| Steven Best |
Article Index for Steven |
Website Links For Steven |
Information AboutSteven Best |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT STEVEN BEST | |
| 1955 births | |
| best, steven | |
| living people | |
| american philosophers | |
| animal liberation front | |
| animal rights movement | |
| american activists | |
|
Steven Best (born December 1955) is an American , Postmodernism , and environmental philosophy. In December 2004, Best co-founded the North American has said the ALF has committed more than 1,200 attacks in the U.S. since 1990, many against university laboratories, causing millions of dollars in damages. Best has said he is not an ALF activist. {Link without Title} The British . {Link without Title} EDUCATION After attending high school in Chicago , Best took casual jobs in factories and drove a truck for a few years. He attended the College Of DuPage (Illinois) from 1977 to 1979, where he completed an associate degree in film and theater; the University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign from 1979 to 1983, where he received a bachelor's degree with distinction; the University Of Chicago from 1985 to 1987 for his master's degree; and the University Of Texas At Austin for his PhD from 1989 to 1993. In 1993, he began as an assistant professor of humanities and philosophy at the University of Texas, El Paso, promoted to associate professor in 1999, and then to the chair of the philosophy department in 2002. After a unanimous Vote Of No Confidence his colleagues replaced him as chair in March 2005. Best insists that his colleagues were punishing him for his activism. BANNED FROM THE UK The rally Best planned to attend was to celebrate the closure, as a result of protests from the animal rights movement, of NewChurch Farm, where Guinea Pig s were being bred for research purposes. The government is said to have been angered by the closure and by the apparent success of the animal rights protests. Charles Clarke , the British Home Secretary , said he would rely on new Home Office rules preventing people from enter the UK if they "foment, justify or glorify Terrorist violence in further of particular beliefs; seek to provoke others to terrorist acts; foment other serious criminal activity or seek to provoke others to serious criminal acts." {Link without Title} In a letter to Best dated August 24 , 2005 , Clarke cited words Best is quoted by '' The Daily Telegraph '' as having said in July 2005, when he attended an animal rights conference in the UK: "We are not terrorists, but we are a threat. We are a threat both economically and philosophically. Our power is not in the right to vote but the power to stop production. We will break the law and destroy property until we win." Best is also alleged to have said that the animal rights movement did not want to "reform" vivisectionists but to "wipe them off the face of the earth". {Link without Title} The letter said that: "In expressing such views, it is considered that you are fomenting and justifying terrorist violence and seeking to provoke others to terrorist acts and fomenting other serious criminal activity and seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts." The letter was dated the same day that the Home Office published its new list of behaviors that would see people banned from the UK. Under the list, people who write, speak, run a Website , or use their positions as teachers to express views that "foment, justify, or glorify violence in furtherance of particular beliefs" will be banned or deported. The British government called the new measures part of its "ongoing work to tackle terrorism and Extremism ." [http://www.drstevebest.org/news/The%20Chronicle%208-29-2005%20Britain%20Bans%20Professor.htm Best responded to the ban by saying it didn't surprise him. He told the ''Chronicle of Higher Education'': "It was only a matter of time, especially after July 7. The climate in Britain is totally unbelievable. It's very Fascist . It's becoming a police state." {Link without Title} CRITICISM In March 2005, all other members of the philosophy faculty at the University of Texas at El Paso voted to replace Best as chair, a position he had held for four years. Best claims that the vote came in response to his animal rights activism. Faculty members have denied this. David Martosko, research director of the Center for Consumer Freedom, a group based in Washington, D.C. that campaigns against the animal-rights movement, maintains that Best is a spokesman for terrorists. "If a university professor were out there saying that Abortion -clinic bombers had a good plan going," Martosko told ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'', "the university would sever the guy's Tenure in a New York Minute ." {Link without Title} Brian O'Connor, a former professor of anatomy and cell biology at the Indiana University School Of Medicine , who has used dogs in experiments on the central nervous system, told the ''Chronicle'' that Best is a "total ideologue." WORKS
SEE ALSO
REFERENCES
FURTHER READING
|
|
|