Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 09.30.10

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R  09.30.10

1. FFunch munch       10.01 11:30am
2. Palestine vigil    10.01 4:15pm

3. Peace walk         10.02 9am Cambridge MN
4. Chemicals/health   10.02 10am
5. Sabathani fest     10.02 10am
6. Haiti/women        10.02 10am
7. Safer cleaning     10.02 10am
8. Backyard farming   10.02 11am
9. Fong Lee/cops      10.02 1pm
10. CUAPB             10.02 1:30pm
11. Northtown vigil   10.02 2pm
12. Radical media     10.02 3pm
13. Working democracy 10.02 7pm

14. Stillwater vigil  10.03 1pm
15. Steinhagen dinner 10.03 5pm

16. Pentel campaign - Against the Dem-controlled FBI raids
17. Erwin Marquit   - Communist Party statement on FBI raids in Minnesota
18. Kevin Zeese     - Searches of activists up under Bush-Obama
19. Chris Arsenault - FBI targets US Palestine activists
20. Tom Burghardt   - FBI raids activists in sinister COINTELPRO replay

--------1 of 20--------

From: David Shove <shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu>
Subject: FFunch munch 10.01 11:30am

Ffunch 10.01 11:30am

Meet the FFUNCH BUNCH!
11:30am
First Friday Lunch (FFUNCH) for progressives.
Informal political talk and hanging out.

Day By Day Cafe 477 W 7th Av St Paul.
Meet on the far south side.

Day By Day has soups, salads, sandwiches, and dangerous
apple pie; is close to downtown St Paul & on major bus lines

"Yes Virginia, there is a ffunch."
"That's good daddy, because otherwise I would have suffered lifelong
depression, disenchantment, and a newly discovered extreme variant of
Enkelkling's Diaremic Syndrome..."


--------2 of 20--------

From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net>
Subject: Palestine vigil 10.01 4:15pm

The weekly vigil for the liberation of Palestine continues at the
intersection of Snelling and Summit Aves in St. Paul. The Friday demo
starts at 4:15 and ends around 5:30. There are usually extra signs
available.


--------3 of 20--------

From: Ken Reine <reine008 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Peace walk 10.02 9am Cambridge MN

every Saturday 9AM to 9:35AM
Peace walk in Cambridge - start at Hwy 95 and Fern Street


--------4 of 20--------

From: Erin Parrish <erin [at] mnwomen.org>
Subject: Chemicals/health 10.02 10am

October 2: Planned Parenthood Chemicals and Reproductive Health: It's
Getting Personal. More couples facing infertility. Sperm counts going
down. Reproductive cancers going up. What's going on? Scientists are
finding that exposures to hormone-disrupting chemicals in cosmetics,
plastics, cleaners, and other consumer products we use every day are
playing a role. Keynote speaker: Charlotte Brody, Director of Chemicals
and Green Chemistry, BlueGreen Alliance. Registration, 9:30 AM; Forum, 10
- 11:30 AM. RSVP requested but not required.


--------5 of 20--------

From: Women Against Military Madness <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Sabathani fest 10.02 10am

Sabathani Community Center Annual Event: "Up and Rising Festival"
Saturday, October 2, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Sabathani Community Center,
310 East 38th Street, Minneapolis.

The Sabathani Community Center Annual Event will be host to a number of
activities including; music, entertainment, food, games, and information
about community services at Sabathani. WAMM will have an information booth
available at the event. Endorsed by: WAMM.


--------6 of 20--------

From: Jason Stone <jason.stone [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Haiti/women 10.02 10am

Coffee Hour: Haitians Rebuilding Haiti; Local Connections 10/2/10
10:00am-11:45am
At the Resource Center of the Americas
Presented in English
This Coffee Hour will be about the strength of the women of Haiti.

Speaker: Rea Dol & Paul Miller. Rea Dol, director of the school Sopudep in
Port-au-Prince (PAP). She will be accompanied by her sponser, Paul Miller,
from Nothfield, MN, from the group Haiti Justice Alliance of Northfield.

Contact Information: Rebecca Cramer rebacramer [at] gmail.com


--------7 of 20--------

From: Amber Garlan <agarlan [at] hammclinic.org>
From: Jenny Heiser [mailto:jennylh [at] comcast.net]
Subject: Safer cleaning 10.02 10am

This invitation is being shared with you because I very much care about
your health and that of ones you love -- this includes all the men in our
lives too. It's why I do not use any synthetic chemicals in my business'
cleaning products whether for use at my home or my clients' homes. It's
why I've used straight vinegar as a fabric softener for years, as it has
been well-documented that fabric softeners contain chemicals that are
known hormone interrupters. No doubt this event will alert us to other
chemical hazards that we encounter everyday.

Hope to see you on October 2nd. Feel free to share this invitation with
your sisters, daughters, nieces, daughters-in-law, brothers, sons,
nephews, sons-in-law and anyone else important in your life.

Join us on Saturday, October 2nd for a free public forum of health:
Neighborhood House (Wellstone Community Center)
179 Robie Street East, St. Paul, MN 55107
Registration begins at 9:30, 10-11:30 Forum
RSVP requested, but not required
Contact Katie at krojas-jahn [at] iatp.org or 612.870.3407

Learn about ways to protect your health by choosing safe cosmetics,
non-toxic cleaners and other safe products.

Find out how public policies could better protect our health and how to
get involved in advocating for these policies.

Keynote Speaker :Charlotte Brody, RN
Director of Chemicals and Green Chemistry, BlueGreen Alliance

Charlotte Brody joined the BlueGreen Alliance as Director of Chemicals and
Green Chemistry in January 2010.  Prior to joining the BlueGreen Alliance,
she was the National Field Director for Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families,
a nationwide effort to pass smart federal policies to protect us from
toxic chemicals.

A registered nurse, Charlotte previously served as the Director of
Programs for Green For All, Executive Director of Commonweal, a founder
and Executive Director of Health Care Without Harm and the Public Affairs
Director and Executive Director of a Planned Parenthood affiliate in North
Carolina.


--------8 of 20--------

From: Do It Green! Minnesota <Do_It_Green_Minnesota [at] mail.vresp.com>
Subject: Backyard farming 10.02 11am

Upcoming Do It Green! Minnesota Workshops - Building sustainable,
self-sufficient lifestyles

Backyard Homesteading
October 2nd; 11:00am-1:30pm
$10 or $8 for Do It Green! Members

Tour an organic farm in Winsted, Minnesota!  Learn from the folks that
have tried it all: raising ducks and chickens in suburbia, how to milk a
goat, make cheese, grow enough produce to feed your family on pennies a
day, preserve the harvest, make cider from your own apple trees, make your
own flour and more!  Bring a dish for a picnic potluck and your extra
garden harvest for a produce exchange.

To learn more about the Winstead Organics Farm, Read this article on how
the organic farm began and has grown.

For registration and workshop details email info [at] doitgreen.org or call
612-345-7973. For additional details visit;

Do It Green! Workshops
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?twincitiesgreenguide/8e738d72af/8acadfd1b4/8da313fdd0


--------9 of 20--------

From: Margie Andreason <margie [at] aapip.org>
Subject: Fong Lee/cops 10.02 1pm

Rally & Press Conference for Fong Lee    10/2 1pm

Rally & Press Conference for Fong Lee
Saturday, Oct 2nd from 1pm - 3pm @ Cityview Elementary (3350 North 4th
St. Minneapolis, MN 55412)

Come join family, friends, artists and activists support Fong Lee's family
decision to take their lawsuit to the Supreme Court. On July 22, 2006,
Fong Lee was with a group of friends riding bikes near the North
Minneapolis Cityview Elementary School when Minneapolis police officers
chased them across the playground. Officer Jason Andersen shot Fong Lee
eight times, in the back, side, and then five more shots into Lee's chest
as he lay on the ground. Since then the family has struggled so hard to
find lawyers to support them and have run into many obstacles in the legal
system. Join folks this Sat, Oct 2nd at 1pm for a rally and press
conference at Cityview Elementary (where Fong Lee was killed). We'll be
having stations out for folks to learn more about the case and we'll be
having music and community organizers speak. We're expecting both local
and national media at the event.  Say NO to racial profiling & police
brutality!


--------10 of 20--------

From: Michelle Gross <mgresist [at] visi.com>
Subject: CUAPB 10.02 1:30pm

Meetings: Every Saturday at 1:30 p.m. at Walker Church, 3104 16th Avenue
South http://www.CUAPB.org

Communities United Against Police Brutality
3100 16th Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN 55407
Hotline 612-874-STOP (7867)


--------11 of 20--------

From: Vanka485 [at] aol.com
Subject: Northtown vigil 10.02 2pm

Peace vigil at Northtown (Old Hwy 10 & University Av), every Saturday
2-3pm


--------12 of 20--------

From: "Jaime (Brian) Hokanson" <bjhokanson [at] gmail.com>
Subject: Radical media 10.02 3pm

October 2--Indymedia/EXCO Workshop
Advance registratoion is preferred but not required--register at
http://excotc.org/workshop/make-media-make-trouble
Make Media, Make Trouble

Saturday, October 2, 2010
3-5pm
Hosmer  Library (lower level)
347 East 36th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55408

Workshop Description:
In this 2-hour participatory workshop, we will first collectively examine
some movement media (that is, media created from inside social movements
for the explicit purpose of furthering radical change) from various
local/global struggles crossing race, age, class and gender identities.
Then, we'll do some mediamaking of our own.  Bring your creative mind,
political passions and willingness to interact.  (And, if you want, a
pencil, crayons, videocamera... whatever tools might come in handy!)

Participants will leave with tricks, tactics and inspiration for 1) making
media for radical social change, and 2) taking action to make another
wor(l)d possible.

Printed resources will also be available for participants to take home.

Register for this workshop via EXCO and a confirmation email/phone call will
be made at least one week before the date.

About the Facilitator:  Jaime is a Twin Cities Indymedia collective
member, writer and discontent in south Minneapolis with experience
facilitating participatory media trainings/workshops.  To talk or ask
questions, email me: bjhokanson[at]gmail.com.

Twin Cities Indymedia, or the Twin Cities Independent Media Center
(TCIMC), is the Minneapolis-St. Paul outlet of the global Indymedia
Network, a global network of collectively run
volunteer-and-movement-powered media outlets for the creation of radical,
accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth. We work out of a love and
inspiration for people who continue to work for a better world, despite
commercial media's distortions and unwillingness to cover the efforts to
free humanity.  At TCIMC, publish your media and events:
http://twincities.indymedia.org/publish<http://tc.indymedia.org/publish>check
out the latest submitted news: http://twincities.indymedia.org/local read
more about us: http://twincities.indymedia.org/page/about or follow us if
you're on
facebook<http://www.facebook.com/pages/Twin-Cities-Indymedia/112729025428014>and
twitter <http://twitter.com/tcimc>.


--------13 of 20--------

From: Tom Dooley <fellowcommoditydooley [at] gmail.com>
Subject: Working Democracy 10.02 7pm

Obama's voice is heard several times a day on KTNF AM 950 saying, "CHANGE
IS HAPPENING"  Is it really? Most people don't believe it. Obama is called
Bush III (or sometimes Bush IV if Clinton is included) At any rate, change
WILL happen when a critical mass of us workers become "CLASS CONSCIOUS".

Helping in this is STRATEGY FOR CHANGE, by Jeff Miller, the current topic
of Working Democracy's programs at Mayday Books.
7 PM Sat Oct 2 at Mayday Books 301 Cedar Ave Minneapolis 55454
Food: Yaki Tori (chicken on a stick) and vegetarian egg rolls. Plus more.

FFI Mayday 612 333 4719 or Tom 651 645 0295


--------14 of 20--------

From: scot b <earthmannow [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Stillwater vigil 10.03 1pm

A weekly Vigil for Peace Every Sunday, at the Stillwater bridge from 1- 2
p.m.  Come after Church or after brunch ! All are invited to join in song
and witness to the human desire for peace in our world. Signs need to be
positive.  Sponsored by the St. Croix Valley Peacemakers.

If you have a United Nations flag or a United States flag please bring it.
Be sure to dress for the weather . For more information go to
<http://www.stcroixvalleypeacemakers.com/>http://www.stcroixvalleypeacemakers.com/

For more information you could call 651 275 0247 or 651 999 - 9560


--------15 of 20--------

From: Women Against Military Madness <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Steinhagen dinner 10.03 5pm

Dinner to Honor Sister Rita Steinhagen

Sunday, October 3, 5:00 p.m. Open Arms of Minnesota, 2500 Bloomington
Avenue South, Minneapolis. Join others at a dinner to honor the later
Sister Rita Steinhagen. Sister Rita founded the Bridge for Youth in 1970.
The Bridge is the oldest and largest youth program in Minnesota. As part
of their 40th anniversary Reverend Roy Bourgeois, founder of the School of
the Americas (SOA) Watch will be the featured speaker at a spaghetti
dinner. Cost: $20.00. Wine will be available for an extra contribution.
The event will benefit the SOA Watch and the Bridge for Youth. Folk singer
Larry Long will perform. Endorsed by: WAMM. FFI: Call Phil, 612-822-0522
or Genny, 612-529-3551 or e-mail philwillkie [at] earthlink.net .


--------16 of 20--------

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:35:46 EDT
From: PRO826 [at] aol.com
Subject: Pentel campaign - Against the Dem-controlled FBI raids

The Ken Pentel for Governor campaign strongly opposes the tactics used by
the Democratic Party-controlled FBI system who raided the homes of those
speaking out against the war and other atrocities that the US Government
has perpetuated. We are appalled that we live in a society where citizens
who are practicing their First Amendment rights have been harassed and
intimidated and that the current administration feels justified in
targeting peace activists to suppress dissent and diplomacy.

As mandated in the Ken Pentel for Governor campaign, we feel the political
system is corrupt and broken, as their blatant actions have continually
revealed. Until we open up the political system to a multi-party one,
suppress the corporate money and influence in our government and provide a
paradigm shift in the way we look at our economy, we can expect these
unconscionable tactics to continue. We stand in support for the
individuals and families that were unfairly targeted and for the pain and
suffering they will encounter as they fight for justice.

Ken Pentel for Governor
P.O. Box 3872 Minneapolis, MN 55403 _www.kenpentel.org_
(http://www.kenpentel.org/) _kenpentel [at] yahoo.com_
(http://us.mc562.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=kenpentel [at] yahoo.com) (612)
387-0601


--------17 of 20--------

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 20:56:13 -0500
From: Erwin Marquit <marqu002 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Communist Party statement on FBI raids in Minnesota

Statement by Central and Southern District CPUSA

The September 24, 2010, raids by the FBI on the homes of Minnesota antiwar
activists are an abuse of civil liberties and democratic rights. A strong
protest must include the demand for the return of all seized materials.

The Central and Southern District of the Communist Party USA condemns the
attempt by the FBI to terrorize opponents of the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan by arbitrarily linking antiwar activists to organizations
abroad that the FBI has labeled terrorist. The right of all U.S. citizens
to oppose unjust wars and to travel freely abroad in the interests of
peace and justice must be protected from FBI interference.

For info call
Erwin Marquit 612-922-7993 Marqu002 [at] umn.edu
-

[We now have statements against the FBI raids from many levels of the
Green Party, the parties of Pentel and Cavlan, and the CPUSA. But not one
word from the Dems at any level - nothing from Obama, or Franken, or
Ellison, or Rybak, or the 12 DFL Mpls City Council members. Now why is
that? Dem apologists will make excuses - too soon, they're waiting for
more info, etc - in the hope that after a few days or weeks we will forget
all about it, and the Dems can continue to implicitly or explicitly
support and collaborate with corporate-sponsored suppression of freedom of
speech and action. And of course the apologists have to get us to forget
their criminal silence by the time of the big November vote - we'e
supposed line up again like stupid domestic turkeys and vote for our
oppressors. Support of Dem silence is support for repression. Demand
that Dem reps speak out or get out. -ed]

                   --------------------------------
                    Dem reps: speak out or get out
                   --------------------------------

--------18 of 20--------

Politically Active Americans Facing Searches and Surveillance
Trend of Activist Searches Began Under Bush, Continues Under Obama
by Kevin Zeese
September 30th, 2010
Dissident Voice

Earlier this week the FBI raided six homes of eight peace activists in
Minneapolis and Chicago as well as a Minneapolis office of an antiwar
group. Agents kicked down doors of homes with guns drawn, smashed
furniture, and seized computers, documents, phones, and other materials
without making any arrests. These groups do not use guns and bombs. They
are not terrorists. Their "weapons" are leaflets, newsletters, and
nonviolent demonstrations.

The FBI searches highlight a dangerous trend that has been building for
nearly a decade: domestic surveillance of peace and other activists.
Americans need to understand the context of these raids so they can work
to stop the infringement of constitutional rights.

The raids took place just a few days after a report of the Inspector
General of the U.S. Department of Justice examined 8,000 pages of
documents from 2001 to 2006 and interviewed dozens of FBI agents. The
report blasted the FBI for spying on anti-war activists, animal-rights
groups, and environmentalists, calling them improper "terror"
investigations "unreasonable and inconsistent with FBI policy". Among
those targeted were the anti-war Thomas Merton Center, the Quakers, the
Catholic Worker, Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
and an individual Quaker peace activist. According to the Inspector
General, there was "little or no basis" for the investigations.

Another report found that the FBI used lies and trickery to illegally
obtain thousands of records, then issued after-the-fact approvals in an
attempt to cover it up. Released in January of this year, the report was
the result of another Justice Department investigation which built on a
2007 report covering similar matters. The Inspector General focused on the
FBI's unlawful misuse of the already-unconstitutional informal requests
known as "exigent letters" to demand information which they knew was
illegal. The DOJ report described a "complete breakdown" of procedures
within the FBI. According to the report, the "FBI broke law for years in
phone record searches". Agents repeatedly and knowingly violated the law
by invoking nonexistent "terror emergencies" to get access to information
they were not authorized to have.

This week another Inspector General report found that hundreds of FBI
employees cheated on exams related to domestic surveillance. The report
described how they consulted with others while taking the exam even though
that was forbidden. Others used or distributed answer sheets or study
guides that provided test answers. Still others exploited a computer flaw
that revealed answers. The agents were being tested on 2008 guidelines
that FBI employees must follow when conducting domestic investigations.

Nor do these reports cover all the incidences of domestic surveillance of
civic activists. Former FBI special agent and whistleblower, Colleen
Rowley reports that "in 2008, we found out through a Freedom of
Information request that there are 300 pages of . . . agents trailing a
group of students in Iowa City to parks, libraries, bars, restaurants".
The documents, requested by David Goodner, a former member of the
University of Iowa's Antiwar Committee, under the Freedom of Information
Act, shows the investigation into activities of peace groups in Iowa City
involved staking out homes, secretly photographing and video taping
members, digging through garbage and even planting a mole to spy on the
peace activists up close.

Known as the Wild Rose Rebellion, the protesters were described by the FBI
as an "anarchist collective". In an interview with The Des Moines
Register, the FBI defended its actions because of allegations that certain
people were possibly going to engage in criminal activities to disrupt the
national conventions of one or both major political parties.  The group's
plans were to help organize nonviolent acts of civil disobedience, such as
street blockades, at the 2008 RNC convention.

Pennsylvania awarded a $125,000 no-bid contract to an Israeli-American
consulting firm called the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response,
which spied on peace groups, citizen activists, civic groups and critics
of the Rendell administration. The project was supposed to protect
Pennsylvania citizens by gathering intelligence on potential terrorist
threats, but the private contractor, hired by the state's Department of
Homeland Security, fed information to state officials about the activities
of religious groups, education advocates, BP protesters, anti-tax
protesters, and just about anybody who criticized state government.

In Maryland, Homeland Security and Intelligence Division of the Maryland
State Police conducted undercover operations to spy on people who support
progressive viewpoints.  Undercover Maryland State Police officers
repeatedly spied on peace activists and anti-death penalty groups in
recent years. The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists
as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state
and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police
chief acknowledged in 2008.

In 2009, the state police acknowledged far more extensive surveillance
with records showing that troopers monitored - and labeled as terrorists -
a wide range of activists.  Investigators monitored activists protesting
weapons manufacturer, Lockheed Martin. They watched two pacifist Catholic
nuns from Baltimore, CODE PINK and the DC Anti-War Network, which was
inaccurately designated a white supremacist group. The surveillance
program became public because of documents released during a trespassing
trial for peace activist, Max Obuszewski, the nuns and another activist
arrested during an antiwar rally at the National Security Agency. The
documents showed that Baltimore intelligence officers were tracking them.

In fact, this type of surveillance by the FBI, NorthCom and state and
local police have been reported in many parts of the country, among them
are Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, New York and
Washington.

This current escalation of domestic surveillance of U.S. citizens began
under President Bush and has continued under President Obama.  Throughout
U.S. history there has been a constant battle between the constitutional
rights of citizens and domestic surveillance of political activists,
especially peace advocates. The FBI has a long history of abusing its
authority. If we do not act to curtail these actions we are all in danger
of being spied on and added to terrorist watch lists for doing nothing
more than attending a rally, signing a petition or holding a sign.

Steps are urgently needed to protect the basic constitutional rights of
peace activists and others. These include:

.  President Obama needs to speak out against the surveillance of
Americans who are merely exercising their constitutional rights. As a
former law professor he knows the long history of such abuse and how
important it is to contain enforcement.

.  Removal of FBI director Robert Mueller. His tenure since 2001 has been
littered with abuses of domestic spying. The Inspector General has
concluded Director Mueller provided "inaccurate and misleading
information" to Congress. Mueller also failed to put in place adequate
procedures to ensure the law is obeyed and to ensure agents are aware of
the laws regarding domestic surveillance.

.  Congress needs to hold hearings to investigate the extent of domestic
spying on Americans who are merely exercising the rights to free speech,
to assembly, and to petition the government. These fundamental political
rights need to be protected by tightening up the laws regarding domestic
surveillance which were loosened by the PATRIOT Act.

The escalation of wars abroad by the Obama administration is moving
forward alongside escalation against antiwar activists at home. The groups
targeted in the most recent raids in Illinois and Minnesota, while Marxist
in ideology, endorsed and supported the election of President Obama. Their
Political Report noted "Obama's election represents a rejection of the
Bush administration policies and a desire amongst the people for a
progressive agenda from the government". Now we know that the Obama
administration is moving forward with Bush-era policies that target
anti-war political dissent at the same time that more Americans oppose
Obama's wars.

Kevin Zeese is executive director of Voters for Peace.


--------19 of 20--------

FBI Targets US Palestine Activists
Searches, subpoenas, but no charges for anti-war activists 'providing
support to terrorists' in Colombia and Palestine.
by Chris Arsenault
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Al Jazeera English
Common Dreams

Tracy Molm sometimes has a hard time paying rent, so it came as a surprise
when American security forces banged on her door at 7am one morning, and
searched her apartment under suspicions she provided material support to a
terrorist organisation.

Warrants indicate that investigators believe Molm and at least seven other
activists from the Minnesota anti-war committee and other groups provided
material support to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP) and rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC),
groups the US considers terrorist organisations.

"My assumption is that material support means money and guns, but they
[police] wouldn't explain anything," Molm told Al Jazeera. "I think the
real thing is that they are trying to intimidate those of us who are
standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Colombia."

Activists from Minneapolis and Chicago have been subpoenaed to appear
before a grand jury investigation in October, after coordinated police
raids on September 24.

Despite the searches and seizures of computers, cheque books, mobile
phones, documents and photographs, Molm and other activists have not been
charged with committing a crime.

"The searches were conducted pursuant to a warrant issued by a federal
judge," Royden Rice, a special agent with US Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) in Chicago, told Al Jazeera.

"No arrests have been made or charges filed in connection with this
investigation," he said, leading activists to call the searches a trolling
expedition targeting Americans who object to their government's foreign
policy ventures.

More than 200 people demonstrated in Minnepolis on Monday, denouncing the
raid, according to the Minnesota Daily, while at least 100 rallied in
Chicago on Tuesday to support the anti-war activists. More demonstrations
are planned in other American cities and activists expect the numbers to
increase drastically, as they only had three days to plan the first round
of protests.

"The FBI does not investigate any person or group because of their
political views," said agent Rice. "We investigate allegations that
federal criminal law has been violated."

                'Suppressing political activity'

Bernardine Dohrn, a law professor at Northwestern University in Chicago,
thinks the police are trying to do one of two things. "Either it is a
fishing expedition, as there is not enough evidence to indict [formally
charge] anyone; or it is an attempt to suppress political activity.
Neither are good news," she said.

As a legal scholar, Dohrn worries about the vague nature of national
security laws instituted after the September 11, 2001 attacks on US
targets.

"If you write articles, is that material support [for terrorists]? If you
contribute resources for computers or healthcare clinics in occupied
territories, or territories resisting government control, is that material
support?"

She says grand jury investigations, the legal manoeuvre activists are
facing, represent a way to "circumvent other constitutional protections."

People who appear before a grand jury "cannot bring in a lawyer. It is the
prosecutor, you [the person being investigated] and a group of grand
jurors ... in short it is a coercive method to get information."

Jessica Sundin, a clerical worker at the University of Minnesota, also had
her belongings taken by security forces in the coordinated searches and
seizures. Like Molm, she denies providing material support to any group
and says she has done nothing illegal or unethical.

She believes that the "biggest task of our anti-war movement [in the US]
is to educate our own people."

                   Visit to an occupied country

In that spirit, Molm and other American activists travelled to Palestine
in 2004 to see the conditions there for themselves. "Every day people [in
occupied lands] go through checkpoints with guns pointed at their heads
and they have this horrendous situation, but they continue to live and
laugh," she said.

"The occupation of Palestine is as brutal as it is because US tax dollars,
my tax dollars, support that. Sending people there to bring back
[personal] accounts and pictures is important to building solidarity."

Israel, the power responsible for occupying Palestinian land, received
$2.55bn in American military aid in 2009, according to the US State
Department. That number is expected to increase to $3.15bn per year from
2013 to 2018.

"I don't know why it would be a crime to have a scarf with the Palestinian
flag on it, but they [police] took that," she said.

As for Colombia, the country has received at least $5bn in US military aid
since 1999.

Amnesty International USA, a human rights group, said it "has been calling
for a complete cut off of US military aid to Colombia for over a decade
due to the continued collaboration between the Colombian Armed Forces and
their paramilitary allies."

                       Justifying terror cash

Rather than a vast attempt by security forces to intimidate critics of US
foreign policy, the searches may have a simpler motive: an excuse for
police to justify the massive infusions of federal cash they received
under the pretext of 'fighting terrorism.'

"In Minnesota [the state containing Minneapolis where most searches took
place] a lot of money was put into anti-terrorism efforts," says Sheila
Regan, a reporter with the TC Daily Planet who has been covering issue for
a local audience.

"It has one of the biggest terrorism bureaucracies anywhere; they
[security forces] need something to do to justify their salaries," she
told Al Jazeera.

Like other subpoenaed activists, Molm works for a group called Students
for a Democratic Society (SDS), which had been critical in organising
major demonstrations against the US war in Vietnam back in the 1960s and
70s.

Dohrn was a national leader of the group from 1966-70 and has direct
experience with the grand jury subpoenas which a new generation of
activists is now facing.

"When I was called before a grand jury and refused to collaborate ... I
went to jail and was released eight months later by the same judge, who
said 'apparently there is no evidence against you.' It is a strange way to
have to prove your innocence."

Back in the anti-war movement of the 1960s, a few US activists did travel
to Vietnam to see the affects of B52 bombers, toxic Agent Orange and
support for the western-backed government in South Vietnam.

Jane Fonda, the former activist and work-out video queen, famously stood
next to an anti-aircraft gun with North Vietnamese communists, and decried
the US for what she called its "illegal" bombing campaign against the
country.

                        New activist tools

But today, travelling to places which face foreign military interference -
Palestine or Colombia, Iraq or Afghanistan, Somalia or Yemen - is far
easier, due in part, to technological innovations and the cheap prices for
transportation fostered by global capitalism.

Travel makes human connections easier. And activists in the US say they
are struggling to educate average people about injustices committed, in
their name, in places far from Minnepolis or Chicago.

When Molm went to Palestine in 2004, she says the American media were not
at all interested in the public talks she gave or the "injustices" she
witnessed. "Now I have major media stations asking what I saw there. Now I
can talk about home demolitions and [Israel's separation] wall."

On this front, she says, the grand jury subpoena may prove helpful in the
battle for the hearts and minds of average Americans.

 2010 Aljazeera.net


--------20 of 20--------

FBI Raids Activists' Homes in Sinister COINTELPRO Replay
by Tom Burghardt
September 27th, 2010
Dissident Voice

In a replay of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's infamous COINTELPRO
operations targeting the left during the 1960s and '70s, America's
political police launched raids on the homes of antiwar and solidarity
activists on Friday.

Heavily-armed SWAT teams smashed down doors and agents armed with search
warrants carried out simultaneous raids in Minneapolis and Chicago early
Friday morning.

Rummaging through personal belongings, agents carted off boxes of files,
documents, books, letters, photographs, computers and cell phones from
Minneapolis antiwar activists Mick Kelly, Jessica Sundin, Meredith Aby,
two others, as well as the office of that city's Anti-War Committee.

Meanwhile, as federal snoops seized personal property in Minneapolis, FBI
agents raided the Chicago homes of activists Stephanie Weiner and Joseph
Iosbaker. According to the Chicago Tribune, "neighbors saw FBI agents
carrying boxes from the apartment of community activist Hatem Abudayyeh,
executive director of the Arab American Action Network".

"In addition," the Tribune reported, "Chicago activist Thomas Burke said
he was served a grand jury subpoena that requested records of any payments
to Abudayyeh or his group".

Amongst those targeted by the FBI were individuals who organized peaceful
protests against the imperialist invasion and occupation of Iraq and 2008
protests at the far-right Republican National Convention in St. Paul,
Minnesota.

As Antifascist Calling reported in 2008 and 2009, citing documents
published by the whistleblowing web site WikiLeaks, state and local
police, the FBI and agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security,
the Pentagon's Northern Command (NORTHCOM), the United States Secret
Service, the National Security Agency and the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency implemented an action plan designed to
monitor and squelch dissent during the convention.

As part of that plan's execution, activists and journalists were
preemptively arrested, and cameras, recording equipment, computers and
reporters' confidential notes were seized. Demonstrations were broken up
by riot cops who wielded batons, pepper spray and tasers and attacked
peaceful protesters who had gathered to denounce the war criminals'
conclave in St. Paul.

With Friday's raids, the federal government under "change" huckster Barack
Obama, has taken their repressive program to a whole new level,
threatening activists with the specter of being charged with providing
"material support of terrorism". A felony conviction under this draconian
federal law (Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113B, 2339B) carries a 15 year
prison term.

                        State-Corporate Nexus

The trend by federal, state and corporate securocrats to situate antiwar
and international solidarity activism along a bogus "terrorism continuum,"
is an alarming sign that plans for building an American police state are
well underway as I pointed out in my 2008 analysis of the FBI's
"Counterterrorism Analytical Lexicon".

Recently, the secrecy-spilling web site Public Intelligence posted 137
bulletins produced by the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response
(ITRR), an American-Israeli company, under terms of a $125,000 contract to
the Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security.

Billing itself as "the preeminent Israeli/American security firm providing
training, intelligence and education to clients across the globe,: ITRR is
part of a large, but little understood nexus of "public-private
partnerships" fusing state and corporate surveillance against leftists and
environmentalists.

Amongst the targets of ITRR's alarmist screeds were anti-drilling and
environmental activists, permanent quarry for corporate spies and
provocateurs, as the web site Green Is The New Red (GNR) amply documents.

Earlier this month, GNR reported that while ITRR and their political
paymasters have been monitoring non-violent activists, "including a film
screening of Gasland," Pennsylvania's heimat security boss James Powers
wrote in an email that his office intended to "continue providing this
support to the Marcellus Shale Formation natural gas stakeholders while
not feeding those groups fomenting dissent against those same companies".

In the bizarre parallel universe inhabited by Powers and his Israeli
cohorts, anti-drilling activists are "ecoterrorists," while the
mass-murdering neo-Nazi mastermind of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that
killed 168 people including 19 children, Timothy McVeigh, was "just a
person very angry with the U.S. government".

While corporate polluters and criminals get a free pass from the federal
government and an anti-Muslim and anti-Arab crusade is in full-swing,
stoked by right-wing goons and their media shills, it is little wonder
then, that Friday's raids targeted supporters of the Palestinian
solidarity movement.

                    Neo-McCarthyite Witchhunt

With a pretext that the raids were seeking "evidence related to an ongoing
Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation," FBI spokesperson Steve Warfield
told The New York Times that repressors are "looking at activities
connected to the material support of terrorism".

Attorney Ted Dooley who represents Mick Kelly, a union- and socialist
activist targeted by the Bureau told the Times that the SWAT team broke
down Kelly's door at 7 a.m. on Friday and served a search warrant on his
companion.

According to Dooley, the warrant claimed the secret state was searching
for "evidence" that activist groups had provided "material support" to
"Hezbollah, the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine and the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia".

Dooley told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that the raids are nothing less
than "a probe into the political beliefs of American citizens and any
organization anywhere that opposes the American imperial design".

The political nature of the raids was blatantly transparent. A copy of the
search warrant on Kelly's home obtained by Twin Cities Independent Media
Center (TC-IMC) revealed that the order, signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge
Susan Nelson specified that Kelly's membership in the Freedom Road
Socialist Organization (FRSO) was a primary motive behind the Bureau's
home invasion.

The warrant allowed the FBI to take "documents, files, books, photographs,
videos, souvenirs, war relics, notebooks, address books, diaries,
journals, maps, or other evidence, including evidence in electronic form
relating to Kelly's travels to and from and presence and activities in
Minnesota and other foreign countries, to which Kelly has traveled as part
of his work for FRSO".

Reprising the red-hunting frenzy of the McCarthy period at the height of
the Cold War, the warrant specifies that the Bureau was authorized by
Obama's Justice Department to seize material relating to "the recruitment,
indoctrination, and facilitation of other individuals in the United States
to join FRSO, including materials related to the identity and location of
recruiters, facilitators, and recruits, the means by which the recruits
were recruited to join FRSO, the means by which the recruitment was
financed and arranged".

In other words, with a bogus "terrorism investigation" as a pretext, the
Obama regime is targeting socialist political groups for destruction in
order for Democrats to whip-up "War on Terror" and anticommunist hysteria
prior to November general elections that may see Congress pass into the
hands of the troglodytic Republican faction of war criminals and
corporatists.

                        Grand Jury Intimidation

In addition to turning over the homes of antiwar and solidarity activists
in Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota, the FBI handed out subpoenas ordering
individuals to appear before a federal grand jury that will convene next
month in Chicago.

While the Bureau cannot compel citizens to answer their questions,
administrative means can be used by the secret state to coerce testimony
against fellow activists: the federal grand jury system.

As civil liberties scholar Frank Donner wrote in his groundbreaking book,
The Age of Surveillance: "Federal grand juries, judicial bodies limited
under our legal system to an accusatory role, were in the same way [as
red-hunting congressional committees] taken over by the executive branch
in the Nixon years and converted into intelligence instruments".

Historically, federal grand juries have targeted dissident groups and
individuals as an harassment and intimidation tactic, particularly when
activists and organizations challenged the government's imperial
adventures abroad and capitalist depredations at home.

Individuals subpoenaed by the state who refuse to answer questions posed
by Star Chamber inquisitors can be receive an indeterminate jail sentence
for failing to do so.

During the Nixon administration according to Donner, some one hundred
grand juries subpoenaed more than one hundred thousand witnesses in a
blatant attempt to silence New Left and antiwar groups; as well, members
of the Catholic left and supporters of the African-American, Native
American, Puerto Rican independence and women's liberation movements were
similarly targeted.

While corporate media insist that the COINTELPRO-era disappeared with
Nixon, FBI snoops throughout the 1980s, '90s down to the present moment
have marked the left for destruction.

Recently, Bay Area Indymedia journalist Josh Wolf was jailed for 226 days
in 2006-2007 by the U.S. District Court in San Francisco after refusing to
turn over his raw, unedited video footage to the FBI in connection with
the Bureau's alleged "arson investigation" against anti-G8 anarchist
protests in 2005.

Wolf refused to comply with the subpoena, and National Lawyers Guild
attorneys argued that to do so would have a "chilling effect" on
journalists who covered future protests, effectively transforming
reporters into an arm of the government. Their arguments failed to sway
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and Wolf was imprisoned.

When Wolf was released from the Federal Corrections Institution in Dublin,
California in 2007, he had been jailed longer than any other journalist
for refusing to divulge sources or source materials.

                  Cover-Ups, Terror, Repression

Today, as the capitalist economic crisis deepens and the "War on Terror"
morphs into a multiyear, multibillion dollar boondoggle engorging defense
and security corporations with taxpayer-funded boodle, labor,
environmental and socialist opponents are in the cross-hairs of the Obama
administration, just as they were during the years of the criminal Bush
regime.

Activists with diverse groups such as the Palestine Solidarity Group,
Students for a Democratic Society, the Twin-Cities Anti-War Committee, the
Colombia Action Network, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the
National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera, a Colombian political
prisoner, have now been targeted for "special handling" by Obama's Justice
Department.

As the imperialist occupation project flies off the rails in Afghanistan,
and as governments in Central and South America reject the capitalist
"free trade" paradigm of militarism, hyperexploitation and resource
extraction that benefit grifting North American multinationals and
drug-money laundering banks, the repressive state is moving to shore-up
its crumbling edifice here at home.

Friday's raids are all the more ironic, given the fact that just last week
the Justice Department's own Office of the Inspector General (OIG)
revealed that the Bureau had used false claims to launch "counterterror"
investigations to justify covert spying and infiltration operations by
provocateurs against activist groups across the country.

That report was a whitewash and largely exonerated the Bureau, clearing
secret state agents of deliberate violations of their targets' civil
rights and claimed that FBI snoops were motivated by a concern over
"potential violence," not the leftist views expressed by U.S. policy
opponents.

Although a cover-up, the OIG report disclosed new details of illegal FBI
spying on an array of antiwar, Muslim, environmental and animal rights
groups. Filled with mendacious characterizations designed as an alibi for
"overzealous" agents, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine asserted that people
were placed on terrorist watch lists because of "factually weak" evidence
and that investigations were opened and continued "without adequate
basis," not their opposition to imperialism or destruction of the
environment.

The conduct by secret state repressors however, goes far beyond
overzealousness. In the wake of the provocative 9/11 attacks, materially
aided by the FBI's own informant, the al-Qaeda triple agent Ali Mohamed,
"terrorism" continues to serve as a pretext - and justification - for a
domestic clampdown against organizations engaged in legal political
activity guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and is a key feature of
Washington's "War on Terror" policies.

Parenthetically, Fox News reported Sunday that the Pentagon "has burned
9,500 copies of Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer's memoir 'Operation
Dark Heart,' his book about going undercover in Afghanistan".

"The Defense Intelligence Agency," the right-wing news outlet reports,
"attempted to block key portions of the book that claim 'Able Danger'
successfully identified hijacker Mohammed Atta as a threat to the United
States before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks".

According to Fox, "the DIA wanted references to a meeting between Lt. Col.
Tony Shaffer, the book's author, and the executive director of the 9/11
Commission, Philip Zelikow, removed. In that meeting, which took place in
Afghanistan, Shaffer alleges the commission was told about 'Able Danger'
and the identification of Atta before the attacks. No mention of this was
made in the final 9/11 report".

Undercover at the time, Shaffer recounted that there was "stunned silence"
at the meeting after he told the executive director of the commission and
others that Atta was identified as early as 2000 by "Able Danger"..

While far-right terrorists are given entre to the United States by secret
state agencies to murder its own citizens, organizations targeted by the
Bureau's blanket spying according to the Inspector General included
Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Catholic Worker
and the Thomas Merton Center, a pacifist group dedicated to nonviolence.
In one telling passage, Fine wrote, "in some cases, the FBI classified
some investigations relating to nonviolent civil disobedience under its
'acts of terrorism' classification".

Given imperial assertions by the Bush and now, Obama regimes, that the
Executive Branch, and it alone, has the authority to arrest and
indefinitely detain anyone it so chooses without trial, on suspicion of
"terrorism," categorizing nonviolent protesters as "terrorists" could lead
to the seizure of individuals so designated and send them on a one-way
trip to a military gulag such as Guantnamo Bay or even a CIA "black site".

In a statement commenting on the release of the OIG's report, Michael
German, the American Civil Liberties Union Senior Policy Counsel, and a
former FBI whistleblower said:

"The FBI has a long history of abusing its national security surveillance
powers, reaching back to the smear campaign waged by the American
government against Dr. Martin Luther King. Americans peacefully exercising
their First Amendment rights were able to become targets of FBI
surveillance because spying guidelines that were established after the
shameful abuses of the 60s and 70s were loosened in 2002. Unfortunately,
they were loosened again in 2008, even after this abuse was uncovered.

"Unless the rules regulating the FBI are strengthened to safeguard the
privacy of innocent Americans, we are all in danger of being spied on and
added to terrorist watch lists for doing nothing more than attending a
rally or holding up a sign".

With Friday's raids on activist homes, the Bureau has issued its
unambiguous reply to the Inspector General and the American people.

In response, over 150 people attended a community meeting in Minneapolis
Friday night "on less than six hours notice, to begin to respond to Friday
morning's FBI raids and subpoenas to local antiwar and international
solidarity organizers," the Twin Cities Independent Media Center reported.

"Organizers," according to TC-IMC, "also announced two upcoming events: a
protest outside the Minneapolis FBI office, 111 Washington Ave. S., at
4:30pm on Monday; and a solidarity committee meeting on Thursday at 7pm,
location to be determined. The subpoenas ask activists to appear before a
grand jury in Chicago, where a solidarity vigil was held last night as a
raid was still ongoing in that city, on or around October 19, reported a
Chicago Indymedia post".

Minnesota civil rights attorney Bruce Nestor told the St. Paul Pioneer
Press that he was "profoundly troubled" by the raids. "Overwhelmingly
they're people who are doing public political organizing, so I think it's
shocking to have heavily armed federal agents show up at their homes" ...
It's all people involved in anti-war activity, and it appears to be
focused largely on opposition to the U.S. policy in Colombia and
Palestine".

Nestor added. "This is a direct attack on people who are strong, dedicated
advocates of freedom, of the right of people to be free from US
domination. It is an attack upon anybody who organizes against US
imperialism and US militarism abroad".

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay
Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly and Global
Research, an independent research and media group of writers, scholars,
journalists and activists based in Montreal, his articles can be read on
Dissident Voice, The Intelligence Daily and Pacific Free Press. He is the
editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance"
Planning, distributed by AK Press.


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