Discovery Institute News As global riot conspiracies grow, so does need for funding investigation Thursday, August 3, 2000 Discovery Institute Staff ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Discovery Institute has called for an investigation into the funding behind the national pattern of riot-planning and accuses rioters of civil rights violations. Riots aimed at disrupting the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia are expected to be followed by still more serious disruptions in Los Angeles, but still there is no public effort to investigate. "The rioters pose a nation-wide conspiracy to break the law, " charged Bruce Chapman, Discovery's president and a former US Ambassador to the UN Organizations in Vienna. Discovery Institute is a national think-tank, headquartered in Seattle, WA. "Many delegates to conferences and conventions, and ordinary citizens, are having their civil rights to assemble violated by radical groups so bent on lawbreaking that they hold training sessions ahead of time," Chapman added. It is likely, predicted Chapman, that Los Angeles will be more strongly attacked than Philadelphia. "The Internet shows far more activity in LA," he noted. Los Angeles authorities so far have trebled to $10 million, from $3.5 million their original estimate of expected security expenses for the Democratic National Convention in mid-August. Since protestors are now planning a new tactic - disrupting transit service in the metro area - that security price tag seems likely to grow. Discovery Institute is calling upon Congress to investigate the activities and the apparent tax-exempt funding of groups such as Global Exchange, Direct Action Network (and its localized variations), and Rainforest Action Network. "We especially would like to have the Congress look into the murky dealings of Douglas Tompkins, one of the founders of Esprit clothes and North Face, who has put over $170 million into the anti-technology, anti-free trade Foundation for Deep Ecology in Sausalito, CA," Chapman said. Partial IRS filings for that foundation, says Chapman, show that in 1998 alone Tompkins gave over $200,000 to Rainforest Action Network. He gave another $200,000 that year to The International Forum on Globalization, an umbrella organization with 65 anti-trade and technology groups as members. The Forum is at the same address in Sausalito as Tompkins' Foundation for Deep Ecology. "While they claim in public to avoid violence, their techniques are themselves illegal, destructive and costly. For instance, the Direct Action Network boasts of blocking intersections, letting air out of tires, infiltrating meetings and shouting down speakers, as well as man-handling delegates. "Their tactics also always invite more extensive lawbreaking," Chapman said, "including setting fires, hurling urine-filled bottles at police and window breaking. And, no matter how local officials try to placate them in advance, they invariably wind up blaming the damage they cause on the police." Chapman criticized the US Justice Department for "remarkable laxness" in pursuing the "common threads that connect the lawbreaking that took place in Seattle and London" this past winter and spring and later attempted at the IMF meetings in Washington, D.C. He noted that after the US political conventions, the protestors "quite openly" plan to shut down the September meeting of the IMF in Prague, Czech Republic. "Where is the US Justice Department in all this?" demanded Chapman. "Maybe these protestors are clever in their efforts to throw officials off their financial and organizational trails. So what? That is why we have professional law enforcement agencies: to uncover patterns of lawbreaking that aren't evident to ordinary citizens. If these were anti-abortion protestors attempting to forcibly shut down clinics, the Justice Department would have moved against them - and rightly so - long ago." The city of Seattle has been stuck with $9 million for unexpected police costs in connection with the WTO ministerial last December. Many millions more were lost by local businesses and individuals due to property destruction and intimidation . Seattle was shut down for several days and the WTO meeting was gravely damaged. "In Seattle, the City Council has investigated what the city did wrong in preparing for the WTO. But that is largely irrelevant," said Chapman. "So are the calls there -and now in Los Angeles - for keeping big meetings from coming to town in the future if they might cause controversy. That is just capitulating to lawbreakers and puts all major cities in the position of clearing their public gatherings in advance with groups of potential protestors. It is a craven public policy." "You don,t have to have the kind of irresponsible crackdown we saw in Chicago in 1968 to maintain decent order," Chapman stated. "Indeed, if you want to avoid over-reactions, it is wise to plan ahead, know who is likely to cause trouble and let them know in return they stand to be arrested if they go through with their plans." A Sunday London Times report in April identified Englishman Teddy Goldsmith, brother of the late billionaire, Sir James Goldsmith, as a financial backer of agitprop groups campaigning against "globalization" in the UK. He also gives money to Tompkins' International Forum on Globalization in California. Many of the anti-globalization organizations are headquartered in the Bay Area, including Ruckus Society, Rainforest Action Network, and Global Exchange. Leaders of the latter group, with which Tompkins has had past dealings, proudly acknowledge having set up the Direct Action Network (DAN) that coordinates demonstrations around the world. "These people claim to be non-violent, but they provoke riots wherever they appear. They simply do not mean the word non-violent, as other people use it. They are post-modernist rioters," Chapman charged. "They make words mean whatever is convenient at the time." "The common features of the anti-globalization protests are stunning," Chapman noted, "right down to the giant puppets and the bongo drums." There is nothing wrong with street theater protests, let alone the airing of policy difference, Chapman said, "But you can see in the operations of these demonstrations a clear script, part of which is the illusion of no script. Puppetry, indeed, is a sound image for this bunch. There are puppeteers behind the protests as well as behind the puppets." Several groups backed by Tompkins and his foundation are signatories of an advertisement that appeared in the Sunday New York Times last week. It denounces modern technology and international trade. The Sunday London Times has quoted Tompkins, who lives most of the time on a Holland-sized private preserve in Chile, as hating technology and Trade - from cell-phones to e-commerce, even though he made his own money in international trade. "Another irony," added Chapman, "is that the protestors Tompkins finances link up by the Internet and make use of camcorders, cell-phones and other sophisticated devices in order to thwart detection by authorities." As part of protest planning, there are always lawyers-at-the-ready (wearing yellow scarves in Philly, for example) to get evidence to sue the police and defend the protestors. In Seattle the protestors that were arrested mostly escaped punishment because they had been trained to avoid giving their real names to jailers, instead dubbed themselves by "Jelly Bean" and "Terminator" and other fanciful handles. "The people behind the riots want to be respectable one day and use force to break the law--with impunity--the next day," charged Chapman, " And they want to pay for much of this mayhem with tax-exempt monies. So far they are getting away with it." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- News stories are not archived please do not link to this page.