If Russian hacking is a “direct attack on American democracy”, what was COINTELPRO? An irrelevant fluke to be swept under the rug and forgotten by the general public?

by Vasilias-Philosophos

For those of you who don’t know, the FBI’s COINTELPRO—COunter INTELligenge PROGram—was a program which sought to actively sabotage/discredit a slew of leftist dissident movements, organizations, and leaders using subversive/deceitful/manipulative and extremely illegal, amoral, and anti-democratic tactics. Among others, the dissident movements which were targeted by the FBI included the civil rights movement, the black panthers, the anti-Vietnam-war movement, and the American Socialist movement.

The FBI would effectively accomplish their goals by planting evidence, planting bogus stories with contrived narratives in the media, infiltrating organizations and publicly engaging in illegal behaviors which reflected poorly on those groups, no knock raids (one of which ended with an up-and-coming civil rights leader being shot to death by law-enforcement while he was sleeping in bed), “alleged” assassinations (MLK), and a slew of other despicably unconscionable tactics which served to undermine the success of leftists dissidents by quietly sniffing them out, or by baselessly destroying their credibility in the public eye.

The FBI got caught, but was never held even remotely accountable for what it had done. Barely even got a slap on the wrist from the federal government. American news media barely touched the story, swept it under the rug, and the American people ultimately forgot about it.

Now, in the wake of Donald Trump’s entirely-avoidable presidency, leftists across the board have become vehemently supportive of the FBI, despite the Bureau’s verifiable history of effectively getting away with COINTELPRO. In my mind, Democrats supporting/trusting the FBI after COINTELPRO is akin to rape victims supporting/trusting Bill Cosby after he was convicted for multiple rapes (an ugly metaphor, I know, but it gets the point across).

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At this point, it’s worth mentioning that I was born and raised in The USA, and that I’ve been a registered Democrat since I was 18. I voted for Sanders in the 2016 primaries, but didn’t vote in the election because I was butt-hurt about his loss to Clinton, and about Hillary supporters’ outspokenly smug victory. (Truth be told, I firmly believe that Hillary’s victory over Bernie was just as illegitimate as her supporters believe Trump’s presidential victory was). All this being said, my voting decisions and my vaguely butt-hurt attitude should be completely irrelevant to the discussion I’m hoping to have here.

Anyways, my point is that I’ve brought up these COINTELPRO-centric concerns to establishment-loyal Democrats many, many times since the Trump/Russia/collusion/propaganda scandal hit the mainstream, and every single time I’ve been baselessly accused of being a “Russian troll/shill/puppet”, a “Trump supporter”, a “traitor” and crap like that, and none of these people have offered me a valid counter-argument in response to my concerns about their trust in the FBI. It’s like they’re overcome with emotion to the point that they become irrational when I openly criticize the FBI. I know for an absolute fact that I’m not the only academic dissident leftist who has been effectively alienated by establishment-loyal Democrats in the past couple years. In all honesty, I have almost no interest in voting in the next election because of how I’ve been treated by my peers since 2016.

At this point, from my point of view, it seems highly, highly likely to me that the FBI has either embellished or entirely falsified this entire Trump/Russia narrative just to divide and weaken the American political left. As someone who has spent literally hundreds of hours researching COINTELPRO over the years, such a strategy fits the archetypal COINTELPRO m.o. flawlessly.

What do you guys think?

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