Bring the Ruckus Statement on FBI Raids

On September 24th, FBI agents raided the homes of at least six organizers and activists across the country. Their crime: working in solidarity with oppressed people across the globe. This is nothing new. The US government has a long history of disrupting and destroying organizations and activists working for justice around the world. They have trained death squads at the School of the Americas (at Ft Benning in Georgia) and have supported terrorism against labor and social justice activists in Colombia, Palestine, El Salvador and elsewhere. If the FBI were truly concerned with terrorism, they would have begun by investigating the facilities at Ft Benning or the thousands of assassins currently employed by the CIA in Afghanistan. Clearly stopping terrorism is not their goal. The FBI also has a long history of repressing people in the US who have stood up against racism and war. In the 1960s they raided and assassinated Black Power and anti-Vietnam war activists. Over the past decade they have harassed, intimidated, and disappeared Arab and Muslim folks across the U.S. We publicly condemn what appear to be targeted attacks against members of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (http://www.frso.org/) who were acting in solidarity with groupings from Palestine and Colombia. Opposing attacks by the U.S. government on working people across the globe is not terrorism, and should never be treated as such. This raid is not about terrorism, but about sending a message that resisting U.S. intervention and state terror abroad is a crime. These raids are political, targeting a politics that stands in opposition to the state. It makes it very clear that the state is not working in the interests of working class people of color and all oppressed people here in the United States and in countries across the world. This is not the first time that such actions have been taken by the state. The US government has a long history of disrupting, targeting, and destroying organizations and activists working for a just and free world. We will not stand aside and look the other way as this history becomes the present. The state is an enemy of peoples' struggles for justice and freedom. These latest attacks on US activists demonstrate that we cannot depend on, or cooperate with, the state in our organizing. We encourage all activists and organizers to take their safety and security seriously and to in no way cooperate with law enforcement or grand juries as they go about their business of trying to destroy our movements. As fellow activists and organizers we will stand in solidarity with the members of FRSO and any others on the left as they come under repression by the state. We stand in solidarity with working people across the world as they fight for freedom. We will not stop fighting because of state repression and we encourage others to take a public stand against such repression. In solidarity, Bring the Ruckus