Stalking the Sociological Imagination:J. Edgar Hoovers staling of American Sociology
Until recent years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation enjoyed an exalted reputation as America’s premier crime-fighting organization. However, it is now common knowledge that the FBI and its long-time director, J. Edgar Hoover, were responsible for the creation of a massive internal security apparatus that undermined the very principles of freedom and democracy they were sworn to protect. While no one was above suspicion, Hoover appears to have held a special disdain for sociologists and placed many of the profession’s most prominent figures under surveillance. In Stalking Sociologists, Mike Forrest Keen offers a detailed account of the FBI’s investigations within the context of an overview of the history of American sociology.
This ground-breaking analysis history uses documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Keen argues that Hoover and the FBI marginalized sociologists such as W. E. B. Du Bois and C. Wright Mills, tried to suppress the development of a Marxist tradition in American sociology, and likely pushed the mainstream of the discipline away from a critique of American society and towards a more quantitative and scientific direction. He documents thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars dedicated to this project. Faculty members of various departments of sociology were recruited to inform on the activities of their colleagues and the American Sociological Association was a target of FBI surveillance. Keen turns sociology back upon the FBI, using the writings and ideas of the very sociologists Hoover investigated to examine and explain the excesses of the Bureau and its boss. The result is a significant contribution to the collective memory of American society as well as the accurate history of the sociological discipline.
“This ground-breaking book documents in meticulous detail decades of harassment and surveillance of major American sociologists by the FBI. The misuse of power…will outrage all Americans and raise significant professional issues within the social sciences.”–Mary Jo Deegan, professor of sociology, University of Nebraska
For the reader hat is following along, you might remeber the case of Val, who was “gang stalked” and invited to participate as a “community informant” by a gang strike force commander.
Then, there is the case of the black site in Chicago, IL that hosts illegal and unethical gang stalking operations of all kinds, and how male teachers and fathers were kidnapped by an armed gang of police who created a “gang” from whole cloth, and then, used “perp walks” as a tactic to embarass and humiliate these men from the community into leaving the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, leaving control of “the children” to police and police affiliated assets.
J. Edgar Hoover is probably rolling over in his pink lined chiffon coffin ruing his own death, as even in his wildest imagination, he could not imagine a better scheme of getting clse to the kiddies than the current FBI and the associated hydra of Hegelian policing.
But stalking, gangs, and the FBI’s hatred of sociology, and its love of psychological warfare is a real thing.
Gang Stalking is "community policing" aka "communist policing," and it poses a threat to Democracy and public safety 