Our note to the men and women of the FBI: we’ve got your back.
An Open Letter to the men and women of the Federal Bureau of Investigation:
Greetings:
We support you. We will defend you. We’ve got your back.
When our friend (and LR Net’s founder) Matt Blanchfield did the meme above, we knew we had to post it immediately. Not just because he is our friend, but because it expresses something deep within us…something we didn’t know existed. To wit: our faith in you to protect us, and to protect American democracy.
This may sound strange, coming as it does from us…those of us on the Left. We have not always been friends. When I was a young man, my conception of you was harsh. I knew you only as the organization that targeted some of my friends (war resisters, for instance) and some of my heroes (for example, Martin Luther King).
Yet, I suppose, even then I knew there was another side of you. I knew that it was your people that penetrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s and 1970s, and helped to cripple that obscene organization. And, then, later, in the early 1990s, it was your work that helped shut down John Gotti and Gambino family, men for whom murder was simply part of doing business. In 9-11, it was you who did so much to track down the individuals responsible for the bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
So, yes, even though our history has not always been, shall we say, comfortable…we knew also that there was a part of your story that was heroic, and mighty, and that you were our shield against terrible evils.
And, now, you face what may be your greatest test: the presence of a criminal in the White House, and the transformation of the once great Republican party into a mafia, owned and operated by sinister forces. Worse still, those forces seek now to destroy you.
So…let us reciprocate. Let us return the favor. You have long defended us; we will now defend you.
We proclaim our intention to do everything we can to support you and your investigation of corruption in high places. We will fight to keep you independent and strong. We will raise our voices in your name.
And if, ever, there is an attempt to fire Robert Mueller, or derail the investigation of Trump’s Russian connections…we will fill the streets.
So, in short, know…
We who may have once thought we were your foes are now your friends. And we will not fail you.
This is a promise. An oath.
Solemn, and true…and eternal.
