Ward Churchill on COINTELPRO (SF, 4/11)

These are really good. At the end of the second one, after a explanation of "Praetor":

"Tag line on that is, you don't need to worry about how to prevent this from becoming a police state ... [several members of the audience, loud: It is!] Yeah, the question is what to do about it now that it is."

Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States
by Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall

http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/cointel.htm

The chapter on the New Left reveals many tactics that look familiar today.
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/copap6a.htm

The main thing you will notice from all of the following FOIA documents is a constant attempt to create division. These attempts can be between radicals and less radicals, people within groups, groups which disagree with other groups tactics/structure etc.. Identity politics was also used to make left wing groups hate each other and not work together. While we should never dismiss real issues we have, or assume that we can really all be part of one big happy progressive organization, I hope these documents carry a strong message that when it comes down to actions, protests, etc... we all really need to stand together. (Note that in the Bay Area and on IMCs most of those who are disruptive are not the FBI and are rightwing kids and these days organized proIsraeli groups)


This set of FOIA docs is a good overview of the FBI's tactics:
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc181.gif
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc182.gif


These FOIA docs look alot like what is happening to the SJP and Bay Area antiwar groups:
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc183.gif
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc184.gif
(bullet point number 9 in the 2nd gif is funny since I think the SWP is the modern ISO and they were exploiting antiSWP feeling among other groups even back then)
Here is more on how they started exploiting differences to cause purges (while most of the people complaining about the ISO and IAC on this site have real issues, these documents should make people a little concerned about the number of those complaints in a public forum like this):
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc209.gif


FOIA docs relating to disrupting alternative press (look for this type of activity on Indymedia, KPFA etc..):
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc194.gif
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc195.gif
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc196.gif
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc212.gif


How the FBI helped create and uses much of the left's identity politics:
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc202.gif
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc203.gif
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc210.gif
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc211.gif
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc213.gif
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc214.gif


Why the FBI loves New Agey hippie stuff (read the bottom paragraph its pretty funny):
http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/doc207.gif

Take The Power!

In Nov. of 2003 I was told to remove the book from the internet, which I did, without explanation. I'd had it on my website for about 5 years, with the author's permission, and don't know why South End Press made this decision.

Half the book consisted of reproductions of government documents, which I still have on my website http://www.cointel.org
Those documents along with many others - quite a few from a microfilm series produced by Scholarly Resources Inc, are organized into an outline, by group and then by type of operation. What's been released to the public is only part of the story. After the programs were formally discontinued in 1971 due to public pressure, the same types of operations continued. However, the details would be in the individual investigative case files. I intend to continue working on this project, and include more material on court cases related to the programs.

Paul