Celebrating Lynne Stewart’s Freedom

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to 55. Provide unemployment and retirement payments at the level of union wages We propose an EMERGENCY CONGRESS OF LABOR to discuss and take steps to Crises in comsumer prices. To combat high medical costs: A free, universal, public 1) Bail out the people, not the bankers! Open the account books of the banks to full public inspection. Nationalize the banks to be supervised by workers’ committees.

equal pay for equal work — regardless of gender, sexual orientation, skin color, or reduce mortgage payments in proportion to their capitalist-caused decline in value.

3) Full employment at union wages! An emergency public works program to employ 8) Nationalize manufacturing, big agribusiness, energy, and transportation corpora­ all jobless workers and youth! Employ people to build what we need — low-cost quali­ ty housing, efficient mass transportation, cheap and renewable sources of power, 9) To mobilize support for the demands it adopts, the EMERGENCY CONGRESS schools, clinics — and to conserve our water, forests, farmland, and open space. should organize ACTION COMMITTEES in every workplace and neighborhood threat­ Pened by the crisis. These committees can draw up more concrete demands than the Afghanistan! No war on Iran! Close all U.S. bases abroad! No money for the military — use funds instead for public works! Convert the war industries to making products for 10) To put all these measures into effect, we need a LABOR PARTY — based on a fighting union movement and all people who are oppressed and exploited. For a 5) Reduce the workweek to 30 hours with no cut in pay, and cut the retirement age This was a stupendous victory celebration indeed.

Nearly 600 activists from a wide-range of fighting so­ cial movements and left parties rallied in New York City’s St. Peter’s Church on Feb. 14 to welcome home Lynne Stewart, the courageous radical attorney who had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for her cou­ rageous defense of the “blind sheik” Mohammad Ab­ del Rachman.

Following a massive petition drive that gathered over 70,000 signatures around the world, a massive phone campaign to the White House and to U.S. Attor­ ney General Eric Holder and countless protests and On Feb. 26, the U.S. District Attorney in Chicago was forced to unseal the applications and affidavits submitted in advance of raids involving over 70 FBI agents on the homes of nearly two-dozen antiwar and Palestine solidarity activists in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Grand Rapids, Mich. The documents reveal that the government carried out a McCarthyite operation based on a collection of lies and outof-context statements collected over a period of years by a government informant sent into the Twin Cities Antiwar Coalition at the time of the Republican National Conven­ tion held in that region in 2008.

A number of those targeted were antiwar leaders who also held positions of responsibility in trade unions and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. The materials were finally produced by the government as the result of a law­ suit filed by the antiwar activists and by continuing public activity in defense of these activists by civil libertarians, peace activists, trade unionists, and socialists from around the nation.

The activists, whose story is told on the website of their defense group, the Committee to Stop FBI Repression (http://www.stopfbi.net), are meeting with their attorneys to discuss what the release of the documents might mean to their legal prospects. They remain under threat of longstanding subpoenas to appear before a Grand Jury investi­ gating “domestic terrorism.” Grand Juries have long been used by the political police in the U.S. to intimidate and silence leaders of the movements for social change. While consulting with their attorneys on a longer-range re­ sponse, the victims of this probe have called upon the U.S. District Attorney to immediately and publically announce that his investigation of them has ended and that the case is closed. All supporters of the right to free speech and politi­ SOCIALIST ACTION’S PROGRAM TO FIGHT THE CRISIS implement the following demands — 2) No foreclosures! No forced evictions! Cancel usurious debt payments, and 4) Immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops and mercenaries from Iraq & people’s needs and to combat global warming.

2 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2014 rallies in cities across the U.S., Stewart, suffering from stage-four breast cancer, was granted compassionate release by federal authorities.

An ebullient Stewart attributed her freedom to the collective efforts of the entire progressive movement. Her infectious smile and enthusiasm brought the jampacked crowd to their feet time and again.

Rally speakers included Ralph Poynter, Lynne’s hus­ band and a major leader of the effort to obtain her freedom; co-chairs Mimi Rosenberg of radio station WBAI and Harlem Tenants Union co-founder Nellie Bailey, as well as former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark; West Coast Lynne Stewart Defense Committee coordinator Jeff Mackler; Sara Flounders, of the Inter­ cal association should rally behind this demand. National petitions, protests, and news coverage have so far thwarted the government’s effort to demonstrate its power to intimi­ date and silence antiwar and socialist activists. Now is the time to keep the pressure on.

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression has run a model defense campaign, which should be emulated by all victims of government spying and harassment. Its example, along and benefits.

health-care system.

national origin.

ones outlined above.

workers’ government!

(From left) Lynne Stewart; chairperson Sara Flounders; and Jeff Mackler, who gave an appeal for funds.

national Action Center and key rally organizer; and a host of musicians and performers, including Jeanine Otis and members of the St. Marks Choir. Brief greet­ ings were also presented by a dozen social activists who had fought for Lynne’s freedom, including Joe Lombardo of the United National Antiwar Coalition, whose coordinating committee included Stewart, de­ spite her incarceration.

Stewart was commandeered by the popular Raging Grannies to join in the singing during a pre-rally re­ ception of a song about her freedom struggle to the tune of “Sweet Betsy from Pike.” This writer gave a fund pitch that raised $16,000 for Stewart’s ongoing medical and related expenses.

Two weeks after the rally, Lynne won a second vic­ tory when she was granted Medicaid. Sloan Kettering Cancer Center had agreed to provide the most mod­ ern of treatments, which may extend Stewart’s life for perhaps years to come, as opposed to the nine-month to 12-month prognosis of the medical staff at FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas. But Sloan Kettering had declined to begin until Lynne’s Social Security cover­ age, terminated while she was imprisoned, was fully re-instated.

Lynne has thus been without treatment for the two months since her release from prison, while her Med­ icaid application remained stalled in a morass of bu­ reaucratic entanglements. With this victory, the lifegiving therapies now available will begin post haste.

Contributions to Lynne’s medical care and related expenses can be made payable to the Lynne Stewart Organization and mailed to 1070 Dean Street, Brook­ lyn, NY 11216. n with that of many other successful defense campaigns, in­ cluding that of Lynne Stewart, will be discussed at the up­ coming regional civil liberties event in Connecticut entitled “One Nation – Under Surveillance: A One-Day Conference about Building Networks of Solidarity in Defiance of NSA Spying & the Erosion of Democratic Rights.” To register or find out more about this event: http://ctstopindefinitedeten­ tion.com. n 6) To combat inflation: A sliding scale of wages and pensions that matches the 7) Immediate citizenship for all undocumented workers. No job discrimination;

tions and place them under the control of elected committees of workers.

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Partial Victory in Case of Targeted Antiwar Activists