The Scariest Shit of All: Anarchists!

So, from the quick news coverage I had seen of the St. Paul Heffelfucker report, it appears that the ruling class has done again what it always does best, namely change the terms of the debate. I had recently discussed some of the more recent leaks about the St. Paul RNC protests, and the fact that the US military (NORTHCOM), working with the FBI, MN state and local authorities, the NSA, and various other spook agencies, set up a total security and surveillance system that allowed them to target and monitor activists, with the help of the telecom companies that your Democratic congress so nicely decided to immunize from any possibly prosecutions for oh, um, spying on American citizens. (wait, actually, this has nothing to do with FISA. supposedly the phone companies were only spying on people talking to "potential terrorists" overseas, right? I remember a lot of talk about "splitters" and "trunks," and where calls were originating, and some other boring stuff. It's all kinda hazy now. Like I always say, lotsa weed. Brain gets fuzzy. Besides:

Next, I remind you as forcefully as I can of FISA's actual nature. As I wrote in "The Ruling Class Unleashed":

I must immediately interject that to discuss these issues [pertaining to liberty and privacy] with regard to FISA is ludicrous in a much deeper sense. As Jonathan Turley explains here, FISA itself is a secret court whose very purpose is to circumvent the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. The FISA court is no protection against illegitimate government intrusion at all. But as Turley notes, that we are fighting over whether to grant the executive branch and FISA still more untrammeled authority to disregard constitutional rights is a measure of how far we have already marched toward tyranny. And look at this chart to see just how compliant the FISA court is.

As I argued in the earlier essay, if we were genuinely concerned about civil liberties and privacy, we would return to the Fourth Amendment and the procedures it requires, and the FISA regime would be abolished entirely. That's right: it would be abolished. No one wants to do that. Too radical, doncha know. That's scary talk, much scarier, it would appear, than the tyranny which daily strengthens its death grip on all our throats. Nonetheless, if you want to understand the nature and scope of the decades-long attack on individual liberty, you had better remember what FISA is.

Moreover, understand the nature of the old FISA regime, which appears to be just fine with almost everyone, Republicans, Democrats, progressives, everyone. Steny Hoyer has helpfully spelled out the near-omnipotent powers of FISA under the old scheme. Understand how comprehensive it is, and how comprehensively it destroys civil liberties. Quite inexplicably, though, Hoyer declined to summarize the government's powers under the old FISA scheme in easily understandable, everyday language. So I helped him out:

We can already spy on everyone. Everyone! Got that, you schmucks? And we don't even need a warrant a lot of the time! Every once in a while, we kinda think we should get a warrant. No reason for that actually. But it looks better, you know? Keeps the stupidly annoying civil liberties crowd happy. But those idiots at the FISA court will give us one nearly every time! [See here again.] And since FISA is a secret court, none of those peons (otherwise known as "citizens") will ever know a damned thing about what's actually going on anyway. It's good to be an Empire!

I repeat: that's the old scheme, which most people think is the bee's knees, a gentle zephyr cooling a moist brow, a benevolent moon keeping watch over a peaceful world below.

So, anyways, we're talking about widescale domestic spying, not some Foreign Intelligence Some-such-or-other Act with secret courts and "overseas terrorists".)

I haven't read the full report. It's 88 pages long, and I honestly don't know if I'll have time to do so. But I have read a bit of news coverage on the hearing and presentation of the report, and its executive summary. Basically, here's the gist: "It was a mixed-bag. The police mostly did a pretty good job, but they should have shown public service commercials of evil anarchists throwing dumpsters through Starbucks' windows or something, so that the people of St. Paul could have worked themselves up into a proper hate-frenzy. A lot of people freaked out about the authorities' reactions to the protests, so we clearly didn't do a good enough job of demonizing the protestors as "anarchists" (wait, preferably "violent anarchists!" -- much better) or terrorists, or whatever. But we're sure as shit not gonna make that mistake in our whitewash!"

So, let's go with the highlight reel:

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS

"In general, the conduct of law enforcement during the RNC was restrained and professional under the circumstances."

"There were, however, several specific incidents or situations of potential inappropriate conduct, including the improper uses of pepper spray and potential mass arrests, that warrant further review."

"Law enforcement was not fully prepared for the anarchists to descend on St. Paul on Sept. 1 as early as occurred and in as violent a way as they did."

"Because of the high expectations created for this convention, the public was unprepared to witness riot gear outfitted officers and to see the use of pepper spray, smoke and other chemical devices to clear crowds of anarchists from the streets of St. Paul ... and the security fencing surrounding the Xcel Energy Center." - my emphasis

See? It wasn't the police tactics that were the problem. It's the fault of those anarchists. And, the dumb shit civilians who freaked out when they saw what full spectrum dominance really means, in a pretty up close and personal way.

Please take the two minutes to watch this video below. This is from the AP:

I received a really great link in the comments to this excellent post at UsefulActivism by LudditeRobot dealing with the Oakland riots. Please, read it in its entirety. But anyways, check out this quote from an article at Counterpunch written by some of the anarchist protesters:

Anarchists tend to show up at all demonstrations prepared to act should the situation escalate, and this case was no different. Yet it is simply incorrect to suggest that there was some conspiracy of anarchists from the 'outside' who were able to manipulate the helpless youth of Oakland as part of their sinister agenda. This is a paternalistic misreading of what was unquestionably a spontaneous outpouring of rage, led by youth of color. There, temporary alliances were made as those who were motivated to act in the moment experienced a unique cross-pollination that cut across the inhibiting social boundaries of everyday life.

So the allegations of an anarchist takeover are destructively misleading...

...What manifested during the Oakland rebellion was a moment of interchange and revolutionary transformation that rarely happens within the rituals of left organizing in the Bay Area. Between white "community organizers" overtaken by guilt into an impotent politics of servitude, professional activists worried about annual reports and grant cycles, and vanguardist marxist sects continually looking to use the next demonstration as a recruiting drive, many radicals find themselves in a desert devoid of revolutionary activity and thought. Within this barren landscape, it is rare to find new possibilities for radical social change while combatting racism and the constant oppression of capitalism. Resisting the police shoulder to shoulder, destroying property (albeit with different emphasis), helping one another evade arrest, exchanging tactics and gestures of solidarity across racial barriers pushes the desire for a multi-racial revolutionary movement ahead, more than any speaker at a rally ever could.

Anarchists are very accustomed to accusations of spoiling carefully managed demonstrations, and in some cases this is true and necessary. The Oakland rebellion was a different story. Those who are truly committed to revolutionary change in this country need to appreciate the significance of what unfolded in the streets that night and move forward without falling into the usual sectarian traps.

Mark my words, we are going to be hearing a hell of a lot more about these scary anarchists "taking over" protests. It's their most effective way to delegitimize protest, and to ignore the actual reasons that people were taking to the streets. "Outside agitators" and puppetmasters and such, these anarchists. It's an oldie, but a goodie.