Skip to main content

The Patriot Act is Not New

Will the Patriot Act or parts of it be used against labor or most any worker movement, such as the quest for a minimum wage increase, Occupy or the women’s movement? The answer will probably be yes for if you look back at history you will see government used the Alien and Sedition Laws of 1798, which jeopardized the freedom of speech, press and assembly, and was a long step toward Totalitarianism. And then there was U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, appointed by Woodrow Wilson, who recruited J. Edgar Hoover as his special assistant in 1917 to enforce the Espionage Act of 1917, especially the Sedition Act of 1918 engaged in the Palmer Raids. These Acts were used to launch a campaign against the so-called radicals, such as the IWW (Wobblies) labor movement, which was at the time the most feared labor group. The oligarchies wanted them destroyed and they were, to a point. The next Act the government used against its people went after labor, women’s rights and civil rights was the McCarran Act. This Act was passed by 31 Republicans and 26 Democrats on Sept. 22, 1950. President Truman vetoed the Act, but the House overruled him and made the Act, picketing a federal court house a felony if the intention was to obstruct. Sections of the McCarran Act were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993 as a violation of the First Amendment. But the U.S. Military still uses the full Act. All of these Acts were to keep the wage slaves from having the power to rise up their voices for a better life for themselves and their families. These Acts take away the peaceful tools they need, such as freedom of speech, press and the right to assemble. Now, we have the Patriot Act that allows for warrantless wiretapping, Drones flying overhead and we know the FBI and the CIA are infiltrating into labor groups and Occupy movements and these informers are building cases against the members. We are very close, in fact, much closer to Totalitarianism than most people realize. We had better wake up and study the history of our country and the capitalist system. If you want to understand how to counteract this trend just read their playbooks: Sun Tzu’s Art of War and Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince. By the way all of the anti-labor Acts have been supported by Democrats, even today. You should ask yourself, Why?
Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 25, 2013 at 4:53 AM

    Hello

    I started visiting your blog and found it really interesting and would like to invite you to join glipho .Its a social publishing engine for bloggers/writers to promote their blog posts and get noticed further.

    Sounds interesting? The visit www.glipho.com and sing up

    Happy writing
    Thanks

    Neha

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Time for an Offense

There are three phases of a general strike and unions must plan for one. Those three phases are: 1. general strike in an industry 2. general strike in a community 3. general national strike We need to move away from being on the defensive and move toward a good offensive. The American Federal of Labor (AFL) could not have held a general strike if it wanted to because they had thousands of different contracts that expired at different times of the year. This was done deliberately so that there is no consolidation of power for a general strike. Also, nowadays, there is no law agency that will support labor, except the National Labor Relations Board (NLBR), which has been under attack and in decline for years. This leaves the burden of change up to unions, and unless unions work together, little will change. We essentially have a combination of job trusts, which are not as strong as contracts, and the courts can break easily because the NLBR will be further weakened and essentially elim...
Post a Comment
Read more

If Gompers Could Do It, We Can Do It

Labor must vote for the person who will support and vote for labor’s best interests. And in turn, labor members have to support those who are running for office who support labor unions and vote down ballots. Voting down ballot gives the person at the top more power to do what’s best for us. This includes elections for city, county and state positions, as well. If you think a four day work week is wishful thinking, remember workers had to fight for an eight-hour work day and a five-day work week. We, labor members and supporters, need to find people who can fight and win. We need to clean the Congress and Senate of the old Democratic guard who have voted repeatedly to hold the working class back while enriching themselves. This would rebuild solidarity in a magnitude greater than anything either party has seen or offered in the last fifty years. If we can bring about the change in the ruling class we can improve all of our lives. This would be the start of the end of the tyranny of the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Shock Troops

Gerrymandering is the only legal form of voter theft. Workers, our long range plans should involve 1. crushing Citizens United; and 2. getting rid of the Electoral College. We have been trying to get rid of the electoral college since 1876, and we are still waiting for the revolt. Our unions need to start training some members to be our shock troops and if all unions would do this and work with our local Labor Councils, it would be a good start. Our members need to know our labor laws, local laws, and learn how to protest in the streets if necessary. The antiunion people like Trump, Musk and his billionaire friends work together to crush the working people and convince workers they’re doing them a favor and then use them as shock troops against unions and their workers. All union and nonunion working people must come together and work together to protect what we have now. Labor Councils have retired union members and they could work together to prepare to bring the movement forward....
Post a Comment
Read more