COINTELPRO: Open Letter from the Tea Party to the Occupy Wall Street Protestors

How COINTELPRO really works and destroys social movements: Open letter from former Tea Partier to Occupy Wall Street protesters

I don't expect you to believe me. I want you to read this, take it with a grain of salt, and do the research yourself. You may not believe me, but I want your movement to succeed. From a former tea partier to you, young new rebels, there's some advice to prevent what happened to our now broken movement from happening to you. I don't agree with everything your movement does, but I sympathize with your cause and agree on our common enemy. You guys are very intelligent and I trust that you will take this in the spirit it is intended.

I wish I could believe this Occupy Wall Street was still about (r)Evolution, but so far, all I am seeing is a painful rehash of how the government turned the pre-Presidential election tea party movement into the joke it is now. We were anarchists and ultra-libertarians, but above all we were peaceful. So, the media tried painting us as racists. But when that didn't work they tried to goad us into violence. When that failed, they killed our movement with money and false kindness from the theocratic arm of the Republican party. That killed our popular support.

I am sharing these observations, so you guys know what's going on and can prevent the media from succeeding in painting you as violent slacker hippies rebelling without a cause, or from having the movement be hijacked by a bunch of corporatists seeking to twist the movement's original intentions. If you think this can't happen, it happened to the Independence Party and the tea party movement. Don't let it happen to your movement as well.

Here's how they turned our movement into a bunch of pro-corporate Republican party rebranding astroturf, and this is how I predict they are turning your movement into a bunch of pro-corporate Democratic party rebranding astroturf. I believe many of these things are already happening, so take note.

1. The media will initially and purposely avoid covering your dissenting movement to cause confusion about what your movement is about within mainstream audiences. This is to enrage you and make you appear unreasonable, and perhaps even invisible.
   
   
2. While the obfuscation is happening, corporatists/government stooges will infiltrate and give superficial support, focus and financial backing to the targeted movement. In the tea party movement's case, it was the religious Republicans and Koch Brothers. In this case, it's the Public Sector Unions (the organizations as quasi-human entities, not the members themselves) and Ultra Rich liberals who pretend to care, but frankly do not serve liberators and freedom seekers but rather the interests of those who run the Public Sector Unions and the Democratic Party. Democrat, Republican, these parties are all part of the same corporate ruling system. Case in point: http://www.debates.org/
   
   
3. The media will cover the movement only after this infiltration succeeds. Once the infiltration is completed the MSM will manufacture public media antipathy towards the movement by using selective focus on the movement's most repulsive elements or infiltrators on the corporate Conservative media side, while the corporate Liberal media will create a more sympathetic tragic hero image -- this is the flip side of the tea party, but same media manipulation tactics. I go into greater detail on this tactic here.
   
   
4. Someone in the Democratic Party will feign sympathy for the movement and falsely "non-partisan" entities provide tons of funding and unwanted organization, just as was done with the tea party movement by Republicans. Once people assume that the government operatives are their friends, the government will hijack the movement and the threat of your movement will be neutralized.

If this new Occupy Wall Street movement is to survive, here's what needs to be done.

1. Loudly denounce violence and disavow the violent rabblerousers of the movement. They do not help the cause.
   
   
2. Be image conscious. Present your best face and call out those who act like fools within the movement. People are more likely to pay attention to you in your Sunday dress and bringing homemade food, than when you are drinking a bottle of Snapple and chomping on Big Macs while you are looking like a slacker rich hipster/unwashed hippie stereotype.
   
   
3. Accept that you've already been infiltrated by the government, and work hard to say, and state what your movement is and is not about. "No, this isn't about unions or Liberals, conservatives or bored spoiled brats. This is about 99% of our population being exploited and manipulated for the sake of profit." "No we will not resort to violence." "Yes, all we want is for for the end of government collusion with corporate entities that are illegitimately recognized as people." And, so forth...
   
   
4. Don't forget who you are as the illusions are thrown at you. Corporatists are masters of illusions. That's the most powerful weapon they have. That's how they sell products you don't need and convince you to justify accepting atrocities for the sake of products Don't fall for it. Otherwise, your cause will be lost. Be wary of large donations from special interest groups or non-profit corporations that were not involved this movement from the inception. Special interests groups are not your allies. Non-profit corporations are still corporations, and unfortunately, too many of them care more about donations than doing the right thing. Killing a movement with kindness is easy.
   
   
5. Remain independent and focused. If you can, pick a face to represent your movement. ]Rosa Parks wasn't just a random lady in a bus -- She was chosen. You too can use the power of illusion against those who oppose you.
   http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/systems/agentsheets/New-Vista/bus-boycott/

I wish your movement better luck than we had with the tea party movement before it got hijacked by the theocrats and corporatists. We used to be non-partisan too. We were the older version of you. But, I believe that as the media apparatchik and infiltrators start to twist your cause, you will understand the frustration us early adopter tea partiers felt and that we were not your enemy after all. A fascist oligarchy on the verge of winning is our common enemy. This should be your focus. Don't be dazzled by the illusion as we were. For the sake of our future, know who you are.

Thank you for reading. I would love to read your ideas on the subject. Correct me where I am wrong. Explain what is going right. This is ultimately your fight.

If my essay seems too conspiratorial for your tastes, try Hibernator's excellent and much less paranoid sounding summary below:

"Someone starts a movement. It starts small, and there's a lot going on in the world, so the mainstream media gives it minimal coverage. Today's mainstream media is also understaffed, so they don't investigate and they wait for someone else to slap a label on it.

Eventually a sound byte X pops up above the noise and the mainstream media uses this to engage viewers and define the movement. This defining characteristic X spreads like a meme.

People in power now notice what's going on, and think to themselves "Hmm, this new movement is defined by X, and that's almost in line with my goals, so maybe I can use them to further my ends."

But people in power are all labelled as Democrats or Republicans, so now the media applies the polarizing filter of American politics to associate movement X with one of the parties.

The original movement has now been labelled X, and associated with a political party, and none of this happened because of any 'government conspiracy.' It just happened because that's what you get as output when you plug something new into the American political system."

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/235842-How-COINTELPRO-really-works-and-destroys-social-movements-Open-letter-from-former-Tea-Partier-to-Occupy-Wall-Street-protesters

I think that the reason this won't work here is because it is a decentralized movement of individuals who are out in the streets protesting what their own complaints are. No one is a part of any movement, it is just a movement of people with a cause.

We'll see. The Unions are starting to get involved. That means political lobby and money is getting involved.

How long before some union head gets in there in front of the press and says how it's about protecting workers' rights from the rich corporations? Then it becomes another left/right thing...

The Dude wrote:We'll see. The Unions are starting to get involved. That means political lobby and money is getting involved.

How long before some union head gets in there in front of the press and says how it's about protecting workers' rights from the rich corporations? Then it becomes another left/right thing...

Yeah, the Unions were there making speeches last night, and I was totally underwhelmed. They had a completely different tone than any of the protesters/speakers up til now. Seemed like they yelled a lot, and said very little.

First thing I came across on Google News:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-occupy-wall-street-20111006,0,7177960.story

Occupy Wall Street wins over union backing, more protesters
Teachers, nurses, veterans and seniors are among the several thousand to join the anti-greed movement's largest march yet.

Anti-greed movement? Really?

after major labor unions gave their backing to its anti-greed message

speakers from several labor groups railed against corporate America

"Every one of us is here because of corporate greed," yelled Christopher Shelton, vice president of the regional branch of the Communication Workers of America. "It's time not to occupy Wall Street, but to take back Wall Street."

"It's hard because there are so many issues at stake," said Melanie Hamlett, 33, when asked what her main gripe was. "But it all comes down to money."

Occupy Wall Street, a leaderless organization, also has become known as a movement with plenty of complaints and few specific demands other than holding banks and major corporations responsible for the country's economic crisis.

But the labor leader was specific as he summarized his demands: Make Wall Street invest in creating jobs for Americans, stop foreclosures and write down problem mortgages. Paying for government programs would come from a "very tiny" tax on speculation, he said.

What a load of bullshit!
http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/occupywallstreet.html

"one simple demand – a presidential commission to separate money from politics"

Ok, I posted this at WITP too



I think you have voiced a very legitimate concern. But I also think the graphic I just posted expresses the views of Anonymous.

I am encouraged, because I can't even see MoveOn getting past the Chan trolls.

It's a tightrope walk. We can't throw out any of the 99%, because they are the 99%. But we CAN tell them, "you can have your say, but you can't have MY say."

I'm pretty sure that OWS isn't an Anonymous initiative. There's Anonymous support, of course, but I really hope it moves well into the mainstream.

It's going to need some form of leadership, if only in the form of a media team (which they have).

FYI, I like MoveOn. I think they can be a source for change. But yeah, they've got to be kept in line.

Leaderfags.

The Dude wrote:I'm pretty sure that OWS isn't an Anonymous initiative.

Well, according to this ED post, OWS was started by R3x. http://encyclopediadramatica.ch/R3x

Of course, I don't suppose I have to tell you not to believe everyanything you read in ED.

I do think the whole point of WITP was to make Anonymous more mainstream. And whether it was started by Anons, or just that some Anons thought it sounded like a pretty good idea, I think OWS has begun to break into mainstream. Now we just gotta figure out how to keep it there.

Oops.

I didn't realize that Anon had as much to do with it as they did. I didn't know that that little thread on WITP actually reflected something that would really go down. This has lots of Anonymous backing.

Unfortunately, I was listening to Alex Jones, and he's trying to debunk it as a Soros/Democrat movement to create left/right paradigm.

Very disappointed. First time I got AJ spreading real, legitimate disinfo, and trying to kill something good.

Im not sure what to think about that letter.... to me it sounds its being forced to sound smart. I think it may be some anon. The letter IMO would sound more like a presidential speech, rather then this. it it were written by a politician, or even former.

IT also seems to be saying things that have already been said, or known. The protesters are already trying to block some stations from recording lie CNN, and even adam Kokesh.

Ok. I have been doing a lot of digging and a lot of research for the past couple of weeks. I appologize for not being more active here in that time. Dude, I believe you are correct about Occupy Wall Street not being an Anonymous Anitiative. Though it does have their support.

This OP opened my eyes to quite a bit.

I have seen evidence that Occupy Wall Street is a diversion tactic from the real problem. Unfortunately some of that proof is not anything I can show anyone.

This started when I went to an Occupy Movement and saw the way the General Assembly functioned and what the main focus was. I noticed it just didn't seem right. Everyone was trying to control everything. It seemed purposely unorganized. It seemed to be purposely distracting people from the goal of the movement. It seemed to be purposely working with local law enforcement and city hall to keep people confused and numbers low.

So, I went home and checked the A99 chat forum and there was a post from an independant media reporter who had the same concerns and expressed them much more detailed than I have the ability to about the movement in L.A.

The next day I had to go down to the Federal Courts and while I was going through the detectors I was asking the security guard if he had heard of the movement. He told me he had been down there on his days off and supported the movement but was dissapointed that he saw some Federal Officers running the General Assembly.

I went back and watched the Original A99 Communication initiative. The initiative claimed to be a decentralized non violent resistance movement. Then it stated it's purpose is to fight back against the organized criminal class and bring back the rule of law. Then it called for the break up of the Central Banking Cartel and the dismanteling of the Federal Reserve, the IMF, the World Banks etc. Then it demanded the people responsible for the economic collapse be prosicuted effective immediately. Then they asked for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to step down as Federal Reserve Chairman as a sign of good faith.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43OcaL96tKk

This was ignored.

Then they came out with the A99 communication #2 which they explained to the population why they want these demands met. Then they announced #OpESR Empire State Rebelion calling for everyone to occupy a public space until Ben Bernanke stepped down as Federal Reserve Chairman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XySGw-g2tyk

I then watched the video put out again by what is the plan and noticed the entire video cut out anything to do with the FED and focused primarily on corporate greed and Wall Street. Two things that are not the problems but only take advantage of the problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP9q61Fjlqo

I then went back and watched the video Anonymous put out addressing WITP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9XZh06zppA

Today I learned that Occupy Wall Street was first advertised by a mainstream media group. I have yet to see this advertisement however and cannot remember the name of the group.

I have reason to believe occupy wallstreet was infiltrated from the beginning using slight of hand to misdirect the OpESR movement from the Central Banks towards Wall Street and corporations to call out everyone who has a problem with the system and make them feel like they are doing something about it and then effectively kill public interest in it the same way they killed public interest in the Tea Party.

The left supports it. Ben Bernanke supports it. The right dispises it. Media has twisted it even further than it was twisted to begin with. How do we get public attention shifted back towards the original goal?

See...then this is the kool-aid that Alex Jones is selling: that OWS is totally a left-co-opted movement started by George Soros that is distracting from End The Fed movements.

The Soros part may be true: the first call to occupy was made by the Canadian magazine Adbusters:
http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/occupywallstreet

The original call was vague, but started from the premise of getting the big money out of politics.

Then Anonymous jumped on. WITP actually played a part in that, I think.

Now we've got the 99% declaration:
https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/

The Declaration isn't bad, but it is kinda socialist (not that I mind) there's nothing about the Fed, but really, OWS was never primarily about the Fed. I'm a Ron Paul supporter, but I don't subscribe to the Austrian school, and don't agree with all his positions.

End the Fed might NOT be the right thing, but there needs to be a lot more discussion, and it has to come under scrutiny, and that's just starting to happen.

Unlike most people, I think, I can live with or without the Fed, but it's got to come under control of the people. End the Fed demands massive banking reform that would take serious time. And I wouldn't trust the Fed under Congress any more than I trust it now; in fact, I might trust it more now than under Congress!

Electoral reform, campaign reform, restrictions on political lobbying, are things that can be dealt with in the immediate future, without much effort, compared to banking reform. And I don't trust any kind of banking reform until Congress gets cleaned up.

If anything, instead of a left/right paradigm, I'm starting to see a libertarian/authoritarian paradigm set up, with the two sides falling along small government/freedom/economic freedom and big government/socialism/economic control. The option not being put out by OWS, Ron Paul, or anyone else is the libertarian socialist idea, where smaller government and lots of PERSONAL liberty is paired with constraints on business and a re-pooling of resources for the social good.

That doesn't seem to be on ANYONE'S radar: the idea that we can have freedom and small government, that looks out for PEOPLE more than corporations.

In that sense, OWS, Alex Jones, Ron Paul are all FAIL.

You know, I have to agree, and I never thought of it that way. But I do think we can have freedom and small government...or maybe it's big government. I guess what I see is government by a really engaged public. So, depending on how you look at that, that could be small government or really big. I guess if we ever got pretty much everyone engaged in determining our laws, that would be really big, but I would still consider that small government.

By small government, I mean a small structure of power. Power corrupts, and institutions that have power will always use it to support the institution. The bigger it gets, the less the individuals involved have any guidance over it and the more the system becomes 'faceless' and 'uncaring'.

FFaD talked about this in the size of the Virtual Tribes. It was first identified as the bystander effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

The more people there are in a group, the less 'personally responsible' people act. Large groups and institutions become amoral, and the group takes a life of its own. Corporations and governments are perfect examples.

Plus LJK's view of psychopaths: that those few truly psychopathic individuals will come to lead the groups and institutions, because they value power above all else. This is where the evilness and corruption come from within the system. A few bad apples that 'rise' to the top because they're not afraid to step on regular people who don't seek power.

So, where are we now? Every revolution, like OWS, WITP, and the French Revolution, while started by people, and gaining the momentum of people who care, will ultimately fall to the psychopaths who seek power. New 'leaders' like Caveman arise and take over. We've seen it time and time and time again.

It seems to me that the only way to limit this is by limiting the creation of power structures: institutions, governments, corporations, charities, everything. The individual has to come first, and individuals have to work to determine their OWN communities. Yes, it should be a free market, for PEOPLE. But that doesn't give corporations free reign to do whatever they want. Corporations are NOT people: they have no morality, no time constraints, no goal but self-perpetuation.

So OWS talks about creating new rules, new laws, and making government work for people...and that's all fine and everything, but we've seen, that this NEVER works. Governments end up working in their own self-interest, not the interests of the people.

So we've got to take those socialist ideals of community and looking out and taking care of each other, and find a better way to implement them. I don't believe that government can really take that role. Liberals seem to want to replace the "Christian Gentlemen" with rules and laws.

Government can be the mechanism for preventing corporations and collective action from oppressing the individual. Democracy? Direct Democracy? Yes, to a point.

So, the dichotomy we see now is lazze-faire, free-market economics or social authoritarianism, and nobody's allowed to think beyond these two. Funny thing is, they both result in institutionalism, with big government in the social side, or big business on the free-market side.

But we know what happens in the end: government and business become one, though the execution of power and use of money.

It's a conundrum. In the end, government by the people has to be the size of the people. That's huge. But in any smaller subset, you have the creation of power (ability to tell another what to do) and the potential for corruption.

What to do?

I do think the OWS focus on consensus is vital. It is almost a retraining of all individuals to think and act autonomously, to realize that they DO hold the power.

But in any large (or even somewhat large) group, you will have those too young, too feeble, or somehow otherwise incapable of self-rule. How do you handle that? Does a mother get two votes if she has a child? Even that has the potential for abuse.

Sorry, it's early morning and I'm fuzzy, and perhaps I haven't thought enough about this particular question--the specifics of the form that government should take. I tend to visualize it as concentric circles, but I think that is pretty much what the founders envisioned when they wrote the US constitution. Plato, in The Republic (from which, I've been told, many of the original ideas of the US government were taken) WAS in favor of small, limited government, with most of the power going to the merchant class instead. But limits were controlled by time and money, if I recall correctly. In other words, those governing were paid little and given only a short time in office, so that those motivated by power and riches would tend NOT to go into public service.

But we essentially have that structure now, at least on the books. A person can certainly make more as a CEO of a multinational than as a Senator and such. But what has happened is that the CEOs/multinationals have bought the control, purchased the power.

If what I just wrote is true, then smaller government, by itself, would only allow the merchant class to buy power more easily. With less government to buy/bribe, they could even more easily gain control.

And that, I think, may sum up the current debate and conflict between the Tea Party and the left. Do we need smaller government that is more controllable by the will of the people? Or do we need MORE government, more laws, to limit the control of the merchants on the government?

Where I stand in this is to believe that we do need smaller government, but much more tightly controlled. So maybe that makes me a Tea Partier too. But the danger I see is in not holding the reins tightly enough. You can't just do one without the other, or the problems are only worsened.

In the end, maybe OWS brings the sea change that is needed. Perhaps what we've really needed all along was a training camp to make people learn or relearn what it really means to have a participatory democracy. But if so, I don't think it will really be effective until many more wake up and start demanding.

A very long read, but absolutely spot on.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/236476-The-Cult-of-the-Plausible-Lie

It's not that I'm being 'sucked in' by a 'cult'. It's that in terms of understanding epistemology, I'm right there with her. It's that 'truth' argument that Durandarte (and most people) just can't understand.

IT's very long, but I can't recommend it enough!

I'll have to come back to this as I have to get ready for work now. But will definitely read.