“A lot of our conclusions about the sixties are going to be upended.”
September 21, 2018 9:03 AM Subscribe
“The FBI issues a memo instructing their informants (of which there were hundreds) going into that convention to vote with the national office because it is far preferable for the national office — Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, Bernardine Dohrn, the people who would go on to form Weather Underground — to assume power of SDS. Because they’re going to go off. They’re going to commit acts of violence. They’re going to be on the other side of the law and they can be marginalized much more quickly, alienated from US society. Progressive Labor Party, on the other hand, is a disciplined, democratic-centralist organization and if they have power, that’s not going to be good.” Infiltrating the Left - an interview with Aaron J. Leonard, co-author of A Threat of the First Magnitude: FBI Counterintelligence and Infiltration from the Communist Party to the Revolutionary Union — 1962-1974 about how the FBI secured informants and actions against the American Left (Jacobin)
Why/How did the FBI even get into anti-human activities, like, investigate crimes or something what is all this other nonsense they get up to stem from?
Through its counter-intelligence and anti-espionage functions, dating back to before WWII.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:17 AM on September 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
Through its counter-intelligence and anti-espionage functions, dating back to before WWII.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:17 AM on September 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
One thing that jumps out many times from this interview is the way the toxicity of left organizations - especially but not exclusively the CP - made them vulnerable to the FBI.
Expelling people over ideological differences, forcing very tight political conformity in the name of "party discipline", holding surprise meetings to fire people from party-related jobs...and not least, supporting the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII - those things fragmented the left and created a class of disaffected people as much as anything the FBI did.
You quote from a FBI report on him that says, almost quizzically, that they were paying Aoki a pretty small amount of money, but he didn’t bring up getting more from the FBI, because informing wasn’t about the money for him. It was about doing what’s best for the country.
Exactly. He and his family were interned during World War II. The Communist Party supported the interment because the Communist Party supported the war effort so there was that.
This is just like the sleazy rapist informants who were around anarchist and environmentalist scenes these past ten years or so. They were able to worm their way in because the scenes were toxic and misogynist.
If you don't want the fibbies to rise to positions of power in your movement - well, maybe you can't prevent it entirely, but you can reduce their operating room by not being fucked up.
On another note:
That led us back to Roman Malinovsky, an informant in the Bolshevik Party. Malinovsky is referred to by Lenin in “Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.” Lenin says, on the one hand, Malinovsky sent thousands of committed Bolsheviks to prison and death. On the other, tens of thousands were recruited to the party. He’s a template for why we don’t need to worry about informants. He’s on the central committee of the Bolshevik Party. He’s their representative on the international. He is one of three people charged with ferreting out spies in the Bolshevik Party. Yet he’s an informant.
How exactly like Lenin, and how stupid. The harm that "sending thousands of committed Bolsheviks to their deaths" does is extremely great, but it's emotional/relational/social harm, so of course Lenin would assume that you just throw more bodies in the gap. Never mind the harm of saying "la la so thousands of people died well there are more where those came from". The communist party may be a fucking materialist party but "people are interchangeable, kill your human assets as needed" does not necessarily follow.
The book sounds very good and I'll definitely get it.
posted by Frowner at 9:26 AM on September 21, 2018 [33 favorites]
Expelling people over ideological differences, forcing very tight political conformity in the name of "party discipline", holding surprise meetings to fire people from party-related jobs...and not least, supporting the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII - those things fragmented the left and created a class of disaffected people as much as anything the FBI did.
You quote from a FBI report on him that says, almost quizzically, that they were paying Aoki a pretty small amount of money, but he didn’t bring up getting more from the FBI, because informing wasn’t about the money for him. It was about doing what’s best for the country.
Exactly. He and his family were interned during World War II. The Communist Party supported the interment because the Communist Party supported the war effort so there was that.
This is just like the sleazy rapist informants who were around anarchist and environmentalist scenes these past ten years or so. They were able to worm their way in because the scenes were toxic and misogynist.
If you don't want the fibbies to rise to positions of power in your movement - well, maybe you can't prevent it entirely, but you can reduce their operating room by not being fucked up.
On another note:
That led us back to Roman Malinovsky, an informant in the Bolshevik Party. Malinovsky is referred to by Lenin in “Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.” Lenin says, on the one hand, Malinovsky sent thousands of committed Bolsheviks to prison and death. On the other, tens of thousands were recruited to the party. He’s a template for why we don’t need to worry about informants. He’s on the central committee of the Bolshevik Party. He’s their representative on the international. He is one of three people charged with ferreting out spies in the Bolshevik Party. Yet he’s an informant.
How exactly like Lenin, and how stupid. The harm that "sending thousands of committed Bolsheviks to their deaths" does is extremely great, but it's emotional/relational/social harm, so of course Lenin would assume that you just throw more bodies in the gap. Never mind the harm of saying "la la so thousands of people died well there are more where those came from". The communist party may be a fucking materialist party but "people are interchangeable, kill your human assets as needed" does not necessarily follow.
The book sounds very good and I'll definitely get it.
posted by Frowner at 9:26 AM on September 21, 2018 [33 favorites]
(Not to self link in my own post but I think it would be good for everyone even lightly involved in organizing to read Joyful Militancy and the threat of rigid radicalism. There’s a lot of toxic behavior we can unlearn and move past.)
posted by The Whelk at 9:29 AM on September 21, 2018 [12 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 9:29 AM on September 21, 2018 [12 favorites]
"They were able to worm their way in because the scenes were toxic and misogynist. "
Even today I'm aware of very few political organizations where this statement isn't applicable including the actually main government.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:31 AM on September 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
Even today I'm aware of very few political organizations where this statement isn't applicable including the actually main government.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:31 AM on September 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
Through its counter-intelligence and anti-espionage functions, dating back to before WWII.
The influential reign of reactionary, bigot, and all-around piece of human garbage J. Edgar Hoover casts a long, long shadow as well.
posted by ryanshepard at 9:31 AM on September 21, 2018 [11 favorites]
The influential reign of reactionary, bigot, and all-around piece of human garbage J. Edgar Hoover casts a long, long shadow as well.
posted by ryanshepard at 9:31 AM on September 21, 2018 [11 favorites]
Even today I'm aware of very few political organizations where this statement isn't applicable including the actually main government.
Yeah, but there's a special kind of mindfuck when misogyny happens in leftist spaces by dudes that are like "I respect every woman and consider you a comrade/fellow worker/what have you" but then practice deep harm, and then say "well you wouldn't go to the STATE, would you?" when women get assaulted.
posted by corb at 9:33 AM on September 21, 2018 [34 favorites]
Yeah, but there's a special kind of mindfuck when misogyny happens in leftist spaces by dudes that are like "I respect every woman and consider you a comrade/fellow worker/what have you" but then practice deep harm, and then say "well you wouldn't go to the STATE, would you?" when women get assaulted.
posted by corb at 9:33 AM on September 21, 2018 [34 favorites]
Through its counter-intelligence and anti-espionage functions, dating back to before WWII.
Specifically, during the First Red Scare. (Technically, this would have been the FBI's predecessor, but I think that's mostly a distinction without a difference.)
posted by tobascodagama at 9:33 AM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Specifically, during the First Red Scare. (Technically, this would have been the FBI's predecessor, but I think that's mostly a distinction without a difference.)
posted by tobascodagama at 9:33 AM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Even today I'm aware of very few political organizations where this statement isn't applicable including the actually main government.
And yet if I didn't expect better I wouldn't bother with the left, eh? What's the point if it's just all the end of Animal Farm over again? I expect better of the left because otherwise we might as well give up and go home, and because I want the left to win.
Power-mad macho bullying (because all of that "we have to have tight ideological conformity, so and so isn't reliable and so and so is a homosexual, better expel them" stuff is about macho drama; I've seen enough of it to know) makes the left weaker, not stronger.
posted by Frowner at 9:38 AM on September 21, 2018 [14 favorites]
And yet if I didn't expect better I wouldn't bother with the left, eh? What's the point if it's just all the end of Animal Farm over again? I expect better of the left because otherwise we might as well give up and go home, and because I want the left to win.
Power-mad macho bullying (because all of that "we have to have tight ideological conformity, so and so isn't reliable and so and so is a homosexual, better expel them" stuff is about macho drama; I've seen enough of it to know) makes the left weaker, not stronger.
posted by Frowner at 9:38 AM on September 21, 2018 [14 favorites]
"Yeah, but there's a special kind of mindfuck when misogyny happens in leftist spaces by dudes that are like "I respect every woman and consider you a comrade/fellow worker/what have you" but then practice deep harm, and then say "well you wouldn't go to the STATE, would you?" when women get assaulted."
Oof, okay, yeah, I can see the exceptional shittiness of that. That behaviour is always bad, but the hypocrisy and disconnect there is infuriating and depressing.
I'd also like to clarify Frowner that I was not trying to justify or mitigate the shittiness in any way, I was more remarking that they FBI could infiltrate most organizations with that same weakness and that their goal isn't to reduce that kind of harm but exploit it to advance their greater nefarious aims.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:40 AM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oof, okay, yeah, I can see the exceptional shittiness of that. That behaviour is always bad, but the hypocrisy and disconnect there is infuriating and depressing.
I'd also like to clarify Frowner that I was not trying to justify or mitigate the shittiness in any way, I was more remarking that they FBI could infiltrate most organizations with that same weakness and that their goal isn't to reduce that kind of harm but exploit it to advance their greater nefarious aims.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:40 AM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
The book's author was interviewed on a recent episode of the podcast Chapo Trap House. I found it very compelling.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:44 AM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:44 AM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Progressive Labor Party, on the other hand, is a disciplined, democratic-centralist organization
Maybe a good time to note that "democratic centralist" does not mean "democratic centrist," though - it means there is at least nominally a democratic process to determine the party line, but strategic adherence to it is expected in public.
posted by atoxyl at 9:51 AM on September 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
Maybe a good time to note that "democratic centralist" does not mean "democratic centrist," though - it means there is at least nominally a democratic process to determine the party line, but strategic adherence to it is expected in public.
posted by atoxyl at 9:51 AM on September 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
I have no idea where the line should be between tight ideological conformity and a broad tent. The dangers of being overly sectarian and withdrawn are apparent, but so is the complete ineffectiveness at best of mainstream parties which don't have any sort of ideological litmus tests. More usually they're just rank opportunists.
I'm not aware of groups that have any sort of middle balance. The IWW says believe in the constitution and the preamble but we won't bother you about the details, seems to strike a decent balance but is almost nonexistent here.
It causes me a lot of despair, because I believe in broad left coalitions, but there's always things that seem to make it impossible. Yesterday a Labour party group just sided with the Liberals in something I'm involved in because they're scum with no principles.
How am I supposed to welcome them as allies? How do you maintain your principles and not betray your beliefs but also stay open to those you disagree with?
posted by AnhydrousLove at 10:00 AM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm not aware of groups that have any sort of middle balance. The IWW says believe in the constitution and the preamble but we won't bother you about the details, seems to strike a decent balance but is almost nonexistent here.
It causes me a lot of despair, because I believe in broad left coalitions, but there's always things that seem to make it impossible. Yesterday a Labour party group just sided with the Liberals in something I'm involved in because they're scum with no principles.
How am I supposed to welcome them as allies? How do you maintain your principles and not betray your beliefs but also stay open to those you disagree with?
posted by AnhydrousLove at 10:00 AM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I bet it would be illuminating to read this book in tandem with Thomas Frank's "The Conquest of Cool", which is about business and advertising's co-optation of the counterculture in the 60s. A double-whammy of undermining the citizenry and youth in particular.
posted by rhizome at 10:06 AM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by rhizome at 10:06 AM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Why Misogynists Make Great Informants: How Gender Violence on the Left Enables State Violence in Radical Movements
Highlights:
Highlights:
Maybe it isn’t that informants are difficult to spot but rather that we have collectively ignored the signs that give them away. To save our movements, we need to come to terms with the connections between gender violence, male privilege, and the strategies that informants (and people who just act like them) use to destabilize radical movements. Time and again heterosexual men in radical movements have been allowed to assert their privilege and subordinate others. Despite all that we say to the contrary, the fact is that radical social movements and organizations in the United States have refused to seriously address gender violence as a threat to the survival of our struggles. We’ve treated misogyny, homophobia, and heterosexism as lesser evils—secondary issues—that will eventually take care of themselves or fade into the background once the “real” issues—racism, the police, class inequality, U.S. wars of aggression—are resolved. There are serious consequences for choosing ignorance. Misogyny and homophobia are central to the reproduction of violence in radical activist communities. Scratch a misogynist and you’ll find a homophobe. Scratch a little deeper and you might find the makings of a future informant (or someone who just destabilizes movements like informants do).posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 10:09 AM on September 21, 2018 [24 favorites]
[...]
What the FBI gets is that when there are people in activist spaces who are committed to taking power and who understand power as domination, our movements will never realize their potential to remake this world. If our energies are absorbed recuperating from the messes that informants (and people who just act like them) create, we will never be able to focus on the real work of getting free and building the kinds of life-affirming, people-centered communities that we want to live in. To paraphrase bell hooks, where there is a will to dominate there be no justice, because we will inevitably continue reproducing the same kinds of injustice we claim to be struggling against. It is time for our movements to undergo a radical change from the inside out.
I'll have to send this to my dad - he was at that SDS convention, representing San Francisco State. He told me about being part of a small group trying to keep the future Weather Underground folks from, as he sees it, destroying SDS, but it was completely futile. I'm not sure if he knows about the level of infiltration, but he probably won't be surprised.
He wasn't part of any of the other factions though. His mom had been a Trotskyite labor activist in the 30s and told him to stay away from factions because "they're all assholes." I would so love to be able to ask her about her experiences with the Communist Party (and the rampant sexism I'm sure she experienced as a young, female labor organizer).
The book The Sixties by Todd Gitlin (one of the founders of SDS) has a great and horrifying chapter about this convention.
posted by lunasol at 10:14 AM on September 21, 2018 [12 favorites]
He wasn't part of any of the other factions though. His mom had been a Trotskyite labor activist in the 30s and told him to stay away from factions because "they're all assholes." I would so love to be able to ask her about her experiences with the Communist Party (and the rampant sexism I'm sure she experienced as a young, female labor organizer).
The book The Sixties by Todd Gitlin (one of the founders of SDS) has a great and horrifying chapter about this convention.
posted by lunasol at 10:14 AM on September 21, 2018 [12 favorites]
It causes me a lot of despair, because I believe in broad left coalitions, but there's always things that seem to make it impossible. Yesterday a Labour party group just sided with the Liberals in something I'm involved in because they're scum with no principles.
How am I supposed to welcome them as allies? How do you maintain your principles and not betray your beliefs but also stay open to those you disagree with?
For me, the key has been to focus my work on concrete fights that will hopefully yield tangible things that make people's lives better. Maybe it's the legacy of my grandma and her exhortation to avoid all factions, but I don't really concern myself with political parties. I find local campaigns (issue or electoral) and projects I want to support, and throw in with those.
posted by lunasol at 10:16 AM on September 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
How am I supposed to welcome them as allies? How do you maintain your principles and not betray your beliefs but also stay open to those you disagree with?
For me, the key has been to focus my work on concrete fights that will hopefully yield tangible things that make people's lives better. Maybe it's the legacy of my grandma and her exhortation to avoid all factions, but I don't really concern myself with political parties. I find local campaigns (issue or electoral) and projects I want to support, and throw in with those.
posted by lunasol at 10:16 AM on September 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
I have no idea where the line should be between tight ideological conformity and a broad tent. The dangers of being overly sectarian and withdrawn are apparent, but so is the complete ineffectiveness at best of mainstream parties which don't have any sort of ideological litmus tests. More usually they're just rank opportunists.
I was thinking of this:
It’s called the Ad Hoc Committee for a Scientific Socialist Line, and it circulates a bulletin in the CP advocating a pro-Maoist position. This is at a point when the Soviet Union-China tensions are heating up. So it’s extremely disruptive. People who embrace the bulletin and the Ad Hoc Committee are expelled. Which was the FBI’s whole plan, of course. And it seems to have worked great. It goes on for another seventeen years.
Surely there is some way of running a communist party without insisting that every communist must explicitly support the USSR, even against other communist countries. "Communists are welcome in the CP" isn't that big a tent.
More specifically, I think it's possible to say "we all agree on [the basic platform], but as events occur we may disagree over specific issues without needing to split the party or expel people". Even if the FBI wrote a politically plausible paper in support of China, well, yes, that was bad - but it was bad for the party because the party decided that it had to expel people if they thought a communist country that was not the USSR might have a point.
posted by Frowner at 10:23 AM on September 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
$10 says a bunch of misogynists will use the top line “ideological conformity” argument to justify closing ranks around other misogynists.
I mean, in Chapo’s episode, did they reckon with their own support of problematic men? I don’t have the spoons to listen; there’s already enough shit in my world today.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:51 AM on September 21, 2018 [8 favorites]
I mean, in Chapo’s episode, did they reckon with their own support of problematic men? I don’t have the spoons to listen; there’s already enough shit in my world today.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:51 AM on September 21, 2018 [8 favorites]
the impression I’m increasingly getting is that the IWW is by far the least dysfunctional organization on the radical left. is this true, or do I need to get disillusioned with them as well?
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:11 AM on September 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:11 AM on September 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
I only hear good things about the US IWW, although I don't exactly have an insider's take. The Australian IWW is not directly problematic that I'm aware of, just mostly non-existent.
Like, I'd like to stick with the IWW, but there's nothing to stick with here, and I'm not capable of revitalising an organisation by myself.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 11:16 AM on September 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
Like, I'd like to stick with the IWW, but there's nothing to stick with here, and I'm not capable of revitalising an organisation by myself.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 11:16 AM on September 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
It sounds like there's no one-size-fits-all response to this, and the FBI has been intelligent and flexible in figuring out how to demoralize and discredit organizations. I would certainly have trouble figuring out if I was tone-policing someone who was expressing legitimate anger or if I was protecting an organization from a disruptive outside force. I would have trouble figuring out whether someone was sincerely working to keep an organization on-message or if they were an informant who was intentionally making the organization more rigid so that it would be more likely to split up.
I wouldn't be surprised to find that there's an operative or two here on Metafilter, American or Russian or whoever. But if there is, whatcha gonna do? An ideal outcome for an intelligence service is for an organization they're targeting to collapse in mutual recrimination as people go on paranoid witch-hunts for informants - witch hunts egged on by the informants themselves, of course.
One of the miracles of Communist victories in Russia and China was that the parties in both cases survived and conquered despite being in constant internal witch-hunt mode. The parties were constantly being infiltrated, so the paranoia was, in that sense, justified, but the paranoia became a permanent and supremely destructive force and millions of people died as a result.
I wonder how often leftists try to infiltrate the FBI, and how well that goes.
posted by clawsoon at 11:40 AM on September 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
I wouldn't be surprised to find that there's an operative or two here on Metafilter, American or Russian or whoever. But if there is, whatcha gonna do? An ideal outcome for an intelligence service is for an organization they're targeting to collapse in mutual recrimination as people go on paranoid witch-hunts for informants - witch hunts egged on by the informants themselves, of course.
One of the miracles of Communist victories in Russia and China was that the parties in both cases survived and conquered despite being in constant internal witch-hunt mode. The parties were constantly being infiltrated, so the paranoia was, in that sense, justified, but the paranoia became a permanent and supremely destructive force and millions of people died as a result.
I wonder how often leftists try to infiltrate the FBI, and how well that goes.
posted by clawsoon at 11:40 AM on September 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
This problem (of informers/agents provocateur infiltrating left-wing groups and promoting violent radical wings in the face of democratic and less aggressive ones) is not a purely American problem, as witness the story of Karl-Heinz Kurras.
(TLDR: a West German cop, he shot and killed an unarmed student protestor in 1967, leading more or less directly to the radicalization/formation of the Red Army Faction, aka the Baader-Meinhoff group, the main terrorist group active in West Germany in the 1970s and early 1980s. Acquitted of murder, he was defended by the West German right, and became a hate figure for the west German left.
He was also, it turns out, a Stasi [East German Communist] spy.)
posted by cstross at 11:42 AM on September 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
(TLDR: a West German cop, he shot and killed an unarmed student protestor in 1967, leading more or less directly to the radicalization/formation of the Red Army Faction, aka the Baader-Meinhoff group, the main terrorist group active in West Germany in the 1970s and early 1980s. Acquitted of murder, he was defended by the West German right, and became a hate figure for the west German left.
He was also, it turns out, a Stasi [East German Communist] spy.)
posted by cstross at 11:42 AM on September 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
clawsoon: it's not leftists and not the FBI, but in the 1970s in Operation Snow White the Church of Scientology infiltrated the IRS, US Coast Guard, and DEA among other agencies in an attempt to purge unfavourable records relating to L. Ron Hubbard.
They got caught. It's entirely conceivable that other groups did the same thing and didn't get caught. (However, the CoS were tightly disciplined and brought considerable resources to bear. It's not obvious that US domestic leftist groups existed that would have been capable of this without also harbouring FBI or other informants. I'd be more inclined to credit infiltration by foreign agents.)
posted by cstross at 11:48 AM on September 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
They got caught. It's entirely conceivable that other groups did the same thing and didn't get caught. (However, the CoS were tightly disciplined and brought considerable resources to bear. It's not obvious that US domestic leftist groups existed that would have been capable of this without also harbouring FBI or other informants. I'd be more inclined to credit infiltration by foreign agents.)
posted by cstross at 11:48 AM on September 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
To save our movements, we need to come to terms with the connections between gender violence, male privilege, and the strategies that informants (and people who just act like them) use to destabilize radical movements.
...
If our energies are absorbed recuperating from the messes that informants (and people who just act like them) create, we will never be able to focus on the real work of getting free and building the kinds of life-affirming, people-centered communities that we want to live in.
I like the repeated emphasis on this. Reminds me of that comic about climate change: "What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"
The prescription here seems to be not "all informants must be rooted out and destroyed" so much as a "toxic assholes are more likely to be informants, but even if they aren't we should get rid of them because they're toxic assholes".
posted by tobascodagama at 12:08 PM on September 21, 2018 [19 favorites]
...
If our energies are absorbed recuperating from the messes that informants (and people who just act like them) create, we will never be able to focus on the real work of getting free and building the kinds of life-affirming, people-centered communities that we want to live in.
I like the repeated emphasis on this. Reminds me of that comic about climate change: "What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"
The prescription here seems to be not "all informants must be rooted out and destroyed" so much as a "toxic assholes are more likely to be informants, but even if they aren't we should get rid of them because they're toxic assholes".
posted by tobascodagama at 12:08 PM on September 21, 2018 [19 favorites]
There's a lesson here, too, about having lots of diverse representation if that's something you claim to care about. Amazing how much damage the FBI was able to do by playing on, "We can't get rid of him! He's our only working class/Black/Asian/etc. leader!"
posted by clawsoon at 1:49 PM on September 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 1:49 PM on September 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
Expelling people over ideological differences, forcing very tight political conformity in the name of "party discipline"
Interestingly enough, some of the same things that have made the Republican Party ruthlessly efficient in recent decades.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:50 PM on September 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
Interestingly enough, some of the same things that have made the Republican Party ruthlessly efficient in recent decades.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:50 PM on September 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
the Church of Scientology infiltrated the ... US Coast Guard
Sounds like somebody...
(•_•)
( •_•)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)
... was drowning in bad engrams.
posted by CynicalKnight at 2:12 PM on September 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
Sounds like somebody...
(•_•)
( •_•)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)
... was drowning in bad engrams.
posted by CynicalKnight at 2:12 PM on September 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
Interestingly enough, some of the same things that have made the Republican Party ruthlessly efficient in recent decades.
And also an explicitly fascist organization that thrives on the economic, legal, sexual, and often directly physical assaults of marginalized people.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:29 PM on September 21, 2018 [10 favorites]
And also an explicitly fascist organization that thrives on the economic, legal, sexual, and often directly physical assaults of marginalized people.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:29 PM on September 21, 2018 [10 favorites]
two things-
in my opinion, leftist activist groups today are much more morally righteous in their political aims and self aware than those of the 1960s, not necessarily because of the individuals personally but because there is no backdrop of cold war to lure leftists into supporting murderous regimes like the soviet union and maoist china. leftist ideas now stand on their own merits.
second, when it comes to any organization, a top-down, hierarchical, male-led group is very likely to not be progressive in its internal behavior (and therefore to be susceptible to infiltration by regressive forces) no matter what its external ideals are. insisting that leaders "practice what you preach" is harder and less moral than making the thing not hierarchical and male led in the first instance.
posted by wibari at 9:25 PM on September 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
in my opinion, leftist activist groups today are much more morally righteous in their political aims and self aware than those of the 1960s, not necessarily because of the individuals personally but because there is no backdrop of cold war to lure leftists into supporting murderous regimes like the soviet union and maoist china. leftist ideas now stand on their own merits.
second, when it comes to any organization, a top-down, hierarchical, male-led group is very likely to not be progressive in its internal behavior (and therefore to be susceptible to infiltration by regressive forces) no matter what its external ideals are. insisting that leaders "practice what you preach" is harder and less moral than making the thing not hierarchical and male led in the first instance.
posted by wibari at 9:25 PM on September 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
I started a chapter of a national lefty organization in my hometown, in the wake of the election of 2016.
We tried to emphasize effective action, and we did some great things.
Let me say here I am a white-as-white-can-be white guy, and a 25-plus year Army Reservist. Also, a liberal.
It took about two years before I was fighting accusations of misogyny. From my perspective, several people who joined the group wanted to spend time denouncing other lefties for being insufficiently left. I disagreed.
Eventually the rancor became so deep that I stepped down.
The organization is more or less defunct.
posted by atchafalaya at 4:02 PM on September 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
We tried to emphasize effective action, and we did some great things.
Let me say here I am a white-as-white-can-be white guy, and a 25-plus year Army Reservist. Also, a liberal.
It took about two years before I was fighting accusations of misogyny. From my perspective, several people who joined the group wanted to spend time denouncing other lefties for being insufficiently left. I disagreed.
Eventually the rancor became so deep that I stepped down.
The organization is more or less defunct.
posted by atchafalaya at 4:02 PM on September 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
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posted by GoblinHoney at 9:08 AM on September 21, 2018 [6 favorites]