Letter from Rob Los Ricos: standing beside the comrades duped into an FBI bomb conspiracy

from Rob los Ricos (blog):
ANARCHISTS MARGINALIZED AS TERRORISTS:
standing beside the comrades duped into an fbi bomb conspiracy
as if the job of marginalizing the anarchist movement in the u.s. was not already being championed by cowards within the occupy movement, five bold, wreckless comrades have found themselves victims of a fraudulent bombing plot which the fbi engineered.
it is imperative not to let these brave, foolish comrades become isolated. more than anything else we must remember:

ATTACKS ON THE FASCIST/CORPORATE INFRASTRUCTURE ARE LEGITIMATE AND NECESSARY!

“There will be a time when our silence
will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!”

if there is to be shit-talking and back-stabbing over this, let it be over our own cowardice that makes such an arrest an isolated incident. why are the prisons and jails not overflowing with captured comrades? why is our rebellion so weak that the government is not forced to release us as soon as they process us into their jails, for lack of space? naturally, we must all strive in our efforts to avoid being captured, but that should never stop us from doing that which we know must be done. circumstances are changing, and the government’s well-know, explicit, and fully documented policy of preemptive strikes ensures that we cannot allow the militarized police forces to always push the attack. if not now, then when? even today may be too late.

IF THE INNOCENT DESERVE SUPPORT,
THE GUILTY MUST NEVER BE IN DOUBT OF IT!

Demonization of Anarchism
In addition to a continuation of undercover informants and FBI-manufactured plots, this case also reflects on an-going focus on demonizing anarchists.
The government’s press release proclaims that the defendants are “self-proclaimed anarchists.” The affidavit notes that they attended anarchist protests and carried anarchist flags.
The affidavit also says that the defendants talked about anarchists “rioting and destroying each city” that holds May Day protests, and that it will be “off the hook.”
Demonizing anarchists has gone one for over a century, of course, but in recent years the rhetoric has dovetailed with “War on Terrorism” hysteria.
For example, in Scott Demuth’s case, the government argued that: “Defendant’s writings, literature, and conduct suggest that he is an anarchist and associated with the ALF movement. Therefore, he is a domestic terrorist.”
In another case, the government sought a high cash bond against environmentalist Hugh Farrell because “the defendant has been observed advocating literature and materials which advocate anarchy.”
It should come as no surprise, then, that the announcement of these arrests was carefully unveiled yesterday, so that the top news story this May Day would not be about how anarchists are preventing home foreclosures, starting community gardens, teaching collective organizing skills, and re-framing class consciousness, but about how they were part of an FBI-guided “terrorist plot.”
* * *

FBI Supplied the Anarchist “Terrorists” Arrested in May Day Plot
from green is the new red
* * *
the federal government will move to crush dissent at some point. do you know the story of may day?

Commemorating the Fight for the Eight-Hour Workday

The fight for the eight-hour workday began in earnest in the United States, over a century ago, when the American Federation of Labor adopted an historic resolution asserting that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1st, 1886.” Up until that time, working people were routinely required to work 10 to 16 hours a day, 6 days a week!In the months prior to May 1st, 1886, American workers in the hundreds of thousands were drawn into the struggle for the shorter day. Skilled and unskilled, black and white, men and women, native-born and immigrant – all became involved.In Chicago alone 400,000 were out on strike for the shorter workday. A newspaper of that city reported that “…no smoke curled up from the tall chimneys of the factories and mills, and things had assumed a Sabbath-like appearance.” On May 3, 1886, peaceful public demonstrations by the strikers precipitated violent police retaliation, resulting in the death of at least one striker, and serious injury to many more.

The next day in Haymarket Square a public meeting was held to protest the brutal assaults on the demonstrating strikers. The crowd was orderly, and Chicago mayor Carter Harrison advised the police captain to send home the large contingent of police reservists who were waiting at the stationhouse in case they were needed for crowd control.

By ten o’clock that rainy evening the meeting was winding down and only about 200 of the demonstrators remained in the Square. Suddenly, a police column of 180 men, led by the police captain, moved in and ordered the people to disperse immediately. At that moment, the peaceful assembly became violent – a bomb was thrown into the police ranks, killing one policeman outright, fatally wounding six more, and seriously injuring about seventy. The police opened fire into the crowd; the number of wounded and killed has never been ascertained.

A reign of terror swept over Chicago. The press and the pulpit called for revenge, insisting the bomb was the work of socialists and anarchists. Meeting halls, union offices, printing works, and private homes were raided, and known socialists and anarchists were rounded up. Even many individuals who had no connections at all to the socialists or anarchists were arrested and tortured. “Make the raids first and look up the law afterwards,” was the public statement of Julius Grinnell, the state’s attorney.

- from THE EIGHT-HOUR WORKDAY