http://socialistworker.org/2010/10/01/solidarity-against-the-raids
An International Socialist Organization statement condemns the FBI
raid that targeted activists and socialists as part of a history of
government repression of the left.
October 1, 2010
THE RECENT FBI raids targeting antiwar and international solidarity
activists and socialists continue a long and despicable tradition of
government political repression of the left in the U.S. We stand in
solidarity with those targeted in the raids and with the movement to
defend their political and civil rights.
What is perhaps most ominous about the FBI raids and grand jury
investigations in Minnesota, Illinois and North Carolina is that they
apparently rely on a law that bars solidarity activists from
providing "material support" to organizations deemed as "terrorist"
by the U.S. government. In a June 2010 decision, the U.S. Supreme
Court overturned a lower federal court's ruling and upheld the law.
According to civil liberties attorney David Cole, "In the name of
fighting terrorism, the Court has said that the First Amendment
permits Congress to make human rights advocacy and peacemaking a
crime. That is wrong."
This blatant attack on political free speech protected under the
First Amendment should be of grave concern to all who value freedom
of expression and political organization, and the right to dissent.
No one should be taken in by the FBI's attempt to justify this
crackdown with a list of "terrorist organizations" in Colombia and
Palestine that the targets of the raid supposedly supported. It
should be recalled that the U.S. government once listed South
Africa's African National Congress as a "terrorist" group when the
left in the U.S. and internationally correctly saw that organization
as a leading force in the liberation struggle against apartheid.
Indeed, the U.S. "terrorism list" is tailored to U.S. political
considerations at any given time. Thus, the Islamist forces that the
U.S. is fighting in Afghanistan today were, in the 1980s, the
recipients of U.S. guns and money to further the American interests
in the Cold War.
It is in this context that we must view the political agenda behind
the FBI raids. U.S. trade unionists are being targeted for their
efforts to aid their counterparts in Colombia, where murders of union
activists are commonplace, with the connivance of a regime that is
one of the top recipients of U.S. military aid.
Others were targeted in the raid for their efforts to build
solidarity with the Palestinian people. At a time when the 1.5
million people of Gaza have been reduced to semi-starvation by
Israel's U.S.-backed blockade, such solidarity efforts are more
urgent than ever. By making aid to Palestine a central issue in the
raids, the U.S. government is trying to intimidate activists in this
country from joining the growing international movement against the
blockade. The FBI raids are, in effect, an effort by the U.S.
government to criminalize international humanitarian solidarity efforts.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MANY MAY find it shocking that such repression is emanating from the
Democratic Party administration of Barack Obama, who made opposition
to George W. Bush's encroachment on civil liberties an important part
of his presidential campaign. In fact, the raids are perfectly in
keeping with Obama policies. The administration has not only
continued the Bush administration's violations of civil liberties,
but has sought to expand them. In the wake of the FBI raids, the
Obama administration announced that it will seek legal authority to
"wiretap" the Internet and virtually all electronic communications.
These attacks on civil liberties are only the latest efforts by the
U.S. government to intimidate and silence dissidents in complete
disregard for rights supposedly protected by the U.S. Constitution.
The history of such repression includes the struggle for the
eight-hour day in 1886, which resulted in the executions of four of
the Haymarket martyrs; the imprisonment of Socialist Party leader
Eugene V. Debs and members of the Industrial Workers of the World for
their opposition to the First World War; the anti-socialist and
anti-immigrant Palmer Raids of 1919-20, which resulted in the
imprisonment and deportation of thousands of radicals; the Smith Act
trial of socialists during the Second World War; the McCarthyite
witch hunt of communists and socialists in the 1950s; the FBI
surveillance of civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., as well as the Socialist Workers Party in the 1960s; the lethal
repression of activists in the Black Power, American Indian and
Puerto Rican nationalist movements in the 1960s and 1970s; and FBI
harassment of Central America solidarity activists in the 1980s.
In almost every case, the influence of socialists, communists and
anarchists--or, in the anticommunist shorthand, "reds"--was used by
the federal government to justify attacks on free speech. So it
should come as no surprise that members of the Freedom Road Socialist
Organization are the most prominent target of the latest raids. If
history is any guide, the FBI and federal prosecutors believe they
can drive a wedge between socialists and the wider left, including
liberals, and establish a precedent for further violations of civil
liberties and political repression.
This cannot be allowed to happen. Whatever political differences may
exist between those targeted in raids and the rest of the left, they
are irrelevant when it comes to defending our rights to express our
political views and to organize. This is an attack on the entire
left, and the left must respond with unity and resolve.
The outpouring of statements denouncing the raid from left-wing and
antiwar groups is a heartening first step in building the defense
campaign that is needed now. The task must be to turn that sentiment
into a vigorous solidarity effort. The International Socialist
Organization is fully committed to that project, and urges all
concerned organizations and individuals to act likewise.
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