Hi from a domestic terrorist

So, it turns out, the FBI's forever investigation of us, the Catholic Workers, is just ticketyboo with the Department of Justice and its Office of Inspector General, which just issued a report on the FBI's actions.

I rarely read government reports and laugh out loud, but this one bonked me square in the funnybone in a few places.

My friends at Jonah House are still being targeted and harassed by the FBI under the rubric of RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Peace is a real racket, at least according to the FBI and DoJ.

We Catholic Workers are labeled domestic terrorists. Yes, we are pacifists. But throwing your blood on a nuclear bomb ratchets up your rep several notches with the Hooverville crew. Quite literally, they called throwing blood on a military facility an act of domestic terrorism, and the DoJ OIG agreed. Just think if the Catholic Worker hockey team ever played the FBI and our Canadian lads bodychecked an agent. They would probably go nuclear in response to international terrorism and the US DoJ would back'em up.

My favorite is that they are still calling us communists. That misses the old error by a whole millennium, for goshsakes. We laughed at those who called us that in the 70s and 80s, sneered at those who still did in the 90s, since the Cold War was reported to have wrapped up, and only the FBI and DoJ could be so mired in the past that they continue this bizarre goofiness.

There is also the weariness of such an ahistorical view that the FBI claims it doesn't investigate "lawful civil disobedience." Is this Freudian notice that our legal arguments have been now validated by the FBI? Or is this just inept linguistic comprehension? I suspect the latter. What is lawful law breaking? We think we know, but the FBI hasn't seemed inclined to agree with us.

My only personal regret is that the activities I have been involved in didn't rise to the level of generating investigation, at least not any worth mentioning. I will have to do better.