by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
July 11, 2011
Image via Wikipedia
On May 17 at 5 in the morning the Chicano activist Carlos Montes got a wake-up call at his home in California from Barack Obama’s security state. The Los Angeles County sheriff’s SWAT team, armed with assault rifles and wearing bulletproof vests, as well as being accompanied by FBI agents, kicked down his door, burst into his house with their weapons drawn, handcuffed him in his pajamas and hauled him off to jail.
Montes, one of tens of thousands of Americans who have experienced this terrifying form of military-style assault and arrest, was one of the organizers of the demonstrations outside the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., and he faces trial along with 23 other anti-war activists from Minnesota, as well as possible charges by a federal grand jury.
[…]
via Truthdig
Copyright © 2011 Truthdig
Chris Hedges spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. His latest books are Death of the Liberal Class, and The World as It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress.
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[DS added the videos.]
FBI Targeting Political Activists as Terrorists
GlobalResearchTV on May 27, 2011
Anti-terrorism resources are being used to target environmentalists, peace, animal and political activists who hold different views than the government.
It was recently revealed that a counter-terrorism firm spied on individuals who attended film screenings of the documentary Gasland. The film focuses on the practice of natural gas fracking and what impact it has on the environment and in the communities where it is used.
The FBI and other government agencies are cracking down on those who are not willing to say in line with the status quo.
In Pennsylvania, activists have faced terrorism charges for writing slogans in chalk on sidewalks. In California, 27 individuals are set to go on trial stemming for protest actions Elsewhere 23 anti-war, pro-labor and international solidarity activists may face a grand jury on trumped up charged. The FBI boasts 164,000 suspicious activity reports that are made up of activists who do not follow the governments view on matters.
The US government is using taxpayer money to squash the competition as opposed to protecting the American people from true terrorist threats, all while stomping on freedom of speech rights.
Carlos Montes, a co-founder of the Brown Berets Chicano Movement explained there is a marked rise of the US government using tools at their disposal designed to fight terrorism to impose oppression on political activists.
“The protest movements are directly exposing and challenging the lines that the US government puts out,” he said, yet law enforcement authorities continue to crack down without just cause. “It’s a war against dissent.”
The government is working to stop the movement which is merely seeking to exercise its right to free speech and the right to protest
“They’re trying to stop us but we’re not going to let them do it,” Montes added.
Originally aired on RT, May 26, 2011.
http://rt.com/usa/news/fbi-political-activists-terrorists/
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Updated
LA Peace Activist Carlos Montes Supported by Local Peace Groups
UpTakeVideo on Jul 11, 2011
Minneapolis peace activists rallied on the Lake Street Bridge on July 6 in support of recently arrested friend and ally, Carlos Montes. He was in the Twin Cities for the Republican National Convention in 2008 and has been vocal in support of peace activists targeted by the FBI. On May 17 at 5 a.m. the SWAT Team of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and members of the FBI raided Montes’ home. Montes is a longtime Chicano activist and member of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression. The SWAT Team smashed his front door and rushed in with automatic weapons as Carlos slept. The team of sheriffs and FBI agents proceeded to ransack his house, taking his computer, cell phones and hundreds of documents, photos, diskettes and mementos of his current political activities in the pro-immigrant rights and Chicano civil rights movement. Also taken were hundreds of historical documents related to Carlos Montes’ involvement in the Chicano movement for the past 44 years. Carlos was arrested on one charge dealing with a firearm code and released on bail the following morning.
LA Peace Activist Carlos Montes Supported by Local Peace Groups
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Cynthia McKinney & Ray McGovern Support Local FBI Targets
UpTakeVideo on Jul 11, 2011
Former Congresswoman and 2008 Green Party Presidential Nominee Cynthia McKinney joined fellow peace activist and former senior CIA analyst Ray McGovern in voicing support for the Minneapolis activists targeted in last fall’s FBI raids. They were summoned to testify before a Chicago Grand Jury.
McKinney and McGovern were attending the 2011 version of Peacestock at a farm near Hager City, Wis. McKinney was involved in the 2010 attempt to deliver relief supplies to the Gaza Strip, and McGovern just returned from Athens, were he was part of the attempted 2011 flotilla to Gaza. McKinney has an international reputation for her peace efforts including receiving The Munich American Peace Committee Peace Prize in 2010. As a senior CIA analyst, McGovern was in charge of preparing daily security briefs for President Reagan and later for President George H.W. Bush. After retiring, he has became a vocal peace advocate and has been arrested in Washington, D.C., for his demonstrating.
Cynthia McKinney Ray McGovern Support Local FBI Targets
see
Julia Davis: The Terror Within, interviewed by Peter B. Collins and Sibel Edmonds
21st Century FBI: An Embarrassment to Justice J. Edgar Would be Proud
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