15 January 2021

Agent Provocateur

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