ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations is engaged in far-reaching spying against left-wing activists that rivals the FBI and CIA crackdowns on the Civil Rights and anti-war movements.
That’s the thing - I think that’s exactly the issue. Once they start educating themselves, they realize they’re in the wrong line of work and on the wrong side of history and then they start having conflicts with their conscience and coworkers and bosses… at least that’s my hope.
Kinda, but also it can be basically an associate’s degree worth of political theory and history that most anarchists pick up through a combination of personal study and interpersonal discussion over years. And that occurs during the radicalization stage, which infiltrators need to pose as already having passed. And the fact that these topics aren’t necessarily simple also plays a role.
Like, I’ve met dumb anarchists before, but nobody would join a cell with the idiots, and the idiots won’t think to join a cell. They’ll get intoxicated and light something on fire at a protest or something similar. And even they’ll expect you to have some cultural understanding before committing a crime with you.
I hate calling it radicalization. Radicalization implies with the intent to cause violence. And that’s not at all the goal.
Course that gets into the whole debate of property, and whether or not certain actions like removing bench sleeping deterrents is a violent act (where as I argue preventing people with a need to utilize a public space is violent).
But not too far left. They’d have to pick up some books.
probably ‘dangerous’ for them to encourage research along these lines as the chance of radicalizing their own agents must be high
That’s the thing - I think that’s exactly the issue. Once they start educating themselves, they realize they’re in the wrong line of work and on the wrong side of history and then they start having conflicts with their conscience and coworkers and bosses… at least that’s my hope.
“Considerable amount of study and time to acquire.”
Am I reading this wrong, or did they just admit to being too stupid to be able to?
Kinda, but also it can be basically an associate’s degree worth of political theory and history that most anarchists pick up through a combination of personal study and interpersonal discussion over years. And that occurs during the radicalization stage, which infiltrators need to pose as already having passed. And the fact that these topics aren’t necessarily simple also plays a role.
Like, I’ve met dumb anarchists before, but nobody would join a cell with the idiots, and the idiots won’t think to join a cell. They’ll get intoxicated and light something on fire at a protest or something similar. And even they’ll expect you to have some cultural understanding before committing a crime with you.
I hate calling it radicalization. Radicalization implies with the intent to cause violence. And that’s not at all the goal.
Course that gets into the whole debate of property, and whether or not certain actions like removing bench sleeping deterrents is a violent act (where as I argue preventing people with a need to utilize a public space is violent).