I read this blog post yesterday (it was published in the Washington Post):

Americans are familiar with stories of dissidents fleeing repressive regimes such as those in China or Iran and seeking asylum in the United States. Snowden is in the opposite position. He’s an American leaving the land of his birth because he fears persecution.

Sigh… Americans fleeing U.S. government repression for other countries is not new. Think Paul and Eslanda Robeson. Think of Robert Williams fleeing to Cuba to escape trumped up kidnapping charges or Assata Shakur currently exiled in Cuba…

The U.S. government has always targeted dissenters. Dozens of political prisoners languish in cages across the country. This should be well-known to most Americans. It isn’t but it should be.

The current case of Edward Snowden seems to have revived (for at least a couple of days) a conversation about dissent, ‘criminality,’ and political imprisonment. It’s a good time to revisit some history…

On January 27, 1966, an American political prisoner stood in a courtroom and delivered a speech titled “We Accuse” His name was Bill Epton. I have written about Epton on this blog here and here. He should be better known to more people.

Below are some words from “We Accuse.” I encourage you to read the whole speech; it is worth it.

You have people in jail all over this country – mainly Black, Spanish-speaking and poor whites. This system, U.S. capitalism – a system where a few exploit the many – a system where the real criminals sit in high places and hold lofty positions – have the audacity to judge these people criminals: This system that forces these people to act the way they did and rebel in the way that they rebelled. This capitalist system completely de-humanizes mankind – particularly our own citizens – in jails where a man is turned into nothing else but a caged animal; in ghettos, in factories they call schools, in a moral climate where dissent is called a crime, where terror, mass murder, submission and racism has come to be known as the American Way of Life. And you have the nerve to call them criminals – the thief crying “stop, thief!”

Who are the real criminals?

We ask you, who are the real criminals? Who completely, through planned acts of genocide, destroyed the great Indian nation that once inhabited this continent? Who are the criminals? The criminal is the U.S. capitalist system.

We ask you, who are the criminals? Who raped Mother Africa to enslave and murder 60 million Africans to build this nation with their bodies, sweat and tears with almost 250 years of free labor?

Who are the criminals? The criminal is the system that lives on greed, corruption and the exploitation of man by man. That system is the U.S. capitalist system!

We ask you, who are the criminals? Who murdered, destroyed the language, culture, the religion, and, in some cases, the dignity of the Black men who were brought over here as slaves?

Who are the criminals? The criminals are the system that puts maximum profits over and above the lives of men. That system is U.S. capitalism!

We ask you, who are the criminals? Who, through military power and under the slogan of “manifest destiny,” colonized the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico and parts of other countries and reduced South America to nothing but a source of raw materials with its people among the poorest in the world? The criminal is the United States government.

We ask you, who are the criminals? Who is attempting to reduce this nation to nothing but robots to parrot their racist and pro-fascist policy? The criminal is a system that parades around as the “most democratic” and the leader of the “free world” and the strongest military power in the world today, but who really has feet of clay because it must silence any voice of dissent That system is the U.S. capitalist system!

We ask you, who are the criminals? Who, in their drive for world domination and to cower the world at its feet, massacred nearly 150,000 civilians with two bombs, one on Nagasaki and the other on Hiroshima? That dastardly act was committed by the U.S. government!

We ask you, who are the criminals? Who makes “laws” and when their same “laws” make it possible to dissent, turn around and either re-write them or ignore them? Who persecuted and attempted to destroy the trade unions in the name of “national security”? Who jailed those people who dared speak out against their oppressive system? Who framed and murdered the Rosenbergs in the true tradition of Hitlerite Germany? This was all done by the United States government!

We ask you, who are the criminals? Who is attempting to colonize the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America with a policy of overthrowing and destroying their governments, e.g. Guatemala, Santo Domingo, Venezuela, the Congo, south Vietnam, Laos, Brazil, British Guiana and the list goes on and on? These acts are being committed daily by the U.S. government and its parrots at home and abroad!

We ask you, who are the criminals? Who has systematically poured jellied gasoline over the Vietnamese people? Who has used chemical warfare and gas against the Vietnamese people? Who is attempting, through sheer military power and mass murder, to either bring the people to their knees or totally annihilate them under the slogan of “national security”? The answer is clearly the United States government!

We ask you, who are the criminals? Who are the criminals who have taken it upon themselves to become the police force of the world; to suppress any movement for freedom and national liberation in Asia, Africa and Latin America? The most dangerous and very criminal system is the U.S. imperialist system!

We ask you, who are the criminals? Who supports, militarily and financially, every fascist and pro-fascist clique in the world? Yes, again, it is the U.S. government!

And, we ask you, who stands alone, with increasing isolation in the world, as the arch-enemy of the people of the world? I will tell you who it is, it is the criminal U.S. government that is considered the most dangerous by the people of the world!