Terrorism warrants served on “social justice” activists
Several of you sent me links to the story last week about the several “social justice activists” who had their cribs searched by the FBI (Huffington Post link). As the FBI searched their homes, these clowns whined to the press that they’d done nothing to cause this kind of scrutiny.
Well, that’s not exactly true. They belong to a group called Freedom Road Socialist Organization, they were organized in 1985 because the Maoist organizations of the 70s were fracturing and the FRSO tried to rejuvenate the Communist movement. I call them communists because they themselves refer to the organization as Marxist/Leninist – so what else should I call them?
Of course, they would call my characterization of them as “red-baiting” to recall images of Joseph McCarthy’s hearings in the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. That’s because they love to play victim – similar to the way Muslim extremists play the victim tune when they get busted. Using our justice system against us is a trait that communists share with jihadists.
Their websites are full of their own propaganda over the raids – the Freedom Road Socialist Organization is actually two organizations – they both threw hissy fits over the direction of the club and split – each claiming the FRSO mantle. Leave it to commies to confuse the perception of them One facet is in Chicago, the other in New York.
One of the detained “activists” is Mick Kelly who edits their periodical “Fight Back!” touted as “news and views from the People’s struggle”.
Here’s an interview with Mick while the FBI was rummaging through his apartment above a coffee shop.
He plays the victim well. I guess he didn’t figure anyone would read FRSO’s website. For example in their mission statement they say “We Exist to Organize for Revolution and Socialism”. That doesn’t seem so docile, does it?
“Fight for full equality of oppressed nationalities, including the right to self-determination for the African American, Chicano and Hawai’ian Nations ” Yup, I’m all for full equality – but that statement of self-determination means, according to their own websites, that the US needs to cut wide swaths in our country to give those minority groups their own countries within ours. I’m pretty sure that their intent to establish these areas as self governing elements, they don’t intend to make them self-sufficient. Not exactly a basis for establishing “equality”.
“Building a strategic alliance of the national movements and the working class to overthrow imperialism and establish socialism” doesn’t sound too peaceful does it?
Anyway, the Chicago Tribune reports that last night 350 “activists” protested in the streets outside of the FBI’s office. There is good news in all of this for our side;
Jim Fennerty, an attorney representing Abudayyeh, who is an American of Palestinian descent, said Monday that lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild will represent those who are being investigated.
The communist lawyer association is also the home of James Branum…so it looks like all of the “activists” will end up doing time in jail thanks to their activist lawyers.
But they’re not exactly innocent bystanders.
“We aren’t doing anything differently than we have in 20 years,” said Weiner, a teacher at Wilbur Wright College. Iosbaker is a staff member at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a union steward for Service Employees International Union Local 73.
Burke said he received a grand jury subpoena requesting records of payments to Abudayyeh’s organization as well as two groups among the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Yeah, I don’t think the FBI has time to harass poor little protesters eeking out a meager living while they have meetings and read passages from Trotsky.
Category: Antiwar crowd, I hate hippies
Now the paranoid IsoVAW types are going to go nuts.
Maybe we should sell them tin-foil hats?
Sorry, the above post was me.
The FBI watches — and occasionally raids — these groups because they are recruiting grounds for radical elements. The worry has always been that a jihadist bomber could be recruited that would fit in with the general population (blue-eyed blond hippy type vs. swarthy, dark Middle Eastern type). The communist/socialist groups in this country want “revolution,” but no money to fund it. The Islamists want “jihad,” and have funding, but have a difficult time blending in. It’s the potential mixture of the two that worries the FBI.
Pinto; let’s not forget that Bill “the bomber” Ayres was/is a “radical” marxist/leninist as well, who started out believing the bullshit he was fed at our centers of higher education. He, and his ilk, spun out of SDS because they weren’t quite radical enough for little Billy, although the SDS was still the “mothership” for these douchenozzles. All it will take is just a couple of dissatisfied “social justice” morons to get another weather underground type group going and I’m sure they would be more than willing to work with the jihadis.
You’re right Old Trooper, and you phrased it better than I did, I think.
I remember a professor in college that was a member of the American Communist Party, and actively recruited at the college, also. He always seemed to have his “entourage” wherever he went.
@PintoNag, according to what I learned in a Criminal Justice college course on Domestic Terrorism I took a couple years ago, there was also a connection found between extremist right wing groups and jhidists, so apparently it cuts both ways.
(Typo correction: jihadists)
“there was also a connection found between extremist right wing groups and jhidists”
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What “extremist right wing groups”? Examples? Other than maybe the KKK and extreme militias, I don’t know of any “extremist right wing groups” who participate in terrorism or care for Muslims/Islamists. And I’ve never heard of any Muslims in the KKK or militias.
This is about the only “connection” I can think of regarding “extremist right wing groups” and Muslims/Islamists/jihadists: getting sick and f-ing tired of Muslims going apeshit over everything and finally fighting back against the Muslims/Islamists/jihadists.
Of course, notice the way the MF-ing media frames the story: it’s those defending themselves against Islam who are to blame. It’s the same way they frame the Crusades, which were also a time when people were sick and tired of the Muslims’ BS and finally fought back. Of course, the MF-ing media and the Left cannot admit those facts, because it would go against their lie that Islam only started going bad after the eeevil Booosh invaded Iraq.
Actually, I was referring specifically to right-wing terrorism, not merely extremism. I get very disturbed by those who use the terms interchangeably, blurring the distinction between the two that while all terrorist groups are extremist groups, only a very small percentage of extremist groups are terrorists…and there I just did it myself. Anyway, I’d have to find the paper I read which showed a connection – actually a very direct connection which developed – between one of the right-wing terrorist groups and Islamic terrorism as I can’t remember off-hand which group it was. Also I would like to mention that a militia is not necessarily a terrorist group. (For example, I wouldn’t consider the militias Bo Gritz has been affiliated with to be terrorist groups… though I imagine the FBI watches all the same.) I’m referring to those that went way over the edge, committing bank robberies to fund their activities, and targeting government officials, such as Army of God; Aryan Nations; The Covenant, Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, etc.
According to a paper I read by a professor, one of those right-wing terrorist groups (long defunct, I believe…or, actually, I don’t really know) definitely linked with some jihadist trainers in the Middle East. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the professor’s name who mentioned this link in his paper and I can’t find it on my computer, which means it’s probably on one of my flash drives…somwhere. I would have to dig around to find it. (I might do that next weekend when I have time.)
Btw, does the MI in your name stand for Michigan, or Military Intelligence? I’ve been wondering that for a while now.
Your “professor” wouldn’t be Mark Potok, would it, Debra? Just kidding, but I would take anything that 99% of the “professors” in this country said with a 25lb bag of salt, not just a grain of it.
Now, to go along with your thought in the first paragraph of your post, “I’m referring to those that went way over the edge, committing bank robberies to fund their activities, and targeting government officials”. Would that be the SDS, and the Black Panthers, who did just that? Would that be William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, close friends of Obama, because that’s what they did? Just curious.
No, it wasn’t Mark Potok, but come to think of it, his first name was Mark. Now if only I could remember his last name, then I could just Google it. It actually was a very good paper, in my opinion. Yes, in response to your other comment, domestic terrorists come from both the left and the right.
Okay, I got it now. Mark S. Hamm, Professor of Criminology at Indiana State University. The paper I referenced above which shows a link between a right-wing terrorist group and Islamic terrorists (granted, it may be a little obscure, but, trust me, it’s there) can be read online in its entirety at:
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/211203.pdf
(In other places, you have to pay to read this online, so this is a good find.)
Now where exactly in the paper is the referenced information, I will leave that to the interested reader to find. It’s quite an interesting read, though, so it is worth it.
OK, Debra, you can count me as one of the dis-interested readers. I won’t waste the minutes of my life necessary to wade through Hamm’s article. Are you referring to the “connection” between McVeigh using a Ryder rental and Ramzi Yousef using one too? Or that Terry Nichols was in the Philippines when Yousef was? If you don’t want to cite the specific points he allegedly makes, we’re done.
No, that definitely is not what I was referring to. Okay, I will find it for you, but not tonight. Maybe this weekend. I have to get up early in the morning.
Here’s more info on Hamm:
Indiana State University – Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice — MARK S. HAMM, PH.D.
I knew his name sounded familiar (and not in a good sense) and then remembered why when I saw this: “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”: George W. Bush and the Sins of Abu Ghraib
Interesting that the title of the paper (linked by Debra) is “Crimes Committed by Terrorist Groups: Theory, Research, and Prevention” and it is dated 2005. Doing a word search on the paper, there are 20 instances of “right-wing” and 4 instances of left-wing. Yeah, no bias there. Apparently, the only crimes being committed by terrorist groups in the USA circa 2005 and prior were all by right-wing groups. Riiiiight.
It’s also interesting that when “DISTINGUISHING FEATURES OF TERRORIST-ORIENTED CRIMINALITY”, he divides them into two groups: “Right-wing” and “International”. Apparently, Left-wing terrorism doesn’t even exist in Hamm’s world in 2005. Imagine that.
No reports of eco-terrorism, nothing by GreenPeace or PETA or ALF, nothing by the Weather Underground. Nope, apparently that is not worthy of inclusion in a paper entitled “Crimes Committed by Terrorist Groups: Theory, Research, and Prevention”. Imagine that. Apparently, in 2005, the people we needed to be worried about were the radical right-wingers! You know, because in 2005, in the middle of one of the most prosperous economic times in our history (5% unemployment, record highs on Wall Street, housing values rising, GDP growing), those radical right-wingers were itching to commit terrorism.
That may be the case, but the overall college course (from a college other than that of the author of that paper) which required this paper as reading did cover all of that very thoroughly and there really was no slant one way or the other.
I think Michael was making the case that Hamm is biased and slanted one way(left). I saw the same info on Hamm in a Google search, and came away with the same impression.
“I think Michael was making the case that Hamm is biased and slanted one way (left).”
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Yes, that’s the point I was trying to make.
If someone writes a paper about “Crimes Committed by Terrorist Groups: Theory, Research, and Prevention” and the paper ends up focusing solely on “right-wing” and “International” terrorism, I take what they say with a grain of salt, considering there has been MUCH more “left-wing” terrorism that has occurred over the past 3-4 decades (which was the time span covered in the paper, as far as I could tell, as he went back to the 1980s to cover some obscure “right-wing” religious group).
The guy obviously has an agenda. It does not dismiss his research, but his paper has no business being framed as a paper about terrorism threats in general, when he only focuses on “right-wing” and “International” threats and completely ignores the massive amounts of information about “left-wing” terrorism, especially since the Left’s terrorism is still going on today (ALF, GreenPeace, etc).
If someone read that paper, they would come away thinking the only terrorist threats in America over the past 3-4 decades were “right-wing” and “International”. And that is a complete misrepresentation of reality.
Yes. What I intended to convey in my comments above was a general agreement with you (I was in a hurry and perhaps didn’t write clearly). I don’t know why Hamm focused on the right wing groups as he did. I didn’t really notice it that much simply because I read the paper within the context of the whole course, which, as I said, did cover all of the groups very thoroughly.
As an aside, I do not agree with you that GreenPeace meets the definition of a terrorist group (though also recognizing that there is no consensus on the definition of terrorism in the first place). In fact, I can remember writing something about why GreenPeace is not a terrorist group in one of my papers for the course or perhaps in answer to some essay question (would have to look it up for a refresher).
On the right wing terror groups again, actually, it was pretty illuminating to me to realize how truly criminal and dangerous they were (imcompetent criminals, but dangerous nonetheless). I confess I went into the course pretty slanted to begin with, expecting it to be a large amount of B.S. with regard to the right wing groups. I did get into some very heated discussions regarding the Randy Weaver and Waco cases with my position being that the only domestic terrorism involved in those cases was domestic terrorism from above, i.e., coming from the feds. Sadly, I was fairly well isolated in my class with that perspective – in a class of predominantly active duty military and military veterans -though the course textbook actually covered it pretty intelligently and I didn’t disagree with it.
With my acknowledged personal biases going into the course, the biggest impact of the Hamm report on me was in dropping those biases and objectively acknowledging that, in fact, the right wing groups he wrote of were indeed legitimate cases of domestic terrorism.
Nonetheless, as stated above, I do take your point well.
“I do not agree with you that GreenPeace meets the definition of a terrorist group…”
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I beg to differ: Watching the Pro-Terror Left
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However, it is veteran Green organization Greenpeace that has garnered some 3,000 pages of FBI files – and with good reason. Greenpeace is a well-known perpetrator of anti-business eco-terrorism. Attorney Marc Levin has noted:
Greenpeace founder Paul Watson said, after 9/11, “There’s nothing wrong with being a terrorist, as long as you win.” He likewise classified his fellow humans the “AIDS of the earth.” Watson regularly sinks whaling vessels, waves around his AK-47, and heads a group called Coeur du Bois (“Heart of the Wood”) that spikes trees, injuring loggers. Wason has served on the board of the Sierra Club for the last two years.
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Whatever your definition of terrorism, Greenpeace is committing terrorist acts. That makes them a terrorist group, in my book.
More HERE.
Also interesting to see Greenpeace worked against America and for Saddam Hussein, who was guilty of much destruction of the environment as dictator of Iraq, in 2003: The Greening of Iraq ———- Amid recent United Nations debates, a boat plied the waters nearby with a sign that said “GREENPEACE. No War. When is the United States going to disarm?” Why, I found myself thinking, is this Leftist mock-environmental organization supporting the regime of dictator Saddam Hussein, who has done so much to threaten and destroy Earth’s environment and to betray the Prophet Mohammad’s symbolic green on Iraq’s own flag? In the United States, environmental zealots have demanded the protection of vaguely-defined “wetlands,” including tire tracks filled for two weeks each year with rain water that they label “vernal pools.” So where are these watermelon environmentalists when it comes to Saddam Hussein, who since 1991 has deliberately and systematically destroyed 90 percent of Iraq’s ancient wetlands? As Vicki Silverman describes them, these lost Iraqi marshlands between the two rivers were a “millenniums-old ecosystem where water reeds grew twenty feet high, and grains, grasses, fish, buffalo and migratory birds lived in harmony with 500,000 native Marsh Dwellers.” This scorched-earth policy of draining these wetlands by Saddam Hussein began after the first Gulf War to deny this huge environmental haven and hiding place to rebels against his government. Today almost its entire ancient population of “marsh Arabs” have been forced out. Just as United Nations weapons inspectors were driven out of Iraq by violence and threats, so too did Saddam Hussein starting in 1991 bar environmental researchers and humanitarian aid workers from the marsh regions. Working with satellite imagery and other information, however, the United Nations Environmental Program has estimated Hussein’s sadistic damage to Mother Earth. The U.N. study, reports Charles Recknagel, “calls the loss of the wetlands an ecological catastrophe comparable to the deforestation of the Amazon and the shrinking of the Aral Sea.” The megalomaniac who caused this ecological catastrophe comparable to the deforestation of the Amazon is Saddam Hussein, the dictator Greenpeace wants to keep in power. But as James… Read more »
Michael…your coming up with facts again…STOP IT!
Honor and Courage
Michael, I will definitely have to look into this further and give it the attention it deserves. All of my books are still in boxes from my recent move, so that’s of no help, but I will mention at least one thing. To my recollection, the emphasis in my college textbook on Domestic Terrorism was more on the group, EarthFirst, of which there is no doubt is a terrorist group, and Paul Watson, as I remember it, came into conflict with GreenPeace because of his heading in a more radical and violent direction than what the group he founded was willing to embrace. In any event, you didn’t mention EarthFirist at all and Paul Watson’s later affiliation with it, so that may be where part of the difference in understanding lies. I’m not by any means disputing or discounting your information; I would just have to look at all of it in much further depth than what I have heretofore applied. I might also mention that just because the FBI has compiled a large amount of documentation on a group or individual, doesn’t necessarily mean anything one way or the other… except that it’s a fairly good guess that at least part of that information was probably obtained illegally… Well, I’m probably not supposed to say things like that, so, moving right along…Thank you for the info and I will definitely take a further look at this when the time is available to me. I appreciate your perspective. As for 1AirCav69, bite me.
Debra,
Do expound on “except that it’s a fairly good guess that at least part of that information was probably obtained illegally…”
Um. Just a joke. Kidding.
“To my recollection, the emphasis in my college textbook on Domestic Terrorism was more on the group, EarthFirst, of which there is no doubt is a terrorist group, and Paul Watson, as I remember it, came into conflict with GreenPeace because of his heading in a more radical and violent direction than what the group he founded was willing to embrace.”
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I did read that in some of the articles posted on the left hand column of the Discover the Networks link I provided. Watson apparently left GreenPeace, because the organization at the time disagreed with his desire for violent protests. Later, he was voted on to the board of the Sierra Club and expressed a desire to radicalize that group for violent protests.
That said, I consider active blockades of oil rigs and ships to be violent ‘protests’ and borderline terrorism. Physically disrupting private companies’ legal business of shipping oil and coal and other energy material is crossing the line.
I haven’t looked into EarthFirst, but Earth Liberation Front is another eco-terrorist group. Here’s what Discover the Networks has to say about them and EarthFirst.
Also, while looking at the sidebar of the EarthFirst page, this came up: Greenpeace, Earth First!, PETA — Radical Fringe Tactics Move Toward Center Stage
ELF is definitely a terrorist group, as well as ALF. I’m not aware that PETA is a terrorist group; they’re pretty mainstream within the animal rights crowd. However, the ties… It reminds me, I remember reading of a court case in my textbook…can’t remember the details now, but it had to do with animal rights activism. The gist of it was that, incredibly (if I’m recalling accurately — as I said, my books aren’t available to me at the moment, being packed up), the judge admitted evidence in court that was obtained solely through terrorist acts. The reasoning was simply amazing to me. I did not agree. (Then again, if you ever saw the movie, “Mississippi Burning” – the FBI tactics…) If the case doesn’t ring a bell or you’re not familiar with it, I will definitely look it up this weekend when I find the book again and provide the details. Can’t remember enough right now to even know what to try Googling.
Also, the point to all my comments is to reject the idea that “right-wing” terrorism is a serious threat today, especially when it comes to joining with Islamists against the West. It’s the Left that has joined with the Islamists, because they share a hatred of Western culture in general (Christianity, Capitalism, individualism, a standard of morals) and America specifically.
If that Hamm character actually did an objective study of terrorism committed over the last 20-30 years and then focused on the terrorist groups over the past 10 years, I would say 90% of the radicalization and terrorist acts come from either Lefists, Muslims or other International terror. Other than the lunatic who killed the partial-birth abortion doctor, I know of no other “right-wing” terrorist act within the last 10 years. Everything has been either radical Left or Muslim.
So my annoyance comes from reading anyone make the ridiculous moral equivalent statement “oh, but there’s also a threat of right-wing terrorist groups working with Muslims too”. The only evidence of that you may have provided was in that Hamm paper, which had to go back to the 1980s to find some obscure right-wing religious group that I doubt anyone has even heard of (Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord
(CSA)).
My annoyance also stems from the MF-ing media, the Left, the Democrats and the Administration all claiming that the only terrorists that exist today are military members and Tea Party protesters, all the while telling us that we shouldn’t dare associate Muslims with terrorism, even though we have been consistently attacked by Muslim terrorists in this country and against our foreign interests (embassies, etc) at least since 1993 with the first WTC attack, not to mention the Fort Hood attack fresh in most people’s minds.
“I’m not aware that PETA is a terrorist group; they’re pretty mainstream within the animal rights crowd.”
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Yeah, well CAIR is pretty ‘mainstream’ too. That doesn’t mean they aren’t a radical Muslim Brotherhood front group that associates with terrorism. It simply means that the MF-ing media refuses to expose them and continues to do CYA for the group.
There is plenty of info out there about PETA being borderline terrorist. Just go back to this post and the comments where I posted video showing PETA donated to a Rodney Coronado who firebombs places in the name of “animal rights”. As I said, the only reason PETA is considered “mainstream” and not radical and contributing to terrorism is because (1) the MF-ing media refuses to expose them and (2) a bunch of Hollywood ignoramuses keep giving them ‘mainstream’ credence. But that doesn’t change the fact PETA is radical and borderline terrorist, it just means those Hollywood idiots are contributing to the radical group’s terrorism.
If the MF-ing media and Hollywood put even half the effort into researching PETA and GREENPEACE and such as they put into researching Sarah Palin, those groups would be out of business as they belong.
I appreciate your perspective and agree with much of what you say – for example, the focus on military members and Tea Party activists is way overblown – however, in response to your comment, “Other than the lunatic who killed the partial-birth abortion doctor, I know of no other “right-wing” terrorist act within the last 10 years,” I have to say, I believe the reason there haven’t been any is because the groups that posed a threat in the past have been put completely out of business by the feds (either killed or imprisoned) or by lawsuit (financially). That pretty well dissipated the groups, but what still lives are the dangerous ideas and the prospect of lone wolf terrorism.
“but what still lives are the dangerous ideas and the prospect of lone wolf terrorism”. Like at Ft. Hood,Debra? The panty bomber? The Times Square bomber? The Arkansas gunman who shot two soldiers? What do they all have in common, and it’s not “right-wing” ideology?
Perhaps, if Holder could get his head out of his ass, he could do the same to those people, you know, put them “completely out of business”.
I don’t disagree with you, UpNorth. Terrorism is terrorism and it is ideally stopped or prevented regardless of whether it is right-wing or left-wing. Something is definitely wrong if political correctness is hampering the protection of the public from terrorist attacks. At the same time, over-reaction by the government resulting in loss of civil liberties and government repression must always be guarded against as a potentially even worse outcome, so it is always a balancing act.
Debra;
Paul Watson runs a whatcha call it? training school for radicals out in Redmond OR. He’s one of those that got crap going at WTO 99….;)
PS- I’ll prolly think of the name later, ok?
Sorry…I got a day job. I just can’t keep up on all this sort of stuff on a volunteer basis..
“Something is definitely wrong if political correctness is hampering the protection of the public from terrorist attacks”. Seriously, Debra, do you even have to qualify the statement with “if”? What was said after Ft. Hood? What was said after the Panty Bomber attempt? Didn’t one of the members of the LSM say words to the effect of “oh damn, he’s a Muslim” about the Times Square asshat?
It seems that the only people ignorant of Maj. Hasan and his hatred of the U.S., were the people who could actually have prevented his actions. But, they were fearful of acting in the PC environment that’s been slowly but surely created over the last decade or threee.
#36 Debra;
Eh, I really wouldn’t expect you to be up to speed on the subject. There’s far too much going on that’s obfuscating the background.