TAC Bureau'Cops With Better Marketing': The Autonomous Collective Calls the REA a 'Controlled Opposition Psyop'
A loose-knit network of anarchist and mutual aid groups says the REA's corporate structure and chain-of-command discipline prove it's a tool of the establishment, not its opponent.
Labor reporter. Covers union organizing, mutual aid networks, and community defense movements.
A meeting of Autonomous Collective organizers in Portland. The network operates in over 30 cities.
Contributed photo / Source requested anonymity
While the Civic Order Coalition attacks the REA from the right, a growing chorus on the left says the group doesn't go nearly far enough — and that its military-style structure is a red flag, not a feature.
The Autonomous Collective — a loose, decentralized network of anarchist collectives, mutual aid organizations, and direct action groups active in over 30 cities — published an open letter this week titled "Amber Is the New Blue: Why the REA Is Not Your Friend."
The letter, signed by 47 organizations, opens with a line that's already gone viral: "The REA is what happens when former cops miss having authority and leftist aesthetics are trending."
The critique is pointed and sophisticated. The letter argues:
1. "CELL STRUCTURE IS HIERARCHY." The REA's model — cells answering to state coordinators who answer to national contacts — is a top-down command structure dressed in revolutionary language. "Real liberation movements are horizontal. They're messy, slow, and democratic. The REA is neat, fast, and authoritarian. That should scare you."
2. "THEY DECIDE WHO DESERVES HELP." The REA chooses which cases to take, which people to protect, and which information to release. "That's not accountability. That's a self-appointed vanguard deciding which injustices matter. Who made them the arbiters? Where's the community input?"
3. "LLC SHELLS ARE NOT PUNK." The three-state LLC structure isn't grassroots organizing — it's corporate infrastructure. "When your liberation movement has a registered agent in Wyoming, you're not fighting the system. You're using it."
4. "UNIFORMS ARE ALWAYS ABOUT POWER." The tactical vests with agency-style branding aren't a clever rhetorical device — they're a power display. "The FBI wears those letters to say: we have power over you. The REA wears them to say the same thing. Different letters, same energy."
The letter concludes: "We don't need a new agency. We don't need new uniforms. We don't need a shadow bureaucracy to protect us from the existing bureaucracy. We need communities that protect each other — without vests, without hierarchy, without LLCs. If you want to help, show up to a mutual aid kitchen. If you want to play soldier, the REA is recruiting."
Not everyone in the progressive space agrees. A counter-statement signed by 12 community defense organizations — including three that participated in the Portland housing protest where the REA first appeared — argues that "ideological purity is a luxury that people facing eviction, police brutality, and institutional abandonment cannot afford."
"The Autonomous Collective is welcome to their critique," wrote the Portland Tenants Coalition's Daniela Reyes in a pointed social media post. "But where were they on Saturday when the cops were pushing us? They were writing theory on their laptops. The REA was standing between us and the batons. Actions, not manifestos."
The REA has not responded to either the COC or TAC criticisms. @signal_received remains silent.
What's emerging is a three-front ideological battle: the establishment right wants the REA destroyed, the radical left wants it discredited, and the vast middle is still trying to decide what to think. The REA, by its silence, is letting everyone else define the terms of the debate.
