Let’s come up with a word that allows for gradations so that we can fit bin Laden and ELF and PETA in the same category and yet distinguish them. All of them do violence to different things. PETA throws paint and slanders heros like Crocodile Steve and Elf (if they’re who I think they are) burns SUVs. We’ll be famous if we can precipitate a switch from the uninformative “terrorist” label to something else. FAMOUS.

But at the same time, I hate the fact that we don’t have another word to distinguish groups that intentionally harm people for political gain, from those that intentionally avoid harming people. ELF (Earth Liberation Front—a militant environmentalist organization) does stuff that could be considered terroristic (and I think the feds label them as such), and so too does PETA, but neither is on par with Al Qaeda.

Bin Laden is what people think of when they hear “terrorist,” so it’s a little misleading and unfair to associate groups that go out of their way to avoid casualties with the guys that go out of their way to maximize casualties.

—Matt—

I really never did much digging on Ayers as a person once it seemed clear that there weren’t any credible ties between President-elect Obama and this “terrorist” that some folk on the opposing side were trying to link him to.

It’s interesting that he doesn’t characterize himself as a terrorist. It might be true that his group didn’t kill anyone (I have no idea) but that doesn’t mean that they weren’t terrorists. He seems to be working with a very limited notion of “terrorist.” Seems to me that he does not deny that his group was engaged in “a campaign to…[spread] fear… for political ends.”

Once you edit out the bits about killing and injuring you are left with a real definition of “terror-ism” as opposed to “terrorism-that-kills-or-injures-people.”

Do you have to kill people to terrorize them?