No Need for Clandestinity in the US (and other modern myths)

[Rubyg580@xxxxxxx]

For anyone who still may be laboring under the illusion that freedom
of speech and of the press is inviolable just because the constitution
says so, I invite you to wake up and smell the imperialist superpower
bourgeois coffee!

Those rights granted by the bourgeoisie (NOT "endowed by the
creator", as any marxist or even wide-awake person knows) are
infringed regularly and often viciously, especially where immigrants
>from oppressed countries are concerned.  Yes there are many
cases where mass movements have won release from detention,
assylum, stays of deportation or other demands for people like
Dennis Brutus or the LA8 (7Palestinian men and a Kenyan woman
arrested years ago for distributing PFLP literature, who recently
won an appeal from the 9th district court of appeal overturning a
deportation against them).  These are the "high profile" cases.
Many many others are never heard from: people are just arrested
and deported to whatever fate awaits them.

There are also many cases where political activists have languished
in prison for years and decades, in spite of total lack of evidence
linking them to the "crimes"they are convicted of (Leonard Peltier)
or the existence of direct evidence proving their innocence(Geronimo
Pratt).  Of course, people know about Mumia Abu-Jamal who's STILL
on death row for a crime he did not commit.

There are vicious "control units" similar to the one in Lexington KY,
closed a few years ago due to continuous protest, where Puerto Rican
Independista Alejandrina Torres and several other women political
prisoners were kept in absolutely inhuman conditions of sensory
deprivation and isolation.  9 MOVE members are still incarcerated,
with 30 to 100 year sentences, for the "murder" of one cop killed by
a bullet from another cop's gun in the 1978 seige of the MOVE house
in Philladelphia (others arrested in that raid, who renounced their
MOVE affiliation were released years ago).

And don't forget Malcolm X, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, the Kent
State massacre and the one at Jackson State; the anti-Klan
demonstrators in North Carolina in 1979, or the activist in Mumia's
defense in LA just recently found shot to death execution-style. The
list goes on and on and on.  THIS is the reality of freedom in the USA.

Even when it doesn't lead to execution, lengthy incarceration or
deportation, harrassment by the pigs can be and is used to disrupt
and interfere with political work.  Food Not Bombs activists in San
Francisco have been arrested dozens of times and thousands of
pounds of food destroyed to prevent them from serving free food to
the homeless.

I myself have been arrested several times, for distributing literature or
newspapers of a political nature, or for hanging posters for political
events.  One arrest was for the "crime" of tresspassing, in a public
area of a public hospital (the cafeteria, where I was EMPLOYED at
the time, although off duty that day)  When I handed a flyer about
May 1 activities to a co-worker who was fixing the coffee, I was grabbed
by the security police and sent downtown to lock-up for the rest of
the day.  True enough, the charges were later dropped, but only after
I had been prevented from doing more political work that day, and after
I had paid a lawyer to represent me.

It is NO ACCIDENT that the harsher penalties described here are
levied against people of color and those from oppressed countries.
Look at the incarceration rates for Black youth and Latino youth in
general.  When I was working in that hospital cafeteria (where I was
one of 2-3 white workers among mostly Black workers)  i soon
discovered that I did not know a single Black man who could not tell
me of at least one instance where he had been stopped by the police
for NOTHING--essentially, for BEING a young Black male. period.
Rodney King and Riverside happen ALL the time.

There is NOTHING absurd about supporters of the People's War in
Peru living in this country, regardless of their immigration status,
becoming suspicious when an over-zealous reporter starts asking
questions about "personal interest" topics, even if those questions
have been asked in all innocence.  There is no immunity granted by
the system for naïvete.  There is nothing sinister about political
activists taking every precaution possible to ensure their physical
safety and ability to function; nothing odd about people taking
seriously EVERY contact by the political police, no matter how
minor it may seem to the casual observer.

Gina/ Detroit


     --- from list marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---