Was Occupy (Santa Cruz) sabotaged?

Not the CIA.

It was over-ruin by opportunists and political hacks from day one at the Louden Nelson General Assembly who are still attempting to use it for their POLITICAL allegedly progressive-liberal purposes. Even now at least one the Occupy 'brainiacs' is attempting to figure out a kinder gentler Capitalism, as if that's possible.

When I saw Mike Rotkin and Scott Kennedy at the first GA I felt it was useless, but the Encampment made it all worthwhile as did the independent action of seizing #75River by an Anarchist Task Force, despite it's brevity.

I've heard speculation that various powers-that-be saddled competitors with disfunctional organizational habits, back in the day (or century, or millenia). After reading that (alleged) CIA doc on communication disruption, it was easy to see why some might speculate so. Given what I witnessed, Occupy Santa Cruz was plagued with every suggestion! As are a number of groups. It is difficult to think of one that isn't!

Can we win this time?

FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) pursuant to the PCJF’s Freedom of Information Act demands reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat even though the agency acknowledges in documents that organizers explicitly called for peaceful protest and did “not condone the use of violence” at occupy protests.

The PCJF has obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country.

“This production, which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI’s surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement,” stated Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF). “These documents show that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are treating protests against the corporate and banking structure of America as potential criminal and terrorist activity. These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America.”

http://www.justiceonline.org/commentary/fbi-files-ows.html

Here is a link to the searchable FBI response to the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund's (PCJF's) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FBI about the Occupy movement.

This document is interesting reading although much of it was redacted by the FBI.

http://www.justiceonline.org/commentary/fbi-files-ows.html#documents

I remember during Occupy SC gatherings (I was not present at the first, Louden Nelson Center/Laurel Park, gathering) quite a lot of people were saying they "had" to do this Occupy work only because the Hippies didn't complete what they'd started in the late 60s and early 70s. And assorted other "dis the hippies" derision.

Yet the Vietnam war came to an end because of the leadership of Freaks, Returning Veterans, and other groups (Black Power, 2nd wave Feminists...). In spite of everything they managed to awaken the news forces (including all THREE TV news producers -- this was back before making "TV news" was either entertainment or profitable).

People started actually talking to strangers in cities, growing their hair and changing everything about how they dressed, changing their values in a very public way, creating street clinics to compensate for the sweeping lack of health care access for people under 30 unless already gelded by corporate contracts, or -- if they had money -- accessing college health centers). These are the folks who seeded our culture (which was just then blooming into being a "mass" culture). It was this social climate of change that made room so that "I Have A Dream" and Resurrection City could be born, which yielded a few steps further from the slavery that had supposedly ended a hundred years prior. "Segregation" most clearly kept folks enslaved, so it was being eliminated finally, due to popular pressure.

It's true there were "branches" amongst hippies (as described by the Washington Post and others "outside" the phenomenon). There were a LOT of "Peaceniks" and no-nukes folks who were said to be in opposition to the Black Power and "You Say There's Gonna Be A Revolution" folks. They bitched amongst themselves about "weekend hippies" the same way we in Santa Cruz talk about "Day Trippers amongst the tourists and "Part Timers" amongst Occupiers. But that's just natural: differentiation and coming together are important rituals regardless our beliefs, goals. Those distinctions were important rhetoric, but did not seem to prevent the hippie equivalent of "flash mobs" and other events. (both college and airfare were relatively cheaper then...)

But these days, "kids" who think Hipsters and Freaks were just lay-abouts or were somehow less than concerned for the future are simply following the FBI's line -- then, still, and again now, we fall for the psychic snipers. And as long as we can fall for somebody else's perspective over what we experience first-hand, the State already "won."

It seemed like there were FBI stringers -- or snitches -- on every block in downtown Washington DC in 1970. The FBI was shooting-to-kill visible Panthers to in broad daylight in San Francisco. There WAS a war going on in the Urban centers of the US of A and our children who weren't coming home in body bags or worse were getting smeared and disappeared by the FBI. "Get Underground" was a heavy decision and many victims of the FBI's smear teams followed the long trails underground, established by "draft dodgers" (so called), to keep from getting disappeared by that "Hoover" government force.

Since then, the FBI has been reorganized, we are told, more than once. Now we're told it's become comingled with the CIA. But they still seem to go far beyond observing and gathering info, don't they? Much evidence from the 60s-70s has since confirmed/exposed those FBI tactics I witnessed then.

The more clear and certain we are about what we are about, the harder it is for us to fall for others' con jobs. I believe we must wrest our government from the State's death sentence, and then embody it with Occupy values and engage with everyone in the Nation who is familiar with the US Constitution. So maybe we need to each become better educated, including our real history and including how to get stuff done sans waste.

Flower Power, as I remember observing it, was NOT for Sissies.

This is a good question and raises important points about the process in general.

"G" is certainly on to something.

Troll Sabotage: sending pizzas may be a reference to the habits of some pranksters (like the ones that were rumored to be sending pizzas to the LAPD damage control gangsters surrounding the soon-to-be-incinerated 'Dorner cabin' (BTW, classic manifesto!)). It was also a way to promote negative stereotypes and 'frames'. I'd guess 'both'.

Not in main line-up: ummm, I'd prefer that this post isn't removed by the admins. Pass.

The 60's: perhaps the Vietnam war ended because Nixon acquired the presidency, by design. http://consortiumnews.com/2013/03/09/rethinking-watergateiran-contra/ Apparently the 'October Surprise' was foreshadowed by a tricky Dick-ing. The hippies were right about a lot of things, and Linda is right about the historical 'frame' laid on them, but while Flower Power may have been for non-sissies, the current state of oppressive affairs is in some ways staggeringly worse. I'm guessing systemic failure, a-la Frank Zappa's theater-with-the-brick-wall-revealed (I hope I am wrong on this one!).

Occupy: some are counter-suing the powers that be. A winner, or just more underlining of the obvious?