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On Sat, 25 Aug 2012 20:11 Louis wrote: > The only now-deceased FBI agent I know about is Burney Threadgill who states > that he was Aoki's handler and directed him to join the CPUSA and then the > SWP afterwards. > >Here's the relevant passage from Rosenfeld's book. Comrades can judge for >themselves. >>>> I offer this commentary after having now skimmed significant portions of the book via the Amazon preview features, with the relevant chapter 28 "At Bayonet Point" in the most detail. Louis has conveniently left out the ONLY citation on Aoki where any DOCUMENTARY evidence that is supposedly connected with the allegation is EVER provided by Rosenthal: from page 640, in the Notes section: [QUOTE] 418 - "But one of... radical organizations." The author's conclusion that Aoki was an FBI informer has several bases. First, the former FBI agent Burney Threadgill Jr., discussed Aoki's work as an informer in interviews with the author; second, Aoki's own suggestive statements to the author; third he is named as an "informant" with the temporary code number "T-2" in 105-165706-22, a November 16, 1967 FBI report on the Black Panthers; fourth, this conclusion is consistent with other FBI records concerning Aoki. It is also based on the declaration of former FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen, Seth Rosenfeld v. Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Department of Justice, C 11-92131MEJ, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, 2011; author interview with M. Wesley Swearingen. [/QUOTE] The ONLY hard, documentary evidence is therefore claimed to exist within the "T-2" form, to which Fujino also had access for her biography of Aoki (as she declared in her interview on Democracy Now). Fujino states in her recent article from the SF Chronicle (link below) that the document is AMBIGUOUS in its redacted form: <http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Where-s-the-evidence-Aoki-was-FBI-informant-3808396.php> [QUOTE] First, Rosenfeld cites only one FBI document, a Nov. 16, 1967, report. It states: "A supplementary T symbol (SF T-2) was designated for" - but the name was deleted. Following the now-blank space was the name Richard Matsui Aoki in parenthesis, and then the phrase "for the limited purpose of describing his connections with the organization and characterizing [Aoki]." In the FBI pages released to me, only brief background material on Aoki is linked to T-2. Moreover, T symbols are used to refer to informants or technical sources of information (microphones, wiretaps). So was Aoki the informer or the one being observed? [/END QUOTE] To claim in the endnote citation that on the "T-2" document that "[Aoki] is named as an informant" - with an incorrect middle name - is misguided at best. Therefore I and other detractors charge that Rosenfeld's interview with the now-deceased Threadgill is the sole origin of the allegation, and that it is LACKING in HARD, DOCUMENTED corroborating evidence that UNAMBIGUOUSLY names Aoki as an informant. We must somehow take the now-deceased Threadgill at his word. All the other "sources" cited in this endnote are based on Rosenfeld's and Swearingen's SUBJECTIVE INTERPRETATIONS in pursuit of this primrose path. Every piece of information - or lack thereof - that they subsequently encounter (including other FBI documents that describe or mention Aoki but never claim any collaboration, or any FBI refusal to release additional documents) is now somehow "proof" of their theory. The entire allegation is propped up by nothing more than their confirmation biases. Louis has repeatedly claimed, both here or in other forums (such as his blog or in the comments section of Kasama and North Star), that "it shouldn't matter" if Aoki was an FBI asset or not, since his "ultraleft numbskullery" (Louis' words) was so destructive. And yet despite such claimed irrelevancy, he persists in posting Rosenfeld's allegations, presented as incontrovertible fact. Notice Rosenfeld's language - the use of conclusive statements instead of conditioning them as allegations, just as Louis does in his blog entry by writing, "I should mention that the FBI directed Aoki to join the CP and the SWP before he ever got involved with the Panthers." Hindsight certainly allows us to judge past actions/beliefs as mistakes or errors. In light of the aftermath wrought on the Panthers and affiliated groups, it would certainly seem that they were courting disaster. What seems to be ignored by Louis and others however, is that these groups (or their survivors) and ex-members didn't just disappear into thin air. Most of them continued organizing, and many thereafter evolved or merged into the various formations within what is sometimes collectively referred to as Third World Marxism or seen as part of the broader New Communist Movement (NCM). This is a largely non-Trotskyist lineage of the USA left - and far more representative of communities of color - that is apparently quite alien for many of the (USA-based) members of this list, amongst whom the "old guard" seem to be predominantly white and male, and many of whom were ex-SWP like Louis. >From what I have observed, far too many of the frequent contributors to Marxmail seem either unknowing or underestimating of just what the Panthers, Young Lords, Red Guards (the Asian-American group), et al mean and symbolize for politically-conscious people of color, including up to the present day. And how this appreciation is IN SPITE of their mistakes and errors, which we can pick apart and debate until time immemorial. It is unfortunate that Louis continues to parrot Rosenfeld's UNSUBSTANTIATED ALLEGATIONS against Aoki (despite his claim that they "don't matter") to apparently dismiss wholesale this entire milieu of what was to become the NCM, and its lasting legacy - warts and all. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
