The New Green: Inside activist bootcamp
Brigid Delaney
ninemsn.com
October 19, 2009
…This cellular approach is similar to the manner in which terrorist cells such as Al Queda [sic] organise. Writer John Arquilla looked at the structure in his book Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime and Militancy [2001]. He wrote “with many groups actually being leaderless — they are quick in coming together in swarming attacks.”…
The use of a ‘cell structure’ by social movements dates back to (at least) the late 1800s — which, I’m pretty sure, pre-dates the Saudi Arabian billionaire’s embrace of terrorism by some years, if not decades; Arquilla wrote his book — actually, co-wrote the book with David Ronfeldt — on behalf of the RAND Corporation — a cuddly institution established by peaceniks belonging to the USAF in 1948. (See also : Computer-Linked Social Movements and the Global Threat to Capitalism, Harry Cleaver, 1999.) It is thus considered one of the grand-daddys of the think-tanks that have proliferated since then, and which form part of the ideological core of the contemporary military-industrial-entertainment complex.
…At the G20 rally in Pittsburgh, protesters revealed police locations on Twitter, while at the UK Climate Camp, police set up their own Twitter page to outwit the protesters. The day of the protest I watched the action via Twitter from 40 kilometres away in Sydney…
Re: G20. For this crime two anarchists from New Yawk are being charged with ‘terrorist’ offences.