Documents-against

Ward Churchil and Jim Vander Wall have done an outstanding and meticulous job in assembling and explaining the FBI's secret war on dissent in America, no wonder America is plagued with criminals, the supposed "good guys" are all out on black bag jobs committing their own crimes!!

Since it is a well known historical fact that J. Edgar Hoover, America's semen stained supercop, was blackmailed by the mafia into silence, it stands to reason that he would need a new enemy to focus the attention of the American people. What better enemy than home grown political dissenters who would destroy the genteel American order--white men first.

The book focuses upon the FBI's most notorious episodes--the COINTELPRO efforts against the Communist Party USA, Socialist Workers Party, the New Left, the American Indian Movement and the Black Panthers as demonstrative proof of the Bureau's efforts to undermine and destroy the constitutional rights of all Americans.

It is, for me, the concluding chapter that ties everything together and offers some real life solutions to the peristent cancer that is the FBI. From 1956 to the "offical end" of COINTELPRO in 1971, the FBI committed:

* 2,218 separate actions.

*2,305 admitted warrantless telephone taps.

*697 "bugs against domestic political targets."

*57,486 CIA mail intercepts.

"During the various Congressional committee investigations, the Bureau carefully hid the facts of its involvement in the 1969 Hampton-Clark assassinations. Simultaneously, it was covering up its criminal witholding of exculpatory evidence in the murder trial of LA Panther leader Geronimo Pratt." page 303.

At the end, the authors offer the inescapable conclusion that priority number one is for the left to develop a strategy to come to grips with the FBI and the escalating power of "law enforcement" as well as the implications and consequences of the merging of the U.S. military and the domestic law enforcement appartus.

Churchill and Vander Wall have written an excellent book which recounts history and warns us of the impending scenario we face by ignoring the increased power of the FBI, the US military and law enforcement in general.

For readers who may have forgoten what can happen when government intelligence agencies are given free rein, legally or not, to investigate and harass American citizens who question governmental policies, this is the primary source for a reminder.Tracing the long history of political repression in this country from the 1950s through the Vietnam era and the Civil Rights movement and examining recent FBI activities, this book belongs on any reader's shelf that values political freedom.
It is not a question of which political party you belong to or whether you are considered left or right on the political spectrum. If you are anxious about the future of civil liberties given the unprecedented power given to the government as the result of the Patriot Act and other recent legislation, this book should be required reading. It is indeed a fine balance between civil liberties and national security and this book will give the reader an idea of what is at stake and what unrestrained government is capable of doing.

but I have taken one of his classes and he is a good professor and so, his books must be just as good, if not better

Christopher Waldrep's Racial Violence On Trial: A Handbook With Cases, Laws, And Documents isn't just another history of civil rights efforts, but a casebook of laws, documents, and events which uses the experiences of Afro-Americans as a case study to examine legal efforts to combat racism. From court decisions and transcripts to personal accounts, this provides an excellent in-depth overview of legal precedents.

This is an excellent and well-written book. It is accessible and well documented. Some of the facts are stunning, which makes for a good reminder: if you aren't angry then you aren't paying attention. I highly encourage you to give it a read; it isn't a waste of time since it is such a fast page-turner and b/c it is riddled with information. You might as well take a look at what we are subsidizing.

I feel this book is an excellent resource in realizing the history our government has being prejudice. This book details the ideals of the COINTELPRO (COunter INTELligence PROgram), the progam that was created by the FBI in order to stop the progress that blacks, hispanics, and women had been making in the 60's and 70's. I feel it is a necessity to have and/or read if you are currently studying the history of political rights. A real quick shout-out to Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine for helping me discover this book by using a piece of it in his song 'Wake Up'.

The more times I use this book as a reference, the more I find. To call it a wealth of information is to wildly understate the case. It is more like a bottomless pit...

At first glance, the book's most impressive attribute is the large number of documents which are reproduced (a picture's worth a thousand words, I guess). But then one find's one's self getting caught up in the explanatory narrative, and the documents shift into their proper background or ullustrational focus. And then there's the notes, hundreds of them, each brimming with detailed explanations of particular points, citations, suggested readings.

There's just no end to it. If one were to be allowed only one book on the FBI, this would definitiely be it!

Any chance the authors will be updating it any time soon?

This is a inexpensive book, and a great way to get up to speed on the Zapatista struggle. I was very please with it when I picked it up. It's ultimately a book of hope and is a inspiring rally call for those around the world interested in opposing neoliberalism and fighting for social justice.