The Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently profiled animal rights activists Josh Harper. Harper told a Post-Intelligencer reporter that among other things he sees “a spark of hope in every broken window, every torched police car and every mink running free as their hearts desire.” Harper added that his ultimate goal is nothing less than “the complete collapse of industrial civilization.”
The most interesting part of the profile, however, is Harper’s apparent resort to the sort of reasoning used by Timothy McVeigh to justify his criminal acts,
Harper denies any involvement with the Animal Liberation Front or the Earth Liberation Front — dubbed terrorist groups by the U.S. government. Yet he applauds ELF’s recent arson attack on the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture.
In war, Harper reasoned, there is collateral damage.
This isn’t empty rhetoric either, considering Harper once threw a lit flare and smoke canister at Native American whalers.
Source:
His goal: the end of civilization. Paul Shukovsky, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 18, 2001.
