Ten Days That Shook Olympia

[octopuswithafez]

I think Off White might be on to something. Maybe BD will design a harness holster for some hippy strength pepper spray.

 

I just carry this:

 

[STP]

The body politic has acknowledged your conservative fears and responded: Here come the thought police--The Baltimore Sun.com

 

The historian Henry Steele Commager, denouncing President John Adams' suppression of free speech in the 1790s, argued that the Bill of Rights was not written to protect government from dissenters but to provide a legal means for citizens to oppose a government they didn't trust. Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence not only proclaimed the right to dissent but declared it a people's duty, under certain conditions, to alter or abolish their government.

 

In that vein, diverse groups vigorously oppose Ms. Harman's effort to stifle dissent. Unfortunately, the mainstream press and leading presidential candidates remain silent.

 

But the present administration has demonstrated, in its response to criticism regarding torture, that it can't be trusted to honor those rights.

[Dannible]

Ralph E. Shaffer, professor emeritus of history at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and R. William Robinson, an elected director of a Southern California water district, wrote this article for the History News Service.

 

Clearly these people are terrorists.

[JayB]

I don't like the sound of the bill, and existing law is probably more than adequate for dealing with homegrown extremists who turn violent, but this bit of text from the link:

 

"With overwhelming bipartisan support, Rep. Jane Harman's "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" passed the House 404-6 late last month and now rests in Sen. Joe Lieberman's Homeland Security Committee. Swift Senate passage appears certain."

 

Makes me think that there may be more to the story, and it's worth actually looking at the legislation and a few other bits of analysis before coming to a final conclusion.

 

I hope that this means that the civil libertarians on the left will be equally moved to evaluate potential constraints on free expression that are bundled in with the next round of "hate crime" legislation.

[tvashtarkatena]

Civil Libertarians come from all over the political spectrum. Apparently, you never got the memo.

 

As for hate crime legislation...that's so '90s.

[prole]

I hope that this means that the civil libertarians on the left will be equally moved to evaluate potential constraints on free expression that are bundled in with the next round of "hate crime" legislation.

Relativists rejoice!

 

Anyways, here's a couple of articles about the bill. Less than ideal sources for some in this crowd, but there's not a whole lot being written about this bill in the mainstream press.

Here are some choice bits:

The bill also directs the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to designate a “center of excellence,” a university-based research center where academics, policy-makers, members of the private sector and other stakeholders can collaborate to better understand and prevent radicalization and homegrown terrorism.

 

Some experts have raised concerns about whether politics will unduly influence which institution DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff will pick.

 

“The bill replicates what already exists without peer review and safeguards,” says Chip Berlet, a senior policy analyst for Political Research Associates, an independent non-profit research organization that studies political violence, authoritarianism, and homegrown terrorism. The bill stipulates that the research center be chosen on the basis of merit and according to existing DHS protocols.

 

However, Amy Kudwa, a spokeswoman for DHS, says she “would be surprised” if the selection process were peer-reviewed. Kudwa could not supply the full details of the selection process and funding arrangements as of press time.

 

Berlet characterizes the proposed research center as “a slush fund for politically connected people inside the Beltway.” from-- In These Times

 

[Kamau Karl Franklin of the Center for Constitutional Rights] mentions Brian Michael Jenkins, an “expert” on “terrorism, counterinsurgency, and homeland security,” according to RAND. Jenkins is “someone who helped the United States in counterinsurgency measures in Vietnam,” states Franklin. “In addition to that, he wrote a book, and in his own book” Jenkins declared that “in their international campaign, the jihadists will seek common ground with leftists, anti-American and anti-globalist forces, who will in turn see radical Islam comrades against a mutual foe.”

 

In short, according to Kamau Karl Franklin, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act is more about domestic political activism than Islamic terrorism, although it appears Jenkins—and neocons such as the former Marxist David Horowitz—are attempting establish a link between the two, an absurdity at best, as the best way to discredit both the antiwar and patriot movements.

 

According to a Center for Constitutional Rights factsheet, RAND is a key player in the “domestic terrorism” prevention effort detailed in this draconian bill. A RAND study “Trends in Terrorism,” Chapter 4 on “homegrown terrorism,” advocates “special attention to environmentalist, Anti-globalization activist and anarchists as potentially new terrorist in the making.”

 

Not surprisingly, RAND is intimately connected to the global elite and the military-industrial-intelligence complex: “The interlocks between the trustees at Rand, and the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie foundations were so numerous that the Reece Committee listed them in its report (two each for Carnegie and Rockefeller, and three for Ford). Ford gave one million dollars to Rand in 1952 alone, at a time when the chairman of Rand was simultaneously the president of Ford Foundation,” notes SourceWatch (Rene Wormser, Foundations: Their Power and Influence, p65-66). “Two-thirds of Rand’s research involves national security issues. This is divided into Project Air Force, the Arroyo Center (serving the needs of the Army), and the National Defense Research Institute (providing research and analysis for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and the defense agencies).” --from Did RAND Corporation Pen the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act?

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

...you can't defend their actions without conceding that you approve of mob action...

 

...taking the law into their own hands...

 

Take a pill, Jay. It wasn't exactly the Watts riots. Where in my post did you see me justifying mob action or taking the law into one's own hands?

 

Yes, Matt. I'm sure that if a group of neo-Nazi's had used the same methods to to prevent relief shipments from departing to Africa, I'm sure you'd be impartially applauding their zesty civic action. Spare me.

 

Another bizarroid flutters to earth from the mythical planet Hypothetica.

 

What if only neo-nazi CHILDREN were preventing relief shipments to Africa? EVEN STICKIER SITUATION, huh?

 

 

 

 

Feel free to address the example of the abortion protesters, anti-integrationists, etc - at your leisure.

 

 

Not very good examples there, JayBoy. Both of these movements were/are marked by violence and murder...quite unlike the war protests. Had these folks stuck to civil disobedience, it would have been same same. Commit the act, get arrested, bring attention to your cause. Fair enough.

 

The bloodshed these groups perpetrated, however, changes everything.

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Not much in this statement, but here it is:

 

ACLU Statement on the Violent Radicalization and Home Grown Terrorism Act

[Crux]

ACLU has a problem with Fahrenheit 451 in NYC.

[prole]

Would the protests in Olympia and the thinking, discussion, and planning of them meet the definition of terrorism under the Homegrown Terrorism Bill?

Would this discussion?

I'd be interested in people's ideas of contemporary scenarios in which "extra-legal" tactics might be justified.

Washington state property tax code, for starters. And a state supreme court that is bought and paid for by public employee unions and the state DNC. Shay was right.

I don't think I want an unelected, unreviewed, handpicked committee deciding these questions no matter who is in power.

 

[tvashtarkatena]

ACLU has a problem with Fahrenheit 451 in NYC.

 

Yeah, this is a reincarnation of the infamous TIPS program, where the government wanted anyone with access to your property: mailmen, meter readers, the UPS man, to report the same kind of bullshit. TIPS was massacred by a successful campaign (lead by but not exclusive to the ACLU), but these 'projects' never seem to fully die.

 

After the failure of TIPS, the government most likely hired a PR firm to figure out how to implement something prettier and shinier for public consumption. Enter the Firemen: Heroes of 911!

[JayB]

...you can't defend their actions without conceding that you approve of mob action...

 

...taking the law into their own hands...

 

Take a pill, Jay. It wasn't exactly the Watts riots. Where in my post did you see me justifying mob action or taking the law into one's own hands?

 

Yes, Matt. I'm sure that if a group of neo-Nazi's had used the same methods to to prevent relief shipments from departing to Africa, I'm sure you'd be impartially applauding their zesty civic action. Spare me.

 

Another bizarroid flutters to earth from the mythical planet Hypothetica.

 

What if only neo-nazi CHILDREN were preventing relief shipments to Africa? EVEN STICKIER SITUATION, huh?

 

 

 

 

Feel free to address the example of the abortion protesters, anti-integrationists, etc - at your leisure.

 

 

Not very good examples there, JayBoy. Both of these movements were/are marked by violence and murder...quite unlike the war protests. Had these folks stuck to civil disobedience, it would have been same same. Commit the act, get arrested, bring attention to your cause. Fair enough.

 

The bloodshed these groups perpetrated, however, changes everything.

 

 

 

If you're going to evaluate the morality of a specific demonstration in the context of the entire history of everyone ever associated with a particular set of convictions, it makes just as much sense to claim that the actions of "The Weathermen" taint the actions of the protestors in Olympia.

 

Group of private citizens takes it upon themselves to determine what is an is not an acceptable use of the road. Group of private citizens takes it upon themselves to determine who will and will not be permitted to enter an abortion clinic. Same difference.

 

You don't have to equate one to the other, but you do have to recognize that once you applaud groups furthering an agenda for walking down this path, you no longer have any concrete basis for objecting to the actions of groups who take such actions on behalf of an agenda that you reject or despise.

 

There are two components to the moral equation here. The first is private morality, which is no one's business but the person who holds it. The other is a public moral, which holds groups of private citizens, acting outside the government, aren't entitled to limit or define the liberties of others with force. Once you discard this bit of public morality, you've embraced a perspective in which everyone's rights and liberties are subject to definition and limitation by private force. Minorities - be they racial, moral, or of any other category should think carefully about embracing an "activism" of this kind, because while it may work in their favor from time to time, the odds are high that they'll be on the losing end of such "activism" more often than not.

 

On a side note, how our resident non-delusional "historical materialist" could equate stating that it's not the state's business to limit or define private belief, and that conversely, it's not the business of private citizens acting outside the government to impose their morals on others by force with an embrace of relativism is a mystery.

[tvashtarkatena]

, you've embraced a perspective in which everyone's rights and liberties are subject to definition and limitation by private force. Minorities - be they racial, moral, or of any other category should think carefully about embracing an "activism" of this kind, because while it may work in their favor from time to time, the odds are high that they'll be on the losing end of such "activism" more often than not.

 

Civil disobedience, which is by nature completely passive, hardly constitutes 'force'. Come fucking on. We're talking about misdemeanors here. And history has proven over and over again that minorities who engage in protest involving civil disobedience DO win the day in the end if the public sentiment is with them. I would say at this point that the public sentiment is overwhelmingly against this war by any measure. Rest assured that even citizen's who may disagree with the effectiveness of specific tactics employed in Olympia are glad that someone is getting off their ass and trying to do SOMETHING substantive to stop this war. You, of course, support the war and therefore are not in that category. There is a part of the many of the rest of us who do not that do applaud the personal sacrifice and risk taken by these protesters to stand up for what they think is right.

 

You are also conveniently skipping over the fact that the rule of law was shat upon to get this war started, unless of course you condone a President lying to the American people about a threat to national security. Two wrongs may not make a right, but the first wrong far outshines the most recent minor infractions committed in Olympia in terms of the damage done to this country.

 

As usual, your Weathermen example is well off the mark. While their members got started in the Civil Rights movement (disagree with that one, do we?) and the Anti War Movement, they were not an anti war group; they advocated the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. That, in itself, is a crime, so no support there from these quarters.

 

Do your homework, grasshopper:

 

Weathermen

 

 

Edited November 30, 2007 by tvashtarkatena

[mattp]

Jay, your arguments are absurd. Of course we consider context, message, and history when evaluating the “morality” of a given demonstration.

 

As a society, we try to maintain laws that equally constrict public conduct regardless of content, but the legality of a given activity is only one component of the equation when we attempt to evaluate the morality of it.

 

You are probably the only one here who would suggest that we have to favor a Klu Klux Klan march through a black neighborhood in Jena Louisiana that includes planting burning crosses if we say it was OK for a couple of college kids to put garbage cans in the street during an anti-war demonstration in Olympia. That IS what you're saying, isn't it?

[tvashtarkatena]

It's striking how much JayB argues about the application of the law and how little he actually knows about it.

 

JayB, pick ANY supreme court ruling and read it. It's all about history, context, morality, and balancing interests.

[archenemy]

I'm not wearing any underwear.

[prole]

On a side note, how our resident non-delusional "historical materialist" could equate stating that it's not the state's business to limit or define private belief, and that conversely, it's not the business of private citizens acting outside the government to impose their morals on others by force with an embrace of relativism is a mystery.

 

Actually, I was refering to your equation of a possible terrorist designation applied to political dissenters lying down in the street and overturning garbage cans to prevent arms shipments for use in an illegal and unjust war to hate criminal designation to people who crucify gay children on fence-posts and drag black people behind their trucks until they're dead.

[archenemy]

Last week a white kid got dragged to death behind a pickup and I don't hear much uproar about that.

[gmknight]

I just heard a quote from General Tommy Franks that made me think of this forum:

 

"When you get and face an anti-war protester, look him in the eye and shake his hand. Then, wink at his girlfriend, because she knows she's dating a pussy."

 

Cheers.

 

[mattp]

Nice quip, but who is more of a pussy: the protestor who in some cases may be willing to go to jail for what they believe or the chicken hawk who calls for war with absolutely no prospect of being called to serve and in some cases doesn't even want to pay taxes to support that war?

[gmknight]

Agreed. There are few lower life forms than politicians.

[mattp]

You might be one who would appreciate this:

Q: What is the difference between politicians and stoners?

A: Politicians don't inhale...they just suck!

[gmknight]

Nice!

[Fairweather]

I just heard a quote from General Tommy Franks that made me think of this forum:

 

"When you get and face an anti-war protester, look him in the eye and shake his hand. Then, wink at his girlfriend, because she knows she's dating a pussy."

 

Cheers.

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Then there are those who neither protested nor served.

Edited December 1, 2007 by tvashtarkatena