Article on infiltration

[eridani]

Lots of obvious stuff, but a good summary.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/440-occupy/10172-the-agent-provocateurs-in-occupys-midst

n the first five months, the Occupy movement has had major victories and has altered the debate about the economy. People in the power structure and who hold different political views are pushing back with a traditional tool - infiltration. Across the country, Occupies are struggling with disruption and division, attacks on key people, escalation of tactics to include property damage and police conflict as well as misuse of websites and social media.

As Part II of this discussion will show, infiltration is the norm in political movements in the United States. Occupy has many opponents likely to infiltrate to divide and destroy it beyond the usual law enforcement apparatus. Other detractors include the corporations whose rule Occupy seeks to end; conservative right wing groups allied with corporate interests; and members of the power structure including nonprofit organizations linked with corporate-funded political parties, especially the Democratic Party, which would like Occupy to be its tea party rather than an independent movement critical of both parties.

On the very first day of the Occupation of Wall Street, we saw infiltration by the police. We were leaving Zuccotti Park and were stopped in traffic. We saw the doors of an unmarked van open and in the front seat were two uniformed police. Out of the back came two men dressed as Occupiers wearing backpacks, sweatshirts and jeans. They walked into Zuccotti Park and became part of the crowd.

[unionworks]

1. I MUST be reading this wrong....

...so democrats are considered "infiltrators" trying to co-opt Occupy? Does that go for unions too, as far as organizations? Sounds more exclusive than inclusive, and like divisive talk coming from someone claiming to speak for all of Occupy. And for those less experienced in class warfare, the exact purpose of infiltration is to create suspicion and mistrust among a movements members. Bullocks.

[nashville_brook]

2. i actually started to post about this last night...i think there's a turf battle occurring

between the 99% Spring and NOW DC events. This article was written by people who are affiliated with NOW DC, and toward the end of the article they reveal that they're miffed b/c 99%Spring is having an event too close to theirs.

This also tracks a disagreement many Occupies are dealing with: anarchist vs radical democratic principles. we've been thru hell with this in our Occupy.

for myself, i think the 99% Spring event/movement has the potential to carry the Occupy message to the next level. we've done the camping. we've got decent direct action skills. now -- what to do with that. there has to be a way to channel this energy to positive change. i'm not in this to "occupy a park." i'm in it to create change.

all that to say -- spot on, unionworks!

[unionworks]

3. Saw an an op here on "the 99% declaration, LTD"

That caused me to have a "WtF moment". I guess that is a problem with a decentralized horizontal movement. It was probably the same way when this country was being founded. It will work out. Any comments on the so-called "99% declaration"? I'm still trying to sort that one out....

[nashville_brook]

4. 99% Declaration is different group from 99% Spring -- and, i think 99D fizzled

b/c it was one guy who either had a profit motive or did some shady stuff with copyrighting and trying to 'own' the rights to the document or something like that.

all this has interested me b/c there's a massive branding issue emerging. or, what i'm thinking about in terms of branding. like, who gets to associate themselves with the "Occupy" or "99%" brand? no one has control of it -- no one should, b/c it's not a hierarchal thing. this uncertainty is creating a turf battle, which puts a new light on what "infiltration" might mean. this article seems to me to be pointing fingers at established activist groups saying "you're not us," therefore you're infiltrators. and, there's no reason not to imagine that this isn't payback for the Chris Hedges critique of the Black Block as giving cover to infiltrators.

and so it goes.

[unionworks]

6. That's pretty much what I heard

a lawyer who claimed to be the leader of a group threatening to sue and expose anyone who got in his way.

[Leopolds Ghost]

5. I think the article is primarily talking about Party insiders -- the people who deliberately

Last edited Tue Feb 28, 2012, 04:39 PM - Edit history (2)

brought down the Populist Party in the early 1900s, destroyed the Dean machine in 2008 and did various other dirty tricks to try and co-opt, rather than support, populist movements to ensure their own control over the party apparatus. Each organization or political party that seeks and has the means to seek real power in this country tends to resort to shit like that, because political office sadly tends to attract people who are egotists and willing to resort to subterfuge to discredit their political opponents. As for nonprofits, it's a real issue because if you have been involved in an activist group you don't like to see a pre-existing nonprofit (that by law has a private board of directors and restricted membership) claim to support what you are doing only to try and steal your thunder to advance their own pre-existing message... I've read books where they talk about the dangers just of seeking fiscal sponsorship... when an organization that is fiscally sponsored by an existing, larger nonprofit (and these are mostly lefty organizations) gets a substantial cash donation, the "parent" organizaiton will very often engineer it so that they take control of the project and get to say how the money is spent -- and that is in the realm of financial advice for nonprofits, not even taking into account political hostility towards left-libertarians or the left in general. Part of the problem is that corporate charter law in Anglo-Saxon countries is geared to make all corporations formed with the assumption that profit is the only motive, so if you want to start a nonprofit in support of a leaderless activist group they actually REQUIRE you to have a centralized, unaccountable board of directors so that there is someone the IRS can hold accountable. And yes, those are the people the gov't tries to go after, not the big corporations that steal billions, but little activist nonprofits that don't file their papers on time.

But yes, I hear a lot of complaining about unions potentially co-opting the movement coming from fellow left-libertarians and I frankly don't understand it. While it's true that many unions have become powerless and ineffectual, that certainly doesn't make them capable of co-opting anything... I always tell people "would that they WERE capable of co-opting the movement!" the rank and file that actually want to be involved in Occupy want their unions to do the right thing... The issue with unions is, unions and Occupy trying to work together and the parties can't agree on effective tactics and the unions won't commit to anything that violates their Taft-era contract stipulations preventing wildcat strikes or anything that amounts to civil disobedience (meaning the government has passed laws making unions toothless and treat them like professional associations)... and Occupiers tending to make stereotypes about union folks, I think the issue there is unions in this country are so weak that it's possible to make assumptions about people who are "in a union" instead of it being, you know, a universal pheonmenon.

[unionworks]

7. Your post offers

... a very clear explanation of what is going on and what the problems are. This has to be a real headache for people trying to keep Occupy going.

[Leopolds Ghost]

8. Heh, hope my second paragraph is not broad-brush or inaccurate

I added it before I saw your reply.

[unionworks]

9. Not at all

I found it quite readable and accurate.

[unionworks]

10. I have run into

...exactly the problem in unions that you refer to. At one plastics factory, after repeated filing of grievances and no action, a group of young women got together and said literally " if you don't take care of it, WE WILL BE THE GODDAMN UNION". The isues were then addressed. I will never forget that day, I was there. Don't underestimate American workers.

[unionworks]

11. And you would be suprised

...when it really starts to hit the fan how fast do-nothing union officers can be tossed out on their ass to put people in who will take the fight to the 1%.

[nashville_brook]

12. i love what you say in the 2nd paragraph b/c it speaks to how we actually should be working together

i'm part of a Unity group in my city that's working on these issues. our model goes like this: rich people (country club women, real estate developers, hedge fund managers) often meet in "business club" settings to network and share influence. they don't get bogged down in what each group believes, and they know that some leaders can get in front of an issue while others can "only" fund it. it's a pragmatic approach to getting things done.

so, what we've done as an Occupy is call meetings with all the local unions, activist groups and community leaders we can and made a simple proposal. We asked "what can we do together?"

What happens next (for example) is Unite HERE says "well, we've got an action coming up on minimum wage." Occupy can provide bodies for this. Then, maybe Occupy is doing a big weekend of events and we need bodies, so we reach out to the network. Maybe we need meeting space and there's a union hall that's available every other sunday. Etc etc.

So here's the real deal...it's a fact that unions and established activist groups cannot participate in certain forms of direct action. But Occupy can and does. So, while the Occupy might be doing loud/obnoxious protesting, the established groups have the benefit of this demographic on their side of the issue with less risk, while being able to negotiate based on the pressure that Occupy provides. Occupy can't negotiate b/c we aren't "inside" enough -- so, we need them too. Since we share issues, this "diversity of tactics" works in the favor of everyone.

This is completely different from "diversity of tactics" within a protest itself -- like what Chris Hedges critiques. no one is advocating violence or destruction -- but we are recognizing differing levels of "volume' lets say.