Agents of Repression: The Fbi's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement (South End Press Classics Series, Volume, 7)

Rating:
Summary: shock and awe -- shocking and awful
Review: I use this book periodically in my University classes and my students are consistently flabbergasted. If you do not yet know about cointelpro or government repression then you also are in for an eye opener once you read this book.

The American Indian Movement and the Black Panther Party are organizations that have mobilized their people to create social changes. They work to bring about social and political change by working outside the established political system. The logic of their organizing: if the people lead the leaders will follow. One of the gravest and most dangerous stereotypes against these groups is that they "are violent." Both groups believe in self-determination and self-defense. This book shows how this stereotype was combined with lethal aggression by FBI agents (and others) against these two groups of people that were exercising their rights to free speech and assembly.

Over the years, thousands of our own soldiers have died --- supposedly to protect and spread the freedom to speak and organize. Yet, this book exposes these freedoms not as given rights protected by the government, but rather as mere rationalizations for continued aggression.

This book provides a good introduction to government repression and an excellent account of the repression against two specific movement groups. It is thorough and well documented; the author's assertions are supported by abundant evidence. The authors have collected primary evidence from FBI files, but mostly they cite public documents like newspapers to tell their story. There is not much consideration of "the other side" of the story, but aside from the lack of balance, it reads as a journalistic account. It is not theoretical or interpretive; it does not connect this repression to larger trends in the world, or to larger processes of government repression. Rather the readers are presented loads of details about the specifics of these two cases. Looking for a little "shock value"? This book tells all the gory details.

This is a valuable book that deserves wide readership.

Rating:
Summary: shock and awe -- shocking and awful
Review: I use this book periodically in my University classes and my students are consistently flabbergasted. If you do not yet know about cointelpro or government repression then you also are in for an eye opener once you read this book.

The American Indian Movement and the Black Panther Party are organizations that have mobilized their people to create social changes. They work to bring about social and political change by working outside the established political system. The logic of their organizing: if the people lead the leaders will follow. One of the gravest and most dangerous stereotypes against these groups is that they "are violent." Both groups believe in self-determination and self-defense. This book shows how this stereotype was combined with lethal aggression by FBI agents (and others) against these two groups of people that were exercising their rights to free speech and assembly.

Over the years, thousands of our own soldiers have died --- supposedly to protect and spread the freedom to speak and organize. Yet, this book exposes these freedoms not as given rights protected by the government, but rather as mere rationalizations for continued aggression.

This book provides a good introduction to government repression and an excellent account of the repression against two specific movement groups. It is thorough and well documented; the author's assertions are supported by abundant evidence. The authors have collected primary evidence from FBI files, but mostly they cite public documents like newspapers to tell their story. There is not much consideration of "the other side" of the story, but aside from the lack of balance, it reads as a journalistic account. It is not theoretical or interpretive; it does not connect this repression to larger trends in the world, or to larger processes of government repression. Rather the readers are presented loads of details about the specifics of these two cases. Looking for a little "shock value"? This book tells all the gory details.

This is a valuable book that deserves wide readership.

Rating:
Summary: The suppression of domestic dissent by the FBI
Review: This book maintains that the primary purpose of the FBI, from its inception and at least through to the late 1980s when Agents of Repression was first published, was to repress political groups and individuals who posed a threat to the status quo. The text is accompanied by heavy documentation and I was often reminded of the writing style of Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman. The focus here, however, is on the domestic crimes of the government. Churchell and Vander Wall show that the FBI was willing to use massive illegal force (including assasination) to repress political enemies and serve the interests of those in power. This is an excellent eye-opener to the true nature of the Bureau and the harsh crimes visited upon the American Indian Movement, the Black Panther Party and others such as the Puerto Rican Independence Movement. One is left wondering what activities the FBI has engaged in since the '80s and especially since 9/11. The best book I've read in some time.