Cleveland FIST protests FBI

At Baldwin-Wallace College here, the FBI announced it was planning to hold a recruitment workshop. It advertised with the slogan, “The FBI—more than a job!” The literature used to advertise the workshop made it sound as if the FBI was a group of 007 action heroes who “prevent terrorist attacks” and “save hundreds of lives.”

Organizers with the Cleveland chapter of Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST) had other thoughts. It had recently been revealed that neo-Nazi Hal Turner received multiple payments from the FBI to fund his fascist radio program. Turner was being paid by the FBI when he called on the air for the assassination of African-American congressperson Cynthia McKinney. Turner was receiving FBI funds while he sold miniature nooses on his Web site during the outrage around the arrest of the Jena Six.

FIST organizers were also aware of the crimes of the FBI with regard to the Black Panther Party and the targeted assassination of its leaders, as well as the FBI’s role in suppressing countless liberation struggles and progressive movements of the people against the wealthy Wall Street class that dominates the world.

So, on the sunny afternoon of Oct. 27, members of Cleveland FIST, Workers World Party and the Middle East Peace Forum set up a picket line outside Malicky Center where the FBI workshop was held. Handbills were given to people entering the FBI workshop explaining what the terrorist group attempting to recruit them was really all about.

The New Sun, a local newspaper in Berea, Ohio, interviewed the FIST members and their supporters. Several professors at the college shook hands with and congratulated the FIST members for organizing the protest. The FIST organizers received several e-mails in the hour following the protest from students who wanted to know more about the history of the FBI and its brutality against progressive movements.