their meat-free diet is caused by respect for animals. See AVMA (1992); Rowan (1995); and Serpell (1996).

[282] Gary Ackerman observes that demonization and dehumanization of the enemies is an important psychological factor that makes it easier to remove the psychological barriers on the way toward violence. See Ackerman (2003, p. 145).

[283] Resentment is not, obviously, the only one predicate of radicalism. It seems, cultural and political processes, like globalization and informationization, play here equally essential roles. As rightly stated by Castells, these processes endanger the areas that have been, till now, common identity generators. Due to their characteristics (aiming at unlimited cooperation with unlimited number of individuals accompanied by the lack of value-creating preferences) they cannot be identity providers. It results in the necessity of building one’s own identity on the basis of new, individualized sense sources (such that escape value annihilation processes). Of course, not all these newly formed identities must inevitably gravitate toward extremism. However, the necessity of rivalry in the scope of mutually competing justifications makes this path highly probable. Both, Nietzschean resentment theory and Castells’ conception of “common identity expression” shed new light on the issue of the future of single-issue terrorism suggesting the conclusion that it may be practically impossible to eliminate this kind of terrorism because it is impossible to eliminate the internal impulses behind it.

[284] About “denial strategy” and “reintegrative punishment strategy,” see Ginges (1997) and Martha (1988).

[285] Of course, resentment does not have to go through the two stages of cognitive disruptions. It may stop also at the level of a wrongful evaluation of some particular people or groups. However, even if it reaches the position of false identification of values, a return to the previous stage, or even to the level of conscious hatred, as it seems, is possible.

[286] Yariv Tsfati and Gabriel Weimann in the paper “www.terrorism.com: Terrorism on the Internet” pertain to these issues in the following way: “While monitoring the websites of terrorist organizations in the past four years the authors found that many of them change addresses frequently. Some sites disappeared from the network for a while (as happened to all Hizbollah sites in October 2000 after an attack by Israeli hackers in response to the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers); however, these attacks affected the sites’ presence on the Internet only temporarily. The fact that most of these sites reopened after a while demonstrates the futility of attempts to block terrorists or their supporters from using the Internet to communicate their messages.”(Tsfati and Weimann, 2002).

[287] It seems that such a danger really exists. But maybe there is no need to engage the power of the state? Maybe an Internet users’ initiative, who at the right time (encouraged or not) actuate their intellectual potential in order to oppose the danger, would be sufficient. Such an initiative occurred in Poland in February 2008, when on the “Hardcore.pl” forum there appeared information about a software that successfully blocked the Redwatch webpage belonging to the fascist organization Blood&Honour. However, does not the multitude of such initiatives effectively mean a cyber war? It probably does. We should not fool ourselves; such a war is already being waged. For now the initiative is on the side of the extremists.

[288] Examples can be found on numerous webpages run by ecological radicals or in various publications (e.g., Pickering, 2007). It is not an accident that they are carefully noted down - from the most famous one (such a big ecotage in Vail; see Daniel, 2003) to the smallest ones, which by many could be conceived as not worthy of any attention.

{1} In the subject literature falsely classified as single-issue terrorism. Source: Own elaboration.