Back in the 60's anti-war protesters finally revoked LBJ's pass for being a Democrat when they chanted "Hey, hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?" Johnson won re-election in 1964 on the promise of ending the Vietnam war, but instead escalated it. Now, continuing a war against peaceful protest which would have made John Ashcroft proud, Obama has renewed his war on peace activists exercising their right of free speech in St. Paul, Chicago, and other American cities, most pointedly against those who have stood up for Palestinian rights. Sucker punching hippies is a old good-ol'-boy American pastime. It's just a surprise that the practitioner calls himself a Democrat.
This is a kind of reversal of polarity, when strangely enough, it is Tea Party Republican Rand Paul who is calling for cuts in the military budget, and Obama persecuting peace punks. The whole thing's giving me a headache.
It could be that Rand's daddy Ron, an avowed non-interventionist in foreign affairs, took him out to the woodshed when he began to sound like too much of a damned Neocon, and down South that's the way we do things. You may be bigger'n me now, boy. But I can still lick you.
After the dozen or so activists served with subpoenas agreed to refuse to appear before a grand jury to explain their political beliefs, the FBI is pursuing contempt charges, and 18 months in jail. On Democracy Now:
Three people are now being—looking at reappearing in front of the grand jury and likely being forced with the choice between talking about who they meet with, what the political beliefs of their friends and allies are, or perhaps risking contempt and sitting in jail for eighteen months
National Lawyers Guild's Bruce Nestor explain what Obama, who is allowing FBI Director Robert Mueller to act with impunity while he takes his smiley photo-ops, is trying to accomplish with this prosecution of grandmothers, mothers, and union activists:
...they’re being prosecuted under this material support for terrorism law, a law that was really enhanced under the PATRIOT Act and that allows, in the government’s own words, for people to be prosecuted for their speech if they coordinate it with a designated foreign terrorist organization. What you run the risk of there is that even if you state your own independent views about US foreign policy, but those views somehow reflect a group that the US has designated as a terrorist organization, you can be accused of coordinating your views and face, if not prosecution, at least investigation, search warrants, being summoned to a grand jury to talk about who your political allies and who your political friends are. So, so far, this law has largely been used against individuals, often Muslim Americans. Of course, Lynne Stewart.
It all started in September when the FBI unleashed a virtual hippie-activist dragnet across the country, the Minneapolis Star Trib:
"federal agents pounding on the door. I was told to be seated on my couch and I had no rights to walk around the apartment and I was under an investigation for my connections with groups in other countries, particularly Palestine."
Gotta love that Change. Yessirree. Gimme more of that Kool-aid.
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