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THE SIERRA CLUB
The Sierra Club, founded in 1892, is the oldest and arguably the most powerful environmental group in the nation. Once dedicated to conserving wilderness for future human enjoyment, the Sierra Club has become an anti-growth, anti-technology group that puts its utopian environmentalist vision before the well being of humans. Several of its leadership posts are held by activists with radical ties and even violent criminals, according to the Center for Consumer Freedom.
The Sierra Club has done well preserving a "mainstream" image, despite its increasingly radical bent. The Club’s new extremist priorities are best illustrated in the person of animal-rights extremist Paul Watson, elected to the Sierra Club's board of directors in 2003. Watson founded the ultra-radical Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) in 1977 after being booted from Greenpeace (which he also co-founded) for espousing violence in the name of the environment. Watson and his Sea Shepherd pirates sail the high seas, terrorizing the fishing industry by sinking ships and endangering lives. "I got the impression that instead of going out to shoot birds, I should go out and shoot the kids who shoot birds," says Watson (as quoted in Access to Energy, 1982).
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