"Like the PATRIOT Act’s notion of “domestic terrorism,” the AEPA strategically exploits semantic vagueness in order to subsume virtually every form of protest and demonstration against exploitative industries to a criminal -- specifically, terrorist -- act. Thus, the actions of two or more people can be labeled as “terrorist” if they leaflet a circus, protest an experimental lab, block a road to protect a forest, do a tree-sit, block the doors of a fur store, or, even organize an effective boycott.[22] On the sweeping interpretations of such legislation, one imagines that Martin Luther King Jr., Mohandas Gandhi, and Cesar Chavez could today be vilified and imprisoned as terrorists, since the intent of their principled boycott campaigns was precisely to cause economic damage to unethical businesses." inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/vol3/vol3_no3_best.htm
Posted on: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 23:21:26 +0000