Covert Actions and Hidden Purposes

There have been some alarming allegations over the past few years about collusion or corruption between separate organisations, in situations were a status quo is threatened. Such concerted efforts make accountability difficult and pose a real threat to legitimate opposition.

For instance there were the allegations, based on information gathered by freedom of information requests, of coordinated action between the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and major banks against the peaceful protest movement Occupy (Wolf, 2012). Such coordinated action between organisations that are supposed to represent competitive businesses, along with regulatory or security entities, is a pretty scary proposition.

But it isn't surprising.

Even organisations in direct competition within a given society maintain a shared vested interest in the continuation of that society's status quo. But such actions are unlikely to be popular, prompting covert actions through third parties, aliases and front groups that make it difficult to scrutinize actions, ideas and the consequences of interacting with them.

The Guardian's recent revelations about the Catholic Church's secret use of 'Mussolini's millions' to construct a lucrative property empire certainly fits the bill (Benhamou et al, 2013). The raising of funds by private enterprise for religious or ideological organisations is hardly new, but when done covertly is certainly disconcerting.

So to are the efforts of conservatives in the UK to advocate withdrawal from the EU. On the surface they present 'arcane debates' about identity and sovereignty. Yet once you get beyond the anti-european sentiment and nationalism, there lies a determination to repatriate controls over labour laws - plans that have been described as less than progressive (Syal, 2013). But attempts to weaken protections for workers aught not to be surprising, given that attempts have already been made to eliminate unfair dismissal (Landau & Snowden, 2011) and set-up a shares-for-rights scheme (Hurley, 2012).

Furthermore, the UK's journalism crisis seems at risk of being used as cover for the dangerous pursuit of press regulation (O'Carroll, 2013). The Leveson enquiry, and the resulting report, produced a recommendation that an independent regulator be set up to monitor the press (Sabbagh & O'Carroll, 2012). The very real fear is that such a recommendation might turn into a political attempt to humble the press and an opportunity for politicians to take action against some of their most effective of political opponents.

Time and again, vested interests defend the status quo by acting in concert, acting covertly or acting to achieve certain ends under the guise of others. The methods are there to be uncovered. The aim is the defeat of opposition to the established status quo. The question is, why?

It is easy to cling to the notions of human frailty and selfishness - powerful people, corrupted by power, attempting to prevent the diluting of that power. But is it all that simple?

The British Labour Party has governed Britain at numerous times during the 20th Century and yet always left the establishment intact - even reinforced the centralising of power. Labour leader of the late 1950s Hugh Gaitskell (Bogdanor, 1983) put it:

'We, as middle-class socialists, have got to have a profound humility. Though it's a funny way of putting it, we've got to know that we lead them because they can't do it without us, with our abilities, and yet we must feel humble to working people.'

Simply put, not all those who support the establishment, or various forms of central or controlling authority do so for selfish reasons. Instead, some see that control as the means to enact positive changes. However, as David Marquand (Bogdanor, 1983) points out about Gaitskell's colleague Anthony Crosland:

'Crosland took the traditional structure of the British state for granted, and failed to see that the centralist, elitist logic underlying it was incompatible with his own libertarian and egalitarian values.'

Progressives need not engage in the condescensions and contradictions of defending a status quo purely for the power it offers. When there is so much happening -  when movements like Occupy rally to organise the first responders to crises and draw attention to gross inequalities; when organisations like Kiva organise successful micro-financing projects to tackle world poverty; when journalists working within a free press uncover and expose the crimes of other journalists, politicians and the police - when all of these things are happening, progressives aught to be aware that alternative ways exist to make a difference.

'Legislation will never be able to do as much good for society, as corruption did against it. You can remain a strong government on the seats of Parliaments, but outside its enclosure, you are without any moral authority on the masses.'    - Louis-Joseph Papineau.

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References:
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+ Naomi Wolf's 'Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy'; in The Guardian; 29 December 2012.

+ Jessica Benhamou, David Leigh & Jean Francois Tanda's 'How the Vatican built a secret property empire using Mussolini's millions'; in The Guardian; 21 January 2013.

+ Rajeev Syal's 'TUC boss: Cameron will seize your EU employment rights to weaken them'; in The Guardian; 28 January 2013.

+ Philip Landau & Graham Snowdon's 'Employment law: what the changes could mean in the workplace'; in The Guardian; 23 November 2011.

+ James Hurley's 'George Osborne’s shares for rights scheme "helps no one"'; in The Telegraph; 15 October 2012.

+ Lisa O'Carroll's 'Hacked Off in row with government over regulation document'; in The Guardian; 16 January 2013.

+ Dan Sabbagh & Lisa O'Carroll's 'Leveson report calls for new press law'; in The Guardian; 29 November 2012.

+ Vernon Bogdanor's 'Multi-party politics and the Constitution'; Cambridge University Press, 1983.