On Democrats' Thought-Crime Law

(Letter)

6 January 2008

Dear Editor,

“Torture, Lies and Videotape” (WV No. 905, 4 January 2008) could well have made reference to the new, draconian augmentation of the Patriot Act sailing through Congress: H.R. 1955 or the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.” It should be pointed out to the “Anybody but Bush” reformists of the Revolutionary Communist Party that this monstrosity is very much the product of the Democratic-controlled House. Authored by California Democrat Jane Harman, who also gave us the Patriot Act, the bill was passed by the House on 23 October 2007 by a vote of 404-6, with “Left Coast” liberals Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters voting for.

Dennis Kucinich, one of the three Democrats voting against, called it a “thought crime bill” that “really sets the stage for further criminalization of protest.” Politicians like Kucinich serve to foster the illusion that the Democrats can be pressured to serve the interests of working people. He wants to give bloody American imperialism a facelift and calls for a “Department of Peace” alongside the Pentagon. To do Washington’s dirty work in Iraq, he calls for UN peacekeepers to replace American troops. These are the same “Blue Helmets” who set up the 1961 murder of the leader of the Congolese independence movement, Patrice Lumumba, and today rape, terrorize and slaughter the desperately poor of Haiti.

H.R. 1955 is based in part on the NYPD study on “Homegrown Terrorism,” produced earlier in 2007, as well as a 2005 study by the Pentagon think tank RAND Corporation. In the language of COINTELPRO, H.R. 1955 calls for a ten-person National Commission to “examine and report upon the facts and causes of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism and ideologically based violence in the United States” in order to make policy and legislative recommendations for their “prevention, disruption and mitigation.” “Violent radicalization” is defined as “the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change” (my emphasis). “Ideologically based violence” is defined as “the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs.” A union strike, an antiwar sit-in, a Marxist newspaper, a mosque’s call to prayer could all be pilloried by this modern-day Inquisition. “Anti-terrorist” laws target immigrants, blacks, labor—No to the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act”!

Comradely,
Reuben Samuels