Open Letter from TPTG

This piece was published by Greek group TPTG. A response is here. Personal details have been removed in line with out posting guidelines, which do not allow untrue allegations or the revealing of confidential personal information. We reproduce it for reference only.

Submitted by dr.faustus on October 6, 2011

Dear comrades,
[justify]This letter comes from Ta Paidia Tis Galarias (TPTG), a Greek anti-authoritarian communist group, which publishes a journal under the same title.1 We are writing this letter at a crucial moment for the class struggles in Greece, at a moment when the capitalist attacks against the Greek proletariat are getting harsher: the Greek government, in close cooperation with the EU/IMF, has just announced a new set of austerity measures, aimed against our direct and indirect wage (massive lay-offs from the public sector, salary and various allowance cuts, new taxes on income, cuts in pension payments, a poll-tax and new sets of property-taxes, just to name a few…), let alone general reforms affecting working conditions, pensions or the higher education system… Against all this, pockets of resistance have reappeared after three months of social hibernation.

We have been actively engaged in many class struggles that have occurred in Greece over the last few years. Through those struggles we have realized that four practical tasks take precedence over all others at the present juncture:
a) confrontation with the politics of money (that is, the recently implemented debt-crisis terrorism, itself an expression of a deeper capitalist crisis),
b) coordination and communication among proletarians participating in the various self-organized class struggles,
c) confrontation with the policies of the state, police and mass media reinforcing existing separations among us or creating new ones and
d) international cooperation among those who understand that these measures and policies are not confined to only one country.

Regarding the last two we always were, and still are, highly interested in understanding police strategies, before, during and after demonstrations and/or riots taking place all over the world. Since the rebellion of December 2008 we, among hundred of thousands others, have participated in various demonstrations, some of which have turned into mini riots (e.g. 5th of May 2010, 15th, 28th and 29th of June 2011) and thus have met the violent repression and zero tolerance of the fully-equipped police forces. This experience made us and other comrades want to delve into cases of rioting and police repression worldwide, as well as contemporary collective behaviour theories and crowd psychology, mainly theories focusing on the police perspective or having a police perspective like the one we are going to talk about below, so as to develop our own counter-strategies. This seems rather crucial to us, especially now that the capitalist attacks against us and our struggles have increased both in magnitude and frequency. We will need your help but first of all we would like to share with you some information you might not be aware of, so that we all know where we stand and what is the progress in our enemies’ camp.

After carefully searching into the relevant international literature on the internet last January, we came across the theoretical work of social psychologists collaborating with the police in the UK such as S. Reicher, C. Stott and, surprisingly enough, J. J.2 For those of you who are not familiar with this name, J or to be more precise Dr. J, as he is better known to the academic milieu (and not only this milieu).

This unexpected discovery left us all feeling rather uncomfortable and greatly puzzled, trying to think of all the possible explanations for J’s attitude. We have known the Aufheben group for many years and have been interested in their theoretical work, part of which we find particularly stimulating. As a matter of fact, six years ago, we co-translated and co-published Aufheben’s pamphlet Behind the 21st century Intifada3 with other comrades in Greece.

By further examining J’s profile on the website of the University of Sussex, unpleasant surprises kept being unleashed... We found out that J’s “consultancies include the National Police CBRN Centre, NATO/the Department of Health Emergency Planning Division, Birmingham Resilience, and the Civil Contingencies Secretariat”, while he “run[s] a Continued Professional Development (CPD) course on the Psychology of Crowd Management for relevant professionals”, not to mention that he “teach[es] on the CPD course on Policing Major Incidents at the University of Liverpool”!4

We also discovered that J was the co-author of an interesting scientific article, entitled Knowledge-Based Public Order Policing: Principles and Practice, which was featured in Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice. The latter is a journal with “international reach”, which is “aimed at senior police officers, researchers, policy makers and academics offering critical comment and analysis of current policy and practice, comparative international practices, legal and political developments and academic research” and “draws on examples of good practice from around the world, and examines current academic research, assessing how that research can be applied both strategically and at ground level”.5

J and Co.’s article discusses “strategies, tactics and technologies6 [p. 404] that “promote reconciliation rather than conflict” [p. 404] between the police and social groups, allowing “early, appropriate and targeted interventions before conflict could escalate to a level where only draconian measures would suffice” [p. 412]. Their approach, they claim, can be practically applied (actually it is, as we shall see later) and be “effective in transforming negative relations between police and crowd into positive relations” [p. 404] and thus it “can profitably exploit the opportunities inherent in crowd events” [p. 414], reinforcing already existent differences amongst crowd members, so that non-violent groups within the crowd can be “recruited as allies in subduing violence” [p. 414]

THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY OF CROWD BEHAVIOUR & KNOWLEDGE-BASED PUBLIC ORDER POLICING
Knowledge-based public order policing presents itself as the most sophisticated approach at the moment if one is to understand and explain collective behaviour, let alone to propose practical tactics to control crowds. It makes a distinct break with other relevant sociological/psychological theories as it suggests that the crowd, and thus crowd actions, is neither irrational, nor mindless, nor inherently belligerent. According to this theory, collective behaviour is not the outcome of the rapid “contagion” of psychologically fragile and primitive thoughts/actions amongst crowd members, nor is each crowd member’s individual identity dissolved within the anonymity of the crowd, as Le Bon’s crude pseudo-science alleged. Neither is it the result of violent individuals, who are drawn to crowd gatherings, as another key figure of crowd psychology, Allport, had claimed. Both traditional approaches, J and Co. argue, are wrong and most importantly dangerous for the maintenance of public order, as in many occasions they create a self-fulfilling prophesy (that is, crowd members who do act in a violent way) and thus fueling the fire. By perceiving collective actions as the result of a primitive group mind (Le Bon’s “mad-mob” approach) or in terms of crowd members’ character (Allport’s “hooligan” approach), J and Co. claim, police do nothing better than to “locate the cause of violence as lying entirely within the crowd” and not in the “interaction between crowds and the police” [p. 403].

It is on this interaction that their knowledge-based approach is focussed. In order to investigate the multi-layered dynamics of this interaction J and Co. take a step back in order to elaborate on individual and group identity. As they point out “[t]he core conceptual premise which underlies both Le Bonian crowd psychology and its Allportian critics, is that the standards which control our behaviour are associated with individual identity. If either individual identity is stripped away in the crowd (Le Bon) or else individual crowd members have flawed identities (Allport), then the crowd action will be uncontrolled and the normal restraints against aggression will be removed” [p. 405]. But, they say, 30 years of social identity research “has systematically dismantled the particular notion of identity which underlies the classic crowd psychologies. Indeed, as its name suggests, the social identity tradition rejects the idea that people only have a single personal identity. Rather, it argues, identity should be seen as a system in which different parts govern our behaviour (i.e. are psychologically salient) in different contexts. Certainly there are times when we do think of ourselves in terms of our personal identities: what makes us unique as individuals and different from other individuals. But at other times, we think of ourselves in terms of our group memberships (I am British; I am a police officer; I am a Catholic, or whatever) and of what makes our group unique compared to other groups. That is, we think of ourselves in terms of our social identities” [p. 405-406]. And they conclude that “psychologically, the shift from personal identity to social identity is what makes group behaviour possible” [p. 405-406].

But not all groups are the same. J and Co. distinguish between “a physical group of people [which they call an aggregate] and a psychological group. The former simply refers to a set of people who are co-present, while the latter refers to a set of people who, subjectively, think of themselves as belonging to a common social category. The same aggregate may contain no psychological groups (…), one psychological group (…) or indeed multiple different psychological groups (…). What is more, the psychological groupings contained in the self-same aggregate can shift as a function of unfolding events” [p. 406]. This shift, according to J and Co., is “more volatile and more fraught” [p. 407] in crowd events where “formal forms of discussing and agreeing on group norms –and how to apply these norms to novel situations” [p. 407] are absent, while “crowd events generally involve face to face contact between different parties –either one crowd versus another (…) or else –very often and of immediate interest here- between crowd members and police” [p. 407]. And they continue saying that “the relationship and the balance between groupings within the crowd is critically dependent upon the interaction between the crowd and outsiders [e.g. police]” [p. 407]. “That is, where the police have both the inclination and the power to treat all members in a crowd event as if they were the same, then this will create a common experience amongst crowd members which is then likely to make them cohere as a unified group” [p. 407].

Therefore, J and Co. propose ways of policing that not only hinder such crowd members’ unification, but on the contrary perpetuate – or, even better, extend - already existing separations amongst them (say between non-violent and violent demonstrators) to such an extent that crowd members get actively engaged in self-policing their gatherings. Citing their words, the aim is NOT to “disrupt the willingness of crowd members to contain the violence of those in their midst - what we term self-policing” [p. 408], and so they “do suggest that this understanding [of “processes through which violence escalates and de-escalates”, [p. 409]] can guide the police to act in ways that minimize conflict and maximize the opportunities to engage crowd members themselves in achieving this end” [p. 409]. Cops will succeed that “by facilitating these [legal aims and intentions that characterize the non-violent demonstrators]” [p. 409] and thus they “will not only avoid violence from these participants, they will also gain their cooperation in dealing with the minority of others. But this only becomes possible where there is information which allows the police to understand the priorities of these groups and to devise practices which will allow legal aims to be met” [p. 409]…

TURNING THEORY INTO PRACTICE
J and Co. are not paid to limit themselves to a pure theoretical debate. They provide their readers, who as mentioned before include senior police officers, researchers, policy makers and fellow academic cop consultants, with practical guidelines, regarding the most suitable police tactics. To this end, they give two “examples of knowledge-based policing in practice”. It is important to notice that after having dealt with the practical details, J and Co. ask their readers to bear in mind that what their “approach provides is a means of asking the questions from which these specifics can be developed” [p. 414] and it is certainly not a question of “‘one size fits all’ public order policing. The specifics must always be tailored to the given event” [p. 414].

The two examples mentioned are the 2001 anti-globalization protests in London and the 2004 European football championship. The first is used as an example to be avoided, as the cops chose to corral all demonstrators. Thus, they failed to “efficiently communicate” the reasoning for their actions to the non-violent ones, giving “rise not only to a shared experience amongst crowd members, but also to a shared sense of police illegitimacy” which may increase the possibility of future conflicts. Therefore, instead of “lead[ing] peaceful crowd members [to] categorize themselves along with the police and in opposition to violent factions” [p. 410], police facilitated their “categorizing along with violent factions against the police” [p. 410]. The authors spend a few paragraphs describing what went wrong (total corralling, lack of comprehensive communication strategy etc.), before they go on to describe what the correct repression tactic would have been had the cops followed their “differentiated approach” [p. 410]. The correct repression tactic, according to the authors, should include (apart from “criminal intelligence”) “new communication technologies”, “a selective filtering process” and humiliating conditions imposed on those being corralled such as “removal of clothing that obscures individual identity, abandoning placards, bottles and other objects that could be used as weapons”… As a matter of fact, it seems that their critical notes have been rather convincing and thus, as they boost, their advice “has been taken on board by the Metropolitan police and we are told through personal communication that it has been applied on a number of occasions to considerable effect” [p. 412]…

Contrary to the 2001 anti-globalization protests, the 2004 Euro championship, in which two of the authors have actively been involved cooperating with local authorities (e.g. the Portuguese Public Security Police), is mentioned as a role-model, a model of how police strategy should be and how cops should operate during such demanding situations. Citing from the article, four different “levels of policing intervention were developed with the aim of creating a positive and close relationship with crowd members, but also of monitoring incipient signs of disorder” [p.412]. In other words a graded policing strategy was followed. The first level of policing intervention was carried out by “officers in uniform, working in pairs spread evenly throughout the crowd within the relevant geographical location –not merely remaining at the edges. Their primary function was to establish an enabling police presence. Officers were specifically trained to be friendly, open and approachable. They would interact with the crowd members and generally support the aim of Euro 2004 as a ‘carnival of football’. At the same time, the presence (and acceptance) of these officers in the crowd allowed them to spot signs of tension and incipient conflict (such as verbal abuse against rival fans). They could therefore respond quickly to minor incidents of emergent disorder and ensure that they targeted only those individuals who were actually being disorderly without having impact on others in the crowd” [p. 412]. Apart from the emphasis given to targeted pre-emptive arrests, “where disorder endured or escalated, policing shifted to level 2. This involved larger groups of officers moving in, still wearing standard uniforms. Their remit was to communicate with fans in a non-confrontational manner, to reassert shared norms concerning the limits of acceptable behaviour, and to highlight breaches of those norms and the consequences that would flow from them. Should this fail, the intervention would shift up to level 3. Officers would don protective equipment and draw batons, but always seeking to target their actions as precisely as possible. If this was still insufficient, then the PSP’s riot squads, the Corpo de Intervenção, in full protective equipment and with water cannon were always ready at the fourth tactical level” [p. 413].

MAINSTREAM SOCIOLOGISTS AND SOCIAL PSYCOLOGISTS OF DEVIANCY
One common excuse often used by academics, who collaborate with the state and its various repression mechanisms, is that what they do is of purely theoretical value. Apparently this is not the case here, as the authors feel the need to back up their theoretical principles with strong evidence obtained from field-research, while they also present the practical outcome of the implementation of their guidelines “in all the [Portuguese] areas under the Public Security Police’s control (which covers all the major cities in Portugal and seven of the ten tournament venues)” [p. 412].

Another excuse, shamelessly used, is that what they do is only lobbying for less violent/more democratic public order policing. But this is not the case here either, as the authors do not disagree on principle or because of their political views (of any kind, from conservative to liberal-reformist or “radical” ones) with police forces being heavily violent but solely as a matter of tactics and public relations. If J and Co. reject indiscriminate police violence, they do so not because they favor anti-capitalist demonstrators or football fans but because they strongly believe that when police violence is exercised indiscriminately it can have the opposite effect, i.e. turn the majority of crowd members, violent activists and non-violent alike, against the cops. It is no wonder that they support the presence of riot squads in nearby areas (out of the direct sight of crowd members) in case conflicts escalate (e.g. the 3rd and 4th level of policing in the 2004 Euro championship…), while they emphatically suggest “police actions” (in their academic jargon, this term refers to cop brutality) being carefully and precisely targeted.

What is also striking is the 100% police perspective that characterizes their article. It is not a coincidence that J and Co. would rather neutrally refer to crowd members and participants nor that they present the cops as mere peacekeepers and facilitators that enable law-abiding demonstrators achieve their goals: “the primary focus of police strategies during crowd events should be to maximise the facilitation of crowd aims” [p. 409] and thus the police need to explore the means that “can facilitate alternative ways in which legitimate aims can be fulfilled” [p. 410]. Taking all the above into account, would anyone be surprised by the fact that J and Co. “use the term ‘public order policing’ precisely because [they] associate crowds with public disorder” [p. 403]?

It is obvious that J and Co. have long ago taken sides in the class war and their aim to overcome “seemingly intractable conflicts between the police and other [than hooligans] alienated groups in our society” [p. 414], as expressed in the very end of the article, is clearly about pacifying class struggles. This is also evident by the examples they present: “to the extent that police-crowd relationships are emblematic of relationships with the wider groups from which crowd members are drawn (for instance, events like Brixton and Toxteth were seen to crystallise negative relations between the police and black people in Britain), then crowd policing can have a profoundly positive effect upon policing more generally” [p. 404, our emphasis].

Their police perspective is also evident from the fact that J and Co. see no determinants that may bind crowd members together, overcoming pre-existent differences, other than inter-group dynamics, that is the dynamics between group members and “outsiders” (the police). For J and Co. crowd members just happen to be out there, their presence being devoid almost of any social context, a social sub-group amid a social vacuum. It is interesting to note the example they use regarding the train passengers [p. 406]... What an appropriate metaphor for the way they perceive society! J and Co. deliberately ignore the fact that although demonstrators may be divided in certain aspects according to their different political views or the means they are willing to use, they may also be unified against specific neo-liberal reforms, poll-taxes, capitalism etc. long before police indiscriminate tactics (or even without the latter) solidify this unification. J and Co. are also keen on presenting the various subcultural groups (e.g. hooligans) in a rather one-dimensional way, their inter-group conflicts with “outsiders” being perceived as isolated, limited and “anti-social” actions. Considering all the above, it seems that J and Co. are much closer to Le Bon’s naturalist pseudo-science they supposedly reject.

WHAT ABOUT ALL THAT?
This type of research and model development is, evidently, of key importance to the police and other state mechanisms, especially after the outbreak of the recent urban riots in UK. It is not surprising that a giant, brand new field-research project, entitled Reading the Riots,7 backed up by the Guardian, the London School of Economics and the Ministry of Justice, has been announced, just a few weeks after the recent rebellion. The Reading the Riots project will be based on interviews with more than 1.000 riot participants who have already been arrested and have appeared in the courts – an investigation method, by the way, often used by J and Co. - and on the examination of more than 2.5 million riot-related “tweets”. We assume that you have already paid close attention to these counter-revolutionary attempts to reinforce public order in proletarian neighborhoods and that you have examined the new methods the British police have been applying in order to successfully repress all future social unrest.8

In our part of the world, we have also experienced the implementation of police tactics similar to those J and Co. promote in their article. To give a few examples, cop-union cadres tried to approach some of the non-violent demonstrators of the “movement of popular assemblies” so as to have one of their union’s announcement read during the daily general assembly at Syntagma Square last June, an attempt that was, luckily, met with the protesters’ general disapproval. Apart from that, the police and the mass-media have repeatedly tried to intensify existing separations between violent and non-violent demonstrators, by continuously using the so-called “kukuloforoi”9 or “agent-provocateurs” propaganda to denounce the more violent sections of the proletariat. Left-wing and leftist groupuscules had, from the very beginning of this movement, been trying to deter any violent confrontations with the police and in certain cases they kept trying it even during the riots, while left-wing parties have released crude denunciations of violent proletarians, fuelling official provocateurology hysteria10

Greek police (ELAS) and Scotland Yard (including Special Branch) are known to have been collaborating on various levels for many years now, with the latter mainly offering training, consultancy, technical support, even personnel. The arrest of members of November 17 armed struggle left nationalist group, almost 10 years ago, which was based on interviews with various leftists, or the kidnapping and illegal interrogation of 7 immigrants (mostly Pakistani) a few days after the terrorist attack in London in 2005 are a few examples of the outcome of such collaboration, which also includes events like the Olympics 2004, or guidelines regarding immigration and border control issues. Recently, seminars addressed to senior Greek police officers were organized by Scotland Yard. We, of course, can only guess what was analysed during those seminars. According to certain newspaper articles, however, it seems that tactics to repress the “indignants” were discussed as well. It is, therefore, highly probable that theories and practical guidelines, similar to those elaborated by J and Co., might have been presented to the Greek cops.

In any case, we would urgently like to appeal to the British internationalist/anti-authoritarian milieu so that a more thorough proletarian counter-inquiry is carried out. This may include (but should not be limited to): newspaper articles, cop consultant university research-projects (especially those related to the faculties of sociology/psychology etc.), cop blogs and websites and/or the vast literature on the subject of crowd management, just to name a few obvious steps. By doing so, we hope that information (e.g. scientific papers, articles, police guidelines, reports or other details regarding seminars to cops, field-research projects, activist interviews conducted by sociologists etc.) related to the knowledge-based crowd psychology and modern policing strategies the cops are using against us will be disclosed, disseminated and discussed among the internationalist milieu, facilitating the development of our own counter-strategies. Personal witnessing of the implementation of such policing strategies in demonstrations or riots needs to be recorded, circulated and then discussed amongst us. Attempts by various sociologists to gain access to the milieu and conduct interviews have to be met with firm rejection, to say the least.11 We all know perfectly well that what they try to do is to understand us, our temporary communities of struggle, our thoughts, the way we organize against this decomposing world of capital and its spectacle and, then put this valuable knowledge into practice against us, tearing us apart. Our response should equally be collective and knowledgeable![/justify]

[left]In Solidarity,
TPTG
06/10/2011[/left]

PS: This letter has been posted on Libcom, Infoshop, Revleft, Anarkismo, Anarchistnews, UK Indymedia and Athens Indymedia.

1. Those of you who have never read any of our texts in English, could check the following links: http://www.tapaidiatisgalarias.org/?page_id=105 and www.libcom.org/tptg

2. From now on this scientific gang will be referred to as J and Co.

3. See: http://libcom.org/library/aufheben-behind-the-twenty-first-century-intifada-treason-pamphlet

4. See: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/92858
5. See the official website: http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/policing/about.html

6. All quotes followed by a page number are taken from the afore-mentioned article, which is attached to this open letter, so that a more thorough discussion hopefully be initiated.

7. For example check: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/05/reading-riots-study-guardian-lse

8. Of course, we do not simply and naively claim that from now on police will restructure its policing strategy solely according to J’s and Co. guidelines. Police tactics have always been rather diverse, ranging from the “divide and rule” and “graded policing” dogma to “zero tolerance” and indiscriminate exercise of brutal force, depending on the balance of power that exists at a given moment.

9. This term refers to those using hoods in the violent clashes with the cops so as to hide their facial characteristics and avoid arrests.

10. For a first account of the events see our text Preliminary notes towards an account of the «movement of popular assemblies» which can be downloaded at: http://www.tapaidiatisgalarias.org/?page_id=105

11. See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/07/england-riots-researchers-wanted

Comments

dr.faustus

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by dr.faustus on October 6, 2011

This is the link to the Policing article:

http://www.liv.ac.uk/Psychology/cpd/Reicher_et_al_%282007%29.pdf

Samotnaf

12 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Samotnaf on November 20, 2011

The following threads on this affair have been locked by Aufheben's minders in libcom admin:
The Strange Case of Dr.Who and MrBowdler
Intakes: Communities, commodities and class in the August 2011 riots - Aufheben
Aufheben riots article discussion
A cop consultant? A reading list.

Plus, may I remind you of the TPTG's Second Open Letter to those concerned with the progress of our enemies which libcom never put up at all.

Since libcom admin have forgotten to lock this thread, unlike all the others apart from the excitingly/enticingly entitled "Why this article has been removed?" thread (which I vowed never to return to), I thought I'd remind them to get their massive chain of keys out and lock this one as well.

But before they resume their mania for locking stable threads long after the horse has bolted, I thought I'd just post a few reflections:
1.
"Mad Mobs and Englishmen"
a book about the UK August riots by JD's "crowd psychology " mates, Stott and Reicher, has just come out. See: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Englishmen-Myths-realities-riots-ebook/dp/B006654U9U/constabler-21 . Note the Acknowledgment to Dr. J – “We would like to thank JD…for incisive and helpful comments on an early drafts of the chapters.” at the beginning - and the mention of Aufheben's Intakes article in footnote 205. Haven't read it more than very superficially yet - but it could be, shall we say, "interesting". But there’s one grave omission – not only are there no graphs of how many bicycles were nicked during the riots, but also - unfortunately - nothing about the favourite flavours of liquorice allsorts or the sizes of the vibrators that were looted in August.

2. Avantiultras and dr. faustus are two different people.
Avantiultras has had a long interest in Stott's work on controlling football fans but he didn't know who his colleague JD, who is constantly mentioned in Stott's articles is,
until he learned that from the TPTG in this “First Open Letter…”. He's spent some time in Verona and he knows the hooligan scene there well. He can verify that some ultras are fascists, some others are "anti-political" and some of them are antiauthoritarian/fuck-the-cops types. Although right wing ideology is widespread in Northern Italy, and not limited among football fans or just one group of fans, generalisations about “fascist” fans are wrong as you can see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellas_Verona_F.C. In any case in Verona there are also other ultras groups.

3. Avantiultras and dr. Faustus have not shared, consistently, the same IP address as Steven has claimed. Several times they have posted from other IP addresses, so either Steven has been misinformed or there is something wrong with his method of checking or – Marx forbid! – he is lying, playing politics so as to manipulate people against the TPTG.

4. When the TPTG referred to JD’s “friends in the security services”, being Greek they didn’t realise that most people when they hear “security services” think of MI5, when what they meant was the cops and the CRBN, and “friends” was used loosely (though it’s unlikely that he’s not on first name terms with some of the filth).

5. It should be emphasised that the original text (above in its Bowdlerised form) does not merely focus on one man but on this: “ Since the rebellion of December 2008 we, among hundred of thousands others, have participated in various demonstrations, some of which have turned into mini riots (e.g. 5th of May 2010, 15th, 28th and 29th of June 2011) and thus have met the violent repression and zero tolerance of the fully-equipped police forces. This experience made us and other comrades want to delve into cases of rioting and police repression worldwide, as well as contemporary collective behaviour theories and crowd psychology, mainly theories focusing on the police perspective or having a police perspective like the one we are going to talk about below, so as to develop our own counter-strategies. This seems rather crucial to us, especially now that the capitalist attacks against us and our struggles have increased both in magnitude and frequency. We will need your help but first of all we would like to share with you some information you might not be aware of, so that we all know where we stand and what is the progress in our enemies’ camp..” It is these strategies that should be focussed on. I noticed that in the eviction of Occupy Oakland a few days ago (there’s another Occupy there just evicted today, by the way) that – unusual for conflict situations in the USA - as they were being evicted, and with the obvious riots cops in the background, there were many cops mingling and chatting in a friendly manner to the occupiers (or at least that’s from a report I saw).

6. As RedMarriot has pointed out, much of the dominant attitudes defending JD derives from “2 Class theory”.
One of the obvious weaknesses of Aufheben, and a tendency of many ultra-leftist ''theoreticians'' in general, is their reduction of everything to a generalised critique of "value", though some are far subtler and nuanced about this than others. The simplistic versions of this critique have a tendency to see working in the police state as qualitatively no different to working for Morrisons ("it's all wage labour"). But one of Marx's greatest insights was his analysis and critique of the commodity's inhuman reduction of everything and everyone to measurable equivalents, an insight some of the cruder ultra-leftist marxians might like to use to recognise that all wage labour is most definitely not essentially the same (there are even those who consider cop consultant as just another guy trying to make ends meet for his family). Choices have been, are and have to be made; though the margin of choice is defined by our enemies, those who are so mercenary that they think that such choices are just moralisms have no right to pretend that they are part of the movement that wants to abolish the present order of things. Clearly, not all compromises with the system we have to endure until "the revolution" are the same - some are necessary to survive, others are just self-serving careerist moves that utterly fuck up any understanding of reality. And whilst in this epoch, increasing amounts of people are prepared to justify doing almost anything as being, for example, necessary "for the kids", there are very clearly certain compromises that utterly undermine their kids' future, and their communication with them, in the long term.

2-class "theory" becomes the ideological base for this ''we're all workers'' apologism, its material base often being loadsamoney (e.g. just one of JD’s projects, outside of his academic work, is funded with a 2 year grant of £83,000 ) accompanied by a totally uncritical, self-justifying, attitude to the ideological work of those expounding it and a simplistic dismissal of the term ''Middle Class'' as being 'merely' a sociological concept. How convenient – conveniently ignoring the hierarchy in the division of labour, simplifying everything into an equality of alienation, conveniently blind to the fact that some 'intellectual labour' is certainly more proletarianised, and far less ideological, than others - e.g. teaching a foreign language, which in some parts of the world is extremely badly paid, or call centre operators in India, which there is a job reserved for the proletarianised Middle Class (though not always so proletarianised : at one time, many call centre workers in India were getting higher wages than Indian University professors.) But much of it is just plain unproletarianised Middle Class - i.e. it is work that clearly reproduces the hierarchical division of labour both in the nature of the authority roles and the ideology developed, and this top heavy intellect-separated-from-practical-consequences gets translated into an idea that it's enough to be revolutionary in one's public revolutionary writing. One of the essential roles of the intellectual section of the Middle Class is to develop ideologies that implicitly or explicitly justify their own definitions of themselves as having a consciousness of being objective and detached - 'scientific' rather than an unenlightened self-interested career move. If such people are to contribute to a radical opposition to this society they are going to have to take the risk of subverting these roles and ideologies, along with the rest of us – though, as we have seen from this miserable affair, those of us who are lower in the hierarchy are having a dreadful uphill battle, fraught with minefields of deceit and denial, in challenging the absurdity of their position. Of course, the whole question is more subtle than simply resorting to “The enemy is middle class”. The conditions of class distinctions have in many ways been changed by the defeat of past struggles. Old class boundaries have become far more nuanced and complex, blurred – we have to see how people manifest themselves in the fluidity of real practical struggles and subjectivities in order to see how the middle class/working class dichotomy plays itself out , how individuals and groups undermine their complicity with this society or reinforce it.

Response to TPTG

A response to an open letter by Greek group TPTG.

Submitted by Aufheben on October 7, 2011

TPTG have chosen to publically identify the real name of an Aufheben contributor, a method we have previously only encountered from the right-wing press. They have done this despite an email circulated in August clarifying the numerous factual errors and false claims they make. They make extremely serious charges of ‘collaborating with the state and repression’ and ‘pacifying class struggle’, despite knowledge that this is just a smear, and added to this with unfounded speculations of their own. We regard it as ridiculous that at a time of unprecedented class offensive by capital, some of Europe's ultra-left have chosen to focus on ten-year-old gossip about Aufheben, and we resent the fact we've had to waste time on dealing with this when there's any number of more pressing things to be involved in. Nevertheless, we are obliged to respond.

The research work
J did not write the ‘Policing’ paper or any part of it – yet despite knowing this the TPTG piece chooses to refer to this as J’s paper and quotes from it extensively as if it represents J’s views. We obviously reject fully the liberal-reformist assumptions, language and aims of the paper. J was added as an author by the first author as a ‘favour’, because part of the paper refers to J’s research on identity-change in crowds. Being added as an author is a standard academic practice; and sometimes published papers contain statements that some of the named authors don’t agree with. But in this case it was a mistake by J to allow his name to be added to a paper that he was against in principle.

TPTG take the word ‘consultancies’ on J’s university profile too literally. The ‘NATO’ reference is actually a literature review by the Department of Health which cites J’s research on a mass emergency. The review and the research are about psychosocial care and nothing to do with crowd control (this can be checked by the link on his research website); J had nothing to do with anyone from NATO; and J is not responsible for the views expressed by the document authors or any of their statements or recommendations. As TPTG know, The talks to the ‘policing major incidents’ meeting, the CBRN centre, and Civil Contingencies Secretariat were each about his research on mass emergencies. They were part of the dissemination of his research to the emergency services and other relevant organizations that he is expected to do as part of his work at the university. The ‘blue light services’ work closely together; and so talking about emergencies means probably talking to cops as well as the others. His University encouraged this, and it would have looked odd to refuse to communicate with the cops. So he accepted this as a small cost of the overall job of research work.

The mass emergency talks consisted of a critique of irrationalist models and assumptions, and describe his research evidence that membership of a psychological crowd in an emergency is a source of resilience and adaptive response (such as coordination and cooperation). This argument provides a possible justification for emergency response strategies prioritizing communication and provision of information (lack of which survivors find distressing and frustrating) over control. He stands by this research work as worthwhile and even humane.

The supposed dangerousness of the liberal reformists
The TPTG letter is factually incorrect. J’s two colleagues do ‘lobby’ for less violent policing. All such liberal-reformist lobbying addresses the cops in their own terms - and this is what we disagree with. But it is simply wrong and confused to say that this equates with ‘support’ for the use of force; it is precisely because the two colleagues do support ‘anti-capitalist demonstrators and football fans’ that they seek to reduce police violence, arrests and jail sentences.

More importantly, however, J rejects his colleagues’ reformist project: we cannot contribute to the communist movement by using ‘enlightened’ expert advice to alter policing methods, or through any other such mediations, but rather through imposing ourselves collectively. The research he does with his two colleagues, and the fact that his name is sometimes attached to publications by them that are used to put forward their liberal-reformist arguments, is politically irrelevant, rather than practically or ideologically damaging.

TPTG suggest that the ideas in the ‘Policing’ paper have helped in tactics of repression. This is based on a misunderstanding. The premise of the paper is the cops’ own role in (inadvertently) contributing to the development of a riot. In plain English, ‘guiding the cops to act in ways which maximizes the opportunities to engage crowd members’ in processes of de-escalating conflict means suggesting to the cops that it’s in their own interests not to use force as their first choice method. The research on which the paper is based shows that policing perceived by crowd members as illegitimate and indiscriminate brings them together against the police; the premise, therefore, is those situations where people are not already united against the police. The research and ideas don’t explain how the police’s actions can create difference in a crowd where it didn’t exist previously.

Giving the cops the ‘insight’ that their own (‘illegitimate and indiscriminate’) behaviour can contribute to crowd conflict is not at all the same thing as giving them the ability to undermine our struggles. In the first place, there are obvious limits to the extent to which the cops can take on board and act upon this knowledge. For one thing, due to their social location, the police are in a sense right to fear ‘the crowd’ (and therefore ‘rational’ to resist the overtures of the liberal reformers, as many of them do): at the end of the day, the state is threatened by crowds of angry proletarians and reacts accordingly. They will therefore still tend to act ‘against the crowd’ on occasions, even when given the ‘insight’ that beliefs about crowd dangerousness can be a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The ‘Policing’ paper cited by TPTG only aims to “hinder … crowd members’ unification” by arguing against brute force repression. But it is simplistic to understand by this that there is a straightforward relation between repression and the development of struggles, in the same way that there is no simple relation between ‘facilitative’ policing and the falling back of struggles. There are too many mediations. Experiences of police ‘illegitimacy’, rather than spurring people on, can actually be ‘disempowering’. There is not much use being anti-police if you can’t do anything about it. On the other hand, struggles can sometimes take off when policing is experienced as soft or ‘fair’. For example, the UK student movement was boosted by events at Millbank in 2010, when police held back. The crowd event remained buoyant but did not escalate; but the movement itself did escalate through that event.

In short, TPTG are simply wrong to state that the ‘Policing’ paper, and by extension J, help the cops practically with ‘correct repression’. Ultimately, the police are forced into repressive strategies by proletarian militancy regardless of such ‘insights’, and in any case the relationship between soft/hard policing and advance/retreat of struggle is highly mediated and contingent on numerous factors. By association TPTG have implicated J in collaboration with repression - a very serious charge with no basis in fact. Just as we disagree with his liberal reformist colleagues’ view (that working to soften the state through the mediations of expert opinion is a part of social change), so we also disagree with TPTG when they suggest that this expert intervention is an active impediment to social change.

After this decade-old gossip resurfaced back in January 2011, TPTG said they didn’t want to use the Aufheben group e-mail to contact us. Another friend, P, requested and was given one of our personal e-mail addresses in February; but no-one has used this or any other means to get in touch with us about this except through this public ‘outing’. TPTG have made extremely serious charges against one of us (“cop collaborating”), but made no attempt to clarify the facts – for example by contacting us with a simple e-mail. We circulated an email back in August explaining these facts. It seems to have been ignored. But why let the facts get in the way of a good smear story?

Aufheben
7th October 2011

Aufheben
Brighton & Hove Unemployed Workers Centre
PO Box 2536
Rottingdean
BRIGHTON BN2 6LX
UK
www.libcom.org/aufheben

Comments

Nate

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Nate on October 7, 2011

I appreciate this clarification and think TPTG are out of line. I for one could use a bit of context and back story here. There are some hints of past issues - reference to an email in August that attempted to clarify things and other communications, 10 yr old gossip. That makes it sound like this is old news, whereas the open letter (admittedly I barely skimmed it) makes it sound this like this something they just discovered.

Also, question on these two bits -- "J did not write the ‘Policing’ paper or any part of it – yet despite knowing this the TPTG piece chooses" and
"As TPTG know, The talks to the ‘policing major incidents’ meeting, the CBRN centre, and Civil Contingencies Secretariat were each about his research on mass emergencies"

Both of these are claims about what TPTG knew when they were writing their open letter. How do you know that they knew this stuff? That's not a hostile question, I just want to understand better.

Joseph Kay

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Joseph Kay on October 7, 2011

Nate

makes it sound this like this something they just discovered.

They 'discovered' it cunningly hidden away on J's faculty page. J's job has been common knowledge in the ultra-left scene for a decade (I'm told, I wasn't around then, and perhaps neither were TPTG).

Nate

Both of these are claims about what TPTG knew when they were writing their open letter. How do you know that they knew this stuff? That's not a hostile question, I just want to understand better.

Apparently this first re-emerged in January, and since then various sections of Europe's ultra-left have been drafting polemics and gossiping amongst themselves. None of the protagonists have taken the courtesy to contact Aufheben, apparently on the delightfully circular logic that they're accused of being cop collaborators, and they refuse to speak to cop collaborators. Despite all this, word made its way via the grapevine to Aufheben (and at a similar time, libcom). In August, Aufheben drafted a letter which was sent to interested parties, including TPTG. That seemed to be the end of it. Then this text appeared, repeating accusations they now know to be false (not even attempting to refute the explanations, simply ignoring them in favour of scandalous claims).

bootsy

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by bootsy on October 8, 2011

Why has the libcom group immediately labelled the TPTG letter a smear? The whole matter seems far more ambiguous than that.

Fall Back

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Fall Back on October 8, 2011

Because it is - it knowingly states stuff the authors explicitly know to be a lie. Even if you thought there was a real issue here (and there isn't), that alone makes it a smear.

Dangerfield

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Dangerfield on October 8, 2011

I had the exact same question. How does an open letter is coined a "smear" as lightheartetdly as that! Apparently your eagerness and impatience to reply illustrates clearly that the "king" is as naked as a naked featherless chicken ready for the oven( I hope I am wrong about this assumption).
Concerning the reply by Aufheben, it really fell short of what I would expect as a carefully written well-argumented answer! It has all the necessary "ingredients" that would allow someone to accuse it of wallowing in denial and superficiality. I will be waiting for something better..

Joseph Kay

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Joseph Kay on October 8, 2011

This has been doing the rounds since January (and before that, on and off for a decade). libcom admins are well apprised of the facts. As were TPTG before they published information they know to be false.

bootsy

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by bootsy on October 9, 2011

edit

Joseph Kay

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Joseph Kay on October 8, 2011

bootsy

If there is more information here which is not public then fine. But from what is available over the internet I don't see how the TPTG letter is merely a smear.

It is a smear because snitchjacketing someone as a police collaborator is pretty much the worst thing any revolutionary can do within the realms of discourse. TPTG not only made no effort to verify the facts, when further information was sent to them they ignored it.

bootsy

Its not false though.

Yes it is. Categorically. The most that can be said honestly is a million miles away from "pacifying class struggle" or collaborating in state repression, and far more banal. These kind of accusations are extremely serious. In the past they were sown by the state to get people killed. The stakes aren't that high here, but people have been attacked at the anarchist bookfair over far less. There's plenty of unhinged types about with a grudge against the cops.

bootsy

Why did this person allow their name to be attached to such an article?

I don't know. Maybe he needed publications to keep his bosses happy. Maybe he never read the piece. Maybe he figured the only harm done would be to himself as and when some gossiping ultra-lefts got hold of it. It's patently obvious he rejects the article though, and TPTG were told this back in August.

bootsy

Why are they working closely with the writers of such an article?

I don't know how he chooses his colleagues. I think ESIM research is a pretty small fringe field. But again, we're back to guilt-by-association. 'He has worked with people who have written for the policing journal which is read by cops' is pretty weak, and nowhere near substantiates the headline claims of "pacifying class struggle" and so on.

I've had several comrades smeared in the press over the last few years. People straight away saw through the twisting of facts, the speculation, the innuendo when it was penned by right-wing hacks. The sophistry's no less when it's penned by libertarian communists.

Wellclose Square

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Wellclose Square on October 8, 2011

Agree with bootsy and Dangerfield on this - what TPTG have brought out into the open can't simply be brushed aside as a 'smear', and Aufheben's response seems rather too eager to attempt to 'explain away' the (self-proclaimed) involvement of one of their members in the development of the theory and practice of public order policing. I think there's rather more 'explaining' to do (beyond shooting the messenger), though whether it will wash is another matter... At the very least, the Aufheben member's academic role raises eyebrows (well it did mine).

bootsy

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by bootsy on October 9, 2011

edit

Joseph Kay

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Joseph Kay on October 8, 2011

Bootsy

The response here from Aufheben, and you JK, simply smacks of collective denial.

No, the charges smack of dishonesty. Unless everyone's suddenly become an expert in ESIM, J's academic output, the allegations against him etc in the last 24 hours, it's reckless to be repeating the charges against him. The libcom collective looked into this in some detail over a month ago. Please think twice about accusing people of being in denial from a position of ignorance. This is precisely why smears work: rebuttal is interpreted as proof of denial! It's ducking stool logic. If you're not as well informed as you'd like to be, that fine, ask questions etc. But don't start repeating the false accusations in the guise of wanting to know more, because that's exactly how smears become rumours which become folk truths.

Bootsy

JK there is harm done to the individuals who police successfully arrest and prosecute as a result of knowledge gleaned from J's research

But J's research has nothing to do with arresting people. I cannot emphasise this enough. Have you read any of it? This is the problem with smears: people are already repeating as fact these very dangerous claims.

bootsy

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by bootsy on October 9, 2011

edit

Juan Conatz

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Juan Conatz on October 9, 2011

The way it was explained to me by someone in academia is that it is standard practice to include as co-author, those who's research forms a significant basis for study.

For example, one academic puts out a paper on A. Then a second academic puts out a paper on B, but uses A as a significant basis for B. That second academic puts the first academic's name as co-author, even though they had no part in that work other that their paper on A was used as a major part of the research for paper on B.

tastybrain

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by tastybrain on October 9, 2011

bootsy

The issue that TPTG raise is that he appears to be, albeit indirectly, providing the police with knowledge and information which might be of use in putting down a riot.

I can't comment on the actual issue at hand, since I haven't read either the initial letter by TPTG or the response, but I would like to point something out. Couldn't the same be said of many articles on Libcom? We have hundreds, probably thousands, of articles which provide detailed analysis of various riots, rebellions, social disturbances, and uprisings. Any cop or police-collaborating academic could come on this site and probably glean a lot of important information. While we are providing this information in the hopes of furthering unrest and dissent, they could use it to suppress these things.

A big part of academia is it (supposedly) revolves around knowledge production, with free access for anyone that wants to use that knowledge. Academics really can't control how people use this information once it is out there. I'm currently working on a paper about spontaneous strikes and non-hierarchical forms of organization in the labor movement. I'm hoping, once I'm finished, that it can provide rank and file trade union activists, average workers, or dissident intellectuals with knowledge about the history of non-bureaucratic class struggle and help them participate in or facilitate such struggle in the future. It could just as easily, however, be utilized by some union-busting firm or capitalist union bureaucrats to more effectively smash the tendencies I hope will be furthered by the paper's dissemination.

bootsy

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by bootsy on October 9, 2011

edit

Rob Ray

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Rob Ray on October 9, 2011

Well look at it this way, in this thread you start a conversation about how university struggles can be placed on a more militant footing. It can also be read in reverse by anyone wanting to undermine such tactics.

Was that the original intent of the post? Of course not, but you put it out in public for discussion. Anything we discuss in public, be that through academia or forums, is open to misuse. If we get into the field of "don't research stuff because it can be used against us" we might as well give up and go home.

And it's not like we don't do it the other way round - hell half my ideas for publication content and technique are taken from capitalist training.

bootsy

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by bootsy on October 9, 2011

edit

jesuithitsquad

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by jesuithitsquad on October 9, 2011

Right, but taking all other things at face value, imagine yourself in this situation in which a friend or a person who is a known & trusted millitant had some manner of questionable background. This background comes up & he sends out an email giving more information on the background (not that it would really be anyone's business outside of those he works closely with anyway). Then a group of people half way across the world write a denunciation about the background, completely ignoring your friend's email and using his real name and giving identifying information. Don't you think it's more than a little bit possible your response might end up a bit ott?

And none of this even touches the fact that loads of communists throughout history have had less than stellar backgrounds...

(Written from half-way around the world.)

Joseph Kay

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Joseph Kay on October 9, 2011

bootsy, libcom have 'blatantly taken sides' because we've taken it upon ourselves to become well-apprised of the facts. Barely anyone chipping in their opinion has read any of the material in question beyond googling for 30 seconds, uncritically repeating TPTG's distortions and regurgitating university press releases at face value.

This is utter bullshit. You don't pronounce someone guilty of collaboration with the state, then demand they prove innocence. Even bourgeois courts are better than that, and even the bourgeois press first put allegations to the party before publishing. If TPTG really think they are uncovering a mole why didn't they contact Aufheben to confront him? Instead, this gossip has bounced around the ultra-left echo chamber for the best part of a year and now public, a string of people with literally no idea what they're talking about are tripping over themselves to have an opinion from positions of ignorance.

This is the fouth time someone I know has been exposed in the past year or so, although the first time by 'friends'. What those clamouring to pronounce on J's guilt don't seem to understand is libcom wouldn't allow these kind of smears on any of you either without significant evidence. We looked into this well before it was published, so when it was we acted swiftly. It's a basic question of principles. Perhaps people will only understand that when it's their own name being dragged through the mud by a string of polemical distortions and known falsehoods.

bootsy

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by bootsy on October 9, 2011

Fine JK I have edited all bar one of my posts. In hindsight I regret getting into a back and forth over this and admins can feel free to delete my posts if they wish. Nevertheless I do feel profoundly uncomfortable with all of this.

Dangerfield

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Dangerfield on October 9, 2011

Obviously bootsy, what we are dealing here, has already surpassed libcom and their futile attempts to give a "satisfactory" explanation about the subject matter.. I still haven't made up my mind where the truth lies but what I can certainly say is that aufheben should come back with a more convincing, well-documented reply.
Sentimentalism and denigrating comments do not constitute a reliable and responsible answer to these kind of serious accusations.

Leo

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Leo on October 11, 2011

it knowingly states stuff the authors explicitly know to be a lie.

Actually it doesn't. It states stuff which the accused claim that the authors explicitly know to be a lie. There is a difference.

It is a smear because snitchjacketing someone as a police collaborator is pretty much the worst thing any revolutionary can do within the realms of discourse.

Aside from actually collaborating with the police within the realms of discourse, of course.

It's patently obvious he rejects the article though

Actually, it isn't patently obvious he rejects the article. What is patently obvious is that he says he rejects the article in his political life. In his personal life, whether he wrote it or not, it is something he obviously defends as his name is on it. It is true, of course, that he may well have co-signed this article if not co-wrote it to please his bosses. The question is how far can revolutionaries go to please their bosses.

The libcom collective looked into this in some detail over a month ago.

The libcom collective is in England as is Aufheben. I would be very much surprised if the libcom collective sent someone to Greece to inquire with the TPTG.

Of course the way the critics of the official libcom line were treated was no different from any other time. The aggressive tone used reeks of loyalty and makes me think that the libcom collective or at least some people in it has rather close personal relations with Aufheben and none whatsoever with the TPTG.

And because of this, the libcom collective is doing a very bad job trying to defend this person.

And with all the accusations of smears, slanders, lies and so on, I think it is telling that neither Aufheben or the libcom collective has said anything about why the TPTG is doing this if there is no fire to the smoke.

As for what I personally think, I don't want to comment on the accusations of the TPTG themselves, because I know little about the situation and don't personally know anyone from Aufheben.

I do know the TPTG, and I do know that they are very active, experienced and serious people with a history of involvement in the struggles in Greece. They are not political novices, and I don't think that they would do something like this without thinking it through, based on gossip or with malicious intent. This said, however, although they are fairly good English speakers, English is their second language as it is mine and anyone who speaks English as a second language is more prone to misunderstanding phrases and so on.

Yet at the end of the day, what Aufheben itself says is problematic enough on its own:

TPTG take the word ‘consultancies’ on J’s university profile too literally (...) The ‘blue light services’ work closely together; and so talking about emergencies means probably talking to cops as well as the others. His University encouraged this, and it would have looked odd to refuse to communicate with the cops. So he accepted this as a small cost of the overall job of research work.

"It would have looked odd to refuse to communicate with the cops"? Really? What would have happened if it looked odd, would he be shot or sent to a prison camp? Would he even be fired from his job? Or would his colleagues simply have a doubt that maybe he doesn't like the cops? Most people generally tend to dislike the cops after all.

There can be movements when revolutionaries might have to communicate with the cops. For example, if someones house is robbed and a police report is necessary to get insurance money, I don't think anyone can condemn a revolutionary for having to do this (and would probably advise them to clean up the publications etc. before reporting the robbery).

Of course none other than the accused know how literal the word ‘consultancies’ should be taken and what this guy said to the police. However talking to the police from a scientific position about their job because it would "look odd" otherwise is not an acceptable argument unless there was an actual risk of something happening to the person if it did indeed look odd.

bootsy

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by bootsy on October 12, 2011

And with all the accusations of smears, slanders, lies and so on, I think it is telling that neither Aufheben or the libcom collective has said anything about why the TPTG is doing this if there is no fire to the smoke.

I asked that question in this thread.

Fall Back said this:

Well, I'd suggest the most obvious is that the international ultra-left scene is a tiny incestuous scene, and scene's like that love gossip and scandal?

The truth is banal and boring. Having uncovered a secret police agent is sexy and attention grabbing.

Leo

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Leo on October 12, 2011

Well, I'd suggest the most obvious is that the international ultra-left scene is a tiny incestuous scene, and scene's like that love gossip and scandal?

The truth is banal and boring. Having uncovered a secret police agent is sexy and attention grabbing.

Unconvincing.

Jason Cortez

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Jason Cortez on October 12, 2011

But what is TPTG's motive. The "open letter " does not clearly state what they think should happen now or why they have 'exposed' J except being surprised at his research. So what is your 'convincing' explanation of their motive.

It looks like it maybe necessary to de-construct the "open letter" to untangle claims, attributions from 'facts' and then tease out the possible contradictions and tensions in J's work and his political engagement.
But then what? What are "we" to do with this knowledge , how are "we" to apply it? To what purpose?

Wellclose Square

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Wellclose Square on October 13, 2011

Admin: no-flaming.

And which admins allowed this straightforward abuse to go up? I'm despairing of the role of the 'libcom collective' in its approach to the situation - the same outright denials repeated louder and louder ("Move along, nothing to see here"), a peculiar indulgence towards undoubted complicity with elements of policing policy... and I'm being called a 'dumbfuck' for quibbling with what seems to be a concerted (and, at times, aggressive) attitude of denial. Other posters have questioned the integrity of those who may or may not have assumed 'extra identities' to post their opinions on this and the other thread... if it's a way for certain 'regular posters' who are known personally by J's defenders in order to circumvent personal abuse directed at them for taking a stand then I'm not surprised.

Shame. Shame.

Joseph Kay

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Joseph Kay on October 13, 2011

Wellcose, most of the admins are based in the UK. These posts were made late at night here, and they were moderated as soon as people saw them in the morning. Please try not to respond to flaming with flaming, use the report button and as soon as a moderator sees it we'll sort it out. Conspiracy theories about admins allowing personal abuse to further some pro-police collaboration agenda are just that, conspiracy theories. And people are denying the charges because they're not true. Taking denials as proof of guilt is ducking stool logic.

Nate

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Nate on October 19, 2011

Shame! Shame!

Lulz.

Edit: Seriously, no flaming. We only have so much time a day to work on this site, please don't unnecessarily increase our workload for lulz. - Admin.

whatisinevidence

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by whatisinevidence on October 19, 2011

And people are denying the charges because they're not true.

Which charges aren't true? Even you admit that J.D. did in fact consult the police. You just said his particular sort of cop consulting was okay. Others in the Libcom group have denied he was a police consultant. If you guys are going to lie about this together (or be delusional about this together - I can't tell which it is), you should at least stick to the same story.

The evidence is overwhelming and damning: http://libcom.org/forums/general/cop-consultant-reading-list-17102011

And Aufheben acknowledges in their letter that this topic has been circulating for at least a decade. A poster sympathetic to J.D. posted on the other thread saying this was discussed in the mid-90's. If they were criticized for this a decade ago, Aufheben and J.D. can't claim ignorance or just silly mistakes. If J.D. was criticized for this a decade ago, what possible excuse could he have for writing or letting his name be put on those papers (I refuse to believe he didn't write them, but with everything else it doesn't really matter either way)? If they wanted to put this to rest, why wouldn't Aufheben bring up the shit from the 90's? If J.D. supposedly doesn't have control over this online academic profile, why did it suddenly change in response to being called out?

Every attempted defense digs the whole deeper.

Wellclose Square

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Wellclose Square on October 19, 2011

Nate

Shame! Shame!

Lulz.

For what it's worth, I called you a dumbfuck because I think you're a dumbfuck, but I probly should have said "asshole."

Yep, shame, considering you were responding to this contribution:

"Agree with bootsy and Dangerfield on this - what TPTG have brought out into the open can't simply be brushed aside as a 'smear', and Aufheben's response seems rather too eager to attempt to 'explain away' the (self-proclaimed) involvement of one of their members in the development of the theory and practice of public order policing. I think there's rather more 'explaining' to do (beyond shooting the messenger), though whether it will wash is another matter... At the very least, the Aufheben member's academic role raises eyebrows (well it did mine). "

Keep on digging, ********.

Samotnaf

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Samotnaf on October 19, 2011

Nate's post above seriously needs consideration as it clearly adds to the debate.

This is my thought about it:
Nate's close to these people and is repressing the enormity of it all with insightful critiques (eg "dumbfuck" and "asshole") which Wellclose really ought to consider (unlike Nate who has nothing to consider - the nothingness of his need to defend his acute need for a submissive/aggressively defensive denial about the significance of all this).

Rob Ray

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Rob Ray on October 19, 2011

Nate can you pack it in please? Slinging names around helps no-one.

Ed

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Ed on October 19, 2011

whatisinevidence

Even you admit that J.D. did in fact consult the police. You just said his particular sort of cop consulting was okay. Others in the Libcom group have denied he was a police consultant. If you guys are going to lie about this together (or be delusional about this together - I can't tell which it is), you should at least stick to the same story.

By 'others' you mean me, right? Singular. So, "someone else" is better here (sorry, its the TEFL teacher in me).. and to be honest, you're just being pedantic. When I said he wasn't a cop consultant, I obviously meant that he hadn't consulted the cops on crowd control shit not that he never had any contact with cops on anything.. so it's hardly a case of 'the mask has slipped!', it's much more a case of you guys pouring over every use of punctuation to find more to continue your witch-hunt.. which to be honest, is just bloody tiring..

And just one last time, can we not have ANY flaming? No calling each other names, no pulling hair, no nothing.. all it does is increase the amount of time admins have to spend deleting or editing posts (and so decrease the amount of time building the site and reporting on, you know, the class struggle..)..

Wellclose Square

12 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Wellclose Square on October 27, 2011

Surfing around stuff about the Occupy movement I stumbled across this:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/10/487566.html?c=on#comments

Amidst the paranoia about what the device with the CBRN serial number was, this comment jumped out:

"The UK Police National CBRN Centre is a unique organisation. While having the name Police prominently in its name, it is in fact an organisation that has an ethos of multi-agency working at its core. The Centre has been providing CBRN training for a number of years that is thoroughly multi-agency in both content and reach, being provided to emergency response organisations throughout the UK."

That reminded me of Aufheben's defence of J's work:

"TPTG take the word ‘consultancies’ on J’s university profile too literally. The ‘NATO’ reference is actually a literature review by the Department of Health which cites J’s research on a mass emergency. The review and the research are about psychosocial care and nothing to do with crowd control (this can be checked by the link on his research website); J had nothing to do with anyone from NATO; and J is not responsible for the views expressed by the document authors or any of their statements or recommendations. As TPTG know, The talks to the ‘policing major incidents’ meeting, the CBRN centre, and Civil Contingencies Secretariat were each about his research on mass emergencies. They were part of the dissemination of his research to the emergency services and other relevant organizations that he is expected to do as part of his work at the university. The ‘blue light services’ work closely together; and so talking about emergencies means probably talking to cops as well as the others. His University encouraged this, and it would have looked odd to refuse to communicate with the cops. So he accepted this as a small cost of the overall job of research work."

Curiouser and curiouser...