That’s the point. That’s part of what makes this so terrifying. They dedicated six pages of their report to describing their beliefs as anarchists. Which goes to show that it’s a big part of what they’re being prosecuted for. Their ideas are dangerous and they need to be put away, is basically the argument. And fuckin RICO? Like…if I were he lawyer I’d make hay out of this big deal about them being anarchist and charging them under the laws used to charge organized crime. Because there seems to be an inherent disconnect there. RICO is used to charge up the chain of the mob…but anarchists don’t have an “up the chain.” You’re trying to charge a loose group of idealists as you charged the New York City mafia dons? Get the fuck out of here.
More and more over the last few decades, media and governments have been intentionally mislabeling ideological movements as organizations.
The first big one was Al Qaeda. It has never been an organization, it’s literally just a vague set of beliefs. There was practically no coordination between bin Laden’s group and any other Al Qaeda group.
Another was Anonymous. At any given point no more than 5 people were actually in any sort of communication or association with each other, it was just nerds doing online bullshit alone and pretending to be part of something bigger. This was breathlessly reported as a “hacker group” in the media.
In our atomized present world, there are fewer and fewer real organizations doing anything, and often times the fastest path to change (or at least prominence), is by posting some viral thing that gets a bunch of disassociated people to take some kind of action.
And it’s very easy to get around the shocking concept of prosecuting “thought crimes” by simply calling an ideology an “organization”.
That’s the point. That’s part of what makes this so terrifying. They dedicated six pages of their report to describing their beliefs as anarchists. Which goes to show that it’s a big part of what they’re being prosecuted for. Their ideas are dangerous and they need to be put away, is basically the argument. And fuckin RICO? Like…if I were he lawyer I’d make hay out of this big deal about them being anarchist and charging them under the laws used to charge organized crime. Because there seems to be an inherent disconnect there. RICO is used to charge up the chain of the mob…but anarchists don’t have an “up the chain.” You’re trying to charge a loose group of idealists as you charged the New York City mafia dons? Get the fuck out of here.
More and more over the last few decades, media and governments have been intentionally mislabeling ideological movements as organizations.
The first big one was Al Qaeda. It has never been an organization, it’s literally just a vague set of beliefs. There was practically no coordination between bin Laden’s group and any other Al Qaeda group.
Another was Anonymous. At any given point no more than 5 people were actually in any sort of communication or association with each other, it was just nerds doing online bullshit alone and pretending to be part of something bigger. This was breathlessly reported as a “hacker group” in the media.
In our atomized present world, there are fewer and fewer real organizations doing anything, and often times the fastest path to change (or at least prominence), is by posting some viral thing that gets a bunch of disassociated people to take some kind of action.
And it’s very easy to get around the shocking concept of prosecuting “thought crimes” by simply calling an ideology an “organization”.