[Ppnews] San Diego Movement Falters in response to grand juries

[PPnews at freedomarchives.org]

Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 03:01:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: rocky neptun <rockyneptun at yahoo.com>

Subject: [lacollectivenetwork] San Diego Movement Falters

Activists Jailed, San Diego Movement Hesitates
By Rocky Neptun\
Neptun is director of the San Diego Renters
Union. In 1972, he was thrown into prison in Portugal
for his work against the fascists. Posted IndyMedia
7/17

San Diego: Moving to open a new front in its
preemptive war on dissent; the federal government, in
mid-June, began a campaign of skip bombing and
reconnaissance by force. FBI agents fanned out into
the activist community; visiting staid, middle-class
organizational headquarters and harassing independent
journalists while the U.S. Attorney, manipulating the
oppressive grand jury process, jailed two animal
rights activists.

The Feds used an unsolved August, 2003 fire at a
half-built La Jolla apartment complex and a lecture by
Rod Colorado, later that same day, as an excuse to
threaten, harass and create divisiveness in the San
Diego activist community. These local attacks jelled
with Bush's national campaign to create a new fear
factor, a media peddled concept, "eco-terrorists" to
further his own agenda - corporate control of the
economy and environment.

While Danae Kelley, 21, and David Arganoff, 31, of
Compassion for Farm Animals, refused to testify and
were imprisoned; their courageous stance brought
forward the rifts and fault lines that underlie the
difficulties of developing effective resistance
locally.

In what could loosely be called a tale of two
movements - it was the best and worse of justice
activism. A sad dichotomy; where most San Diego
peaceniks, civil rights devotees, Sierra Club
neighborhood canyon hikers, surfboard
environmentalists, animal cuddlers (as opposed to
free'rs), liberals and progressives either hid under
their beds, went to visit grandma or, sadly, just
didn't give a damn that the rights of free expression
and the right to associate with others was under
attack.

Several hundred, mostly young, radicals rallied in
support of the original nine activists subpoenaed.
They included local anarchists, animal rights
activists, the Organic Collective, artists, students
and members of the growing alternative media; sandiego
radioactive radio and the IndyMedia Center. They moved
forward, loudly and forcefully, to protest the
governments efforts at attempting to label dissent,
attending forums, associating with others and civil
disobedience as anti-American, terrorist activities.
A few "older" organizations also stepped into the
fray, like the city's ancient Peace Resource Center
(30 years) led by Carol Jahnkow; the small, but
scrappy, Peace and Freedom Party (the Greens were
silent), and the working-class San Diego Renters
Union. Giving far too few, tepid, press releases from
a safe-distance: a couple of middle-class activist
organizations, who, at least, try to recruit young
people, engaged through their keyboards; however, most
of the community's power liberals and left-wing mouse
warriors simply ignored the fed's attack on
fundamental rights. This stunted support was a
disappointment for some, they noted that the renters
union had issued a city-wide plea suggesting that "our
response to these FBI actions will determine whether
we are a movement or just a rag-tag group of isolated
noisemakers and rabble rousers."

A seventy-five year old member of the renters
union, Helen Stone, expressed her outrage after being
wheeled to a demonstration in front of the Federal
Courthouse saying "it's a damn shame that these young
people are out here facing the full might of the
United States police force alone."

Others pointed out that here in San Diego, the umby
cord has been severed, with young radicals forced onto
the streets without mainline liberal organizational
support; thus exposing the underbelly of the movement
- soft and vulnerable to targeting and fear of
extra-judicial punishment; and that, indeed, for many
older activists, too much may be asked, beyond the
rituals of protest and prattle that temporarily shakes
off the dust of complicity in a militarized, corporate
owned superpower.

Two of those hauled before the grand jury were
mainstream activists who's actions highlight the
fault lines that clash together, creating rifts in the
movement One, Elise Casley, 28, works with voters
rights and the other, Colleen Dietzel, is a
middle-aged owner of the Green Store, near the beach.
Coming out of the Federal Courthouse after testifying,
they were happy to see protesters in the streets, but
failed to attend the subsequent demonstrations, during
the following weeks, for the other seven
inquisitor-ees. They even issued a statement that
questions whether "Americans have to fear attending
events, films and talks that cover controversial
subject matters," Proving, like most "activists" in
so-called progressive organizations, talk is cheaper
(and certainly less risky) than action. For many
liberals, to know the right path is enough. God forbid
that one may actually tread it. Education, forums,
teach-ins, endless meetings; a grand circle-jerk that
prevents the scarier transformation that is needed if
we are to be freed from our personal fear toward the
task ahead - dismantling the American Empire.
At a community forum organized right after the
subpoenas were handed down, it became evident that
some of the government's strategy was working. All
mainstream leaders stayed away, even the commies and
socialists went bowling, while those few older
activists who were there bristled with uncertainty and
fear. One couple, long time leaders, even
unsuccessfully asked that everyone introduce
themselves and point to four people who could vouch
for them. Before the evening was over, all but five
older, middle-class activists had slipped out the
door. Reflecting on the government's use of the grand
jury process, Carol Jahnkow, sadly noted "it attacks
the whole foundation we have of freedom of association
and freedom of speech." She pointed out that "grand
juries were used repeatedly in the 60's and 70's to
disrupt and undermine the civil rights and anti-war
movements of that time and it looks like we're seeing
that same pattern again today."

Rob "Ruckus" Middaugh, of Los Angeles, who served 3
years in jail after he was attacked by police at an
anarchist May Day celebration, and one of those
ordered before the grand jury, called the process a
"modern day inquisition" and a "witch hunt."
For the local FBI Office, the use of the grand jury
process is a win-win situation. Not only does it
create fear and suspicion in the local activist
community; it develops favorable press that they are
actually doing something. The local feds are not only
reeling from public criticism by their superiors in
Washington, D.C. over failures to weed out the two
9-11 highjackers who lived and trained in San Diego;
they are also under intense citizen outrage over
targeting three democratic councilmen who took
campaign contributions from a strip club operator.
Also, is the possibility, like Keystone Cops, they
might stumble upon information about the Earth
Liberation Front, blamed for the LaJolla arson, they
can pass along to the national office. Some locals
feel, however, that the developers needed cash and set
the apartment complex fire for insurance purposes -
and the FBI knows it.

The San Diego Renters Union issued a press release
days after the arrest of Kelley and Arganoff saying
that their punishment for refusing to testify obscures
the real issues, criminals and villains at play on the
larger stage in our corporate owned government. The
local tenants' group said it recognized that the Bush
Administration would stop at nothing to make the world
safe and profitable for pharmaceutical companies,
bio-piracy firms, animal testing facilities and
chemical factories. They suggest that the FBI and,
particularly, it's deputy assistant director of the
counter-terrorism division, John E. Lewis, has been
charged to come up with creating a domestic terrorism
threat to cover legislation and administrative
decisions, as well as strengthen judicial retribution,
against those who target gross polluters, animal
torture factories and poisonous, dangerous drugs being
peddled in our pharmacies.

The intent is to create new COINTELPRO units which
were used decades ago to "disrupt, discredit and
otherwise neutralize" civil rights and social justice
groups. In a famous memo, then FBI Director, J. Edgar
Hoover directed agents to "prevent coalitions from
forming, pick-off leaders and prevent the groups from
gaining respectability."

About the same time, in June, as several grand
juries in several states, began issuing sophenoes
against environmental and animal rights activists,
agent Lewis appeared before the Biotechnology Industry
Organization's convention in Philadelphia to assure
the 18,000 CEO's and corporate snake-oil peddlers that
their profits and activities were safe. Surrounded by
hundreds of police, soldiers and federal agents at the
National Constitution Center, he pointed to the
recently amended Federal Enterprise Protection Act,
which, incredibly, equates constitutionally protected
areas of free speech, exposing cruel, illegal
activities of a corporation and it's employees as acts
of "domestic terrorism." Six members of the Stop
Huntington Animal Cruelty group are presently facing
federal charges of conspiracy and interstate stalking
in Trenton, NJ under the act for calling attention to
the torture of thousands of animals in Huntington Life
Sciences labs, a private vivisection firm.
The renters union also called attention to the fact
that one of those in San Diego's federal jail, being
punished for upholding his rights, David Agranoff, was
targeted after attending an anti-Huntington
demonstration, and is mentioned by name in a court
order that forbids "using ant-HLS posters or
literature within 100 feet of HLS employees."
"The misuse of federal legislation to curb freedom of
speech creates a dangerous precedent, barring
activists from confronting any corporation," the press
release stated.

They also noted that during a recent Senate
hearing, Agent Lewis, was again spreading tall tales
of possible domestic eco-terrorism and suggesting that
bio-tech executives were becoming increasingly grumpy
over costs associated with the publicity over their
environmental destructive actions and animal torture
as well as the actual cost of security. One company,
Chiron, complained to the senators about having to
spend $2.5 million on heightened security after a
relatively minor, legal demonstration at its
Emeryville facility. Also, attending that Senate
pow-wow was the attorney for one of the developers for
the La Jolla apartment complex.

Almost 100 years ago, members of the Industrial
Workers of the World were under attack in San Diego
for their "Free Speech Movement." Emma Goldman was run
out of town and her boyfriend tarred and feathered by
vigilantes, while individual wobblies were jailed.
Today, in San Diego we again have vigilantes
roaming the county and young, idealistic Americans in
jail for standing for free speech and the right to
free association. Shame on San Diego's leftist,
progressive community. Maybe they didn't come for you
in mid-June, but what about tomorrow?

Rocky Neptun is director of the San Diego Renters
Union. In 1972, he was thrown into prison in Portugal
for his work against the fascists.




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