[CitizensTruth] Beware of the Vegans

[Hal Snyder]

 From Glenn Greewald's latest series on mass arrests etc. in St.  
Paul. Note the part calling for infiltration of "vegan groups". They  
are the worst, good to know Homeland Security / FBI is placing agents  
inside 'em:

As the police attacks on protesters in Minnesota continue -- see this  
video of the police swarming a bus transporting members of Earth  
Justice an environmental activist group, seizing the bus and leaving  
the group members stranded on the side of the highway -- it appears  
increasingly clear that it is the Federal Government that is  
directing this intimidation campaign. Minnesota Public Radio reported  
yesterday that "the searches were led by the Ramsey County Sheriff's  
office. Deputies coordinated searches with the Minneapolis and St.  
Paul police departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Today's Star Tribune added that the raids were specifically "aided by  
informants planted in protest groups." Back in May, Marcy Wheeler  
presciently noted that the Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force --  
an inter-agency group of federal, state and local law enforcement led  
by the FBI -- was actively recruiting Minneapolis residents to serve  
as plants, to infiltrate "vegan groups" and other left-wing activist  
groups and report back to the Task Force about what they were doing.  
There seems to be little doubt that it was this domestic spying by  
the Federal Government that led to the excessive and truly despicable  
home assaults by the police yesterday.
So here we have a massive assault led by Federal Government law  
enforcement agencies on left-wing dissidents and protesters who have  
committed no acts of violence or illegality whatsoever, preceded by  
months-long espionage efforts to track what they do. And as  
extraordinary as that conduct is, more extraordinary is the fact that  
they have received virtually no attention from the national media and  
little outcry from anyone. And it's not difficult to see why. As the  
recent "overhaul" of the 30-year-old FISA law illustrated -- preceded  
by the endless expansion of surveillance state powers, justified  
first by the War on Drugs and then the War on Terror -- we've  
essentially decided that we want our Government to spy on us without  
limits. There is literally no police power that the state can  
exercise that will cause much protest from the political and media  
class and, therefore, from the citizenry.
Beyond that, there is a widespread sense that the targets of these  
raids deserve what they get, even if nothing they've done is remotely  
illegal. We love to proclaim how much we cherish our "freedoms" in  
the abstract, but we despise those who actually exercise them. The  
Constitution, right in the very First Amendment, protects free speech  
and free assembly precisely because those liberties are central to a  
healthy republic -- but we've decided that anyone who would actually  
express truly dissident views or do anything other than sit meekly  
and quietly in their homes are dirty trouble-makers up to no good,  
and it's therefore probably for the best if our Government keeps them  
in check, spies on them, even gets a little rough with them.
After all, if you don't want the FBI spying on you, or the Police  
surrounding and then invading your home with rifles and seizing your  
computers, there's a very simple solution: don't protest the  
Government. Just sit quietly in your house and mind your own  
business. That way, the Government will have no reason to monitor  
what you say and feel the need to intimidate you by invading your  
home. Anyone who decides to protest -- especially with something as  
unruly and disrespectful as an unauthorized street march -- gets what  
they deserve.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/09/01/protests/index.html


In 2004 Derrick Jensen wrote:

Here are some questions I’ve been thinking about lately. If Nazis or  
other fascists took over North America—long pause, the raising of one  
eyebrow—what would we all do? Consider Mussolini’s definition of  
fascism: “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism  
because it is a merger of State and corporate power.” What if this  
occupied country called itself a democracy, but most everyone  
understood elections to be shams, with citizens allowed to choose  
between different wings of the same Fascist (or, following Mussolini,  
Corporate) party? What if protesting and other nonviolent dissent  
were opposed by storm troopers and secret police? Would we fight  
back? If a resistance movement already existed, would we join it?
And what would we do if those in power then instituted laws allowing  
them to put one-third of all Jewish males between the ages of  
eighteen and thirty-five into concentration camps? Substitute African- 
American for Jewish and ask yourself the same question.

http://www.derrickjensen.org/fear01.html

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