Carlos Montes Saddled with Probation

The court case against Chicano activist Carlos Montes ended on June 5 in Los Angeles when Montes pleaded “no contest” to one count of perjury in exchange for the local district attorney dropping the three remaining felonies against him. Although Montes will receive no prison time, he now must serve three years of formal probation, which will keep him under the thumb of the capitalist state, and 180 hours of community service. He also is prohibited from possessing any weapons. Montes was originally charged with six felonies, two of which were dropped on March 27, and faced up to 18 years in jail.

A leftist political activist for 40-plus years, Montes is a supporter of the reformist Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) and writes for its newspaper, Fight Back! He was one of the victims in an FBI frame-up of 24 leftists, antiwar organizers and union activists. Beginning in September 2010, the FBI raided homes and offices, mainly in the Midwest, as part of an “anti-terror” witchhunt (see “Protest FBI Raids on Leftists, Union Activists!” WV No. 966, 8 October 2010). Early on 17 May 2011, the FBI and an L.A. Sheriff’s SWAT team broke down Montes’ door and, with automatic assault rifles leveled, ransacked his home, seizing his notes and papers.

The agents arrested Montes under reactionary gun control laws, claiming that he had violated a firearms code because he supposedly had a felony on his record and therefore was prohibited from owning a gun. However, as the Committee to Stop FBI Repression pointed out, “according to a recent court document, this charge was sentenced as a misdemeanor. The prosecution is basing its case on this 42-year-old misdemeanor, disguising it as a bogus felony” (fightbacknews.org, 25 March). That misdemeanor stems from a 1969 student strike for black, Chicano and women’s studies at East L.A. College during which police beat and arrested protesters. On his way home, Montes was arrested and accused of assaulting a sheriff’s deputy—with an empty soda can!

While we certainly welcome the fact that Montes will not be imprisoned, the onerous penalties that he has been saddled with are not a “victory against repression” as the FRSO’s Web site trumpeted. In fact, what transpired is the normal workings of the American “injustice” system—bogus felony charges threatening decades in prison are routinely leveled in order to coerce plea agreements to lesser charges. In the same posting, the FRSO touted its petition campaign calling on Barack Obama, Commander-in-Chief of U.S. imperialism, and his top cop Attorney General Eric Holder to “Stop the FBI campaign of repression against Chicano, immigrant rights, anti-war and international solidarity activists now!” But the very business of the FBI is repression, and it is Obama and Holder who—in upholding the interests of the racist capitalist ruling class—unleash such agents of state terror against workers and the oppressed.

During the 2008 elections, the FRSO pushed the dangerous myth that the election of Obama would reverse the worst policies of George W. Bush. But Obama’s intent always was to wage a more effective “war on terror,” and he has since implemented repressive measures that go well beyond what Bush accomplished. So-called socialists who seek to pressure the capitalist Democratic Party to “do right” are an obstacle to mobilizing the working class and the oppressed in defense of their own interests.