Its Democracy, Jim, but not as we know it

It seems the revolution has begun. The Occupy demonstrations have taken place in over 95 cities across 82 countries but it's no longer just about 'the economy, stupid' (to use Bill Clinton's famous phrase), but about the corporate state. The economic crisis was caused by large financial institutions which had more power than elected governments. It was the economy that moved people into activism, but a bigger picture is now emerging.

Mussolini talked of the "Corporate State of Fascism". That's exactly what's developing now. It's been a hidden Fascism, with a democratic veneer, but since the turn of the century people in the US and the UK – 'Oceania', as George Orwell described it in '1984' – have been increasingly frustrated at their lack of a voice in big decisions of state. In the UK we had no voice in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, despite there being two million people out on the streets; Parliament voted on the basis of a lie. In 2001 Parliament had no vote at all, since decisions on waging war could at that stage be taken only by the Prime Minister in conjunction with the Monarch. So who did take these decisions? There is a growing feeling throughout the Western world that such decisions are taken not by elected politicians, but by gigantic financial institutions which in the end will profit from these wars.

So what would one expect from a corporate society? We may not expect the same brutality that one would have in an openly tyrannical regime, and, indeed, I am grateful to my opponents for not pulling my fingernails out, but in principle we would expect something similar. A corporate society does not uphold democratic values, even if it pretends to. Any troublesome group will be infiltrated by the corporate state, to neutralise its activities, or at least to keep them within certain limits.

This is exactly what has been emerging over the past year. On 20 October Newsnight broadcast a further revelation about an undercover policeman having infiltrated a civilian group with the purpose of subverting it:

"So far this year there have been no fewer than eight inquiries set up, after the discovery that undercover police have been used to infiltrate political organisations. There may be a ninth soon, because Newsnight has evidence of another operation, in which undercover policemen may have given false evidence in court. The officer became an activist in the Reclaim the Streets campaign, and was arrested after a group from the campaign occupied an office".

'Reclaim the Streets' is a direct action group which is concerned about the increasing takeover of urban streets by the corporate state. Their video documentary does show law-breaking, and indeed this is to be expected in a society which is more and more sceptical of the democratic processes in the country. "It turns the street into a road …", says their video, " the street can be much more about community, about social interaction … the road is a means of getting from A to B". The police do have a responsibility to keep the traffic flowing, but are their methods appropriate, and is it acceptable for the police to incite the very law-breaking which they are supposed to prevent, by means of agent provocateurs?

The Newsnight programme was about a cyclists demonstration of August 1996 in Central Lonon, in which a splinter group went to the headquarters of London Underground to unfurl protest banners. The incident led to the false arrest of one protestor, and false testimony in court by the undercover cop, who had played a leading role. The officer concerned was Jim Boyling, known in 'Reclaim the Streets' as Jim Sutton.

The Metropolitan Police were due to publish a report on an internal inquiry the following day, but at the last moment that report was delayed

It transpired that the alternative news source Indymedia had first become aware of the issue of undercover cops in protest movements and had passed information to The Guardian and BBC's Newsnight team, who worked together on their investigations. Again, the agenda is being driven by the alternative media rather than by paid investigative journalists

Since this is not just a British issue – some of these British cops had also been subverting groups abroad - Indymedia is now asking people to translate a statement on this into various languages.

I reported previously on Mark Kennedy, who had been posing as Mark (Flash) Stone in an environmental group, and whose actions had nearly led to the imprisonment of at least twenty innocent campaigners,

Lynn Watson (real name unknown), the police officer dressed as a clown in the Rebel Clown Army, a tiny group protesting against the Iraq war,

Other undercover police officers unmasked were Bob Lambert, posing as Bob Robinson,

Mark (Marco) Jacobs, whose real name is unknown,

Peter Black

and

Simon Wellings.

Groups infected were a variety of protest groups, such as anarchist, animal rights, anti-fascist, anti-globalisation, anti-racist, environmental and left-wing political groups. Those groups included: 2008 Camp For Climate Action, 2008 demo against the planned military academy at St Athan, Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp, Animal Liberation Front, anti-EDL, Cardiff Anarchist Network (CAN), Cardiff Radical Socialist Forum, Climate Camp, The Common Place (Leeds anarchist centre), Dissent! (the network mobilising protesters for the G8 summit at Gleneagles), Globalise Resistance, London Greenpeace, No Border campaigns, Rebel Clown Army, Reclaim the Streets, Rising Tide Network, and Trident Ploughshares direct action network.

The lengths some of these undercover cops will go to in gaining credibility in the groups they have infiltrated are extraordinary. Kennedy provoked fellow officers to beat him up in a Climate Camp. Jim Boyling lied under oath in a criminal trial to protect his identity. Bob Lambert appeared in court under a fictional name. Several of them had sexual relationships with some of their victims, sometimes long-term relationships.

Jim Boyling even married one of his victims and had two children with her, now aged 5 and 7. How do you explain that one to the children, even when they are older, and how will they feel when they realise how they were brought into the world? Does the state have liabilities for their maintenance and for compensation for possible psychological trauma?

So if all this is going on with the police force in groups taking part in street activism, then what is going on with the security services in other groups that the corporate state disapproves of? I have already dealt with reports from former MI5 officers of large-scale infiltration in political parties, even "tiny organisations which pose no threat to national security". The purpose would be to turn these groups into controlled opposition, or to dismantle them, or at least make them ineffectual. It appears that the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Socialist Workers Party had around a thousand members each at the time the Berlin Wall fell, and each had, I understand 20 to 40 agents, whose job it was to cause quarreling and to demolish the organisations. How extensive is this, and how far will they go in 'gaining credence of the committee', to use a phrase from an email to me from the Director of Development of Esperanto Association of Britain shortly after he had left, admitting that that was all he had been doing for the two years in which he was being paid to develop the association.

Most people's reaction to anything like this is to pretend it isn't happening, and to try to shut others up when they talk about it. They'll tell you you're putting people off joining. I take the opposite view. I'm pleased to see that Cardiff Anarchists Network put out a statement on this:

But he [Marco Jacobs] also deliberately and systematically set out to damage a movement, and we think it is important that knowledge of what he did, and how he did it, is shared and discussed as widely as possible". They also wrote that many members were reeling with anger, resentment and guilt. "Marco worked hard to sow distrust, dislike and suspicion amongst us, and it was allowing him to do [that] that was perhaps our biggest mistake", they wrote.

Yet after all this, no-one, it seems, is capable of uttering the words 'the British secret police', even though it is patently obvious that such a thing exists. Yet the police now have a problem, because if they carry on behaving like SS thugs more cases will be uncovered. It will be in their interests to keep their noses clean until the whole issue has passed over. Perhaps that is why there was so little violence in the Occupy demonstrations in London this month. It is generally believed by many of the regulars who demonstrate for various causes in Central London that the police regularly use such tactics.

The late Brian Haw complained bitterly about such things and former MP George Galloway made allegations about agent provocateurs during some demonstrations. I myself would not have believed that such things could happen until I started taking part in truth and anti-war demonstrations only a few years ago, and started seeing things for myself.

We need more people to speak out. Most people who know things won't, and those who do will get criticised for their 'methods'. Some people, such as those in the South Yorkshire Police in the Tony Farrell case, see themselves as 'footsoldiers of the Government' and are therefore consciously complicit in the cover-ups. Others, like many I know, are simply in denial, or are suffering from Cognitive Dissonance or doublethink. Even those who recognise what is going on remain silent. Yet a few, like Tony Farrell have the courage to speak out.

During my researches into the Esperanto association in 2005, I would have loved to have come across a report somewhere of subversion in some other membership association which was being taken over by an inner clique, so that I could see how that may work, and so that I would have a base for comparison. Surely someone, somewhere would have been carrying out some investigation into their own association. Did no-one in the Labour Party compile membership statistics and link them to what was recorded in the minutes and the accounts? I could find nothing. If anyone knows of any such work, I would love to receive information on it. We need this information in order to build up the bigger picture, which is now looking very ominous indeed.

I can say that at long last we have a response from the Esperanto association to my financial chart, which I eventually managed to publish in EAB Update (pp 12-13) and, in the following issue, the treasurer accepted that my figures were correct. That issue of the periodical has now appeared on the Internet for all to see (p19).

That means that she should now explain why she told the Management Committee that the capital was being eaten up when at the time it was growing. Instead of doing that, she demonstrated how she had also given the same impression to members, by producing a rival chart showing a decreasing capital. She can be sure that few members will read the text, because they have such confidence in the treasurer, that they would refuse to believe that such a contradiction would be possible, rather than looking at the evidence, so they would not notice that that was a forecast for November 1994! Why produce the forecast figures when you have the real figures, unless the intent was to deceive? The other chart gives the impression of annual losses, which obviously could not have been the case if the capital was in fact increasing.

Yet members will not speak out, but will criticise me for doing so. In the same issue (page 17) a former Honorary Secretary expresses that he could not see the point in publishing my article, even though he says I have a point. He also wrote that my chart raises the question of why they sold the shop in London. Fine, but that's his point, not mine. I could have made a case out on that, but I didn't. That letter had actually been written before my article appeared, though it was presented as a reaction to it. Criticism of the President, with which I wholeheartedly agreed, had been cut out by the editor, who also rejected my reply, saying that the matter of the capital was a 'non-issue'.

A second letter in the same issue, from a former President, criticises me for virtually everything under the sun, including my work for the 9/11 truth movement, but avoids the issue which I had raised in my article (pp 17-18). There was nothing provocative about my article, and in no way was it critical of the committee, since that had been an explicit condition imposed by the editor. The problem of waking people up in a membership association is a small-scale example of waking up the masses in the case of hidden tyranny. The solution that I see is two-fold: (1) engage with the small minority who will be prepared to engage with you, and (2) take the issue outside the brainwashed community. Then things can start to happen. The statement by the Cardiff Anarchists Network may help to encourage others to speak out.

I also found an article by comedian Mark Thomas, who had had to come to terms with the fact that a close friend and trusted co-worker had been found to be spying on his activities. That turned out to be industrial espionage, which takes us back to consider the whole lot as different aspects of the corporate state. If that causes such soul-searching, imaging what it's like if there are five, ten or twenty of them whom you've known for as many years.


I found an interesting video called 'Psychologists help 9/11 truth deniers' which describes how people react when their fundamental beliefs are challenged. This is well-worth watching by anyone who understands English. It applies not only to 9/11 but to any situation in which people may react by saying "I refuse to believe ...", rather than looking at the evidence.






I've received a couple of messages from Esperantists, saying that they were interested to hear of the infiltration of the cyclist group or the environmental group, but that I should keep quiet about the Esperanto case. Eventually they will realise that by the same logic some in the cyclist group, the enviromental group, the 9/11 truth movement, and many other groups, may be interested in the Esperanto case for the same reason. The common issue for all these groups, even though they may be working for different causes and may not agree with each other, is the defence of democracy. For undemocratic methods to be brought to light, people need to speak out in public. It's not necessary to be able to prove who has infiltrated an organisation and with what purpose; it's only necessary to demonstrate behaviour. My crime was to produce hard facts, with no allegations or interpretation. It was then for others to interpret those facts, and we have just seen examples of that in the magazine. On the other hand, members should have been more alert to undemocratic methods being used by people of influence. This is essentially the point being made by former accountant for the European Commission Martha Andreasson, who is now an MEP for my area. The accounts had not been audited, and that in itself should be good reason to replace the people in charge. Concealment in itself should be sufficient reason to remove people's representatives from office whether at governmental level or in a tiny membership association.

My idea of advancing this issue at about the same rate as the general truth movement seems to be paying off. I reported in my last newsletter about the Guardian report of a 9/11 conference in the US.

Since then we have seen a blog in the Daily Telegraph, usually one of the most establishment of the national newspapers, with the title 'The 9/11 conspiracy theories aren't as irrational as you might think'.The rest of the article was critical of the truth movement, but at least here we have a grudging acceptance that we may actually have a point. Keep them coming! Encourage them to keep slagging us off, as long as there is a grudging admission that we may be right!

There are also big issues arising in the mainstream media. The Murder of Muammar Gadaffi may have been an uncontrolled revenge killing by soldiers on the ground, or it may have been allowed to happen by those higher up. Gadaffi would have realised that they couldn't send him to the International Criminal Court for trial because of the incriminating evidence he may provide against some of the NATO governments. His murder had actually been attempted by a group in the 1990s by what is now known as Al Qaeda, paid for by MI6, but it was bungled. That was what eventually made David Shayler decide to leave MI5 and blow the whistle.

As regards the Euro crisis, was it not all inevitable from the start? I kept quiet when the Euro was about to be introduced because I regarded myself as an ignoramus on economic affairs, when the experts were telling us all that it would be alright. Are we really to believe that no-one in the higher echelons of the EU spotted the flaw? Many in the financial markets below them would have been fooling themselves rather than accepting the obvious. So was this a project destined to failure? Was the objective to force the EU countries into a United States of Europe similar to the United States of America? Fine if they want to form such a union, but only if such a decision is taken by democratic means. So what happens if we in the UK have a referendum on leaving the EU? It's quite simple, really. If the vote goes against, we stay in, and if it goes in favour, we have another referendum. But if we were really to withdraw, what would be the consequences? Is it not time someone produced a proper analysis? Are those who want power to return to Westminster deluding themselves? Who has the power now, and who would have it if we were to withdraw? It sounds to me like the gigantic financial corporations in both cases. It's just a question of which financial corporations.

So where do we go from here? I think we are on the right track. We need to maintain an awareness of the bigger picture regarding corporate control of our society, the way in which we are manipulated by hidden propaganda, financial dealing, fear-mongering, and infiltration even in tiny membership association which pose no threat to national security. There will be more revelations. When the Occupy movement starts putting up placards relating to 9/11 truth, then the whole issue of who controls our society will come to a head.

But the danger is, as always, some false-flag terror event, which could bring everyone back into line, in supporting the next war, and persuading the population that they really do love Big Brother. At the October meeting of the Keep Talking group in London we had a guest speaker from Oslo, Torstein Viddal, who is the key researcher in the truth movement into the Norwegian attacks of 22/7. He lives only a couple of minutes away from where the Oslo bomb exploded, and despite a building between there and his flat, his window was blown open. He grabbed his camera and rushed out. At the Keep Talking meeting he showed a short video of how the International Criminal Court works, and suggested that we call for an investigation by the ICC with a view to prosecuting for war crimes. That's worth thinking about. His text can be read on the Norwegian 9/11 Truth site

Also worth thinking about is the issue of corporate government, and how to bring all these issues together in the current rebellion, and how to cope with the next terrorist event, which may well be intended to derail the rebellion and give an excuse for going in with truncheons, tasers, jack-boots and worse. Keep thinking. And keep talking.