Chris Hedges: Occupy Draws Strength From the Powerless

[marmar]

from truthdig:



Occupy Draws Strength From the Powerless

Posted on Feb 13, 2012
By Chris Hedges


There is a recipe for breaking popular movements. I watched it play out over five years in the war in El Salvador. I now see these familiar patterns in the assault against the Occupy movement. It goes like this. Physically eradicate the insurgents’ logistical base of operations to disrupt communication and organization. Dry up financial and material support. Create rival organizations—the group Stand for Oakland seems to be one of these attempts—to discredit and purge the rebel leadership. Infiltrate the movement to foster internal divisions and rivalries, a tactic carried out consciously, or perhaps unconsciously, by an anonymous West Coast group known as OLAASM—Occupy Los Angeles Anti Social Media. Provoke the movement—or front groups acting in the name of the movement—to carry out actions such as vandalism and physical confrontations with the police that alienate the wider populace from the insurgency. Invent atrocities and repugnant acts supposedly carried out by the movement and plant these stories in the media. Finally, offer up a political alternative. In the war in El Salvador it was Jose Napoleon Duarte. For the Occupy movement it is someone like Van Jones. And use this “reformist” to co-opt the language of the movement and promise to promote the movement’s core aims through the electoral process.

Counterinsurgency campaigns, although they involve arms and weapons, are primarily about, in the old cliché, hearts and minds. And the tactics employed by our intelligence operatives abroad are not dissimilar to those employed by our intelligence operatives at home. These operatives are, in fact, often the same people. The state has expended external resources to break the movement. It is reasonable to assume it has expended internal resources to break the movement.

The security and surveillance state has a vast arsenal and array of tools at its disposal. It operates in secret. It dissembles and lies. It hides behind phony organizations and individuals who use false histories and false names. It has millions of dollars to spend, the capacity to deny not only its activities but also its existence. Its physical assets honeycomb the country. It can wiretap, eavesdrop and monitor every form of communication. It can hire informants, send in clandestine agents, recruit members within the movement by offering legal immunity, churn out a steady stream of divisive propaganda and amass huge databases and clandestine operations centers. And it is authorized to use deadly force.

How do we fight back? We do not have the tools or the wealth of the state. We cannot beat it at its own game. We cannot ferret out infiltrators. The legal system is almost always on the state’s side. If we attempt to replicate the elaborate security apparatus of our oppressors, even on a small scale, we will unleash widespread paranoia and fracture the movement. If we retreat into anonymity, hiding behind masks, then we provide an opening for agents provocateurs who deny their identities while disrupting the movement. If we fight pitched battles in the streets we give authorities an excuse to fire their weapons. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/occupy_draws_strength_from_the_powerless_20120213/

[xchrom]

1. Du rec. Nt

[Zorra]

2. Occupy! Huge long distance k&r for truth from Chiapas!

Thanks, marmar, great article!

[raouldukelives]

3. k&r

[roguevalley]

4. Occupy is a holy thing in my house, sanctified and moral. I love

them and anyone who associates with them. God bless Occupy. They changed politics in this world and discomfitted the comfortable. They are heroic.

[gratuitous]

5. Non-violent non-cooperation with oppression

It requires the same level of commitment as joining the military and being trained to fire on other human beings. The bad news is that non-violence doesn't get the easy out of simply blowing up, shooting, bombing, or nuking the opposition. Which means that non-violent non-cooperation has to be even more committed and more disciplined than those who would take up arms to win their argument. Any god damned idiot can pull a trigger or push a button to launch a missile; it requires an elevated level of humanity to be struck and not strike back.

[Zalatix]

6. Pity there's no chance of a Bolshevik revolution.

Those guys in Russia completely destroyed all the rules. Law enforcement had no chance.