They Protested a Military Base Expansion. So the FBI Investigated Them as Terrorism Suspects.

https://theintercept.com/2024/09/13/fbi-protest-terrorism-stop-camp-grayling-michigan/

#news #politics #uspolitics #StopCampGrayling #theintercept

Over the past couple of decades I've often found myself in increasingly frustrating conversations with folks who can't accept the reality that pretty much everyone in the Pig Empire lives in a reactionary police state that, regardless of who happens to be in political power at any given time, is actively working to undermine the rights of its own people; a reality that seemingly escapes folks who aren't extremely media literate or haven't personally tried to exercise those rights in a way that threatens the capitalist order. One of the easier ways to see this picture clearly throughout much of the so-called "West" is to compare the growing authoritarian crackdown on anti-capitalist and pro environment protestors, versus the responses by these same police states to right wing reactionary violence and fascist riots; where we find that violent fascists are typically treated as individuals who've broken misdemeanor laws, but left-leaning protestors exercising their rights in ways that threaten economic interests are painted as organized terrorists and are met with the full spectrum of policing and carceral options. Take for example this Intercept report from Michigan about local Sheriffs in Oakland County and the FBI choosing to classify "Stop Camp Grayling" protestors who briefly disrupted the University of Michigan career fair as a hate crime against law enforcement and open a terrorism investigation.

https://theintercept.com/2024/09/13/fbi-protest-terrorism-stop-camp-grayling-michigan/

They Protested a Military Base Expansion. So the FBI Investigated Them as Terrorism Suspects.

"Treating the Stop Camp Grayling protesters as terrorists is the latest episode in a worldwide trend of governments smearing climate and environmental activists as terrorists — an ongoing Green Scare. Misapplication of the terrorism label frequently serves as pretext for invasive surveillance and sustained scrutiny.

The FBI has a long history of fixating on environmental protest movements as terrorism suspects. The focus escalated in the 1990s. Most of the movements are engaged in routine First Amendment-protected activity; a few use minor property damage as a protest tactic.

The FBI maintains federal domestic terrorism categories that include “anti-government violent extremism” and “animal rights/environmental violent extremism.” Under pressure to generate investigations, the FBI has launched probes against environmental groups based on thin evidence of criminal activity — or sometimes no evidence at all."

And what pray tell did the protestors do to result in both a hate crime and a terrorism investigation being opened in their honor by local law enforcement and the FBI? They squirted fake blood out of ketchup bottles on the NSA recruiting table and two Navy personnel and then allowed themselves to be arrested. Why? Mostly because the Stop Camp Grayling group opposes the expansion of the largest National Guard training facility in America, which requires leasing more than 150,000 acres of forest land from Michigan's Department of Natural Resources. In other words, these folks are forest defenders exercising their constitutionally protected rights to oppose environmentally-damaging militarization, who engaged in misdemeanor crimes to accomplish that goal; there is no way on this green earth any reasonable person actually believes they're terrorists, or engaged in hate crimes - and that includes both the Oakland Country Sheriffs and the FBI.

As the article goes on to note however, this excessive policing and authoritarian behavior is part of a much larger pattern that has emerged over the past thirty years (predating even the War on Terror) in which American security forces of various types have responded to political pressure and their own inherent antipathy for protestors by declaring organized protestors terrorists and using that designation to unlock increased funding and anti-terrorism laws to suppress, intimidate, and ultimately crush these movements. Furthermore, while it's very tempting to brush this off as pigs being pigs, the simple truth is that the lack of similar responses to organized right wing reactionary violence makes it clear that we're talking about more than just typical police overreaction here; this is foundationally ideological, in much the same way the disproportional response to Black Lives Matter protestors, or Stop Cop City forest defenders in Atlanta is.

So just what the hell is going on here then? I'd say that as climate crisis worsens and it's becoming clear to more and more people that either capitalism goes, or a planet habitable by eight billion people does, the reactionary police states we live in are gearing up to violently repress folks who don't want to die so billionaires can keep extracting profits on a boiling planet, and might be inclined to do something about it; which is why these reprisals focus on folks who oppose fossil fuel capitalism and murderpig violence.

#PoliceState #Fascism #Protest #StopCampGrayling #FBI #Terrorism #Propaganda

They Protested a #MilitaryBase Expansion. So the #FBI Investigated Them as #Terrorism Suspects.

https://theintercept.com/2024/09/13/fbi-protest-terrorism-stop-camp-grayling-michigan/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=The%20Intercept%20Newsletter

FBI #counterterror officials went in person to #Michigan to spy on #StopCampGrayling demonstrators, new documents reveal.

michigan’s national guard and the repression of the 2020 uprising

"many people infected by the u.s. left’s racial, colonial, gendered, and [dis]ableist biases act as if national military forces are different from—specifically, not as bad as—police. ... but ... elites in the imperial core who believe their positions are seriously threatened call on those same troops when the cops aren’t enough."

https://unsalted.noblogs.org/post/2023/03/18/michigans-national-guard-and-the-repression-of-the-2020-uprising/

#StopCampGrayling #Michigan #NationalGuard #GeorgeFloyd

@subMedia

From #StopCopCity to #StopCampGrayling

"We will not stand by while the University of Michigan continues to support and help recruit people into the US military-industrial complex. We will not stand by while the state expands its capacity to brutally repress our communities by expanding Camp Grayling in Michigan and building Cop City in Atlanta." Via @unsalted

#Michigan #StopCampGrayling

https://itsgoingdown.org/university-of-michigan-career-fair-disrupted-over-military-recruiters/

University of Michigan Career Fair Disrupted Over Military Recruiters

"On Wednesday February 9, 2023, the University of Michigan welcomed a variety of military and government recruiters into its Career Fair in Ann Arbor. ... Multiple people pushed passed the registration desk carrying banners that said “Stop Camp Grayling” and chanting “No prisons, no borders, fuck your law and order” ... Another group sprayed red food coloring on the NSA and U.S. Navy displays, and were then detained for several hours while the U of M police refused to give information about their whereabouts or status to concerned friends and supporters. They were eventually released ..."

https://unsalted.noblogs.org/post/2023/02/10/university-of-michigan-career-fair-disrupted-over-military-recruiters/

#StopCampGrayling #Michigan #AntiMilitarism #FuckTheMilitary #Anarchism

Over 100 Trees Spiked in Opposition to Camp Grayling

"Over the past 2 weeks more than 100 trees in and around the proposed camp grayling expansion area were spiked, namely forests managed by the grayling and gaylord department of natural resources. ... To avoid worker injury we insist that all trees in Crawford, otsega, Roscommon, and kalkaska be thoroughly checked for spikes before cutting."

https://unsalted.noblogs.org/post/2022/12/18/over-100-trees-spiked-in-opposition-to-camp-grayling/

#StopCampGrayling #ecodefense #anarchism #treespiking #Michigan #Midwest #GreatLakes

Flock Camera Destroyed in Welaunee in Solidarity With Camp Greyling Resistance

Originally Posted on Scenes.noblogs.org on November 30, 2022 (https://scenes.noblogs.org/post/2022/11/30/flock-camera-destroyed-in-welaunee-in-solidarity-with-camp-greyling-resistance/)

"A few nights back, the last remaining Flock camera near south Atlanta welaunee forest perimeter was destroyed in solidarity with Camp Greyling! While we fight the proposed construction of cop city, they fight the proposed expansion of a military training facility, & one of our common enemies, ... is Flock Security cameras."

https://unsalted.noblogs.org/post/2022/12/17/flock-camera-destroyed-in-welaunee-in-solidarity-with-camp-greyling-resistance/

#stopcampgrayling #nocopcity #solidarity #directaction #flock