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<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial>Why don't you and other idiots like you move to
Saudia Arabia or Israel so that we can make this a REAL democracy insted of a
neo-fascist corporate state.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial>David Johnson</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=rwhelbig@gmail.com href="mailto:rwhelbig@gmail.com">Roger Helbig</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=davidjohnson1451@comcast.net
href="mailto:davidjohnson1451@comcast.net">David Johnson</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, May 09, 2013 7:20
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Peace-discuss] (no
subject)</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr>Too bad that BAR does not seem to like being in America, perhaps
they should move to more hospitable country like Cuba! </DIV>
<DIV class=gmail_extra><BR><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 5:05 AM, David Johnson <SPAN
dir=ltr><<A href="mailto:davidjohnson1451@comcast.net"
target=_blank>davidjohnson1451@comcast.net</A>></SPAN> wrote:<BR>
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<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>by BAR managing editor Bruce A.
Dixon</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>Assata Shakur could not have been named
“most wanted terrorist” without the explicit approval of the first black
president and his attorney general. In doing so, they have declared open war
on the black liberation movement, something that J. Edgar Hoover and
COINTELPRO were only able to do in secret.</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>Not Your Daddy's COINTELPRO: Obama Brands
Assata Shakur “Most Wanted Terrorist”</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>by BAR managing editor Bruce A.
Dixon</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>Whoever imagines our first black president
and his first black attorney general had little or nothing to do with naming
Assata Shakur its “most wanted terrorist” list is deep in denial and
delusion. “Terrorist,” as my colleague Glen Ford points out, has never been
anything but a political label, applied by the authorities for their own
political purposes. The international legal angle as well, with Assata
Shakur receiving political asylum from the Cuban government the last 30
years, also makes her placement on that list something that Attorney General
Eric Holder and President Barack Obama absolutely had to carefully consider
and approve..</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>A lot has changed in the forty years since
Assata Shakur was wounded and captured in New Jersey. The press conference
announcing her capture was doubtless headed up by white police and district
attorneys. Back then, black faces were pretty scarce in the top ranks of
cops and prosecutors anywhere, and J. Edgar Hoover had only recently left
the FBI.. Last week's announcement of the $2 million bounty on Assata's head
was anchored by a high ranking black cop, and of course, there are black
faces in the offices of president and US Attorney General. People who call
themselves progressives, do call that “progress,” don't
they?</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=4><STRONG>The premiere federal initiative for political policing was
something called COINTELPRO. </STRONG></FONT><A><FONT
size=4><STRONG>COINTELPRO</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=4><STRONG> was a
secret “counterintelligence,” as in “counter-intelligent” and/or evil
multiplied by stupid federal program which for 25 years labeled thousands of
civic organizations, churches, labor unions, and grassroots movements as
threats to “national security.” Federal agents secretly coordinated local
police and media assets in hundreds of campaigns to discredit and destroy
those organizations, utilizing illegal surveillance, agents provocateur and
media slander. Individual leaders and participants were harassed, falsely
prosecuted and imprisoned, and sometimes murdered. COINTELPRO's existence
only came to light as a result of </STRONG></FONT><A><FONT size=4><STRONG>US
Senate select committee</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=4><STRONG> chaired by
Senator Frank Church hearings in 1975.</STRONG></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>The good news about COINTELPRO was first,
that the government of those days wasn't bold enough, that it felt too
hemmed in and prevented by the American people from openly targeting
political dissidents for assassination and murder, and second, that it
eventually did come to light. Government officials even had to pay token
damages in a handful of cases, such as the murder of Illinois Black Panther
chairman Fred Hampton, and publicly claim their official misconduct had
ended.</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=4><STRONG>Forty years later though, we live in the era of secret
kidnappings, regular torture, ghost prisons and executive branch murder by
drones or special ops teams. Today the federal Department of Homeland
Security funds counter-terrorism </STRONG></FONT><A><FONT
size=4><STRONG>fusion centers</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=4><STRONG> which
openly disseminate the kind of inflammatory and fanciful disinformation to
local police and security contractors about those the government wants
targeted that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI agents had to come around and whisper in
their ears. Now </STRONG></FONT></FONT><FONT size=4><STRONG><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><I>that</I></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif">
is progress.</FONT></STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>Forty years and change ago, the whole
constellation of African American leadership wrapped its arms around the
segments of the black movement that came under vicious police assault. I was
a member of the Black Panther Party in Chicago in 1969 and 70, and we never
had as many friends as we did when our offices were riddled with gunfire or
our members murdered by police. Back then when , everyone from the Urban
League and NAACP to Operation Breadbasket and the Afro-American Patrolman's
League stood up for us. Those who've viewed the recently released
documentary Free Angela Davis & All Political Prisoners can see the same
phenomenon of four decades ago, with Rev. Ralph David Abernathy wrapping his
arms around “our sister Angela Davis” when she was accused of murder in the
deaths of a judge and others in California. </STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>It's been a week now since the $2 million
dollar bounty and “most wanted terrorist” announcement. In that time, not a
single nationally noted African American “leader” has raised his or her
voice. Not Ben Jealous. Not a single black mayor or member of the
Congressional Black Caucus. Not Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, and certainly not the
presidential lap dog Al Sharpton. Sharpton has worn wires for the FBI more
than once, and is credibly accused of trying to get close to people who were
rumored to be close to Assata Shakur in the 1980s. Those people wisely
avoided Rev. Al.</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=4><STRONG>Such is the pressure of subservient conformity among the
black political class that not a single African American politician,
religious leader, or personage of national note has opened his or her mouth
in Assata Shakur's defense, with the solitary exception of Angela Davis,
once a political prisoner and fugitive in the days before the word
“terrorist” had been coined. Lockstep conformity like this is hard to shake.
In their 45 minutes in an otherwise excellent </STRONG></FONT><A><FONT
size=4><STRONG>Democracy Now</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=4><STRONG> show
mostly devoted to Assata Shakur's case, neither Shakur's attorney Lennox
Hinds nor Angela Davis could bring themselves even to hint that the
president and attorney general were responsible for branding her as the
nation's “most wanted terrorist.” </STRONG></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>Four decades have seen the flowering of
elite affirmative action in the military, corporate America and in American
political life. Our black political class never tires of holding their own
illustrious careers up as “the fulfillment of Dr. King's dream.” But the
fact is that US corporations couldn't do business in Africa without black
faces. The US couldn't give military aid and training for a quarter century
to 52 out of 54 African governments, arming all sides of every civil and
international conflict in the most war torn regions of the planet, without
black diplomats, black admirals and black generals. It couldn't deploy the
world's most massive prison and police state without hundreds of thousands
of black prison guards and police, some in the most senior positions and
many more in line behind them. </STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>All these are the fruits of what passes for
social and racial “progress” in these United States.</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>This then, is the real function of
corporate and elite affirmative action, and of the black political class
itself. Whether it's moving the corporate agenda of gentrification through
the destruction of public housing, carrying out social security and Medicare
cuts, or waging open war upon the unapproved segments of the African
American movement for justice and liberation, black faces in high places
have repeatedly proven themselves the more effective evil, able to blunt
leftish opposition and carry out policies that white elites can only dream
of without their help.</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>Assata Shakur is not a terrorist. She was
shot with her hands in the air, and no residue from gunfire was detected on
her hands or clothes or that would have been introduced as evidence at her
trial. Her all white jury was instructed to convict her for simply being
there, and they did just that. She was a political prisoner, and the only
“crime” she can reasonably be accused of is escaping and living out her life
the last three decades in Cuba. Government officials do admit that her
“terrorist” activity consists of occasional writings and speeches which
advocate radical change, and the example of her peaceful life and political
asylum 90 miles from Florida. </STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>If that's all it takes to be a “terrorist,”
many thousands of today's yesterday's and tomorrow's black and non-black
political activists inside the U.S. are “terrorists” as well. There's a
global war on terror, and now it openly includes the black liberation
movement, basically everybody to the left of the established black political
class. In the wake of this announcement, can there be any doubt that many
more names are or will soon come up at the president's “terror Tuesday”
meetings, at which the White House boasts it considers who next to kidnap or
murder? We're all fair game now.</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>President Obama obviously hopes the label
“terrorist” will scare present and future activists from learning what there
is to know from the proud traditions of African American and other
resistance to empire. He hopes to intimidate and frighten ordinary people,
especially young people, into the same kind of conformity as their supposed
“leaders.” </STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>Back in 2007 and 2008, candidate Barack
Obama confided to editorial boards and others a number of times that Ronald
Reagan was his favorite president. We should have listened to him a lot more
closely. It's a safe guess now, that J. Edgar Hoover is his favorite
cop.</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT color=#800000><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><I><STRONG>Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at
Black Agenda Report, and a member of the state committee of the Georgia
Green Party. He lives and works near Marietta GA and can be reached via this
site's contact page, or at bruce.dixon(at)<A
href="http://blackagendareport.com"
target=_blank>blackagendareport.com</A>.</STRONG></I></FONT></FONT></DIV><A><FONT
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<H2><FONT size=4>Comments </FONT></H2>
<DIV>
<H3><A>The BPP and community service</A></H3>
<DIV><FONT size=4><STRONG><SPAN>stuartbramhall</SPAN> - <SPAN>05/08/2013 -
20:55</SPAN> </STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><STRONG>As a white person who lived through the sixties in
Milwaukee, my only contact with the Black Panthers was through the community
service they provided - both through their school breakfast program and the
BP volunteers who helped patrol our inner city schools after Martin Luther
King's assassination. As a substitute teacher, I would have been unable to
keep order in my classroom without the assistance of the Panthers. People
who actually lived through this time are aware that the Panthers carried
weapons primarily for self-defense against the police and FBI. The Panthers'
violent reputation was a fiction - carefully crafted by an aggressive media
campaign by J Edgar Hoover, who was a rabid racist. Ward Churchill reprints
numerous declassified FBI memos documenting this in The Cointelpro
Papers. <BR> <BR>The sad thing is that Cointelpro never ended in
the black community. I myself became an inadvertent victim when I supported
2 former Black Panthers in converting an abandoned school in Seattle into an
African American Museum. I write this about the in The Most Revolutionary
Act: Memoir of an American Refugee. I emigrated to New Zealand in
2002.<BR></STRONG></FONT></DIV>
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<H3><A>Seeking Daylight</A></H3>
<DIV><FONT size=4><STRONG><SPAN>Nathaniel Gurien</SPAN> - <SPAN>05/08/2013 -
17:05</SPAN> </STRONG></FONT></DIV><FONT size=4><STRONG>Since I first became
aware of you folks and attended your most recent fundraiser last
year (@ Riverside Church), I've been struggling to find any daylight
between your viewpoint and those of your esteemed colleagues (Ms Kimberley,
Mr Ford, <A href="http://et.al" target=_blank>et.al</A>.) and my own. So far
I've failed utterly!<BR>Thank you for your continuing and outstanding
independent
journalism.</STRONG></FONT></FONT></DIV></DIV><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Peace-discuss
mailing list<BR><A
href="mailto:Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</A><BR><A
href="https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss"
target=_blank>https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss</A><BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>