How to destroy social movements

Sometimes, even Facebook can link to valuable information. I thought long and hard about why Occupy Melbourne didn't really get off the ground, although it had an amazing collection of talent. Then I read the lengthy explanation underneath this cute picture, and had a better idea of what social movements are up against, and that it simply crumbled under psy-op attacks as described below.

================

HOW INFILTRATORS AND DISINFORMATION AGENTS WORK: 

How government counter intelligence operates on Facebook and internet forums.

These tactics have been repeatedly used in many activist groups, the tactics highlighted below are a common blue print, that government agents use in all campaigns that they have been assigned to, usually because whatever the campaigns objectives are, they may in some way be damaging to the establishment.

Psy-ops

Psychological operations, the label is quite self explanatory, this is the techniques they employ
to “head fuck” their victim, and also confuse other genuine group members. I will list various techniques that I have both been victim to and observed on social networking sites, mainly Facebook.

1. Character Assassination

They identify who is potentially the biggest threat, they then set about getting that person removed from the group, they have various means of doing this, and most entail discrediting that person in one way or another. Whispering is their most common method, ie, private messaging other members of the group, and telling lies about their victim. They then pick off the members of the group one at a time, until the only players left in the game are the other government "shills".

When they have pinpointed who they deem to be the biggest threat to their agenda, they set about the most despicable character assassination. If you comment on forums, they will twist things you say, they will at all times be working towards having other group members think they are good and moral, and you are bad and immoral. They will take totally innocuous things which you have said, and try and twist them so as you appear hypocritical, a liar, insensitive…..it goes on and on!

They will stoop as low as they see fit, they may even befriend your bitter Ex partners to get as much "dirt" on you as possible.Then they will proceed to post their findings all over Facebook.

2. Whispering

The whispering can be telling other group members that their chosen victim has been either ridiculing them, or doing/saying something that could be damaging to the campaign. To ensure that the person they are messaging does not go straight to you and report the correspondence, they may suggest that you are a dangerous or very vindictive person, and that they are afraid of you.

Having personally been the victim of their whispering campaigns, I can tell you from first hand experience, that it is very difficult to defend yourself from the unknown, people just distance themselves from you, and you are in the dark, and have no clue why.

3. Dummy Friend

One of their number will befriend you, confide their secrets, and embark on a bonding process, this is one of their most deadly weapons, it is designed so that you will then confide things to them, and they can then form a “psychological profile chart” on you, they then use this against you, as they will know your weak spots. Your new “Dummy Friend”, will try at all costs to establish a bond with you and gain your trust. They will gently try and influence your opinions, often telling you lies, and trying to distance you from other genuine campaigners.

Your new Dummy Friend will invent dramas, claiming someone has been very nasty to them, the someone could be a genuine campaigner, or one of the psych-ops team. The invented drama will be reported in such a way as to warrant a reaction of some sort from you, this could result in them dragging you into a public slagging match, or you contacting the “nasty person” with accusations. Either way, you come out of it looking bad, while dummy friend smells of roses.

Dummy friend may pretend to have an illness or disability of some sort to make you feel protective of them. Dummy friend can be very clever, and will play you like a fiddle! Dummy

friend will present you with "evidence" about other genuine campaigners, which will suggest that they are in fact an infiltrator, and cannot be trusted. When you have been presented with this fabricated evidence, if you react in any way, and make any kind of comment about the person, that comment will then be passed onto them. Be aware, Dummy Friend will at all times be passing all your messages onto the other members of the psy-ops team.

It will also be Dummy Friends job to plant the seeds of paranoia, always passing on tittle-tattle about this one or the other one gossiping about you. When you eventually cop on that dummy friend has betrayed you, this is when dummy friend becomes their most lethal, they know they have been exposed and they will then publicly use all the information they have on you in public forums, at this stage they can say what they want as they know you don’t trust them any more, so they don’t need to worry about protecting that bond.

Dummy friend at this stage attempt to protect their identity amongst the rest of the group, will make out you are paranoid, crazy, a nut job if you try and reveal to the rest of the group what they have been up to. Dummy friend is by far the most lethal member of the psy-ops team.

4. Rows rows rows!

They also instigate rows within the group, two agents will be in charge of the two warring factions, innocent members of the group take sides, and get drawn into their manufactured saga.

They will publicly attack the people they see as their biggest threat. They will malign and discredit them in the most despicable manner. They just love fighting, and at all times will be planting seeds all over the place to start rows. The most effective way to damage a campaign is to have continuous in-fighting. Dummy friend will play a big part in this, because if they have said something slanderous about you somewhere, and you did not see it, dummy friend will see it and pass it onto you. Even when you know their tactics, and you know that they are just trying to drag you into a public slagging match, it is very difficult not to react, and to just let the posse slander you on forums/groups/pages etc. In the manufacturing of these rows, they will either just straight out lie about you, or take things you have said, and report them totally out
of context.

Psy-ops agents are Masters at manipulation, coming off as truthful, knowledgeable,
and witty. Many of these tactics leave people feeling confused about what to believe, the whole while having fallen into their traps of paranoia, discontent, and criticism.

The whole thing ends in chaos “divide and conquer” the oldest trick in the book!

The constant rows often mean that genuine campaigners leave, either after being attacked, or because the constant fighting is wearing them out. Then the whole campaign either falls apart, or their order becomes the order of the group. If they are in control of the group, they will steer the group in a direction which will hinder not enhance the overall campaign.

5. Time wasting

The psy–ops team will at all times be devising ways to waste your time. Time wasted is time not spent on the campaign. An example of this would be to publicly accuse you of some kind of wrong doing, it is human nature that when wrongly accused you will want to clear your name. Clearing your name may entail trawling through emails and messages from two years ago to back up your innocence in the slanderous claims.

Another method they use is to get “dummy friend” to send you links which they say is evidence of wrong doing of another team member, trawling through these links will take up an inordinate amount of your time and energy.

Dummy Friend is the most dangerous member of the psy-ops team, and will at all times be working behind your back to destroy you. Dummy friend will also send you links to obscure forums all over the net, where the other psy-ops team will be ridiculing and slandering you, remember, this is a full time paid job for these people, so don’t be surprised at the vast amount of time they use setting these stings up.

6. Multi-characters

One of the psy-ops team, may in fact be 4 members of the group, they will often have numerous identities, and often even start rows with themselves to try and drag other group members into taking sides and getting involved in the manufactured drama. Divide and conquer.

7. Victimisation

While you are their victim, and they are at all times working towards discrediting you and victimising you, they will make attempts to make others think it is in fact the other way round. There are many ways they can do this.

When it then becomes very obvious what they are up to, and you block them, they will spend the next two or more days going to other forums all over the place to discredit you further for blocking them, they will accuse you of being a liar, a hypocrite etc etc. All the time making out that they have been a victim to you! Should you attempt to defend your actions on these forums, you will then be pounced on by the other psy-ops team, and a full scale slagging match ensues. I now ignore all such attempts to embroil me in their dramas.

8. Exposure

This is their greatest fear, and when exposed they will join forces and attack like the nest of vipers that they are, when there has been full exposure, it means that they have to create new identities and go through the entire process again of gaining trust and influence in the group, they have done this in the past, but they prefer to avoid this, and retain the positions they already hold. They will go to great lengths to have people think that they are the victims, and the person doing the exposing is in fact the infiltrator.

They will point out the great amount of time that they have devoted to the campaign, which is often more than the genuine campaigners, as they are full time employees so to speak, and getting paid for all they do! On the face of it they may appear to have been great supporters, but when you scratch the surface just a little and examine what they have been doing in the shadows, and not the light, a very different picture emerges of their actual contribution.

Make no mistake, these people are often masters at what they do, they have been trained in mind manipulation, and know every trick in the book, as to how to influence group actions and behaviour.

It is their ultimate goal to head fuck the entire group, genuine supporters when faced with this level of Machiavellian tactics give up and leave the campaign. Others continue to support, but from the side lines, and do not get involved in the group activities, and I really don’t blame them!

I have penned this, firstly to outline my own position at not defending myself from their attacks, as I realised long ago that interactions with them are futile, and only serve to damage the campaign with in-fighting, secondly to let other supports be aware of the tactics they use, awareness will save you a great deal of time and annoyance.

A group of 27,000 was formed; the above tactics were used to totally disintegrate the group. I have seen many more of lesser volume obliterated by this.

I would urge all supporters, if you see arguments that appear to be among supporters, stay well clear, let them fight among themselves, do not join in, and do not be swayed by the lies they tell, question their motives in trying so hard to discredit honourable people and/or create hysteria, distrust, fighting, and an unhealthy environment.

==============================

As I consider fb not really a useful resource for collaboration, I copied the content over here. I encountered some of these strategies this morning, and still hope that information about psy-op strategies can immunise a sufficiently large part of those still willing to engage for the global occupy movement.

I think it's also handy to have the text handy in a format that makes copy and paste easy. Some of the things here happen also as part of 'normal' unhealthy interpersonal and group dynamics. In those situation I found 'calling one's bluff' usually can transform a situation to a less damaging outcome, or even, given a basic common intent to cooperate, into a win-win situation.

28 Khwei

Life is just a ride, it goes up and down and round and round. The more riders we meet, the more obvious the arbitrariness of social conventions become. Among all that seems superficially different lye some fundamental similarities.

We get trained to accept the current society as necessary for our survival as species, and even more importantly, as 'nation'. The need for 'a leader' is hammered into our heads from multiple directions. We tend to forget that those moment in life that shaped it essentially, when we fell in love, when we witnessed birth or death, when we felt one with the universe, know no leader.

Life happens, within us and around us, and while we can pay attention to some events others evade us.  Luckily, a lot of interesting events require the participations of a large number of people. You have already missed out on a lot of fun (and some less fun) action if you didn't hang out with occupy yet, yet the evolution needs you as well.

Technology has created a wealth that can easily support every human being on this planet, although most of it found its origin in weapons research. War is still an accepted tool for inter-'national' relations, and a highly profitable area for the application of high tech. The abundance of technological achievements, especially fuelled by Open Source and Creative Commons, could mean an end of all toiling as wage slave.

Some people just do the things they consider beneficial to the well-being of their community. Mankind got mindfucked to believe that technological abundance would lead to a breed of couch potato imbeciles. Well, the experiment in social engineering succeeded to some degree.

The retaliation wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention Pakistan, were never declared, just started.  The same holds true for the war against the population of the Western World, which started in 2008 with the first so-called GFC. De facto, it opened the gates to legal economic slavery, just like the feudal system that plagued Europe for many centuries.

The Icelandic people understood that bowing to the IMF meant slavery to bail out the gambles of a feudalistic banking system. The Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and many other European citizens realise that they got sold out by their Goldman-Sachs appointed heads of state.

Let's minimise the use of 'war' money, and experiment with our own currencies. Why not design fancy notes and pay occupiers for the time they spend for the movement?

Evolutionary mathematics

How can a group of people bring about a fundamental shift in society? Can we analyse civil movements with mathematical metrics to improve the efficiency of strategies and the definition of goals?

The occupation in Melbourne is still in its Early Adaptor stage, although it seems to resonate enough with a potentially 'critical' mass that can bring things to a tipping point. Allow me to set out some hypothetical numbers while forgetting about ideological bullshit. Melbourne has roughly 4 million citizens, which means if 5% of the population constitute a 'critical mass', it would take 200.000 Melbournians to liberate this city from its oppressors (if the same thing happens globally).

200.000 sounds like a lot, it's probably more than the 'alternative' parties count as members in whole Australia. But occupy isn't a political party, it's more like a life style choice. So metrics from other areas of life might better reflect such a number can be achieved or not. For simplicity's sake and inspired by sometimes shaky optimism, I assume that theoretically 200,000 could be convinced to commit their alliance to the idea of leaderless, consensual direct democracy.

Between now and 200,000 Melbourne occupiers lies the growth of the movement. Growth happens cyclical, linear or exponential. Although most systems and structures based on exponential growth constitute a big part of the problem, a phase of exponential growth is required to save this planet before the greedy few have wrecked it entirely.

Time for some calculations. Let's take 100 people, committed to contribute to the growth of the movement. The goal for each of them is to find a single ally per week. Even for people with a daytime job this sounds like an achievable target. In a linear model, it takes 2,000 weeks (roughly 38 years) to get our magical 200,000 together. A job for a lifetime, a Sisyphus task. Farewell, Mother Earth, will be late for your rescue as we got sidetracked supporting the system of destruction.

Now let's bring some magic in, exponential growth. Our 100 people win allies, not consumers or subscribers, and show their alliance by doing the same. After a week there will 200 'members', after two weeks 400, and so on. Now guess how many weeks it'll take with this growth rate to get to 200,000. Don't peer ahead and spoil your fun. I happily distract you for a while - isn't distraction the real opium for the masses, be it sport, politics, porn, drugs, drama and media?

Already after two months the barrier to 10,000 allies is broken, and the numbers will jump within the next month (after 12 weeks) over the 200,000 mark. Even with only 10 people as starting point it would take a mere 19 weeks to grow to a number where even a 10% mobilisation rate would exceed the size of most rallyes that took place in recent history in Melbourne.

While this might sound like a pyramide scheme, there's an essential difference. In a flat hierarchy, everybody is allowed to take their share from the gains of the operation. The idea of property, especially of land, contradicts the common interest, especially in highly populated world. And alliance (or membership) wouldn't necessarily mean membership fees (do we really need money on an abundant planet?).

Before we can agree how to heal the planet and to evolve mankind the system of madness needs to be stopped. Dr. ABC, first of all, remove the danger. 200,000 people in Melbourne's streets would certainly bring many things to a stop, and initiate a wave of civil disobedience that potentially brings back justice into society.

Occupy Everything

Rubber bullet to the head, Oakland, Oct 26 2011

The speed of events left me a bit breathless, tuned into the surge of adrenaline that wavers around the globe since the occupation gained momentum. The evictions in Melbourne, Sydney, Athens, Oakland, Chicago and of course London and NYC have become a talking point in Social media.

The narratives between spectators and 'official' commenters diverges in bizarre ways. Where ever the movement had some time to teach its participants the rules of the process, the moral bankruptcy of the 'leaders' became bloody apparent. Pushing, choking, punching, kneeling on necks, tear-gassing, dragging on hair and limbs, shooting rubber bullets, riding horses into people describes the means with which 'governments' sought conversation with a dissenting public.

When we watch a documentary about civil right movements of the past we hardly get an impression about the time it takes to peacefully shift society towards more justice. Pensions, health insurance, voting rights for woman, indigenous people or descendants of slaves, decriminalisation of homosexuality weren't implemented by reasonable, benevolent politicians but came into existence due to the non-violent resistance against blatant injustices. It just took a bit longer than the average attention span for a movie to happen.

Although Australia claims 'fair dinkum' as a part of her national identity, the desire for justice seems universal. The occupy movement continues the long struggle to liberate mankind from its unchosen leaders, and as their reign of terror and oppression spans the entire planet, the whole world gets involved.

Amazingly, although no leaders emerged, the movement has developed a huge global solidarity, and many voices say similar things in different words. Participatory democracy, self-organisation, the end of wars is possible when people want to work together for that aim. Yet these 'goals' have less overall importance than the means used to achieve them: The process of non-violent communication.

I admit that it takes time to learn and embody this process, and decision-making seems much slower than in hierarchies. The need for speed, however, brought this planet to the brink of an ecological collapse - maybe slowing down prevents sinking into the abyss our society heads towards. Yet those people who learned to interact, talk, decide and live non-violently have tasted the beauty, fun and power of this way of life.

Community turned for them from a buzzword enforcing conformity into a living experience, capable of tackling a variety of practical problems. According to their preferences, different workgroups for different tasks emerged, in which the same process of consensual decision making happens. Working together as equals and the useless violence created a durable bond. 'Leadership' isn't an important task, which didn't stop many to ask for it.

In Melbourne, a small, functioning society emerged, providing exchange of ideas, some free goods, a library, tuition for many aspects of daily life. In six days. Then the Lord (Mayor Robert Doyle) used his mighty fist to smash this fledgling approach to real democracy, to a world without leaders.

No more wars, no more unnecessary starving, no more slavery - does that really sound so scary?

One of the programs to maintain unaccountable power creates the habit of uniting against a common enemy. On the surface, the occupy movement appears as yet another one of those anti-everything but the whales airy-fairy hippie bullshit. Or rather, this portrait creates a decent niche in which to scare the movement. It ignores the diversity of support from various levels of society, intellectuals like Noam Chomsky or Leslie Cannold, entertainers like Keith Olberman, as well as lesser known people from all walks of life, including bankers and politicians.

Banksy installation in front St. Paul's, London

When I spend my time on a self-chosen duty as troll patrol for #occupymelbourne, I often hear that 'you people/hippies/commis/lefties/other insults don't represent me'. I can hear a wish for representation in there, and that's one of things the movement offers. Not in the traditional sense of giving up your voice but by providing an open space for everyone to be heard.

I consider the 'trolls' as my friends, and encourage them to make their voice heard on the next general assembly. First and foremost, I learn about my own reactivity to adversity, and to pause before engaging in troll patrol. Respect exists among friends, yet positions of authority and power predetermine the levels of respect expected and acted out.

I wanted to tweet 'One of the big mysteries of our times - does the Queen wipe her own bum?', yet decided against it. Maybe I need to decode myself more, however, she looks like a nice, old lady, and I respect her as such no matter how little her title means to me. After all, she might still live after the revolution, maybe even in Buckingham Palace. If the royal family finds enough supporters to squat the Palace, hardly anyone should object to this group of people self-organising in that space.

While I'm typing here, today's second wave of police violence erupts in Oakland. I checked the live feed from this morning, shocking. The Nazi had gas chambers, the police in the US throws gas grenades into crowds of peaceful people while wearing gas masks. The images from the protest become more surreal, 1984 available on your doorstep or through youtube.

However, that's also part of the predictive programming you can learn about by studying products of the entertainment industry. We have seen the images of riots in movies, and were trained to obey orders from authority. After the apocalypse, as first step a new government is elected, suggesting the innate need to be a sheep. We don't want a total breakdown of society, that's just the scare tactic from paranoid leaders.

Greed requires power structures to grow into a cancer of society. I understood the message of the GA in Berlin to the world as a determined call to heal this planet from the wounds inflicted by the unaccountable abuse of power the bureaucratic systems have created. Our current leaders simply don't care about this planet, they sent troops and drones in parts they don't live in, sell out indigenous people for the exploitation of natural resources, which mostly includes irreversible damage to well-established eco systems, while demanding us to pay for these non-sensical policies a higher and higher price.

While the planet might be healed, as well as mankind, as well as each individual, the system can't. We need to build a new one. The means of doing so matter more than the results. Nobody can predict the future, although politicians and economists talk often extremely prophetic. There can't be any promise that this experiment succeeds. However, self-organisation maintains the balance of all natural systems around us, so let's try this evolutionary successful strategy for humanity.

Don't get the illusion that this experiment is just a talk fest. Communication is essential, yet many things get done as well. In a different style than in the streamlined job slots for wage slaves, yet amazingly efficient.

No matter how often I referred to 'we', I'm not representing the Occupation Movement. I can only speak for myself, and I hope that sharing my thoughts and ideas finds some common ground.