FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THE FBI

Milwaukee activists protest to stop FBI raids and intimidation
 of anti-war activists. (Fight Back! News)

It's the exact right thing to do.  Don't adopt a merely defensive postion in regards to FBI led government repression aimed at left wing targets, TAKE THE OFFENSIVE.


In cities across the country this week demonstrators are showing up outside FBI offices to protest the latest red scare like raids conducted by the FBI last week in Minniapolist and Chicago.


In Chicago, at least 350 turned out at FBI headquarters to condemn the FBIs latest actions. "It's not just our family. It's not just those that got the knock on Friday. It's not just the many, many movement activists that are here today," said Stephanie Weiner, whose home in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood was the subject of a search warrant Friday.


Another person targeteted in the Windy City was Hatem Abudayyeh executive director of the Arab American Action Network.J im Fennerty, an attorney representing Abudayyeh, who is an American of Palestinian descent, said Monday that lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild will represent those who are being investigated.

Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Monday that the investigation into Abudayyeh's organization was "a waste of taxpayer dollars."

"Hatem is a longtime, respected leader in the community. It is unthinkable that he would have any connections to terrorism," Rehab said. "This is a new low. … This is an example of FBI overreach when it comes to activism or commentary on the (Middle East) conflict."

Hundreds more protested in Minneapolis, with signs reading: "Stop FBI harassment. Opposing war is not a crime." Roughly 120 people marched in Chicago, chanting, "Hey, hey! Ho, ho! FBI raids have got to go!"

One of the homes searched was that of Jess Sundin of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee. She told protesters that she knows of 13 people who have been subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury in Chicago next month.

Sundin said Monday she met FARC rebels when she visited Colombia in 2000, but noted that the Colombian government was holding peace talks at the time with the rebels, who held public forums where she met them. She said she has had no contacts with FARC since.  

Mick Kelly (another of those who house was searched in Minniapolis) and Sundin acknowledged they're active in the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (which as far as I know is still not a crime), a group named in several warrants . Kelly edits its newspaper.

In Salt Lake, a dozen protesters, mostly members of the Revolutionary Students Union at Utah Valley University, chanted and held signs reading "Hands off our anti-war activists" and "Peace is not a crime." Organizer Gregory Lucero, a UVU graduate student, said the group responded to a call from the Minneapolis-based Anti-War Committee to rally in support of peace activists the FBI targeted last Friday.

"We feel this is an infringement on our rights," said Cory Bushman, of The Mormon Worker, a local group that combines Mormonism and radical politics. 


Mormon Worker, say what...


In Gainesville, Florida, , protesters led by the Students for a Democratic Society,  stood outside Gainesville’s FBI Regional Agency from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. to raise their voices against recent investigative activity concerning anti-war activists.


Justin Wooten, an SDS member, former UF student and organizer of the protest, said the FBI entered, searched and confiscated belongings from the homes of two of his  acquaintances.

“They can put you behind bars for supporting any organization they deem a terrorist organization,” Wooten told the Florida Alligator. “It’s a real threat to freedom of speech in this country.”

The following is from Fight Back News.

OVER 500 PROTESTERS IN MINNEAPOLIS SLAM FBI REPRESSION OF ANTI-WAR AND INTERNATIOINAL SOLIDARITY ACTIVISTS

By Staff | 

September 28, 2010

Read more articles in People's Struggles

Above: 

Speaking out at the rally against FBI raids on anti-war protesters. (Fight Back! News)

Right: 

Over 500 rallied in support of those targeted by the FBI raids. (Fight Back! News)

Left: 

Dozens of protests are taking place across the country in solidarity with those targeted by FBI raids on anti-war activists. (Fight Back! News)

Minneapolis MN - On Monday September 27th, protests took place in cities across the country to protest the FBI raids carried out against anti-war activists. “From Colombia to Palestine, solidarity is not a crime”, chanted protesters in Minneapolis, where over 500 gathered at the FBI Headquarters to speak out against the FBI repression of organizers for social justice.

Minnesota speakers included activists whose homes were raided, as well as representatives of the labor, anti-war and social justice movements. Speaker after speaker expressed support and solidarity with the fellow activists who had been targeted by the FBI. And each speaker angrily denounced the FBI's outrageous attempt to silence and intimidate anti-war protestors, or anyone who opposes U.S. government policies.

“This is an attack on our ideas”, stated Jess Sundin of the Anti-War Committee, whose home was raided. “These actions by the FBI will not intimidate us nor will they silence us. I have traveled to other countries and have brought back the stories, pictures and experiences to share with everyone here. I have done this so that we can understand and see the consequences of our government’s military funding and intervention abroad. I have done nothing wrong. Standing up for truth and justice is not a crime!"

Clyde Bellecourt, founder and National Director of the American Indian Movement, recalled the brutal FBI repression suffered by American Indians in the 1970’s during the occupation of Wounded Knee, and urged support for those facing the grand jury.

The Minneapolis protest was part of a wave of solidarity demonstrations in over 20 cities across the country on Monday, from New York to Florida, and from Texas to California. More protests against the FBI's raids on anti-war activists are expected this week.

FIDEL TALKS AND JEWS OF VENEZUELA SAY, "THANKS"

It is amazing what a few simple words can mean to a whole community of people.  A little while back Fidel spoke with a fellow from the Atlantic and expressed some insightful feelings about Jews, anti-semitism, and even the state of Israel.

It turns out it has already made a difference.


The following is from the Atlantic.


HOW FIDEL CASTRO HELPED VENEZUELA'S JEWS

EP 28 2010, 3:48 PM ET

One day after I posted Fidel Castro's condemnation of anti-Semitism on this blog, the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, announced that he too, felt great "love and respect" for Jews, and he invited the leaders of his country's put-upon Jewish community to meet with him. The meeting took place a short while later. Chavez's statement, and the meeting that followed, were widely interpreted in Latin America as a signal from Chavez his mentor, Fidel, that he understood that Venezuela was developing a reputation as a hostile place for Jews. Now comes an e-mail to Goldblog from a member of Venezuela's Jewish community confirming that bit of analysis:

"I understand that anti-Fidel people are saying that his statements of affection for Jews and his statements of hostility toward anti-Semitism were cynical and about politics and the need for international respect, but from our perspective this does not matter. Fidel's words against anti-Semitism changed the way the government here talks to us and protects our institutions. The leader of our country showed us a lot of respect in our meeting, and we are glad the Cuban ex-president said the words that he said to you. It is difficult for Americans to understand (I also spend a lot of time in Miami) that Fidel is respected greatly in Latin America and in Venezuela. If he had said something hostile to our position, it would be terrible for us. With God's help, we will survive as a community in Venezuela.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG - Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, he has reported from the Middle East and Africa. He also writes the magazine's advice column.

WATCH WHAT YOU SAY, WHO YOU SAY IT TO, WHERE YOU SAY IT

Today I had an experience on facebook that leads me to believe too many especially young activists out there do not quite understand how easily conspiracy laws can be used against them.


I posted an article about coercive abuse of Indian women by the Indian Health Services and an ACLU suit.  A while later I found that someone had commented on my post.  Although, I am sure they did not mean it as a direct threat, it was the sort of statement that surely could have ended up as an overt act in a federal conspiracy indictment.


It is worth your time to become somewhat familiar with FEDERAL CONSPIRACY LAWS.


 I was convicted in the early 70s in federal court on a bombing conspiracy charge.  Overt Acts cited in the indictment were as simple as "on or about such and such a date so and so had a discussion."  I am not jesting.

  Now, if you were part of the discussion the Feds were concerned about (and I personally never figured out what discussion they had in mind) and someone in that discussion went out and did something....zowie.


If the Feds want to get you, the conspiracy law makes it very simple.  Hell, put in the right context we are all participating in some conspiracy somewhere no doubt without ever knowing it.


By the way this sort of thing is yet another reason to never say a word to the police or the feds.  A simple comment when read back in court in another context can become something totally different.  I saw it happen.


REMEMBER ANYTHING YOU SAY ON THE INTERNET IS IN GOVERNMENT HANDS.


ANYTHING YOU SAY TO THE AUTHORITIES CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU  (AND OTHERS) IN A COURT OF LAW.


DON'T BE STUPID.


And as they used to say on NYPD Blues, "Be careful out there."

IS BARACK OBAMA THE DEMOCRAT'S ANSWER TO RICHARD NIXON...OR WHAT

By now you are very aware of the Justice Department of Barack Obama going nuts and sending in the FBI in four states to search, harass, and subpoena activists to a Chicago Federal grand jury.  While I remember back in the early 70s when grand juries popped up here, there, and everywhere targeting activists of the left wing variety, I'm not sure I recall anything quite so dramatic and draconian (as regards white activists, that is) since.  Last Friday's raids though were certainly a step in that direction.  This coming from the "hope and change" President whom the Oread Daily warned you wasn't all that much way before the election.

And today, in a follow up, the New York Times (the King of the Capitalist print media) reports the Obama Administration has drafted broad new regulations that will make it easier for cops and spooks to eavesdrop on your internet and e-mail communications.  The Times writes, 


"Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages."


"James X. Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet policy 
group, said the proposal had “huge implications” and challenged “fundamental elements of the Internet revolution” — including its decentralized design.

“They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet,” he said. “They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function.”

As is usual, the Justice Department cites threats of terrorism for both of the above actions.


For the millionth time folks, we have a one party system, one capitalist party with two wings.  While the two wings do have differences, they agree on the basics and they both will do whatever it takes to ensure THEIR SYSTEM is protected, not just Al Qaeda but from you and me, too.


The following articles come from the blog Ron Is Still Home and Op-Ed News respectively.


WE WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED-THE FBI RAIDS IN CONTEXT


On September 24, 2010 the FBI raided several houses and a couple offices in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Chicago and North Carolina under the guise of looking for proof that the people living in those houses were involved with arganizations that "lent material support to terrorists." Ironically (or perhaps presciently) the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) also released an 88 page document titled The Policing of Political Speech: Constraints on Mass Dissent in the U.S on that day. Not content to criminalize the representation provided by attorneys to those accused of fomenting terrorism as in the case of Lynne Stewart, with these raids the Obama administration has stepped up the repression that became quite commonplace under George Bush. 

In short, the government is attempting to criminalize the organizing of antiwar protests. Furthermore, it wants to make opposition to Washington's assistance in repressing struggles for self-determination illegal. Other repressive actions by law enforcement against US citizens, including the sentencing of a videographer to 300 days in jail for trespass after he tried to film an unauthorized talk in Chicago and the acknowledgement by the Pittsburgh FBI office that it had spied on peace activists and used a private agency to help out, makes it clear that the PATRIOT Act and its excesses are alive and well under the Obama administration. Repression is a bipartisan activity, especially when it comes to the repression of the left.

These raids are a clear and vicious attempt to intimidate the antiwar movement. The grand jury is a fishing expedition, as evidenced (for example) by the warrant asking for papers from no determined time. This intimidation is a continuation of the harassment of the Twin Cities left/anarchist community that began before the 2008 Republican National Convention. If one recalls, several organizers had their homes and offices raided prior to the convention. In addition, hundreds of protesters were arrested and many more were beaten by law enforcement. Eight organizers were eventually charged with a variety of charges including conspiracy. As of September 25, 2010, three of those charged had all of their charges dropped and the rest face trial on October 25, 2010. 

This is not just about the movement in the Twin Cities, however. The September 24th raids also took place in Chicago and North Carolina. There is a grand jury being convened in October 2010 with the intention of perhaps charging some of the people (and maybe others) subpoenaed on September 24th. These raids are an attempt by the federal government to criminalize antiwar organizing They are also an attempt to make support for the Palestinians and other people fighting for self-determination illegal.

The PATRIOT Act was passed on October 26, 2001. Since that passage, the level of law enforcement intimidation and outright repression increased quite dramatically. From little things like protesters being forced to protest in so-called free speech zones or face arrest to the recent approval of the assassination of US citizens by federal death squads, there has been a clear progression away from any concern for protecting civil liberties. Indeed, the concern for civil liberties is usually dismissed by politicians, judges, and other people in power almost as if they were some worthless costume jewelry from your grandmother's jewelry box. As mentioned earlier, this harassment and repression is not new to US history. In addition to multiple murders of Black liberation activists, illegal surveillance, false imprisonment and other forms of harassment, the use of grand juries was essential to the repression of the antiwar and antiracist movements of the 1960s and 1970s. As the NLG document points out, "from 1970-1973, over 100 grand juries in 84 cities subpoenaed over 1,000 activists." However, nowadays there seems to be less resistance to it. Some of this can be attributed to the lack of press coverage, which is quite possible intentional. Much of the lack of concern, however, can be attributed to the state of fear so many US residents live in. This is a testimony to the power of the mainstream media and its willingness to serve as the government's propaganda wing.

To those who argue that the media doesn't always support the government and then cite Fox News' distaste for Obama or a liberal newspaper's distaste for certain policies enacted under George Bush, let me point something out. Like the two mainstream political parties (and the occasional right wing third party movement like the Tea Party), even when different media outlets seem to be opposing each other, the reality is that neither opposes the underlying assumptions demanded by the State. In fact, the only argument seems to be how better to effect the underlying plan of the American empire. The plan itself (or the rightness of the plan) is never seriously questioned.

The September 24, 2010 raids in the Twin Cities, Chicago and North Carolina may not seem like much, even to other antiwar organizers and leftists. The setting up of "free speech zones" may also appear minor. A grand jury fishing for supposed links to "terrorism" by antiwar activists may seem like no big deal. Violations of human rights in cases involving foreign nationals like Aafia Siddiqui (who was sentenced to 86 years after a trial that barely recognized her defense) do not even register on most Americans' radar. Yet, it is the cumulative effect of all of these efforts at repression that we should be aware of. As James Madison wrote: ""I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." If these seemingly minor encroachments on liberties we assume we have go unchallenged, how long might it be before assassinations and torture by the US military and their mercenary cohorts are carried out on US citizens? Oh wait, that's already happening.


-------------------------------


IT IS OFFICIAL: THE US IS A POLICE STATE
by Paul Craig Roberts



On September 24, Jason Ditz reported on Antiwar.com that "the FBI is confirming that this morning they began a number of raids against the homes of antiwar activists in Illinois, Minneapolis, Michigan, and North Carolina, claiming that they are ‘seeking evidence relating to activities concerning the material support of terrorism.’"

Now we know what Homeland Security (sic) secretary Janet Napolitano meant when she said on September 10: "The old view that ‘if we fight the terrorists abroad, we won’t have to fight them here’  is just that — the old view."  The new view, Napolitano said, is "to counter violent extremism right here at home."

"Violent extremism" is one of those undefined police state terms that will mean whatever the government wants it to mean. In this morning’s FBI foray into the homes of American citizens of conscience, it means antiwar activists, whose activities are equated with "the material support of terrorism," just as conservatives equated Vietnam era antiwar protesters with giving material support to communism.

Antiwar activist Mick Kelly, whose home was raided, sees the FBI raids as harassment to intimidate those who organize war protests. I wonder if Kelly is underestimating the threat. The FBI’s own words clearly indicate that the federal police agency and the judges who signed the warrants do not regard antiwar protesters as Americans exercising their Constitutional rights, but as unpatriotic elements offering material support to terrorism.

"Material support" is another of those undefined police state terms. In this context the term means that Americans who fail to believe their government’s lies and instead protest its policies, are supporting their government’s declared enemies and, thus, are not exercising their civil liberties but committing treason.

As this initial FBI foray is a softening up move to get the public accustomed to the idea that the real terrorists are their fellow citizens here at home, Kelly will get off this time.  But next time the FBI will find emails on his computer from a "terrorist group" set up by the CIA that will incriminate him. Under the practices put in place by the Bush and Obama regimes, and approved by corrupt federal judges, protesters who have been compromised by fake terrorist groups can be declared "enemy combatants" and sent off to Egypt, Poland, or some other corrupt American puppet state — Canada perhaps — to be tortured until confession is forthcoming that antiwar protesters and, indeed, every critic of the US government, are on Osama bin Laden’s payroll.

Almost every Republican and conservative and, indeed, the majority of Americans will fall for this, only to find, later, that it is subversive to complain that their Social Security was cut in the interest of the war against Iran or some other demonized entity, or that they couldn’t have a Medicare operation because the wars in Central Asia and South America required the money.

Americans are the most gullible people who ever existed. They tend to support the government instead of the Constitution,  and almost every Republican and conservative regards civil liberty as a coddling device that encourages criminals and terrorists.

The US media, highly concentrated in violation of the American principle of a diverse and independent media, will lend its support to the witch hunts that will close down all protests and independent thought in the US over the next few years. As the Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels said, "think of the press as a great keyboard on which the Government can play."

An American Police State was inevitable once Americans let "their" government get away with 9/11. Americans are too gullible, too uneducated, and too jingoistic to remain a free people.  As another Nazi leader Herman Goering said, "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. Tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace-makers for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger."

This is precisely what the Bush and Obama regimes have done. America, as people of my generation knew it, no longer exists.




Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. 

TENNESSEE ANTI-LESBIAN HATE CRIME LEADS TO OUTPOURING OF SUPPORT

Laura (left) and Carol Ann Stutte

On Sept. 4, a Vonore, Tenn., home belonging to a lesbian couple was burned and the word "Queers" was spray-painted on the detached garage.


Carol Ann Stutte and her partner, Laura Stutte have been the targets of all kinds of threats for more than five years.  "We never thought anything would be followed through," Carol Stutte said of the threats. She and her partner Laura have been together for more than 15 years and have lived in Tennessee for the last five. They say  one neighbor has never been accepting of them, and they have filed official reports of harassment in the past. 


There is some good news here. 


Donations to support the couple have poured in from the local community and far beyond, including  from Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.  A special fund has been set up for them at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville (yes, that is the same church where a man opened fire during a children’s production of “Annie” back in 2008 because he was angry over the church’s liberal bent). Ben Byers with Tennessee Equality Project’s Knoxville committee said a benefit concert is planned, and the Maryville chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays is accepting contributions of clothing and toiletries for the women and dog food for their three dogs who survived the fire.


The outpouring has just been tremendous," said Becky Lucas, president of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Maryville (PFLAG).

Plans are underway to honor and celebrate the Stuttes at the October PFLAG Maryville/Maryville College GSA meeting on Thurs., Oct. 7, 6:30 pm at McArthur Pavilion on the campus at Maryville College.  Bring the love (and a dish)!  Donations are still being accepted at the sites below:


Options for donating $$: TVUUC, MCCK, Knoxville Pridefest

**In Maryville:  Items can be dropped off (or mailed, if you include STUTTE DONATION on package) at Southland Books,801 East Broadway, Maryville, TN 37804, Mon-Sat, 10 am-6 pm**

**In Knoxville:  Items can be dropped off at Rainbow Club West, 7211 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN

Mon-Sun, 5 pm-3 am**

The following is from  Metro Pulse.

LESBIAN COUPLE PLANSLIFE AFTER LOSING 

VONORE HOME TO A SUSPECTED ARSON/HATE 

CRIME

By Rose Kennedy (Contact)

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Carol Ann and Laura Stutte know someone hates them because they’re lesbians. And that’s why their Vonore house got burned down Sept. 4.

But even though the two and Carol Ann’s adult daughter have been left homeless and their earthly possessions are gone, Carol Ann can see the good in the event that spawned an outpouring of support from local and national LGBT-friendly organizations, and financial donations from more than 30 states and three foreign countries.

“Honest to goodness, if this hadn’t happened, I would never have been able to meet the Maryville PFLAG [Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays] group, and lots of other good folks from Blount County,” she says. “They have made us feel like we aren’t alone anymore, and it’s like a load has been lifted. I have to look at the positives.”

Just 14 days after the fire, the experience has also transformed them from an isolated, under-the-radar couple to people ready to stand up and be recognized, come what may. Says Carol Ann, who does most of the public speaking for herself and Laura, who is shy: “What else can be taken from us? We have told PFLAG and various other groups that as far as we’re concerned, we have our lives, the three of us, we have each other, we’re willing to go out on a limb because that’s what we have left to offer: ourselves. Anything they need us to do, we’ll speak up. We would love to help with fund-raising, help others in need.

“Hopefully this won’t arise for anyone else, but if it does—if we could pay it forward as love and kindness, that would be the best part of all this happening.”

What a change from the couple who had lived quietly for five years in Vonore, a town of 1,162 as of the 2000 census that’s about 35 miles from Knoxville and three miles from Fort Loudoun. Carol Ann’s 47, Laura’s 48, and the two met in Oklahoma in their early 30s, when Carol Ann was going through a divorce. They have been together for 16 years now. While they’re not legally married, they did celebrate a civil ceremony at the Unitarian Universalist church in Oklahoma City.

They moved here from Oklahoma to enjoy the mountain community atmosphere and the low cost of living. Verbal threats from one neighbor began almost immediately, and continued off and on for years. “One threat that was made over and over was, ‘We take care of things the hillbilly way, and a lot of bodies have never been found in these hills,’” remembers Carol Ann.

Another time the neighbor said she knew how to poison animals, something about wrapping up aspirin in pieces of bread, and the Stuttes’ black lab mysteriously got sick and died shortly afterward.

“We suspect that’s who did it, but unless she threatened us in an officer’s hearing, or someone saw her, it was all things that couldn’t be proven. Can I prove it? No. Did it happen? Yes.”

Carol Ann does not, however, consider this one neighbor’s behavior toward a lesbian couple an indictment of the entire community.

“I would say overall we were treated just fine, though we didn’t really act like a couple, either,” says Carol Ann.

Most community members just assumed they were sisters, and the Stuttes would let them—Carol even jokes about it with her characteristic black sense of humor. “Everybody would ask, ‘How’s your sister?’ and for the longest time I thought they were talking about my sister in Oklahoma, cause I’m blonde, and Irish, and Laura’s an Indian from the Chickasaw tribe of Oklahoma with this jet black hair. I learned to say, ‘She’s fine’ but after that I thought, ‘I really don’t ever want to act like we’re together as a couple or they’ll think we’re inbreeding.’”

That’s been their style all along: careful, never being obvious with their sexual orientation or their union, never confronting those who might disagree. Both were raised Southern Baptist, for example. “When we got together, that’s when I came out,” says Carol Ann. “I’d been a Sunday school teacher, and I knew from the teachings that they wouldn’t appreciate me still attending. But it wasn’t like I spoke to the church about it, or publicized it. I kind of walked away quietly.”

Same with the threats—no confrontation. Laura, an RN, was gone a lot with her job as a traveling nurse. Carol Ann had always been self-employed as a landscaper and home remodeler (“making things beautiful, really,” she says), but she says the threats shaped her entire lifestyle. “Since we moved out into that area by the neighbor, I had been almost like a prisoner there. I knew, from the threats, that if we were gone any extended period of time, there’d be a chance our puppy dogs could get hurt, or worse. So I stayed there and stayed guard, other than necessities like going for groceries or getting gasoline. And then I was always in a hurry.”

Delayed Reaction

The Stuttes did finally report to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department a few weeks before the arson, telling them of a confrontation where their neighbor threatened to kill them and burn their house down. “This wasn’t the first burn and killing threat, but this was the first where she got up on us and started to poke and point on us,” says Carol Ann, who admits it took a lot of prompting from family and friends before they made the police report. “We were to the point where we were pretty much going to pack up and leave, put the house on the market, and never look back. But our family and out-of-state friends were saying, ‘Get down there now. Don’t make us come and drag you.’”

This aspect has puzzled their loved ones and people who read about the case, and Carol Ann can see why. On the surface it doesn’t make much sense: Why would anyone endure the threats?

“You get worn down, way out here, living around a neighbor like that,” she says. “We just got more and more reclusive, trying to guard the house, but we kept thinking, maybe if we kind of ignore it, it will blow over. It was the elephant in the room, and we just kept hoping to wait it out, turn the other cheek.”

Carol Ann says even after they made the report, neither of them actually thought the neighbor would act on the threat, but while the two were celebrating an anniversary in Nashville, their house was burned to the ground. Whoever set the fire, which has been deemed an arson, also painted “queers” in large letters on the side of the garage. And while investigators haven’t yet determined if this qualifies as a “hate crime,” Carol Ann says they know who’s been making the threats all these years, and she can feel the hatred.

It scares her. “I don’t even want to drive into Monroe County,” she says, “and I’m fearful of this person’s relatives, a lot of whom live in the area.” She frets that someone will learn the location of the safe house where she and Laura are living. Laura hopes to be back at work by the end of this week. They have a computer, and Carol Ann jokes about her “briefcase”—a plastic grocery store bag that holds her personal documents and paperwork.

She grows somber when she talks about being grateful they took that trip to Nashville; it almost didn’t happen. Her daughter joined the excursion only at the last minute. “She had been sick, and missed a lot of work, and we’d thought about canceling,” she says. “I’m really glad we headed out Saturday, and she came too, because seeing the house—she would not have been alive after that fire. I can only go by what the neighbors have told me, this isn’t an official statement, but they heard explosions. If we’d been there, none of us would have been alive.”

The MCSD and the FBI are investigating the crime as a possible hate crime, and the state Bomb and Arson squad is also conducting interviews, but nothing conclusive has been determined. Carol Ann would like to see the crime solved and arrests made, so she and Laura can decide if they want to live somewhere in this vicinity, probably in Knoxville or Maryville. At first the couple just wanted to go far, far away. “At this point, we’re going hour by hour—I’d like to say day by day, but that’s not the case—on the decision of where to live. We’ve met a lot of good folks from Blount County, and people have bragged on the Knox County area. From what I understand, Knoxville is a safe place. But it all depends on when we hear or find out about the investigation.”

She’d like to see the arsonist taken care of. “We really hope the investigators can go forward; we know who wrote those threats,” she says. “But goodness, get them some help! Anyone who could go so far as to paint those hateful letters and burn someone else’s house down, they really are disturbed.”

There is no cell service in much of Vonore, and Carol Ann says lots of the people they know from the area don’t have home computers. “Living where we have lived, we have not been that in touch with national issues, and we haven’t been, as far as we know, around any other gay people in the past five years.”

Those days are over. When LGBT activist Carla Lewis of Maryville learned of the Stuttes’ plight from her partner Jaime Combs, who is Carol Ann’s hairdresser, she rallied local groups to rush to the Stuttes’ aid, from Maryville PFLAG to the Knoxville Equality Project and the Tennessee Valley Universalist Unitarian Church. They’ve set up a fund for the couple, and gathered clothes and other essentials. Lewis also put out an APB to every media friend she has, and the Stuttes’ story has been covered by several local media outlets and national LGBT-friendly blogs. The Stuttes say they’re amazed and humbled by all the coverage, but spend most of their energy on the hatred that led to the crime—and not letting it bleed into their family. “Daggum it, they’re not going to get through to us,” Carol Ann says. “I’m looking forward to laughing and joking here in the near future.

“You know, hate is hate, whether it’s directed towards Hispanics, African Americans, or gays and lesbians. It’s all a heart condition. I don’t know what we can do about it, except just stick together and make sure it doesn’t happen to people we know and love—live life simply and do unto others as we’d have them do unto us.”