This is Part I of a
two part series on infiltration of Occupy and what the movement can do about
limiting the damage of those who seek to destroy us from within. This first article
describes public reports of infiltration as well as results of a survey and
discussions with occupiers about this important issue. The second article will
examine the history of political infiltration and steps we can take to address
it.
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret
Flowers
In 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 persons, escalation of tactics to 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. Others include the corporations whose rule Occupy seeks to end,
conservative right wing groups allied with corporate interests and other
members of the power structure including non-profit organizations allied with
either corporate-funded political party, especially the Democratic Party which
would like Occupy to be their 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 Zucotti Park and were stopped in traffic by the rear of the
park. We saw an unmarked van open, in the front seat were two uniformed
police and out of the back came two men dressed as occupiers wearing backpacks,
sweatshirts, and jeans. They walked into Zucotti Park and became part of
the crowd.
Two undercover police who just stepped out of a police van (left) and the officer in blue entering Zuccotti Park (right). Photos by Margaret Flowers.
In the first week of the Occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC we saw the impact of two right wing infiltrators. A peaceful protest was planned at the drone exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution. The plan was for a banner drop and a die-in under the drones. But, as protesters arrived at the museum two people ran out in front, threatening the security guards and causing them to pepper spray protesters and tourists.
Editor's note; the below paragraph was changed to be consistent with a revision made by the authors on their own website.
"Patrick Howley, an assistant editor for the American Spectator, wrote a column bragging about his role as an agent provocateur. A few days later we uncovered the second infiltrator when he was urging people on Freedom Plaza to resist police with force."
There have been a handful of other reports around the country of infiltration. In Oakland, CopWatch filmed an Oakland police officer infiltrating. A nd, in another video CopWatch includes audio tape of an Oakland police chief, Howard Jordan, talking about how police departments all over the country infiltrate, not just to monitor protesters but to manipulate and direct them.
There were also reports
in Los Angeles of a dozen
undercover police in the encampment before they were forcibly
evicted by the police. The raid by the LA police was brutal and
resulted in mass arrests, with most
charges dropped, but with others mistreated in jails. Similar pre-raid
undercover activities were reported in Nashville,Tennessee .
Los Angeles also had
infiltrators from the right wing group, Free Republic. They posted on
their webpage a call for infiltrators to block a vote
concerning an offer from the City of Los Angeles for virtually free space for Occupy
LA: "Need LA Freepers to show up to block this vote by the Occupy LA General
Assembly. How brave are you?" In the end, the LA occupy decided not to accept
the offer from the city, something also opposed by other elements in the
encampment.
In New York, there
were reports of infiltration. For example, a
protester described how undercover police infiltrated a protest
at Citibank and were the loudest and most disruptive protesters. Later at the
station listening to the police the protester said in an interview: " It
was a bit startling how inside their information was -- how they were being paid
to go to these protests and put us in situations where we'd be arrested and not
be able to leave."
Survey and Interviews of Occupiers Shows Common Tactics, Common Infiltrators
These scattered
reports seem to be the tip of the iceberg. As a result of experiencing
extreme divisive tactics and character assassination on Freedom Plaza against
us we began to hear from occupiers across the country about similar incidents
in their occupations. We decided to speak to and survey people about
infiltration and have found similar stories around the country.
Recently we toured
occupations on the west coast, where we spoke to many occupiers and have
attended General Assemblies at Occupy Wall Street and Philadelphia. We heard
stories in Arizona of someone with website administrative privileges deleting
the live stream archive which included video that was to be used in defense of
some who were arrested. In Lancaster, Pennsylvania someone took control
of the email list, making it an announce-only list and when the police
threatened to close the camp, that person put out a statement that the
Lancaster occupiers had decided to go without any conflict. In fact, no such
decision had been made and 30 occupiers had planned to risk arrest when the
police tried to remove them. The false email resulted in no resistance.
Our west coast trip
ended at the Occupy Olympia Solidarity Social Forum. We were able to survey 41
people representing 15 different occupations primarily on the west coast but
including Missoula, MT and New Orleans, LA. Participants were questioned
about 10 different behaviors. The most common behaviors, seen in roughly
two-thirds of those surveyed and covering 12 of the 15 occupations, were:
1. Disruptions of the General Assemblies and attempts to divide the
group: Individuals would interrupt General Assemblies with emergency items or
sidetrack the agenda with their personal needs or issues. When proposals were
presented to the General Assembly on principles for the occupation or plans to
prevent division, individuals would question the authority of the writers of
the proposal, launch personal attacks or question their abilities. There were
frequent attacks on people who did the most work and were perceived as leaders.
The anti-leadership views of many occupiers were used to essentially attack the
most effective people. Sue Basko wrote about this in Los Angeles in a comment
on a Chris Hedges article, writing that there was an "ongoing campaign
of harassment and coercion against the Occupy LA participants and
volunteers. Each day is a fresh set of victims." She describes the use of
Twitter, list serves and blogs to "defame and harass anyone giving their
efforts to help Occupy LA." This has included attacks on "social media
workers, the website team, the lawyers (including me), the medics, the
livestreamers, the writers, and on and on." She also writes "there is the very
strong belief that some among them are FBI or DHS agents placed there to
start the group, egg it on, control it." Conversations with others in Los Angles confirmed this
report. Our experience in the area of personal attacks included outlandish
lies calling us criminals and thieves and near daily email attacks since early
December. We found that when we respond and correct lies, it does not
stop them and have concluded that if someone has the intention to be a
character assassin there is nothing you can do to stop them except to expose
them. While that does not necessarily stop them, it at least gets those in the
occupation who are not gullible to doubt the undocumented personal attacks.
2. Individuals who took over the website and/or social media and
then removed them or hacked them and took control: As noted above, these
networks have been used in personal attacks, as well as to send inaccurate
messages to the media and other occupiers. One mistake made is to allow a large
number of people to have administrative privileges on the website. Being an
administrator allows people to erase critical information as occurred in Phoenix.
In Washington, DC we have been removed as administrators of a Facebook page we
created because we allowed people who turned out to be untrustworthy to have
administrative privileges. Note, people can blog or post to Facebook or
websites without being administrators.
Division over how money was being spent was an
issue reported by 50% of respondents and in 12 out of 15 occupations, individuals
persistently questioned transparency and use of funds. In General Assemblies in
New York and Philadelphia we saw disruption by people who complained about
money issues. In New York, an argument about access to free Metro Cards
resulted in a 30 minute argument. In Philadelphia, it was a vague complaint
about "where is the money?" We saw something similar at a 99%'s meeting
in San Francisco where one of the questioners complained about missing
money. And, we have seen the same in Washington, DC with false accusations
of missing money. Sometimes these disruptors seem like homeless or emotionally
disturbed individuals. They could be acting out their concerns or they
could be encouraged by police to attend meetings to cause disruption and could
be paid a small amount to do so. Whether paid or not, the impact is the
same -- it takes the Occupy off of its political agenda and turns people off to
participating in the movement.
Finally, the issue of
escalation of tactics to include property damage and conflict with police:
The euphemism for this is "diversity of tactics." In fact, there is great
diversity within
nonviolent tactics. This is really a debate between those who favor
strategic nonviolence and those who favor property destruction and police
conflict. In 11 of 15 occupations there were reports of verbal attacks on
police and/or escalation of tactics from nonviolence to property destruction or
violence. In one occupation, an individual took over the direct action working
group and escalated the tactics used beyond what the group had agreed upon.
In one occupy, the GA approved putting up a structure but agreed that if
the police wanted it taken down they would promptly do so in order to prove the
structure was temporary. When the structure was up, a handful of people
refused to take it down causing a 10 hour police conflict and undermining public
support for the occupy. In another occupation, because a minority of the
occupy refused to adopt nonviolent strategies, a protest with the teacher union
was cancelled preventing a major opportunity to expand the movement. When it comes to the issue of violence vs.
property damage, it is particularly hard to tell whether the differences are
political or instigated by infiltrators.
Participants were
asked about attempts at co-optation by law enforcement, individuals or
organizations affiliated with the Democratic Party and about suspected
infiltration by right wing groups: 8 of the 15 occupations (41% of respondents)
reported Democratic groups attempted to co-opt the occupation, using it to push
or prevent a legislative agenda or using the occupation's social media to
change the times of protests or meetings. Far fewer reported suspicion or
evidence of right wing infiltration (12% of respondents in four occupations),
most stating that the corporate media provided poor or misleading
coverage. The most common form of infiltration was by law enforcement
agencies (49% of respondents; 11 of 15 occupations). Some respondents reported
having video evidence, some reported law enforcement officers having more
information than they had been given, police using names of occupiers when
names had never been provided and some suspected police infiltration but had no
proof.
Of course, there is a
lot of suspicion, but people are rarely able to prove infiltration. These
incidents could be people with real political disagreement within the Occupy,
or they could be people who are emotionally disturbed, mentally ill or who
bring other personal challenges with them. Or, it could be an infiltrator
manipulating these people, playing on their fears and prejudices. This is
not a simple issue, as we will discuss in Part II, it is best to judge people
by their actions and not label them as infiltrators without direct proof.
Some may wonder why Democrats
or groups closely affiliated with the Democrats like MoveOn, Campaign for
America's Future, Rebuild the Dream or unions like SEIU would want to
infiltrate the Occupy (note: individuals who are Democrats, union, MoveOn or members
of other groups are not the same as the leadership). Essentially, leaders of
these groups see Occupy as the Democrats' potential answer to the Tea
Party. Occupiers do not see themselves that way, but these groups want
the Occupy to adopt their strategy of working within the Democratic Party. In
one example, Eric Lottke, a senior policy analyst for SEIU who has been
involved in Occupy DC, appeared on a radio show with
two other occupiers from Occupy Washington, DC and Occupy Oakland. Lottke
said he was speaking as an occupier from Occupy DC and talked about 'taking
back Congress in 2012', the need for an electoral strategy and gave the usual
Democrat rhetoric about Obama needing more time. The two other guests said
Lottke was completely out of step with most Occupiers who say we should not
focus on electoral politics but instead should build an independent movement to
challenge the corrupt system. We doubt the Occupy DC General Assembly
agreed with Lottke's pro-Democratic Party, pro-Obama views but Lottke had
positioned himself to speak for them. Van Jones
of Rebuild the Dream similarly was appearing in the media as if
he were an occupy spokesperson claiming there will be 2000 "99%
candidates" in 2012; again trying to push Occupy into
Democratic electoral politics. These are just two examples of many Democratic
Party operatives trying to send Occupy into Democratic Party politics despite
the movement consistently describing itself as independent and non-electoral.
In Washington, DC we
have seen some occupiers attacking the National Occupation of Washington, DC ( www.NOWDC.org ) scheduled for this April, while other
occupiers have shown enthusiasm for it. Solidarity with NOW DC has been
shown by 19 General Assemblies of occupations from around the country.
InterOccupy classifies it as a national Occupy event. The attackers have been
criticizing NOW DC by attacking the authors of this article. This attack is occurring
at the same time that Democratic Party aligned groups have announced their own
project which occurs at the same time as NOW DC, the "99%'s Spring." Thus far
the dividers have succeeded in preventing solidarity from the two DC
occupations with the rest of the Occupy Movement. Is the timing a coincidence?
No doubt the
information in this article is incomplete. We have only been able to
survey and talk with people at about 20 occupies. We would very much like
to hear from others around the country about experiences at their occupation as
understanding these tactics is the first step to confronting and addressing
them. (Send your comments to Email address removed .)
In Part II of this
series we will focus on the history of government infiltration and destruction
of political movements and political leaders and will examine steps that can be
taken to minimize the damage from these tactics. One thing evident from the
history: infiltration has been common in political movements for a century and
the tactics of division, attacks on leaders, escalation of tactics, fights over
money and misinformation to the public are common throughout that history.
Update: The fifth paragraph was changed, as noted by the editor above, with the name of the person mentioned removed because information was received that put the claims about the identity of that person in doubt.
EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this article contained erroneous information about an alleged infiltrator, identified as Michael Stack, whom the article said provoked people in the Occupy movement in Washington and New York to resist police with force. There was such a person at the Occupy protests, but the authors have informed us that it was not Michael Stack. The article has been edited to correct that error.
Margaret Flowers and
Kevin Zeese were among the original organizers of Occupy Washington, DC and
are currently among the organizers of the National
Occupation of Washington, DC .
This article was
originally published in Truthdig.