There is no secret that I am a supporter of Palestine and of the BDS Movement which calls for sanctions against Israel and anyone that supports its policy of killing, stealing and destruction…..
I was a target back in the 70’s of the US program known as COINTELPRO because of my political activism…….it seems that I could be a target yet again…..(I must be doing something right)……
The call by Israeli Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz for a “targeted civic prevention effort” waged against activists in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is alarming, illegal incitement, says the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.
The call was announced in the first Israeli conference organized to combat the mounting pressure of BDS, a global campaign to increase political, economic and academic pressure on Israel to honor the rights of Palestinians.
” Whether one agrees or disagrees on the goals of BDS, it is a form of peaceful protest practiced in different countries around the world, especially Europe and the United States,” says Ramy Abdu, chairman of Euro-Med Monitor. ” The Israeli Minister’s call, in fact, provides cover to violation of human rights and international law, which protect the security of persons exercising freedom of speech.”
During his speech, Katz alluded to attacking BDS leaders and activists, accusing them of working in partnership with elements hostile to Israel. He concluded that Israel may legitimately respond to BDS speech by “isolating activists and passing information on them to intelligence agencies around the world.”
“This is a blatant attempt to intimidate and intervene in the affairs of other countries,” Abdu says. “The Israeli minister’s incitement challenges the rights of people to security , freedom of expression and peaceful protest, even though all of these rights are guruanteed under human rights conventions—most prominently the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Israel is a signatory.”
Oh goody! Something else to look forward to in the future. Maybe they will target me like they did that Palestinian cleric in a wheelchair….after all I am an old man and they seem to have this knack of doing old men that do not agree with them.
But that is okay with some, especially those on the Right….it is perfectly okay top target people they do not agree with on a wide array of subjects.
Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
Thanx for the re-blog my friend…I appreciate it.
Unless you are a major player in the information exchange I don’t think you have anything to worry about.
That is what I thought in 1980….and the Feds showed up at my house….so I just wait for their return visit…
I used to be tight with a couple of Federal Agents … The key is to sit them down, offer them some coffee and just chat. Sooner or later they go their way and all is cool. I used to introduce them to my questioning family as “Our Insurance Agents.”
Canada’s feds showed up at my house in the 80’s. We still “had rights” back then, so nobody was rendered to Gitmo North and “ice-boarded” until confessing to the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping.
I was too young. Pops was their target. The most obvious, “benign” conclusion is the Feds were there because my dad visited friends & family in East Germany “too often”. However, as an Eastern Block escapee, he was automatically labelled a “possible communist” by the RCMP. This made him eligible for Project PROFUNC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROFUNC I’ve mentioned PROFUNC here before, so here’s the short version.
PROFUNC was a Top Secret RCMP program that spied on Lefties from the 50’s into the 80’s. The RCMP kept regularly updated lists of almost 70,000 “possible communists” to be watched, including the names around 16,000 “PROminent communist FUNCtionaries” (PROFUNC). On Mobilization Day (M-Day) they’d be rounded up and taken to secret camps, never to be heard from again. No charges. No lawyers. No process. “Poof, you’re gone!”
These people had committed NO crime, nor were suspected of doing anything illegal, nor even wanting to do anything illegal. The RCMP just didn’t like what they thought. Some of them were (or would go on to be) prominent elected officials. At least one (perhaps 4) became leaders of major national political parties (2 PMs?) Officially shut down by 1984, the list of names is oddly STILL secret today, probably because it formed the basis of a more modern list of potential “campers”.
Anyway, my dad was automatically considered a “possible”. That 80’s visit may have been to “update” his file. I’m hoping they cleared him and took him off the list. That’s because any children of a M-Day-er, no matter how young, were also to be snatched up…under the operative nickname “Red Diaper Babies”.
So, I also can’t easily rule out the 3AM knock on my door thanks to a visitor from the 80’s.
Very similar to COINTELPRO….I spent hours cussing at the Feds and demanding a lawyer…
Certainly NOT to diminish by comparison…But similar? Yes & no.
As I understand it (from a distance),COINTELPRO was about targeting members of organizations for the purposes of covertly undermining the organization. Targets were spied on, secretly blacklisted, etc. But I had the impression it was fairly in-your-face. (harassment, trashing offices, sending false & divisive fake communications ) I think most COINTELPRO victims figured out they were targets at the time. In the actual effect department, it was certainly much worse than PROFUNC turned out to be because M-Day never came. (although the list itself WAS used in 1970 to detain hundreds Quebec Lefties after a kidnapping gone wrong.)
PROFUNC was more about what individuals thought, rather than did. And it went on without you having goddamn clue. You’d be the Treasurer of your union local, a subscriber to City Libre magazine, or a member of a university student council. Nothing major, but it caught somebody’s attention. You might have trouble landing jobs. You’d think it was because your hair was “too long”. (Real reason: Feds visited potential employers). You might have trouble at the US border. You might occasionally notice men in black smoking outside their black cars. But, unless you were super-paranoid, you’d think nothing of it. This was easy-going, Lefty Canada, not McCarthy’s America.
Then one day, 5-10-20-30 years later, it’s M-Day. If you were still in the Top 5-10% of “suspected Reds”…there’s a knock on your door. Your family is put in a truck at gunpoint & taken to a camp. From there, your family is broken up and you get put in Solitary Confinement in a military prison/Super-Max environment. For forever. No lawyers. No visits. No acknowledgement of your detention. Your friends & neighbours wonder where the fuck you went. It’s presumed those on the secondary list would be rounded up later for questioning, or worse. Essentially, tens of thousands of people were walking around with a yellow star on their lapel that was completely invisible to everyone except the judge-jury-executioners.
The level of secrecy 30+ years after its official end is amazing. It must be a result of covering up even worse than what’s known. PROFUNC was so secret, even the last cabinet Minister supposedly “in charge” of it didn’t know it existed, nor that he ended it with a minor bureaucratic change in his department, until 25 years later! No official list has been released. Just a few stats, some internal RCMP letters and part of a prison manual. And that took years of waiting to get released (ATI requests.)
I think I did it the last time PROFUNC came up, but I have a short list of confirmed & HIGHLY probable detainees that included VERY recognizable Canadians. Some Americans might even have heard of a couple….including highest-level Canadian politicians, authors & feminist folk singers. (Just ask me and I’ll too-eagerly give it.) We already know Tommy Douglas (the man who gave Canada Medicare For all) was 100% “headed to camp”. He was a Provincial Premier and later the national leader of a major party. Basically, he was a “kinder, gentler” Canadian version of Bernie Sanders -eh?
Sorry about the tangential rant. But as a “Red Diaper Baby” who could have hit puberty in a Casa Loma Dungeon merely for where his dad was born, this topic really burns my ass. (Did you hear that Mr NSA/CSIS Agent reading this???)
Funny how the “red” thing went away with the collapse of the USSR….now it is the ISIS thing….what will it be when they also collapse…chuq
We are always targets of something or somebody! All of us! It is part of the risks of living on planet earth.
Explain to me how someone can support the Palestinian movement and BDS..
and still vote for the Hillary Pillory?
I am afraid I must be lacking in some area of my brain..
🙁
I ask the same questions so we both are having a problem with that part….LOL
(Note: None of the links in your story are working for me.)
In 1984….er…2016….every single man, woman & child is being constantly monitored by the US government (& likely others) upon the well establish legal premise of “Guilty until proven innocent…for now.”
You, as a former COINTELPRO victim, are most assuredly on the M-Day List. I hope you enjoy your stay at the FEMA Camp!
I am waiting and watching…..any day I could be gone….but I am old they will just write me off…LOL