(editorial)
Oppose FBI raid, killing in Oregon!
The Socialist Workers Party urges working people to join in demanding the U.S. government free Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond! We should also join in condemning the FBI and cop killing of Robert Finicum and the arrest of Ammon Bundy and other participants in the occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge on conspiracy charges.
The Hammonds have been imprisonedtwice on the same frame-up arson charges for seeking to defend their ranch and livelihood from government interference and abuse. Their sentence was vindictively lengthened by the federal "justice" system through use of anti-working-class terrorism laws.
The 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and other measures adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are for use against workers' rights. That's what happened to the Hammonds. And Washington will use these laws to target others who fight attacks by the bosses and the government, from union picket lines to protests against cop abuse.
Whatever one may think of the schemas that Bundy puts forward, they pose no threat to the lives of working people. From the start government officials, the FBI, many left-wing groups and the liberal news media smeared them as right-wing terrorists, laying the basis for a murderous assault like the 1993 attack on the Branch Davidian religious sect in Waco, Texas.
That's why many in Burns, Oregon, wanted the Bundys and their cohorts to leave. Most support the Hammonds and many sympathize with the occupiers' protest against Washington's discriminatory use of vast government land holdings. But they feared that the occupation would lead to another Waco.
Free Dwight and Steven Hammond! No to another Waco! Drop the charges against Ammon Bundy and others who occupied the Malheur reserve!
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