Comments on: Life’s a Snitch: Common Ground Co-Founder Admits to working as FBI Informant

By: The Understory » Escalating Violence Against Anti-Mining Activists in Chiapas and El Salvador

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:49:01 +0000

[...] federal legislation like the Animal Enterprise Terror Act, are watched and infiltrated by Joint Terror Task Forces or watched by corporate private security keeping “tabs” on anti-corporate campaigns. And while [...]

By: Escalating Violence Against Anti-Mining Activists in Chiapas and El Salvador « It’s Getting Hot In Here

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:42:36 +0000

By: Steven H.

Steven H. — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:06:20 +0000

Having been close to activists intermittently, I is commonplace for people to make flip statements about opposing the government in various fashions.

Some people can get carried away, and incindiary devices are not the way to go (if these really were being considered).

That said, informing on non-violent activists seems pretty low.

Maybe the guy was caught with contraband and made a deal? I don’t know enough about this situation.

Any type of activism will likely be seen as illegitimate by law enforcement, and the FBI has a horrible anti-democratic and criminal record (as with the Black Panthers). Activists need to be very careful with respect to tactics and strategy–and understand that there could be informants in the group.

Best luck to all, Common Ground Relief does good work. Hopefully this will not slow down the momentum or the prospects for organizing the New Orleans community toward justice.

By: Richard Graves

Richard Graves — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:34:31 +0000

Editor’s Note: The IP addresses all originate from a large Internet Service Provider – so it does not necessarily indicate that posts are originating from the same person. Rather, it is a routing address, so someone could be using it as a proxy or the ISP is doing so automatically.

By: Supermom

Supermom — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 06:31:11 +0000

I have known Brandon Darby for 32 years….and I know him like the back of my hand! I admire him for standing up for what he believes in and not being afraid to admit when he is wrong! This man has a heart of GOLD and gives to others less fortunate even out of his own need! Wow! He has grown up and educated himself…unlike so many people! All this talk about the “violent Brandon Darby” is the stupidest thing I have ever heard! You people need to go and leave comments on Madonna and Brintney Spearce……I’m sure you know them also….Please fill us in on your conversations with them!! Get a life! Brandon’s found one…find one of your own! Make a difference in someones life…..Brandon did! Way to go Brandon! I am proud of you and your honest work!

By: randy viscio

randy viscio — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 04:16:10 +0000

Sparki, you’re talking foolish…we’re not “the same people”…why woluld I put my last name..don’t be a dumbo …it plays into their hands., Anyone can email me at Rviscio@gmail.com…OOooooooo conspiracy….blah, blah, blah

By: sparki

sparki — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 19:07:29 +0000

Here’s new website detailing info about Brandon Darby selling out his friends to the Feds.

http://brandondarby.com/

By: sparki

sparki — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 05:55:04 +0000

it doesn’t have anything to do with me having an open mind or disagreeing with your analysis, it’s about having an honest dialogue on this forum. we’re often beset upon by those with interests different than ours and one person posting under several names is a)dishonest b)the work of corporate or gov’t interests trying to be disruptive. it’s very obvious that those interests are attempting to smear and disrupt organizers in austin and new orleans and using forums like this to do so occurs often. therefore, i’m going to call it out when i see it.

By: SRC

SRC — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:12:17 +0000

Ed. Note: Heaven forbid more than one person disagrees with the analysis of the poster. I am only one poster.

Thanks for keeping an open mind…

By: Cascadia Brian

Cascadia Brian — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 20:55:31 +0000

I met Brandon just after the hurricane hit and worked with him for months at Common Ground, at times quite closely. We shared several good friends as well and we were always friendly with each other and worked well together.

While certainly Brandon has (or had) some good qualities, he was consistently ego maniacal, self-involved, and overly self-assured.

I have witnessed him admitting that he virtually lives for being the center of attention and becomes depressed when he doesn’t have it. He also had some real issues with misogyny.

More importantly he was extremely, and at times quite visibly emotionally unstable, mercurial, and erratic as well as unreasonable, rash, and even fanatical when convinced he was doing the right thing. (In a semi-scary way, not in the normal “activist with a cause” kind of way.)

This played out both in extreme bravery (and bravado) as well as deeply unacceptable behavior.

Ironically enough Brandon actively spoke of his desire for activists to do activities like the ones he was informing against. While we should await more evidence to emerge, it seems reasonable that people are speculating to whether he was a provocateur in addition to being an informant.

It’s certainly possible he believes he is doing the right thing. It may be that the folks at the RNC were planning things that were foolish or even unethical by my standards – I frankly don’t know enough to say.

But regardless that doesn’t mean this was an effective – let alone remotely just or ethical – way of going about stopping them.

Lots of people do terrible things thinking they are doing the right thing from George Bush to coal company CEOs, destroying people lives for some perceived higher purpose. That does not make destroying people’s live in any way acceptable: there is rarely, if ever, a higher purpose that justifies it.

> And how in the hell can you claim that Brandon, not Scott, was the only person talking about
> armed revolution in the early days of Katrina

Sure, it’s possible other were doing this in addition to Brandon, but that is completely incidental.
Brandon has actively encouraged the same things he has sent others to prison for.

No one else has done that.