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Today's
Stories
Febrauary 10, 2004
Elizabeth Schulte
The Many Faces of John Kerry
February
9, 2004
Michael
Donnelly
Will Skull and Bones Really Change CEOs?
Inside John Kerry's Closet
Chris
Floyd
Smells Like Team Spirit: the Bush B-Boys
Replay Their Greatest Hits
Bill
Christison
What's Wrong with the CIA?
Dr. Susan
Block
Janet Jackson's Mammary Moment: Boob Tube
Super Bowl
February
7/8, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
Offending Valerie: Dealing with Jewish
Self-Absorption
Jeff Ballinger
No Sweat Shopping
Dave
Lindorff
Spray and Pray in Iraq: a Marine in
Transit
Alexander
Cockburn
McNamara: the Sequel
February
6, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Are the Kurds in the Way?
Joanne
Mariner
Anita Bryant's Legacy
Saul
Landau
Happiness and Botox
Kurt Nimmo
Horror Non-fiction: A How-To Guide from
Perle and Frum
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Real Intelligence Failure: Our
Own
February
5, 2004
Benjamin
Shepard
Turning NYC into a Patriot Act Free
Zone
Khury
Petersen-Smith
A Report from Occupied Iraq: "We Don't Want Army USA"
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003
Teresa
Josette
The Exeuctioner's Pslam? Christian Nation? Yeah, Right
David Krieger
Why Dr. King's Message on Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Monkey Business: Of Recess and Evolution in Georgia Schools
Norman
Solomon
The Deadly Lies of Reliable Sources
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Presenting President Edwards!
February
4, 2004
Brian
McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's
Last Round Up?
Mark
Gaffney
Ariel Sharon's Favorite Senator: Ron Wyden and Israel
Judith
Brown
Palestine and the Media
Frederick
B. Hudson
Moseley-Braun and the Butcher: Campaign for Justice or Big Oil's
Junta?
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Independent Commission: Exonerating
the Spooks
M.
Junaid Alam
Philly School Workers Fight for Fair Contract
Fran Shor
Whose Boob Tube?
Kevin
Cooper
This is Not My Execution and I Will Not Claim It
February
3, 2004
Alan
Maass
The
Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"
Nick
Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded
in Iraq
Rahul
Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure
Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Laura
Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures
Jordan
Green
Democratic Patronage in Northern New
Mexico
Terry
Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts
Fairness Campaign
Hammond
Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless
Website
of the Day
Waging Peace
January
24/5, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Shia: "Our Day Has Come"
Laura
Flanders
State of the Conservative Union
Simon
Helweg-Larsen
Enter Berger: Signs of Hope in Guatemala
Dave
Lindorff
Ground Control to Maj. George
Susan
Davis
The Birdwatcher Menace
Alexander
Cockburn
The Fog of Cop Out: McNamara 10, Morris
0
January
23, 2004
Yonathan Shapira
An Israeli Pilot Speaks Out
Standard
Schaefer
Italian Philosopher Giorgio Agamben
Protests US Travel Policy
Josh
Frank
In Defense of Polluters: Howard Dean's
Vermont
William
A. Cook
Rule by the Corrupt and the Capricious
January
22, 2004
Sam
Smith
Howards End?
Patricia
Koyce Wanniski
Lost in Space
Alexander
Lukin
Putin and the Clans
Katherine
van Wormer
Dry Drunk Confirmed: O'Neill's Revelations
and Bush's Mind
Forrest
Hylton
The Prisoner, the President and the Mafia
|
February
10, 2004
Inquisition in Iowa
Feds
Target Peace Activists at Drake University
By KURT NIMMO
It
looks like Ann Coulter may get her way.
Like
many on the extreme right, Ms. Coulter considers those of us engaged
in dissident against the actions of the government to be "either
traitors or idiots." Coulter said as much in her screed, Treason:
Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terror. "The
myth of 'McCarthyism' is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times,"
writes Coulter. "McCarthy was not tilting at windmills. Soviet
spies in the government were not a figment of right-wing imaginations."
No doubt Coulter believes AG Ashcroft and the Bush federal judiciary
is not "tilting at windmills," either. It is not communists
in the State Department they are going after, but antiwar and environmental
activists. In this particular instance, antiwar activists attending
a forum held at a private university in Iowa.
Imagine
Ms. Coulter's ear-to-ear smirk.
Last
week a federal judge ordered Drake University to turn over "all
documents indicating the purpose and intended participants in the meeting,
and all documents or recordings which would identify persons that actually
attended the meeting," according to the Associated Press. In addition
to documents listing attendance at the forum, the subpoena orders the
university to cough up all records relating to the local chapter of
the National Lawyers Guild. The leader of the Catholic Peace Ministry,
the former coordinator of the Iowa Peace Network, a member of the Catholic
Worker House, and an antiwar activist who visited Iraq in 2002, was
also served a subpoena.
If
not for the fact the Associated Press received a copy of the Drake subpoena,
news of this inquisition would have remained secret. The judge has issued
a gag order forbidding school officials from discussing the subpoena.
"Several officials of Drake, a private university with about 5,000
students, refused to comment Friday, including school spokeswoman Andrea
McDonough," reports Ryan J. Foley of the Associated Press. "She
referred questions to a lawyer representing the school, Steve Serck,
who also would not comment."
"This
is exactly what people feared would happen," remarked Brian Terrell
of the Catholic Peace Ministry. "The civil liberties of everyone
in this country are in danger. How we handle that here in Iowa is very
important on how things are going to happen in this country from now
on."
So,
what illegality precipitated the intervention of a federal judge, the
formation of a grand jury, and the issuance of subpoenas? An isolated
instance of non-violent civil disobedience during a rally following
the forum. A Grinnell College librarian went limp upon arrest. She was
charged with misdemeanor assault on a peace officer. How passively resisting
arrest may be considered "assault" remains unexplained. Why
a grand jury needs to be convened and a gag order issued in response
also remains unexplained. And secret.
Mark
Smith, a lobbyist for the Washington-based American Association of University
Professors, told the Associated Press he believes the case heralds a
return of the infamous red squads used against antiwar activists during
the Vietnam War.
In
May 2002, AG Ashcroft set the stage for a return of red squads and the
abuses of the COINTELPRO era. Ashcroft removed the "competitive
advantage" he claimed terrorists enjoyed. In other words, the "competitive
advantage" of Americans exercising their constitutional rights
under the First Amendment.
According
to Ashcroft, the First Amendment throws "bureaucratic, organizational,
and operational restrictions and structures" in the way of FBI
agents attempting to do "their jobs effectively."
More
specifically, Ashcroft's removal of "operational restrictions"
may allow the FBI to once again use agents-provocateurs, foment violence
between dissident groups, ruin the lives of individual activists, and
frame people for serious crimes, the sort of things the FBI did under
COINTELPRO. Since the Patriot Act allows for unprecedented secrecy,
we have no way of knowing what the FBI is doing. If history is any indication,
they are going after Bush's enemies.
Last
November, however, evidence of COINTELPRO-like activity on the part
of the FBI surfaced when a memorandum was publicized indicating the
FBI had urged local law enforcement to snoop on the organizational efforts
of antiwar groups in Washington and San Francisco prior to demonstrations
in opposition to Bush's impending invasion of Iraq.
"The
FBI is dangerously targeting Americans who are engaged in nothing more
than lawful protest and dissent," Anthony Romero, executive director
of the American Civil Liberties Union, warned at the time. "The
line between terrorism and legitimate civil disobedience is blurred,
and I have a serious concern about whether we're going back to the days
of Hoover [and COINTELPRO]...What the FBI regards as potential terrorism
strikes me as civil disobedience."
Civil
disobedience is now vigorously prosecuted and severely punished by Ashcroft's
Justice Department.
For
instance, last July the Justice Department filed criminal charges in
Miami federal court against the entire Greenpeace organization under
an obscure 1872 law originally intended to end the practice of "sailor-mongering."
Greenpeace activists had boarded a commercial ship off the coast of
Florida in April 2002. The ship was transporting mahogany illegally
exported from Brazil's Amazon rainforest. The activists unfurled a banner
stating: "President Bush, Stop Illegal Logging." It was an
act of civil disobedience -- trespassing on private property -- but
so outraged was Ashcroft and the Justice Department they reached into
the distant past to find an unrelated and absurd law and used it against
Greenpeace. "If the prosecution succeeds, peaceful public protest
-- an essential American tradition from colonial times to the civil
rights movement and beyond -- may become yet another casualty of Mr.
Ashcroft's attack on civil liberties," writes John Passacantando,
executive director of Greenpeace USA.
The
Ashcroft and Justice Department plan is to prosecute an entire organization.
"Arrested by federal authorities, the individuals involved took
their lumps; they pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge," Passacantando
explains. "But now, prosecutors want much more. Instead of thanking
Greenpeace for work that promotes President Bush's stated goal of stopping
illegal logging, and instead of prosecuting the smugglers, the Justice
Department wants to brand Greenpeace a criminal operation." In
December, a Federal District Court in Miami slated the case to be tried
in May 2004, unless a Greenpeace motion to dismiss is granted.
The
Drake University subpoenas and the Greenpeace case are two examples
of the Bushite war on civil liberty, particularly the exercise of the
First Amendment in opposition to a growing paroxysm of neocon violence
and organized mass murder.
It
is certainly no mistake the Ministry of Homeland Security issued a warning
in May 2003 for local police to be on the lookout for any American who
has "expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government."
Local police now serve as Bush's posse.
Is
it mere happenstance the Justice Department drafted the so-called Domestic
Security Enhancement Act (DSEA) of 2003, otherwise known as Patriot
Act II? DSEA would automatically deny bail for persons accused of "terrorism-related
crimes," reversing the ordinary common law burden of proof principle.
Such "terrorism-related crimes" include civil disobedience.
DSEA was sidelined due to unfavorable reaction after a working draft
was leaked, but more than a few experts believe it will eventually be
adopted in one form or another.
"Patriot
Act II would deem civil disobedience a felony," writes Kevin Merickel
of the Daily Trojan, a newspaper published by the University of Southern
California. "Such civil disobedience would include nonviolent demonstrations
or protests. The act would consider such behavior as threatening to
human life, and a charge could be punishable by death."
Execution
of dissidents convicted of civil disobedience may seem a bit far-fetched.
Nonetheless, last year Ashcroft wanted three elderly nuns sent to prison
for 30 years for spray-painting six crosses on a concrete silo dome
in their own blood at a remote Minuteman III nuclear missile site in
Weld County, Colorado. In essence, Ashcroft was asking for a death sentence.
Last
month a federal court sentenced Kathy Kelly, co-founder of Voices in
the Wilderness and three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, to prison for
the egregious crime of trespassing the property of the Ft. Benning military
base in November of 2003. Kelly was protesting against the Americas/Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (aka the School of the
Americas, or more appropriately the School of Assassins or the School
of Coups). In addition to Kelly, 27 other activists -- from dangerous
organizations such as the Jesuit Volunteers International -- were sentenced
last month to federal prison for trespassing a terrorist training camp
in Georgia that would make Osama bin Laden envious.
"The
timing of the [Drake University] investigation may be a not-so-subtle
warning to those planning to participate in the March 20, 2004 anti-war
rallys," writes Elaine Cassel for Civil Liberties Watch. "Those
who do protest better be prepared to pay with their freedom."
And
that's exactly what those on the far right such as Ann Coulter hope
for -- antiwar "traitors" made to "pay with their freedom"
for their "hate America" subversion and pernicious, terrorist-friendly
treason.
Is
it possible Richard Perle, David Frum, Ann Coulter, Daniel Pipes, David
Horowitz, and other far right types believe it was treasonous subversion
when civil rights activists staged sit-ins at lunch counters and freedom
rides? Was "hate America" subversion in the air when activists
in the women's movement for the right to vote in the late 1880s participated
in silent vigils, mass demonstrations, and hunger strikes? Or what about
the nonviolent strikers of the Industrial Workers of the World free
speech confrontations, the Congress of Industrial Organizations sit-down
strikes from 1935-1937 in auto plants involving 400,000 people?
If
Coulter had been around in 1846, is it possible she would have called
for Henry David Thoreau to spend more than one night in jail for refusing
to pay his poll tax in opposition to slavery? Is it possible she would
have considered his essay "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"
seditious, a tract written by either a traitor or an idiot?
Coulter
and crew would likely find such comparisons ludicrous. For them, the
antiwar movement consists primarily of embittered "communists,"
America haters from the likes of A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War &
End Racism), or black-clad anarchists fond of breaking windows and trashing
bank lobbies.
In
fact, the vast majority of people opposed to the invasion of Iraq are
non-violent, if occasionally civilly disobedient Americans who find
the neocon plan for non-stop mass murder and invasions of perpetual
conquest morally repugnant. They understand, even if Richard Perle does
not, that killing thousands of Iraqi and Afghani citizens does not prevent
terrorism.
For
Coulter and her ideological cohorts, opposition to war is nothing short
of inexcusable treason, a "reflection of the growth of a treacherous
anti-American radicalism," as the neocon proselyte David Horowitz
would have it. As the Drake University and Greenpeace cases demonstrate,
Bush and Ashcroft wholeheartedly agree.
In
the not too distant future there will be more subpoenas, more prison
terms, more FBI invasion of civil liberties, more COINTELPRO-like abuse,
especially in regard to nonviolent civil disobedience.
For
as Mark Ames comments on the neocon plan for America, "It can get
a hell of a lot worse. And it will. Which isn't so bad, so long as you're
part of the American right."
If
not, a subpoena may arrive at your door any day.
Kurt
Nimmo is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces,
New Mexico. Visit his excellent no holds barred blog at www.kurtnimmo.com/blogger.html.
A collection of his essays for CounterPunch, Another
Day in the Empire, is now available from Dandelion Books.
He
can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
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