Since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks, we’ve watched the agents of repression target progressive activists using the vast powers of surveillance and detention these laws granted to the police and the Justice Department. These agents, in conjunction with corporate America, have made a concerted effort to portray progressive activists as terrorists.

Our September 2009 newsletter highlighted the case of Briana Waters, as well as her separation from her four-year-old daughter, Kalliope. Despite maintaining her innocence, Briana was convicted of conspiracy to commit arson and sentenced to six years in federal prison.

I summarized a key point of my last blog in its penultimate paragraph:

It looks like the Democrats are really going to get their butts kicked in November. They should get their butts kicked from the left, but since there is no mass electoral party to their left, the voters will either stay home or vote for the right. While I find this distressing, even terrifying, I don’t find it surprising. I wrote here over a year ago, “I believe we are in a radical moment, a time when caution is a guarantee of failure.”

I spent last week on the Cape. You’re supposed to let the world slip away when you are on vacation, but my thoughts kept drifting to the size and scope of the flooding in Pakistan, the inadequacy of the world’s response and the relationship of that failure to the global scale of human rights violations. Why lump a seemingly disparate concept, human rights, together with massive flooding?