Yes, professional chaos agents and disruptors do exist. In my ignorant naivety, I once allowed one of them into my own personal space. She had pushed herself into the nascent American truckers protest movement, had infiltrated Childrens Health Defense early on (advocating that people bring guns to CHD-sponsored "medical freedom" rallies), and bragged about recruiting members of the "Proud Boys" group to attend the Lincoln Memorial "Stop the Mandates" rally. Just for the record, although this action enabled various corporate media outlets to cast shade on the rally as a far right wing operation, I did not personally see any at that rally who identified as "Proud Boys", and corporate media did not offer any photographic or other evidence, rather merely their own unsupported assertions that this was the case. This same individual also convinced a prominent physician often cited as a key leader in the COVIDcrisis resistance to hire her to support his social media activities.
For more details on that, please see The Themis Report , The Bonita Report , "New Report Details Efforts to Infiltrate, Disrupt Health Freedom Movement" ("The Defender"- Childrens Health Defense), and related coverage (linked).
These types of professional activities and strategies, as detailed in The Themis and Bonita Reports, are yet another weapon in the rich arsenal of psy-ops or Fifth Generation Warfare strategies which have been deployed by governments, their surrogates and contractors, and corporations against law abiding citizens to mitigate or eliminate threats to the narratives and policies which the government or corporations seek to promote. Two of the key objectives of these activities are to damage the morale of protest group leaders and members, and to create destructive chaos which saps the energy out of genuine grassroots movements.
The Themis Report offers these specific recommendations for dealing with this form of Fifth Generation Warfare (note these represent the POV of the report authors, and I do not endorse all of these):
Suggestions: Activists themselves must ultimately take responsibility for the safeguarding of their local group. To help activists stay aware of suspicious activities, below are some suggestions for assessing whether your group is being targeted.These types of professional infiltration/disruption activities are clearly nefarious, and I would call them evil. If you are prone to thinking using religious terminology and metaphors, these are people who are doing the Devil's work, and often mask themselves as religiously devout to a fault. By their actions you can know them.
- The flier you created for your upcoming rally is now circulating with changed time or location — or has been canceled.
- Unknown groups are claiming they organized your event.
- You find yourself in some unknown Telegram group you didn't join.
- You find yourself in any of the Telegram groups listed in this report.
- You find yourself in a group that uses a bot to solicit personal information. Many legitimate organizers use bots on Telegram to keep spam to a minimum. Be in particular on the lookout for bots that are used to maintain hyper control of groups, especially multiple groups or ask for private data.
- You find yourself in a group with admins who shame members into action.
- You find yourself in a group that continually marries health freedom causes with hot button issues for right-wingers such as audits/elections, critical race theory (CRT), or partisan politics. (We can care about these causes and aim to be inclusive with an honest respect for diversity, but if you are in a group that cannot remain nonpartisan or separate alternative causes from core health freedom issues, there may be a problem.)
- Out of the blue, you find yourself dealing with "drama queen" organizers, such as you have not quite encountered before even though you've been organizing rallies for years. (These people might be operatives there to cause division, chaos, and disintegration.)
- Be very careful sourcing and sharing information related to legal help, exemption forms, alternative medicine, etc.
- Be very careful sharing anything that asks for personal information about yourself or others: signing petitions, answering questions about organizers, doctors, lawyers, yourself, etc. Assume lists are being built. Source information from trusted organizations you have learned to trust.
- Stay away from any talk of violence, guns, militias, overthrowing the government, America's last stand, etc. that does not align with the health freedom movement as a peaceful movement.
- Be on the lookout for a new kind of infiltrator. Unlike times past when they were obvious muscular men wearing dark sunglasses, today's operatives are more likely to be multiracial, sassy, brassy millennials, or even innocuous-looking homemakers.
- Support those colleagues who have a hard time digesting why it is not strategic to engage with infiltrators.
A paradox with being alert and cautious is the possibility of becoming paranoid and overly suspicious, including even of trusted members. A judicious balance is paramount, and yet most activists have little experience with such a dilemma. Developing greater self-awareness and listening to your own intuition can help resolve uncertainties.
Two resources for activists are:
- Citizen Ninja: Stand Up to Power by Mary Baker
- Cognitive Infiltration of the "Alternative" Media by James Corbett
We need to be careful that we don't provide legitimacy to known operatives. Some activists may say "no harm done," but likely the operative is simply being on good behavior. Over time, however, once trust is publicly established, the messaging and actions could subtly begin to shift in ways that are designed to not support the health freedom movement. This is how "controlled oppositions" typically work.
The term "limited hangout" is important to understand. If we do not identify infiltrator "brands" in the movement, our authentic health freedom voice could become ever more diminished as the collective controlled opposition messaging aims to crowd us out.
Given the many historical examples, a modicum of education on COINTELPRO might be instructive.
One of the infiltrators' planned outcomes is to leave activists dispirited. Do not lose heart! Learn the tactics and how to divert them while remaining focused on our movement's shared goals of freedom and peace for humanity.
Use challenging situations as opportunities to explore your need for authority and guidance from without. Are you dependent on organizations to guide your work? Or are you your own trusted leader? When we collaborate with other trusted, longstanding organizers in our communities, make safe spaces, and encourage a culture that remains focused on the movement's goals, we will prevail!
But not all chaos agents and disruptors are professionals, and many may not even be aware that they are acting to sow division, mistrust, dissent, and to destroy momentum and enthusiasm for an otherwise worthy cause. As an introduction to this category, I recommend that you re-read our popular substack essay on "The No Asshole Rule" .
Although I led off this essay with examples of professional chaos agents and disruptors, and a discussion of what you can do to protect yourself from being used by them, much more routinely encountered (and generally more destructive) are the insidious malicious gossips which seem to infest everything. Like cockroaches. This category of destructive actors appears to take many forms, and are typically driven by a wide variety of motivations and agendas. The "Dark Triad" of psychopathology is often involved.
According to Psychology Today:
The term "Dark Triad" refers to a trio of negative personality traits — narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy — which share some common malevolent features. The construct was coined by researchers Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams in 2002. People with these traits tend to be callous and manipulative, willing to do or say practically anything to get their way. They have an inflated view of themselves and are often shameless about self-promotion. These individuals are likely to be impulsive and may engage in dangerous behavior — in some cases, even committing crimes — without any regard for how their actions affect others.Or we can just refer to these sorts of folks as assholes. Which gets me back to the "No Asshole Rule".
While many researchers consider psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism three distinct traits with overlapping characteristics, others believe the commonalities suggest an underlying personality construct that has yet to be fully understood.
Though there are physical and behavioral cues that have been shown to be associated with the Dark Triad in research settings, individuals with these traits may excel at hiding their true nature, especially at first. Narcissists, for instance, often appear charming and likable upon first meeting; some evidence suggests that this may be due to the perception that they have high self-esteem, a socially desirable trait.
It can be difficult to spot someone high in Dark Triad traits, and without a formal evaluation, you may never know for sure. But someone who repeatedly lies, demonstrates a marked lack of empathy, or bullies others to achieve their own goals may be high in one or more dark traits.
What I have repeatedly encountered over the last three years of my journey through the COVIDcrisis, the "Medical Freedom Movement" and the related protest groups, organizations and forums is that, in times of fear and stress, people are easily influenced and manipulated by those who are prone to promoting malicious rumors to advance their own interests. Time and again, when I encounter an organization marked by turbulence, backbiting/stabbing, "bad girl" (and boy) behaviors, group targeting of "out" groups and individuals - frequently leading to a pattern of cyberstalking often referred to as gang-stalking, there are a small number of individuals (sometimes a single individual) who are at the heart of these repeated drama events. These are the bad apples who spoil the barrel; these are the dark triad "Assholes". You can identify them quite easily by tracing their footsteps, the path of damage and chaos which they leave in their wake.
Here comes the kicker. When you see this pattern of activity, it demonstrates a leadership failure. The "Assholes", often with the dark triad of personality traits, cannot help themselves, and in the end - from an organizational leadership standpoint - they are not to blame. No, the fault really lies with leadership that is unwilling or unable to recognize how corrosive and damaging these people are, and fails to take prompt, definitive, corrective action.
Protest movement leaders, eager to grow their organization and activities, are prone to say "Yes" to any and all volunteers. And very reluctant to prune out the bad wood, to get rid of the bad apples before they contaminate the entire barrel. And so they postpone, rationalize, provide soft reprimands. "C'mon kids, cut it out, just play nice with each other". Who wants to intervene in internal politics - particularly in a volunteer driven organization? Any responsible parent who has had two or more children gets it. How can you mediate a fight between brothers or sisters? It all boils down to some form of "he said, she said", and you always end up reprimanding both. A total lose-lose situation.
And therein lies the trap. The nice-guy trap. The "I just want to be liked, can't we all get along" trap. Because there are people in the world who thrive on the attention and power they can develop by being assholes. And assholes are just gunna be assholes. Just like haters are gunna hate. Same thing, often the same people. And if allowed to persist within an organization, granted legitimacy by just being allowed to continue at the table while engaging in their repeated destructive behavior, they will hollow out morale and end up fostering an organizational culture in which backbiting and malicious gossip becomes the norm.
Why do they do this? There must be a million reasons. They could be under the influence of a true professional chaos agent/infiltrator/disruptor. Their personal goals and objectives (ergo agenda) may differ from that of the organization and its leader. Maybe they want to be boss (see "dark triad" above: Machiavellianism). Who knows? But it does not matter. The cure is the same, no matter the motive.
You can find them by following the pattern of chaos and disruption which they leave in their wake. The pattern of good people who come into contact with them and then resign from the organization. You will know them by their actions, and the bodies they leave behind as they move through your organization and through time.
A true leader has to make hard calls. But this one is easy. You just have to cowboy up and do what needs to be done. Apply the "No Asshole Rule". If you have not read the book, then read the damn thing. Even if the chaos agents in your organization seem to be adding value, you have only two choices. Allow them to persist and eventually they will rot the whole enterprise. Or get rid of them. As soon as possible.
Which is to say that you really have no choice at all. So cowboy up, and get it done.
Comment: For more on COINTELPRO see the articles below: