Markin comment:
I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts.
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Workers Vanguard No. 1009
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28 September 2012
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FBI Raids Target Northwest Activists
(Young Spartacus pages)
At daybreak on July 25, FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force agents
armed with assault rifles raided the homes of three anarchists in Portland,
Oregon. During this coordinated raid, Feds broke down doors and stormed in
behind a volley of flash grenades while a helicopter circled overhead.
Dennison Williams was rousted out of bed while pleading for his
life and then placed in a chair while handcuffed and half-naked. Over a dozen
FBI agents ransacked his apartment and seized his cellphone, laptop and eleven
items of black clothing as “evidence.” He was slapped with a subpoena to appear
before a federal grand jury in Seattle. At least four others were subpoenaed,
including Leah-Lynn Plante of Portland and Matt Duran of Olympia. Duran has
since been imprisoned for refusing to testify. Free Duran now!
Stop the grand jury inquisition and return all the belongings that were
seized!
Revealing the real political motive behind the raids, the sealed
search warrant shown to Williams stated that the FBI was to seize
“anti-government or anarchist literature or material.” SWAT raids that targeted
Occupy Seattle activists in Washington weeks earlier were also searching for
“anarchist materials.” Williams’ warrant justified confiscating anarchist
paraphernalia, supposedly used in the “Destruction of government property” and
“Conspiracy to travel interstate with intent to riot.”
At an August 1 press conference held the day before the first
hearing, Williams read aloud from a statement by Plante and himself, in which
they courageously vowed not to testify before the grand jury. He said, “This
grand jury is a tool of political repression. It is attempting to turn
individuals against each other by coercing those subpoenaed to testify against
their communities.”
On September 13, the court held Duran in contempt for refusing to
testify and shipped him off to SeaTac federal prison in Seattle. According to a
September 17 update on saynothing.info (a Web site run by supporters of the
Northwest activists), Duran is being held in solitary confinement. Meanwhile,
Plante was released and subpoenaed yet again. She and the other activists could
face Duran’s fate if they continue to refuse to testify.
It is vitally necessary to defend these activists, who have been
targeted for their political views. If the capitalist state can raid the homes
of these young leftists, rifles in hand, and drag them before a witchhunting
grand jury—simply for supposedly reading Bakunin and having a penchant for
wearing black—they can do it to anyone. An injury to one is an injury to
all!
An August 2012 “Grand Jury Resistance in the Pacific Northwest”
statement signed by pugetsoundanarchists.org and saynothing.info notes, “The
purpose of this Grand Jury seems to be an investigation of what occurred in
downtown Seattle on May Day 2012.” At that march, police claim that 75 “Black
Bloc” anarchists allegedly damaged branches of Wells Fargo, Bank of America,
HSBC and Homestreet banks, a Nike store and the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals. Cops assaulted protesters and arrested at least eight activists. The
next day, Seattle police chief John Diaz stated, “I am convinced there are a lot
of people who will be spending some quality time in prison for what they did
yesterday.” It was announced the same day that a task force was formed to review
footage from the protest.
One of the Seattle PD’s first victims was Cody Ingram, who was
arrested and charged with destruction of government property. Ingram spent a
month in jail before pleading guilty to a misdemeanor and being sentenced to
time served. At his hearing, an FBI special agent accused him of saying that the
“government needs to be replaced.” (Last we knew, that was still a democratic
right.) Activist Robert Ditrani was pressured to plead guilty on charges of
disorderly conduct after allegedly spitting on a cop.
The May Day protest in Seattle was organized as part of a
nationwide “general strike” initiated by the last holdouts of the populist
Occupy movement, who issued flyers and posters calling for “no work, no school,
no shopping, no banking, no chores.” In fact, this “general strike” was simply a
protest that in no way shut down production. Notwithstanding the movement’s
insistence on having no demands at all, the program embodied in the Occupy
protests that began one year ago is simple liberal reform that is very much in
line with the Democratic Party. Occupy’s slogan “We are the 99 percent” denies
the fundamental class division in society between the capitalists and the
proletariat.
While exposing its tepid reformism, we have defended and do defend
Occupy against all attacks by the capitalist state. Similarly, while the
political bankruptcy of anarchism has been evident particularly since the
Russian Revolution of 1917, it is the duty of all opponents of capitalist state
repression to come to their defense now.
Since the beginning of the Occupy movement, the protesters have
been hit with vicious state repression. Brutal crackdowns swept cities across
the U.S. last November, and Democratic Party mayors carried out most of them.
So-called “progressive” Democrat Jean Quan, mayor of Oakland, admitted to
participating in a conference call with officials from 18 cities nationwide to
discuss how to disperse the encampments last year. The state continues to
persecute the few remaining Occupy activists, as evidenced by the Northwest
raids and the arrests of 185 protesters in New York on September 17 during the
anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. Drop all the charges!
The FBI raids, the grand jury subpoenas and the arrests of
political activists are of a piece with the vicious attacks on civil liberties
that have been carried out under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
The government’s prohibition of “material support to terrorism” originated with
the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act under Clinton and was
expanded by Bush’s “war on terror” Patriot Act following the September 11
attacks.
For his part, Obama renewed the Patriot Act and added to this
arsenal of repression the indefinite military detention of U.S. civilians and
legalized political assassination of citizens abroad (see “Obama Ramps Up ‘War
on Terror’ at Home,” WV No. 993, 6 January). A 21 June 2010 Supreme Court
ruling expanded the definition of “material support to terrorism” to include
engaging in political advocacy of groups deemed enemies of the state.
The state began its “war on terror” by targeting Muslims, but the
laws crafted to justify state terror are increasingly used against anyone
advocating ideas contrary to the status quo (see “More Subpoenas Against Midwest
Leftists: FBI Infiltration Exposed,” WV No. 973, 4 February 2011).
Dissenters are deemed “enemies of the state” or “terrorists”—i.e., people with
no rights the state is bound to respect and to whom the government can do
anything.
The ultimate target of “anti-terror” and other measures of
repression is the multiracial working class, which has the social power and
objective historic interest to overthrow the capitalist order. The Spartacist
League and its youth auxiliary, the Spartacus Youth Clubs, aim to build the
vanguard workers party necessary to establish working-class rule and put the
system of racism, poverty and war out of business once and for all.
Defend the Northwest grand jury resisters! Free the
imprisoned Occupy protesters! Down with police and FBI raids!
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