Time To Deal With Infiltrators Damaging Occupy

Occupy has people working from inside to divide, destroy and manipulate it. Infiltration is the norm in political movements and it is occurring throughout the Occupy. The first step is recognizing it.

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 .

Their ad hoc survey of 20 occupy camps in the US reveals a tide of inflitration bids which damaged the functioning of the groups.

Some of these issues found in the US have also plagued Irish occupys :

- Disruptions of the General Assemblies;
- Takeovers of website and/or social media;
- Attempts to sow division in the group;
- Violent tactics and conflict with police;
- Party political groups attempting hijack;

It's time to deal with this nonsense for once and for all. Individual occupiers who have no agenda other than Occupy - must act together with determination to see off these cabals.

Infiltration to Disrupt, Divide and Misdirect Is Widespread in Occupy

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers February 25, 2012

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. The most common form of infiltration was by law enforcement agencies (49% of respondents; 11 of 15 occupations).

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.

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.

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