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Jewish World Review Oct. 27, 2005 / 24 Tishrei, 5766 No more Mr. Nice Guy for animal activists By Debra J. Saunders
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
"All Americans took pride when the New York Stock Exchange
reopened for business only four business days after the 9-11 terrorist
attacks," Mark Bibi, a lawyer for Life Sciences Research, which tests drugs
and chemical on animals, testified before the Senate Environment and Public
Works Committee on Wednesday.
The committee was investigating the New York Stock Exchange's
decision to pull a planned listing of Life Sciences on Sept. 7, after
animal-rights extremists vandalized a members' yacht club. So Bibi opined,
"A handful of animal extremists had succeeded where Osama bin Laden had
failed." The company was de-listed in 2000 because of damage due to
"economic terrorism," according to the Financial Times.
Bibi and other execs were breakfasting at the NYSE on the
morning of Sept. 7, preparing to celebrate the listing on the exchange, when
NYSE officials abruptly announced they were postponing the listing.
At the time, NYSE President Catherine Kinney wouldn't say why. A
lawyer she sent Wednesday to testify before the committee also refused to
say why. He said the exchange is still considering a Life Sciences listing.
FBI Deputy Assistant Director John E. Lewis testified that,
shortly after Carr Securities began marketing the Life Sciences stock,
activists vandalized the yacht club to which Carr biggies reportedly
belonged. Carr cut all ties with Life Sciences.
Later, the NYSE, once defiant in the face of terrorism, caved.
Animal-rights fanatics have figured out that you beat medical
research that uses animals not by going after the researchers, but by going
after those who do business with the researchers. They cow Wall Street not
by flying in to buildings, but by trashing members' clubs.
Bibi knows what it is like to be a target.
Anonymous thugs vandalized his house, smashed his car's
windshield and made nasty phone calls to his home in the middle of the
night.
Skip Boruchin, the only trader who refused to be scared out of
business with Life Sciences Research, testified about the relentless
intimidation he and his family endured. Activists painted his yard red with
slogans like, "Skip is a murderer." Online, they called him a "child
pornographer."
One website instructed people to send sex toys to his
90-something mother at an assisted-living home. Another website listed the
names, phone numbers and Social Security numbers of 19 neighbors, and
threatened to publicize information about their credit cards and medical
history.
Violence? Well, there were the two bombs set at Chiron's
Emeryville, Calif., offices in 2003. Agents believe the second bomb was
timed to go off as first-responders arrived. The FBI also believes the
violence is escalating.
Jerry Vlasak, a Southern California physician who is spokesman
for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, also testified
Wednesday. Vlasak dismissed the intimidation of Boruchin and others as
"getting a little spray paint on the wall."
Committee Chair James Inhofe, R-Okla., questioned Vlasak about a
statement Vlasak had made defending the assassination of medical
researchers. Once again, Vlasak justified violence.
For "people who are hurting animals and who will not stop when
told to stop," he answered, one option would be murder, a "morally
justifiable solution."
If anti-abortion fanatics were behind this vandalism, the Life
Sciences saga — not to mention Vlasak's support for murdering medical
researchers — would be the stuff of countless editorials. But because the
fanatics say they stand for beagles — not Bibles — the cognoscenti barely
take notice. They're too busy complaining about how GOP limits to federal
funding might crimp research to notice that some zealots advocate killing
medical researchers.
If animal-rights nuts can get away with this brand of personal
intimidation, extremists of all ideologies will take note. What began in the
rat-hugging left will grow on the extreme right and the extreme left.
Bibi sees his company's plight as a "test case for a whole new
brand of activism through personal intimidation." And it's winning: Life
Sciences Research still remains off the New York Stock Exchange. Terrorism
works.
Vlasak testified, "The animal-rights movement has been
notoriously nonviolent up to this point." It sounds as if the days of the
friendly spray-painting, bomb-setting, child-porn-accusing and
club-vandalizing rat-hugger may be over. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
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Comment JWR contributor Debra J. Saunders's column by clicking here. © 2005, Creators Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
