I’ve never understood leftist paranoia of feds from the 70s onwards

from the 70 onwards

COINTELPRO, the murder of civil rights activists and revolutionaries, and the coups against progressive leaders in postcolonial nations all contributed heavily to a general paranoia which is not entirely unjustified, if a bit excessive at times. I remember the first time I ever encountered information like this:

I felt angry, paranoid, and depressed for an entire day

Well, COINTELPRO was revealed in 1971 so I feel like that’s a pretty good explanation as to why the left is paranoid of feds since the 70s…

Yeah the left is doing an amazing job of tearing itself apart even though we implemented 100% effective anti-infiltration and anti-liberalism measures decades ago, causing the feds to throw up their hands and decide to shelve all of their programs designed to get the left to tear itself apart

I don’t know how it is where you are but here in Britain the cops show up at your door and threaten to arrest you if you seem like the type of person who would organise a vigil after a cop kidnaps, rapes, and murders a young woman. Also they “warn” businesses hosting your anti-oil meetings that you might be a group of dangerous terrorists making illegal plans. They also ask social workers and nurses to let them know about people expressing sympathies for groups like Stop the War or the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Maybe you live in less of a police state though.

I think its because we actually did good a few times (bolsheviks, black panthers, etc). They gotta send feds in case we don’t destroy ourselves first.