Community | September 29, 2010 | 57 comments

FBI Raids Peace Activists (and Boosts the Anti-War Movement)

source: http://criminaljustice.change.org/blog/view/activists_say_raids_could_boost_anti-war_movement

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pinkpanther
If the FBI was hoping to silence the anti-war movement by raiding the homes of activists across the country, as critics claim, they don't appear to have succeeded. In fact, the bureau may just have given the movement -- which indisputably waned with the election of Barack Obama -- the spark activists say it needed.

Last week, FBI agents raided a half-dozen homes and offices of activists in Minneapolis -- all organizers of protests outside the 2008 Republican Convention -- and the homes of two others in Chicago, part of what the bureau claims is an investigation into whether members of the anti-war movement provided "material support" to designated terrorist organizations, such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and Hezbollah. Around a dozen others were also reportedly issued subpoenas to testify before a grand jury next month.

"It’s an attack on all of us," says Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the group Code Pink, speaking to Change.org outside FBI headquarters in downtown Washington. Around 40 activists demonstrated outside the building on Tuesday in a show of solidarity with those raided.

Benjamin says those targeted by the FBI were only supporting peace processes in the Middle East and Colombia, and that the bureau is really engaged in more of a fishing expedition than real terrorism investigation. Indeed, despite last week's raids and salacious allegations, not a single arrest was made. "These were search warrants only," said FBI spokesman Steve Warfield.

But if the goal was to divide and silence the anti-war community, Benjamin says they sure haven't succeeded.

"They made a big mistake because they picked Minneapolis and Chicago," she says, "two places where there are huge progressive communities, very tight communities, and areas of the country where people are very proud of their First Amendment rights and their independent spirits."

In a sign of the strength of activist communities there, hundreds of activists on Monday rallied outside federal buildings in both cities to protest the FBI's raids. Solidarity rallies were also held across the country this week, from Salt Lake City to Philadelphia.

Yet despite the fact that all those targeted in the raids were members of explicitly anti-war organizations -- and avowed proponents of non-violence -- they could still face criminal prosecution thanks to the government's extremely broad definition of what it means to provide "material support" for terrorism, a definition that extends to counseling others to embrace peace.

While the law is ostensibly aimed at actual terrorists and their supporters, former President Jimmy Carter said in a statement released by the ACLU this past that the government's interpretation of "material support" -- upheld by the Supreme Court this past June -- threatens the humanitarian work not only of his own Carter Center, but "the work of many other peacemaking organizations that must interact directly with groups that have engaged in violence." The "vague" wording of the law, he said, "leaves us wondering if we will be prosecuted for our work to promote peace and freedom."

But at Tuesday's rally in Washington, protesters -- chanting "FBI, stop the raids, we won't back down, we're not afraid" -- said the government's investigation into activists' alleged support for terrorism would only spur them to redouble their efforts to oppose U.S. militarism.

One speaker, Rev. Graylan Hagler, a long-time progressive activist and senior minister at the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in northeast Washington, said the raids were a sign not of the government's strength, but of its fear of dissent.

"I’ve got news for you: in the eyes of the FBI, each of you who are standing out here -- you’re terrorists," said Harlan. "Why? Because you bring terror to the status quo." While the government promotes injustice at home and abroad, "we choose to stand on the side of justice. And we choose to be in solidarity with people who are oppressed. They will come after us, but I’m going to tell you, we will not be silent."

Code Pink's Medea Benjamin, meanwhile, says the terrible irony is that while the FBI raids peace activists, "the real terrorists are walking freely right here in Washington, DC, and around this country -- the ones that took us into these disastrous wars. And it’s absolutely outrageous that those of us who believe that we shouldn’t be bombing other people around the world and we shouldn’t be supporting dictatorial regimes are the ones whose homes are raided."

But there may be a bright side, she says, as the FBI's raids have drawn attention to -- and appear to have awoken -- the previously moribund anti-war community. "I think it was a huge mistake and I think we can use it to our advantage to reenergize our movement."
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57 comments // FBI Raids Peace Activists (and Boosts the Anti-War Movement)

  • pinkpanther
  • AaliasChrisCarter
  • DogBoy
  • TheForeteller
  • sidewaysclyde
  • themotivateddropout
  • DogBoy
    • +1
      DogBoy  

    • There will never be peace in the world as long as the things that drive men mad are held in esteem and even then the nature of humans will always be contentious.

    • 1 year ago
  • MotherForTruth
  • DogBoy
  • RastusJr
  • MotherForTruth
  • DogBoy
    • +1
      DogBoy  
    • RastusJr:

      What kind of change? Change from one president to another from democrat to republican is like picking the lesser of the two evils. I am middle class so I want whoever will protect the middle class I guess. Or do mean Global change? Get rid of the hard currency as the economic standard and move to a more agrarian, resource based global economy. Everything changes in time. Maybe not in our time but shit will change.

    • 1 year ago
  • RastusJr
  • artemis6
  • MotherForTruth
    • +1
      MotherForTruth  
    • artemis6:

      You are absolutely right, and I was not referring to Obama giving me hope. No politician is capable of that. Each and every one has ability to make our world better; some can articulate it better than others. My comment "The hope is all I have" was expression of disappointment on how few really understand "You must be the change you want to see in the world." (Mahatma Gandhi)

    • 1 year ago
  • KevinLionheart
    • -1
      KevinLionheart  

    • Clearly the President is involved in every decision made by the FBI. Was it during the Bush years that Americans forgot how government actually works and just started blaming every action of every branch and department of the government as if the President personally oversaw it, or did we start with that nonsense after Waco?

      Besides, no arrests were made and no one was hurt. The main suspects went to many 'activist' meetings in Colombia, Lebanon, and Palestine and had been arrested before for invoking riots at their protests, so its not like they were random peaceful protesters. Seems like a non-story to me. Suspicious people were searched and found not to be all that suspicious. Hurray?

    • 1 year ago
  • wally60
    • +5
      wally60  

    • it makes no difference who is running our goverment.they are controled by
      other intrests money buys people thats the bottom line.our goverment
      represents the few not the people

    • 1 year ago
  • BillCorcoran
  • reactionforce
  • RastusJr
    • +2
      RastusJr  
    • BillCorcoran:

      I understand your point, but even with the few that will waken, it will not stop or reverse the ill of the draft. Just like '69. Wishing for a murder to happen so you can show everyone it's wrong is not logical.

    • 1 year ago
  • ayipis
    • -4
      ayipis  

    • soon the part that there is no war in middle east will come out from the mouths of every obama loving liberal...there is no poverty..there is no unemployment..

      LOL..OBAMA zombies are way too much....

    • 1 year ago
  • iamaman
  • Deremoved
  • Blkwdw
  • ayipis
  • ayipis
    • -2
      ayipis  
    • Image
    • Blkwdw:

      side note..same shit i say when I hear liberal zombies drag this new military and civilian tactics to Bush even though we have this new "change" and "transparency" leader in the white house..DOING OPPOSITE of what he was voted in..(perhaps it means Bush was right all along..humm)..

      but as Obama's famous teleprompter speech "yadi yadi yadi da ,,,the buck stops at me..yadi yadi da" so i guess he has everything to do with it..

      and for your pleasure read the attached news ...

      http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-airstrike-20100930,...

      Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Kandahar, —

      Authorities in Pakistan shut down a key border crossing for NATO supply trucks bound for Afghanistan Thursday after claiming that NATO helicopters fired on a Pakistani border check post and killed three of its soldiers, an accusation likely to inflame tensions between Washington and Islamabad following similar NATO aircraft incursions into Pakistani territory in recent days.

      Pakistani military officials said two NATO helicopters crossed over into Pakistan's Kurram tribal region along the Afghan border before dawn and fired on paramilitary troops at the Mandata Kandaho border patrol post. When the soldiers fired back at the helicopters, the aircraft retaliated by firing two missiles, destroying the post and killing the three soldiers, the Pakistani military said.

      ****************

      a cluster fuck of a war..when bush was running this..things went along smoothly in our favor...what do you expect when you run a war half cocked and on liberal politicial correctness mode...(kinda been see in the future by most of our military generals)

    • 1 year ago
  • ayipis
  • MotherForTruth
    • +5
      MotherForTruth  

    • Where is the freedom of speech, freedom to assembly in US?

      Tim Freeman said it best, "When they took the fourth amendment, I was silent because I don't deal drugs. When they took the sixth amendment, I kept quiet because I know I'm innocent. When they took the second amendment, I said nothing because I don't own a gun. Now they've come for the first amendment, and I can't say anything at all."

    • 1 year ago
  • iamaman
  • PressCore
    • +3
      PressCore  
    • MotherForTruth:

      I could not have said it better than your allusion to Nazi Germany under
      Hitler aka the Maniac. When they came for the Jews I said nothing. When
      they came for the gypsies, I said nothing, When they came for the librarians
      and intellectuals, I said nothing. Then they burned the books in public. Ransacked
      the newspapers. Then came the Day of the Innocents. And then there was nothing
      left to say. (And then WW2)

    • 1 year ago
  • ZeldaMasterZapp
    • +3
      ZeldaMasterZapp  

    • What anti-war movement? Those hacks went away once they thought Obama was going to be all unicorn farts and rainbows, and that moron dictator Bush, went away.

    • 1 year ago
  • artemis6
    • +2
      artemis6  
    • ZeldaMasterZapp:

      I think they ( the peace advocates ) were just waiting , for this . To war , or not to war . That is the question . We all must ask ourselves . 4 decorated soldiers , killed themselves today , at their homes . One of them took his wife and the mother of their two children ( 2 and 5 years old ) with them . Anger , can make a person feel powerful . Any fool can be angry . Self control . This is what separates children from grown ups . These wars were a waste from day one .

    • 1 year ago
  • PigFarmington
  • TomTucker
  • PigFarmington
  • Nephwrack
  • TomTucker
  • themotivateddropout
  • freecrack
  • PressCore
    • +5
      PressCore  
    • PigFarmington:

      http://b.o.is

      Back in the 1950s, there was a very popular TV series devoted
      to children, whom the producers knew were the 1st pioneer TV
      generation. I was one of that generation as the last of the post
      WW2 baby boomers born in 1949. They called it the " Howdy
      Doody " show. It was a puppet show. Buffalo Bob was the star
      ventriloquist, and Howdey Doody was his puppet. The kids who
      were the live audience were called " the peanut gallery ". The
      idea of puppets concerning themselves with show biz was nothing
      new even then. The marionettes called Punch & Judy preceeded
      Howdy Doody as a live play in public. Lots of cultures use puppets.
      Pinocchio was an Italian fable about a puppet who wanted to be human.

      After WW2, Harry Truman helped compromise the integrity of
      our Democratic Republic by forming the CIA, the NSA, and the National
      Security State. If you've ever seen the movie " Enemy of the State "
      with Will Smith, Gene Hackman, et al, you understand how intense
      all that has become. Before JFK was Murdered in 1963, the then FBI director,
      Hoover attempted to blackmail both the President and Attorney General
      his brother RFK, which failed. But the point I'm making is that that
      " Shadow Government " you've all heard mentioned which has controlled
      all the Presidents since, either directly or indirectly, is the FBI who
      long long ago subverted the Dept. of Justice. If you've been reading
      USA Today's cover page center column series entitles: Justice in the
      Balance recently, then you know the Dept. of Injustice is corrupt & rotten
      to the core because they are controled by the FBI, corrupt to the extreme.

      The FBI have a dossier on the skeletons in the closet of every President
      since JFK, and have used every one of theose Presidents as their
      operatives to some extent. Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan,George Bush,
      Willie the Slick Clinton, Hitler Bush Jr., and B.O. are all the dummies of
      their ventriloguist the FBI. And were recruited by yet other operatives
      of the FBI to make sure of it. To my knowledge there's no law spelling
      it out for the FBI to desist in blackmailing Presidents to do their bidding
      according to their political agenda of Naziism. And if there were, it's never
      been enforced. The FBI has a history of blackmailing Hollywood
      actors, members of Congress, Judges, even Supreme Court Justices,
      all whom they've unlawfuly investigated to find their achilles heel.

      The FBI, I notice, is missing from the entities identified above, which is why
      I'm mentioning all this. The FBI were as directly responsible for manipulating
      Hitler Bush Jr.& Congress into passing the infamous antiConstitutional
      statute Patriot Act, and a whole slew of related bogus atrocities as they
      were in engineering the atrocity at Waco, Texas in February 1993. They
      have a secret dossier on b.o. and his Marxist radical associates that's
      wider than the Missisippi river. So if you've ever wondered why the FBI
      has invisible strings on b.o....Why b.o.is merely the proxy of Bush & Clinton..
      .And why b.o. is all for making the Bush FBI criminal abuses worse as he
      has...is because b.o. is the FBI's puppet. Why do you think b.o. made
      phony promises he never intended to keep like replacing all the U.S.
      Attorney's Bush appointed, which he never did, that all Presidents before
      him traditionaly have ? Why do you think b.o. kept Bush's FBI director ?
      Why do you think he installed Holder, another Clinton/Janet Reno retread
      as his A.G. ? Reno & Freeh were such corrupt monsters that Will Farell
      centered his SNL personna around the fugly bitch, another FBI puppet.
      Why do you think he used a Fed puppet like Geithner for Treasury Secretary
      when Bush used a Goldman Sachs pirate like Paulson ? Both are Banksters.
      Why do youWhy do you think he uses Clinton retreads like Panetta as his
      mouthpiece for the CIA and their monsters ? Why do you think b.o. had
      Monsanto installed to direct the Dept.of Agriculture ? Albert Einstein once
      said: " If you want to change things, you have to start doing things in a
      different way. Doing things in the same old way yet expecting different results
      is the height of insanity " You don't have to be a genius to understand English.

      Any 5 year old can stay up late and watch some motivational speaker
      on TV use buzz words like " Hope " " Yes, we can " and " Change we can
      believe in " then use those terms as any grifter would to ply his con on
      the American people to get himself elected with a monster like Hitler Bush
      in contrast. Anyone who calls himself a teacher of Constitutional law, then
      calls it "an outdated document " after swearing falsely at his inauguration
      to uphold the Constitution of the USA, then abuses the public's trust by
      continuing all the destruction Hitler Bush started to undermine our most
      sacred law is as phony as a $3 bill. No deodorant can mask the smell of b.o.
      Those puppet strings which PigFarminton posted represent the Big Money
      that control him which he eagerly sold us out for. Do you honestly believe
      that money comes without strings ? Because if you do, you're either hopelessly
      naive or deceiful yourself. This show biz puppet claims Fox News is destructive
      to the USA out of one side of his mouth, then signs the most luke warm empty
      shell of a statute claiming it will protect consumers from the Banksters credit
      abuses...While the Wall Street investment Banksters celebrate because b.o
      doesn't have the balls to tackle their $612 Trillion derivatives market which
      will destroy the USA and every country tied to it once it goes bust as it has to.
      Next time around don't vote for anyone the " Democrats" or " Republicans" back.
      They'll only foist another teflon don on us to promote War & Organized Crime.

    • 1 year ago
  • PressCore
  • ayipis
  • ayipis
  • iamaman
  • iamaman
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • iamaman:

      Good one. But I believe the unabridged slogan is: " Take me to your
      leader, Earthling " As for the most prominent real leaders of the USA,
      born of humans there's a mountain in South Dakota with 4 of their faces
      carved on it.

    • 1 year ago
  • PressCore
    • +2
      PressCore  
    • iamaman:

      As Roger McGuinn of the rock group, the Byrds once wrote as the
      title of his song: " I wasn't born to follow " I'm an Aries. We are the first
      ones as they used to say on Babylon 5. We only follow our conscience.

    • 1 year ago
  • RastusJr
  • themotivateddropout
    • +12
      themotivateddropout  

    • "they could still face criminal prosecution thanks to the government's extremely broad definition of what it means to provide "material support" for terrorism, a definition that extends to counseling others to embrace peace."

      America astounds me. You'd never think in the "Land of Freedom" that someone who promotes peace and non-violence is considered a terrorist.

      I think we should take a long hard look at this story.
      Peace = Terrorism
      ?

    • 1 year ago
  • ii386
  • iamaman
  • Progresshiv
  • common_sense_please
  • toyotabedzrock
  • treewolf39
  • pinkpanther
  • iamaman
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