Mary Lou Seymour is a long-time libertarian activist and author. She lives in South Carolina. CLICK HERE FOR RATIONAL REVIEW NEWS DIGEST CLICK HERE FOR THE LIBERTY ACTIVIST BLOG SUPPORT OUR
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Liberty Action
of the Week Last week, I encouraged y'all to take a pretty public action for Flag Day, flying an "alternative flag" as a symbol of our dismay at the growing police state. (And I got several dismayed emails from liberty activists who, well, aren't quite ready to take that public a stand.) So, this week, I thought we'd talk about more private, even anonymous, actions a liberty activist can take to spread the meme of liberty in our communities. As with all actions I mention on this list, some will appeal to your inner sense of "this is for me!" and, some won't. If one suggestion isn't right for you, another will be ... the important thing is, never give up. They can't beat us unless WE give up. While I was hunting for sources of "guerilla activism" to share with y'all, I ran across a chilling reminder that the "other side" never gives up ... the privatized version of Ashcroft's TIPS program, which, as you'll recall, was dumped by Congress as a part of Patriot I, after a slew of horrified consituents woke up long enough to realize its eerie resemblance to the East German Stasi. Discuss this
article at The cutely monikered C.A.T. Eye program is the brainchild of Mike Licata, a high school teacher and retired Air Force officer, in cooperation with ex-military SWAT officer Jason McClendon and businessman Tony Elghossain. C.A.T. Eye stands for Community Anti-terrorism Training Initiative. It has a nifty Orwellian slogan "Watching America with Pride, not Prejudice," and a cool little emblem, complete with slitted "cat eyes." Its goal is "Recruit and train a team of volunteers dedicated to be the eyes and ears of the 'good' side to observe and report possible 'evil' activities." So you'll know what "evil activities" are, you'll be taught how to detect and report suspected targets (to the FBI). As the CatEye website ingeniously states "This will be a passive surveillance program. People will just be educated observers on their way to market, work, or school." Neighborhood Watch on steroids, again, just like TIPS, except "locally controlled." The training is provided by an outfit called National Protective Services, whose website links to another "private" outfit called the Terrorism Research Center, Inc. CAT Eye is still "in its infancy." It's been mentioned in a few articles -- see "Building a nation of snoops" (originally in the Boston Globe, now apparently available only on Jihad Unspun) and "An informed citizenry," Village Voice 06/13/03 -- and a Google search turns up a few city and county police departments that have actually adopted this creepy idea and are apparently ready to enroll their communities as "passive snoops." If any of y'all are aware of CAT Eyes being formed in your community, let me know. I'd be delighted to publicize a list of communities where this Stasi-like activity is being promoted, as a public service ... a reminder that the police state is, indeed, coming to a town near you and that tyranny doesn't have to come from the Ferals, it can just as easily come from your local government. OK, so, how do we combat this spreading of the "police state meme" and prevent our nation from becoming "A nation of snoops?" Why by spreading our own memes, of course. Spreading the memes of individual liberty, resistance to tyranny, and freedom "on our way to market, work, or school." It's occurred to me that perhaps WE need a cool sounding acronym too; I mean, the other side has TIPS and now CAT Eye. So, for our underground network of liberty activists, may I propose the name CLAN ... Community Liberty Activist Network. CLAN vs CAT. Heh. Well, maybe that's too near that totally uncool CLAN with a "K". How about ... CLAW? Community Liberty Activist Workgroup? Nah, too corporate. How about CLAW: Community Liberty Activist Whatever. That about says it all. Whatever you want to do as a member, so long as you go by the NAP, is fine. Anyone with any artistic talent that'd like to draft up a logo, please send it in. I'll be delighted to promote it. Our CLAW has no membership requirements (except to abide by the Non-Aggression Principle), no boring training sessions to sit through, absolutely NO involvement with police, government or any organized anything; just a network of individuals, spreading the memes to combat the police state in whatever way they wish. So our slogan can be ... help me here ... "Freeing Americans by freeing their minds?" Any other good slogans y'all can think of ... hey, we can get T-shirts! Caps! Or not. (Though I kinda like those nifty T-shirts the Tyranny Response Team folks have, the CLAW is more of a well, loose knit group. We may, or may not, want to identify ourselves. Whatever.) So, for CLAW's initial burst of activity, let's take a look at some guerilla activism. There's the famous Simon Jester materials, of course, "be a freedom gremlin," and the cartoons of Scott Bieser and Jack Russmo .... just copy some of these 'toons, carry'em with you, and slap them up in restrooms and bulletin boards throughout your community, or slip them into library books, or leave a few in the laundromat, anywhere that they may be seen, read, or picked up and passed on, to plant the seeds of freedom and free American's minds. For the more adventurous, William Kane has a neat new site "Monkeywrenching the Government," billed as "A way to strike back at the government, to throw a monkey wrench in the cogs of the machine of human miseries called Government" which is a work in progress; send in your suggestions! Or, post some of Kent von Cleve's "Homeland Security" posters, or the cool anti tyranny posters from the Propaganda Remix Project. For even more "ammo" for freedom meme spreading, check out the Activism Resources section in the Liberty Activist Resource Directory (our new resource for LAotW donors of $15 or more.) As always, if you'd like to share your activities (anonymously or not) with other members of the CLAW, send a report to me and I'll blog it on the Liberty Activist blog, to give inspiration to others in CLAW. Til next week, For Freedom Mary Lou |
