The Black Commentator - June 29, 2006

An agent provocateur engaged in conversation with Black local activists in Miami, and the result was the arrest of seven people in connection with an alleged plot against targets that may have included the Sears Tower. After the red-hot item faded from the pages and screens of the corporate press, it was revealed that the group had no contacts with any terrorist groups, no explosives and few resources. We also learned the supposed leader of this group was attempting to acquire only basic equipment, such as boots and uniforms, from an al-Qaeda operative who was, in reality, a federal informant. The entire case is based on conversations between the group’s alleged leader, Narseal Batiste, and this FBI informant. Federal officials have described the group’s alleged plot to reporters as “more aspirational than operational.” In other words, the seven did some talking to the wrong people - end of story!

We have been though this route before. The agent sought to involve a group of Black men in a conspiracy – of his own making.

This is one of the mechanisms by which the Black Panther Party was brought down, 35 years ago. The party was thoroughly infiltrated by federal agents, who provoked acts of violence at the behest of the state – which is supposed to protect us against violence.

There is a political plan behind the arrest of the seven in Miami’s Liberty City. It seems to be the same plan as was deployed under the infamous COINTELPRO program, that wound up killing Fred Hampton, head of the Chicago Black Panther Party, and Mark Clark, another party leader from south Illinois.

The murderers of these young Black leaders have never been brought to justice. These racist white guys are criminals – murderers – and still walking around. Probably pensioned by the Chicago Police Force.

Certainly, we see state policy at work – a very successful policy, one that repeats itself. It is a policy that killed off the militant wing of the Black Liberation Movement during the early Seventies.

We are seeing a repeat of the same behavior. The brothers in Miami were merely activists, who spoke like us, talked like us, and acted like us. They are us.

Community Leaders as Terrorists

In Miami, they used an agent provocateur to do their work, just as they did against the Black Panther Party. The corporate media ran with it. These brothers are already convicted, in the eyes of racist white people.

Let’s be clear about this: the federal government has a criminal in their pay; they are, therefore, involved in a criminal enterprise. The young legitimate leaders of our people are once again being targeted as terrorists.

Community activists, who give up their time every day, mostly after working all day, are the last thing from terrorists. They care more about the community than all others. The brothers in Miami were activists for the community.

The GOP Mission

The Republican Party has decided to do what it has been successful at doing for 40 years: to make Blacks the bogeyman to the racist white electorate. This cynical and patently racist approach has worked for the GOP for two decades. The GOP baits Blacks, to get racist white votes. Miami shows they are doing it again.

The same people who have painted a picture of our people as being drunken during the time of Reconstruction, are the same people who are conspiring against Rep. John Conyers. He has become the main enemy of 2006. The prospect of Conyers becoming the head of the House Judiciary Committee is a racist white man’s nightmare. White men like Karl Rove know that, and they work the show.

Black folks are evidently the target of the great show in Miami. It is a sham, not a show, and everybody in Liberty City knows so. The Republican administration in Washington can always rely on white racism to get them into office. That’s why they excel in the South, among racist whites.

They have made a media provocation that is designed to get the racist white public inflamed. Now, the best and the brightest of us are defined as a Fifth Column in the United States. They have imprisoned us, and we have been made non-citizens.

The Republican Strategy

The Republican Party has a grand plan. Their base is 30 percent of the American people, and they have the money to turn it out. If the Democrats don’t turn out their base, they will lose. The Black vote is the hard core of that base.

The GOP knows that the Black vote is what moves the Democrats through the urban heartland of the nation. That vote is about to be lost to the party, because it doesn’t deserve it.

The Republicans, who are our worst enemies, the White Man’s Party, are playing to the racist white electorate. The Democrats are not playing to their base – the Black Democratic vote – and that will be their death knell.

Glen Ford and Peter Gamble are writing a book to be titled, Barack Obama and the Crisis in Black Leadership.