Anyone else old enough to remember when COINTELPRO was murdering citizens by the dozen?

[leveymg]

58. I, too, was surprised. But, it is was strangely gratifying and confirms what I already knew.

Last edited Mon Feb 11, 2013, 11:01 AM - Edit history (6)

Not the first time I had received similar treatment.

In college, I studied with Howard Zinn for several years. One of my class assignments was to organize a peaceful demonstration at Reagan's First Inauguration. I must have talked to every liberal left trouble-maker on the East Coast from Congresswoman Bella Abzug to the NYC Yippies. We ended up part of a larger coalition that filled several dozen protest buses with students from schools in Boston and New England.

I learned several things from that experience. A rather dismissive Nov. 1, 1980 Harvard Crimson article is still on-line about a press conference I put together. Twenty people showed up, which isn't bad for such events. But, the reporter harped on how we had expected a better turnout. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1980/11/4/coalition-for-peace-ptwenty-people-attended/ That told me a lot about the attitude of some elitist media and institutions. They don't like agitators, particularly outside agitators (I went to another university on the "wrong side" of the Charles River -- the one with Howard Zinn on the faculty -- but dared to also organize students at Harvard and MIT where Howard's buddy, Noam Chomsky, taught).

It also taught me that gatekeepers of mainstream organizations discourage grassroots organizing. It taught me that the media isn't really so "liberal," even at the collegiate level. The people who are worth following and keeping in one's heart are often the least concerned about protocol and pecking orders, and I learned why Noam Chomsky seems to hate The New York Times so much.

Affirmation of that insight also came after my own college newspaper declined to publish an article I wrote about the lessons of nonviolent civil resistance at the Seabrook nuclear plant occupation on October 6, 1979. After the school editor told me, "we've already covered that event enough," I took it elsewhere. The Boston Globe published it on the Op-ed page.

Howard gave me an A. That was most gratifying.



During that time, I had an interesting encounter with the Boston FBI while I was involved with the Clamshell Alliance organizing anti-nuclear protests. A strange, little homeless man showed up at a meeting and attached himself to me. He was very persistent, but friendly. One afternoon, we were alone together in a side room at the Clamshell offices and he spotted a pile of computer print-outs with names and addresses, what seemed to be the org's mailing list. He suggested that we should take them. I asked why I would to do such a thing, and he said we could sell them or I could use the list for my own organizing. I didn't take him up on either suggestion, and said we should leave. As we walked down a Back Bay side street, I turned around and spotted a man following about 100 feet behind us - he suddenly stopped and looked in a store window for no apparent reason. A bit further down the street, I looked over my shoulder, and the figure darted away down an alley. I didn't see the little homeless man again after that.

I can only speculate about how my life would have changed if I had followed the man's suggestion. Classic agent provocateur - classic attempt at recruitment by entrapment.

Perceiving that you're being followed doesn't necessarily mean the FBI is on your tail. But, it soon became perfectly clear that's exactly who I was dealing with. Shortly thereafter my step-father received a telephone call at home. My step-father was at the time a mucky-muck Supergrade federal executive. A man who identified himself as a Special Agent with the Boston FBI Office said he wanted to discuss my activities. Whether it was an attempt at intimidation or just a courtesy call between two federal employees, it didn't work - I didn't care much for my step-father or his politics or job, and he divorced my mother shortly thereafter. Not entirely because of me.

But, those incidents taught me something about the FBI. They really are the national political police, and have been for a long time. I also learned a thing or two about the way the FBI deals with dissent - there are many ways to try to put a cork in it. Some more forceful than others. I got the easy treatment, and the Inaugural protest in 1981 was peaceful. Everyone was cheerful -- it was a beautiful, unseasonably warm day in Washington. Everyone seemed to be in a Springtime mood, except Vice President George H.W. Bush, who popped up out the sunroof of his armored limo as it passed the demonstrators standing in the designated protest area in the shadow of the J. Edgar Hoover Bldg a series of sharp, sideways jabbing thumb gestures. I still remember his smirk - his son inherited that same expression of masked hostility and adolescent Tom Foolery. What a classy family.

Professor Zinn taught non-violent resistance with a genuine smile.