GUEST: Minnie-Bruce Pratt, member of the International Action Center and Palestine Solidarity Collective, talks about the NY State anti-BDS legislation that threatens all of our First Amendment rights for freedom of speech.
The NY State anti-BDS legislation is the worst assault on the First Amendment since the McCarthy Era, when thousands were fired from their jobs by FBI pressure on their employers. Back then people were branded as Communist, even though proof was usually lacking. And why shouldn't a person express a point of view, or belong to a political party without fear of being blacklisted? At stake was the First Amendment freedom of expression.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.But just because the Bill of Rights says we have these freedoms, doesn't insure that we actually do. Today it is big money from the Israel Lobby threatening to turn our country into a totalitarian state. The US gives close to four billion a year to apartheid Israel, and the money seeps back to corrupt our political system.
Most of our politicians are in the pocket of one special interest group or another. But very few of our state and national representatives are free from the Israel Lobby. The New York State Senate and Assembly seem more than willing to betray our Constitutional freedoms for a ride on the apartheid gravy train.
Minnie-Bruce Pratt brought up another point, the tight integration between our nation's military, industrial complex and Israeli weapons makers. Think drones, the type that Israel produces and tests on UN schools in Gaza. Where else in the world could a weapons manufacturer target and slaughter 550 school children?
The clock is ticking on this pariah state, and each BDS campaign represents more nails in its coffin.
