In the same week that the U.S. government deployed over 200 assault weapon-toting police officers, FBI tanks and SWAT in military uniform in order to keep the African community of South St. Petersburg, FL on lockdown, the U.S. government’s counterinsurgency intensified against the Uhuru Movement in the form of direct assassination threats made against Chairman Omali Yeshitela.
A nationally syndicated white nationalist radio DJ called for the Chairman’s death.
In addition, in an online police message board, cops have been posting threats of violence against community meetings at Uhuru House, calling for the assassination of anyone, as they revealed a government-sponsored surveillance of the Uhuru House by a private investigator based in Sarasota, FL.
These media attacks do not represent the isolated rantings of a marginal sector of white society, but are part of a broader U.S. government-sponsored counterinsurgency against the African community in order to intimidate and neutralize the revolutionary leadership of the movement for African liberation.
During the Black Revolution of the Sixties, the FBI created a counterinsurgency program called COINTELPRO whose stated purpose was “to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters, and to counter their propensity for violence and civil disorder.”
COINTELPRO was carried out by the FBI in collusion with local police departments in all of the areas where the Black Revolution of the Sixties was occurring.
Examples of COINTELPRO activities include the assassinations of Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and over 30 members of the Black Panther Party, as well as countless others arrested or forced into exile.
Counterinsurgent operations against the African community and the movement for African liberation continue to this day, as evidenced in the recent counterinsurgent assault against the African community of St. Petersburg that consisted of a military occupation of South St Pete and a vicious ideological assault on the Uhuru Movement.
“Bubba the Love Sponge” Calls for Assassination of Chairman Omali
For several weeks now on a popular Tampa Bay radio program, a white radio DJ named Todd Alan Clem, better known as “Bubba the Love Sponge,” has devoted hours of air time to attacking and slandering the Uhuru Movement, even going so far as to call for the assassination of Chairman Omali Yeshitela.
On February 25, 2010, Clem played clips of Chairman Omali Yeshitela speaking at a rally in St. Petersburg after the police murder of Hydra Lacy, an African who allegedly killed two cops and wounded another during the police invasion of his home on January 24, 2011.
Clem and his co-hosts called on the FBI to investigate and shut down the Uhuru Movement. “The Mayor should be going to speak to the FBI,” said one of Clem’s co-hosts. They also called on the IRS to investigate the Uhuru Movement’s financial records.
After playing the clip of the Chairman speaking, Clem said, “Wouldn’t you just love it if the boys rolled up during one of these little meetings and they just cuffed and stuffed him?” He later said, “Does this not just incense you? Does this not just make you want to take up arms and go kill this guy?”
Clem’s white nationalist views are defined by his undying allegiance to the police and U.S. government.
He glorifies the occupying police forces and demonizes the Africans who are subject to police containment.
On the same morning that Bubba declared his desire to assassinate Chairman Omali Yeshitela, he interviewed the former mayor of Tampa, Dick Greco, and encouraged his listeners (the “Bubba Army”) to re-elect Greco “because he talks about the police and enforcing laws, which is great.”
In 2008, Clem established a 501(3)(C) nonprofit, “Bubba the Love Sponge Foundation,” to raise funds for the families of police officers who died occupying the African community.
Clem even carries an “honorary Sheriff’s badge” along with a stockpile of firearms in his automobile. (http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/media/2009/06/shopck-jock-bubba-the-love-sponge-clem-off-radi-othis-morning-after-losing-two-handguns-in-car-burgl.html)
Clem posted on his website a screenshot of the Uhuru News homepage and encouraged his clan of followers to comment on the articles. As a result, the “Bubba Army” has flooded hundreds of posts into the comments section of several articles on Uhuru News.
These posts have exposed white nationalism at its most raw and base level.
Comments have included demands for the “Uruhus” to “go back to Africa”, references to Africans as “tar babies,” “monkeys,” “velcro-headed niggers,” etc., and threatening comments to intimidate the supporters of the Uhuru Movement, such as: “You have more to fear than just the Bubba Army. There is a force greater than even that at work… Expect us.”
Rabid White Nationalism Exposed in Comments on Media and Police Sites
These comments are no different from those regularly posted in response to any article about the African community or the Uhuru Movement on the St. Pete Times or even the liberal “progressive” media outlet, WMNF.
Comments posted on WMNF’s article about the press conference held by the Uhuru Solidarity Movement to denounce the military occupation of the African community in St. Petersburg, FL, included references to a 16-year-old African, Nicholas Lindsey, as a “thug” and an “animal” who is “extremely lucky he’s not full of bullet holes right now.”
Some comments have been aimed at Penny Hess, Chairwoman of the African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC), as well in response to APSC’s opposition to the military occupation of the African community.
A comment on a February 22, 2011 St. Pete Times website article entitled “St. Petersburg police search for killer as they mourn another fallen officer” says: “While we may kill many of them, we cannot win a battle against an enemy that is using unconventional tactics that quickly adapt to our force. If we, the citizens, wish to combat these people, we must use unconventional tactics. If we employ terror tactics on groups like the Uhurus and scare them underground, they will cease to be a threat. It’s time to take it to the Uhurus and eliminate them in their own territory.”
A search for “Uhuru” on LEOAffairs.com, an online message board for cops (as its website proclaims, “the online voice of Law Enforcement”) yields several hundred pages of comments related to the Uhuru Movement, especially in the section of the forum devoted to the St. Petersburg Police Department.
A comment in response to the video of the Chairman speaking at a rally for Hydra Lacy, posted under the username “Benjamin Martin,” writes: “Time for the Feds to step in or Society to take a stand to eliminate the problem. I’d be interested to know who was in the audience…”
On February 26, 2011, a LEOAffairs poster named “WithRespect” posted information regarding the weekly Sunday meeting at the Uhuru House, and wrote, “Drive-by comes to mind.” Another person under the username “run them over” wrote: “involuntary vehicular homicide would have been justifiable for the whole crowd.”
“Private Investigator” Participates in Campaign of Attack Against Uhuru Movement
It has also come to the attention of Uhuru News that a private investigator named Bill Warner has been spying on the Uhuru Movement.
Warner is based in Sarasota, FL and runs a blog to document his work as a private investigator. He and his wife also run a tile laying business, Warner Bros Carpet and Tile.
In the past week, Warner (who you can learn more about here) has posted a blog entry about the Uhuru Movement at least once a day, including personal details about the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party.
On the day before the Sunday community meeting at the Uhuru House, referenced in the above mentioned LEOAffairs post, Warner photographed the Uhuru House with a police car sitting right outside and posted it to his blog indicating his role in working with the police in the attack on the movement (HYPERLINK “https://pibillwarner.wordpress.com/“https://pibillwarner.wordpress.com/).
On February 28, 2011, Todd “Bubba” Clem interviewed Bill Warner on his show and said that he thinks the Bubba show should hire Bill Warner as their private investigator (http://www.btls.com/news/recaps/monday-february-28-2011.html).
Warner said he watched the Sunday meeting at the Uhuru House and claimed that the audience consisted of about 50 people, mostly white. This is an outright lie, and in fact, the video footage of the Sunday meeting does not contain any shots of the audience.
Warner employs the tactic of disinformation as part of the counterinsurgent “battle for perceptions.”
This can also be seen on Warner’s blog entries where he interchangeably refers to the Uhuru Movement as the Black Panthers, even though these are two separate organizations.
In the same show in which he interviewed Warner, Clem denied that he ever wished for physical harm against the Chairman. The official recap of that February 25 show contains no mention of Clem’s express desire to “take up arms and go kill” Chairman Omali Yeshitela (http://www.btls.com/news/recaps/friday-february-25-2011.html#comments).
That program was, however, recorded, unedited. Clem’s repeated pleas for arrest, imprisonment and assassination of Chairman Omali Yeshitela are heard loud and clear on this page.
Defining Counterinsurgency
These ideological attacks on the Uhuru Movement in the ruling class media are consistent with the official U.S. government’s strategy for counterinsurgency operations (COIN) that are found in U.S. Army General Petraeus’s widely distributed manual on counterinsurgency.
Petraeus defines insurgency as “an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government.”
Petraeus writes, “Insurgency has taken many forms over time, from struggles for independence against colonial powers, to the rising of disadvantaged ethnic or religious groups against their rivals, to resistance to foreign invaders.”
He coins the term liberation insurgency to denote a situation wherein “indigenous elements seek to expel or overthrow what they perceive to be a foreign or occupation government.”
Counterinsurgency is defined as “those political, economic, military, paramilitary, psychological and civic actions taken by a government to defeat an insurgency.”
Petraeus notes the significance of ideology as a motivating factor for insurgents. “The most powerful ideologies tap latent, emotive concerns of the populace, such as the desire for justice, religious beliefs, or liberation from foreign occupation.”
In a section titled “Media and the Battle for Perceptions,” Petraeus explains, “The media directly influence the support of key audiences for COIN forces, the execution of their operations, and the opposing insurgency.
“Recognition of this influence creates a war of perceptions between insurgents and COIN forces that is conducted continuously through the communications media.
“The media are a permanent part of the information environment and effective media/public affairs operations are critical to successful military operations.”
Patreaus writes that counterinsurgents should “respond quickly to insurgent propaganda. As stated above, delaying a response can let the insurgent story dominate many news cycles, allowing their version of events to become widespread and accepted.”
It is clear that the U.S. government has a plan in place for the African community whenever it shows signs of anti-colonial resistance, such as the heavy military occupation that ensued after a 16-year-old African on February 28, 2011 allegedly shot and killed a cop.
These media attacks are a component of the counterinsurgent assault on the colonized African community and the movement for African liberation.
The colonialist-capitalist State recognizes that the African working class, working under the leadership of the Uhuru Movement, presents a most serious threat to a parasitic capitalist social system that requires as its foundation the exploitation and oppression of African people.
These military and ideological expressions of white nationalism and anti-African hatred are indicators of the desperation of imperialism in deep crisis.
As anti-colonial resistance to U.S.-sponsored terror spreads throughout the African community in the U.S. and around the world, it is clear that U.S. imperialism is on its last dying breath.
The U.S. government’s desperate efforts to destroy the Uhuru Movement as representative of the leadership of the African working class will not succeed.
We are calling for Todd “Bubba the Love Sponge” Clem to be removed from the air.
Hands off the Uhuru Movement!
Hands off Chairman Omali Yeshitela!
No comments:
Post a Comment