Read at the opening ceremony of the fifth CrimethInc. convergence, July 26, 2006

At last summer’s CrimethInc. convergence in Indiana, there was at least one federal infiltrator present disguised as a human being. She insinuated herself into a circle of friends and used their trust to frame them with conspiracy charges after buying them bomb-making supplies and renting them a wiretapped cabin [1]. We can only assume that we are similarly infiltrated this summer. I would like to address the following to our infiltrator or infiltrators: Some of the most beautiful, compassionate, socially conscious young people in North America have traveled across the country to gather here. They have come to meet like-minded friends, to exchange skills for caring for themselves and their communities, to build a struggle for justice and freedom, to fall in love and make a world conducive to falling in love. But not you. You have come, cynically, to hunt like a wolf in sheep’s clothing for young people you can entrap and ensnare. Where others see comrades, you see quarry. We are here to create; you, to destroy.

You may tell yourself that you are here to keep an eye on antisocial elements – but who is the deceitful one, lying to everyone, disguising malice as common cause? You may tell yourself that you are here to protect others from violence – but you are the only one who has come expressly to do harm. Your employers, the FBI, have a history of murder and injustice stretching back long before the notorious COINTELPRO assault on the Black Panthers. They spied on Martin Luther King. When Earth First! Activist Judi Bari was bombed, either by right wing terrorists or government agents, the FBI refused to investigate and instead tried – and failed – to frame her for bombing herself.

Anarchists, not the FBI, are the ones who oppose violence in this society. In the past twenty years of anarchist activity, the only injuries have been minor ones in cases of self-defense, in contrast to the laughter and mayhem the US government perpetrates indiscriminately across the globe. If you really hope to protect others from violence, why aren’t you working at a rape crisis center? Do you really think anarchists pose a greater threat to people than rapists do? Or is it the threat to hierarchy, not people, that concerns you?

You may tell yourself you are nobly serving your country – but there are nobler causes to serve. Your masters want power for themselves at any expense, while we struggle for respect and coexistence among all living things. You may tell yourself that you are here to do good – but you are the one on salary; we do what we do for free, for our consciences, not for a paycheck. Essentially, you are a prostitute [2]; and should you have sex with your targets in order to entrap them, as other infiltrators have done, that will come as no surprise. Imagine the conscience of a person who sleeps with others not out of love or desire, not just in return for money, but in order to ruin their lives!

You must be ashamed of yourself. Think how many people in the world would be disgusted with you, if they knew what you were doing. Anyway, the gulf between us is too broad to be crossed now. The most we can ask is that you do your job badly, like a worker at McDonalds who must feed his family even though he knows his employers are destroying the rainforest, the health of their customers, and the future of all species. If one shred of humanity remains within you after a lifetime of brainwashing, please – do your job badly.

As for the rest of you, who are not infiltrators or informants – if you disapprove of paid agents coming here to endanger you and your friends, don’t do the same thing for free. Don’t speak of your involvement in illegal activities, don’t speculate as to others’ involvement – and above all, should you ever find yourself in an interrogation chamber, with the ones who really hate our freedom attempting to terrorize you into helping them frame your friends, don’t cooperate, don’t sell out everything you believe for them.

Our freedom, our safety, are under our control, not theirs. Freedom is not a matter of how many fences are around us, but of abiding by our consciences in any situation. Safety is not the condition of being temporarily outside the grasp of our enemies, but of being able to trust ourselves never to deliver others into harm’s way, never to become something we despise.

The FBI, which exists to protect the interests of the most powerful, selfish, and destructive men in the world today, hopes to intimidate us out of our struggle for a better world. But we are here because we feel that the lives waiting for us in their society are unlivable, because we see that the injustices that create the foundation of their power are unacceptable, because we know that the pollution and destruction of their economy are unsustainable. There is no future for us except through change – so attacks on our freedom can only mobilize us to struggle more urgently.

Even if there are one hundred federal infiltrators here and only two human beings, those two human beings can be more powerful than the entire apparatus of the state. Find each other and do something beautiful.
Thank you.

1) Please see www.supporteric.org for more info on this tragic case, involving anarchist activist Eric McDavid, who had at the time of writing been held in solitary confinement for over a year.

2) Not meant as a slight against honest sex workers.