Posted on 01/26/2002 10:27:21 PM PST by Prodigal Son
LOS ANGELES, JAN 23 2002 - Heavily armed with high-powered machine guns, shotguns, and hand guns, the FBI, Secret Service, and Los Angeles Police Department surrounded the founder of raisethefist.com in his house. The founder was currently asleep, woken up by a relative who said fbi, police and undercover's were currently up and down all of the streets, with they're eyes focused on the premises. Raisethefist.com founder aproached the door were 2 FBI agents demanded that he step outside. Within seconds a swarm of FBI raided the house with automatic weapons and shot guns. Additional police and fbi also stayed on the front lawn, around the house with a door barricade and additional weapons. "armed and ready".
FBI and secret service entered the house, seizing all servers and political literature. Raisethefist.com was currently being ran within the founder's room of the house, over a computer network. The room was literally ransacked, and all equipment, disks, cd's .. etc. were boxed up, loaded into a truck and seized until further notice.
Since 1999, raisethefist.com has been under extensive government monitering. At times, Raisethefist.com has recieved over 100 hits from the U.S Department of Defense in a single day. The FBI, police department, NSA (and who else) continuously monitered the site on a daily basis. Even governments from the UK, Canada, Lavtia, Belgium, Egypt, Finland, and Australia monitered the site continuesly. The FBI had also previously intercepted all packets going through the DSL line hosting the site, and have seized additional accounts being used by the site.
In yet another successful attempt to silence our voices, Raisethefist.com, an anarchist/activist independent media/collective has been shut down by the secret service
"It's not yet known at this point if the site will be back up. As of now, we have nothing. No more servers, no more network, nothing. My room remains completly ransacked. My neighbors remain shaken up by what happened. I most likely won't be getting any of the equipment back. They also took alot of my political litature. Apparently, they're excuse for shutting it down was the 'militancy' portrayed on the site. This is not true. This was an excuse. This same 'militancy' they were concerned about is portrayed on at least a thousand other web sites across the internet, and they havn't been touched by the federal government, with the exception for remote monitering. Raisethefist.com was progresive. It was going somewhere. Kids started creating clubs in their schools called 'RaisetheFist'. People started utilizing the collective as a powerful resource for the activist/anarchist community. The federal government has been investigating me, and the site very closely, long before 9-11, and long before such militancy was even portrayed on the site. They knew the site had potential, that it was turning into something more than a site, but a strong collective utilized by activists throughout the world committed to social justice. And that's become a crime. Justice has become a crime. Freedom has become a crime. Anyone activly disagreeing with policies of the U.S is now automaticly rendered a "terrorist" in the eyes of national security.... Where raisethefist.com will go from here, I don't know. Based on what i've been told, i'll most likely be in jail, so most of my focus will be towards getting an attorney."
If you haven't visited the site, it was ugly. I'm glad the Feds took it down. These people hate us and from what I gleaned they were encouraging people to use violence against the gov't. The DU website lately has come dangerously close to advocating such themes. In fact, DU pulled a thread concerning "Civil War" in America just after this Raise the Fist raid. The civil war they were arguing about wasn't the one in the 1860's but the one they felt was coming between Right and Left in America. Several posters crossed the line in that thread and made statements that advocated such a civil war.
If any of you ever go there and browse what the ultra left are up to, you may have noticed that their Amazon.com banner is not on their front page any longer. I and several other Freepers wrote to Amazon and complained that DU proclaims "in association with Amazon.com" and then goes on to sanction extremely anti-American views. There's a fine line between free speech and sedition and DU is treading it. But the Amazon banner is still displayed on the "child pages" to their site. One could draw the conclusion that Amazon pays them for this activity.
Fine, let them have their speech, but we can definitely hold Amazon's feet to the fire for helping to support such sentiment. I would urge all of you to write Amazon and threaten to boycott their business if they do not break their connection with DU. In case you didn't hear, Amazon just broke into black as far as profit is concerned. They should be sensitive to threats of boycott from real customers. DU is not a non-profit website like FR is. They have left themselves open to attack on this angle. There is nothing wrong with attacking their funding if it comes from the corporate world. Indeed, after the Enron debacle, the public may just be a bit more open to seeing how corporate sponsorship and politics mix.
The source of the news though comes from IndyMedia and a Free Republic post. If I could remember which thread on FR I read it on I would surely post it but the post had little to do with the original article and I can't remember what it was. Let me think on it and I'll remember who posted. But it is a fact that it was mentioned here first (raisethefist) and then happened in the real world.
The poster had a name that reminded me of a Tom Clancy novel for some reason. But they left little doubt that they were with the Feds and were more or less asking people to complain about the Raise the Fist site. I, for one, did.
This is activism in its finest form and I didn't even leave my chair ;-)
"I think Matt Drudge is Larry Lied"
or something to that effect and can't remember which thread it was on.
Well, according to this source, the head honcho at Raise the Fist was committed so to speak.
I don't visit them. Are they any threat? My impression was that they are just run by handfuls of cranks. The danger I see is from the IAC/ANSWER/MUMIA/ANARCHIST-type people. They are the ones who turned out tens of thousands in Genoa, tried to burn down Seattle and plan on being in NYC next month. Never even heard of Neo-Nazis taking to the streets anywhere in the USA (except a dozen here and there, half of whom are probably FBI agents or SPLC/ADL shills).
Truthfully, nothing. But I have been there to their site which was complete with sound files in case the visitor was too stupid to read the content. Picture the anti-globalism terrorists who caused such mayhem in Seattle at the WTO meeting. That was this website and they had a forum to boot. I'm guessing the Feds didn't nail them for their content proper but for what the posters on the site were saying.
I have heard JimRob say that he doesn't advocate overthrow of the US gov't and discourages that view. That is what makes us different. It's just like racism. Are there racist posters here- yes. But I have yet to see them not argued down when they post overtly racist diatribes. FR officially discourages this type of post. We (as far as I can see) do not advocate overthrow of or armed uprising against the gov't. If we advocate change it is through the ballot. To do so (advocate violence) would break many well established laws. It's conspiracy to commit mayhem/treason.
It depends on the definition of what constitutes a threat. They do openly advocate the overthrow of the US government, deportation or extermination of all non-whites etc.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totaly unworth the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levey war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
# 15. Are we 'allowed' to advocate the abolishment of USGOV? I do not think an institution of such magnitude can be 'massively reformed', is there historical precident anywhere that shows such a thing is possibile?
If it makes anyone feel better we can call it USGOV, the sequel, and of course we will keep the Constitution and the flag =) We don't really want to abolish it, we want to reset or restore it.
Hmmm. This may be true, but in the same sense that I could say, "murder is the criminal's answer to being a law abiding citizen".
Let's look at real examples. Freepers have demonstrated publicly, most notably during the 2000 elections. Nothing wrong with chanting "Get out of Cheney's House!" But change the chant to "Kill Gore!" and you have another matter altogether. The same goes for these anarchists. If they want to demonstrate legally against globalism and freedom fine. They can chant "We want slavery now! End property rights!" all they want. But if they start chanting "Rise up and kill the Man!" they should be locked up. The same goes for lesser crimes. If ALF/ELF openly advocates destruction of property and gives information on how to accomplish this- that's conspiracy to commit crime- period. Raise the Fist has been monitored for quite a while and not just by our gov't but by several governments. The gov't could've moved in at any time but they did not. It seems obvious to me that they finally crossed a legal boundary and the Feds moved in.
I do not call for DU to be shut down. But they are NOT nonprofit. Their sponsors can be boycotted. This is perfectly legal harrassment and I advocate this. If they want to live by donations from their posters as we do here- hey! More power to them. I don't think they would survive though. They are getting funded somewhere and it isn't just Amazon. I feel that there is some funding flowing in somehow from the Democratic Party. If I could prove it, would I want their site taken down? Nope. I'd just want Rush and O'Reilly and Hannity to point out to the American people what anti-American socialists the Dem Party really is.
These people do not value your freedom. They are aligned morally with the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. They hate the concept of freedom, property and the rights of man to live his life as he pleases (which includes freedom to trade with one another for profit). So long as they simply want to espouse their view point, I have no problem. But when they begin to openly call for the overthrow of the very thing that protects my rights- well, them's fighting words and if that makes me a moron- so be it. I like being free. If these buttholes had their way they'd organize open rebellion and take away my rights and my property. They are not just the "answer" to this website.
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