The
right-wing agenda to put a chill on
legitimate, nonviolent protests has been
underway for several years. So far, it has
been insufficient to curtail the growing
number of protests against the repressive
conditions that racial capitalism has created
yet expect us to suffer in silence. History is
repeating itself as the U.S. government
intensifies its War on Terrorism that has
slowly and not surprisingly united with the
efforts of white supremacists to target
progressive social movements fighting for
democracy.
Federal
laws do not clearly define domestic terrorism
as they have with the definition for
international terrorism. The right has taken
advantage of the vagueness with its own
interpretations. Our civil society has seen
the steady blurring of lines between movement
activities and real-time domestic terrorists
since 9/11. We saw the first wave of laws,
like the Patriot Act, be put in place under
the guise of national security.
Rarely
have we seen these laws be applied to those
who really are a threat to national security.
It is reminiscent of the FBI’s view that the
Black Panther Party was Public Enemy #1 which
directed large amounts of resources to kill
and exile its leaders and dismantle the Party
through COINTELPRO. The Ku Klux Klan has never
been dubbed with such a title despite the fact
that its accepted characterization is a white
supremacist, terrorist, hate group. The
government and the mainstream media have been
reluctant to call the January 6 attack on the
U.S. Capitol an act of domestic terrorism.
Since
2015, nearly 300 anti-protest bills have been
introduced in almost every state. That number
increased with the protests of George Floyd’s
murder by police in 2020. In Missouri, we have
beat back the most punitive of these laws, but
the legislative session is not over. Two years
ago, Florida passed HB1 which has already had
a chilling impact on movement protests while
shielding vigilantes and counter-protestors
against liability when they act recklessly.
Republican governors will abuse their
authority to further the GOP agenda. Georgia’s
Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency
against “unlawful assemblage.” These
declarations can trigger the deployment of the
National Guard against citizens.
Perhaps
the most disturbing act of collaboration
between reactionary forces and the government
came together with the recent filing of
domestic terrorism charges against 42 Stop Cop
City Protestors in Atlanta. Protestors are
righteously fighting against the building of a
massive 85-acre police training facility at
the cost of $90 million. Sadly, environmental
activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terá was killed
during the protests. No charges have been made
in that crime.
The
Cop City fight has been temporarily derailed
as movement supporters rally to mount a
serious legal defense to free the protestors
and safeguard our constitutional rights to
freedom of speech and freedom to assemble. It
could mean long jail waits for trials and
costly legal fees.
We
can expect these coordinated attacks on our
right to organize, to speak out and to
assemble in the name of justice and democracy
to escalate. We must not allow the government
to pick off leaders or organizations because
they are not in our city or state. Or because
the government has deemed them to be outside
troublemakers. To lose any ground in this
fight now will be a devastating step backward
as we face more authoritarian types of laws,
tactics and governance in the future.
We
who believe in freedom and democracy must
galvanize all sectors of our movements from
attorneys to funders. This is our reality and
only we can change it by intensifying a
united, coordinated campaign against the
tyrannical acts designed to criminalize and
de-legitimize the resistance by progressive
organizations fighting for transformative
change in the U.S.
