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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 9/19/10

Of Resistance and Fighting for the First Amendment

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances""

Contemplating the words of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, that imperfect yet powerful piece of parchment that ostensibly bestows all humans in the US with a set of basic rights enshrined and protected by the legal system, demands that we ask ourselves if we are going to continue apathetically allowing corporations and plutocrats to wrest those rights from us. Will we continue to stand idly by as C. Wright Mills' "Power Elite" reduces us to over-consumptive, indentured automatons, with no voice and little choice but to devote our lives to the hollow, meaningless pursuits of materialism, the bread and circuses they provide, and narcissistic "fulfillment" via the wage and debt slavery that enables the perpetuation of their obscene gluttony and condemns our souls to pecuniary bondage?

Green IS the New Red

No group has seen its First Amendment rights erode more quickly and dramatically than those of us who are vegan and agitate for Animal Rights and the Earth. In 2005 John Lewis, deputy assistant director of the FBI, declared that, "The No. 1 domestic terrorism threat is the eco-terrorism, animal-rights movement." It has been a down-hill slide for us ever since, with ever-increasing degrees of harassment, surveillance, persecution, arrest, and imprisonment for the "crime" of defending the Earth and other sentient beings and attempting to stop a holocaust that kills billions upon billions of nonhuman animals annually.

Here are the stories of but a handful of our movement's political prisoners:

http://thomaspainescorner.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/eric-mcdavid-victimized-by-green-scare-state-terrorism/

http://thomaspainescorner.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/marie-mason-victimized-by-green-scare-state-terrorism/

http://thomaspainescorner.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/activist-sentenced-to-two-years-for-a-l-f-mink-liberation/

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Jason Miller Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Jason Miller, Senior Editor and Founder of TPC, is a tenacious forty something vegan straight edge activist who lives in Kansas and who has a boundless passion for animal liberation and anti-capitalism. Addicted to reading and learning, he is mostly (more...)
 
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