I haven't been on the board here for a while, and I just came on today and saw the plug for this topic on Stress's news update.
This is the first time that the book I've noticed being discussed on here is something I'm familiar with.
I own a copy of the Papers, and have read large parts of it, but never all the way through, because I already had read all of another book on COINTELPRO before I bought it. I also had read many of the famous available documents before reading that (i.e. the famous "prevent the rise of a black messiah" memo that foreshadows the deaths of MLK and Malcolm).

I thought I would respond briefly to some of your discussion questions:

>-For each Cointelpro program let's consider
>the following:
>a. what were the tactics used?

Division, disruption, instigation of infighting, destruction of public image (to prevent radical viewpoints from making their way to more mainstream Americans, who may have become more interested in say, the Panthers, had the FBI not caused them to be portrayed as nothing more than "crazy black men with guns" with no actual political points), and even cold-blooded murder (i.e. Fred Hampton).

>b. what effect did cointelpro have
>on the organizations?

It completely destroyed the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement.

>c. what effect did factionalism have
>on each movement?

As instigated by the FBI, it completely destroyed most of the movements, especially the Panthers and AIM.

>d. at what point in the
>movement did the FBI decided
>to neurtralize leaders and cause
>havoc?

That's a good question... It always seemed to me that no matter what Hoover may have tried to pretend, it was his intention all along to cause complete havoc and even commit violence toward leaders without any mercy whatsoever. He was an absolute scum of the earth.

>b. Cointelpro was structured around the
>same premise as Willie Lynch's
>'divide and conquer'. The
>biggest threat to this country
>would be a unified front
>of Black folks and they
>know it so the 'powers
>that be' does everything in
>their power to prevent this.

I don't think that's really true anymore now, though. I think now it's much more widespread as to what aspects of activism the government might find to be a big threat...
I think nowadays they would be more afraid of a widespread coalition: blacks, Native Americans, hispanics, whites, Asians, etc. who would all criticize the accepted state of American capitalism and corporate power...

At the same time though, the American status quo has found it very easy to marginalize any kind of activism, especially among African-Americans in the late 60's and early 70's by playing on "average" or "mainstream" American's fears, stereotypes, and general wariness of any viewpoints they don't understand, thus destroying the possibility of "conversion" by people who generally wouldn't have radical views.



>c. We seriously need to
>address this 'leaders' issue.
>Organizations can not exist if
>there is only one (wo)man
>defining and running the movement.
> When Garvey died the
>UNIA was shot to hell.
> It should have been
>a priority of Garvey to
>have leadership in the making.
> With all orgs. we
>must stop putting 'all our
>all' in one person.
>There has to be more
>than one person in the
>know.

Especially because all humans have flaws, and many people who end up becoming leaders of activist organization or movements have power/ego/desire trips that get in the way of the movement's progress.


>d. When I attended the
>Black Radical Congress my greatest
>frustration was the debate over
>ideologies. I think that
>it is imp. to find
>the common ground and tackle
>problems from the common ground.
> This is reflected in
>the FBI tactics of weakening
>Movements by focusing on the
>differnces. They know as
>long as they can keep
>up the debate over varying
>ideologies then there will be
>dissention among oppressed folks.

YES!! Right on.


>I am wondering why
>the attack on Jesse Louis
>right now. It can't
>be b/c of his disapproval
>of Bush's appointments. This
>Jackson issue with the baby
>and taxes is far deeper.
> But why now?

Well, I hate to be negative after saying "right on" to your comments on the left's destroying itself through internal differences/criticisms, but I think Jesse had it coming to him because he's not a very honest activist anyway. He is a media whore, he is obsessed with black capitalism nowadays and "entrepeneurship" and if his old cohort MLK were alive, I think he would be very wary of Jesse's motives in all of his financial supposedly "charitable" enterprises.

I hate to sound so negative though, because I still think he is a great man and has done some great things, but I just don't think he's a very true-to-himself activist.

It is definitely interesting, though, that the mainstream media that has usually been a huge part of Jesse Jackson's activity is suddenly now blowing up at him.