I'm an academic professional earning a PhD in environmental history. Ever since I was a young child I have been fascinated with non-traditional social and religious movements, and their histories, as sort of a hobby. While there are many groups out there that are completely harmless and often can provide their members with aspects of spiritual or emotional uplift they may be missing in their everyday life, there are also groups that can be highly destructive and efforts like yours to keep the public informed are admirable and serve an important purpose. There is a lot of useful information on this site about groups like Babywise, Scientology, the ICOC, and other groups that have questionable purposes, to say the least. You site is far more useful than the so called databases run by fudamentalist organizations.

That said, I think it should be pointed out that your section on "Animal Rights and Environmental Extremists" is poorly presented. As someone who reads a great deal on the animal rights movement, I can assure you that it is not composed of a pack of fanatic radicals who love animals more than people. While there are certainly a few radical and dangerous splinter groups within environmentalism as a whole, PETA hardly qualifies as a dangerous terrorist movement. However, the juxtaposition of exagerrated articles on PETA next to pictures of burning buildings and articles concerning truely horrific crimes and terrorism seems a tad irresponsible. Although I am sure the administration of this site is above simply "pigeonholing" me as "one of them" I can assure you that I am neither a member of PETA nor a huge supporter of animal rights, though I can also assure you that animals are often terribly abused and mistreated in the processing plants of this country, and that animal based food products do little good for the human body. There is nothing wrong with citizens being concerned about the plight of animals or the health of their neighbors, and those are the folks that PETA largely attracts. Now granted, some of their demonstrations are a bit silly, and their "got beer" campaign understandibly caused a lot of condemnation, but they are not a violent organization. (The interesting thing about "got beer" is that while telling folks to drink beer is more than a little dense, there are some very real dietary problems with milk, which I am sure some of the academics on your board are familiar, but that was lost in the firestorm over their telling folks to consume alcohol.) It should also be noted that they have almost singlehandidly forced some of this country's largest fast food corporations to change the ways in which they handle the animals in their care. That, to me, is a very admirable thing.

At any rate, PETA is one example - I use them because you have their link at the top of the "animal Rights" page like they are one of the truely dangerous environmental groups.

This is a statement I looked up on PETA's website after reading the section on your database:

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Don’t animal rights activists commit ‘terrorist’ acts?"
The animal rights movement is nonviolent. One of the central beliefs shared by most animal rights people is rejection of harm to any animal, human or otherwise. However, any large movement is going to have factions that believe in the use of force.

***

This statement conforms to everything I've read about the mainstream of the animal rights movement, of which PETA is a part. Peter Singer is a nationally renowned scholar at Princeton University and one of the founders of the modern "animal rights" movement. Is he a dangerous extremist?

There is a tremendous amount of bad press available on any environmental group that exists in the United States today, because many of the goals involved in bringing about change in our environmental policies is going to cost the corporations who are often abusing the environment a lot of money, and they will spare no expense smearing the organizations they view as a monetary threat.

At any rate, I hope you will consider revamping that section of your site and perhaps changing the title. All animal rights people are not extremists, nor are all environmentalists radicals, whether we choose to believe as they do or not, and frankly PETA should not be on that page at all. Again, I use PETA because that page focuses so heavily on them, though I think that section of the site will leave the uninformed with the impression that all environmental movements are potentially dangerous. Placing folks who genuinely care about the world around them alongside arsonists, murderers, racists, and other fanatics may leave the uneducated reader with the idea
that the mainstream groups are no different than the fruit cakes who have co-opted their issues and used them to commit crimes.

Thanks for reading.:)

Anyone who reviews the section about Animal Rights and Environmental Extremists mentioned in the previous post above can readily see the focus is essentially on criminal conduct.

See [www.culteducation.com]

It is clear that some of these groups also operate in a "cult-like" manner and there have been claims that they "brainwash" their members.

See [www.culteducation.com]

PETA has become increasingly radical and has received its share of criticism for such behavior in the press.

It is the hope of RI that by having such an archive of news articles and facual accounts available to the general public people might be more informed about groups like PETA and their propensity for extremism.

Having said that, it certainly is the right of others to disagree and support PETA if the wish, but not to break the law.

The links provided to PETA and ALF allow visitors to see the other side by reviewing the material these groups provide, as cited by the previous post.