Dear John,
Imagine if I told you about peaceful protesters being assassinated, being charged with domestic terrorism and criminal conspiracy on the basis of alleged belief in ‘anarchist’ ideas, being jailed for things like standing in a public park or posting informative flyers on mailboxes, being put in solitary confinement (which is a form of torture) for the state to break the activists and extract information on their friends.
If I told you this story, you might think I’m talking about an authoritarian dictatorship — maybe China or Saudi Arabia, certainly not a country with a democratic Constitution. Well, I’m afraid to tell you that I’m talking about the United States of America in the year 2023. This is about Atlanta, Georgia, where the city has been trying to raze a forest to build ‘Cop City’ — a police militarization center containing a mock city where police would train in things such as urban warfare. The people of Atlanta have stood up to this and faced shocking repression for having done so. |
One activist was killed after being shot 57 times while sitting cross-legged with their hands in the air. When other activists distributed informative flyers on mailboxes about the killing, they were thrown in jail. The charges against the activists are unprecedented and Orwellian. They are charged with ‘domestic terrorism’ and criminal conspiracy in the largest criminal conspiracy case ever leveled against a protest movement. The indictment set the start date of the supposed conspiracy as May 25, 2020 – the day George Floyd was killed – even though the Stop Cop City movement didn’t begin until 2021. In other words, the state is implying that the entire Black Lives Matter movement may be a criminal conspiracy.
The Democrat-run city is also using the same voter suppression tactics that Democrats condemn Republicans for using in order to stop the activists’ ballot measure. All this, and we are not hearing a peep about the issue from leading Democratic leaders in the state. Let me be clear. This is nothing less than an authoritarian threat to our constitutional order. This flies in the face of the Democratic Party presenting itself as the protector of our democratic constitutional order against authoritarianism. I am the only Democrat in the race with the courage to stand up to this tyranny. If we don’t stand up for democracy now, then I worry it will be too late when we do.
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Please join with me in presenting to the American people a genuine alternative to our slide into an authoritarian state. This is the task of our generation, and together we can do it. To victory, |
