Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 04:19:10 -0500
Subject: M-NEWS: Vegan Fascism?


Source: The FTP site of The Internet Anti-Fascist
URL: <ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/publish/story/story030.txt>

Youths Swear Off All But Violence, Police Say

By ARLENE LEVINSON
Associated Press
3 Dec 97

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The scar in Rich Webb's back is dark pink and
puckered, a souvenir of the night in 1995 he was attacked by a crowd of
Straight Edgers. They carved an X, the movement's signature, just above
Webb's waist. The doctor said a knife must have been used to slice his
flesh so cleanly.

They cut him for smoking pot.

Straight Edge could be every frightened parent's dream. A youth
movement born in the underground punk rock scene of the early 1980s,
its devotees swear off drugs, drink, smoking and casual sex. These are
youngsters in revolt against the dangerous temptations of youth.

And thousands of Straight Edgers in this country generally confine
themselves to attending punk rock concerts and trying to set an example
of clean living.

That goes for Utah too. But here, the Straight Edge philosophy can also
become a bludgeon. Beatings, brawls and vandalism by Straight Edge
toughs are common, police say. They say Straight Edgers use chains,
mace and clubs to enforce their abstinent lifestyle. It takes place in
school yards, at concerts and shopping center parking lots.

"If they can't get you, you wake up in the morning, your car will be
just pulverized, every window broken out," said Scott Magleby, a
detective in the Salt Lake County sheriff's gang unit.

Some Straight Edgers have gone further, turning their intolerance on
the fur, leather and fast-food trades. Firebombings and burglary in the
past two years and in the name of rescuing animals are the work of
current and one time Straight Edgers, authorities say.

=46rom Weber County to the north to the southern end of Salt Lake County,
police see the intersection of Straight Edge and the animal rights
movement: firebombings of a mink feed cooperative, a McDonald's
restaurant and a Tandy Leather and Crafts Supply store; the near-arson
of an animal trap business; minks "liberated" from two farms.

"I've become more and more bitter," said Terry Montgomery, owner of the
trap business, a mom-and-pop enterprise. "I don't really care if they
eat 20 heads of lettuce a day. But you can't force your ideas on
people."

This activity is also getting attention from the FBI.

Bret Walton, a tall, sad-eyed 18-year-old, is one of three Straight
Edgers caught trying to burn down Montgomery's store in March. He was
the lookout as the others poured gasoline around the place. A night
watchman asleep inside was aroused by the commotion and chased them
away.

Sentenced to three years' probation after pleading guilty to arson
conspiracy, Walton, a diesel mechanic from North Salt Lake, said it
"was disappointing, it really was," that the attack failed.

"I don't know if it would have done any good if it had burned down,"
Walton said. "I realized the risk, but I felt I wasn't doing enough to
help save animals."

Authorities say Straight Edgers like Walton are committing crimes in
the name of Animal Liberation Front, a shadowy force that seeks to halt
the use of animals for human purpose, whether in the research lab, the
leather shoe or fur coat, the hamburger or fish fry. Even dairy
products are under ALF assault.

"The FBI's domestic terrorism unit is active in this field," said John
Russell, a Justice Department spokesman in Washington. Utah is one of
two ALF hot spots under investigation, he said, declining to identify
the other.

It all seems out of place in this wholesome slice of country between
the Great Salt Lake and the Rocky Mountains' Wasatch Range, where the
big preoccupation is the 2002 Winter Olympics.

But Salt Lake teens have their problems too, and "Straight Edge is
giving them a feeling of security and support and identity," says
Michelle Arciaga of the Salt Lake Area Gang Project.

"This is the neediest generation that America has ever seen."

The movement takes its name from a 1981 song, "Straight Edge," by Ian
MacKaye of the Washington, D.C.-based band Minor Threat:

"I'm a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
Than sit around and smoke dope =8A
I've got a straight edge ."

It fit an attitude among punk fans and gave the attitude a name.
"Straight Edge " gained followings in Boston, New York and Southern
California, and as far away as Poland and Australia. To highlight its
wholesome credo, it adopted an X as its symbol, X being what music
clubs stamp on the hands of patrons too young for alcohol.

The typical Utah Straight Edger is white, male and middle class, aged
from early teens to early 20s, bearing the tattoos, shorn hair and
pierced ear lobes of punkdom.

Those who know them say most Straight Edgers are law-abiding and
peaceful. They have no leaders or formal membership. But because some
adherents lash out with violence, local police label Straight Edge a
gang. Straight Edgers reject the tag and say any fights are self-
defense.

The problem is so serious that a Salt Lake City police detective, Brent
Larsen, is assigned exclusively to Straight Edge-related crime.

"Don't get me wrong; there are some good kids in Straight Edge," Larsen
said. He estimated the movement numbers 600 or 700 in the valley, about
200 of them violent while "50 or 60=8A do the firebombing."

Ms. Arciaga of the area gang project travels outside the state and
hears similar stories. "It's not just a Salt Lake thing," she said. In
Texas, Washington state and California "people have come and talked to
me about troubles they're having with Straight Edgers."

A dozen Straight Edgers are rattling Dayton, Ohio.

"We call them 'Hate Edgers,' " said Sgt. David Williams. In Dayton, a
man was smacked in the head with a skateboard for smoking a cigarette.

"This particular group of people hating people who eat meat, hate gays
as well," Williams noted. In this "strange twist of the `just say no'
campaign," he said, some also proclaim ties to the Animal Liberation
=46ront.

Jacob Kenison, 19, was raised in a solid Mormon family. Like all
Mormons, he was taught to shun tobacco, caffeine and alcohol and to
obey the law. He could take comfort in his faith's emphasis on family
and church.

Yet it was the Straight Edgers who helped him cope with his fears at
14.

"I was scared of drugs. I heard they make you do weird things," Kenison
said. Straight Edge, he said, "was a protection."

Now he is about to serve a 16-month prison term on a federal gun
offense and awaits sentencing on a state arson charge to which he
pleaded guilty.

A red jumpsuit hanging loose over his lanky 6-foot-2-inch frame,
Kenison spoke in mid-November, hugging himself and swallowing nervously
as he explained how he ended up in Salt Lake County Metro Jail.

He violated his parents' curfew and was thrown out of the house. At 16,
he was expelled from school for assaulting another student. A witness
told police he rapped a student on the head with spiked brass knuckles.
His parents got him reinstated, but school couldn't hold him. Straight
Edge did.

A freckled redhead, Kenison is festooned with tattoos: Chinese
characters on his neck, a demon and a nude winged fairy dancing on his
arm. He says "hardline" in red across his chest indicates he takes the
most stringent Straight Edge line. That line, according to Kenison, is
anti-sexist, anti racist, anti-abortion; sex is purely for having
children, though marriage "doesn't really matter."

He is also a vegan, following a diet doctrine promoted by ardent animal
rights activists. Vegans (pronounced VEE-gans), reject all animal
products. They wear no leather, wool or silk. "I wouldn't eat refined
sugar, white rice -- nothing bleached. No meat. No dairy. No honey,"
Kenison said.

At 18, he fell into a depression and had "worthless" tattooed inside
his left arm. He felt he would never save the animal world; his car was
wrecking the environment; visiting a doctor or dentist might entail
benefiting from research on animals.

Even buying cotton clothes afflicts the helpless, in Kenison's view.
"There's animals that live in the cotton plants -- some live in the
shade. The main reason I'm vegan is, I felt bad."

In June 1995, a leather crafts store in Murray, south of Salt Lake
City, was firebombed and destroyed. In February this year, Kenison was
arrested. On Nov. 24 he pleaded guilty to taking part in the attack.

A month after his arrest he and friends bought an assault rifle for
fellow Straight Edger Joshua Ellerman. Kenison admitted lying when he
failed to state in the federal gun-purchase form that he was charged
with a crime. He says he made an honest mistake.

Meanwhile, 19-year-old Ellerman is living with his mother, DeAnn
Taylor, awaiting federal trial for the mink co-op bombing. If
convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Ms. Taylor declined interviews for them both while the case is pending.
Her elder son, Colby Ellerman, a former Straight Edge who turned 21
Thanksgiving Day, pleaded guilty to freeing minks. He too declined an
interview.

"My son Joshua is not guilty," Ms. Taylor said. Both her sons, "are
very, very good boys." As for Straight Edge, "there's a lot of good in
it," she said.

Authorities say violence associated with animal rights is ebbing. One
Straight Edger who took part in protests at fur stores said police
surveillance -- picture-taking and constant questions -- is turning
kids off. Some are letting their short hair grow out, to deflect
attention.

Still, at hardcore punk rock concerts, Salt Lake police have picked up
fliers like one that describes the proper fuel mixture to make a
firebomb (add motor oil and get a "longer-lasting hotter flame.")

It's at such concerts that Dave Wilson seeks recruits for his cause,
marrying the moralistic outlook of Straight Edge to his own animal
rights campaign.

"Years down the road, people are going to view us as freedom fighters
and saints for freeing these animals," said Wilson, who at 19 has
dropped ambitions to become a fashion model to devote his life to
animal rights. "We used to have black slaves. Now we have mink slaves
or fox slaves or pig slaves."

Officially, he speaks for a Texas-based group called Coalition to
Abolish the Fur Trade, and issues statements claiming responsibility
for attacks in the name of the Animal Liberation Front.

Straight Edge, having started by saying no to drugs and sex, and a
fervent core having moved on to fighting for animal rights, now shows
signs of turning against itself, according to police and failed
firebomber Bret Walton.

"The kids who were for animal rights and Straight Edge, they were for
each other," Walton said. "But now everybody hates each other and they
get into fights. It seems like over nothing. And then tons of cops
come." =1A

[Comment by Aaron: It's nice to see almost anybody -- even psychotic
fascists -- attack and destroy businesses that seriously abuse animals. In
this case, there's the added advantage that we don't have to shed any tears
when the perpetrators wind up in jail. The real danger, though, is that
they'll stop doing things that get them arrested and instead limit their
violence to attacking pot smokers and other decent people.]