Much of what the PDID did in its heyday was laughable, in retrospect, but much of it was truly horrible. One undercover operative actually wormed his way into membership in a left-wing political party, and became the live-in lover of a woman member of that group for nearly a year--a long sexual and "romantic" relationship which of course was simply a cynical sham and a cover for the operative (with privileges). This is the depths to which the LAPD can sink.
The disclosure that the LAPD, with its long history of abuses, was infiltrating the Occupy Movement should lead to an immediate lawsuit against the department to ferret out exactly what these undercover cops actually did. How much of their activity was simply intelligence gathering -- bad enough of a violation of the civil rights and First Amendment freedoms of the activists, who were committing no crimes--and how much was provocateur-type work, trying to set the movement, or people in it, up for planning violence against property or the police? We need to know. Hopefully, in addition to filing a lawsuit, the LA Occupy activists will simultaneously conduct an investigation among themselves to try and ascertain who those cops where and what they were saying and doing as they posed as activists.
But the revelation that the LAPD was spying should also alert the Occupy Movement groups across the country that they too were and probably still are being infiltrated and spied on. The pattern of attacks on occupation encampments around the country over the last two weeks has been so similar, and the information about national coordination so convincing already, that it seems almost certain to me at least that it is as likely that police everywhere were spying and perhaps engaging in provocateur activities as we know it was that they shared strategies like attacking encampments at night, using overwhelming numbers, force and violence, applying weapons like pepper spray, rubber bullets and batons, and keeping the press at bay.
It is all of a piece.
My suggestion at this point is that the Occupation Movement, at least in cities where there is a Federal Reserve Bank, which would include San Francisco, New York, Dallas, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta, Richmond, Washington, Philadelphia and Boston, move their operations to those federal properties. That puts the onus for future repression out of the hands of local police and directly on the Obama administration. If nothing else, it eliminates any chance of the Democratic Party trying to co-opt the movement, since any attacks on those encampments would be directly tied to the Obama Administration's "Justice" Department and Homeland Security Department. Federal Reserve Banks are protected by Federal Reserve Police, who after 9-11 were designated by an act of Congress as Federal Law Enforcement officers. As such they are answerable to the Homeland Security Department and ultimately to the White House.
Like other federal and local police, these guys can be heavily armed. They are also authorized to carry pepper spray, which seems to be the popular weapon of choice for the new American gestapo to use against demonstrators against capitalism's crimes, so demonstrators should be prepared.
But at least by forcing the federal government to be the assailant in confrontations over demonstrations and occupation encampments, the real enemy will be made more clear. It is not, after all, city governments that have been catering to, empowering and fawning on the corporate oligarchy, but rather the federal government--both Congress and the White House.
An additional benefit of adopting the tactic of occupying federal property is that it would make the charges filed against activists federal, instead of local, and would put the cases in federal courts, where there is at least more of a likelihood than in corrupt state and municipal courts of getting a decent judge who respects the Constitution and its protection of the right of assembly, free speech and address of grievances. This is particularly true in relatively liberal districts like San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and New York.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
1
1
