photo: Alan Copeland
Any kid who
grew up in the late 60’s in Berkeley, CA, knows about Agent Provocateurs.
We certainly
did not use that phrase to describe the rabble rousers that seeded themselves
amongst the peaceful anti-war protestors waiting to strike. Punks, thugs, jerks…
no matter what the term, we could spot them a mile away. And we have all maintained
that ability even fifty years later.
On January 6,
as videos appeared showing the actions at the Capitol, the first word out of my
mouth was instigators. I’ve never worked for the CIA, or the FBI, or any
law enforcement agency. I’m ex-Peace Corps, not ex-military. Still, it was an
easy call.
The following
day I spoke to several friends with shared experiences of those crazy Berkeley
days of yore. Their take on it was exactly the same: punk instigators.
I rarely turn
on mainstream media, and do so only to check what disinformation they are
spouting on any given day. As I assumed, they followed the party line, blamed
Trump and the MAGA crowd for the trouble at the Capitol on Jan 6. They ran
video of men in the telltale black helmets, dark clothing, backpacks and bullet-proof
vests bashing in doors and windows with a very familiar set of tactics. After a
summer of non-stop footage of Antifa and BLM gangsters laying waste to city after
city, it should not be necessary to have served in a war zone to recognize what
had taken place. One didn’t need experts to analyze their modus operandi.
It must have
been around 1967 that I saw my first agent provocateur. Some low-life in a motorcycle helmet would run up just
behind the frontline of the peace-sign holding crowd, heave a rock, and skedaddle
out of there leaving the pacifist protestors to get their heads smashed in. We
learned very early on that if you spotted a helmet, or a guy trying to rouse
the crowd to rush the cops, head quickly in the opposite direction.
They were not
as organized back then, and how could they be? Pre-tech insurgency was a lot
more time-consuming. They might have been part of SDS, or Weather Underground sympathizers.
I only ever assumed that they were jerks and never thought about any
centralized group of thugs.
At the time, I
may have not grasped the idea that they were anarchists intent only on tearing
down society. But I did know that we were peacefully protesting an unjust war
and they were trying to start a riot. They were the ones bashing store windows,
throwing bricks, and antagonizing the police, then hightailing it before the
billy clubs came out. So if a fourteen-year-old could analyze the situation back
in the day, without the help of instant news coverage and think tanks, why is
it that CNN and all the rest cannot?
The truth is
that they can. They know exactly what is taking place now and what has taken
place for years.
Legacy media’s
latest fearmongering rhetoric centers around the lockdown and militarization of
Washington DC ahead of Biden’s inauguration. Odd how they showed no concern for all the violence over this past summer and remained silent while
our cities burned, police officers were killed, and family businesses
destroyed.
These
police-state tactics, repression of the truth, and outright lies by mainstream
media and big tech are not going away anytime soon. That is the real threat and
that should frighten all of us.
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For further info on the photo: Blog post Note: The AP in the photo was not able to start any trouble only because the kids around him turned the tide of anger.
Further reading about those days: A Neapolitan Intrigue
