COINTELPRO and Occupy

[starroute]

13. Cointelpro also went after individuals

I just read something at AmericaBlog (http://www.americablog.com/2012/05/why-occupy-movement-should-explicitly.html) complaining that Occupy "fetishishes" leadershiplessness and that the movement really needs leaders to condemn violence and set a moral tone.

But the lesson of the past is that as soon as someone appears to be a credible spokesperson for the movement, they will be attacked, discredited, or generally hounded into ineffectiveness.

This is already happening in a small way -- with the cops seizing on any available pretext (like arresting somebody's roommate on a six-year-old misdemeanor charge) to question people perceived as Occupy leaders.

But the abuses of the original Cointelpro went much further than this -- from spying on people to discover facts about their sex lives to messing up their employment and personal relationships and generally destroying their lives. And although the original Cointelpro was disbanded as part of the post-Watergate reforms, there was a second wave of Cointelpro-like operations in the 1980s directed against anti-Contra activists in the US.

So although Occupy may need to figure out a way to coordinate around certain moral standards, adopting a leadership system probably isn't it. Presenting a moving target is going to be a much higher priority.