Activism Is Not a Crime: Why I Will Not Testify Before This Federal Grand Jury

Peacenik will not be watching the State of the Union speech tonight. Peacenik doesn't want to puke. There seems to be little doubt that Obama is on board with the dismantling of Social Security and the last shreds of the social safety net. But he probably won't say anything tonight for or against. It should be astounding that the Tea Party is running the agenda. But it isn't. Meanwhile Obama's justice department continues to harass anti-war activists, just like George Bush's justice department harassed activists. Obama is not defending civil liberties, the poor, the unemployed or the sick. Peacenik doesn't care how eloquent Obama might be. The message is bad. No amount of eloquence will improve it.

by Maureen Murphy

I have been summoned to appear before a federal grand jury in Chicago on January 25. But I will not testify, even at the risk of being put in jail for contempt of court, because I believe that our most fundamental rights as citizens are at stake.

I am one of 23 anti-war, labor and solidarity activists in Chicago and throughout the Midwest who are facing a grand jury as part of an investigation into "material support for foreign terrorist organizations." No crime has been identified. No arrests have been made. And when it raided several prominent organizers' homes and offices on Sept. 24, the FBI acknowledged that there is no immediate threat to the American public. So what is this investigation really about?

The activists who have been ensnared in this fishing net work with different groups to end the US wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to end US military aid for Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and US military aid to Colombia, which has a shocking record of repression and human rights abuses. All of us have publicly and peacefully dedicated our lives to social justice and advocating for more just and less deadly US foreign policy.

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WikiLeaks near release of secret US war documents

Peacenik seems to recall that the Pentagon Papers were credited with changing the public's perception of the Vietnam War. The New York Times published them. Major news. Peacenik thinks the mainstream media's coverage of new WikiLeaks will be minimal. The media has been totally neutered and co-opted. Western mainstream media has become Pravda. And the media doesn't care. And the public doesn't care. Peacenik wonders if anything can light a fire under the anti-war movement. At least the French haven't lost their ability to protest. Of course those protests don't warrant much coverage by the mainstream media either. The U.S. population must watch news reports of French riots uncomprehendingly. Just as they watch news reports of Wall Street corruption, war crimes, unemployment, fraud and violence in the U.S. Uncomprehendingly.

File - The Pentagon is seen in this aerial view in Washington, in this March 27, 2008 file photo. The WikiLeaks website appears close to releasing what the Pentagon fears is the largest cache of secret U.S. documents in history _ hundreds of thousands of intelligence reports compiled after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In a message posted to its Twitter page on Thursday Oct. 21, 2010, the organization said there was a "major WikiLeaks press conference in Europe coming up." (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File) (Charles Dharapak - AP)

LONDON -- The WikiLeaks website is poised to release what the Pentagon fears is the largest cache of secret U.S. documents in history - hundreds of thousands of classified intelligence reports since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

U.S. officials said Friday they were racing to contain the damage from the imminent release, while NATO's top official told reporters he feared that lives could be put at risk by the mammoth disclosure.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said any release would create "a very unfortunate situation."

"I can't comment on the details of the exact impact on security, but in general I can tell you that such leaks ... may have a very negative security impact for people involved," he told reporters Friday in Berlin following a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

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New generation lacks 'cohesion' of the 1960s, iconic folksinger says

punditman says...Wondering where the antiwar movement is? According to Joan Baez, it is dispersed amongst 400 other issues, that's where. And when you dilute something, it loses its potency. Punditman also thinks Bush was such an easy target, that once he was gone, peace activists sort of melted away. But still the war drags on...

The gentle urgency of Joan Baez's stunning vibrato on "We Shall Overcome" turned the song into an anthem for the antiwar movement on the 1960s. Back then, it seemed possible for music to galvanize a generation into calling for peace. 

That was a long time ago, observed the legendary folksinger during a recent phone interview, and things have changed. In addition to the war in Afghanistan, today's youth have to deal with everything from environmental catastrophes to economic ones.

"It isn't like a community of people working for the same thing," Baez says. "The only thing that's missing is the feeling of cohesion. By circumstances, that's what you had in the '60s and early '70s. It was a perfect storm. It was by chance that I was there and involved in it, but now without the antiwar movement being the central issue, with 400 issues instead, it's very difficult for people to feel that cohesiveness."

Even the optimism she felt when U.S. President Barack Obama was elected is beginning to slide, largely because of the U.S troops in Afghanistan, "which makes absolutely no sense from any angle" Baez can see.

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