UPDATE: Even moreso, what Justin says:
And at that time, a number of collaborators seemed paranoid when they were nervous about infiltrators…we were asked a number of times how we would deal with agents provocateur. I’m happy to say that we didn’t give in to that type of fear in our planning…but it’s odd to realize that in our photos and videos from that week, there are probably a few faces we never saw again, once they returned to NYPD HQ.
In addition to feeling like our privacy was invaded and our loyalty questioned by this senseless spying, I also smile a little…our movement has such a level of transparency, what did these police spies think they were going to find that we weren’t already advertising over every list-serve and blog that would have us?
This is a really important point vis-a-vis my Vanguard thoughts below. To the extent that there is organizing going on which has credibly “revolutionary” potential (sorry, the wanna-be Maoists aren’t that), it’s being done with an unprecedented degree of transparency. This is actually a major difference vs. most power-organizing schools of thought of the past, and beyond just being novel, may actually represent a major step forward in our capabilities to undermine, subvert, collapse or control entrenched and malign power-structures. Here’s hoping.
It wouldn’t surprise me to find MFA, myself, or people I know in those files. Sometimes thinking about where we’re at as a country can get a little abstract… this article today hit me a lot harder than a blog or article about the latest administration scandal ever could.
Sort of flattering. Sort of spooky. It makes me wonder about all those people who wanted to “make documentaries” about the stuff we did during the RNC.
At the end of the day I still fall back on Brautigan — you can have security or you can have sanity; pick one — and I think it’s more important to trust people than fear them. But still, it’s not a Good Thing that this kind of covert surveillance is allowed. Begs to be abused.
