We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, April 22, 2011

The Cointelpro Role of Left Gatekeeping Foundations

Click here to access article by Dr. Stuart Jeanne Bramhall from OpEd News. 

The article contains a plethora of links and references to sources which reveal the sophisticated forms of social control used by the US ruling class to promote their interests and contain dissent that might harm their interests. They prefer these methods because they avoid the more blatant use of police state methods that are in direct and open conflict with a "democratic" ideology, and because the latter methods often create militant political resistance.

The author is now living in New Zealand after fleeing Seattle due to FBI harassment because of her activist and intimate relationships with African-Americans, some who had been members of the Black Panther Party. So she knows her subject well. In the article she writes about her activities in relation to a campaign for single-payer medical insurance, and some of her insights regarding the uses of astro-turf organizations and COINTELPRO operations to control, divert, disrupt, and destroy legitimate campaign organizations.