Permission to reprint and widely distribute this article is freely granted. Permission is also granted to use ideas and facts from this article with no need to quote the author. This is about getting the facts on the public radar, and not about quoting any one person. Please email this article or any facts here to like-minded friends, dial in to radio talk shows, post this article or your own all over the web, write journalists and activist organizations, and work like hell to get the real truth on the public radar! Thank you for your help in widely distributing the real truth. It's so important and it could protect some innocent people. Thanks.
Hello friends
Having tuned in today to KPFA Radio/Pacifica Radio, which gave six hours of coverage of the Congressional quasi-impeachment hearings, or at least the floor time as gesture in the direction of impeachment hearings.....I was so disgusted with what I heard coming out of the mouths of Congress members that I clicked off the radio.
Then I tuned back in later. Just in time to hear about people being kicked out of the room by John Conyers because of the crime of "holding signs which are not allowed to be in this room", according to a Congress member. And Conyers backed that official.
It's important to note that those accused of the crime of bearing signs had not made one peep the entire time the hearings had commenced. They were absolutely peaceful and not disruptive.
Well, America ain't no free speech country no more, or at least, that's how John Conyers wants it. Because he started to kick out those guilty of the crime of wearing impeachment buttons and bearing signs of undisclosed statements. And of course, when protesting their first amendment rights, sign-bearers were arrested. Free speech America, eh?
To her credit, Congresswoman Maxine Waters objected and told a policeman not to arrest a sign-bearing person.
Friends, please don't let this slide by. Please write letters to the editor about how unconstitutional such government censorship is. Come on, those in Congress know that. Shame them in public! Make people aware of what is really going on. Create a wave of objections! Ask people to fax Conyers and reprimand him.
Then we get the lame, lame "excuses" why not to impeach. You know, "distractions from what we need to do," "we must be very judicious in choosing when to impeach" (like a string of war crimes and Constitutional breaches is not such a moment? And of course, a sex act is the right moment to be "Judicious" about impeaching? Thank you, my friends in Congress; we know you for just who you are!) And above all, "fear those Muslim terrorists". That's really reason not to impeach, eh?
Well, I want to give it to you straight. The links and facts below will prove what I have repeatedly and vociferously been stating on this forum all along: It ain't no terrorists being targeted in post-911 America. It is, by and large, activists.
I am asking you friends, please, to pass these links and facts around everywhere. Because with the impeachment hearings going on, this ain't no time to support the illusion that we are fighting a legitimate war on terror. Instead, it's time to break through the lies and give the scoop for what it is: The war OF terror is a phrase I am repeating on purpose, because I am hoping that activists on this forum will pass it around everywhere you walk, talk, and write.
Check this link out first: It's short, but it tells the whole story. For those of you who have not seen this when I circulated it previously, it is an actual declassified FBI document downloaded from the ACLU's website, titled "International Terrorism Matters". See for yourself who is being investigated as "international terrorists", and why. But before you do, let me add as a ps to the picture which is worth a thousand words, that civil disobedience is NOT illegal as objected by one ignorant person who saw this. It is, in fact, a protected form of free speech under the first amendment, the right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances, so long as it does not become violent: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/28000res20060314.html
"Since when did feeding the homeless become a terrorist activity?" asked ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson. "When the FBI and local law enforcement target groups like Food Not Bombs under the guise of fighting terrorism, many Americans who oppose government policies will be discouraged from speaking out and exercising their rights."
Huh?
Repeat: The above-named "terrorist" organizations are very good reason NOT to impeach. WHAT'S THE REAL MOTIVE HERE??? We'd better ask the question, in public. Sometimes it's dangerous to be ignorant. Grill politicians, put them on the spot, in public! Tell them in open letters to the editor and the Internet, that these "terrorists" being good reason NOT to impeach shows one hell of a motive on that Congressperson's part! Get the truth out there! Let people realize what's really at stake. And let them think about it, too! (Glare.....)
www.aclu.org/safefree/general/20073prs20050718.html This link takes you to the ACLU's statement that they, as an organization, are being spied on (more than a thousand FBI pages about the ACLU), as are other groups.
Those in Guantanamo have been proven innocent by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU----about 98% of them, anyway. The ACLU's movie "Stop the Abuse of Power" stated that (during the time that movie was made) there were 850 Guantanamo detainees, and (in my best recollection) about twelve of them were guilty. No "Best recollection" talking here: The ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights echo each other with unremitting consistency, in stating that those released from Guantanamo were let go "Without so much as being charged with a single crime". The most recent announcement (less than two weeks ago) on the Guns and Butter radio show, in which Michael Ratner of the CCR was interviewed, was that there are currently 250 Guantanamo detainees. Again, most of them innocent, yet they are not being released, said Michael Ratner.
It just goes to say that a mere newspaper photograph plus a blurb about someone in captivity, said to be a terrorist ringleader, is not ample burden of proof. Knowing that these victims have no access to an attorney (if they are lucky enough to have an attorney fighting for them), no access to their own so-called "trials", and no right to challenge the "legal" grounds for their detentions, it just goes to say how gullible we Americans really are. Please spread word and get people thinking about this!
Does everybody feel really safe now, knowing that kidnapping and torture is sanctioned world-wide by the Bush Administration, including the kidnapping of American "terrorists"? Fear ye, fear ye, don't impeach, please! (I am being as sarcastic as they come. Mark my words!)
Just within the last week, during quasi-impeachment hearings (Or better said, floor time given Kucinich and his 13 highly credible witnesses as gesture of diplomacy) New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey said an interesting thing: While he called the Afghanistan attacks "Successful", he also said that something "interesting" happened. He said that Ashcroft simply let Bin Laden go and make his escape. Hmmm....
Then there's the no-fly "terrorists"----all one million of them, according to the latest ACLU statistic----including infants. Because you see, the US Government is so strong on terror that they have to target babies who can't walk yet, because their name happens to match someone else's name on the terrorist database. That person's name, by the way, happens to be someone like Joe Smith, whose name also matches some other Joe Smith's. Or for that matter, as computer sorting goes, Josephine Smith. Does everybody feel really safe, now?
But no matter. The "Real" terrorists who have actually and officially been targeted by the FBI, include Cat Stevens among them, who penned the song "Morning Has Broken". He became the reason why a plane was grounded. You see, he is Islamic and therefore, if a Buddhist or Catholic or Jew had been on board, it also would have been just as good reason for grounding that plane. Or, that's at least the point I am making. The War OF Terror is a war based on racial profiling, and not much more.
Well, let me correct myself. It is LOTS more.
It's all about who is "for or against us" as Bush famously said. Those against the Bush Administration's war profiteering and oil money are classified as "Terrorists". Like the University of California, Berkeley Students Against the Iraq War, who testified in a live ACLU Town Hall meeting in San Francisco, that they are being tracked by surveillance cameras and queried by police about speakers on campus. LIke Greenpeace, who threatens the Bush oil-money agenda.
Good "terrorists", eh? Fear ye, fear ye! Everybody quake in your boots!
Well, I suggest we all work together as citizen journalists to get this "terrorism" matter on the public radar, once and for all. Smash those myths of fear and initimidation! Embarrass the officials claiming to be so tough on terror, publicly! Grill them in radio talk shows. Grill them in letters to the editor, publicly, and hand them a copy of it! Tell the public and the officials, in no uncertain terms, that We the People ain't puttin' up with no more lies, and no more fussin' and a-fightin'!
WHAT TO DO IF A LOVED ONE IS ON THE NO-FLY LIST OR IS VICTIM OF SECRET RENDITION/TORTURE:
Immediately contact:
Electronic Frontier Foundation www.eff.org for no-fly list and electronic spying cases
ACLU www.aclu.org for torture cases and spying cases and more
Center for Constitutional Rights www.ccrjustice.com, or www.centerforconstitutionalrights.com for torture cases
American Freedom Agenda http://www.americanfreedomagenda.org/About/feinbio.htm
Amnesty International www.amnesty.org or www.amnestyusa.org
There's no guarantee of course, but it might not be a bad idea to contact leaders of major activist entities such as moveon.org, True Majority and Credo epariser@moveon.org and info@truemajority.com, info@credoaction.com
And....Start a neighborhood government crime watch!
