The person who engages in cell structured activity almost always leads a completely double life, often pretending to endorse opposite views (posting Gandhi quotes and favoring electoral politics on social media that are the opposite of their views, for example).

🤢 I get that it’s smart and much safer, but I could never. I do wonder where the author is getting “almost always”…

But also the emphasis on sealed lips leaves out a lot of important nuance imo. Tactful and measured disclosure can do a lot for motivating others & spreading hope, reducing stigma & normalizing direct action, strengthening relationships & building trust, building confidence & getting reinforcement/validation, etc. Ofc, if you’re working with others, sealed lips is arguably a moral imperative, but the author mentions sleeper cells and then doesn’t make any distinction between the two with regards to this.

There’s a lot of very impactful work that can be done in the gray area here, and the author seems to believe there’s not enough value there to even be worth a passing mention

I loved the read though. I’ve been starting to let my appreciation for centralized leftist organizing displace my relevant anarchist values, and this essay was a nice reminder