The blog Green is the New Red notes Feb. 5 that environmental activist and mother of two Marie Mason was sentenced to 21 years for her role in an arson attack 10 years ago at a Michigan State University biotech lab—in which nobody was injured. The FBI nonetheless hyped the case as "domestic terrorism." Lansing's WLNS TV reported that the town was on "high alert" following FBI warnings that Animal Liberation Front "terrorists" might attend the sentencing at the federal courthouse. Three days earlier, an FBI press release announced guilty pleas from four young men who carried out racist assauls on New York's Staten Island the night of Barack Obama's election victory. As we noted, one of the victims, a teen-aged Liberian immigrant, had his scalp ripped open with baseball bats. The press release informs us that another, "whom the defendants mistakenly believed was African-American," was run over with a car and remained in coma for weeks. Three of the men received 10-year terms; a fourth who held out before copping a plea received 12 years. Mason, like the Staten Island thugs, also copped a plea—but on significantly harsher terms.

Did you ever ask yourself: Why is that?

See our last posts on the radical right and the "green scare."