tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27612445.post5970232645440158039..comments2024-03-23T12:05:23.537-05:00Comments on The Wild Reed: Something to Think About . . .Michael J. Baylyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03087458490602152648noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27612445.post-78631404594862531562016-01-05T15:10:25.697-06:002016-01-05T15:10:25.697-06:00The only group you mention, Andrew, that comes clo...The only group you mention, Andrew, that comes close to being comparable is the American Indian Movement (AIM) at Wounded Knee in 1973. (The anti-war student protesters of the '60s and the Occupy movement of today weren't/aren't armed and are not calling for the overthrow of the U.S. government. You seem to be conflating civil disobedience directed toward specific issues and policies with outright sedition.)<br /><br />Yet as Jeff Shaw notes in his recent article, there are some significant differences between AIM and the Oregon "militia" which for me would mean the term "terrorist" is not applicable to the former. <br /><br />Shaw writes, for instance, that: "The tribal members were armed, like the Oregon militants. Unlike the Oregon militants, they had read and understood the Constitution of the United States, which declared that their treaties were the supreme law of the land. I imagine they had a good handle on the federal supremacy clause, too.<br /><br />". . . [T]he Oregon militants are not patriots. This is a group of irrational fanatics whose wilfully inaccurate readings of the Constitution and religious texts are excuses to commit violence. We must not ignore, or worse, whitewash their potential for violence.<br /><br />"[W]e [also] cannot ignore the role that race plays in the response to the Oregon militants. . . . [W]e live in an era when it is legal and, in some quarters, acceptable to shoot an unarmed black child like Tamir Rice, or to choke and then deny aid to a black man for selling single cigarettes. Race has consequences (or, for privileged groups, benefits) that play out across the news every day."<br /><br />For the full article, <a href="http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/.../from-oregon-to.../" rel="nofollow">click here</a>.Michael J. Baylyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03087458490602152648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27612445.post-87957040748221078522016-01-05T15:00:44.127-06:002016-01-05T15:00:44.127-06:00Interesting Michael, so we should also refer to st...Interesting Michael, so we should also refer to student protesters occupying universities during the Vietnam War and American Indians, notably at Wounded Knee in 1973, as terrorists? Let's not leave it there, let's add Occupy.Andrewnoreply@blogger.com