POSITIVELY BLACK

Junious Ricardo Stanton

COINTELPRO II, Operation Fruehmenschen

According to attorney Friedman, Fruehmenschen holds that Black politicians are inherently immoral, unethical and illiterate, to the extent that they can not lead people of a "high moral" order (Caucasians) and are incapable of high-level governing. Patterns of harassment of Black officials usually begin with an interplay that takes place between the news media and law enforcement agencies, usually beginning with a rumor started by the FBI or by an ill-founded news report. This usually spirals into a "trial by media," criminal investigations and sometimes culminates in an indictment. The indictment typically results in acquittal, or in a conviction which is ultimately overturned on appeal. "The reality is that both the FBI and the U.S. Attorney work hand and hand," Dr. Powers said. "If the FBI wants a case prosecuted the U.S. Attorney rubber stamps it."- The Final Call Newspaper 12-07-99

On August 18, 2003 the FBI with a horde of media in tow burst into the offices of the Augusta Focus an African-American newspaper owned by Charles Walker Sr. the former Georgia State Senator who served twenty years in the state senator rising to the position of majority leader who last year lost a tightly contested race to an unproven Republican challenger. The FBI raided the newspaper offices wearing bulletproof vests with the electronic media on their heels and carted off boxes of records and files. This was one of several high profile witch-hunts federal inquisitors engaged in in their successful attempt to topple Walker politically and ruin him financially. A month later it was discovered the FBI had bugged the offices of Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street who is embroiled in a racially charged election, also against an inexperienced Republican candidate. Coincidence? Not hardly. The targets in both scenarios are career African-American politicians who have served over twenty years and in Walker's case had amassed economic influence by owning: a newspaper, a temporary employment service and a scholarship foundation is not lost on the African-American communities they served. The exact motivations for these raids and "investigations" have not been articulated. In Walker's case the federal search warrants that authorized the raid on his newspaper have been sealed! Federal inquisitors in Philadelphia have yet to confirm Mayor Street is the prime subject of their witch-hunt.

Unlike in Georgia, the situation in Philadelphia may backfire on the Republicans. The timing of the discovery of the bug and the publicity photo op raids of African-American entrepreneurs and supporters of John Street has incensed the African-American community and energized the Street re-election bid. The raids and investigation are so racially concentrated (no white folks' offices were raided and no white businesses that have city contracts are being investigated) even whites who don't like Street, concede the whole charade is politically and racially motivated. Personally I believe it is a continuation of COINTELPRO the counterinsurgency program initiated by FBI Director J Edgar Hoover with the support and blessings of the US Attorney Generals and Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. COINTELPRO was designed to, in Hoover's words, "prevent the rise of a Negro messiah." during the height of the Civil Rights, Black Power and Anti-War movements. COINTELPRO and OPERATION CHAOS (the CIA's version of domestic abuses of power) were AmeriKKKa's version of the Nazi Brown Shirts only more sophisticated. Blacks were murdered, framed, set up, ruined and scandalized on orders of Hoover and the FBI. White unionists and activists were also targeted for harassment but not lethally violated like all black organizations, the Puerto Rican organization La Raza, Caesar Chavez' immigrant farm workers movement or The American Indian Movement. The federal government is known for conducting entrapment, smear campaigns and witch-hunts against activists, dissidents and radical grass roots organizations. Many activists and government watchers believe those programs weren't dissolved as ordered by Congress; merely absorbed into pre-existing agencies or morphed into new programs like the FBI's Operation Fruehmenschen/ Operation Fruehmenshcen was based upon the notion blacks were unfit to rule Caucasians. Operation Fruehmenschen was eventually exposed on the floor of the US Congress in 1988 by former California Congressman and former Lt. Governor Mervyn M. Dymally and substantiated by testimony from former FBI agent Hirsch Friedman. Dymally subsequently resigned from Congress because his colleagues refused to discipline or sanction the FBI.. Operation Fruehmenschen like COINTELPRO was national in scope. Given the recurring attacks on African-American politicians over the years, smear campaigns against high profile blacks like Federal Judge Alcee Hastings, former Congressmen Floyd Flake, Harold Ford Sr. William H Grey III , Dymally and state politicians like Walker that resulted in no convictions or evidence of wrong doing, it is obvious Operation Fruehmenschen is still going strong. More than likely the same pattern will hold true in the Street affair.

Unlike the eighteen month investigation of Walker who in addition to being a former state senator is a successful businessman, that turned up no evidence of wrong doing, the probe in Philadelphia does not center on Mayor John Street. The targets in Philly are black entrepreneurs, most who were supporters of Street who secured city contracts during his tenure as mayor. Ironically attorney Carl Singley a black man and former member of Street's inner circle who was very active lobbying for more "minority" contracts; who subsequently had a very public falling out with Street, and who now supports Street's Jewish opponent Sam Katz, is not a target?! The Department of Justice under US Attorney General John Ashcroft a more duffus version of J Edgar Hoover ( he once lost to a dead man in a Missouri US Senatorial election) seems bent on resurrecting COINTELPRO and Operation Fruehmenschen to prevent not only a political messiah from emerging but also thwarting people of color from playing the game like the white boys; where they leverage politics to serve the economic interests of their own good ol' boy network. With all the money missing in the Department of Defense (almost two trillion), HUD (billions) the Department of Interior- Indian Fund ( millions) and the residue from the Enron and Worldcom scandals, no indictments, convictions or jail time for those responsible, surely Ashcroft and his minions could find better uses of their time than staging photo op raids and witch-hunts of black politicians? Maybe Ashcroft is following orders, helping his boss steal enough local elections so he won't have to steal a national election again in 2004? Perhaps Ashcroft subscribes to the belief, black folks have no rights whites are bound to respect?