JERRY VLASAK: Would I advocate taking five guilty vivisectors’ lives to save hundreds of millions of innocent animal lives? Yes, I would.
Put in the hot seat on live TV, Vlasak did not equivocate on or parse his initial statement in any way. Yet, unlike past interviews, Vlasak here actually claims to “advocate” killing vivisectors to save animals for the first time, saying something previously he denied. Perhaps he misspoke, or perhaps his line is hardening. It is one isolated advocacy of violence statement, the only one to my knowledge.
Vlasak clearly favors the lives of millions of innocent animals over the corrupt humans guilty of torturing and killing them, and he has the right to air his views. Even in this context, where he would “advocate” the murder of vivisectors if it saved animal lives, he is still within his constitutional rights for he is not inciting violence in an inflammatory way. He is speaking in personal and hypothetical terms, not urging others to go out and murder vivisectors.
Seal Wars
In April 2005, Vlasak accompanied Paul Watson and other members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to confront sealers and thwart their goal to kill over 350,000 seals. Vlasak’s views on violence were put to a concrete test when he was attacked on the ice by an irate sealer. Knocked down and his nose bloodied, Vlasak peacefully resisted the attack and did not return any blows. Odd behavior for a Prophet of violence.
In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Company (basically a propaganda tool of the Canadian state), however, Vlasak moved from the ice flows off Prince Edwards Island into the hot water of hostile media attention. When asked if sealers were comparable in malice to vivisectors, Vlasak unflinchingly replied, “Yeah, I think they’re all abhorrent. The threat of violence would be another way to stop them and I would be behind that threat.” [2]
In place of any mention of the barbarous carnage against the seals, the CBC and Vlasak’s critics predictably seized on his comment. While sealers unleashed a savage fury of violence against hundreds of thousands of seals, the Canadian media vilified Vlasak as violent and extreme. Much of the Canadian media actually defended the massacre of seals as a noble tradition that used “humane” killing methods (such as stripping the skin off a baby seal while it is still conscious and alive). Enough hypocritical public pressure was exerted on the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Board of Directors that the Board removed Vlasak from his position.
While Vlasak clearly has paid a high price for airing his controversial views, he is to be commended for the courage to take a provocative stand and to consistently follow the logic of liberation ethics and politics. Vlasak’s critics within the animal rights movement can carp about the negative image of animal rights they believe he is creating, but he has also garnered copious worldwide media attention and the unprecedented opportunity to educate various publics about the horrors of vivisection and seal massacres. As demonstrated in the case of CBC coverage, however, it does not follow from the fact that Vlasak gets media attention that it will be positive and stay focused on the plight of animals instead of his controversial words. It is a Catch-22 situation where one needs provocative words and actions to capture the media spotlight, but the media can easily focus on the spectacle of the speaker rather than the references of his speech.
Thus, the challenge for Vlasak is to keep the message on animal exploitation, and not his own words; to show that the real violence and terrorism stems from animal exploiters, and not animal liberationists. In virtually every speech act, indeed, Vlasak seeks to expose the outrageous hypocrisy whereby critics accuse the animal liberation movement of violence whereas exploiters soak the earth in the blood of animals every year, as they assault and sometimes kill nonviolent animal activists.
The Halls of Hypocrisy
While Vlasak is crucified for controversial remarks that challenge the right of animal exploiters to monopolize the use of violence, the abhorrent speech acts of others go unnoticed if they come from the Right. The Right has a heart attack over Ward Churchill’s indelicate remark that the victims of 9/11 were “little Eichmanns” in some sense, but there was no outrage or talk of firing whatsoever when three star marine general James Mattis, who commanded Marine expeditions in Afghanistan and Iraq, publicly stated that “Actually it’s quite fun to fight [Iraqis], you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people.” Similarly, Alberto Gonzalez, a close friend of Bush and the attorney who drafted the policies justifying torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, not only was not fired for his callous violations of international law and humanitarian policies, he was promoted to the highest legal office in the land, Attorney General.
Where is the rabid reaction to snarling pro-violence right-wing commentator Ann Coulter whenever she spouts inanities such as, “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building”? For Coulter, it’s ok to kill people so long as they are “liberals.” Where is the backlash for the outrageous remarks Ted Nugent made at the March 2005 NRA convention, when he blared: “Remember the Alamo! Shoot ‘em!”[3] he screamed to applause. “To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want ‘em dead. Get a gun and when they attack you, shoot ‘em.” Nugent is advocating indiscriminate killing and vigilantism, all without any legal due process. No rights, constitution, court system, or justice of any kind. Did Nugent pay a price for this fascist remark? Were his supporters pressured to distance themselves from him? Of course not. Nugent engages in the socially-sanctioned actions of murdering animals, whereas Vlasak upsets the conventions of speciesist violence to receive the full weight of opprobrium available from a sick and distorted world.
It is one thing when troglodytes like Nugent espouse violence, but recently threats of violence have come from right-wing members of Congress. In the aftermath of the failed battle to save the life of Terri Schiavo in May-April 2005, “pro-life” conservatives launched a crusade against “activist judges” – namely, liberal judges – who make decisions anything to the left of extreme right. Speaking from the Senate floor on April 4, Republican Senator John Cornyn cited the Shiavo case and the March 1 Supreme Court ruling that outlawed the death penalty for juveniles as examples of “judicial activism.” Anytime a judge with liberal sensibilities rules out of accord with the agenda of the religious right, you have an example of “judicial activism.”
In the painful aftermath of April 2005, when two judges were shot down in Chicago and Atlanta, Cornyn remarked, “I don’t know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. . . . And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in violence. Certainly without any justification, but a concern that I have.”
As he meekly condemns the murder of federal judges from one side of his mouth, from the other he is implying that it is acceptable to kill “activist” judges for the sin of non-compliance with right-wing agendas. Shortly before this menacing grandstanding, once various judges turned down all legal appeals to save the life of Terri Shiavo, House Majority Leader Tom Delay intoned ominously, “The time will come when the men responsible for this will answer for their behavior.”
However Cornyn and Delay want to parse their statements, they are threats and apologies for the murder of liberal judges allegedly out of touch with “mainstream America” and the “pro-life” right-wing values crusade that endorses homophobia, militarism, imperialism, unlimited access to guns, and a broad application of the death penalty. They are far more threatening than anything said by Jerry Vlasak. Given the volatility of extreme right-wing sentiment in this country, where Neo-Nazis, militias, rabid ant-abortionists and other groups have a track record of violence and murder, the reckless statements of Cornyn and Delay are far closer to actually inciting violence than anything Vlasak said. And where Vlasak’s remarks might apply to an underground liberation movement that has no record of violence toward human beings, the ultra-right wing nation appealed to by Cornyn and Delay endorses and uses violence, and is a powder keg waiting to explode. Should someone feel vindicated by their remarks and assassinate a federal judge, Cornyn and Delay must bear some responsibility for the loss of life.
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