We were charged with sedition in that case, and sedition is a very political offense. It's the most political offense of all the statutes that the federal government has to work with. As we said at the time, if you just hang us out to dry and don't want to support us — because it was even controversial among the left at the time — then you're setting yourself up for all sorts of government repression that might follow. And I think that has proven true, as we've seen in the 20 years subsequent to that trial. We were acquitted, and I think that made the government step back and reconsider their strategy in terms of how to go after activists and revolutionaries because, essentially, they lost that case, and after putting a considerable amount of money and effort into it. But as we have seen subsequently, the government has gone after people with new statutes they have on the books now. They don't have to rely just on the sedition statute. And they have targeted and imprisoned a lot of people, and so in that sense, I think that it was true. It was a show trial in one aspect. The government wanted a big, multi-defendant case that they could use to intimidate people. What the government does with these types of trials and proceedings, and they're doing it today, whether they're after environmental or animal rights activists, or they're after Muslims, or whoever they might be after, what they try to do, essentially, is to define the parameters of dissent and resistance. They want to be able to define it, as opposed to the people defining it based on time, place and conditions. Just like they wanted to define the parameters of free speech at the UMass event.
ALTHOUGH LAST YEAR'S EVENT HAD MANY SUPPORTERS, THERE WERE ALSO A LOT OF PEOPLE UPSET ABOUT YOU SPEAKING AT UMASS, BUT IT SEEMED AS IF THE POLICE MADE THE LARGEST PROTESTS. ARE YOU ANTICIPATING ANY POLICE PICKETS OR PROTESTS THIS TIME AROUND?
When I go down in October? I'm not going to say that I'm not anticipating it at all. I think it's much more doubtful this time. I've spoken at many venues where the police haven't stepped in. Days before the UMass event was to take place I spoke at a college in Lewiston-Auburn. There was no issue there. But they picked their battles. They pick the venue where they think they have the most leverage. UMass was a public university, tax funded, where they thought they could come in with their organized forces nullify it completely or disrupt it in some way. I don't anticipate (police protests), but I'm ready for it, as are the organizers of the event, but I don't think that my speaking at a private venue in the same area, and using my voice to raise money for the support of children is the kind of venue they're going to be particularly interested in. A "terrorist," as they constantly call me, if they were to oppose me raising money for children, it doesn't bode as well for them. They might be there, but I don't think so. Now, just let me add, when you say organized police forces were able to prevent me from speaking at a university — now this is a major university, UMass — and they were aware of the controversy that happened in Portland several years earlier, around the art show, where again, I was prevented from speaking. But UMass was aware of this and they said, no, we're not the University of Southern Maine, we're not hicks; this is a big university, and we're not going to bow down to the police telling us who can speak and who can't. Although they sure as hell did when push came to shove. But what I want to emphasize is, the police are much more effective when they have the collaboration of the media and opportunist politicians. So when you look at what happened to UMass, yes, the police were out in force and making a lot of noise, but they had the backing of a complicit corporate media that was fully supporting them, and very opportunist politicians, from Governor Deval Patrick all the way down to some in the state legislature.
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