On Sun, 25 Jun 2006 07:51:46 -0700 (PDT) andie nachgeborenen
<andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> writes:
> Before everyone blows a gasket at what I am about to
> say, I will begin by saying that I do not think that
> these guys should be prosecuted and I would happily
> and zealously defend them if asked and permitted (they
> are probably going to be indicted in Fla., right?).
>
>
> In the days when I was doing things where the issue
> might arise with people I was working with rather than
> merely representing, we used to say that anyone who
> suggested any such thing was a provocateur or a cop.
> Seems that was true here. People should learn the
> lesson. I defend people who are far less sympathetic
> than these characters, and I don't think idiocy means
> that anyone should go to jail to satisfy the
> administrations' hunger for a successful antiterrorism
> prosecution. (This one probably won't go anywhere
> either.) But really, put brain in gear before engaging
> mouth.
I would agree that these guys don't seem to be very bright. But the fact is, it's not at all difficult to get young disaffected men to trashtalk against the government and so forth and to engage in fantasizing about engaging in all sorts of actions that would seem to be well beyond their means and capacities. People shouldn't go prison simply because they're dumb. Apparently these guys didn't have the sort of political experience and sophistication that is typical for members of the LBO-Talk list. Well, I suppose that they will now be getting that opportunity.
This whole episode reminds me not only of the tactics that the Feds used against the left back in the 1960s and 1970s but also of the tactics used by the Czarist secret police in Russia. They used to send out agents to student hangouts and such in order to recruit disaffected young people into joining, what they were being led to believe, were revolutionary conspiracies against the regime. After which, these young people would then be arrested. This allowed the Czarist regime to claim all sorts of victories against the revolutionary underground. And indeed they were quite successful at infiltrating revolutionary groups. As I recall the assasin of the conservative prime minister, Stolypin, was in the pay of the secret police.
>
> This episode is not like the original Chicago Seven
> case, where serious activists were framed for things
> they were not responsible for in the context of a
> political protest which, if it got out of hand, was
> nonetheless right and just. (I am happy to say that
> one of the judges I clerked for wrote the opinion
> overturning their conviction -- way before my time, I
> should add. I'm ancirnt but not that ancient.)
>
> --- tfast <tfast at yorku.ca> wrote:
>