Didn't We Learn This Lesson Already?
WASINGTON, Aug. 15 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been questioning political demonstrators across the country, and in rare cases even subpoenaing them, in an aggressive effort to forestall what officials say could be violent and disruptive protests at the Republican National Convention in New York.
"The message I took from it," said Sarah Bardwell, 21, an intern at a Denver antiwar group who was visited by six investigators a few weeks ago, "was that they were trying to intimidate us into not going to any protests and to let us know that, 'hey, we're watching you.' ''
Damn right, Sister.
posted by Corresponding Secretary General at 10:41 AM
4 Comments:
It is almost impossible not to extend fact-based paranoia to one's own experience, and therefore, reading this I am suspicious that a well-spoken, well groomed man who stood up at my last speaking engagement (Rolling thunder, a sort of leftist travelling issue circus featuring Jim Hightower) and asked a long question saying that Bush was responsible for 9-11, was working for the FBI. He kept going on, as if to see what the reaction of the crowd (and me) would be. I turned it aside (I like to think rather deftly) and finished a while later. I wouldn't have thought much about it except that he came up to me afterwards and congratulated me on how smoothly and professionally I handled the little gathering.
Why the sudden return to reasonableness? If you really are that paranoid about W, why would you congratulate someone who had just politely suggested you were two pancakes shy of a short stack? Unless, a careful rant about Bush's complicity in the 9/11 attacks was not your real opinion, and you were instead trying to provoke a small gathering of progressives with the purpose of identifying the radicals.
I don't think it qualifies even as likely, but it was dischordant enough to be possible, and it would fit a set of other reports I've been reading about the return to countintel-type actions of the 60's and early 70s.
PS, all fair-wrought huzzahs to see GCS return to commentarytating.
Thank you and I love you all.
GCS, your the greatest.
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