Just a couple days after ELF burns down three homes and severely damages a fourth, Briana Waters was declared an accomplice to arson by a jury of her peers for the burning down of a University of Washington Forestry Research Facility. She stands to spend the next 5-40 years in prison for her acts on the two counts the jury members were able to agree on. The other three charges the jury deadlocked on and the prosecutors are looking to whether to retry her on those charges.
I sincerely hope they decide to use my tax dollars to do so. I am just a bit worried, however, that the ELF fires from earlier in the week, and their exposure via news stories across the nation, may be used as a reason for appeal.
Other news from yesterday included the bombing of the recruiting station in Times Square yesterday, which we have now learned was preceded by the mailing of a manifesto to six Democrat members of the US House of Representatives. I would seriously check my political positions if domestic terrorists think I agree with them enough to want mail from them.
After those stories, I decided to put on my e-wetsuit and visit the local Indymedia sites to check their reactions. It has been many months since I’ve been there, but it is still the same old swamp.
It is truly sad when I can honestly say that the dKos has more tin-foil hatters than the IMD sites. IMD had not one poster or even a commenter who thought the NYC bombing was a “Right Wing/Rovian Plotâ€. Kos cannot say the same.
But Indymeida can say that they give more of a rat’s asshole than the Kossites when it comes not only to accomplices to arson, but also to the arrests of five of the people who participated in the February riot at Evergreen State College where a police car was overturned. Because all “activists†have to have a nickname, the IMD’s are currently trying to decide what they’re going to call the five who were arrested yesterday. Suggestions include “The Valentine 5†(because the riot occurred the day after St. Valentine’s Day) of just “The Evergreen 5â€.
The Seattle Times did a write up yesterday, about how “Evergreen is Healing”.
Student leaders and administrators hope that continuing forums and discussions will help the campus heal. Trevor Kinahan, a representative of the Geoduck Student Union, said it may be time to review the social contract, reassess police protocols and perhaps set up meetings with Olympia Police and the Olympia community. He said the riot may become a point of discussion in classes. And a student group has formed: Greeners for Truth and Reconciliation.
Purce said he will put measures in place “to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”
“We are relatively quiet here in the woods, but we ended up with a wake-up call,” Purce said. “Sometimes, events come together in ways that no one expects.”
Well sir, I would just remind you that when you foster an environment where students are encouraged to hold mass demonstrations over the smallest of slights and even your instructors teach the students that having even a modicum of respect for authority (aka: letting the police arrest violent offenders and not flipping over police cars) is “A Bad Thingâ€, that you will have crap like this happen on your campus.
He should just feel lucky that his wasn’t the campus where these were found.
A student is in custody following the discovery of explosive devices at the University of California, Davis.
University police Capt. Joyce Souza tells the Sacramento Bee that investigators found what appears to be two pipe bombs in a dorm.
Though I’m sure he’d make excuses for that, too.
I remember Columbia University’s surprise when one of their Profs was busted with bombs back in January.
And that has been your Dmoestic Terrorism Update for March 7th, 2008.
Feh. Today’s campus radicals have nothing on the radicals of the 60’s and 70’s.
On May 5, 1970, the Professor of French at Portland State College (now a University), Frank Giese, blew up the Pioneer Post Office in Portland. It turned out he was a member of the Weather Underground, which was a SERIOUS bunch of urban terrorists.
ON that same day, there were acts of violence at universities all across the USA. Today, we would consider such a coordinated set of attacks to be an act of war, but back then, we yawned.
According to the Sacto Bee, it was pipes and chemicals from which explosives could be made. No actual bombs or even anything that could explode unless combined.
Apparently, it was a smart kind who didn’t find his science classes interesting enough.
I was looking at the news thinking “That looks like Tercero dorms…yup, there’s the cow sheds.”