Note:
I wrote the following report two months ago for the research branch of
Occupy Washington D.C. Since then, the events of May Day have proven
Occupy Tacoma and indeed the entire Occupy Movement are very much alive,
which makes this material relevant not just to Occupiers but to all
other emergent protest movements, especially in the ever-more-openly
fascist United States. Hence this, edited only slightly for
presentation here:
I. SUMMARY:
Typical of Occupy Wall Street and its local offshoots throughout the
United States, Occupy Tacoma was from its inception vexed by
disorganization and chaos. The resultant obstructions – especially in
planning and communications – prevailed from OT's birth-period (the last
week of September through the first week of October 2011), until 26
February 2012, when the few remaining campers evacuated Occupation Park
in peaceful compliance with a state eviction order. How much of the
disruption that plagued OT during those five months was merely typical
of newly formed grassroots movements? How much was caused or intensified
by clandestine operatives working on behalf the One Percent – agents
provocateur and other sorts of infiltrators? The question is impossible
to answer at this point. But at least a dozen episodes or incidents,
each of which is described in more detail below, display one or more
characteristics that identifies them as the product of hostile
operations.
II. BACKGROUND:
In startling contrast to the protest movements of the 1950s, 1960s and
early 1970s, where from the beginning there was sufficient awareness of
the oppressor's ultimate malevolence (and therefore a magnitude of
paranoia that was both profound and entirely rational), Occupy Tacoma
seemed dominated by an almost childish naivety – an attitude all the
more astonishing given how the protest movements of yesteryear operated
under constitutional protections that have since been notoriously
abolished. As a consequence, the identification of possible
infiltrators within OT was left largely to elderly women who are
veterans of the Feminist Movement and a handful of aging males who are,
as I am, veterans of the Civil Rights, Anti-Vietnam War,
Back-to-the-Land and Alternative Press movements. Alas, because of a new
and far more politically damaging generation gap – the enormous
contempt with which younger U.S. Caucasians so often view those of us
who are in our 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond – our cautions typically fell on
deaf ears.
Though
I was involved with the Occupy movement in Washington state even before
the organization of Occupy Tacoma – I had posted on the Occupy Olympia
website seeking information about Occupy activities in Tacoma several
days before the Tacoma group was formed – by January all save one of the
original approximately 14 movement-veteran seniors, myself included,
had been quietly ousted. The primary means of our ouster, which may or
may not be relevant to the infiltration question, was the refusal of
what emerged as OT's dominant faction to accommodate our very real,
health-mandated need for General Assembly meetings in spaces that were
both heated and protected from the incessant and dangerously chilling
rains typical of Pacific Northwest coastal winters. Rather than grant us
the sheltered space we demanded, the OT core faction continued to meet
in frigid and often torrential downpours until all but one of us stopped
participating. Only then – after we were gone (and thereby silenced) –
was a community tent erected in Occupation Park. Whether this was
coincidence or something darker could not be determined.
The
following report is therefore the product of two kinds of sources. Its
primary source is my own on-the-spot observation through mid-December
2011, which given my 55-year background in investigative reporting,
photography and journalism in general is definitively the work of a
trained observer and analyst. (For details of my qualifications, see the
resumé I sent with my e-note of 1 March 2012). The secondary sources,
none of whom I am at liberty to identify, are a few people within
Occupation Park and OT in general with whom I remained in contact from
mid-December until the encampment's formal demise on 26 February 2012.
III. VITAL HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE:
When reading the following it is imperative to bear in mind the
reluctant admission by Watergate felon John Ehrlichman that Washington
state and the Puget Sound region¹ in particular is the One Percent's
favorite domestic laboratory for perfecting its techniques of
oppression. The late Ehrlichman, a Seattleite who climbed the Republican
ladder to achieve infamy as one of All the President's Men,
testified during the Watergate hearings, and it was there he revealed
his home state's hitherto-secret rat-lab role. This disclosure made
headlines in Seattle, particularly in the alternative press. But the
news reports of Ehrlichman's revelations have all seemingly vanished
down the proverbial Orwell hole. Hence no verification links exist – at
least none I've been able to find. Moreover my own Watergate reference
files – clippings and notes on the Seattle area's many connections to
various Nixon outrages – were destroyed in 1983 by the same mysterious
house fire that burned up all my life's significant work including two
books in progress. Nevertheless Ehrlichman's description of the state
and especially the Puget Sound area as a Ruling Class proving ground
might explain a curious paradox of Washington's Occupy history: the
astounding tolerance the authorities granted Occupy Tacoma, this in
contrast to the anti-Occupy violence of the police elsewhere in the
region, especially in Seattle, where the cops were so brazenly brutal
they attacked an 84-year-old woman.
IV. TWELVE RELEVENT EPISODES:
Here in chronological order are a dozen examples from Occupy Tacoma's
first five months that strongly suggest infiltration or infiltration
attempts, the activities of agents-provocateur and a miscellany of other
hostile actions:
(1)-In
angry, significantly unionized working-class Tacoma, the two-fingered
peace sign of the 1960s is considered a symbol of silliness (if not
outright submissiveness), and in union circles it is generally viewed
with contempt. But this symbol mysteriously ousted the clenched fist of
today's economic rage and thus – undoubtedly to Occupy Tacoma's
detriment – became the movement's defining logo. Just how this came
about is a mystery I was never able to solve, and I pursued it with
reportorial diligence for several weeks. But the answers to my questions
were always variants of “it just happened.” Indeed the peace sign,
which I as a socialist have always found objectionable, was seemingly
cemented in place even before OT became functional. (I was the first contributor to OT's “why I joined” testimonials,
this on 6 October 2011.) Indeed by then the peace sign had already
become sacrosanct, so that every attempt to challenge it was shouted
down – never mind that (in the words of one of my more articulate
neighbors), it publicly declared OT, “nothing more than a bunch of
kids trying to be hippies and relive the '60s.” The result was that OT
was never taken seriously by the community at large. Was this curious
choice of symbols – self-defeating in any context and downright
inexplicable in working-class Tacoma – the product of infiltration? I
don't know. But I regard it with profound suspicion. (Update: sometime after I filed this report with Occupy Washington D.C., OT did indeed replace the two-fingered peace sign with the clenched fist
[scroll down to May Day], though the peace sign persists in all its
insipid self-defeating obnoxiousness on OT's Facebook page. )
(2)-A
few individuals whose online comments marked them as likely agents
provocateur were evident from the moment the OccupyTacoma.org website
opened its forum; the identities of these individuals will be obvious to
anyone who peruses the forum's contents. Indeed many OT activists,
myself included, stopped posting there because of its domination by
posters whose sole purpose seemed to be antagonism and provocation. (Update: OT's website was destroyed by hackers in mid-March but was rebuilt by the end of the month.)
(3)-At
OT's second GA, a longtime (and therefore presumably credible) local
activist repeated in seemingly good faith a warning Tacoma City Council
had recently amended its ordinances so that if anyone in a demonstration
was charged with a felony – say felonious vandalism or assault on a
police officer – everyone who had any connection with the demonstration
(even non-demonstrating members of participating organizations) could be
identically charged and arrested. That such a measure is reportedly
being urged on states and municipalities by the Department of Homeland
Security made the warning all the more believable – and all the more
terrifying. But it was patently false. My own investigation revealed
that no such measure had been considered – much less enacted – whether
by Tacoma, Pierce County or any other municipality within the county.
Nor could I trace the warning to its source; it was always “so-and-so
said,” and then when I questioned “so-and-so,” the source was invariably
somebody else. The fact similar rumors spread through Occupy
organizations elsewhere suggests a classic combination of disinformation
and psychological warfare – this of a sophistication that in turn
evidences the most skilled sorts of military or secret police
operations.
(4)-OT's
communications were constantly disrupted. The email addresses of key
work-group personnel were mysteriously blocked. E-messages went astray;
important information was never delivered. At least one OT activist was
worked into a state of psychological exhaustion by the associated
frustrations. These obstructions clearly suggest communications
countermeasures that, again, are indicative of military or secret-police
capabilities.
(5)-I
heard stories of several supposedly obvious infiltration attempts and
encountered one such effort myself. A young man presented himself to the
Media Work Group as a graphic artist with a heavy professional
background but seemed, by attitude, physique and a certain
characteristic look in his eyes, more like a special-forces guy than a
cultural worker. I as a key member of the work group thus began
questioning him about his education and accomplishments. As we talked I
asked if he was familiar with Art Direction magazine, the
now-defunct international commercial-art journal of which I was
editor-in-chief in 1985 and 1986. He replied that he was indeed familiar
with the publication, but did so with the vagueness that invariably
reveals falsehood. Shortly afterward he left the meeting – and was never
again seen on Occupation circles. Opportunist seeking to hitch his
metaphorical wagon to the Occupation star? Infiltrator? I'd guess the
latter – emphatically so – but again there's no definitive proof.
(6)-In
late October an individual hitherto unknown to OT brought to a GA a
proposal the group's communications be restructured to exclude anyone
without Internet access. I instantly objected, vehemently so, pointing
out that such economically-based discrimination is specifically the kind
of class warfare Occupy is protesting. A few others, typically single
mothers or elderly people of both genders, expressed their agreement
with me. The exclusion advocate sneeringly replied that Internet access
was available to anyone willing to make the effort to go to a public
library. One woman's response was especially memorable: “How can we go
to the libraries when the transit system is being shut down and the
libraries are all being closed?” The exclusion advocate merely
smirked, saying nothing. Soon however his proposal, though never
formally adopted, had become the OT norm, with the result the methodical
exclusion of a major part of OT's natural base. Infiltrator? Ayn
Rander? I'd say maybe both – because why else would an Ayn Rander be
interested in OT?
(7)-When
OT was formed, Tacoma's First Methodist Church offered its facilities
as an indoor locale for GAs. The offer was gratefully accepted; the
frigid rains characteristic of winter on the Pacific Northwest Coast are
of such monsoonal intensity as to discourage outdoor meetings – and GA
sessions tend to last two, three, even four hours. But not long after OT
took its first collectively approved policy stance – a list of formal
demands it presented to Washington state's U.S. Sen. Patty Murray – the
church withdrew its offer, forcing the GA outdoors in the rain and cold
and thereby effectively excluding most elderly and disabled people from
the decision-making process. The reasons for the church's sudden
reversal have never been adequately explained, though it should be noted
most OT activists emphatically assert the cause was nothing more
ominous than administrative error and organizational confusion.
Nevertheless it's difficult to overlook the fact the excluded seniors
and disabled people had been amongst those most active in shaping the
demands OT addressed to Murray. Citing Murray's position as co-chair of
the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, OT insisted she block
proposed cutbacks in Social Security and prevent further slashing of
Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits and federal aid to education. Was
the church's ouster of OT a deliberately hostile action (perhaps ordered
by the church's state or national hierarchy in response to some DHS
edict)? Or was it mere coincidence? In this case it seems to have been
the latter – though the demographic identity of the chief victims of
the church's sudden denial of its meeting facilities is surely cause for
continued suspicion.
(8)-Soon
after ouster from the church facilities limited OT to outdoor meetings,
a story spread through OT's dwindling ranks that the Teamsters (a union
to which I have strong social and familial connections despite the fact
I have never been a member), had been kind enough to offer its local
auditorium as a permanent meeting place. But one of the leaders who had
emerged within allegedly “leaderless” OT was said to have arbitrarily
turned down the offer without bothering to consult the membership. If
true, this was an anti-union coup. Indeed – especially since there was
already growing tension between union members and anti-union
“progressives” – I suspected the perpetrator was either a Green or a
member of MoveOn.org. Both groups had self-identified members within OT,
both share the anti-blue-collar bias that has characterized the
nation's so-called “Left” since the class conflicts of the Vietnam Era,
and each group is therefore as anti-union as any of its hard-right
counterparts. Hence – hoping to blow the cover of an anti-union activist
within OT – I telephoned several local union officials in an effort to
ferret out the facts. (Disclosure: I am a member of the National Writers
Union AFL/CIO, a former member of the American Newspaper Guild.) After
maybe a half dozen conversations it became clear no such offer had been
made – not by the Teamsters, not by any other union, not by the Pierce
County Central Labor Council. Another classic example of what the
Russians call dezinformatsiya? In this case I'd bet on it.
(9)-A
self-proclaimed Iraq War veteran who belligerently identified himself
as an OT activist was arrested and charged with possession of cocaine,
this in Olympia during a confrontation between Occupy Olympia and
Olympia cops. Ruling Class Media throughout Washington state seized upon
the arrest to begin a Josef Goebbels-type campaign of characterizing
Occupiers as undesirables. Coincidental? I doubt it – especially since
three or four OT people later told me the man had been ousted from
Tacoma's Occupation Park for offering free cocaine to campers.
(10)-By
the end of December, the sociology of Occupation Park's approximately
30 overnight campers was changing dramatically; the park was
increasingly becoming a homeless camp. Sources there told me some of the
chronically homeless people – about half of whom were also severely
mentally ill – claimed they had been sent to the park by (unnamed) local
social service agencies to obtain free food and lodging. Meanwhile –
again hardly a coincidence – the Ruling Class Media's hate campaign
continued, portraying Occupiers as habitual drunks, drug addicts and
mental patients who refused medication.
(11)-By
the end of January, threats of violence by hard-core homeless people
had driven so many of the original OT protesters out of the park, OT
itself was recommending the park be evacuated, cleaned up and given back to the state.
Concurrent with the (imposed?) increase in numbers of chronically
homeless people, Ruling Class Media reported a groundswell of complaints
from (invariably anonymous) merchants that Occupiers were intimidating
their customers and trashing the downtown Tacoma neighborhood around the
park. Significantly, Ruling Class Media reporters ignored what – if
my sources were correct – would have been a Pulitzer-class story: an
equally dramatic increase in numbers of people flung into homelessness
by the downsized economy. Typically, I was told, the newly homeless who
came to Occupation Park were (bitterly angry) youths whose parents had
been first thrown out of work and then evicted from their homes. It was
in this context – conversion of Occupation Park into a homeless camp –
the state issued its official eviction notice, with which OT then
complied.
(12)-As
I noted in the section entitled “Summary,” the degree of tolerance
displayed by local law enforcement toward Occupy Tacoma is – especially
given the unrestrained brutality unleashed against other Occupations in
Washington state – not just astonishing but markedly suspect. The
apparent coordination between state welfare bureaucrats, some non-profit
social service agencies, Ruling Class Media and other state agencies
including the Washington State Patrol (which despite its name is a de
facto state police force) is strongly suggestive of a carefully planned
and coordinated operation. It is especially significant to note that
only the Department of Homeland Security possesses the requisite
combination of capabilities and authority to impose such coordination.
Hence – particularly given the Ehrlichman testimony – it's difficult to
escape the conclusion the curious treatment of OT was part of an
experiment, probably by DHS, to determine the most effective strategy
and tactics (complete with the peace sign's symbolic ouster of the
clenched fist) for dealing with rebelliousness sparked by the public's
awakening to the savagery of capitalism and the murderousness of fascist
governance. OT by its very existence also underscores the Father Gapon
factor: providing the authorities with a unique opportunity to identify
the largest possible number of activists and potential activists of all
ages, genders and ethnicities who live in or near Tacoma.
V. AFTERTHOUGHTS – IDENTIFYING INFILTRATORS AND COMBATING HOSTILE ACTION:
The questions of how to identify infiltrators, informants and/or
agents provocateur, and what countermeasures to employ against them,
were hotly debated during the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. Since these
matters are obviously relevant again today, here is list of five
principles from the '60s, updated to reflect present-day political and
technological realities:
(1)-Given
the escalating imposition of fascist governance², most U.S. locales
have longstanding communities of nonviolent resistance from which local
Occupations drew their initial membership. The sudden appearance of any
self-proclaimed activist who is a total stranger within these
communities – particularly a stranger whose claims of radicalism cannot
be confirmed – should be viewed with grave suspicion.³
(2)-Given
the overwhelming military and police power of the fascist state – which
possesses the capability of destroying our entire movement – the
absolute necessity of maintaining the often-difficult disciplines of
nonviolence is (or should be) obvious to even the most unseasoned
protester. Any other course of action gives the authorities the
propaganda by which to justify assaulting us with maximum lethal force.
In this context, anyone who publicly advocates violence (as in General
Assembly meetings or on discussion threads), is almost certainly an
agent provocateur.
(3)-Given
the Occupy principle of working toward consensus, individuals or groups
of individuals who persistently disrupt the consensus-building process
should be viewed with grave suspicion. This includes disruptive mentally
ill or homeless persons whose presence may have been maliciously
encouraged by the Ruling Class authorities.
(4)-Given
our extreme dependence on social media (and the huge vulnerability that
results from that dependence), we are easy targets for interdiction
(outright blockage of communications), disinformation (incorrect dates
and times), and illegal acts advocated by agents provocateur who have
infiltrated our web sites. Hence people given moderator-access to
Occupy websites and other communications media should be screened very
carefully. Indeed each local Occupation should develop an
access-screening working group.
(5)-Given
our vulnerability to entrapment, we should be especially wary of anyone
who makes a point of inviting us to break even seemingly minor laws,
for example drinking alcohol on public property where alcohol
consumption is forbidden. Such a person is best scorned as an agent
provocateur. Otherwise – once arrested – we are in the hands of
authorities who now today not only have the power to detain us
indefinitely but to torture us into whatever confession fulfills their
fascist objectives.
In
keeping with the non-violent nature of our movement, our single most
effective countermeasure is to deliberately plant false information with
a suspected infiltrator – for example that 500 people intend to
demonstrate in front of a bank. Then when the riot police show up for
what turns out to be a non-event, we know the person on whom the false
information was planted is indeed an infiltrator. Camera phones are
superbly effective too: when the young man who 15 minutes ago was
demanding violence is photographed laughing with his cop or soldier
buddies around the corner, the evidence is irrefutable.
Above
all else we should never forget the United States is no longer the
nation into which even the most youthful Occupiers were born. “The Land
of the Free” is but a memory. In bitter truth we are the subjects of the
most oppressive, most relentlessly policed, most mercilessly punished
nation on Earth.
***
¹The Puget Sound area or region includes the cities of Bellingham, Everett, Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia.
²It
should be noted that fascist governance is in fact capitalist
governance: absolute power and unlimited profit for the Ruling
Class, total subjugation and genocidal poverty for everyone else.
Capitalism – infinite greed exalted as ultimate virtue – has always been
a powerfully compelling doctrine in the United States, particularly in
matters of foreign policy. But after the assassination of President John
Fitzgerald Kennedy on 22 November 1963 and the decade's subsequent
political murders (Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F.
Kennedy), the nation lost the will to resist capitalism's inevitable
transformation into fascism, hence the escalating tyranny at home and
the brutal – indeed Nazi-like – imperialist policies abroad. The
domestic imposition of fascism and the brazen re-emergence of
capitalism's innate viciousness was further bolstered by the collapse of
the Soviet Union. Though the U.S.S.R. was never the “workers'
paradise” it claimed to be, its official Marxism appeared to offer an
avowedly humanitarian alternative to capitalism. The resultant
competition for “hearts and minds” forced capitalism to conceal its
savagery, hence the unprecedented growth of the U.S. middle class c.
1945-1973, a pretense brazenly dropped after the U.S.S.R. was destroyed
in 1990.
³This
is a modern-day affirmation of the affinity-group principle that
evolved during the '60s: the fact collectives of people with long mutual
histories are extremely difficult to infiltrate. The protection granted
by the longstanding solidarity of the affinity group is, by the way,
precisely why the capitalists are forever engaged in the destruction
and/or prevention of communities.
L.B./4 March 2012, rev. 13 May 2012
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