the final victory of COINTELPRO is in paralyzing the layman lefty through paranoia of the feds

A bunch of willpower better spent organizing (or even just joining up with an organization) is spent (by some, less so talking about the people actually in orgs) being hyper-vigilant about movement infiltration. It serves to funnel the conversation into infighting and discord. Paranoia neuters solidarity.

It's to the point where I think we (communists and fellow travelers) just have to operate our opsec (or expectations of opsec) as if we (communists in orgs) know there are going to be a high volume of saboteurs and hoping we can drown or bait them out naturally. As in, stop trying to dig them out and start putting out traps, if that makes sense.

I guess I mean to say an infiltrated movement that exists is infinitely better than a secure movement that won't happen. We can strive for the latter, but you have to assume there is spies, infiltrators, etc. This is a class war. Your enemies will attempt to undermine you. Learn to operate in that environment or else you will do nothing at all.