The FBI raids: An assault on the growing movement against poverty

Statement of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America

The League of Revolutionaries for a New America joins with concerned groups and individuals across the United States to condemn the raids conducted by the FBI on the homes and offices of anti-war activists in the Midwest in late September.

We call upon all people of conscience to speak out against these raids and the continuing harassment of these activists, all of whom have earned wide respect for their dedication to the struggle for justice.

These raids are not just an attack on the anti-war movement. The raids are part of a calculated assault on the growing movement against poverty in this country, and all of us in that struggle must respond to them accordingly.

The FBI justified their early morning foray against the homes of working-class political organizers by claiming that they were looking for information about “terrorism.” FBI agents spent hours rummaging through the personal papers of individuals and confiscated boxes of materials, including posters and artwork.

If they had been serious about discovering evidence of terrorism, the intrepid sleuths of the FBI might have looked elsewhere. The Midwestern United States includes numerous buildings which look like a bomb had been dropped on them. The act of terrorism which destroyed many of them is known as a plant closing. The Rust Belt of America contains millions of people who are utterly terrified – at the prospect of never finding a job again. If the FBI had really wanted to examine paperwork associated with terrorism, it could have busted into any corporate boardroom where the next lay-off is being planned. It could have sent its operatives to the world headquarters of the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan or to the headquarters of General Motors on Jefferson Avenue in Detroit. Or it could simply have marched into any bank and asked to see any of the innumerable foreclosure notices that the bank issues, paperwork which is spreading terror in working-class homes across this country.

These raids were not directed against terrorism; they were calculated to intimidate those enduring economic terrorism. The raids and the continuing harassment of those targeted by them are designed to stop the growing movement against the brutal terror of hunger, the gaunt terror of unemployment, and the stark terror of homelessness sweeping this country. We urge everyone involved in the fight against economic misery to recognize that these raids are an attack on all of us. We call on everyone fighting for economic justice to speak out loudly and clearly against the raids, and to take that call far and wide!