Sign a Call to Oppose The Obama Administration’s Dangerous Assault On Fundamental Rights
The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 granted the president the power to detain anyone indefinitely — without charge or trial — for the alleged crime of associating with a broad and vague category of people, which could include people who have nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks or with terrorism in general.
Chris Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky and others challenged the indefinite detention provisions of NDAA in a court case.
On May 16, 2012 federal Judge Katherine Forrest issued an injunction barring enforcement of Section 1021 dealing with indefinite detention.
Her ruling was a great victory for the US Constitution and civil liberties!
However, in her ruling she references a concern by Chris Hedges about his association with the Bob Avakiam Revolutionary Party:
“Hedges also testified that he has previously associated with a group called Bob Avakiam Revolutionary Party, a Maoist group, which he stated he understands endorses the use of violence towards revolutionary ends—a philosophy to which Hedges stated he did not ascribe. Despite that fact, Hedges understands Section 1021 as potentially encompassing his association with the Avakiam Revolutionary Party and thus, the statute already has had a chilling effect on his associational activities.”
Read the full text of the injuction here:
http://sdnyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/12-Civ.-00331-2012.05.16-Opinion-Granting-PI.pdf
Activists around the country are concerned that this paragraph of the judge’s ruling could be used as a pretext to criminalize what is constitutionally protected freedom of speech and association and potentially sweep the Revolutionary Communist Party and its Chairman, Bob Avakian, into a category of organizations identified by the government as terrorist.
Currently the RCP is conducting a bus tour of towns and colleges highlighting the racist, classist reality of US law and economics and the corporate, imperialist nature of US foreign policy.
These are prophetic words that you will not find spoken during the Republican or Democratic convention charades.
Recall the chilling effect on dissent of the Joe McCarthy Red Scare era during the 1950’s.
Sign a Call to Oppose The Obama Administration’s Dangerous Assault On Fundamental Rights:
http://opposerepressionndaa.net/OpposeRepressionNDAA/Oppose_Repressive_NDAA.html
Those of us signing this statement cannot speak for the RCP and indeed have various levels of familiarity with and a variety of views on its philosophical and political principles and objectives.
But we do not countenance — and recognize as very dangerous — the designation by the powers-that-be of groups as politically ”acceptable” and “unacceptable.”
In this there are very important lessons to be drawn from the self-critical summation by Pastor Martin Niemoeller of his experience when confronted with the heightening repression carried out by the Nazi regime in Germany during the 1930s:
“First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak out because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak out for me.”
Together we call on people to step forward and stand together to oppose the assault on dissent and the moves to restrict and criminalize oppositional speech, association, and political activity, which are being carried out by the Obama Administration and which continue and expand dangerous precedents and mechanisms which can also be utilized by any future Administration.
Just imagine what an Obama/Drone/AIPAC administration or a Romney/Ryan/Rove administration could do with the NDAA in 2013.
If that scares you, please join the almost 500 people from around the country who are opposing repression:
http://opposerepressionndaa.net/OpposeRepressionNDAA/Oppose_Repressive_NDAA.html
