In honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., here are a few stories we’ve published in the past about King’s legacy, and how his actions might be viewed in today’s political climate:

• Remembering MLK the “Terrorist”
  
• MLK Speech on Civil Disobedience, I mean, “Terrorism”
• Terrorism Law Passed as Lawmakers Honor MLK

Image CC licensed from pictoscribe.

Screenshot of the Animal Enterprise Protection Coalition's Congressional Scorecard

Internal lobbying documents produced by an industry front group, revealed here for the first time, show how and why corporations snuck the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act through Congress, with little discussion or debate.

On the surface, it might appear as if this “eco-terrorism” law–which labels non-violent civil disobedience and harming corporate profits as “terrorism”–passed Congress with substantial support: It passed the Senate by unanimous consent, and it passed the House on a voice vote.

But an anonymous source has provided me with some of the lobbying documents of the Animal Enterprise Protection Coalition, an industry front group that urged passage of the law. [The previous post in this series has more on the coalition, and how they kept corporate members "on message" with their terrorist scare-mongering. UPDATE: The AEPC website was taken down after the first post, and the link isn't working].

These documents paint a very different picture of the law’s passage, and show that supporters were very well aware of a lack of Congressional support for their bill.

Not Enough Votes

These are spreadsheets routinely used by non-profits, corporations and other advocacy groups to track how they fare on legislation. The coalition’s scorecards have rows for every member of Congress, and columns for their support of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act: “Yes,” “Leaning Yes,” Leaning No,” and “No.”

So how many members of Congress did the Animal Enterprise Protection Coalition believe it had on its side?

• According to the AEPC’s House scorecard, of the 435 members of the House: 27. That’s 6.2 % of the vote.
• According to AEPC’s Senate scorecard, of 100 members of the Senate: 4. That’s 4 % of the vote.

These should be treated very conservatively, of course. For one thing, most of the rows and columns are blank, and only solid “yes” votes are marked. Lobbyists might have been erring on the side of caution, which is normal, and only marking the most solid votes. Also, these are dated 9/30/06: the law had already passed the Senate, but it had not yet passed the House, so there’s a slim chance more votes might have been added in the next few days.

That being said: 4 Senators and 27 Representatives. Even with scare-mongering ads in Capitol Hill publications like the one featured above, they still didn’t have the votes they needed. With those numbers, this legislation would crash and burn on the House or Senate floor. Corporations and industry groups needed another plan.

Backdoor Schemes

Prospects for this legislation looked even more grim when the November, 2006 elections marked a shift to Democratic control of Congress. Even with so few supporters, it was the best chance these groups had in years to make sweeping expansions to “terrorism” laws. Without the votes, they needed a backdoor plan.

So in the Senate, the bill was rushed through in the middle of the night, with no discussion or debate. It passed by “unanimous consent.”

In the House, the bill was snuck through on the very first day back from Congressional recess. As members of Congress were on the National Mall breaking ground on the new MLK memorial, some lawmakers were labeling King’s tactics as “terrorism.” The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act was passed as part of the suspension calendar, which is a procedure used to expeditiously deal with non-controversial legislation.

Six members of Congress were in the room. Only one spoke up against the legislation, Rep. Dennis Kucinich. However, Kucinich did not call for a roll call vote, a move that would have shown that there were only a handful of lawmakers in the room and stopped the passage of the bill.

That week, the procedure was also used to honor the St. Louis Cardinals for winning the World Series.

Stay tuned for part three in the series: “Mission Accomplished”? A closer look at how underground groups have responded to the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.

I’ve written before about how Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be labeled a “terrorist” for his tactics, and radical politics. But when I heard these speeches by Dr. King about his opposition to the Vietnam War (when others were urging him to remain “single issue”) and his unwavering support for civil disobedience… well, it gave me chills.

I certainly found this at the right time. I was in dire need of some inspiration like this. Funny how it always seems to come along right when you need it most. Here’s a link to the MP3 from Democracy Now (the excerpt below is near the end).

I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, some people have gone to great lengths to prove their devotion to the legendary civil rights leader. Presidential candidates have been arguing about who best represents King’s legacy(personally and politically). Some organizations want to be associated with MLK so badly that they’re organizing MLK parades competing with other organizations. Even hard-line conservatives have jumped on the bandwagon, saying, “It is time for conservatives to lay claim to the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. King.”

You’d be hard pressed, it seems, to find anyone who would publicly associate MLK with “terrorism.” But under a new law passed by Congress called the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, King’s actions, and the tactics he advocated, are exactly that.

The law is ostensibly meant to go after underground groups like the Animal Liberation Front who commit sabotage in the name of animal rights. Calling people “terrorists” for doing things like releasing animals from fur farms is quite a stretch. But the law doesn’t stop there. It is so broad, so vague, that it also risks wrapping up mainstream, above-ground, non-violent activists as “terrorists.” Early drafts of the bill went so far as to specifically list non-violent civil disobedience as terrorism. For instance, when I testified before the House Judiciary Committee I noted that the offense section of the bill spells out prison sentences “for an offense involving exclusively a non-violent physical obstruction.” Later versions eliminated that controversial clause, but this “terrorism” law can still be used to go after the non-violent tactics of MLK and Gandhi.

Think that’s far-fetched?

Well, on the floor of the House on the day AETA passed, Representative Bobby Scott, a Democrat from Virginia and champion of the bill, acknowledged that this “terrorism” law could still target non-violent civil disobedience. (Quotes are from the Congressional record)

“… there are some who conscientiously believe that it is their duty to peacefully protest the operation of animal enterprises to the extent of engaging in civil disobedience,” he said. “If a group’s intention were to stage a sit-in or liedown or to block traffic to a targeted facility, they certainly run the risk of arrest for whatever traffic, trespass or other laws they may be breaking…

“To violate the provision of the bill, one must travel or otherwise engage in interstate activity with the intent to cause damage or loss to an animal enterprise. While the losses of profits, lab experiments or other intangible losses are included, it must be proved that such losses were specifically intended for the law to be applied.”

In other words, those “who conscientiously believe that it is their duty to peacefully protest” through civil disobedience could be labeled terrorists. But only if they intended to make a difference.

Representative Scott is considered a go-to guy in the House on civil rights and civil liberties issues.

And, as an aside, the House passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act just hours after a ceremony breaking ground for the new MLK memorial on the national mall. Many members of Congress weren’t present for a vote on this terrorism law because they were still at the groundbreaking ceremony, or the associated events and media interviews. In fact, only six members of Congress were in the room when the law passed unanimously by a voice vote.

So how does this happen? How can politicians wax eloquently about the virtues of non-violent civil disobedience, and praise MLK, while passing legislation that would brand him a “terrorist”?

I think a quote from Representative John Lewis of Georgia–another Democrat, and civil rights champion–may offer some insight into that. He told PBS NewsHour, “King inspired me and thousands of other Americans to get in the way. He inspired us to get in trouble. But it was good trouble; it was necessary trouble. And that’s why we honor Martin Luther King, Jr. today.”

A good trouble. A necessary trouble.

The problem is, animal rights and environmental activism aren’t seen as a “good trouble,” or a “necessary trouble.” Corporations have spent millions of dollars to label it extremism, and terrorism.

But it’s absolutely critical to remember that, at the time, MLK was not good trouble, or necessary trouble. When civil rights activists sat down at lunch counters are refused to leave until they were served, they weren’t good trouble, either. If the T-word were around back then like it is now, they probably would have been called “lunch counter terrorists.”

MLK, in fact, was a radical. There’s no mincing words about that. In his speech at Riverside Church in New York City, he railed against the “individual capitalists of the West” and called the United States “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”

“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values,” King said. “We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

King railed against corporate interests, and valuing profits above life. Yet this new law labels people as “terrorists” in order to do exactly that–protect corporate interests, and value profits above life. And all the while, its supporters sing his praises from the mountain tops.