Sew Your Mouth Shut

After reading an article a friend posted, I decided to pass it along here with a few thoughts of my own as a preface.

Let me begin by stating for the record (are you listening big brother?) that I am a veteran and a patriot of this country. I care very much for the safety and security of this nations citizens and see a great deal of forward potential in the future IF we can grow beyond the way we have evolved into behaving.



The crux of this article centers on the perceived threat that peace activists pose by way of "giving aid" to groups labeled as terror groups.

Something else for the record; I personally believe that extremists groups like Hezbollah and the Taliban are indeed a serious threat and what makes them so dangerous is that they play on the hopes and fears of a mass of people who in reality have very little control over what these groups supposedly do in their best interest. They step in as providers to people in desperate need to gain their support and/or complacently ... in other words, they play upon the basics of human nature, often times under a twisted guise of religious legitimacy. There is no conspiracy here ... they're just good at playing the game.

There is a huge difference in giving actual support to a terror group and trying to help those caught in the middle to break the cycle and hold these same groups have over them. As an example with a very different context, lets look at the situation of illegal immigration... rather that spending billions of tax payer dollars on walls and laws, I feel a better strategy is to look at the people flooding the borders and asking ourselves "what is so bad about their homeland that prompts them to leave everything behind and risk even more by coming here?" That's one reason why I've chosen to do extensive work in Guatemala going on three years now ... if we can help them make positive changes in their homeland, maybe they'd be more apt to stay there and become stronger global neighbors.

That I think, is a concept that has promise. Now, as these extremist groups are concerned, I really don't think that extending an open hand is going to make any difference ... a zealot, no matter the "cause" will only hear and see what they want to see ... the key I feel, lay within the people caught in the middle ... people like you and I. I also feel that our biggest hope,lay with the youth of this planet ... the troubles we face as a global species have taken generations to develop and the reality is that it will take just as much time to recover and evolve ... IF we can break the cycle. The best example I can give is the Palestine/Israel conflict ... at present, the youth on both sides are pnly taught how to hate, marginalize and demoralize. They grow up to follow through with what they've been taught and so the cycle continues. The cycle needs to be broken,and THAT is how I see the role of the peace activist ... you can achieve so much more with an open hand than a fist. So then, here is the article ... read it and form your own opinion ... is our government going too far? Are our mouths slowly being sewn shut? Will the cycle ever end?
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t r u t h o u t, December 11, 2010

In late September, the FBI carried out a series of raids of homes and antiwar offices of public activists in Minneapolis and Chicago. Following the raids, the Obama Justice Department subpoenaed 14 activists to a grand jury in Chicago and also subpoenaed the files of several antiwar and community organizations. In carrying out these repressive actions, the Justice Department was taking its lead from the Supreme Court's 6-3 opinion last June in Holder v. the Humanitarian Law Project, which decided that nonviolent First Amendment speech and advocacy "coordinated with" or "under the direction of" a foreign group listed by the Secretary of State as "terrorist" was a crime.

The search warrants and grand jury subpoenas make it clear that the federal prosecutors are intent on accusing public nonviolent political organizers, many of whom are affiliated with Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), of providing "material support" through their public advocacy for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The Secretary of State has determined that both the PLFP and the FARC "threaten US national security, foreign policy or economic interests," a finding not reviewable by the courts, and listed both groups as foreign terrorist organizations (FTO).

In 1996, Congress made it a crime - then punishable by 10 years, which was later increased to 15 years - to anyone in the US who provides "material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization or attempts or conspires to do so." The present statute defines "material support or resources" as:

... any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel and transportation except medicine or religious materials.

In the Humanitarian Law Project case, human rights workers wanted to teach members of the Kurdistan PKK, which seeks an independent Kurdish state, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which sought an independent state in Sri Lanka, how to use humanitarian and international law to peacefully resolve disputes and obtain relief from the United Nations and other international bodies for human rights abuses by the governments of Turkey and Sri Lanka. Both organizations were designated as FTOs by the Secretary of State in a closed hearing, in which the evidence is heard secretly.

Despite the nonviolent, peacemaking goal of the Humanitarian Law Project's speech and training, the majority of the Supreme Court nonetheless interpreted the law to make such conduct a crime. Finding a whole new exception to the First Amendment, the Court decided that any support, even if it involves nonviolent efforts towards peace, is illegal under the law since it "frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends," and also helps lend "legitimacy" to foreign terrorist groups. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts, despite the lack of any evidence, further opined that the FTO could use the human rights law to "intimidate, harass or destruct" its adversaries, and that even peace talks themselves could be used as a cover to re-arm for further attacks. Thus, the Court's opinion criminalizes efforts by independent groups to work for peace if they in any way cooperate or coordinate with designated FTOs.

The Court distinguishes what it refers to as "independent advocacy," which it finds is not prohibited by the statute, from "advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization," which is, for the first time, found to be a crime under the statute. The exact line demarcating where independent advocacy becomes impermissible coordination is left open and vague.

Seizing on this overbroad definition of "material support," the US government is now moving in on political groups and activists who are clearly exercising fundamental First Amendment rights by vocally opposing the government's branding of foreign liberation movements as terrorist and supporting their struggles against US-backed repressive regimes and illegal occupations.

Under the new definition of "material support," the efforts of President Jimmy Carter to monitor the elections in Lebanon and coordinate with the political parties there, including the designated FTO Hezbollah, could well be prosecuted as a crime. Similarly, the publication of op-ed articles by FTO spokesmen from Hamas or other designated groups by The New York Times or The Washington Post, or the filing of amicus briefs by human rights attorneys arguing against a group's terrorist designation or the statute itself could also now be prosecuted. Of course, the first targets of this draconian expansion of the material support law will not be a former president or the establishment media, but members of a Marxist organization who are vocal opponents of the governments of Israel and Colombia and the US policies supporting these repressive governments.

In his foreword to Nelson Mandela's recent autobiography "Conversations with Myself," President Obama wrote that "Mandela's sacrifice was so great that it called upon people everywhere to do what they could on behalf of human progress. … The first time I became politically active was during my college years, when I joined a campaign on behalf of divestment, and the effort to end apartheid in South Africa." At the time of Mr. Obama's First Amendment advocacy, Mr. Mandela and his organization the African National Congress (ANC) were denounced as terrorist by the US government. If the "material support" law had been in effect back then, Mr. Obama would have been subject to potential criminal prosecution. It is ironic - and the height of hypocrisy - that this same man who speaks with such reverence for Mr. Mandela and recalls his own support for the struggle against apartheid now allows the Justice Department under his command to criminalize similar First Amendment advocacy against Israeli apartheid and repressive foreign governments.


:: Article nr. 72769 sent on 11-dec-2010 23:27 ECT