The Glorious Revolutionary Federation of Fortune 500 Killers issued the following statement on what it called a "counter-productive, Bush-centered view on the emerging military-police state" that pervades mainstream and left establishment writing on the topic:
"Some people apparently think awful incursions on Americans' civil liberties began after 9/11 and that things were paradise beforehand during the reign of Clinton the Beloved. The Federation, as usual, has no choice but to inject integrity into the foul deluded minds of liberal rot.
In 1999, during the Seattle protests, riot police beat up marchers and sprayed tear gas and shot rubber bullets indiscriminately. SOme rubber bullets were embedded underneath marchers' skin. One can find a good critical account of the events in 'Five Days that Shook the World" by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair.
Much demagogic hysteria over how much *BUSH* is to blame for civil liberties incursions stems from recent police conduct at the Republican National Convention, where more than a thousand protestors were detained for up to 50 hours before release. The Federation condemns this conduct, but notes that it is hardly a product of the Bush Administration. At the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, to take just one example, police arrested Ruckus Society founder John Sellers for walking down a street. At the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, police brutality easily exceeded anything seen at the New York City Republican National Convention. An outdoor Rage Against the Machine concert at the 2000 convention came to an abrupt end when riot police decided to fire rubber bullets and tear gas at protestors and many non-participating bystanders.
At the regional level, a May Day 2001 march in Long Beach, CA ended similarly, with many activists having to enter the emergency room because of wounds suffered from police misconduct.
Then there is the systematic racist police brutality that existed through the 1980s but really took new hold during the 1990s with the Clinton-era record spike in War on Drugs activity. As Tom Hayden notes in his new book on street gangs and anti-gang policy, fraternities have long existed in major metropolitan police departments where members ascend the ranks for beatings, flouting guidelines, and planting evidence. When one individual instance of this is exposed, as happened when police officers in the Ramparts district were found to have planted drug evidence, commentators prefer to describe it as a slight blight on an otherwise functioning system, whereas it really represents mere extremity of the norm. Racist profiling, harassment of black and latino youth under the guise of "anti-gang" activity, and no-knock SWAT raids on primarily black and latino homes supposedly in possession of drugs increased dramatically under Bill Clinton's reign.
In short, what we are seeing today is a logical continuation of a foundation laid during the Clinton era. The anti-Bushites forget that the Patriot Act amends a series of EXISTING laws, most notably the disastrous 1996 Anti-Terorrism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which increased the number of capital crimes and severely curtailed right of appeal such that death penalty defendants only have six months to a year for preparing an appeal. Because of lax enforcement of the Freedom of Information Act and comparable state statutes, and anemic efforts by either party to correct this, many defendants do not receive necessary documents in time and are executed without a fair appeal.
Although idiot sell-out filmmaker Michael Moore, hero of unanalytical poorly read morons, claims to have read the Patriot Act in his awful new movie (Federation movie review: no stars), the two cases he cites in the film's section on the Patriot Act have NOTHING TO DO with the Patriot Act. Local law enforcement's infiltration of activist groups (case one) and law enforcement questioning of the politically outspoken (case two) occurred during the 1990s, especially after the Seattle protests. We can only conclude Moore never really did read the Patriot Act and that his grasp of civil liberties is no better than that of a retarded dog.
We acknowledge that for FOREIGNERS and IMMIGRANTS on American soil and the Guantanomo prisoners, subjects egregiously skipped over in Moore's movie, post-9/11 legal changes have resulted in sweeping rights to detain and harass. But this is not something that entirely rests with Bush. The Democrats ushered in the legislation that made this possible. And they've hardly made it a campaign issue. Doing so might force them to confront the fact that most voted for the racist legislation. It's the same reason why they have avoided making Iraq a central campaign issue.
In short, ascribing all the civil liberties problems of this country to one date, September 11, and one Administration, Bush's, is a way to avoid uncomfortable long-term thinking. It also reflects the deep-seaded racism of the so-called protest movement, many members of whom only seem to take notice of or care about our military-police state when it jails people of their demographic and complexion."
The Glorious Revolutionary Federation of Fortune 500 Killers is an anti-racist, anti-capitalist student insurgent group based at Columbia University. For more information, e-mail ceodeath99 at yahoo.com
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