Anarchy Bang: Introducing Episode 26 - COINTELPRO

From Anarchy Bang

COINTELPRO was a term to describe the surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting of domesitic (US) political organizations by state actors. This week we plan on describing and discussing what remains (actually and existentially) of this program regarding rebels today. What use is it for us to consider our activities in light of state actors and how it can be self-aggrandizing. How is COINTELPRO a racist set of tools and how is it generally the mechanism by which radical activity can be marginalized, criminalized, and sensationalized? Was the Green Scare COINTELPRO? How does one keep ones sanity in the face of state actors hostility to our program(s)?

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There are 21 Comments

Our program? We have an agreed upon program? Missed that memo.

The general program of overthrowing or dissolving the state and creating a free society without coercion, based on voluntary mutual aid, with decentralism as general guidelines and federalism where necessary.. I don't quite get the neo-anarchist hostility to movements and organizations per se, so call it a "project" or whatever, but that's the general goal still, right?

I don't mean we should make the Revolutionary Anarchist Party to fix all the problems at once, I mean that smaller units should be loosely federated into larger ones when necessary for things that the smaller ones can't accomplish on their own.

And the whole "it's not 1910" argument against syndicalism and class struggle generally besepeaks a belief in the myth of progress, that what comes later is necessarily better. We are in an era of such disgusting retrogression that this shouldn't need that much debunking.

1st paragraph suffers from a "should".

2nd paragraph is all true but YOU'RE IN THE HOUSE OF EDGELORD HERMIT PUBLISHERS so show some god damn RESPECT you dirty, DIRTY commie.

how does one even endow a paragraph with the capacity to suffer? what a cruel thing to do!

ur the daddy here ; )

(sorry, but u set it up)

"besepeak" is spelled "bespeak"

And it's not "retrogression" but more simply "regression". Just as with "ressentiment", there's no need to invent new words when some better ones are already available to mean the exact same things. Unless you wanna sound bookish or smart... but that doesn't seem very effective.

psst! your anti-intellectualism is showing...

according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, regression was "already available" for only about 20 years before retrogression -- 500 years ago. also, regression means degeneration to a previous condition, while retrogression simply means backward motion. the distinction is clear.

and are you saying that ressentiment is an invented new word? it's French, and beginning in 19th century continental philosophy it means something quite specific. hint: it's not a cognate for resentment.

Another poster here, in fact, there is a Marxist ressentiment, and a more nuanced Nietzschean ressentiment.

Oops, I hadn't noticed I'd misspelled bespeak. I suppose regression would have got my point across as well or better than retogression, although I could've sworn they mean largely the same thing.

But my point is that linear progress is a myth. The syndicalism of 1910 can't be lifted wholesale out of its original context and plunked down with no modifications into the present, but I don't think that means we can't learn from it and adapt it to the present. Although it does suffer a bit from the same problem as Marxism and "right wing" libertarianish do: regarding economics as the only thing that matters when it is just one aspect of existence.

Alao, I admit I picked an odd place to have this fight, under the thing COINTELPRO. Suppose I'll listen to the actual thing now.

Do hurricanes send memos? Do hurricanes have a program? (Not a game)

“COINTELPRO was a term to describe the surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting of domesitic (US) political organizations by state actors.”

These included various instances of entrapments, torture, and assassinations.

“This week we plan on describing and discussing what remains (actually and existentially) of this program regarding rebels today. What use is it for us to consider our activities in light of state actors and how it can be self-aggrandizing.”

It can be self-aggrandizing insofar as someone who’s not doing anything might be deluded into thinking that “they’re after me”. Unwarranted fear can trigger seclusion and self-censorship and other self-defeating behaviors.

It’s still of use to consider, because although direct surveillance (cameras and bugs in house, vans parked around the neighborhood, people following or shadowing. here are recent documented examples of such activity in Europe https://desoreillesetdesyeux.noblogs.org/post/tag/english-language/) is only carried out on people and groups of interest, today there is a proliferation of devices which record activity online and out and about, and all these info can be used on demand if you suddenly become interesting, or they become interested in you if you set off certain alarms of suspicion.

“How is COINTELPRO a racist set of tools and how is it generally the mechanism by which radical activity can be marginalized, criminalized, and sensationalized?”

Racist policies in continuation with US’s racist foundation, with its self-preservation in mind. If the state’s origins and ongoing operation is racist, the affected groups will have vested interest in changing it, or or gaining autonomy from it, or dismantling it. COINTELPRO is not just attempt to directly stamp out, but to discredit, slander (character assassination), along from the literal assassination of key figures.

“Was the Green Scare COINTELPRO? How does one keep ones sanity in the face of state actors hostility to our program(s)?”

The agencies’ actions during the Green Scare may be better explained under the Counter-Terrorism framework emerging and being applied at the time, rather than the COIN framework (Counter Insurgency). New concepts and theories that guide and inform agencies’ operation are being developed and implemented periodically.

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