Open Letter to COINTELPRO

[Originally posted May 31, ’02 at http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2002/05/11732.shtml ]

A letter to those whose job it is to spam sites like this.

How do you sleep at night? You must have done enough reading here, and have enough knowledge from your own respective agencies to know that the men who sign your paycheck are the men that allowed 3,000 innocent people to be massacred at the World Trade Center. Many of those people ran in there to save others. These are people who I image you would have been very proud to know.

Like John O'Neill. The top investigator of the bin Laden case, he made it all the way to deputy director of the FBI. Then, just as the case was starting to sizzle the boys in charge told him to back off, they wanted to negotiate a pipeline deal with the Taliban. Disgusted with the Bureau for pandering to terrorists, O'Neill voiced his indignation to the authors of "Bin Laden: the Forbidden Truth" which will be coming out in English this July. Days from September 11th, O'Neill took a job as head of security at the World Trade Center, as he was convinced that terrorists would strike the building again as they did in 1993. His body was one of the few to be recovered from the rubble.

I come from a family of public servants, and I've always been distressed by the tendency of activists to focus their hatred on "the Pigs," when after all they're just following orders so they can feed their families. The ones pulling the strings haven't had to worry about a paycheck a day in their lives -- they are positively gorged with blood money from drugs, oil, and arms shipments. Psychological studies show that people can be made to do things against their conscience just because an authority figure told them so. Is that the case with you?

These are the times that try men's souls. Review whatever justifications you've made to yourself carefully. Are you going to be a hero like Colleen Rowley, or a chickenshit trying to fuck with a few people's rights to free speech?

Sincerely,

Jody Paulson