The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) is also a domestic terrorist organization for the same reason, although it also maintains affiliations outside the U.S. (ELF, 2009). Like the AOG, the ELF preaches a message that would be perfectly legal if it were pursued strictly by nonviolent, legal means. Specifically, the ELF is dedicated to the economic sabotage of entities that, according to their definitions, are engaged in destroying the planet's environment and its biological organisms. The group was originally founded in England in 1992 and substantially modeled after the structure and organization of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) dedicated to the rescue of animals from laboratories and other institutions they believe are exploiting animals for profit.
More importantly, the ELF mirrors the decentralized, leaderless organizational structure of the ALF as a means of avoiding apprehension and infiltration by law enforcement. Specifically, both organizations consist of loose affiliations of otherwise unconnected independent organizations and even solitary individuals who conduct their own independent operations without direction or direct assistance from the organization (ATI, 2009). Their tactics include arson, and numerous other forms of so-called "ecoterrorism" designed to attack the profitability of any activity the organization considers harmful to the environment or to any of its living creatures inhabiting it.
Their guerilla tactics have involved arson against SUV manufacturers under the premise that SUVs are more harmful to the environment than regular automobiles and other forms of sabotaging institutions and organizations, such as the extensive vandalizing of housing developments under construction and the use of cyberterrorism against businesses. Like the AOG, the ELF maintains beliefs that would be perfectly legal in and of themselves if pursued through legal means instead of through terrorist operations. Because the ELF does use illegal violence against property and financial interests to achieve its goals, it also constitutes a terrorist organization and to the extent it operates in the U.S., a domestic terrorist organization.
Nevertheless and despite qualifying as a terrorist group, the ELF is fundamentally different from the AOG (as well as from both the KKK and the BLA) in one principal way: it is the only organization of the four that does not condone violence against human beings in pursuit of its goals. As part of its propaganda campaign, the ELF specifically publicizes its efforts to make sure that facilities it targets are not occupied, even going to far as to check for pets and other animals before conducting its destructive operations (ELF, 2009).
Conclusion:
The definition of terror is broad enough to encompass many different kinds of activities and several different types of philosophical motivations. In the U.S., federal law specifically prohibits certain kinds of non-violent activity such as the in connection with the illegal harassment (even if only verbal) of protected classes of individuals qualifies as terrorism under its broadest definition. However, none of the organizations analyzed restrict themselves to mere verbal harassment.
Both the KKK and BLA have long histories of violence and murder against innocent civilians and government agents alike; the AOG also has embraced violence and murder in the pursuit of its goals. The ELF differs from the other three organizations only in that it limits its activities to violence against inanimate structures, facilities, and private property. All four groups qualify as domestic terrorist groups for their participation in violence, whether motivated by unlawful hateful bigotry against individuals of minority race, hatred and violence against the majority race, lawful objectives pursued through violence against individuals, or by lawful objectives pursued through illegal destruction of property without harm to persons.
References
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Bostdorff, D.M. (2004). The Internet rhetoric of the Ku Klux Klan: A case study in Web Site community building run amok. Communication Studies, 55(2), 340+.
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Earth Liberation Front (2009). The evolution of ELF after "Operation Backfire"
Retrieved, March 22, 2009 at http://earth-liberation-front.org/
Erickson, C.K. (2005). The invisible empire in the West: Toward a new historical appraisal of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. The Historian, 67(3), 526+.
Horsley, Neal (2009). Understanding the Army of God Retrieved March 24, 2009, at http://www.christiangallery.com/aog.html
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National Abortion Federation (2009). Anti-abortion Extremists/the Army of God and Justifiable Homicide Retrieved, March 24, 2009, at http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/violence/army_god.html
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This single act, as shown by the documentation of the criminal justice system undeniably meets every single criteria for definition as an act of domestic terrorism as defined by section 2331 of Chapter 113b in the United States Code, which was quoted earlier. Of course this certainly isn't an isolated event. The court documents cited above themselves describe numerous acts of violence committed by Klan members throughout the 1960s and
] The Klan was therefore able to identify different methods of infiltrating American politics and ideologies, crafting their program to suit different regions of the country. In areas with large numbers of Jews, the Klan could be rabidly anti-Semitic and gain membership via the propagation of Nazi values. In areas where moral decay in Christian communities was viewed as a primary problem, the Klan leaders presented their ideology as an agent
S. Those who had lived for generations in the U.S. were unsettled and wary as these changes occurred. Immigration soon became a social and political issue among the public, groups began to form based on beliefs held which were similar from group to group, and the prevalence of organizations experienced growth with the KKK being no exception to the rule. The KKK used phrases such as "America for Americans" (Ludwig,
Ku Klux Klan: A History Naturally, today we are convinced -- and rightfully so -- that the Ku Klux Klan's politics and desires and goals are inherently evil. They are not in sync with the times, at the very least, and at the very most, they are a representation of all that is negative in racial relations. However, to understand the Klan's motivations, one must truly look at the group's origins
Ku Klux Klan was founded by Nathan Bedford Forrest and five other educated, middle-class Confederate veterans on December 24, 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee (Ku pp). The name was constructed by combining the Greek word for circle with "clan" (Ku pp). The term Ku Klux Klan is used to refer to a number of past and present fraternal organizations within the United States that have advocated white supremacy (Ku pp). The Klan's
Klan politics are eerily being played out in modern conservative movements such as the Tea Party. While the Tea Party does not officially endorse the KKK, the two groups share many common objectives including the mistrust of new immigrants. Today's Klansmen are basically "unhappy about the social politics of America's post-industrial, pluralistic society" and they "feel left out." The official stance of the KKK resembles much of conservative America in that
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