The Global Garb of the Disenfranchised
From Alternet; reporting in Miami on the use of undercover cops posing as ‘anarchists’:

“MIAMI – Protestors seemed to skirmish with heavily armored Miami police outside the Riande Hotel Thursday morning, but nothing is at it seems this week. These “anarchists” were undercover police officers whose mission was to provoke a confrontation.

The crowd predictably panicked, television cameras moved in, the police lines parted, and I watched through a nearby hotel window as two undercover officers disguised as “anarchists,” thinking they were invisible, hugged each other. They excitedly pulled tasers and other weapons out of their camouflage cargo pants, and slipped away in an unmarked police van.

On the other side of the impenetrable police barricade, a young woman with a video camera was bent over, vomiting from pepper spray. The nonviolent revolutionary Starhawk stood blinded for 10 minutes as friends washed her eyes. Others knelt paralyzed on the street.”

Here is a photo from yesterday’s FTAA protest of the undercover cops in action. Check out the taser in the hand of the undercover officer on the left. Ouch. Also note the FTAA SUCKS stencil on the backpack of the undercover officer on the right. Highly original. I really would like to see the federally funded training videos that these guys watch. They probably all have cool titles like, “Six Easy Steps to Dress Like an Anarchist”.