 |
today's news
yesterday's news
Documents:
recent documents
browse by date
browse by type
browse by author
foia requests
Media:
recent multimedia
browse by date
browse by type
browse by author
Resources:
topic centers
mailing lists
mirrors
bookstore
mkultra
About Us:
introduction
contacting us
intellnet staff
link to intellnet
past whatsnew posts
privacy statement
|
i n t e l l n e t :
|
HOW GREEN IS MY RALLY
Peter Martin
"No government can remain stable in an unstable society and an unstable world." Leon Blum's words, written in 1945, echo the false dilemma the world's democratic governments are now confronting, so amply manifested in the recent G-8 summit meetings. Authorities encountering intensified anti-globalization demonstrations and increasing "environmental hooliganism" appear helpless, or senseless at countering it in an effective manner. Are these disturbances stressing the weakness of today's inter-community global institutions to effect a common, effective security policy or is there more behind it than meets the eye? This paper will examine the origins, alternation, and evolution of the threat, delineate some of the dimensions and propose some solutions.
Anti-globalization demonstrations should not have come as any surprise to anyone involved in the organization of the Genoa G-8 meeting, that there would be rioting was guaranteed especially given the precedents of Goteborg and Seattle. Additionally, the Internet previewed what was to come. All one had to do was read the numerous calls to action coming in on the World Wide Web and the various sites that were circulating plans of attack and responses to security barriers set up by the authorities. What is surprising is the extent to which the forces of law and order were surprised. What is more astonishing is that the police knew most of the people directly responsible for the rioting, through database files and criminal records. Indeed the sole fatality, who quickly became a martyr, was a petty criminal with a long record of theft, weapons violations and drug involvement. While the border guards and street police did their best, under the restrictions of the Schengen Treaty, to fortify the town to forbid public demonstrations and the distribution of flyers, they had no authorization to round up or detain the ringleaders of violence. Clearly, the newly inaugurated right-of-center Italian government, as host to the conference of largely socialist-led countries, was reluctant to crack down too harshly on demonstrators who clearly had the sympathy of such powerful leftists as Blair, Jospin, and Schroeder. This timid response reaped its own rewards in massive demonstrations, turning quickly violent, and in subsequent criticism of "police brutality", this despite the fact that miraculously, there was only one fatality during dozens of vicious clashes with the police involving thousands of individuals.
Collectively the violent, anti-capitalist anarchists are known as the "Black Blocks" derived from their penchant for wearing black balaclavas. In Genoa they joined forces with their counterpart, the Italian "Tute Bianche" (White Overalls). The movement's origin is American and dates back to opposition to the Gulf War. Like wolves on the fringe of a flock of sheep they shadow (and herd) many more structured environmental groups, such as Green Peace, Initiative Against Economic Globalization (INPEG), Earth Liberation Front (ELF), Earth-First, or the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). Traditional political parties and unions, such as the French Communist Party and the Force Ouvrieres (FO) union also provide both cover and material support under their red banners of revolution and Che Guevara/clenched fist posters, readily visible on nightly television. For the most part, they are members of phantom cell networks that are designed to operate independently of each other; confident that their combined effort will induce what could become an international revolution. Their decentralized, disengaged, multi-layered structure magnifies and complicates the difficulty in effectively dealing with them. Their non-hierarchical, loosely affiliated organization further complicates the authorities attempts to monitoring them using traditional police methods. Indeed, this inchoate structure mirrors the recent development seen in international terrorism; making it more difficult to penetrate, collect intelligence or to control and counter the actions of such groups. Because of their untidy, unstructured nature, without intelligence collection, which is beyond the capability of most police forces, it is difficult to identify their leaders much less their members prior to a confrontation, or fully appreciate their potential strength and capabilities. Moreover, they are using ever more sophisticated methods in their offensives which taxes the defensive measures designed to thwart the more peaceful street demonstrations that Europe is accustomed to.
These militant activists converge on a host city from many countries, after networking with other activist cells on the Internet. The rapid expansion of the Internet has ostensibly contracted and interconnected the globe. They conceal their identity, use legitimate protest groups as a pretense and cover for their destructive activities and focus their united efforts on mayhem and the destruction of high visibility targets for the most impact and effect. Some of these extremists are capable of exceptional violence that is already becoming a distinct danger to society today. These movements might often be led by confused and incoherent ideologues, who, while ostensibly representing a small but vocal minority championing "democracy" against globalization (read capitalism), don't realize that the very leaders that they are protesting against are the democratically elected choice of nearly a billion, prosperous citizens. This doesn't temper their efficiency in creating bedlam and devastation; which, as proven by innumerable communist insurgencies and terrorist acts is almost absurdly easy to do. On the other hand, it makes reasoning and deliberating with them like extolling the virtues of neatness after a train wreak. Indeed, a clear, albeit traditional, goal of violent demonstrators is to evoke an overly forceful response by the forces of law and order, thereby gaining some sympathy for their cause, hostility towards authority, and contributing to the breakdown of the bonds of civilized behavior which holds society together.
EMERGING TRENDS
It used to be theorized that the process behind nearly all protest movements was a response to material deprivation; this is no longer a working hypothesis. Now, it is "social problems", or the perception there that count - that is their new "default" incentive, whether valid or not, driving the protesters, most of which are young and against globalization, scientific advancements and technology, capitalism and democracy. Seeking the rule of their minority viewpoints, they use issues such as disarmament, unemployment, endangered species and climatic change, as the vehicles for their "revolution". Paradoxically, while claiming globalization has some innate negative impacts, such as harming the unskilled workers in third world countries, (when in reality it brings jobs, education, health and prosperity), the new "revolutionaries" are not these third world underclass but the young and educated offspring of First World parents in democratic countries. The extremist wing of many of these protest groups are, for the most part, simply "anti-system" and base their tactics on a long-term strategy of trying to convince as many people as possible that their malevolent purpose and goals are legitimate, even if it means ranting and raving. Almost by definition, these extremists have external support. It is impossible to imagine that some 200,000 demonstrators can move great distances from one G-8 meeting to another without tactical coordination and material aid.
STRATEGY OF INFLUENCE
The greater majority of people now, if asked, wouldn't believe communism could ever return to its former influence, anymore than they would think the global warming could suddenly change to global arctic conditions in a matter of decades. Yet, our planet is very prone to abrupt, catastrophic changes - as scientific and historical records have clearly proven. The same can be said of calamitous political and social upheavals. Even though communism has been pretty much debunked and discarded by any honest person capable of rational thought, numerous diehards are still preparing for a long-term struggle to create social conditions favorable for them to seize power again. Former Communists are already making a resurgence in Belarus, Poland, Ukraine and other former Warsaw Pact countries. Even Berlin, after more that a decade of being political pariahs, communists have regained recognition and respect. Using Berlin as their base, they plan to expand outwards across the country.
There are politicians in several European countries that have been indoctrinated and trained, some in foreign countries, to work against capitalism and for communism's restoration. Neo-Communist leadership wants to penetrate the mainstream of European Socialism, blending pacifism and anti-corporate rhetoric with greater state control. America's Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) and Progressive Labor Party (PLP) continue to uphold Communism and both advocate militancy. Even the prosaic, hoary Trotskyites have taken up their banner again and are preparing for a renaissance, calling it neo-Trotskyism. In fact, it has recently come to light that a Trotskyite movement has been more active than imagined. A short while ago, France's Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin was unmasked as a "mole" dispatched by the Trotskyite leader, Pierre Boussel (a.k.a. Lambert) in 1971 to infiltrate the Socialist Party and influence its policies.
REDS COURT GREEN
At the Genoa G-8 Summit, both the Communist Collective of Agit/Prop and the Proletarian Communist Organization were present and active in the demonstrations. In a manifesto of the Proletarian Communist Organization, one can read, "...we are all aware that great revolutionary battles are just around the corner, the grounds for which have been prepared by the global decomposition of world imperialism, which, driven on the Law of Maximum Profits, is creating unemployment for millions of proletarians and the starvation of entire peoples." Undoubtedly, the communist tacticians are deliberately using international mass protests like those against the IMF, G-8, and World Economic Forum as a support to make a comeback. They are using violent activists as surrogate apostles, the protests as a stage to observe and assess youths for eventual potential recruitment and the movements as roadways to pave for their re-entry. The neo-Luddites involved in the anti-technology movement and global warming debates are also exploited by the communists to their advantage as "agents provocateurs" to promote disorder. The press, either unconsciously or openly, also plays its part, depending on how you construe what comes out of the newsrooms. The media is predisposed to bias and tends to hold a consensus on their subject matter, especially when it involves such heated topics as abortion, capital punishment, narcotics and racial issues. Such a consensus is put to use in propaganda by the communists while the environmental activists groups "prepare the ground" for a global proletarian revolution. As Lenin evinced when he said: "There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that is - working wholeheartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one's own country, and supporting (by propaganda, sympathy and material aid) this struggle, this and only this, line in every country without exception."
While some of today's eco-activists behavior can be like the theater of the absurd, it only takes a major environmental catastrophe for it to look like reality. Things take on completely different proportion under abnormal conditions; one moment such a movement looks isolated and trivial, the next it takes on a momentous urgency, dramatized by some disastrous event. The majority of Greens already preach anti-democracy, and under the banner of ecology, they are prepared to return into the past, reducing everything to it lowest common denominator. There is already a convergence with the Communists on this level, together they can gain a lot of ground. This is their first step in manipulating and influencing the opinion and policies of democratic governments. And the Communists know that when governments become prepossessed by such extremist ideas, whether it is ecological, anti-global or nationalistic, they risk losing their democratic principles. Consequently, for the Communists and Greens to succeed they must breakdown the normal societal barriers of civilized behavior and respect for law and order.
ACTIVE MEASURES
The dangers today are not the fall of capitalism or the democratic West, but in the increase in the level of violence. The extremists won't be satisfied with just street protests for very long. They well follow the earlier examples of 20th century communists, national liberation movements and terrorists taking their fight from the general statement of street battles to the specifics into the nerve center of governments. And in this age of high technology governments are vulnerable. Technological superiority can not be relied upon to win victories, it might even turn out to be the "Achilles heel" of our defenses. Imagine the devastation that could be caused to a nation's economy, a nation's infrastructure if electrical grids, air traffic control systems and communications networks were targeted. The Pentagon admits that they are under cyber-attack every day and that the attacks on their networks are becoming more and more refined. Or imagine anarchists armed with miniature electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons and using them to great effect. In fact, they already exist today. It is in the form of a grenade (actually looks like a beer can) and was invented and marketed by the Russians in the mid-nineties. The Russians also developed it in a briefcase form, which allows the user to tune in the required frequency of the target to be destroyed. Reliable intelligence reports claim that some of these devices have already been sold to other countries.
PASSED IN THE SLOW LANE
The difference between American economic, social and political success and, in varying degrees, the lack of equal advancement and prosperity in Western Europe has the same roots as the inability of the Western democracies (including the U.S.) to cope with the extremists. Western governments have evolved to a mature state where change is resisted and attempts are made to maintain the status quo by wrapping every potential advancement or change in a web of rules, regulations and laws administrated by an enormous bureaucracy. One of the difficulties in dealing with these threats is today's incredible change of pace in technology and communications, and the fact that often deep-seated government bureaucracies don't keep pace with these changes, this stagnation doesn't bode well for finding solutions. There is also a parallel with this and the criticism over globalization; while we change the structure of the World's economy the mechanism of government remains unchanged. If you restructure one, it should follow that the other also undergoes changes. A progressive economic program needs regenerated, expeditious governmental leadership to be in symmetry with it. But bureaucracies have only disdain for change, Western European bureaucrats are totally unprepared to deal with an unstable world system in this post-Cold War era that has been brought about through globalization and its redistribution of economic power and wealth. This innate abhorrence of change, this arrogance of power, this ignorance of weakness might just prove to be the prime opportunity for a restitution of Communist, or some totalitarian offspring, and the extremist are out there banking on it.
CONCLUSION
For Communist propaganda to achieve its goal, the media and the public have to be deceived, and with few exceptions, most people are unaware of the Communist deception behind the G-8 and other international summit riots. It is never easy to counter such covert Communist goals but public awareness is a first positive step. There will be less tolerance and sympathy for militant activists if the public learns what sinister movement lurks beneath them. The call for a European anti-riot force is another step in the right direction; as would be a greater cooperation in sharing intelligence and combating the intra-state travel of criminals. But, while the proposal might be a good one, bureaucratic stagnation and a lack of funds may hold it up pretty much indefinitely, just as Europe's highly touted defense ambitions have already been. Ultimately, it is only a matter of public education, consensus and political will. Are we going to be duped into either a Communist revival or a diminution of our liberties and democratic processes, via street riots and Green protests, and subsequent fascist overreactions by the police, or is the media and political and moral leadership going to help de-rail the surreptitious threat from the Neo-Communists by going public with the story? George Orwell futuristically wrote that, "He who controls the past controls the future." Let us make sure, for the future of Western Europe, that our present does not become the past defining an undesirable future.
Peter B. Martin
July-August, 2001
c o p y r i g h t © 2 0 0 0 t h e i n t e l l i g e n c e n e t w o r k i n t e l l n e t . o r g a l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d p r i v a c y p o l i c y
The opinions expressed in articles, documents, columns, multimedia and other portions of this site are not necessarily those of The Intelligence Network or its principals.