Right, Michael, I'll explain in real simple terms. This is the way it works. They pick someone who's a little bit of an outlier, two steps beyond the fringe of respectability. Her politics are left but flavored with Stalinism, her rhetoric is a little heated, so nice liberals (I'm a not-nice liberal) can wash their hands of her, thinking they are safe.
She steps a bit over the line of legality, as I said, lawyers do this all the time, especially in political cases. Normally the penalty for violation of a gag order is a stern lecture, maybe a contempt citation. Anyway, they come down on her with all four feet, terrorism prosecution and conviction, up to 30 years in prison. The penalty does not fit the crime.
This is a political act -- it is a message. The message is, if you don't stay waaay inside the line, and probably stay clear of "bad" clients, we'll sodomize you with a nightstick, get it? Meanwhile it splits the left from the nice liberals because they go after her, saying she's unworthy of defense. It's working. Don't help, Michael.
Look, Lynne's political judgment is not the issue here. I'm a liberal democrat, so the next Lynne and I can hang out at NLG meeting (we hope) we can bang heads, but right now she's a comrade. Whether she followed the most prudent strategy to help her client is not the issue. You're not even a lawyer, you don't know the case, you haven't a clue, and if her strategy was wrong the penalty is not a criminal conviction. She copped a terrorism conviction and faces 30 years in the can, btw the federal system has no parole, and you carp at her rhetoric for being a bit wild? I have thought myself that we might be facing creeping fascism, do you really that that's an insane proposition? I thought that in the circumstances the speech was courageous and inspiring. You shoukd do sow ell the circumstances. Finally, the idea that Lynne should not ask for solidarity is bizzare.
Bottom line. The drums are rolling. They're coming. They start with the likes of whatisname, the alleged "dirty bomber" they haven't charged, Jose something I think, supposedly a Puerto Rican gangbanger, they they go for Lynne, they're moving closer to me and you. They don't need to put us all in camps. "I deplore brutality. It's inefficient." (Dr. Benway in Burroughs' Naked Lunch.) All they have to do is slam a few people hard enough to intimidate the rest, ands drive enough divisions so that we don't support the ones who do get carved off and diced. They'll leave the shell of constitutional liberty with nothing inside.
And what will you say when they come for Doug, or me, or indeed, for you?
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Michael Dawson wrote:
>
> >4. Like Churchill, she has nothing to apologize to
> the left for.
>
> Not right now, no. Why is this so hard to
> understand? They're the
> leading edge of an intensified crackdown, and
> respectability is no
> defense.
>
> Doug
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