What you may not know about the 'Battle of Seattle' and COINTELPRO

My only goals in posting this is to expose people to this information who, as yet, may be unaware as well as to give more resources to those who would like to find out more.

I obviously can't say for certain that this is what is happening in Pittsburgh, but I certainly wouldn't rule it out before even checking into it. We all need to keep an open mind and question official sources critically. This kind of thing has happened before.

Part 1 of a 3 part video. Full of local Seattle TV interviews with cops, business owners, and citizens. Also contains local news broadcasts, and footage from a town hall meeting where protesters (some look as old as 70) met to criticize the reaction of the police and question the ridiculous concessions given to the "anarchist" group who caused all the damage and commotion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mAWslHmiok

Noam Chomsky on COINTELPRO - "COINTELPRO was a program of subversion carried out not by a couple of petty crooks but by the national political police, the FBI, under four administrations...by the time it got through, I won't run through the whole story, it was aimed at the entire new left, at the women's movement, at the whole black movement, it was extremely broad. Its actions went as far as political assassination."

Here's the interview it is from (COINTELPRO stuff starts at 6:56): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG24vg8js4o

Here's some more info, I haven't fact checked all of it yet:

http://www.dickshovel.com/coin.html

COINTELPRO INFORMATIONAL SOURCES: http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cointelsources.htm

edited: to remove redundancy

Did you... take... a logic class?

My words: I obviously can't say for certain that this is what is happening in Pittsburgh, but I certainly wouldn't rule it out before even checking into it.

Your words: You're right, because there's no way dumb kids could have broken those windows themselves.

I never precluded the possibility that it was "dumb kids" or any other group of people.

I don't have all day to spend responding to peoples' knee jerk reactions. Check out the info or don't. I don't care.

It just makes so much sense.

The police admitted that the three "protesters" inciting violence at the otherwise peaceful 2007 protest in Montebello (Canada) were their officers. The FBI's Cointelpro used agents provocateur, and they were almost certainly used at other G20 meetings and at Democratic and Republican conventions. Please don't dismiss this idea so quickly. Its been done many times before to discredit groups that don't support those in power.

Far too 'conspiratorial' sounding for it to actually be true.

It's a liberal protest MUST HAVE...

What's it like, being stupid? Does it hurt? is that why you're angry?

http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id239/pg1/index.html

One of the largest, sustained political protests in the United States since the Vietnam War will be remembered always, thanks to a single omnipresent image. The image isn't a burning American flag or a phalanx of riot cops standing over the broken bodies. Instead the corporate media chose the picture of the shattered windows and gutted interior of a Starbucks to symbolize the Battle In Seattle over the World Trade Organization's millennium round.
Unable to count to ten and thus understand that the millennium begins in 2001, not 2000, the WTO is also interested in lowering barriers to trade across the world. In addition to eliminating sometimes counter-productive tariffs and ridiculous protectionist policies, WTO policy guts environmental and labor laws and twists the arms of Third World countries, in order to make them comply with a free trade regime designed solely to help the United States and the European Union. Potentially, even basic protections like voluntary labeling of food products or the right to organize labor unions (a pretty important right if you're a 12 year-old Indonesian who is chained to a lathe 12 hours a day, or an American computer programmer whose carpals have been splintered by typing 12 hours a day) were threatened by the Seattle WTO meeting.

The meeting failed. Instead of a handful of lukewarm protestors simply yelling at imperialism, nearly 100 000 people hit the streets. The trade unions who gave Bill Clinton $30 million dollars in 1996 finally turned against him, and didn't blame all their problems on poor Mexicans. The Freedom for Tibet crowd realized that confronting the global economy would be more effective than listening to REM and quietly weeping. Environmentalists stopped writing poems about the mighty redwood for a few days and turned the urban streets into a wild zone. Because Seattle is the most heavily unionized city in the United States, and is located near environmentally sensitive bodies of water and forests, it was the perfect choice for a massive protest.

The media however, decided that thirty anti-civilization anarchists from Eugene, Oregon and other areas in the Pacific Northwest were more important. One less Starbucks in Seattle got more ink than the AFL-CIO finally standing up to the Democrats. The death of The Gap was mourned, but police provocation was ignored. I personally received over 50 email reports from unrelated activists and witnesses, all of them agreed that time and again, the cops started the violence and made escape impossible. The use of tear gas, rubber bullets and flailing batons were described as a 'response' by the news, and it was a response. A response to people standing up for themselves, their planet and their way of life! Even trade ministers and delegates from countries in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean decided to stand with the protestors; the army of police, emergency curfews and virtual martial law may have made some of them feel at home.

The people of Seattle were less than happy with their right to walk down the street or visit friends being summarily taken away. And they did something about it, and may just have saved life as we know it, if only for a little while. Now, what are you going to do about it?

thanks

:applause:

feel free to post evidence of that.

He did his best to tank Malik's project in NOLA. Amy had the report.

Edit: I think this is the same guy. He went to the RNC protests and infiltrated a protest group there for the FBI.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/6/prominent_austin_activist_admits_he_infiltrated

and after a while, he was trying to get others in the group to engage in violent protest and generally making all kinds of trouble for this already stressed out group. Asshole.

for a minute that the methods and tactics aren't still in use today. Did you watch the videos on the WTO protests in Seattle? It was the Battle of Seattle that really opened my eyes to this stuff.

A CHECK-LIST OF ESSENTIAL PRECAUTIONS:

-Check out the authenticity of any disturbing letter, rumor, phone call or other communication before acting on it.

-Document incidents which appear to reflect covert intervention, and report them to the Movement Support Network Hotline: 212/477- 5562.

-Deal openly and honestly with the differences within our movements (race, gender, class, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, personality, experience, physical and intellectual capacities, etc.) before the FBI and police exploit them to tear us apart.

-Don't rush to expose a suspected agent. Instead, directly criticize what the suspect says and does. Intra-movement witch hunts only help the government create distrust and paranoia.

-Support whoever comes under government attack. Don't be put off by political slander, such as recent attempts to smear radical activists as "terrorists." Organize public opposition to FBI investigations, grand juries, show trials and other forms of political harassment.

-Above all, do not let them divert us from our main work. Our most powerful weapon against political repression is effective organizing around the needs and issues which directly affect people's lives.

http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/COINTELPRO/cointelpro-methods.html



WHAT THEY DO & HOW WE CAN PROTECT OURSELVES -- INFILTRATION BY AGENTS OR INFORMERS

Agents are law enforcement officers disguised as activists.

Informers are non-agents who provide information to a law enforcement or intelligence agency. They may be recruited from within a group or sent in by an agency, or they may be disaffected former members or supporters.

Infiltrators are agents or informers who work in a group or community under the direction of a law enforcement or intelligence agency. During the 60s the FBI had to rely on informers (who are less well trained and harder to control) because it had very few black, Hispanic or female agents, and its strict dress and grooming code left white male agents unable to look like activists. As a modern equal opportunity employer, today's FBI has fewer such limitations.

What They Do: Some informers and infiltrators quietly provide information while keeping a low profile and doing whatever is expected of group members. Others attempt to discredit a target and disrupt its work. They may spread false rumors and make unfounded accusations to provoke or exacerbate tensions and splits. They may urge divisive proposals, sabotage important activities and resources, or operate as "provocateurs" who lead zealous activists into unnecessary danger. In a demonstration or other confrontation with police, such an agent may break discipline and call for actions which would undermine unity and detract from tactical focus.

Infiltration As a Source of Distrust and Paranoia: While individual agents and informers aid the government in a variety of specific ways, the general use of infiltrators serves a very special and powerful strategic function. The fear that a group may be infiltrated often intimidates people from getting more involved. It can give rise to a paranoia which makes it difficult to build the mutual trust which political groups depend on. This use of infiltrators, enhanced by covertly-initiated rumors that exaggerate the extent to which a particular movement or group has been penetrated, is recommended by the manuals used to teach counter-insurgency in the U.S. and Western Europe.

Covert Manipulation to Make A Legitimate Activist Appear to be an Agent: An actual agent will often point the finger at a genuine, non-collaborating and highly-valued group member,

http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/COINTELPRO/cointelpro-methods.html

381: Turncoat

A well-known activist—an anarchic, revolutionary activist—is accused of spying on other activists for the FBI. The strangest thing about the rumor is, it's true. How Brandon Darby transformed from cop-hater to federal witness. Plus, a story by Etgar Keret, about a boy who betrays his people with a pair of shoes.



Act Two. My Way or the FBI Way.

Brandon Darby was a radical activist and one of the founders of the incredibly effective relief organization Common Ground. Michael May reports on how Darby changed from a revolutionary who wanted the overthrow of the U.S. government into an informant working with the FBI against his former radical allies. (17 minutes)

Act Three. Part Two.

Michael May’s story about Brandon Darby continues.

Song: "I Spy (For the FBI)," Jamo Thomas

but he worked his ass off getting people to trust him and then led them into prison, basically. now he's on the right-wing radio circuit living in New Orleans -- shades Oswald.