Agent Provocateur

[Cali_Democrat]

Traditionally, an agent provocateur (plural: agents provocateurs, French for "inciting agent(s)&quot is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act. More generally, the term may refer to a person or group that seeks to discredit or harm another by provoking them to commit a wrong or rash action.

As a known tool to prevent infiltration by agents provocateurs,[1] the organizers of large or controversial assemblies may deploy and coordinate demonstration marshals, also called stewards. [2][3]

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United States

In the United States, the COINTELPRO program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had FBI agents pose as political radicals to disrupt the activities of political groups in the U.S., such as the Black Panthers, Ku Klux Klan, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

New York City police officers were accused of acting as agents provocateurs during protests against the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City.[4]

Denver police officers were also found to have used undercover detectives to instigate violence against police during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. This ultimately resulted in the use of pepper spray against their own infiltrating agents.[5]

Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_provocateur

Yes. The threat of agent provocateurs is real. The 1% and their quislings would like nothing more than to discredit the movement and I'm almost 100% sure that the burning of the flag in Oakland was done by agent provocateurs.

Don't buy the bullshit.

[TheWraith]

1. And it makes a really convenient excuse for anything you don't want to admit protesters did.

Like, say, busting into City Hall, even though they publicized it ahead of time that that was EXACTLY THEIR PLAN FOR THE DAY.

[tkmorris]

15. To some it's always provocateurs, to others it never is

Both responses are wrong.

[EFerrari]

16. Um, nobody BUSTED into City Hall. The doors were not locked.

I've yet to see you say one accurate thing about that day.

What is your stake, exactly, in misrepresenting this event?

[onehandle]

2. But they do make nice lingerie.

Search for it.

[MineralMan]

3. Absolutely. Agents provocateurs are often used.

However, not everything that happens that people wish would not happen come from that source. In every protest movement, there are also people who are on the side of the protest, but who believe that the official plans for an event are not adequately provocative. I cannot remember a single protest or demonstration I was involved with that did not have participants who wanted the action to be more extreme that was planned. Those people were very, very difficult to handle for the organizers, since they shared goals with the rest, but wanted more extreme action.

I'm sure OWS has the same problem and with the same results sometimes.

[randome]

4. The 1% don't give a shit about OWS.

Why would they? It's not like OWS is leaning on the legislators to change the laws that allow the 1% to rape and pillage.

Occupying public parks and buildings that the 1% have no use for anyways? The rich must be shaking in their boots.

As they quietly sip margaritas on their beachfront Tahiti homes.

[backscatter712]

11. Bullshit. OWS is scaring the fuck out of the psychopathic elites.

They're afraid that more people will jump on the wealth-distribution bandwagon, and they'll be forced to redistribute their stolen wealth back to the peasants.

The extreme police response demonstrates just how freaked out the rich power-mongers are. Have we seen the number of police-riots directed at other equivalent-sized protests? You hardly ever saw cops at all at tea-party rallies, even though their signs had violent threats on them and they were brandishing assault rifles and spitting on members of Congress.

But once a few people start talking about the 99% vs. the 1% and start squatting in abandoned buildings (that the cops ignored when it was just random homeless people squatting there), all of the sudden, it's time for pepper-spray and LRAD!

[dionysus]

6. !

[dionysus]

7. Agent provocateurs ARE real, and do stuff like this. but let's not pretend every member of OWS is

the sweet bebe jesus and isn't capable of douchebaggery.

every large group contains assholes, and you can't say with a straight face 100% of negative stuff that goes on is from a plant.

[nobodyspecial]

8. Sure they can. They do it repeatedly here.

Yes, they exist. It it happening? Sure. Is it the case every time. Absolutely not.

[backscatter712]

12. Of course, the haters here want to tar everyone who's ever marched with Occupy...

with the actions of half a dozen people who are either corporate/police provocateurs or loonies.

One person sets a piece of cloth on fire and breaks some glass, they say it's doom for a worldwide movement.

Special.

[dionysus]

20. i'm sure the vast majority of OWSers wouldn't do this stuff, and i'm aware agitators are always

present as well.

In this particular case, we don't know who they were. I could see either one do it. it doesn't tar the whole movement to me...

[joshcryer]

29. The people doing that are the ones denouncing flag burning as unrepresentitive, imo.

Some Occupiers undeniably burn the flag.

That is their free speech right.

They should be defended, even if you disagree with the act.

[T S Justly]

9. K&R (nt)

[applegrove]

10. My first thought too. Though the agent provocateur could have been somebody who put

the 'idea' of burning out there for some 'follower' to act upon. We just don't know. I hope OWS stops and really thinks about how they can make sure something like that doesn't happen again because I think the public can excuse one or two events of violence. But they may not be forgiving of more.

[EFerrari]

17. You can't make sure two or four or six of thousands of people don't burn a flag.

What you are suggesting is physically impossible, I'm afraid.

[applegrove]

21. They didn't burn flags or commit violence in the Oct - Nov. They managed to get their

non-violence message out then loud and clear.

[EFerrari]

22. That is beside the point.

Just because you had a big quiet party last week doesn't mean the one you give next week will happen without incident or that you can restrain your hundred guests should one or two of them decide to break your neighbors' windows.

[joshcryer]

27. Bullshit. They've been burning flags for awhile.

Occupy Charlotte discusses their flag burning incident:

Occupy Oakland arguing for and against flag burning:

Occupy Denver flag burning:

Occupy Chicago flag burning:

[applegrove]

30. I stand corrected.

[backscatter712]

13. The odds of it being a police or corporate provocateur are pretty high.

Our government has a well-known history of this behavior - dressing people in Black Bloc masks and trying to provoke violence, police planting an old, almost-decommissioned police car in the middle of a street so a provocateur can hit it with a Molotov cocktail, or the well-documented and photographed incident of Quebec police dressed as black-bloc people, picking up rocks, only to be stopped, when it was noticed that the "anarchist" was wearing exactly the same brand of boots as the riot cops.

And of course, there's COINTELPRO. There's long history of government dirty tricks to fuck with protests. So excuse me when I view incidents like the flag-burning with well-earned suspicion towards law-enforcement and corporations.

It could also be some random assholes who are the street-equivalent of Internet trolls, or it could be some people who are just flat-out batshit.

I find the odds of flag-burning being endorsed by core Occupy members or the GA to be pretty low - usually, there's an argument when such things are proposed and just from first-hand experience, I've seen attempted flag-burners at Occupy Denver greeted by chants of "THAT'S NOT COOL! THAT'S NOT COOL! THAT'S NOT COOL!" There are far too many sane and reasonable people at GAs to allow dumbfucks to pull acts of stupidity with anything resembling an official Occupy endorsement.

[EFerrari]

18. Too many creative people to fall back on something so hackneyed. nt

[joshcryer]

28. The odds that individuals acting autonomously are higher.

I think the odds are higher that the division over things like flag burning is itself CONTELPRO. That the "public property damage" outrage is itself propaganda.

[lonestarnot]

14. I would not doubt that one itsy bitsy bit.

[EFerrari]

19. The police were out there with binders of photographs, with profiles.

We need someone to swipe one of those.

[lonestarnot]

23. Have to be a long distance runner that could sprint like a motherfucker. That would be a beat down

for sure. The evidence of the entire police squadron or whatever after the swiper. If the swiper gets enough attention, that would be the answer, p. capital P.

[EFerrari]

24. It doesn't need to be a hard copy.

[lonestarnot]

25. I do get carried away with action now that you mention it.

[Hippo_Tron]

26. But, I want to know what love is...

[pintobean]

31. What's love got to do with it?

[RZM]

32. Honestly

When you're fighting tooth and nail against the 1 percent, there are some things you just have to do. I wish we could remain peaceful and not ruffle feathers, but that was yesterday. Like you, I also want to know what love is . . . the love of a country where the 99 percent hold power equal to their numbers. But the truth is, we've been growing up the hard way. What you're seeing now isn't coming out of nowhere, it's actually a reaction to action. The actions of the one percent have led us here.

This is our country. I don't think we should have to feel like strangers in our own house. Personally I wouldn't burn a flag, because I love my country. But with the way things are going, it sometimes feels like it's love in vain. I wish that wasn't the case. I don't want to be down on love, but the 99 percent and the 1 percent come from two different worlds. Despite it all, I'm confident that we'll make it through this. Lady liberty can't be destroyed by the actions of the wealthy few. She's too tough.