Citizenship Papers: Essays

Book Description

There are those in America today who seem to feel we must audition for our citizenship, with “Patriot” offered as the badge for those found narrowly worthy. Let this book stand as Wendell Berry’s application, for he is one of those faithful, devoted critics envisioned by the Founding Fathers to be the life’s blood and very future of the nation they imagined. Adams, Jefferson, and Madison would have found great clarity in his prose and great hope in his vision. And today’s readers will be moved and encouraged by his anger and his refusal to surrender in the face of desperate odds. Books get written for all sorts of reasons, and this book was written out of necessity. Citizenship Papers, a collection of 19 essays, is a ringing call of alarm to a nation standing on the brink of global catastrophe.

Customer Reviews:

Rethinking America's Values and Priorities.......2005-01-11

Wendell Berry's essays ought to be required reading for any federal policy-makers. It questions the wisdom of our current "War on Terror" and the efficacy of violence to end violence. Berry also asks astute questions to the religious (or those who feign religiosity): what does it mean to be truly Christian? Is it enough to merely support a nominally Christian and coservative President? Berry asserts that real Christianity is found, significantly, in doing Christian acts. Peace, Berry tells us, is much more than the absence of war, but a condition towards which all must cooperatively work together.
Berry asks the questions that Americans need to be asking themselves right now. What does it mean to be American? Berry recognizes the deep importance of this question, and seeks its answer. Perhaps more importantly, however, Berry encourages the reader to ask this question of himself, and to seek his own answer.

Blah Blah Blah Mr. Berry.......2004-09-30

Where does one draw the line?
Why is it ok to tobacco farm?
I guess growing cancer doesnt bother anyone?
Is it ok that farming destroys the land in a more genteel way than the growth of cities?
What you advocate is the theory of slow death, Wendell.

Re-connect.......2004-03-17

Wendell Berry throughout this book describes the real meaning of citizenship. Not citizenship of a country but citizenship of a place, a community, an ecosystem.

Berry writes that security comes from being self sufficient within that community. The fact that a breakdown in transportation in this country would leave grocery stores bare should give us all pause. How much more sense it would make to know the farms still exist locally to provide the food, to know the farmer through a Community Supported Agriculture arrangement, to not be dependent on food shipped across the country and even across the oceans.

The problem is current and past policies are driving small farmers out of business and local businesses are being driven out by megastores such as Walmart. But Berry points out we can resist being driven along this path and stand up and say no. Join a CSA, shop at the farmer's market, buy organic, support the local shops.

Wendell Berry says it better. "This, of course, is the description of an emergency. It is moreover an emergency of the worst kind:one that cannot be resolved by "emergency measures". It is an emergency that calls for patience, and to be patient in an emergency is a hard requirement. but patience is what we must have if we hope to complete our work.

Obviously, we must use the emergency measures that are available to us, thought there are not many. We must do what we can politically, thought our political power at present is not great. But we must remember that good work cannot have a merely political completion. Our work will not be completed in the world's capitals, but in healthful farms and forest, ecosystems and watersheds, and in coherent communities. More important even than political victory for our side is the necessity to keep our thinking sound enough and complex enough to deal effectively with actual problems and needs. We must not let either political urgency or our sense of peril reduce us to the proto-warfare of slogans and sound bites."

Better not buy this book: Berry will hate you!.......2004-02-23

Berry profits personally from mass production and mass distribution of his books. Where's his "local economy"?
Heal thyself, Berry.

Read it with an open heart and consider ways we must change.......2003-10-13

This man is wise and we need to listen to him. Even more, we need to think hard about what actions we can take to address the concerns raised here. For most of us, our actions will necessarily be considered "radical", for most of us have strayed far from living with a consideration for the health of the earth and the local communities we live in. I am frightened at the direction this nation is going and I hope and pray more people pay attention to what Bush and his crew are doing and kick him out next year. But that is only a small part of what needs to happen. Berry consistently gets to the hard roots of many of our modern crises and is always clear-headed and forceful in his analysis. An amazing writer and a master stylist. Read him now. Now is when we most need to hear him.

The Cointelpro Papers: Documents from the Fbi's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States (South End Press Classics Series, Volume, 8)

Average customer rating:

Wild Book, Strange Author
COINTELPRO papers review
Very good but much is left out!
ministry of love
Sometimes Desert Is Better Than the Meal

The Cointelpro Papers: Documents from the Fbi's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States (South End Press Classics Series, Volume, 8)
Ward Churchill , and Jim Vander Wall
Manufacturer: South End Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 0896086496

Book Description

Readers anxious about the future of civil liberties under George W. Bush can trace the lineage of political repression meted out by the FBI in the last half century. The original FBI memos reproduced here expose the Bureau's secret, systematic, and sometimes savage sabotage of progressive political activity. The authors examine the treatment of the left from the 1950s Communist Party through the 1980s Central America solidarity movement.

Customer Reviews:

Wild Book, Strange Author.......2007-02-22

This is an interesting book by an even more interesting author. In fact, the actions of the author tend to make me doubt the whole idea of the book.

First the book. This is a reprint of a book first issued in 1990 that proports to show a whole series of documents obtained from the FBI. They show that the FBI went to great lengths, some of them illegal to seek evidence against, and bring scorn against numerous left wing organiztions such as the Communist Party, the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement and others.

In addition to the reprinted portion of the book, Mr. Churchill has written a new preface that makes further allegations against the FBI, particularily in regard to Waco.

Now the author. Some reviews have indicated that he is a fake, having basically made up a lot of what he says. Without repeating all of the material here, Mr. Churchill claims (in this book) to be an Indian. The Indian tribes of which he claims to be amember say he is not. Disciplinary hearings against him at the University of Colorado have recommended his being terminated as a professor.

Do a search on Google and Wikipedia for more information and make up your own mind.

COINTELPRO papers review.......2007-01-10

This is a detailed review of available FBI documents relating to subversive and dissident groups as defined in the wake of the McCarren / Mccarthyism era and deemed a threat to the US interest. Alarming material shows how the FBI framed and planted "evidence" in order to control and destroy elements in a supposed free society. A good read for a political and intelligence analysts in the ever changing and modern world.

Very good but much is left out!.......2006-11-29

This book reproduces and analyzes cointelpro documents acquired through the FOIA. It is funny how the United States government expects its citizens to obey its laws but yet it goes out of its way to target, harass and persecute people who are not breaking any laws themselves. Which is made even worse when the government is often breaking the very laws they are supposed to uphold in the process.

There are individual chapters in this on black nationalist groups, socialist and communist groups, the American Indian Movement and other left wing oriented organizations. Another plus to The Cointelpro Papers is if you are involved in political activism this book can help you identify tactics that may be used against you or the group you are involved with.

The biggest fault this book has is Churchill is one of these leftists that believes in the psychotic delusion that the US Government is some sort of pro-white/white supremacist entity. Ha ha! Yeah thats why they have made MLK into some sort of holy figure, they have created affirmative action and allow mass immigration to displace white (and black) Americans in the work place. He also more or less ignores the illegal tactics employed against the KKK in the south where they sent a virtual army of FBI agents into southern states when the Klan was resisting integration. Undercover FBI agents were responsible for the murder of the pregnant wife of a Klansman named Kathy Ainsworth not to mention undercover agents perpetrated or instigated much of the violent acts attributed to the Klan. Why wasn't this brought up in this book?!?! While there were many wrongs committed against left wing and non-white political activists the fact that Churchill ignores what was done with the Klan, and in later years with militia groups, as well as white nationalist (and environmental) groups to this very day shows that Churchill has a blatant anti-white agenda and keeps what is a good book, from being great.

ministry of love.......2005-07-02

In The COINTELPRO Papers, Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall chronicle decades of disruptive and secretive attacks by the FBI on those with whom they do not feel ideologically aligned¡Xnamely, those who are a threat in any way to capitalism or to the current power structures within the United States and abroad. The authors contend that the FBI has launched seemingly countless attacks upon peaceful and law-abiding organizations and their members for no reason other than their philosophical deviance from the political mindset of the American status quo. The authors chronicle case after case after case of the FBI engaging in illegal and unsettling practices and activities in their ongoing efforts to discredit any organization or individual espousing radical or alternative socio-economic views.
Every allegation made by the authors is backed up by copies of original FBI documents and memos chronicling the activities of our nation¡¦s ¡§political police¡¨ in the words of the agents themselves, lest the authors should be accused of ridiculous and unfounded accusations (as conservative apologists and spinners of propaganda are so apt to maintain¡Xan issue addressed in the introduction to the text). The points argued in this book lend tremendous credibility to a radical elitist stance on American politics¡Xin that they shine light on the terrible extremes to which conservative authorities will go to eliminate any expression of political opposition.x
In this book, Churchill and Vander Wall focus heavily on the ¡§COINTELPRO¡¨ (COunterINTELligence PROgrams) operations launched both officially and unofficially against organizations such as the Communist Party, USA (CP, USA), Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, the Black Liberation Movement¡Xparticularly the Black Panther Party (BPP), the ¡§New Left¡¨¡Xparticularly the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and the American Indian Movement (AIM). The authors focus special attention on the tactics utilized by the FBI during their official COINTELPRO era, which was from the mid-1950¡¦s to 1971, and demonstrate that regardless of whether or not the acronym is still in use, the FBI has never abandoned those tactics¡Xif anything, their COINTELPRO-style tactics have only escalated over the years.
And what are COINTELPRO-style tactics exactly? The most frequently used of those tactics (officially authorized, documented, and bragged about by J. Edgar Hoover himself as well as many other FBI agents throughout the history of the bureau) include the intensification of confusion and dissatisfaction amongst members of targeted organizations through the use of disinformation campaigns (often launched through the cooperation of ¡§friendly¡¨ media, ¡§anonymous¡¨ letters, and the circulation and anonymous mailing of FBI generated political cartoons and fliers purporting to have been generated by members of whichever organizations the bureau sought to divide), the hiring and training of ¡§provocateurs¡¨¡Xpeople hired by the bureau to join targeted organizations and encourage division amongst members through the raising and exaggeration of controversial issues, and to inspire violence on the part of members in response to harassment campaigns launched by the FBI against them¡Xin many documented cases actual acts of terrorism were conceived of by the FBI and the plans for such acts as bombings and assassinations were brought by the provocateurs to those members of an organization they felt were most prone to violence¡Xall of this in an effort to generate fear of such organizations in the hearts of the status quo.
Also amongst the tactics frequently indulged in by the FBI are ¡§frame-ups¡¨¡Xmany officially admitted, documented, and declassified and readily available for study through the Freedom of Information Act¡Xin which Federal agents conspired to imprison targeted individuals through the use of falsified evidence and perjured testimony, as well as (one of their more disturbing techniques) efforts to pit violent organizations against peaceful organizations in the hopes that the violent would neutralize the peaceful. One example (of many presented in the book) is that of the FBI attempting to pit the Mafia against the Communist Party, USA through anonymous letters and plays upon newspaper articles, contending that the communists intended to get the ¡§thugs¡¨ out of their unions and clean up the sweatshops which the Mafia was known for running. The bureau hoped that the Mafia would put out ¡§hits¡¨ on key leaders of the Communist Party, and in one memo makes favorable references to the fact that since their campaign started communist offices had suffered bombings, a ¡§typical hoodlum technique.¡¨
A truly ¡§successful¡¨ example of this same technique as utilized against the Black Panther Party (who were overwhelmingly peaceful despite many efforts by the bureau to inspire them to violence) is that of the FBI sending an anonymous letter, attributed to the Panthers, to the violence prone United Slaves. The letter ¡§revealed¡¨ a fictional plot by the BPP to assassinate US head Ron Karenga. On January 17, 1969, that letter bore fruit in the form of the shooting deaths of two BPP leaders by three members of the US in a classroom at UCLA. The great ¡§success¡¨ of this letter is that with it the FBI was able to pit two Black Liberation organizations against each other, thus neutralizing their effective pursuits of their own causes while significantly weakening the efforts of the others: the winners¡Xthe FBI and the status quo, the losers¡XBlack Liberation as a whole.
Also, not entirely uncommon behavior on part of the FBI is the effort to push targeted individuals to take their own lives through blackmail. One particularly disturbing, though unsuccessful, example of this is the case of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. After utilizing mass-media propaganda campaigns pertaining to Dr. King¡¦s supposed ¡§communist influences¡¨ and sexual proclivities, as well as a harassment campaign by the IRS, FBI audio technician John Matter compiled an audio tape of Dr. King allegedly engaged in ¡§orgiastic¡¨ trysts with prostitutes. The FBI then mailed this tape to Dr. King along with an anonymous letter ¡§informing King that the audio material would be released to the media unless he committed suicide prior to bestowal of the Nobel Prize.¡¨ They had hoped that in the wake of all the stress and under the fear of such press Dr. King would follow the advice and take his own life. He didn¡¦t, and the tape was subsequently rejected by Benjamin Bradlee of Newsweek. Perhaps it was too flimsy and too poor in taste for even ¡§friendly¡¨ media.
The authors also fly through case after case of ¡§punitive prosecution¡¨ orchestrated by the FBI against targeted individuals¡Xthe point of the prosecution having never been to even imprison, only to keep those they viewed as threats preoccupied with their own legal struggles. During many FBI sweeps in which some of those punitively prosecuted were arrested, it was not uncommon for the agents to completely trash the offices and equipment belonging to the organizations for which those people worked. In one raid on Black Panther offices, police even ¡§destroyed bulk food the Panthers were distributing free to ghetto children.¡¨
In their operations against organizations such as SDS and AIM, the FBI utilized all of the same aforementioned tactics¡Xeven after 1971, the year in which COINTELPRO had been officially terminated. The cases chronicled and the supporting FBI documents are downright overwhelming, alarming, and sickening. I¡¦ll leave the descriptions of such cases to the authors, who (unfortunately) maintain that even they have hardly scratched the surface in exposing the conservative terrorism perpetrated by the FBI on the American people.
In the concluding chapter of this book, Churchill and Vander Wall illustrate the advent of the word ¡§terrorism¡¨ and its use since 1972 to justify ongoing COINTELPRO efforts on the part of the FBI, though the acronym has been dropped the tactics and the secrecy are all still in place. Though the FBI is no longer fighting ¡§communism¡¨ and has instead found a new enemy in ¡§terrorism,¡¨ the American people are no safer now from their dishonesty and oppressive tactics than they have been since the official formation of
COINTELPRO. As an American, who hears the word ¡§terror¡¨ thrown around by politicians and law enforcement officers on a daily basis, and who has unfortunately found himself aware of such alarming facts as ¡§at present, the U.S. enjoys the dubious distinction of having a greater proportion of its population incarcerated than any western industrialized country,¡¨ I do have to wonder how exactly we¡¦re going to spread ¡§freedom and democracy¡¨ to the rest of the world when history reveals we¡¦ve always been afraid of freedom and democracy here.
The facts and quotes about the modern day prison system in this country and its expanding usage of sensory deprivation techniques designed to cause the psychological breakdown of political detainees sounded so Orwellian that I¡¦m sure even George Orwell would be shocked. In the FBI we¡¦ve found our ¡§Thought Police¡¨ and in our prison system we¡¦ve found our ¡§Ministry of Love.¡¨ And in our own hearts, it seems, we¡¦re too terrified to react. Perhaps Big Brother is already watching us all.

Sometimes Desert Is Better Than the Meal.......2003-05-06

Ward Churchil and Jim Vander Wall have done an outstanding and meticulous job in assembling and explaining the FBI's secret war on dissent in America, no wonder America is plagued with criminals, the supposed "good guys" are all out on black bag jobs committing their own crimes!!

Since it is a well known historical fact that J. Edgar Hoover, America's semen stained supercop, was blackmailed by the mafia into silence, it stands to reason that he would need a new enemy to focus the attention of the American people. What better enemy than home grown political dissenters who would destroy the genteel American order--white men first.

The book focuses upon the FBI's most notorious episodes--the COINTELPRO efforts against the Communist Party USA, Socialist Workers Party, the New Left, the American Indian Movement and the Black Panthers as demonstrative proof of the Bureau's efforts to undermine and destroy the constitutional rights of all Americans.

It is, for me, the concluding chapter that ties everything together and offers some real life solutions to the peristent cancer that is the FBI. From 1956 to the "offical end" of COINTELPRO in 1971, the FBI committed:

* 2,218 separate actions.

*2,305 admitted warrantless telephone taps.

*697 "bugs against domestic political targets."

*57,486 CIA mail intercepts.

"During the various Congressional committee investigations, the Bureau carefully hid the facts of its involvement in the 1969 Hampton-Clark assassinations. Simultaneously, it was covering up its criminal witholding of exculpatory evidence in the murder trial of LA Panther leader Geronimo Pratt." page 303.

At the end, the authors offer the inescapable conclusion that priority number one is for the left to develop a strategy to come to grips with the FBI and the escalating power of "law enforcement" as well as the implications and consequences of the merging of the U.S. military and the domestic law enforcement appartus.

Book Description

If the knowledge and skills of employees are a company's biggest competitive asset, why are so many organizations riddled with unproductive, irrelevant training departments and activities?

Because they're being ripped off in a $50 billion "Great American Training Robbery," says Daniel Tobin in this strong, frank -- and ultimately rejuvenating -- critique of the current state of employee learning. And it's time for senior managers and human resources professionals to enact change.

Tobin outlines a new approach to learning, one that links "training and development" with viable, job-related, bottom-line driven activities. His model operates on individual, work unit, and corporate levels, with each area continually sharing information and skills -- to create a dynamic, actively learning, knowledge-enabled organization.

Filled with instructive real-world examples, The Knowledge-Enabled Organization supplies a comprehensive and practical game plan for implementing this kind of strategic, results-driven training. It explains how to:

** transform the way that training departments think and act
** ensure that every training dollar spent contributes to corporate financial goals -- and individual career goals
** expand and diversify an employee's learning activities
** create a knowledge network to support learning
** build and maintain a positive learning environment.

Customer Reviews:

Highly Recommended!.......2006-01-26

Written for HR Professionals, this book will help you transform a traditional academic-model training department into a Knowledge-Enabled Organization that supports and fosters continuous learning that has a direct impact on business goals. In the world of Human Resources, this book is well written and accessible to everyone while also being theoretical in orientation. Tobin attacks the "Academic Research Model" under which most training organizations function and which makes the developmental process unnecessarily lengthy and expensive. He argues that training professionals need a detailed knowledge of the business goals, customers, strategies and practices of the organization for which they design training. Tobin believes that developing a Knowledge Network is crucial to becoming a Knowledge-Enabled Organization. There are four major components to a Knowledge Network: A database of specific company knowledge and experience, a directory of experts and their skill sets within the organization, a directory of learning resources inside and outside of the company, and a set of tools, methods, and capabilities that enable employees to learn from each other.

"Continuous improvement is continuous learning".......2000-08-08

"In most businesses, when you mention the word learning, people immediately think of a formal training group, whether it is called 'training and development,' 'education and training,' employee development,' or any of a dozen other titles. Built on a traditional model, these training groups have done more to hinder progress in creating knowledge-enabled organizations than they have helped. A new model is needed, not just for the training group but for the company as a whole. Becoming a knowledge-enabled organization involves not just the training group but everyone from the CEO down; it requires basic changes in how the company is organized and run. The good news is that you can get there from here. This is your guidebook for making the journey" (from the Introduction p.3).

In this context, Daniel R. Tobin:

* argues that "training programs in most companies today rob the company in two ways. First, because formal training programs developed and delivered by traditional training groups are ineffective in helping the company and its employees succeed in meeting their goals, they waste large amounts of money and time. Second, by creating the illusion that formal training programs can meet the company's learning needs and those of its employees, by separating employees' learning needs and learning activities from their actual work, companies miss opportunities to improve individual and company performance, meet or exceed stated goals, and create real competitive advantage".

* presents the four stages of his learning model as an alternative to the traditional model, and examines some common barriers (unavailability of data, inability to find relevant, purposeful data, failure to recognize and share tacit knowledge), and other inhibitors (misdirected measurement and reward strategies, rigid organizational structures, and policies and procedures that force people to work in the same old ways even while the leaders are pointing to new directions) to knowledge development.

* examines what it means to be a knowledge-enabled organization.

* argues that "one key to creating a knowledge-enabled organization is the practice of developing individual employee learning contracts for every employee in the company. The learning contract specifies the knowledge and skills that the employee must acquire over the next year to meet individual goals. These goals are tied directly to functional, departmental, and business unit goals and must have a direct relation to the company's overall business goals".

* examines a wide range of learning options and how they can fulfill employees' learning contracts.

* as a guide for starting to build a company's knowledge network, presents some excellent practices that companies have undertaken to build their own knowledge networks, and argues that "without a positive learning environment, no organization can become knowledge-enabled, regardless of how much it spends on tools and technologies".

* discusses how today's successful companies create a positive learning environment, and argues that "to succeed in becoming a knowledge-enabled organization, a company must change how the leaders lead; how it structures communications, up, down, and throughout the company; how it measures and rewards employees; and how it structures work and job design".

* advises that companies 'throw out the training catalog, not the training group' (because training catalogs reflect the past and limit the potential for real learning), and presents a new model for a group that it be named employee and organizational learning.

* examines the learning organization, a term popularized by Peter Senge, and the corporate university and relates them to the model of the knowledge-enabled organization, and argues that "Senge's five disciplines can be valuable tools, but are not sufficient, in and of themselves, to create a knowledge-enabled organization, and establishing a corporate university does not guarantee that there will be any change in the way the corporation's employees are trained".

* in addition to developing knowledge and skills within the company, examines the other two knowledge-acquisition strategies: buying knowledge and skills, and renting knowledge and skills, and says that "the knowledge-enabled organization also learns from customers, suppliers, and even competitors-from any and every relevant source within or without the company".

Finally, Daniel R. Tobin writes, "creating a knowledge-enabled organization is a prerequisite for any company's future success. There is no function, no job within any company today, regardless of industry or location, that is not knowledge-based. At the same time, the amount of knowledge that employees at all levels need to do their jobs is expanding exponentially; in the future no employee will be able to master all of the knowledge needed to do a job. The best that we can do for our employees is to build a positive learning environment where they are engaged in continuous learning and can use knowledge networks to gather and share the knowledge they need to succeed individually and collectively".

Strongly recommended.

This book gives practical guidelines and case studies.......1997-12-24

I found Dr. Tobin's book both useful in its content and very readable. Compared to many business books which often leave me thinking "So what is their point?," Dan Tobin gives clear examples, illuminating case studies, and practical suggestions. He is also clear regarding why he omitted the technology side of the equation - it would be outdated by the time the book came out. However, if you are interested in more of the technology side, you might want to check out Tom Kooulopolus' book Smart Companies, Smart Tools (Van Nostrand Reinhold). I especially liked Dan's description of how companies "jump started" their knowledge sharing process, as this seems to be THE major limiting factor, not the technology. As experts in the Knowledge Management field are recognizing, the big question is: How do you create a climate where people want to share knowledge? This book gives some practical suggestions and case studies of how organizations have done this. I strongly recommend checking out Dan's book as well as his earlier ones.

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