> FWIW, in the 1960s/1970s COINTELPRO days, there were agents
> provocateurs. They often claimed to be more "revolutionary" than
> everyone else, encouraging sectarianism and worse. But people on the
> left sometimes f*cked themselves up in the same way. There was a
> dialectic of sorts: the presence of police agents made leftists more
> paranoid, which encouraged infantile and unproductive behavior, which
> drew more attention from the police...
Right, I think most of us know about the 1960s. But this isn't the 1960s and we know that the cops aren't using agent provocateurs at any level approaching the 1960s. The dismissal of radical protesters as agents provocateurs is mostly a myth spread by pacifists who refuse to recognize that there are other activists who have no reservations about using violence and property destruction.
In my experience with undercover cops who infiltrated activist movements, the cops have typically been sent in to gather information. When we outed several undercovers in Washington, DC several years ago, one was an undercover cop from the vice squad who had been active in several anti-globalization groups. Another undercover had been active in the Mobilization for Global Justice for several years. She had been a quiet member of the housing working group, which gave her, and the police, access to a database of local activists and sympathizers.
Undercover cops are normally reliable, quiet fake activists. A common misconception is that loudmouth activists are cops. Actually, they are just loudmouth activists.
> BTW, what good does it do to break a window of some store (e.g.,
> Starf*cks)? How does this change the world for the better? how does it
> mobilize the anti-capitalism movement and attract new members? how
> does it raise popular consciousness concerning the nature of the
> system?
It's good for several reasons. On the one hand, you are taking action against a manifestation of capitalism. If you want a world without capitalism, you have to start taking it apart somewhere. More importantly, destruction of a Starbucks shows people that their is resistance happening in say, the USA. This is what was so important about Seattle. After the anti-WTO protests made the news, people flocked to activist groups. If you aren't making waves, people assume that nothing is going on. This is a crucial mistake the anti-war movement has made. The leadership of the movements have decided to only hold a few protests, which are always safely marginalized by the media and the police. The anti-war movement is not visible, thus it cannot: 1) show people are upset about the war; 2) cause problems for the war machine; 3) set an inspirational example for isolated activists and people who are newly radicalized.
The anti-capitalist and anarchist movements were gaining more members when they were engaged in militant actions at summits and elswhere. Contrary to what some people argued about the actions turning off people, they had the opposite effect. People flocked to the movements. Now that summit protests are less frequent, the growth of the movement has been much slower.
Chuck