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<font size=3>Published on <i>Black Agenda Report</i>
(<a href="http://blackagendareport.com">http://blackagendareport.com</a>
)<br><br>
</font><h1><b>COINTELPRO 101</b></h1><font size=3>By <i>Jared Ball<br>
</i>Created <i>10/26/2010 - 14:44<br>
</i>Submitted by Jared Ball on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 14:44<br><br>
<img src="http://www.blackagendareport.com/images/stories/213/cointelpro.jpg" width=253 height=194 alt="[]">
<br><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3><b>by BAR editor and
columnist Jared A. Ball<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2>The U.S. government’s
COINTELPRO assault on Black and radical political activists wasn’t just a
Sixties episode: it was part of the continuity of oppression stretching
from the European invasion of the Americas and the slave trade to this
very day. American regimes are prepared to deploy COINTELPRO-like
repression whenever popular movements threaten the established order.
“Assassination, imprisonment, surveillance and encouraged internal strife
[are] employed to forcibly dissolve these movements.”<br><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#280099"><b>COINTELPRO
101<br><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>by BAR editor and columnist
Jared A. Ball<br><br>
</b></font><div align="center"><font size=3 color="#2323DC">“</font>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3 color="#2323DC"><i>It is an
introduction to the often omitted history of the FBI’s illegal wars of
terror waged against the full spectrum of radical Left movements in this
country.”<br><br>
</font></div>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2>COINTELPRO 101</i>, the latest film
release from
</font><a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/Cointelpro.html">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2 color="#0000FF"><u>The Freedom
Archives</a></font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
[3]</u></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2>, is nothing like the
all-too-common soft, liberal documentary which tells of worse and distant
horrors so as to lessen the pain or awareness of those still occurring.
It is not a film that imposes a happy ending by suggesting that its
subject is somehow past. It is a film that makes plain the fact that all
of your problems of today, from war, to incarceration, to banking crises,
joblessness and environmental catastrophe, still exist because movements
to do away with them suffered and continue to suffer the greatest levels
of repression from the most powerful state apparatus in world history.
And worse still, as Black Panther Party veteran Kathleen Cleaver states
unequivocally, unlike the official Counter Intelligence Program of
previous decades, today’s version is perfectly legal.<br><br>
<i>COINTELPRO 101</i> is just that. It is an introduction to the often
omitted history of the FBI’s illegal wars of terror waged against the
full spectrum of radical Left movements in this country. The Counter
Intelligence Program which emerged in the post-WWII era of international
struggles for human rights and national liberation simply focused
internally to the United States all that had been carried out against
populations abroad. It turned so-called U.S. citizens in the 20th century
into insurgent rebels to be dealt with as any foreign army or movement.
Assassination, imprisonment, surveillance and encouraged internal strife
were employed to forcibly dissolve these movements. But, as this film so
skillfully demonstrates, this all was merely an extension of a continuing
state project of enslavement, genocide, theft of land, culture and
humanity that pre-dates even the official declaration of U.S. nationhood.
<br><br>
The film’s brilliance is not simply its nicely-styled aesthetic elements.
They are there of course. Strong interviews, rarely seen clips, high
quality audio and video production across the board with equally strong
narration from Liz Derias. But it is the film’s ability to force new
confrontation with the political reality of today, as much as with the
past, that truly demonstrates its value. The simple point made by
Geronimo Pratt is also its strongest; that COINTELPRO made official the
illegality of politics, the “criminalization of positions” represented by
its targets. COINTELPRO was the political and legal descendant of its
ancestors, slavery and genocide, and is now itself an ancestor to the
</font>
<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2009/7/29/obamas_military_is_spying_on_us_peace_groups">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2 color="#0000FF"><u>
still-implemented</a></font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
[4]</u></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2> policies of, for
instance, the Patriot Act. This central theme of the film is its most
important because it forces us to put in context the current and horrific
state of peace, freedom and labor movements.<br><br>
</font><div align="center"><font size=3 color="#2323DC">“</font>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3 color="#2323DC"><i>It turned
so-called U.S. citizens in the 20th century into insurgent rebels to be
dealt with as any foreign army or movement.”<br><br>
</i></font></div>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2>As <i>CONTELPRO 101</i> makes
vividly clear,
“</font>
<a href="http://blackagendareport.com/?q=search/node/misleadership">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2 color="#0000FF"><u>the Black
misleadership class</a></font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
[5]</u></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2>” described so often
in the pages of Black Agenda Report is the result of having first
destroyed the rightfully ascending Black leadership class of that time.
This film helps re-establish lost cognition imposed by popular
anti-histories which allow for so many to falsely assume that Obama is a
natural progression from Civil Rights and Black Power movements. The film
inserts stolen pages of history that result in an assumption that Native
America went willingly to the reservations and then happily stayed there
having never having attempted movements to protect whatever remaining
autonomy they might have had. No one who sees this film can return to
conventional and now popularly re-emerging arguments over immigration or
human “illegality.” In fact, <i>COINTELPRO 101</i> goes further than most
histories of this phenomenon in reminding us of the threats posed by the
Puerto Rican and Chicano independence movements. One can only imagine
with a kind of hope what these discussions would sound like were they to
take place in this film’s context of state repression and specifically
the killing of Chicano movement activists like Ricardo Falcon. Indeed,
would these arguments even exist without first the assault on these
movements and their representatives?<br><br>
<i>CONTELPRO 101</i> is the latest in an increasingly long line of
collected, preserved and produced media from The Freedom Archives which
seeks to appropriately tell the stories of diverse but unified efforts
toward liberation. It powerfully summarizes the continued need of those
in power to suppress and, in their own words, “neutralize” movements and
individuals so that more acceptable replacements can be developed and
promoted. For if, as the film asserts, the continued imprisonment of
people like American Indian Movement activist Leonard Peltier is a
“symbol” to, through discouragement, protect the state from further
similar activity, then what do popular, sanctioned, elected leaders of
today represent?<br><br>
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Jared Ball. Online go to
</font><a href="http://www.BlackAgendaReport.com/">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2 color="#0000FF"><u>
www.BlackAgendaReport.com</a></font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
[6]</u></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2>.<br><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2 color="#0000FF"><u>
<a href="http://www.voxunion.com/?p=207">Jared
Ball</a></font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
[7]</u></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2 color="#280099"><i>
can be reached via email at:
</i></font><a href="mailto:freemixradio@gmail.com">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2 color="#0000FF"><u>
freemixradio@gmail.com</a></font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
[8]</u></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2 color="#280099"><i>
.<br>
</i></font><hr>
<font size=3><b>Source URL:</b>
<a href="http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/cointelpro-101">
http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/cointelpro-101</a><br><br>
<b>Links:<br>
</b>[1]
<a href="http://blackagendareport.com/?q=category/other/ba-radio-commentary" eudora="autourl">
http://blackagendareport.com/?q=category/other/ba-radio-commentary<br>
</a>[2]
<a href="http://blackagendareport.com/?q=category/us-politics/cointelpro" eudora="autourl">
http://blackagendareport.com/?q=category/us-politics/cointelpro<br>
</a>[3]
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/Cointelpro.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.freedomarchives.org/Cointelpro.html<br>
</a>[4]
<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2009/7/29/obamas_military_is_spying_on_us_peace_groups" eudora="autourl">
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2009/7/29/obamas_military_is_spying_on_us_peace_groups<br>
</a>[5]
<a href="http://blackagendareport.com/?q=search/node/misleadership" eudora="autourl">
http://blackagendareport.com/?q=search/node/misleadership<br>
</a>[6]
<a href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.BlackAgendaReport.com/<br>
</a>[7]
<a href="http://www.voxunion.com/?p=207" eudora="autourl">
http://www.voxunion.com/?p=207<br>
</a>[8]
<a href="mailto:freemixradio@gmail.com" eudora="autourl">
mailto:freemixradio@gmail.com<br>
</a>[9]
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</a></font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
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