People's Music Network Anti-ICE Resolution
The People's Music Network [for Songs of Freedom and Struggle] (PMN/SFS) Steering Committee passed this Resolution on February 22:
ATTENTION!
The Steering Committee has passed Steering Committee Resolution 260222A, entitled PMN ANTI-ICE RESOLUTION.
BE IT RESOLVED:
The Steering Committee of the People’s Music Network for Songs of Freedom and Struggle (“PMN”) condemns the actions of the United States Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) against the people of this nation.
For nearly 250 years, accurately and inaccurately, the United States of America has presented itself to the world as the standard bearer of individual rights and liberty. Our Declaration of Independence, for example, contains some of the most potent and consequential words in recorded history. Ironically, none of those words support the outrageous practices and horrific behavior employed by the current President of the United States and his subordinates since he has been in office.
Through DHS and its “military” arm, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), this Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces has degraded the security of these United States and its residents. He has violated the spirit, the intent and the specific language of our nation’s Constitution – a document admired and emulated around the world – and numerous other laws. He has immorally redefined the phrase “with liberty and justice for all” to arbitrarily exclude individuals. He has unlawfully demanded violence by federal employees against U.S. citizens and residents – including lethal force – enabling ICE as a terroristic para-military organization. He has arrested, detained and deported individuals without due process. He has treated children inhumanely.
He has eviscerated the protections embedded within our federalist system and discarded the rights of individual States and municipalities. He has advocated for and supported misleading and libelous characterizations of individuals defending American civil liberties and rights. He has used federal power unethically and illegally to limit freedom of speech and assembly, and to fascistically threaten the media and individuals who exercise their “free speech” rights.
Abusers of power will always seek to control and exploit others. They use corruption and lies to advance their selfish agendas. Abusers may be called Hitler, Putin or Trump; authoritarians, Nazis or MAGA; storm troopers, the Ku Klux Klan or ICE. They are all the same. They have been and should always be overcome by courageous, freedom-loving people.
Therefore, the People’s Music Network stands with and sounds the call with our neighbors in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Philadelphia, Maine, New York City and any place where the abuse of power and the abandonment of decency is taking place.
We gentle, angry artists in America pledge ourselves to support the voices of the unheard and the dismissed, to protect the rights that we and our neighbors are entitled to under our Constitution, and to tell the stories of those who are sacrificing or who are being sacrificed every day in the struggle to preserve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We are singing for our lives and we shall overcome!
Chris "Oledude" Owens
Chair, PMN Steering Committee
Interim Management Team - Administrator of Governance