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Title: A Murder of Crows Author: Various Authors Date: March 2006 and 2007 Language: en Topics: Algeria, animal liberation, anti-work, Argentina, insurrectionist, Iraq, Italy, New Orleans, Oaxaca, repression, Vancouver, veganism Source: Retrieved on May 17, 2009 from http://www.geocities.com/amurderofcrows1/][www.geocities.com]] and July 17th, 2009 from [[http://zinelibrary.info/harvest-dead-elephants-false-opposition-animal-liberation
The revolt that exploded with determination and persistence in the
French banlieues (with flare-ups in Belgium, Berlin and Athens) is
animated by the lively rage of young casseurs, human beings who, like so
many around the world, suffer endless condemnation to a daily life that
is nothing but dissatisfaction, misery, humiliation and exploitation.
The acts of these wild youths, which the âright-thinking,â priggish
bourgeoisie simplistically write off with contempt as violence for its
own sake, reveal a much more subtle meaning, laying bare the violence of
an economic-social system that imposes increasingly dehumanizing
obligations in its own interests and in the interest of the few who
benefit from it: a useless and harmful job in exchange for a wage to pay
back to the masters for homes, goods or âfreeâ time. And just as this
legalized violence is not blind, but sees quite clearly against whom it
is acting, so also, the casseurs are quite aware when they vent their
hatred against cops, cars, businesses, commercial centers and other
symbols of isolation and power.
The riots that are going on attack two levels of state intervention at
the same time: the police deployed to keep an eye on and punish the
poor, and the car to be paid off in installments, symbol of individual
âindependenceâ, of consumption, of time on credit.
To drag in religious motives â as the right has done â is a pathetic
attempt to stem the revolt. The excommunications of the Islamic
authorities have not stopped these enraged people who do not recognize
any mediators. So it is here that a more democratic politician or
commentator from the left comes to concede, if not a justification, at
least a motivation to the episodes that are overturning the horrifying
normality of the banlieues: these invisible outskirts are an example of
the degradation that bad administrations ignore, thus allowing their
inhabitants, who are mostly immigrants that society does not want to
integrate, to nourish a most uncontrollable rage. Thus, a plan for urban
ârequalificationâ is supposed to be necessary, perhaps entrusting the
project to some architectural standards and following the principles of
bio-architecture (or more simply those of a more effective social
control). But from New York to Paris, from London to Ramallah, ghettoes
are the very form of the market and of politics. The latest illusions of
the integration of the poor are burned up together in the blazes of
Clichy-sous-Bois. No one seems to ask what cities have become. Doesnât
anyone even notice that the âmost rationalâ urban plans serve to
obliterate the natural â and with it the human â environment, paving and
building solely in order to give priority to the circulation of
commodities and consumer-workers, to the detriment of human circulation
and communication? Cities are containers of capital and human resources
to invest and exploit. What then are a few hundred cars burned and other
sad places damaged in comparison to the millions of people who are
damaged and destroyed every day by those who impose the usual, senseless
and boring life on them?
It seems unlikely that this revolt will become generalized. To achieve
this, it would be necessary for each and every common mortal,
pen-pushers mechanized by stereotypes and daily rhythms, to decide to
become aware of the need to put an end to this system â the sole true
cause of the misery which we suffer â sabotaging it once and for all.
We joyfully greet these manifestations of the refusal and destruction of
everything that represents and contributes to exploitation,
brutalization and destruction of the human being.
Long live the wild youths of France!
Social war against capital!
Some friends of the âriffraffâ
November 2005
On December 7, 200, six people, Chelsea Gerlach, Bill Rodgers, Sarah
Harvey, Kevin Tubbs, Daniel McGowan and Stanislas âJackâ Meyerhoff were
arrested for allegedly taking part in a wide variety of attacks claimed
by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). On that very same day, several
people across Oregon were subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury to
be convened in Eugene. One of those served with a subpoena, Darren
Thurston (a Canadian citizen), was also arrested and is now facing
charges related to false documents. Within days it was revealed that
informants, including Jacob Ferguson, a lifelong friend of one of the
accused, were used to gather information. It was also revealed that
Meyerhoff had turned stateâs witness.
In a terrible turn of events, on December 22, Bill Rodgers was found
dead in his cell in Flagstaff, Arizona from an apparent suicide. Bill
worked at the Catalyst Bookstore and Infoshop in Prescott, Arizona and
was involved in ecological struggles for many years in different parts
of the United States. According to those who were in contact with him
and a news story, which interviewed one of his supporters, Bill was
doing well despite the terrible circumstances. His death came as a shock
to many, both to those who did not know him and especially to those who
did. Billâs passing is a loss to all of us and the loss of someone who
cared immensely about people and the world in which we live. There is
much more to be said about his life, and even more to be done about his
death, but it is important to remember that we can honor his death by
continuing to struggle.
On January 20, federal prosecutors and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
announced a 65-count indictment of 11 individuals related to 17 attacks
in the northwest. In addition to the six people arrested on December 7,
2005, it also indicted Jonathan Paul, Suzanne Savoie, Joseph Dibee,
Rebecca Rubin and Josephine Overaker. Paul and Savoie, who were
originally subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury, were both
arrested in Oregon only days before the indictment was announced, and
Dibee, Rubin and Overaker are luckily out of the country. In the weeks
that followed five individuals were revealed as âconfidential sourcesâ
for the governmentâs case, and on February 23 two individuals in
Olympia, Washington, Nathan Fraser Block and Joyanna L. Zacher, were
arrested and indicted in connection with the May 2001 arson at a
Clatskanie, Oregon tree farm. It has become painfully obvious that the
government intends to bury each one of these people to set an example
for anyone even thinking of taking action.
One of the main motivations behind the arrests and subpoenas is
undoubtedly the stateâs need to halt the multitude of direct actions
undertaken by the ELF. The FBI has labeled them, along with the Animal
Liberation Front (ALF), the greatest domestic âterroristâ threat, and
with good reason. What began as a few attacks in the late â90s, has
blossomed into scores of direct actions across the U.S. against a wide
variety of targets including suburban developments, car dealerships,
genetic engineering labs and crops, logging sites, and more. Also many
attacks claimed by the ELF overstepped the bounds of simply fighting
ecological devastation, and were linked to situations of wider struggle
such as the attack against an Army recruiting station in Alabama, an
attempted arson of a water bottling plant in Michigan.
Many have come to recognize that the fight against ecological
destruction has many fronts, and that striking the enemy, while
dangerous, is quite simple. Radical participation in social struggles,
attacking structures of power, and rejecting compromise and
reconciliation with those who are destroying our lives and our world,
are the real cause for the stateâs fear. Thus they round up those on
their watch-lists, hoping to make an example of them in order to
frighten others into submission, to halt any attempts at solidarity for
fear of being swept up as well, and to make us remember that the State
is master of orchestrating violence.
The U.S. government exploited the attacks on the World Trade Center that
occurred in 2001, using the specter of terrorism to attack many social
movements and to frighten people into acceptance of the most invasive
âsecurityâ measures. This strategy has been used in the current wave of
repression, with each of the accused being fitted-up as eco-terrorists.
For the state, anyone who refuses institutional channels for dissent, or
who chooses not to simply have an opinion and take direct action, is a
terrorist, an extremist, and an enemy of freedom. It is ironic that
states across the world vehemently denounce âterrorist violenceâ while
at the same time causing more death, destruction and misery than any
so-called terrorist groups.
None of the attacks for which the accused are charged harmed a single
person, which is more than can be said for companies like Union Carbide
and Freeport-McMoRan, who are responsible for the deaths of thousands in
India and West Papua. It is the same for the U.S. government, who is
responsible for killing well over 30,000 Iraqi civilians in the last
three years of war, and millions of others in Southeast Asia and Latin
America in wars of counter-insurgency. It is clear that the real
terrorists are those who arrested and rounded up the accused, and not
the other way around.
Since the 1960s the state has repeatedly used grand juries to target
forces antagonistic to it: the Black Panthers, the American Indian
Movement (AIM), and animal and earth liberation groups. Composed of 16
to 23 jurors, grand juries do not actually decide innocence or guilt.
Rather, they decide whether or not there is probable cause to charge
someone. Unlike a normal court hearing, there is no judge, nor are those
subpoenaed entitled to legal counsel within the courtroom. Instead the
hearings are conducted in secret, with defendants who are forced to
testify or face jail time. Grand juries are used to divide and isolate
individuals, to turn social fighters against one another and to break
the bonds of friendship and affinity that form the basis for social
movements.In 2005 three grand juries targeting activists were convened:
one in San Diego and two in San Francisco. The grand jury in San Diego
was convened to look into the 2003 ELF arson that destroyed a large
apartment building under construction in the University City district.
One in San Francisco targeted former Black Panther members for a bombing
at an Ingleside police station over 30 years ago and the other targeted
animal rights activists for possible connection with the bombing of a
pharmaceutical company. Three people refused to testify before the San
Diego grand jury and spent several months in prison and five ex-Panthers
refused to testify in San Francisco. The former panthers were imprisoned
for two months and were only released when the grand juryâs time limit
expired. The other grand jury in San Francisco was reconvened in late
January 2006 and concerned animal rights activity as well. It is
apparent that the state is taking action against current movements and
is also trying to settle old scores in a time when political repression
seems to be well tolerated.
It is important to remember, however, that repression experienced by
activists and radicals is not abnormal and cannot be separated from
other aspects of state repression. Across the U.S., the government and
mass media are attempting to scapegoat undocumented immigrants,
so-called âillegals,â portraying them as terrorists, criminals and
leaches on American people (while at the same time creating
opportunities for businesses to legally employ them for extremely low
wages). This has lead to increased support for the further
militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border, for round-ups and especially
for deportations of immigrants. Aside from this new upsurge in
anti-immigrant sentiment, there is the daily repression faced by working
class people across the board, and specifically communities of color.
The U.S. has the largest prison population in the world, and hundreds of
people are beaten, shot and killed each year by the police. From our
perspective, the prison system, which helps maintain social-peace, is an
instrument of daily terror masquerading under the guise of law and
order.
Thus we are faced with a dilemma, what to do in the face of repression?
First and foremost, when the state focuses its repressive apparatus on
radicals, it must be fought. Thus this is no time for becoming quiet and
closing in on ourselves in hopes of weathering the storm. Quite the
opposite, it is time for increased struggle and solidarity with comrades
facing repression. Supporting the accused through monetary donations is
important, but revolutionary solidarity must go beyond simple support
campaigns. This type of solidarity is based on the recognition that
struggles are intimately intertwined, of the way in which the
exploitation and repression of others and our own fate are connected,
and it also demonstrates the points at which capitalism and the state
operate in similar ways in very different places.
Comrades in Greece are particularly active when it comes to showing
revolutionary solidarity. Following the European Union summit in
Thessaloniki in 2003, seven people from Spain, Greece, and England were
arrested. The Greek government wanted to scapegoat these seven,
threatening them with long prison sentences. Rather than appealing to
the state, anarchist comrades decided to play their own game.
Demonstrations occurred at the prison where the seven were being held,
at the home of the prime minister, and in city squares across Greece.
These demonstrations were complemented by occupations of universities in
Athens, Hyraklios and Thessaloniki, and by occupations of radio stations
in order to broadcast solidarity statements and the statements of the
prisoners. Also the headquarters of various political parties were
attacked with molotov cocktails, as were many banks, all in support of
those who were being held by the Greek state. Clearly this strategy
differs significantly from the sad and ineffectual petitioning that
passes for solidarity in most countries.
Therefore revolutionary solidarity also implies attacking power
ourselves. Rather than playing the stateâs game of compromise and
negotiation, we can pursue our own course of action. In light of the
current crackdown in the U.S., comrades in Spain and France have
demonstrated their support. On the night of December 31, 2005, the ALF
liberated 28 beagles from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the
Independent University of Madrid in memory of Bill Rodgers. Another
action undertaken in memory of Bill, occurred in the town of Arles in
France. There the ALF torched a bus belonging to a bullfighting
organization. Those in France and Spain who carried out these actions
did so with the recognition that their struggle is linked to Billâs and
his to theirs. This leaves us with a thousand and one possibilities for
attack: against repression, against ecological devastation, against war,
against the industrial system, against work and so on.
It is important to remember that certain actions could adversely affect
the outcome of any political trial, so intelligent choices must be made.
One particular case that comes to mind concerns Jeff âFreeâ Luers. Prior
to his sentencing an attack occurred against the same exact car
dealership that he was accused of targeting. A communiqué was issued
claiming responsibility for the attack, and Free and his co-defendant
Critter were mentioned in it. Some speculate that this action may have
contributed to his nearly 23-year sentence. But, caution and inaction
are two very different things. There are a multitude of things that can
be done to support the accused and combat repression: street
demonstrations, fund-raising, holding public meetings, increasing
struggle against the real eco-terrorists, and attempting to radicalize
and connect current social struggles.
So we have a choice, we can run and hide or fight back. If we give the
state an inch, it will certainly take a mile, therefore we must stand
firm in the face of repression. Repression is being meted out precisely
because the social situation is becoming more precarious and because the
types of actions for which the defendants are accused are dangerous to
the state. So solidarity is not simply raising money for legal defense
and pleading to the state for leniency. Instead it is an attack on
power, and choosing to attack is not only refusing to bow down, but also
contributing to the wider atmosphere of social combativity. In many
countries a simple slogan abounds: solidarity is a weapon. Let us put it
into practice.
Dear Comrades:
Insurrectionary anarchism in Argentina is not of old age. Whatâs more is
that the writings of Alfredo Bonanno, Constantino Cavalleri, etc.,
except for The Anarchist Tension and a few others, are practically
unknown amongst anarchists, even amongst those who consider themselves
insurrectionists. A lack of awareness of these writings is not
accidental, since the anarchist movement of Argentina has been reformist
for the greater part of its history, and has rejected all attempts,
whether by individuals or affinity groups, to break with the status quo.
Despite the lack of knowledge of large parts of the theory and praxis of
insurrectionary anarchists, individuals and affinity groups have begun
to propagate texts such as The Anarchist Tension, At Daggers Drawn,
those by Cavalleri (about prisons and about post-industrial capitalism),
things from Willful Disobedience, either as translations from the
website Palabras de Guerra, or translated imperfectly by various
comrades here.
This effort has borne fruit, and with great help from a few web pages,
has allowed for the spread of experiences and the materialization of
local experiences. The list of publications that can be considered
insurrectionary are ConfrontaciĂłn (1 issue), Disarmo from Rosario (10
issues), La AnarquĂa (6 issues), Nihil (2 issues), Aullidos Nocturnos
(Howls in the Night, 4 issues), the site La CoordinaciĂłn Anticarcelaria
del RĂo de la Plata, which involves individuals from Argentina and
Uruguay and the webpage Mariposas del Caos (Butterflies of Chaos), which
hosts a large number of texts and publications.
Also of great importance, it has resulted in the participation of
insurrectionist individuals at the Anarchist Conference in Rosario,
which despite being organized by the AIF (a platformist group), there
were many workshops which referred to insurrectionary anarchism, and a
big debate occurred confronting the platformists of the OSL and of the
neo-platformists of Red Libertaria.
The practice of insurrectionary anarchists is not limited to this
however. Demonstrations were held at the embassies of Colombia and
Germany, because of the death of a young Colombian anarchist on May Day
and in solidarity with the Aachen 4. Likewise anarchist action continued
with actions against Italian interests, against the Summit of the
Americas in November 2005 in Mar del Plata and Buenos Aires, and
solidarity with prisoners in Uruguay.
Insurrectionary anarchism in Argentina, if we use a concept that I find
repugnant, is very weak. It is not comparable to Spain or Italy, but the
interesting thing is the emergence of individuals in search of
affinities and accomplices who are insurrectionists, who reject any
compromise or evolutionary ideas, which make up the majority of
Argentine anarchism. Our limitations include isolation, a lack of
contacts outside of the country and to more important centers of
activity, the absence of books, pamphlets etc. that we copy ourselves as
well as mail to other comrades. This is insufficient and many writings
remain unknown due to this reason.
Recently a public action took place against the Summit of the Americas,
organized specifically by anarchists under the name Fire to the Summit.
It was held in a public plaza in Mar del Plata and involved a decent
number of people.
This is but a short and incomplete list of what is happening in
Argentina. We donât have information about all of the activities carried
out in solidarity with comrades in Italy or with the Thessaloniki 7,
most of which are passed around through word of mouth or by e-mail.
Pablo
Some Internet links:
geocities.com/edic_insumisos
mariposasdelcaos.cjb.net
anticarcelaria.info
Analysis can be undertaken for a variety of reasons: as a critical
appraisal of tactics, as an attempt to construct a plan for intervention
within a specific situation, in order to learn the lessons of past
failures, or simply to deepen our understanding of the functioning of
this society. In this essay we hope to offer a critical look at some of
the analyses of the insurrections in Algeria and Argentina, and an
analysis the events following hurricane Katrina. We have used these
three events in order to make a few points about analysis in general,
things to avoid, as well as a few suggestions for ways of improving
analysis.
Putting together a piece of analysis requires gathering as much
information as possible in hopes of discerning what is âtrulyâ
transpiring. If we lack contact with those who are actually
participating, we are usually left with news reports, NGO dossiers, or
the analyses of a variety of political rackets. Each of these contains
an implicit bias: for the media most revolts or uprisings are criminal
acts of insubordination that should be crushed, and many political
analyses by leftists are employed to only further their particular
ideology. We are not, however, simply trying to escape bias, after all
we have an agenda, which includes the destruction of this society as it
now exists. What we hope to offer are a few criticisms of the way in
which wishful thinking can allow for the misrepresentation of events,
and how this misrepresentation does little to further our project.
When analyzing a situation, first and foremost, one must be honest and
upfront about the amount of information being used as well as the type
of information being used. When hurricane Katrina hit the New Orleans
area and looting ensued, an article from Army Times entitled âTroops
begin combat operations in New Orleans,â which was widely circulated on
e-mail and on anarchist news-wires, stated that an insurgency was
underway in the city. This was along with mainstream media reports,
which stated that looting, carjackings, and general mayhem had spread
across the entire Deep South. Some anarchists from St. Louis, in a piece
called âNow is the Time? Now is the Time! The Potential of the Gulf
Coast Crisis: Points for Discussion and Intervention,â spoke of the
beginning of some kind of Iraq along the bayou. This was in fact far
from the truth.[1]
We must be wary when using various sources of information because they
will present things in a certain way. The mainstream media depicted
looters as violent rapists and murderers, and also took part in vicious
rumor mongering, spreading fear of armed black people on a rampage
throughout the entire Gulf South. The Army Times writer, not
surprisingly, presented events as a military operation, employing the
most recent ideological prism: insurgents vs. American heroes. Most
revolutionaries rejected mass media representations of events, but the
Army Times article on the other hand was not subjected to a critical
look because it promoted an idea that was appealing to the authors of
âNow is the Time:â a possible armed uprising by the dispossessed of New
Orleans. The lesson to be learned from this is that a critical appraisal
of information sources is necessary across the board regardless of whom
they are written by. Thus even if a situation is depicted in a way that
seems favorable from our point of view, it should be scrutinized
nonetheless.
Despite the faults in âNow is the Time...â the writers attempted to do
something that is sorely lacking within American anarchist discourse,
analyzing events as they are occurring and making proposals for action.
It was not an attempt to outline an ideological position, but rather a
proposal for struggle. Thus it becomes even more important to critically
employ sources of information. Seeing an insurgency where there is none,
based solely on one news report, is a product of wishful thinking.
Therefore one task of analysis should be to take a cold hard look at the
often bitter reality of situations.
Publications such as Willful Disobedience, Class War, and Communism
described the village committees , or aarch, as vehicles towards a
self-organized society. An article from Willful Disobedience stated that
â[t]he strength of the insurgence in this region is due largely to the
fact that it has been able to revive and use old tribal methods of
horizontal communication.â[2] These horizontal methods an 11-point honor
code which prevents delegates from making statements in the name of
their aarch or its coordinating body, from accepting a position of power
(elected or appointed), or of using their position for electoral ends.
Delegates are also revocable and held no decision-making powers over
other members of the aarch . Therefore it should be clear why these
structures were of interest to anarchists: they appeared to be
anti-political organs of struggle.
It was later found out that the aarch were not as horizontal as they
appeared. In fact women were barred altogether from taking part in the
decision-making. Even younger men had a difficult time being accepted
within the aarch . Clearly women played a role in the insurrection,
participating in mass demonstrations and road blockades, but this is not
enough. Also young men were a strong force behind street fights with
police, attacks against offices of political parties and looting. As a
result many of those who took direct action and made the insurrection
what it was, were excluded from the aarch all together.[3] The
insurrection was not simply the aarch . To call these organizations
horizontal, or coordinating bodies for the insurrection would be a
mistake. The analyses that misrepresented the delegates and the aarch at
the least suffered from a lack of information, as most news sources from
Algeria are obviously written in Arabic, and to a lesser degree French
and Tamazight. The articles, which mention the exclusion of women, were
few and difficult to find, but this does not change the fact that it was
a major oversight. Thus it is important not to jump to conclusions
concerning the nature of specific insurrections.
The insurrection in Argentina, which broke out in December of 2001, is
another case in which a variety of writers simply wanted to prove the
party line. The full course of events is too large to go into here, and
I admit to lacking the capacity to do so, but a few points can be made
nonetheless concerning the various piquetero groups. The piqueteros
became heroes to leftists and anarchists across the world as unemployed
people who were blockading highways across Argentina, effectively
halting the flow of commodities inside and outside of cities. Some spoke
of building a dual power through the coordination of piqueteros and
neighborhood assemblies, while others spoke of horizontalism and
autonomy that represented a new form of politics. Either way there was a
tendency to avoid intricacies and cheer for oneâs ideology.
For those not familiar with the situation in Argentina, it was easy to
homogenize the piqueterosâ actions and to ignore the complexities of
real events. The piqueteros are in fact scores of local groups of the
unemployed, which predated the uprisings by nearly a decade. Each
piquetero group is affiliated with larger coordinating bodies, each with
different politics. Many were, and remain, autonomous from parties and
unions, while others are appendages of leftist parties and even the
Peronists. Being wedded to parties led to some piqueteros taking part in
reformist, and one could even say counter-revolutionary, actions during
the insurrection of 2001.[4] So even using the term piqueteros is
problematic in that is implies a homogeneity that does not exist.
To illustrate this point further, in their Spanish-language organ,
Communismo, the International Communist Group (ICG) claimed that the
actions of the piqueteros, âdemonstrated to the world that the
proletariat was able to affirm itself as a historical subject,â meaning
that the actions of the piqueteros as a whole represented anti-political
communist activity. If, however, many of these groups are in fact
appendages of party organizations, then they absolutely are not
anti-political, and their practice would not extend towards the
abolition of capitalist social relations. While the ICG is guilty of
homogenizing the activities of the piqueteros, this is indicative of a
larger trend in radical analysis towards the homogenization of groups
and activities within an ideological framework.[5]
To be clear, we are not questioning the intentions of any of these
comrades or claiming in any way that they deliberately misrepresented
events. We intend this critique in the way critique of comrades should
always be made, as constructive criticism. To sum up:
an ideology or to try and prove the correctness of oneâs ideas so as to
gain adherents. Many leftist rackets use uncritical cheerleading as
means of recruiting members for their organizations or in order to sell
more newspapers.
tendencies within them. Therefore it is important to highlight those
elements that we find encouraging, but not to overemphasize them. We
gain nothing through misrepresentation or wishful thinking. Those
aspects that we find deplorable should obviously never be hidden, nor
should they be deemphasized.
particular political framework can lead to ignoring evidence,
falsification and useless conclusions. The reality of situations can be
disheartening, but seeing revolution everywhere does not change the
actual content of movements and events.
but intellectual laziness is also a danger. Simply finding the
information that supports the story one wants to tell is the hallmark of
mass media. Therefore it is important to be honest about how much
information one has and recognize the obstacles that a lack of
information presents.
greatly benefit revolutionaries to learn other languages in order to
have access to a wider array of information. Of even greater importance
is the necessity of establishing international contacts with whom we can
share information, analysis and critique. Comrades on the ground can
help give us a more nuanced understanding of insurrectionary events,
rather than us painting them with a broad brush due to a lack of
information.
Kellen Kass
The world in which we find ourselves is enveloped by capitalist social
relations. Nearly everyone has been reduced to the condition of selling
themselves for a wage. All space is divided and quantified into
commodities that can be bought and sold. This commodification of life
has made exchange the dominant feature of our relations. The
implementation of these relations was achieved through a massive project
of dispossession and exclusion. States manage populations and
territories through a vast network of control creating a world very much
resembling that of a prison. Borders are militarized, surveillance
networks surround us, the police have grown in number and are better
equipped, and all of this has become extremely efficient due to the
advance technology.[6] This is all justified under the ever-growing
system of laws. These changes in no way contradict the nature of the
state; they are true to its form and function. The state and capital are
inextricably linked in a project of domination.
We are permitted the insignificance of voting for our rulers, signing
petitions, and taking part in referendums. Yet the conditions of our
lives stay essentially the same. We can hold signs on the sidewalk and
shout as loud as we want, throwing ourselves into the abyss of public
displays of dissatisfaction. But when all is said and done we still face
the humiliation and prostitution of this reality. We are only allowed to
symbolize our anger at the daily degradation that must be silently
endured. Obscured within a dreamland of television, commercial
consumption, and social withdrawal, the world is made slightly bearable
but never one in which we can determine what we want with our lives.
For a social order so dependent on a large class of exploited and
marginalized people the possibilities for revolt are many. Not only does
this system require peopleâs labor power to function, but it also
requires us to produce and maintain its physical infrastructure, enforce
its laws, cooperate with and consent to its plans. Ultimately we allow
it to exist. The state needs roads, buildings, vehicles, information
technology, surveillance and weaponry systems to function. Capitalism
requires these same things for efficient movement of commodities and
labor, and for resource extraction and exploitation. While these
mechanisms have strengthened control and exploitation like never before,
they have also created many weaknesses. These weaknesses are an
opportunity.
For us, the question of how to proceed is vital. We must be willing to
examine and scrutinize the methods and strategies of the past so that we
do not follow in the footsteps of historyâs failed attempts at
revolution. To this end we will focus on a method that is as powerful as
it is easy to put into practice: sabotage.
All insurrectionary tools must be examined in order for us to place them
firmly within a theoretical framework for subversive action. Theory,
like all ideas, is only as good as its ability to be applied effectively
to the conditions of our lives. Only through critical analysis can we
hope to sharpen our methods of struggle and avoid the mistakes and
pitfalls of the past. It is important for us not to lose sight of how we
determine the results of our efforts. While achieving concrete goals is
important, these do not necessarily determine success. A better
indication of our accomplishments could be determined by the extent to
which current social relations are subverted and the qualitative changes
that are realized through revolt.
Situations of revolt are not always easy to discover. The writers of
history marginalize and deliberately disconnect news of resistance from
a tradition of refusal. Discontent is misrepresented, pacified and moved
into channels of legality, compromise, and dialogue. The media distorts
the impulse for social war, deferring it to the confines of single
issues, mismanagement, and individual cases of dissatisfaction. Revolt
becomes a disfigured story, obscured in the past, manipulated in the
present, hidden from view.
Our actions should not appeal to these machines of âreality production.â
The only thing that will affect the reality of things will be to act
upon reality, not to merely present it as we wish it to be. The only way
to change the conditions of society is to change the nature of how we
relate within them. There is no fixed or static condition that we are
trapped in. The future is not only unwritten but also unpredictable and
therefore capable of being affected by our willful determination.
Revolt can begin on an individual level or through the process of larger
social upheaval. One of the oldest and most destructive acts of revolt
is sabotage. To be clear, we define sabotage as the deliberate act of
destroying or damaging physical structures. From workplace machinery
sabotage to monkey-wrenching housing and industrial developments, to
smashing a window at a bank, fur store or cop station, sabotage has
become a common and well-dispersed instrument of social struggle. This
tactic is often used to achieve a greater goal, or employed within a
larger campaign or a struggle. However, the potential of destructive
direct action lies in its ability to be carried out individually or in
groups without any need or desire for formal organization, hierarchy, or
campaign to act in unison with. Sabotage, like all tactics, should be
easily reproducible, therefore increasing the possibility of its spread.
This spreading threatens the structures of power precisely because it is
difficult to manage and contain.
Sabotage can be used in all situations, in all terrains, and by anyone
who wishes to use it. It requires no specialization or skill, just
initiative. While news of sabotage is difficult to find, obscured and
negated as it is by those in power, there are some notable examples of
its use that we would like to examine. This list is by no means
comprehensive but rather a sampling of relevant examples.
If you understand how the structures of capitalists are built up and how
the big companies are weaving their nets closer and closer around the
world, then you realize that the fight against the system has to be
carried out globally.
â Brand magazine
In Europe during the late 1980s, a wave of sabotage hit the Shell Oil
Company because of their economic involvement with the then South
African government and their policy of apartheid. Many acts of sabotage
occurred in Denmark, Holland, and Sweden during the years 1986â1988.
Shell stations were attacked with firebombs and paint in addition to the
cutting of gasoline hoses and damage to gas tanks and cash machines.
These actions were claimed by anonymous groups of people acting in
solidarity with the social struggle in South Africa. While at the time
an international boycott of Shell was in affect across the world, it is
interesting to note that in 1986 a spokesman for Danish Shell admitted
that the boycott had not affected them much economically but that
sabotage was costing them vastly larger amounts of money.[7]
It was clear that a global attack was taking place against one focal
point of capitalist exploitation. These attacks were easy to undertake,
requiring only simple tools and a will to act. This fact facilitated
their spread across a wide area and far from the center of the
anti-apartheid struggle. The acts of sabotage drew a clear parallel
between the business done in one place and its direct connection to the
administrative and operative functions of the project of capital in
another.
A very interesting example of dispersed sabotage occurred in western
Minnesota in the late 1970s. During this time the electric industry was
seeking to exploit coal reserves in the West to feed the energy demands
of urban centers. On of these projects consisted of building a coal
strip mine and generating plant in North Dakota, then constructing a 435
mile power line to transport the energy produced to the suburban areas
around Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota.
What the energy industry and the stateâs regulatory agencies did not
expect was the opposition that followed. Farmers along the proposed
route of the power line viewed the project as sacrificing their land to
feed energy-hungry urban centers. The state was planning to expropriate
160-foot-wide swaths through their fields and erect 180-foot pylons to
support the wires. These concerns were augmented by the fear of health
problems associated with electromagnetic pollution from the currents
running through these power lines. It was clear the state had no regard
for these concerns when throughout the years of 1974 to 1977 farmers
tried lengthy and ultimately ineffectual legal channels to block the
construction of the line. The result, not surprisingly, was that they
were merely permitted to request that the construction happen on someone
elseâs land.
Yet the failed dialogue with the state did enable networks to be made
among those who were affected by the plans. In 1977, after the state had
finalized and approved of these plans, surveyors and construction crews
attempted to start work on the power line, but hundreds of farmers
blocked their way. In the winter of 1978, confrontations in the fields
spanned weeks, prompting the Governor to send almost half of Minnesotaâs
highway patrol officers to protect the electric company crews.
Even more impressive was the wave of sabotage that hit the
infrastructure of the project. In the space of two years, fourteen
towers were toppled and nearly 10,000 insulators shot out. The actions
were being attributed to the âBolt Weevils,â a name used by the
anonymous individuals carrying out the attacks. Electric industry
officials termed it âvandalism;â the farmers called it âsabotage,â a
tactic that received a great deal of support from local communities.
During these years no arrests were made despite the electricity company
employing private security. The police used helicopters to patrol rural
areas but were unable to stop the spread of sabotage. By the summer of
1980, the energy company forced to turn over ownership of the power line
to the U.S. government in order to avoid further economic losses
directly attributed to sabotage and the costs of security. While this
maneuver gave jurisdiction to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it
did not deter attacks from continuing. A fifteenth tower came down on
New Yearâs Eve of the same year.[8]
Despite all of their attempts, the line was finally constructed, but
only with the intervention of the federal government. Yet, what can be
taken from this struggle is that the people who attacked this project
had learned from their experience of trying to dialogue with the state
over its plans. Industrial development had taken priority over those who
stood to suffer from its completion. But without retiring in defeat, a
social struggle sprang forth, one that did not waste time in the
channels of legality but rather directly attacked the source of their
problem. While the fact that no arrests were ever made may be
incidental, it is clear that the state was ineffectual in containing the
use or spread of sabotage due to its ability to be used by anyone,
anywhere, even in the fields of Minnesota.
Let us spread sabotage over the whole social territory, striking the
structures that are bringing about such projects of death.
â Antinuclear revolutionaries[9]
Also in the late 1980s there were a number of explicitly autonomous acts
of sabotage taking place against the nuclear industry in Italy. These
actions occurred within a larger social movement against the project of
nuclear power that was proceeding forth and accelerating on the European
continent. The nature of these actions rejected the reformist strategies
and tactics of the peace, environmental and religious movements who
opposed nuclear power as an issue of protest. Unlike these groups, a
critique of nuclear power and its relation to centralized political and
economic power, as well as environmental destruction, was made clear and
visible in actions that did not seek to merely replace one type of
destructive process for another. Rather these autonomous actions were
undertaken with the clear understanding that nuclear power is part of
the larger project of capitalist domination.
In October of 1986 machinery used to construct a nuclear plant in Trino
Vercellese was destroyed by demonstrators. In addition to this, acts of
sabotage were occurring in various parts of the country. High-tension
pylons, the metal frames that support power lines, were sawn and downed
in the Cosenza province in July 1987. Then in September a pylon in the
area of Pec del Brasimone was downed a well. This one had supported
power lines that supplied electricity to a nuclear reactor. Then in
December of 1987 a nuclear power station was blockaded in Montalto di
Castro and a research center had its gates locked shut. A leaflet was
found at the site stating, âsabotage the research centres, universities,
death production.â Anarchists and autonomists organized anti-nuclear
meetings and demonstrations in Rome, Venice, Milan and Bologna, among
other cities.
Another high-tension power line was downed in Sicily that same year. A
communiqué claiming responsibility for this action had this to say:
â...the final course in this mad race towards perpetual enrichment and
global domination, shamelessly passed off as progress, civil society,
etc., is the total destruction of our planet which is now taking place.
To speak, write, dance, sing, march is not enough to stop this madness
and free ourselves from its ferocious oppression...We maintain: we can
and we must take our fate into our own hands and organize ourselves.
Sabotage. Attack. Insurge.â
Attacks against power lines continued throughout the year. Many of the
attacks were not only directed towards nuclear energy projects but also
against energy supplied to factories. By the end of the 1980âs an
estimated 400 attacks against the infrastructure of the energy system
had occurred throughout Italy. These made clear the connection between
nuclear energy and energy produced through other means such as coal,
which also creates its own set of toxins and destructive extraction
processes.
At the time it was unclear how much damage was done by some of these
actions. In some cases the pylons were sawn but did not fall. Yet
anarchists were clear to point out the importance not only of some
certifiable amount of financial damages but additionally the
uncontrollability of this method of autonomous action. The now-defunct
Italian anarchist magazine ProvocAzione explained this point clearly:
âThe method of direct attack against small objectives spread over the
social territory is far more effective than the great spectacular
actions and demonstrations that are as spectacular as they are
innocuous. The State knows very well how to manage and exploit these
grand actions...What it does not know...is how to control and prevent
simple direct attacks against the distribution...of structures that are
responsible for projects of repression and death.â
Production
Sabotage has a long history of use in the workplace. Workplace sabotage
still certainly exists today though the actual frequency of these acts
is suppressed to avoid encouragement on a wider scale. Still, it has had
many applications within workersâ struggle when the realization of
union-capitalist collaboration and the ineffectuality of official
strikes have been made. Its ease of use has made it a popular form of
response to the degradation of bosses, unions, wages, and routines.
In March of 1990, 6,300 bus drivers and an estimated 3,000 other
Greyhound workers went on strike in what would become the second largest
and most violent strike in the companyâs history. The dispute took place
between Greyhound Lines Inc., the largest North American privately-run
bus line, and the Amalgamated Council of Greyhound Local Unions, over
wages, job security and grievance procedures. Fewer than 100 of its
drivers crossed the picket lines, requiring the company to rely on
scabs. Violence and sabotage erupted immediately despite negotiations
between union representatives and Greyhound officials. Throughout the
course of the strike over a hundred bomb threats were called into bus
terminals, causing large disruptions. Dozens of shooting attacks were
made against buses and their terminals. One striking driver was killed
by a scab driver and one replacement was seriously injured. In April, 60
workers were fired by the company for sabotage and violence. This came a
day after a bus terminal in Boston was set on fire. Unfortunately after
three years of conflict, the strike was lost. This however does not
invalidate the struggle that took place, and it still serves as an
important example of the use of sabotage within a large-scale labor
struggle.[10]
Towards the end of the 1990s another violent workplace conflict was
underway. In July of 1999, the largely immigrant Latino workforce at
Basic Vegetable Products in King City, California went on a Teamster-led
strike. The strike was in response to the company imposing a wage
freeze, a two-tier wage system, changes in pension plans and the
slashing of health benefits. Almost immediately the strike was followed
by a rash of small-scale sabotage, harassment, threats and even fire
bombings that spread beyond the ability of the local police to contain.
In early August, a supervisorâs house was firebombed, leading to the
arrest of one worker who was later sentenced to three years. Later in
the month a scabâs car was set on fire, nearly engulfing her home in
flames. Acts of sabotage included tampering with the vehicles of
replacement workers in order to cause malfunctions. By yearâs end some
270 acts of sabotage had been officially reported, against such targets
as company buses, scab vehicles, scab homes, and the companyâs factory.
In October the company held a press conference requesting strike
intervention by the governor and the state attorney general. At the
press conference a spokesman for the company displayed photographs of
smashed windows, slashed car tires and homemade spike strips used
against scab workers. King City Police Chief Richard Metcalf conceded
there had been âa huge increase in reported vandalism... This is not
uncommon during labor disputes, in my experience.â Two months later, the
police chief told a newspaper, âyou can double the amount of officers on
the street and it would still be pretty hard to catch them.â Efforts to
stem the force of the workersâ struggle were to no avail, and they won
after two-years of striking and sabotage. While we are quite conscious
of the limits of workplace victories, and ultimately seek the
destruction of work itself, it is important to see that autonomous
direct action can develop outside of the control of unions and extend
beyond the confines of the workplace.[11]
More recently, in the summer of 2005, negotiations broke down between
the Canadian telecommunication giant, Telus, and the Telecommunication
Workers Union (TWU). The dispute affected the provinces of Alberta and
British Columbia, but the most radical activity was centered in B.C.
Within days of the strike being called, multiple acts of sabotage
occurred and a representative for the company stated in an August 2005
interview that the company had suffered 42 attacks in the three previous
months. In many cases phone lines were either damaged or pulled down and
fiber-optic cables were repeatedly cut, shutting down phone and internet
service to thousands. These acts were a compliment to flying pickets and
clashes with scabs. It is also interesting to note that anarchists in
Vancouver were involved in solidarity pickets, attempting to halt public
transportation from city bus depots in hopes of disrupting the economic
functioning of the city.[12]
These examples are but a small sampling of the use of workplace
sabotage. Yet they point to the widespread use of direct action outside
of legal channels. Their effects cannot be understated. Capitalists
would prefer dialogue and compromise but autonomous action makes these
forms of cooptation ineffectual.
We think of solidarity as a way of being accomplices, of taking
reciprocal pleasure and in no way consider it a duty, a sacrifice for
the âgood and sacred causeâ, because it is our own cause, i.e.
ourselves. Revolutionary solidarity...should be demonstrated
incessantly, precisely because it contributes to widening what we are
already doing.
â Pierleone Porcu
With the constant changes and maneuvers of the capitalist system also
arise the dispersion of social struggle worldwide. The same system that
has forced us to sell ourselves to survive also bars those who are
deemed unnecessary from looking for an exit from the warfare of states
and the starvation of the capitalist periphery.
We all want the same thing: to decide for ourselves how we will live.
Autonomous struggle for this very thing has presented itself wherever
people refuse to succumb to the inertness of passivity. This is the
struggle we share.
But how can we make the similarities between our struggles spread? By
recognizing our struggle in the struggle of others and acting upon it
through revolutionary solidarity. The same companies that are exploiting
the forests of West Papua or the Pampas of Chile have their homes in the
dominant capitalist countries of the North. The wars fought in Iraq and
Afghanistan are fought with the weapons and personnel of the U.S.,
Europe and collaborating nation-states. The prisons and detention
centers that lock away those who refuse the system of exclusion and
exploitation are the same that function safely in our backyards. There
are some notable examples of this practice of solidarity that deserve a
closer look.
Defiance
If there is an attack against the Mohawks, it would be considered an
attack on all of us...Thereâs hydro-electric lines crossing most of our
communities... There are major highway arteries...major water
supplies...
â Peguis chief Louis Stevenson[13]
In March of 1990 in Oka, Canada, Kanehsatake Mohawks began a blockade of
a road leading to a pine forest scheduled for clear-cutting. This piece
of land, considered to be Mohawk land by treaty, was planned for use as
an expansion of a bordering golf course. Four months later, in July,
over 100 of Quebecâs provincial police attacked the blockade with tear
gas, concussion grenades and thousands of rounds of live ammunition. An
officer was killed during the confrontation. The attack was consider a
failure when the police were forced to retreat as tear gas blew back at
them with the wind, causing them to leave several vehicles behind. These
were later smashed up and used to reinforce the blockade. Then the area
was sealed off with hundreds of policemen.
Still, news of the raid at Oka reached the Kahnawake, a Mohawk tribe
located south of Montreal, who then proceeded to block the Mercier
Bridge that served as a main artery from Montreal to the south shore.
Armed Mohawks threatened to blow up the bridge if a second attack
occurred, and they also blocked two other highways that ran through
their territory. The occupation of the bridge continued throughout the
summer and received demonstrations of solidarity in Montreal.
After careful planning by the Canadian government, a massive military
operation was deployed against the Kanehsatake and Kahnawake blockades
in August. It involved the use of 4,400 soldiers, mortars, several
hundred armored personnel carriers, armored cars, missile launchers,
helicopters, and three tanks. Over the course of the month there was a
tense standoff between Mohawks and the repressive forces of the
government.
The repression set into motion a wave of solidarity actions cross
Canada. Demonstrations of support occurred on Native lands and in every
major city. Occupations took place in government offices. Sabotage was
made at various points of the capitalist infrastructure. On August 18, a
Canadian National (CN) rail-bridge was set on fire. Then on September
4^(th), five hydroelectric towers were toppled and a CN railway-bridge
was destroyed by fire, near London, Ontario. The vulnerability of these
structures was made readily apparent through these actions. The
repression of the Mohawk blockades had brought costly acts of solidarity
among many people in many places removed from the actual point of
focused struggle.
Though the discernable point of contention was the expansion of one
development, the police operation was targeting a much greater threat.
Mohawk communities were known by the Canadian government for their
defiant autonomy and self-management. Their struggle spread outward as
others recognized themselves in it. Acts of sabotage provided a damaging
and essential tactic in this larger struggle of solidarity, proving to
the state that its actions would not go unchallenged.
Long enough has the charity of those who have everything to lose
destroyed our dignity and militancy. Our struggle without compromise for
freedom is taking place â not only here, but in the whole of Europe and
the whole world.
No borders, no nations; stop deportations
Love and strength for all persecuted people, fugitives and rebels
â from a leaflet distributed in Belgium[14]
Acts of sabotage as revolutionary solidarity have had extensive usage
over the course of the past few years in Europe. Following police raids
carried out across Italy in May 2005 dozens of anarchists were
imprisoned and accused of âsubversive association.â[15] Anarchists in
Barcelona, Spain, demonstrated in solidarity with their Italian comrades
in June. They were attacked by riot police who then made seven arrests.
As a response, 60 anarchists in Greece occupied a Spanish cultural
institute in Athens. Just the day before 80 anarchists held a
demonstration at the Spanish embassy in solidarity with the prisoners in
Spain and Italy. Yet acts of solidarity, however, went beyond these
defiant demonstrations.
On December 16 of that same year, 15 cars were burned at three FIAT
(Italian car company) dealerships in Athens and two bombs went off
outside bank offices in the northern city of Salonika. On December 31,
an explosive device blew up in the sales lot of a FIAT car dealership in
Grenada, Spain. The attack was undertaken in solidarity with Italian
comrades being prosecuted in the âOperation Cervantesâ case.[16] The
communique for the action also claimed solidarity with anarchist
prisoners in Spain, Greece and Germany.
Then on January 3, 2006, three makeshift bombs went off in Athens. The
first bomb had been placed under a car that had diplomatic plates.
Another bomb detonated at the entrance of the ruling partyâs, New
Democracy, offices. In the meantime, a fire was set at the car of the
mayor of Therissos, Chania, and that of his wife. The attacks were
claimed by the group âAntikratiki Dikeosiniâ (Anti-State Justice) and
made in support of anarchists held in prison.
The actions of solidarity continue in Europe as more and more anarchists
are facing an increase in state repression. Solidarity of this type
circulates struggles and finds meaning in common enemies. There are
those of us who are confined to the logic of survival but who hate our
slavery and wish to attack it. It is from the understanding of the
relationship between our own struggle and the struggle of others that
related struggles can emerge. The embrace of attack is the refusal of
surrender.
While the majority of the examples above are tied to larger situations
of struggle, this does not mean that single actions outside of
collective struggle are worthless. On the contrary, these isolated
actions demonstrate not only a willingness to act, but also a
willingness to attack capitalist projects regardless of popular support
or of the presence of a larger struggle. Thus we must make a point to
separate ourselves from those who counsel waiting or who claim that
actions are only valid within âmass struggle.â
In many cases mass struggles do not exist against capitalist projects.
This lack however does not preclude action being taken by individuals or
small groups. We are not slaves to a quantitative logic. If we waited
for permission to act, we would be resigning ourselves to waiting
forever. Fortunately however, many individuals, those with consciously
revolutionary ideas and those without, reject the assertion that actions
must be justified by their inclusion in something larger. One need only
open the newspaper to read reports of dispersed acts of sabotage against
a wide variety of targets: suburban sprawl, luxury condominiums, banks,
chain stores, fur stores, fast food restaurants, etc. Acts of hatred
against the projects of domination and exploitation deserve no respite.
Their execution needs no delay.
Likewise, we must differentiate ourselves from those who support
vanguardism and specialization in struggle. All too often radicals fall
into the fetishization of armed struggle and the uncritical support of
armed groups such as the Weather Underground, Red Army Faction, Black
Liberation Army, Red Brigades and many others. These things are
problematic from an anarchist perspective.
Sabotage is generally carried out with a certain amount of security
precautions. It is often done individually or in small groups of people
who share affinity or friendship and who are trusted not to discuss the
action outside of the group or to confess if caught. Care is taken not
to leave any evidence behind and to keep the planning of the action
secret. However beyond these practical concerns some see the need for
going underground and creating a specialized role for themselves.
The concept of underground living, maintaining no public ties to radical
groups, changing oneâs identity, blending in as ânormalâ and living in
hiding is antithetical to an expansive life of relations decided on
oneâs own terms. To live life in the underground is to sacrifice
potential relationships and projects under the pretext of avoiding
suspicion or discovery by the Stateâs agents. On the other hand some
would argue that radical direct action is best carried out if one has no
ties to any of the networks from which the state can fish for suspects.
However, an ability to form relations is hindered by avoiding those
relations that are deemed âunsafe.â Thus, it cuts individuals off from
potential comrades and leaves them only with members of their
organization, imposing unhealthy social isolation. All of this poses the
very real problem of a lack of networks of support needed in case of
arrest.
Another problematic tendency includes vanguardism. A critique of
vanguardism is inherent within anarchist ideas. False is the idea that
some group of people are more skilled or adept at leading the rest of us
towards something better or creating a revolutionary situation by
themselves. A revolution can only happen with widespread participation,
individually and collectively, towards a transformation of social
relations. Delegation to anyone else will only lead to their ends, not
ours. Revolt must be socially autonomous and self-organized for the
process and result to manifest individual and collective desire.
Lastly, specialization and the spectacularization of struggle deserve
their own critique. Much like vanguardism, specialization imposes
specific roles on people. Participation in certain activities is
elevated above and away from generalized use. In this way it is confined
to particular individuals or groups. This exclusion is contrary to the
spreading of a social rebellion. On the other hand, the spectacular
nature of the actions of many armed groups can also be detrimental to
the widening of social struggle. Actions that are deliberately
spectacular generally aim for high-profile news coverage and attacks on
purely symbolic targets with a tendency to emphasize technically complex
methods.
Sabotage is but one tactic from an array of tools employed within the
social war. Its use alone cannot substitute for the destruction of the
very relations that define our capitalist system.
The destruction of the infrastructure of the state and the functioning
of capitalism can be crippling. But it can only cripple as much as it
can spread through its ease of use. A rupture with the present will be
as inclusive of sabotage as it will be of creating relations beyond the
narrow and numbing confines of the social order.
Sabotage will take many forms but it must always be done so with the
intent of expanding our revolt globally. Solidarity with the struggles
of others will then become little more than an after thought. Through
the process of experimentation in strategy and the initiative of attack,
the sharpening of our struggle will become realized, always moving
forward and outward. Revolution will not be the certainty of a future
world but the certainty of ourselves attacking the world that has been
imposed upon us.
Sabotage must go beyond the limits of mere economic attrition.
Militaristic formations, along with their style of centralized formal
structure are of no use to us. Organizations for armed struggle and
clandestine vanguards will not bring us closer to generalized
insurrection, as examples of the past have shown. Guerrilla wars of
attrition will only be a losing fight against states much better
equipped technologically and numerically within the logic of standard
warfare. Our warfare must be social.
Social war will put arms in the hands of generalized rebellion. Sabotage
will be made at the points of departure towards that place.
Kasimere Bran
Since May Day of 2002, when a small group of anarchists and street kids
broke away from an anti-poverty protest and vandalized stores and stalls
inside a downtown shopping mall, insurrectionary anarchists in Vancouver
have been intervening in various social struggles and developing
projects based on a perspective of irreconcilable conflict with the
dominant order. Through the rejection of political methods, such as
protests, press conferences, and reformist demands presented to the
powerful, local anarchist comrades have upheld self-organization, direct
action, and permanent conflict with the exploiters as the only viable
and desirable principles on which to base anarchist intervention in the
class war and its contribution towards social revolution.
The lessons and experience of the riots against free trade in Seattle
and Quebec City, indigenous peoplesâ land struggles in various parts of
Canada, the analysis of insurrectionary anarchists in Italy based on
their involvement in various struggles, the Vancouver anarchist movement
of the 1980s (including the armed âDirect Actionâ group), and the
reoccurring mini-riots at public events in Vancouver, have all been
influential on anarchists in this city.
Local comrades have been galvanized by the heightened level of social
conflict in this province, British Columbia (within which Vancouver is
located), since the Liberal government was elected in 2001. The quick
and aggressive economic and political restructuring of the Liberals,
involving major cuts to welfare and social services, mass lay-offs of
government employees, the tearing-up of union contracts, and a racist
referendum on âtreatiesâ between Native and non-Native politicians,
provoked mass discontent among the exploited. Unions and political
activist groups have worked hard to manage social struggles into a
position of defeat and demoralization for the exploited, ending in
reconciliation with the power structure. Insurrectionary anarchists have
tried to counter the manipulations of these groups by directly
communicating with exploited and excluded people.
In the fall of 2002, the opening of the Woodwards Squat (a massive,
long-empty department store in the ghetto of the Downtown Eastside)
created a space for older anarchists experienced in conflicts outside of
Vancouver to meet young squatters interested in anarchist methods and
the hundred or so people from the neighborhood who came to live in the
building. The anarchists verbally clashed with activists and
politicians, some of whom wanted the squatters to leave the building
voluntarily after a week (the occupation was intended to be a media
spectacle by the activist city-employee who initiated it). At first,
police entered the building freely, negotiating with the self-appointed
leader of the squat. Later, amidst quarrels between activists, the
police realized there were anarchists living in the building and from
then on kept their distance, while preparing for a forceful eviction.
Although many squatters simply ignored the activists, the ideology of
civil disobedience and the reformist demand for social housing took a
significant hold over the situation. Most squatters considered the
building to be their home and much preferred its collective space to the
isolation of the single-room occupancy welfare hotels that people in the
neighborhood have to live in. For Woodwards to be converted into social
housing would require the ending of the squat. Despite this, many
squatters, under the direction of the activists, sat in a circle to be
mass arrested when the riot cops invaded.
After the initial eviction by riot cops, squatters returned and set-up
camp again around the outside of the building. Police attacked and
evicted the tent city, but it sprung up once more. Finally, the city
government had to use social workers to end the tent city and move
people into a miserable welfare hotel. These events further clarified
the role of the police and the State for many of those involved in the
struggle.
In hindsight, it can be seen that the conflict could have developed in
an insurrectional direction if anarchists had communicated more
effectively with fellow squatters and built an informal organization to
defend the squat through attacking Capital and Politics in their
immediate manifestations, while pointing out the irreconcilable class
interests between exploiter and exploited, included and excluded.
The evicted squattersâ anger against the police quickly came to head at
an East Vancouver school when police arrested an elderly man at a
protest against a public appearance by the Premier of the province.
Masked anarchists dragged a dumpster in front of a police truck carrying
the detained man, leading to another arrest. From there, scuffles with
the cops developed somewhat beyond the designs of the activists who
engaged in civil disobedience by sitting in front of the truck, as
children coming out of school began to taunt the cops and throw drink
containers and pebbles at them. After the police left the area, kids
threw eggs at the nearby police station.
In January of 2003, an Iranian refugee broke free from the grasp of a
security guard and escaped deportation at the Vancouver airport during a
protest by her family and supporters. The same anti-authoritarian
comrade taken into custody during the school incident was arrested once
again. The woman seeking refuge from imprisonment and death in Iran
mysteriously turned herself over to the police and was deported without
first contacting her family, taking sanctuary in a church, or going
âundergroundâ, possibly due to manipulation by activists.
Throughout the rest of 2003, masked-up anarchists intervened at numerous
protests against the provincial government and the war on Iraq with
graffiti, newspaper boxes dragged into the streets, a break-away march,
and a smashed window at the building housing the US consulate.
During this time period, several independent window-breaking attacks
were carried out against banks and a Canadian army recruiting center.
Different groups claimed responsibility for these actions, using
anti-government and anti-capitalist explanations for their actions.
In 2004, one East Vancouver community police office had its windows
smashed in an action that was claimed in solidarity with people beaten
down or killed by the cops. Another community police office in a park
suffered repeated and unclaimed acts of graffiti, paint-bombing,
window-breaking, and arson.
In the summer of 2004, a hospital workersâ strike was declared illegal
by the government, provoking solidarity wildcat strikes in many
industries across the province. Local anarchists walked the picket
lines, talked with workers, and made banners calling for a general
wildcat strike and describing solidarity as a âweaponâ. Also that
summer, anarchists also held a number of public events entitled âWild in
the Streetsâ, which included anarchist movie nights, a picnic and
information exchange in a park, and a march against the police which
resulted in a scuffle and three arrests.
In the winter, comrades held a two day public event called âBreach of
the Peaceâ, during which food was shared and a Mohawk comrade from the
reserve of Kanehsatake in eastern Canada showed a video and spoke on the
traditional peopleâs ousting of Native cops from their community. For
the finale of the event, a movie was shown detailing the case of John
Graham, a local indigenous Tuchone man of who was part of the Vancouver
Red Power movement and the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the 1970s,
and who is living under house arrest while he fights extradition to the
United States on fraudulent charges of murdering fellow AIM member Anna
Mae Pictou Aquash (who died as a result of an FBIâs
counter-intelligence/counter-insurgency program, involving many
assassinations on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota).
Much time that winter was taken up by anarchists maintaining a presence
in court to show solidarity with John Graham, as well as the comrade
charged in relation to the refugeeâs escape at the airport. Despite a
lack of any substantial evidence, a jury convicted the comrade of aiding
the refugeeâs escape, and the judge declared a sentence of three months
in jail, referencing the totalitarian theorist Thomas Hobbes in
explicitly describing the matter as a conflict between civilization and
anarchy in her reasons for sentencing, just as the crown prosecutor did
in her arguments to the judge.
On March 15^(th) of 2005, Vancouver anarchists organized a march for the
International Day Against Police Brutality (the day was founded by
anarchists in Switzerland). Local comrades didnât limit themselves to
the question of police brutality, instead calling into question police
control in general. A newsletter called âAgainst Police Controlâ was
published, detaining police murders of persons in Vancouver and the
involvement of Canadian cops in the military occupations of Iraq and
Haiti. The callout for the march explained that the march wouldnât be a
protest, but rather would create a space for exploited and excluded
people to put their anger against the cops into practice. During the
march itself, this anger took the form of eggs, paint-bombs and
fireworks tossed at police cars and the Main Street police station in
the Downtown Eastside. Police cars were also smashed with sticks and a
media van was egged. At least two people were arrested. This march was
especially significant because many ordinary people never seen at
protests showed up and took part, while the activists stayed away,
knowing they had nothing to gain from an event they could not control.
In the summer and fall of 2005, insurrectionary anarchists talked with
striking truckers, telecommunications workers, teachers, and school
support workers in Vancouver, also distributing leaflets calling for the
extension of the direct action and sabotage that some workers were
already implementing, while trying to further illuminate the repressive
function of the unions and political parties who managed the strikes
into compromise, disempowerment, and defeat for the workers. An attempt
was made by anarchists to cross-picket and shut down bus depots in
solidarity with the striking telecommunications workers and teachers,
mimicking the actions of telecom strikers in several locations in this
province. Many strikers expressed rebellious sentiments and criticisms
of their unions to our comrades, indicating some possibilities for
further coordinated efforts between anarchists and the rest of the
exploited.
Local insurrectionary anarchists have been strengthening lines of
communication with anarchist comrades in other parts of the province,
and also initiating and maintaining contact with refugees and indigenous
people who are resisting, in one form or another (hunger strikes, land
reoccupations, etc.), the conditions imposed upon them by capital.
Through this, comrades are slowly building the basis for projects of
solidarity rooted in affinity rather than politics.
Sam
December 2005
Immigrants
We are a group of anarchists from the south of Italy, and after many
other activities, we occupied ourselves with the detention and
deportation of immigrants.
We cannot tolerate that an individual can be incarcerated because they
lack a piece of paper, or because they donât accept being a slave. We
think this is repugnant.
We think that this situation is the product of an infamy with concrete
and specific responsibilities. Because of this we cannot close our eyes.
We think that we live in a time of war. And if in some places this fact
is explained by bombs and armies in the streets, in others it is
explained by the terror of doing without enough to survive, without
something to eat, or of ending up in jail; it explains the fact of
having to leave your own land to look for better living conditions and
to be exploited there. Therefore we can see the war everywhere, along
with a feeling of uprootedness, which envelops the world.
We believe that a society incapable of recognizing and attacking the
causes of such a situation can only create false enemies and generalize
fear. Many times the immigrant is seen as an enemy. The immigrant is
described by propaganda as a terrorist or friend of the terrorists. The
same happens with communists, anarchists, or workers that strike without
permission.
The important thing is that State terrorism is able to continue, while
those that are bothersome can be incarcerated or expelled.
The machine of expulsion isnât just a despicable mechanism of repression
and social control, but also a mirror into the reality that we inhabit.
Millions of women, men and children come looking for more hospitable
living conditions, pushed out by war, misery or because of the daily
disasters of industrial production. To greet them they find police,
concentration camps and later deportation; this is when they havenât
found death, in sea or in the desert, along the way.
In particular, in the Salento (the land where we all live, the peninsula
situated to the southeast of Italy â the heel of the boot so that we
understand each other) is the âRegina Pacis,â a Center for Temporary
Residence â CPT â or Temporary Stay Center for immigrants. It is
situated on the east coast of the Salento, towards Albania and Greece.
According to Italian law, the centers for immigrants are divided into
Centers of First Identification (which of late have replaced Centers of
First Welcome) and Centers for Temporary Residence. The latter are the
most brutal face of the mechanism of expulsion: structures created by
the Center-Left government in 1998, having as its objective the
incarceration of all clandestinos (immigrants without regular papers),
to verify the identity of the immigrants and to facilitate expulsion
decrees.
The new law of the Center-Right has increased the maximum time of
detention from 30 to 60 days.
Today in Italy, 14 CPTs exist, many others are under construction and
there will be 28 in total as ordered by a new law, with a minimum of one
per region.
The choice of a continuous struggle against these jails in general, and
against the Saletine one in particular, has come about because of the
necessity of concentrating the majority of our time and energy on one
single objective in order to make the struggle itself concrete.
It is important to say that this struggle has not developed in a
compartmentalized, exclusive or specialized way. What we already
understand is that these centers (and the repression that is outside of
them) are only one face of state violence and its domination across the
land.
The expression of violence has found much room in our region, the
Puglia: being both land on the border and a passageway of people
arriving from the east or south, it has become a permanently fortified
area over the past several years with an increase in militarization and
social control which has affected everyone.
To justify the incarceration of such people, the executioners of the pen
(journalists) have created the image of the immigrant (and especially of
the clandestino) as a public enemy who causes conflict with the local
exploited and they also describe them as criminals and low-cost reserve
labor, ready to steal jobs from the locals. Whatâs more is that this has
grown stronger with alarm over international terrorism and the
arabo-islamic danger.
For us, the struggle against these centers, against expulsions and that
which supports them isnât a humanitarian question, nor a form of
democratic anti-racism or of âthird worldismâ â that identifies
immigrants as the new revolutionary subject â rather it signifies the
necessity of recognizing and showing solidarity with individuals that
live in the same conditions of exploitation and uprootedness, which
means beginning to attack a particular structure of power.
Without a doubt, the militarization of entire neighborhoods, police
dragnets in the streets, ever more unbearable and odious conditions of
work and living that are imposed upon us affects both the immigrant
(naturalized or not changes little) and natives in the same way.
The institution of CPTs has changed the course of the Regina Pacis
Foundation. In its beginning it was managed by the local church as a
summer camp for children. Abandoned for several years, it was turned
into a Center of First Welcome during the second half of the 90s with
the arrival en masse of Albanian refugees. In 2001 we began with a
diffusion of counter-informational material to explain the real function
of the Regina Pacis and to lay bare the interpretation that economic and
state power wants to give to the phenomenon of migration â an image
shown through mass media that describes it as an invasion that must be
repelled. To this we added demonstrations (generally in front of the
center), which a few times had involved other individuals from the
antagonistic left (with rage and/or solidarity but without flags in
hand). Demonstrations were called especially on occasions that affected
the incarcerated (like the spread of contagious diseases, hunger
strikes, petitions for asylum, etc.), on occasions when the issue
reached the national level, and on the occasion of summits whose
principal theme was the control of immigration.
At the beginning of 2002, the diffusion of a document written by some
comrades concerning the question of immigration and the struggle against
these places (like nazi concentration camps), gave us the motivation to
begin a more constant and conscious campaign.
From then, the distribution of flyers, posters put up in the streets and
other counter informational material have become tools of primary
importance not only in exposing the police-role played by the Regina
Pacis (incarcerating and helping to expel immigrants), but in explaining
the close relationship between the economy and âclandestinizationâ of
individuals with the aim of obtaining grand pools of reserve labor power
(a labor force that is easily manipulated through blackmail and through
the precarious situation of lacking papers â truly modern slaves).
Additionally they have been useful instruments in explaining the real
interests of the church of Lecce and of all the businesses co-managing
the center: given that the State provides variable daily payments for
each person incarcerated (and those for Regina Pacis are among the
highest) one can easily understand the strong economic interest of the
Foundation and the local ecclesiastical hierarchy. To confirm this it
must be said that over the years the Foundation has turned itself into a
true multinational of âcharity,â opening centers of a different type
(another in Italy and five more in Moldova) taking on every task: the
rehabilitation of prostitutes and street children, of refugees, and
distribution of food to the poor...
In an interview with that son of a bitch Father Cesare Lodeserto, priest
and director of the Regina Pacis Foundation, he boasted that Moldova
produces 10,000 clandestinos each year. This does nothing more than
confirm that they are considered merchandise.
These prisons are not simply those who manage them. Although banal, it
is a fundamental fact that even though these terrible places and
everything connected with them appear untouchable and un-attackable â
like all structures of power â they are not, because they are made up of
people, places and things. This basic fact has developed through the
gathering of information about those who collaborate with the Regina
Pacis, like businesses or people who sell their wares and/or services,
and those who work for the foundation: employees, doctors, guards,
directors...
At the time we were carrying out this activity, we were increasing the
number of demonstrations in front of the Center in solidarity with the
incarcerated, in particular when revolts and escape attempts were on the
rise.
During the time of this work there was a considerable increase in people
involved in the struggle, direct actions, sabotage, methods of critique,
as well as counter-information (always done in the streets), murals and
moments of open confrontation on the occasion of public interventions
against those responsible.
Incendiary attacks, and not only incendiary ones, have increased as
well; against banks that manage the Foundationâs money and against
structures involved with the Foundation on other levels.
The aspect of struggle least dealt with has without a doubt been the
involvement of those most interested in the problem, in other words the
immigrants. This has happened in spite of having made a few attempts.
This has probably happened as much from our own deficiency in seeking
out relations with them, as from their difficult position, which allows
them to be easily blackmailed and/or persecuted by the police.
We do not want CPTs â like jails â to become more humane or respectful
of human rights or legality. We simply do not want them. For this reason
we want to close the Regina Pacis. Without a doubt this is the principal
objective. Despite a few moments of rest, there will be no truce until
the this happens.
Repression will not cease either and recently it has increased, through
searches, charges, investigations, arrests, harassment during
demonstrations and micro-GPS tracers in cars. All of this has not
weakened the struggle, but rather it has increased the level of
confrontation and has put the Regina Pacis Foundation in the middle of a
serious controversy. Now we will speak about the current situation.
At the beginning of this year the bosses of the local clerical hierarchy
declared that they did not want to renew the contract with the Italian
state and expressed their desire to transform it into a âMulti-purpose
Center for Immigration.â Apart from the fact that such centers do no
exist under law, it is important to mention that March 13, the bastard
priest, and director, was incarcerated. Already under investigation and
with a case in process, he, along with 10 officials, 6 orderlies and 2
doctors, is charged with violence and other acts against a group of
North Africans who tried to escape. Now he is under arrest awaiting
trial, standing accused of violence, kidnapping and abuse of the means
of corrections against four Moldavian women who were incarcerated in a
reform center for prostitution in the north of Italy.
We donât believe in the Stateâs justice and it doesnât make us happy to
see it in process. As anarchists we are against prisons and against
torturers. If we didnât live in this backwards world, the just thing to
do with respect to these terrorists would be isolation from the
community and social disdain.
Apart from this question, at the end of April the dismantling of fences,
barbed wire and the CPTâs cameras began.
Aside from the incarceration of the priest, which gave the definitive
and lethal blow, if the closing of the center is now possible, it is
because the costs now outweigh the benefits. Apart from the considerable
and noticeable pressure the struggle has put on the church and the
foundation, it is important to keep in mind that the bad image they have
acquired is as much from the trials as it is from the many escapes and
revolts, particularly last summerâs, which unmasked the real nature of
the center.
Now with this closing, the same role will be assumed by another center
that is finishing construction in Bari (the biggest city in the region).
This center will be located within the âFinanzenâ base â of the Italian
military. It will be much harder to escape from there. For this reason
one of our goals is to create a coordination of opposition at the
regional level.
In addition to the larger struggle â at a national level â for over a
year Tempi di Guerra (Times of War) has been published, which is a
journal specifically for the question we are involved with along with
other comrades.
All of this because of the intolerable presence of these places and for
their total and complete disappearance. For a world without States or
borders.
We live in an information society. We lack neither ideas nor
perspectives. We think that which we lack is a direct practice against
that which oppresses us. Practices that consider each question under
discussion, along with the world (specific, authoritarian and
capitalist) that creates them.
Gathering information, analyses that explain it all and also describe
the movements of the enemy, get us nowhere and keeps us in the same
world in which we now live. Nor does simply enumerating the thousand and
one possible forms of resistance change little or anything at all.
On the other hand it is a question of finding the mechanism to
stop/block them. It is a question of giving a voice to the impatience
that exists and give its reasons. It is a question of identifying causes
and naming their authors. Doing this, the situation ceases to be
inevitable. Clearly a perspective of struggle of this type can be
extended from human liberation to that of the Earth and animals, to the
liberation of all.
The European Union, which until now has controlled the politics of
immigration in a more or less indirect way, will in a few months become
more explicit and directly controlling.
Last month the members of justice and interior of the European Union
agreed to the creation of a system of information and prior warning in
the case of important decision concerning immigration such as the
naturalization of âillegals,â that could affect other member States. The
European Commission has to present a further proposal concerning this.
On Thursday, May 12, in a massive show of force, the Digos (Italian
political police) arrested five anarchists in Lecce, Italy. The arrested
are Annalisa Capone, Angela Marina Ferrari (Marina), Cristian Palladini,
Salvatore Signore and Saverio Pellegrino.
The police show of force in this situation could appear absurd. In
operation ânighttimeâ, as the cops termed this series of raids, searches
and arrests, one hundred and fifty cops were deployed in the region of
Lecce alone. These included canine units, border cops, postal cops,
units from the Central Antiterrorism service, bomb specialists, a
helicopter and so on.
Charges against the arrested anarchists include:
of the democratic state;
house; Lodeserto was the director of the âCenter for Temporary
Residenceâ (CPT, i.e., concentration camp for undocumented immigrants)
in San Foca, Lecce, until he was arrested for private violence and
kidnapping in relation to his treatment of inmates at the âcenterâ;
in conflicts;
Foundation, the organization through which the good priest ran the
concentration camp in San Foca, kept their funds;
operation of the CPT;
paint;
is taking over large portions of Patagonia (the southern portion of
Chile and Argentina) and driving the Mapuche people off their land;
Exxon, fuel suppliers for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan;
These charges refer to actions that have taken place over the past two
years.
In addition to these arrests, ten other people were informed that they
were under investigation, eight for subversive associatiopynchonn with
the intent of terrorism and two for unauthorized demonstration. The cops
closed down and seized the anarchist occupied space, Capolinea, and
carried out searches against anarchists all over Italy (in Lecce, Aosta,
Turin, Trento, Trieste, Chieti, Cagliari, Taranto and Catania).
I do not know whether those arrested had anything to do with the
activities for which they are charged, nor do I care. Guilt or innocence
do not interest me since such terms belong to the justice system and the
state. My solidarity is based an seeing my own struggle in that of the
comrades, seeing possibilities for complicity and mutuality, even across
and ocean.
The real crime of the comrades of Lecce is that they have quite openly
expressed their solidarity with rebelling immigrants in the CPTs and
with the Mapuche fighting against being dispossessed in South America,
as well as their disgust for the war in Iraq. In doing so, they have
recognized what they have in common with the undocumented immigrants,
the Mapuches losing their land and the Iraqis having their homes
destroyed before their very eyes by self-proclaimed âliberatorsâ â that
they too are among the dispossessed and exploited who increasingly have
no place in this world, no home, who are strangers everywhere they go.
Undocumented immigrants and democratic concentration camps. The number
of immigrants roaming the globe trying to escape repression, war,
poverty and starvation is growing exponentially as this world falls
apart. Social, economic, environmental and political disaster are
everywhere. So the immigrants in the CPTs in Italy have their brothers
and sisters throughout the world, not all of whom are in concentration
camps. In Italy as elsewhere, undocumented immigrants in and outside of
these concentration camps have begun to rebel. It only makes sense that
anarchists would respond with solidarity, since they are also strangers
in this world. In fact, the undocumented immigrant is simply the most
blatant expression of the precarious reality that capital is imposing on
all of the exploited at present. Capital and the state are spreading
devastation into every corner of the globe, poisoning those lands that
they havenât yet stolen, where a few still manage to create their lives
on their own terms. Just as the homeless within the borders are not
simply individuals who love sleeping in doorways and under bridges, so
the immigrants from outside the borders are not carefree nomads
wandering for the love of adventure. Desperate conditions of poverty,
environmental devastation, war and political repression have forced them
to take to the road in hopes of finding anything even slightly better.
And for their desperation and poverty, they find themselves
criminalized, defined by a racist propaganda as dangerous and
undesirable elements. In every country, capital needs cheap labor. The
most desperate, those who live in daily fear of capture and deportation,
are the most easily blackmailed. If they do not accept the worst of
conditions at the lowest pay, they are not needed and can be turned over
to the authorities. In turn, the rulers present these immigrants to the
local exploited as a threat to their own precarious jobs, using this as
blackmail to enforce servility among all of the exploited. This makes it
easy to use racist and nationalist ideologies to prevent solidarity
between immigrants and ânative-bornâ exploited who are deluded into
believing that they have more in common with the masters who exploit
them than with those who have been forced into desperate wandering. But
those in power understand the real threat of those that they have
excluded. If the nazis began to build their concentration camps as the
places of exception for holding those who, in their eyes, constituted
objective threats to the state (political dissidents, homosexuals, Jews
and gypsies) simply because they did not fit in, the various refugee
camps, holding centers and âCenters for Temporary Residenceâ, as the
Italian humanitarians so euphemistically call them, are the
concentration camps of the modern democratic states â not
metaphorically, but literally, because they are places for holding those
who are perceived as objective threats to that state, outside of the
arena of civil rights, stripped of all but that bare minimum recognized
as âhuman rightsâ. This exposes the poverty of the democratic state of
rights, in which there are only ciphers whose values are defined in
abstract terms that prove, in the end, to be economic.
As these concentration camps for undocumented immigrants have spread
throughout the world (and particularly the democratic states), they have
become hotbeds of rebellions. Riots, hunger strikes and planned escapes
are frequent. Those locked up inside are not resigning themselves to
their imprisonment. This is why solidarity is possible. Since those
locked up in these specialized prisons within the larger social prison
are rebelling against the reality imposed upon them, we can find ways to
intertwine our own struggles against the larger social prison that is
our daily reality with their specific struggle. The destruction of these
concentration camps for the undocumented requires the active destruction
of this social order that turns the entire world into a prison-shopping
mall.
One such concentration camp exists in Lecce, the CPT of San Foca, run by
the Regina Pacis Foundation, a Catholic charity. Up until recently it
was under the direction of Father Cesare Lodeserto. This contemptible
lackey of god lost his position when it was found that he was torturing
inmates at the camp. As if being locked up simply for being in desperate
straits were not torture already. But the democratic state must keep its
hands clean of excesses like those of Father Lodeserto. It needs its
scapegoats to prove its own humaneness. In any case, the anarchists in
Lecce recognize that the excesses of Lodeserto were simply an extension
of the logic of the concentration camps and the world that creates them.
They have no interest in making these hellholes more humane. They want
to destroy them and the world that creates them, a world that has
objectively estranged all of the exploited, stealing away our capacity
to create our lives on our own terms. And so they expressed their
solidarity with the rebellion of those inside the concentration camps,
and this is the crime for which they have been arrested.
The Mapuche are an indigenous people of Patagonia the southern portion
of Argentina and Chile. Like all indigenous people, they suffered from
the original European invasion of the area. But for some time they have
managed to create their lives on the basis of small-scale agriculture
and animal husbandry in the region. This has become increasingly
difficult as capitalist projects intrude more and more into this area.
ENDESA, the Spanish multinational electric company has been building
hydroelectric facilities along the course of the Biobio River in Chile,
a project that has met with much resistance from the Mapuche including
marches and demonstrations, but also sabotage of machinery. But perhaps
the biggest and most devastating intrusion into the lives of the Mapuche
in recent years has been that of the âprogressiveâ multinational
Benetton. This company, with its anti-racist, pro-environmental,
progressive image, bought several hundred thousand acres of land in
Patagonia where the Mapuche had been living. Along with its own
exploitation of the area, Benetton has granted mining rights and rights
to search for underground minerals and hydrocarbon to various
multinational companies, and has been involved in building highways,
airports, railroads and so on in the area. If Benetton is the most
devastating of the forces of capitalism dispossessing the Mapuche, the
most bizarre and, in certain ways, telling is the Human Genome Diversity
Project. It has requested five hundred specimens of genetic material
from this tribe of about eight thousand to preserve in its storage
facilities. The tribe has refused to cooperate, seeing this equation of
people with a small group of molecules within their body as a symptom of
what is wrong with this society in which everything, including human
beings is simply a resource, a commodity. This massive dispossession of
the indigenous people of the region has not been accepted silently.
Mapuche resistance has been consistent and often fierce. Along with
demonstrations and battles with the police, there have been attempts to
occupy portions of the land Benetton took over. The Mapuche are not
accepting dispossession and the consequent proletarianization that is
being imposed on them quietly.
The Iraqis have been watching their home get devastated from the
beginning of the âfirstâ Gulf War: by the intensive bombing of that war,
by the sanctions and continuing bombing over the next twelve years and
by the new officially recognized war of the past two years. I have no
illusions about the resistance there. Portions of it, possible quite
significant portions, are under the influence of nationalist or
sectarian ideologies, embracing an artificial solidarity imposed by a
collective identity. At the same time, despite the horrific
circumstances, a large part of the resistance has remained truly social
in nature, showing a clarity about who the real enemies are. While
attacks against American military and âprivateâ * targets as well as
against Iraqi police and military forces go on apace, inter-sectarian
and ethnic violence has been minimal so far, despite a US policy that
seems clearly intended to promote this sort of hostility between Iraqis.
The resistance in Iraq, however deformed it may be by the circumstances
there, is also a desperate fight against the destruction of their homes.
For years now, the US and its allies have been forcing the Iraqi
exploited into the role of strangers in there own land. There is seventy
percent (or more) unemployment in Iraq. The only jobs available are
service to the invaders. And these invaders destroy entire cities where
hundreds of thousands of people once lived. A prime example is the city
of Fallujah, which American troops devastated in the search for
insurgents last November. The population was driven out or killed,
houses were destroyed by the thousands and chemicals used in the siege
continue to pollute what is now largely a ghost town. Only twenty
percent of the original population has dared to venture back, and to
enter the city that had been their home, they are forced to give their
fingerprints and retina scan to the American invaders who keep them on
file in order to monitor the comings and goings of the population. Truly
the Iraqi population â all but the few willing to be puppets â are
becoming strangers in their own home. This is what they are resisting.
There is a common thread that runs through each of these situations â
the thread of the dispossession, proletarianization and exploitation
that capitalism spreads everywhere. The system of capitalism indeed
forms a totality, but its development is not the same everywhere. If we
in the so-called Western world have been long since dispossessed of the
means for making our lives on our own terms directly from what the earth
offers, in other places this process of dispossession is going on right
now. And the circumstances in which it is developing are quite
different. Yet it is the recognition of the common thread that can
provide the basis for solidarity in the battle against the impositions
of the ruling order. The struggle of the Mapuche or the West Papuans is
class struggle inasmuch as it is a struggle against the class
relationships capital imposes, a struggle against being proletarianized.
In the West, we were dispossessed and forced into the class
relationships of capitalism long ago. But our struggle to take back our
lives is also a fight against the class relationships that have defined
our lives now for centuries. If this can take the form of resistance for
those who are only now being dispossessed of the means by which they
have created their lives, for us here, it must take the form of
destructive attack. But despite the specific differences in how each of
us struggles where they are, it is in this common struggle against the
class relationships imposed by capital and the state that the real
possibility for active solidarity and the interweaving of struggles
exists.
Solidarity is not an obligation, but a choice based in mutuality. If I
choose to express solidarity with any struggles, any comrades, any
prisoners, it is because I see my battle to take back my life and live
it on my terms within them. This is why the most essential aspect of
solidarity is the continuation of the struggles and revolts we share
with our comrades here where we are.
Understood in this way, solidarity is never with the suffering of others
â that would merely be pity, not true solidarity. Rather it is precisely
with the ferocity with which they refuse to accept their suffering. This
is why questions of guilt or innocence are of no importance in relation
to solidarity with arrested and imprisoned comrades. What matters is
that we know that they are fighting the state and its servants and that
currently the state has chosen to strike them fiercely for attacking it.
The five comrades arrested in Lecce, the ten under investigation and the
dozens whose homes were invaded by cops all recognize what their daily
revolt shares in common with others of the exploited who rebel. All of
these comrades acted in their own way to express their complicity and
solidarity with the rebellions of those in the CPTs, in Patagonia, in
Iraq and in other places against this imposed existence.
In the same way, my solidarity with Salvatore, Saverio, Cristian,
Marina, Annalisa and the other comrades in Italy starts from a
recognition of complicity and mutuality, seeing my own rebellion in
theirs. The greatest act of solidarity would be to find the places where
my struggle can interweave with those they are involved in, and thus
also with the revolts of undocumented immigrants, the Mapuche, the
portions of Iraqi resistance that remain free of sectarian and
nationalist rackets and act there. In this way, the threads of revolt
can weave an ever-expanding tapestry. The forces of domination,
exploitation and repression are the same here as in Italy, Patagonia and
Iraq, even if the specific methods of their functioning vary due to
differing circumstances. We can find the links in the chain of
exploitation that connect us with the comrades in Italy and with all the
exploited and dispossessed in revolt and aim our attacks at these
points. And this is true solidarity which gives substance to any support
we may choose to give the arrested comrades, showing its basis in
complicity rather than charity or duty.
Hurricane Katrina
In the present world, it is no longer possible to talk of purely natural
disasters. On every level, disasters are always social. This is
especially clear in terms of the effects they have on the different
people caught in their midst.
Hurricane Katrina made this so clear that even pundits in the service of
the ruling regime had to speak of âclass warâ in reference to its
aftermath. The stateâs priorities were obvious from the beginning: the
restoration of order and the reestablishment of functioning capitalist
relationships as quickly as possible. These priorities moved the state
to act openly against the various self-organized actions people were
taking to meet their own needs in an emergency situation, to such an
extent that state activity interfered with its own proclaimed end of
aiding those caught in the storm.
The stories of the ways that people organized their own activity are
quite worthy of examination. Though remaining on the level of survival,
due to the stateâs interference, these activities were an expression of
social war. Out of necessity, the poor people of New Orleans and the
surrounding area had to attack the institutions of property and of the
state in order to meet their needs. There was no way to hide the fact
that these institutions stood in the way of real human need.
But this is not the story I want to tell here. The region struck by the
hurricane (southern Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana in the United
States) has a significant immigrant population. Many of these immigrants
do not have documents. Since they are at the bottom of the social
hierarchy, this disaster struck them even more harshly than the rest of
the regionâs poor.
It is estimated that there were about 300,000 immigrants living in the
region struck by Katrina (though the official number is closer to
150,000, showing how many are undocumented). These included a large
number of Hondurans (about 120,000 many of whom were refugees from
Hurricane Mitch which tore through Honduras in 1998), other Latin
Americans, Bangladeshis, Vietnamese and others. They face specific
problems that those that the state recognizes as citizens do not.
In a CRS Report for Congress (Order Code RL33091), we find a
bureaucratic assessment of some of these problems in a language devoid
of humanity. Despite this language, one can learn a few things by
reading this report. Many immigrants who had their papers in good order
lost them in the storm and have nothing to prove their status. In
addition, many immigrants are only allowed in the country because they
have a job or a place in a university here or relatives who already live
here and are capable of supporting them. The damage that Katrina caused
has closed down many workplaces and schools, so that these immigrants
are likely to have their status reassessed. And many of their supporting
relatives are now themselves in need. Thus, many immigrants who had
their documents in order now face the loss of their status, with the
threat of deportation. In addition, the undocumented and those who lost
their papers in the storm rightly fear asking for aid. The bureaucrats
list all of these problems, and then go on to speak in the terms one
would expect, asking what is necessary to reestablish and maintain
control while promoting a quick return to normality, and basing any
policy of aid to immigrants on this priority.
The United States government public relations apparatus has tried to
present a humanitarian face, but the reality has been obvious from the
beginning. While Bush and other people in the government told immigrants
that they could feel safe applying for aid regardless of their
immigration status, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was
unwilling to promise not to deport those without documents who applied
for disaster relief. And yet the US government apparently promised
several Latin American governments that immigrants from their countries
had nothing to fear regardless of their status. By September 28, this
promise had been proven to be a lie, after five immigrants who had
applied for aid found themselves facing deportation proceedings. As
expected no one in the administration was willing to take responsibility
for this lie.
Although the DHS was unwilling to make any promises to undocumented
immigrants, it proved its compassion for the rich glowingly. Aware that
employers in the region would be looking for cheap labor, particularly
for the rebuilding of New Orleans (most likely as a kind of Cajun Disney
World in which there will be no place left for the poor), it has
temporarily suspended sanctions against employers that hire workers who
donât have documents proving their immigration status. So while every
immigrant who lacks documents whether because they never got them or
because they lost them in the hurricane will have to continue to live in
fear of being detained and deported, but employers will have even easier
access to cheap labor, guaranteeing the quick reestablishment of fully
operational capitalist relationships in the region.
The treatment of immigrants in this situation has, of course, become
another cause for reformist moral crusaders in the United States to
latch on to, lamenting the injustices of the government response to the
situation. But this response is not an injustice from the standpoint of
the ruling order. It is the only response we could expect from the
rulers of this world. Their top priorities were to reestablish their
control and to guarantee the healthy revival of capitalist relationships
in the region. Their actions with regards to immigrants in the region
were aimed precisely toward these ends. Non-immigrant poor and exploited
managed to find ways to fight to meet their own needs in the situation,
temporarily overcoming the usually one-sided nature of the social war in
the US, but I have found no evidence that the wall between non-immigrant
and immigrant, documented and undocumented poor and exploited people was
breached in this situation. Particularly in light of the recent
uprisings in France, we need to put every effort into overcoming this
division along with all the others that the rulers of this world impose
on us. This is an essential part of learning how to take advantage of
the unexpected ruptures that can open the door to social upheaval. And
in a world where anything can happen, those of us who want to overturn
this world need to be prepared to seize these opportunities.
An anarchist stranger in an alien world
November 2005
acraticus at angrynerds.com
Repression is a topic that is often discussed in the revolutionary
milieu, but unfortunately it is a subject that is not well understood.
Because of democratic baggage, repression is often understood as simply
an anomalous and outrageous violation of rights. What people fail to
comprehend is that repression is part of the standard operating
procedure of any class society. There are those that rule and those who
are ruled, and to maintain this divide, a combination of coercion and
accommodation is necessary. To preserve the social structure of our
society then, it is necessary to recuperate parts of social movements,
and to repress the other parts. Essentially, repression is a strategy
for maintaining power by capitalist ruling classes within nation-states.
Thus, since it is a long-term strategy, it is always in motion and not
some occasional occurrence.
When repression strikes and comrades are arrested, such as in the âgreen
scare,â the reaction of many is to disassociate themselves from those
who are being attacked by the state. Liberals, progressives, and most
activists draw up official statements denouncing violence, sabotage, and
illegality, all in hopes of proving to the government that they are just
good citizens who like to follow the rules and who are interested in
âpositiveâ social change. This spineless response is standard for the
left, and serves to flank the stateâs actions. Disassociation is not
only a cowardly act, but is also based on faulty logic.
The underlying premise of disassociation is that the state has reacted
to a specific occurrence and that those being persecuted are responsible
for bringing repression upon themselves and everyone else. Certainly
there are specific acts that the state responds to, such as actions of
the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), but this is not where repression stems
from. In actuality, repression is a long-term strategy employed by the
state regardless of specific illegal acts and is an attempt to maintain
the status quo by any means necessary. Repression, then, is always
present in many forms. It is the police, the courts, the prison system,
the proliferation of security cameras, the immigrant detention centers
and the like. If anyone needs further proof that the state doesnât
merely punish people for breaking its laws, and instead represses in
order to destroy its opposition, one need only take a look at recent
events.
A well-known example of state repression within the anarchist milieu is
the infiltration of various conferences, protests and even affinity
groups by one particular state agent: Anna Davies.[17] Following the
arrests of Lauren Weiner, Zachary Jenson and Eric McDavid in January
2006 for conspiracy to commit several acts of sabotage, the government
revealed that one of the threeâs comrades was in fact in the employ of
the state.[18] Whatâs more is that the government funneled money to Anna
to rent a house where planning allegedly took place and to pay for
supplies to commit these alleged acts. When this information was
revealed, comrades across the country quickly posted photographs of Anna
to popular anarchist and activist sites, and within days a picture of
Annaâs activity was pieced together.
Rather than simply being involved with the three people arrested in
California, Davies had been actively working for the FBI as far back as
2003. She has taken part in major protests such as the Democratic
National Convention in 2004, the 2004 anti-G8 Protest in Georgia, the
June 2005 Organization of American States protest in Florida, and the
Bio-Democracy protest in Philadelphia, also in June of 2005. Along with
major convergences, Davies attended anarchist conferences and gatherings
in 2005 such as Feral Visions in the Appalachian Mountains and the
CrimethInc Convergence in Indiana. On various Indymedia sites she also
solicited photographs and video of protests under the guise of
publicity, but it should be presumed that any information sent to her
was added to the FBIâs intelligence base.
So the intention behind her infiltration was not to help solve a
particular case, or to investigate one specific crime. Instead, she was
employed as an infiltrator to gather information about the anarchist
scene in general. It should also not be surprising that the case that
she is currently involved in focuses on alleged acts that were planned
to occur in the future, not ones that had already occurred. Based solely
on the evidence made available to the public, it is not hard to see that
the FBI was facilitating these alleged crimes by renting a house for
Davies and the three arrested people and funneling money via Davies for
supplies. In effect, the state was justifying their existence through
aiding and abetting. In the US governmentâs latest terror war, arrests
and examples need to be made; Weiner, Jenson, and McDavid have served
this purpose quite well .
In addition to the case of Anna Davies is the 2003 infiltration of
direct action anti-war groups in California. In July 2006, the American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California released a detailed
report in which they documented a variety of instances in which local
police departments, along with the California Anti-Terrorism Information
Center, placed officers into anti-war groups. First and foremost they
infiltrated the groups in order to gather information, but more
insidiously, the police hoped to steer the organizations in a direction
more useful to the state. When asked why officers had been placed in the
San Francisco group Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW), Captain Howard
Jordan of the Oakland Police Department stated: âif you put people in
there from the beginning, I think weâd be able to gather the information
and maybe even direct them to do something that we want them to
do.â[19]Clearly the stateâs perspective is one of infiltrating in order
to undermine.
This strategy manifested itself on multiple occasions. In April of 2003,
DASW organized a picket at the Port of Oakland in opposition to the war
in Iraq. At least one shipping company at the Port was handling war
supplies, and the group organized to shut the port down for the day.
Nearly 500 demonstrators took part, splitting into smaller groups to
picket the various entrances to the port. The Oakland Police Department,
however, was prepared. Through surveillance, police had already gathered
information about the protest, and in this instance, they also brutally
attacked demonstrators with rubber bullets, tear gas, and wooden dowel
shots causing scores of injuries. In response to the police crackdown,
DASW organized an anti-police brutality march in May of 2003. What
members of the group did not know was that they had elected police
infiltrators to plan out the route for their march. No one, not even the
police, could fail to see the irony of that situation. While in their
report the ACLU decries the actions of the police as evidence of
misconduct, these acts should more importantly be viewed as evidence of
the stateâs attempts to undermine and destroy opposition to it.
As shown by FBI infiltration of anarchist demonstrations and events and
local police infiltration of protest groups, it is easy to see that they
were not investigating crimes that had taken place, but rather they were
investigating possibilities of concrete resistance, which by necessity,
generally break the law. This shows that there are plenty of examples,
and certainly many that we may never know about, which demonstrate that
repression already exists and is underway. It is not intermittent, and
does not always respond to particular violations of the law; it is a
long-term strategy of the state to destroy opposition. This strategy,
however, has wider implications beyond the bounds of the radical milieu
and affects the exploited as a whole.
Author Kristian Williams, in his book Our Enemies in Blue: Police and
Power in America, examines fundamental changes in the repressive
strategy of the United States government. His main observation, which he
thoroughly documents with official papers and statements, is that
following the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, the state switched to a
strategy of permanent repression, or as he calls it, counter-insurgency.
Learning from their past failures, the police developed a preemptive
model of repression which sought to prevent insurgency before it
happened. Williams outlines two major components functioning hand in
hand: militarization and community policing.
Militarization is one of the most obvious changes within police
departments in the United States. In city centers across the US, police
departments are well armed and equipped for urban warfare. Not only has
their weaponry been upgraded in a variety of ways, but also newer and
more powerful firearms are available. Armored personnel carriers (APCs),
helicopters and even tanks are at their disposal, as are a multitude of
so-called non-lethal weapons such as tasers, tear gas, rubber bullets
and pepper spray, which are known to kill and permanently injure people.
But it is not only the tools, but also the manner of organization and
the scope of the mission that define militarization.
Organizationally, many police departments were restructured along
military lines into squads and platoons, and paramilitary units were
created as well. Special Weapons and Tactics units, better known as SWAT
teams, are a manifestation of militarization in terms of organization,
armament, and dress. Created in the late 1960s, their first missions
involved raids on Black Panther Party headquarters and on the hideout of
the Symbionese Liberation Army. SWAT teams were also mobilized dozens of
times in relation to the activities of the American Indian Movement at
Wounded Knee. Now however, SWAT teams arenât simply used for âextremeâ
situations or in the case of potential shootouts; they are also used for
routine patrolling in the ghettoes of many major cities. In this way,
paramilitary units -equipped with machine guns â targeting people for ID
checks, loitering, and even traffic violations, has become a normal part
of life for the most exploited members of this society. This is but one
part of the stateâs counter-insurgency campaign.
Community policing is the friendly face, and perhaps the more insidious
side, of the new repressive strategy. Community policing developed in
response to the stateâs inability to predict and control urban uprisings
in the 60s and 70s and was designed, âto build a bond between the police
and the public in hopes that this would increase police legitimacy, give
them better access to information, intensify penetration of community
life and expand the police mission.â [20] This is not the same as
infiltration because it is an overt attempt to work with civic
organizations, churches, homeowners, and the general public in order to
transform people into the eyes and ears of the state. Some of the
tactics employed include: neighborhood watch groups, public forums,
meetings with religious and civic leaders, foot and bike patrols, a
focus on minor offenses, citizen volunteer opportunities, and police
sponsored community activities such as Night Out Against Crime.[21] This
is how the police and the state worm their way into the social networks
of various neighborhoods in order to gain legitimacy. Therefore when
force is used, it is presented as being validated by âcommunity
support.â
Community policing has also expanded the role of the police from simply
dealing with violations of the law to an overall focus on âpublic orderâ
and âquality of life.â This is based on the Broken Windows theory which
argues that small issues such as rundown property and juvenile loitering
eventually contribute to an ever-growing sense of disorder in the
neighborhood and consequently, to greater violations of the law. This
means that rather than simply focusing on serious offences, the police
also focus on many smaller crimes that supposedly lower the quality of
life and eventually snowball into great social disturbances. Quality of
life issues include ridding neighborhoods of graffiti, breaking up
homeless encampments, and dealing with noise complaints; this focus
essentially promotes a zero-tolerance approach to crime. The underlying
premise is that any amount of lawbreaking, whether it is jaywalking or
kids hanging out on corners, contributes to ever-greater lawlessness.
The confluence of community policing and militarization amounts to
nothing less than a consistent campaign of counter-insurgency.[22]
Penetrating communities and including common people in the state
apparatus, in combination with paramilitary units and a war-based
conception of crime, are part of a strategic shift to preempt any major
disorder or uprisings. Poor neighborhoods and districts, especially
black and Latino ghettoes, which were the source of much insurgency
during the 1960s and 1970s, are hit particularly hard by this preemptive
strategy. Undoubtedly, since the exploited pose a permanent threat to
the social order, there is a direct connection between this daily
repression and the repressive activity focused specifically on radicals.
If we begin to understand repression as a strategy of the state that is
continually in operation, then we must transform our way of dealing with
it. In the US, radicals deal with it in a reactive way: first the state
strikes, then we come out with posters, leaflets, statements, and
attempts to raise money for our imprisoned comrades. This is of course
assuming that repression is even responded to; most choose to look the
other way as long as it poses no threat to themselves or their
acquaintances. Unfortunately, the mentality of some is that those being
targeted by the state are responsible for bringing repression upon
themselves. Without simply repeating the usual principles of
revolutionary solidarity, we feel the need to reaffirm that itâs
important to start using our heads and thinking about what can be done
outside of the usual support campaigns. Comrades in Spain, once again,
have given us some examples to learn from.
On February 9, 2006, two anarchist comrades, Ruben and Ignasi, were
arrested in Barcelona for an arson attack on a prison labor company and
for vandalism at a bank. The anarchist response to the arrests was
immense. Graffiti and propaganda covered walls in many neighborhoods in
Barcelona, and dozens of acts of sabotage were carried out in solidarity
with them. Individuals attacked banks and ATMs across Spain, a satellite
signal antenna was destroyed in Barcelona, and the offices of real
estate companies were targeted. Public demonstrations were held in
support of the imprisoned comrades, and on a few occasions in Barcelona,
major intersections were shut down during rush hour, as banners flew and
flyers were handed out to passersby. The acts of sabotage were not
random; they were an extension of pre-existing fights against
gentrification and the mediaâs repeated efforts to label anarchists and
autonomists as domestic terrorists. Thus they served to intertwine and
deepen the implications of their resistance. And in their resistance,
comrades in Spain employed a variety of tools: posters, graffiti,
sabotage, protests, and blockades. Perhaps more importantly they
demonstrated a refusal to allow the state to kidnap their comrades
without repercussions.
Outside of the scope of friends and comrades being taken by the state,
there is the daily repression that is ever growing. We need to get in
the habit of resisting the daily indignities that are imposed upon us by
this regime of repression. They will push us to see how far we will
bend, to make us bow and show respect to authority. They hope to police
our every move, to make simple things illegal, for the sake of
constantly having a reason to interfere with our lives. This is
manifesting itself in a variety of ways: the proliferation of video
surveillance devices monitoring public spaces, constant harassment for
identification, more aggressive policing of demonstrations, random
searches, and more importantly, the racist policy of mass incarceration.
All of these changes are the result of the convergence of interests
between states and businesses with mutually reinforcing agendas. One of
the most nefarious aspects of this growing network of control is the way
in which it is normalized over time. We get used to being watched,
inspected, harassed, beaten and treated like prisoners. The media is
complicit in this process by continually promoting a climate of fear
-fear of pedophiles, gangs, immigrants, and eco-terrorists â that serves
to build democratic support for repression.
There are some precedents for struggle against the slow creep of
repressive technologies. In Britain there has been widespread sabotage
over the past several years of speed cameras, which seek to catch
drivers violating the speed limit. Hundreds of cameras have been
destroyed across the country by chainsaws, burning tires, and rifles.
The recent implementation of speed cameras in Australia has produced the
same reaction. Surveillance cameras, however, are more prolific and more
useful to police. In many cities across the world, surveillance cameras
are routinely targeted with rocks, paint, and hammers. People generally
use brightly colored paints to disable the cameras and draw attention to
them. Cameras are only one part of the repressive web that threatens to
envelop us, but are certainly a worthy target.[23]
Also, anarchists and other radicals in many countries have initiated
projects that focus on immigrant detention. In Australia in 2002, there
was a direct attack on the Woomera detention facility by hundreds of
people who tore down several layers of security fences. This allowed
several detainees to escape. In Greece in December of 2004, anarchists
held a solidarity rally with Afghan immigrants who had been tortured by
the police. There, the demonstrators attacked the police station where
the torture had occurred. In Lecce, Italy, a very determined struggle
against the Regina Pacis detention center has been developing over the
last three years. Riots have broken out in the facility, and sabotage
and arson attacks were undertaken against those who manage and profit
from it. As long as capitalism exists, it will ravage large parts of the
world, sending people on forced marches across deserts, oceans, and
national borders; thus these revolutionary projects of immigrant
solidarity are worthy of close study.[24]
If we hope to have any impact upon repression, we need to begin refusing
their commands and disobeying their orders, and start thinking about
ways we can meet face-to-face with others who are facing state
repression. When the state hits us, letâs hit back. After all, like the
police argue, a few broken windows eventually lead to full-scale
disorder.
APPO
By Kellen Kass
On May 22, 2006, teachers in the state of Oaxaca, Section 22 of the
National Education Workerâs Union (SNTE), went on strike. Section 22 has
yearly strikes in Oaxaca to demand a variety of concessions from the
state, and this yearâs strike included calls for higher wages, the
construction of more schools throughout the state of Oaxaca, as well as
free lunches and supplies for students. Section 22 members occupied the
city center, the ZĂłcalo, to further their protest and disrupt the state
capital during the beginning of the tourist season. They set up camping
sites in the main square, occupied public buildings and organized large
marches, or mega-marches as the Oaxacans call them, to reinforce their
economic demands as well as calling for the resignation of Governor
Ulises Ruiz. Public support was quite strong for the marches as well as
the occupation.
In early June, teachers were given a final offer and ultimatum to vacate
the ZĂłcalo. On June 14, a police raid authorized by Gov. Ruiz involving
nearly 3,000 officers from the state police attacked the central square
in the early morning hours. A helicopter dropped tear gas into the
square to disorient the occupiers, while outside of the city riot police
readied themselves for an invasion. Police attacked the main square,
completely destroying the teachersâ encampments and injuring hundreds.
Teachers and Oaxaca residents fought back against police aggression and
were able to retake the square in a matter of hours with their fists and
makeshift weapons. During the fighting, however, 8 people died and
others were âdisappeared.â[25]
After people reoccupied the ZĂłcalo and took control of surrounding
blocks, a mega-march was held on June 16, with an estimated 400,000
people taking part. This time however, the teachers dropped their
economic demands in exchange for one political demand: the removal of
Gov. Ruiz. Despite the narrowed focus, the struggle was extended in a
variety of ways; teachers occupied seven city hall buildings across the
state, and students at the Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca
(UABJO) took over their school radio station in support of the striking
teachers.[26] In addition to these actions, teachers and many on the
left formed the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO). The
APPO was an ad hoc organization for people to come together to talk
about the events transpiring and to plan future action.
July was contentious as well because the Mexican presidential elections
took place at the beginning of the month. Much like Ruizâs election, the
presidential election was fraught with allegations of fraud. Throughout
the recount, groups in Oaxaca managed to not be drawn into any
particular partyâs machinations.
On August 1, a womenâs march involving some 2,000 people made its way
through Oaxaca to the city center. From there a few hundred women took
their protest out of the street and into the building of TV Channel 9.
They occupied the building and took over the station, broadcasting
themselves and their views on the current situation; video footage of
the various marches and police raids was also shown.[27] By August 22,
Ruiz and his cohorts had had enough, and they launched a paramilitary
attack against the station. In response, people took to the streets,
overturning several city buses, setting them on fire, and using them to
block major roads. In addition, demonstrators took over private radio
stations to spread news of the raid and to announce solidarity messages.
At the same time various smaller groups armed with clubs shut down
intersections across the already paralyzed city.[28]
Paramilitary violence has been a serious problem throughout the
teachersâ strike and occupation of the city. The term paramilitaries is
awfully vague, and it has been extremely difficult to find out who has
been behind some of the shootings; those captured are seldom identified
by the state. Certainly the paramilitaries involve Mexican military,
Oaxacan police, as well as the private army of Ruiz who is, at the time
of this writing, still desperately clinging to power. At a march on
August 10, gunmen opened fire killing one teacher, Jose Jimenez.[29] On
October 18, a teacher and APPO participant, PĂĄnfilo HernĂĄndez, was shot
and killed in a paramilitary drive-by. On October 27, Brad Will,
anarchist and Indymedia journalist, was shot and killed by
paramilitaries, as were Emilio Alonso FabiĂĄn and Esteban LĂłpez Zurita.
These are some of the most well documented cases, but there are dozens
of others who have died in this fight as well.
Events in October were tumultuous, and the month came to a crashing
conclusion. On October 26, Section 22 teachers voted to end their strike
amidst allegations of voting fraud and accusations that their leadership
had sold out. And on October 28, Vicente Fox announced that he was
ordering thousands of Federal Preventative Police (PFP) into Oaxaca in
order to retake the city. When the PFP invasion came, the APPO urged
peaceful protest and non-violent resistance to the police. Lines of riot
police equipped with tear gas and batons pushed back thousands of
people, and they also used armored trucks with water cannons and plows
to disperse people and destroy barricades. The APPO sent out numerous
communiqués exhorting people to act peacefully, and even went so far as
to denounce all violent actions against the PFP as the work of agent
provocateurs.[30] People laid down in the roads, pushed against police
lines, but by nightfall the PFP had made itâs way into the city center.
As police pushed further into the city on November 2, they attempted to
retake the university and destroy the occupied radio station within it.
In a six-hour battle with police, students and many other people used
molotov cocktails, rocks, steel pipes and slings to fight police, and
they overturned cars and buses to further reinforce their blockades.
This fierce resistance forced the police to withdraw, and put a stop to
police advances into the university area. Students and many others were
clearly upset about the loss of the ZĂłcalo to state forces. Therefore
they decided to use violent means to continue occupying the university
regardless of what the APPO said. At the time of this writing, the
students and the APPO still control the area surrounding the university.
âThe rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.â â Karl
Marx
The uprising in Oaxaca and the popular mobilizations have made
international headlines recently, but the causes of the situation have
not garnered as much attention. In August 2004, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, a
lawyer, âwonâ the Oaxaca governorâs election by a slim margin. Ruizâs
opponents immediately contested the election results, charging that he
and his cohorts had rigged the outcome. Apparently the oppositionâs
claims were not unfounded, but Ruiz still took office in December later
that year. Ruiz is a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI) that completely controlled the Mexican federal government for over
70 years until the 2000 election of Vicente Fox, a National Action Party
(PAN) member, to the presidency.[31]
Considering the extreme poverty in Mexico, with some 40 million living
well below the poverty line, it is not surprising that one of the main
ways that the PRI remained in power was through a system of patronage:
contracts, jobs, and funding for education and basic services are handed
out after successful elections of PRI officials on the local and
national level.[32] In thousands of other cases, and specifically in
Ruizâs case, bags of groceries were handed out in exchange for votes. In
Oaxaca though, it was not just Ruiz who came to power in this way. In
the first few months of 2006 there were also conflicts over town
elections in San Blas Atempa, Oaxaca between the Party of the Democratic
Revolution (PRD) candidate and a PRI candidate over issues of voter
fraud and purchasing of votes. While this may seem outrageous, patronage
has been a normal procedure in politics worldwide for centuries, and the
PRI is just a standard political machine that many throughout Mexico are
finally fed up with. Unfortunately, many people think that these corrupt
politicians should simply be replaced by honest politicians.[33]
The roots of the problem, however, go much deeper than PRI patronage and
corruption that permeate Mexican politics. The cause of the mobilization
and violent clashes with police lies in the absolutely wretched economic
conditions that dominate life across southern Mexico. Oaxaca, bordering
Chiapas to the west, is Mexicoâs second-poorest state and has the
second-largest population of indigenous peoples. According to human
rights organizations, nearly 80% of Oaxaca lives in extreme poverty.[34]
The main industry that props up the economy of Oaxaca is tourism. And
like all tourist areas, most people work in services where wages are
low, and many public services are geared towards visitors as opposed to
actual residents.
International trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) have only made things worse. The implementation of
neo-liberal reforms to the Mexican state, which has meant an overall
cuts to basic necessities over the past several years, has made it even
more difficult for people to survive.[35] In recent years, Mexico has
been unable to keep pace with Chinaâs offer to the altar of economic
sacrifice: its immense, expendable and therefore cheap work force. Thus
Mexico has been subject to the migration of factories and jobs to Asia
in the same way that the United States has experienced âjob lossâ to
Mexico. Thus it is not hard to see that dictates of the market care
little about countries, and that capital flows in the direction of
greater profit and greater misery.[36]
It is this complex situation that has led to decades of social conflict
and has culminated in the struggle we see now.
âOur aim is a more democratic government that listens to the people more
than the current government does.â â APPO Spokesman Florentino Lopez
Martinez
While many inspiring actions are taking place in Oaxaca, one must not
lose the ability to look critically at situations. On the surface the
APPO appears to be simply an assembly of common people charting out
their future, but there are very distinct political perspectives and
groups involved. The membership of the APPO is extremely varied and is
composed of a variety of social organizations, political groupings,
unions, and human rights organizations. Members of Section 22 are
involved, as are anarchists, municipal authorities, and indigenous
organizations such as the Movimiento de UnificaciĂłn y Lucha Triqui
(MULT) and the Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca â Ricardo Flores
Magon (CIPO-RFM). Within the APPO, representatives from each group
participate in meetings where issues are decided based on consensus as
opposed to majority rule. Members are not supposed to be involved in
parties participating in electoral politics, but membership is open to
groups such as the Revolutionary Popular Front (FPR) and the Union of
Revolutionary Youth of Mexico (UJRM), both of which are openly
appendages of the Marxist-Leninist Mexican Communist Party. One of the
spokesmen for the APPO, Florentino Lopez Martinez, has stated in
interviews that he is a member of the FPR.[37]
Aside from small aspiring states such as the Marxist-Leninist Mexican
Communist Party, there are other politicians in the midst of the APPO.
One of the spokespeople of the APPO, the media-darling and crass
opportunist Flavio Sosa, was a part of Vicente Foxâs election campaign
in 2000 through his organization the New Left of Oaxaca. Sosa has also
been actively involved in the PRI splinter-party the Party of the
Democratic Revolution (PRD) for years, a party he actually quit in order
to be involved in the APPO.[38] It should be pretty obvious that Sosa is
a political opportunist who moves from one group to the next in hopes of
carving out some kind of position for himself. Heâs a classic
recuperator, and one in serious need of an ass kicking.
It is also interesting to note that APPO member and Section 22 leader,
Enrique Rueda Pacheco, gave a speech at the fifth mega-march in Oaxaca
in early September calling for ânational unityâ and a movement that
would incorporate the PRD and the Zapatistas. He has also been involved
in trying to end the teachersâ strike as far back as July. Like a
typical union hack, he consistently tried to undermine the strike in
exchange for political clout. Clearly, the APPO is a mixed bag and
includes its fair share of aspiring politicians and real politicians.
This, however, is not the most damning aspect.[39]
At the end of September, three days of meetings were held to discuss the
transformation of the APPO from an ad hoc organization to a more
formalized and permanent organization in Oaxaca. Following the meetings,
a document entitled âResolutions of the First State Assembly of the
Peoples of Oaxacaâ was released. This document is perhaps the best
indication of the nature of the APPO because it is an attempt to define
â...Statutes, the Declaration of Principles, a definitive Structure and
a Program of Struggle.â Within the resolutions there is a section
entitled âProposal for a Program of Struggle,â which is most revealing
of the overall aims of the APPO.
The first point of the program of struggle is entitled âFor the Defense
of National Sovereignty,â in which they outline their proposal for
withdrawing the Mexican state from trade agreements such as NAFTA and
the FTAA, as well as from organizations such as the IMF and World Bank.
Their second point, entitled âFor a New Model of Economic Developmentâ
reaffirms national ownership of natural resources and calls for the
re-nationalization of industries that have been privatized, as well as
the nationalization of monopolistic industries such as banking. Thus the
APPO identifies neo-liberal institutions like the IMF and World Bank and
privately owned corporations as âbadâ and the sovereign Mexican state as
âgood.â A later portion of the economic program even calls for further
economic integration of Latin America and the Caribbean and the creation
of a common market therein, a sort of alternative FTAA. According to the
APPO, the problem is not with the market, not with capitalism, not with
the existence of bureaucratic institutions, but rather with US
imperialism and the bad countries of the North that take advantage of
the good countries in the South. Itâs the same tired charade of national
liberation that has proven time and time again to be a miserable dead
end.
The third point of their program of struggle is âFor a Popular
Democracy,â in which they proclaim that the âpresent antidemocratic
State should be replaced with a new State with a democratic and popular
character...â which in turn will be based on â...the will of the Mexican
people to constitute and make effective a Democratic and Representative
Federal Republic.â This points asserts that the state is a neutral
institution and that everything would be better for all of us if only
the corrupt, lying politicians were replaced by honest, democratic
politicians. Perhaps their critique of the state is so liberal because
many representatives in the APPO would like to see themselves as the
next ruling elite, but that remains to be seen. Thus their program of
struggle is not proposing the revolutionary transformation of social
life, but rather the democratization of the state and the continuance of
capitalism, albeit with a friendlier face.[40]
Given the participation of many dubious groups and characters, as well
as the âResolutions of the First State Assembly of the Peoples of
Oaxaca,â we must conclude that the character of the APPO is reformist,
and their overall plan is one of recuperating the rage and resentment of
the dispossessed in order to manage the misery of the current social
order. The APPO does not seek to destroy the state, but it intends to
democratize it. The APPO does not seek to end capitalism, but it intends
to increase state ownership of corporations and make capitalism fairer.
Plainly stated, the APPO â an organization with defined principles and a
long term strategy of struggle â does not share common goals with
anarchists, and is certainly taking part in activity that will actively
undermine the overthrow of this system. They promote false alternatives
and question only the management of the state and capitalism, not the
system itself.
âPrepare to die...Put down your shields and take off your helmets, and
Iâll beat the living shit out of you!â â anonymous Oaxacan woman a
defending the UABJO
This brings us full circle then to the issue of solidarity. Clearly the
APPO is an organization with wide support from those who want to see
major change come about in their lives; this cannot be denied. But their
popularity does not erase the fact that there are micro-bureaucrats
actively involved in the APPO, nor does it change the fact that the
APPOâs program is one of promoting a new way to manage the state and
capitalism. Also despite its name, the APPO does not represent everyone
involved, or the revolt in its entirety. The uprising in Oaxaca has been
inspiring because of peopleâs willingness to take their lives into their
own hands and direct their own activity. This is the greatest potential
of the rebellion: its ability to break with the normality of being
controlled and directed by others and then spread further, eventually
leading to revolutionary social transformation.
People are beginning to rediscover the ability to meet face-to-face in
occupied zones â the ZĂłcalo, the university, the neighborhoods and
streets â in order to discuss matters of real importance. Direct actions
such as strikes, occupations, blockades and sabotage are being employed
by all of those involved. Women are asserting themselves even more,
planning actions, taking over television stations, organizing blockades,
and participating in street fighting against the police. The cessation
of âbusiness as usualâ and the casting off of subservience has opened up
many possibilities and has led to massive resistance to the Mexican
state. This growing self-organization must remain truly autonomous if it
is not to be slowly ground down by piecemeal reforms and other political
tricks. Therefore the APPO and its alternative management plan must be
rejected.[41]
Despite the deficiencies of the APPO, we should extend solidarity to the
people fighting in Oaxaca. In the United States many solidarity actions
were undertaken during the PFP raids in late October and early November.
Protests were held outside of embassies and consulates in many cities
across the US, including Houston, Phoenix, and Seattle. Consulates in
Sacramento and Minneapolis had their windows smashed, and other
consulates and embassies were blockaded or occupied like in New York,
Indianapolis, and Raleigh. Anarchists in the US have been very active in
concretely demonstrating their solidarity with the events in Oaxaca, and
one can only hope that these actions will spread.
The course of the conflict is being played out as we write. The
Zapatistas have called for a general strike in Mexico on November 20,
and scores of actions are planned in the US and abroad for that day as
well. Consulates and embassies are clearly targets of interest, but one
should not forget that we are fighting an entire system, and that
demonstrating solidarity with Oaxaca can take many forms such as shut
downs of corporations with financial links in Mexico as a whole,
blockades in our own cities, and of course the escalation of activity
against more direct issues in the US. People in Oaxaca are taking steps
to combat this system as a whole, letâs do the same.
Liberation
I never met anybody who said when they were a kid, âI wanna grow up and
be a critic.â -Richard Pryor
We believe there are some who take action under animal liberationâs very
broad banner that are just as concerned as we are with completely
transforming this society based on exploitation and misery. However, we
find many within radical and anarchist circles acritically embracing
animal liberation philosophy and veganism. These ideas have maintained
an inertia and perpetuance that have unfortunately met little challenge,
especially in North America. We hope this critique will provide some
starting points toward greater critical thought and theoretical
reflection, tools that will be required of us if we are to take
effective action against domination and exploitation.
The animal liberation movement developed and radicalized in the 1970s in
Britain, and to a lesser extent, in the US. Its philosophy grew out of,
and often overlaps with, animal rights, which claims that all animals
are entitled to possess their own lives, should possess moral rights,
and that some rights for animals ought to be put into law, such as the
right to not be confined, harmed, or killed.
Peter Singer is one of the ideological founders of the animal liberation
movement. His approach to an animalâs moral status is not based on the
concept of rights, but on the utilitarian principle of equal
consideration of interests. In his book Animal Liberation (1975), he
argues that humans should grant moral consideration to other animals not
based on intelligence, their ability to moralize, or on any other human
attribute, but rather on their ability to experience suffering. The
animal liberation ideology maintains that humans can make moral choices
that animals cannot, and therefore humans must choose to avoid causing
suffering.
Since animal rights and animal liberationâs philosophical beginnings,
many animal liberation groups have sprung up worldwide, each with
differing approaches but all working for the same fundamental goal.
Likewise, veganism, the lifestyle of not consuming or using any animal
products, nor products tested on animals, has become ever more popular.
My intention is not to be comprehensive here. Anyone interested in
learning the particulars of the animal liberation movement can find an
abundance of books and websites with more information.[42]
Animal liberation is...a war. A long, hard, bloody war in which all the
countless millions of its victims have been on one side only, have been
defenseless and innocent, whose one tragedy was to be born nonhuman.
-Robin Webb, British ALF Press Officer
...the most abstract of the senses, and the most easily deceived... -Guy
Debord, Society of the Spectacle
To begin a critique of anything, we must understand how its advocates
represent it. The animal liberation movement first and foremost appeals
to various acritically-embraced clichés that are abundant within
activist movements, as well as throughout society in general.
Concepts of niceness, compassion,and philanthropy, all socialized into
us as being civil, responsible, and good, are played upon in the
language of the animal liberationist. Animal liberation presents itself
as a moral and civil progression of human society, a process of
âwidening our circle of compassion.â[43] We are told that humans can and
should avoid causing pain and suffering for animals, and that by doing
so, humanity will be on the right path to a kinder and more peaceful
world.
This focus on suffering and the supposed necessity of its elimination is
highly problematic. Under capitalism, animals are used as commodities â
as objects whose sole purpose is to be bought and sold â and as objects
entirely. that are counted, commercialized, and price-tagged. However,
animal liberationists reduce all of these things to one broad
categorization: suffering. This reduction eliminates the intricacies and
specifics of how animals are used within the current social context and
flattens the nature of their exploitation. What is paramount to animal
liberationists is the amount of pain caused to animals and the number of
animals killed. This generally leads to ridiculous oversimplifications
about anyone or anything that kills animals. Hunters are bad because
they kill animals, just like factory farms, and just like abusive pet
owners; to animal liberationists itâs only a matter of scale. Their
focus is simply on ending suffering â a complete absurdity in itself.
Letâs make no mistake, animals feel pain, and anyone who argues the op-
posite is a fool. But just the same, anyone who argues that pain and
suf- fering can be ended is equally as foolish. Pain is an inseparable
part of life. Animals can starve to death in the wild, break their
bones, or be torn from limb to limb by other animals. Pain, then, is a
biological indicator of danger, injury, and disease. It happens to
animals without any human influence. Still, animal liberations represent
animal pain and death as con- sequences of the supposed human moral
backwater in which animals have always been used and dominated because
we have not given them equal consideration; we have not progressed. So
animal liberationists embrace a contradictory and dangerous proposition
that pain and suffering, at least for animals, can be ended, either
entirely or as it is caused by human agen- cy. Yet the idea of ending
suffering is as silly as if one wanted to end sad- ness and went around
trying to make people laugh. It would be an exercise in futility. We are
intimately connected in a cycle of life and death that, by necessity,
involves pain and suffering, just as it involves sadness and joy. Yet
they tell us if only we do not turn a blind eye, we would be convinced
of their cause. Horrifying images of blood and death in factory farms
and brutalization in vivisection labs are abundant in animal liberation
propaganda. These images, like the ones we are shocked with by the news
media, are used to represent and exploit misery. While the media shocks
and normalizes us to images of global misery, the animal liberation
movement represents misery in order to manipulate and guilt us into
wholly embracing their perspective. It is not uncommon to hear animal
liberationists compare animal exploitation to the holocaust, while also
implying that what animals go through is actually far worse than
anything humans experience. This analogy plays on our sympathies while
quantifying the suffering of animals and attempting to convince us with
the sheer weight of numbers. Pain and death are abstracted and measured,
represented in a way that serves ideological promotion. If we do not
care about the millions of animals that die every year, then we are
cruel and uncaring. If we do not care, then we are responsible.
Animal liberation does not provide us with any critical assessment of
social domination. It promises liberation while actually confining most
everything to the quantified logic found throughout society. The
abstracted language and manipulative imagery of the animal liberation
movement is indicative of its wider logic, and ultimately, of one of its
major weaknesses. Measuring the misery of the slaughterhouse or the
vivisection lab is an appeal based on a certain number of capitalist
horrors. The horrors inflicted on animals are elevated over any others
by continually pointing to body counts and units of measured suffering.
Yet misery and exploitation cannot be measured; they are not made worse
by how often or how many experience it. We relate to it concretely
because we experience it everyday, and we see it experienced throughout
the world.
Few of us would react indifferently to the carnage of the slaughterhouse
floor. Our society treats animals as it does humans or trees or genes.
All are treated as units of economic value, processed as efficiently as
possible and then turned into marketable commodities. But our disgust
does not come from any fantasy about the end of suffering. We seek the
revolutionary destruction of this society of exploitation. We hate the
degradation and misery of everything being turned into objects for sale,
valued according to the capitalist dictates of the modern world. We want
to decide our own lives and relations, outside of the market. It is from
this perspective that we analyze exploitation and enslavement as a
condition of social domination â a condition that can be transformed. It
is also from this perspective that we critique animal liberation and its
dubious promises.
Consumerism
Welcome, shoppers! Thank you for being a caring consumer! By purchasing
only cruelty-free products, you can help save rabbits, mice, guinea
pigs, rats, and other animals. -from PETAâs Caring Consumer website
The animal liberation movement seeks to reform current social
conditions, in part, by promoting âcruelty-freeâ and âcompassionateâ
consumerism. By advocating this type of economic consumption, they claim
that animal suffering will be reduced. The logic goes that not using or
consuming an animal
means that no animal will be harmed or killed. This idea of consumer
reform is based on the belief that the system is faulty, unnecessarily
cruel, and merely needs to be fixed. This movement is evidently not
opposed to capitalism itself, regardless of what some may claim. The
reality, however, is that misery is an inevitable consequence of
capitalist consumption and production. Everything we buy is an object
and commodity â quantified, reduced, and valued solely in terms of its
role in the economy. Misery is just another by-product, like pollution,
that has no economic value and thus is dispensed freely.
The cult of veganism is effective in encapsulating the false reasoning
of consumer reform. The contradictions of the vegan ethic become
painfully apparent when we look at the origins of all products and
commodities in our society. A pound of tofu or a bottle of cruelty-free
shampoo hides behind the superficiality of its claim. The claim that
vegan products have not contributed directly to the killing of animals
is one of many marketed illusions promoted by companies profiting off
this niche market. Capitalist production, driven by mass consumption,
requires an enormous quantity of resources. These resources are
extracted from the earth through the cheapest and most destructive
processes possible, contributing to massive amounts of animal habitat
destruction and animal killing. The brutal reality of production is
buried beneath the glitter of the marketplace.
Simply look at how production works. The manufacture of plastics is
based on oil, so the packaging used for vegan products entails the usual
pollution and âaccidentsâ of the oil industry. Industrial oil spills in
the ocean account for an estimated average 100 million gallons a
year.[44] Only an estimated 5% of this is from large tanker spills such
as the infamous Exxon Valdez disaster.[45] The other larger portion is
comprised of routine spillage from the normal operations of oil
transportation and extraction. Oil spills damage bird-nesting sites,
coat beach habitats in sludge, and poison and directly kill fish, birds,
and other marine life. Pipeline construction destroys wildlife habitat.
Oil refineries spew pollution into waterways, poisoning animals and
destroying their breeding sites. This says nothing of the resource wars
for oil that have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and continue
to, in Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa, as well as destroyed the ecological
integrity of those regions.
The fact is, organic soybeans used for tofu, tempeh, and fake meats,
just like any other product in the store, use the same industrial
distribution system that consumes enormous amounts of oil and other
resources to package, store, transport, and distribute food and non-food
commodities the world over.[46] This translates into mountainsides and
rivers destroyed from mining fossil fuels, forests cleared for packaging
materials, chemical pollution from the manufacture of inks, adhesives
and lubricants, and so on and so forth. All these industrial processes
poison animals and destroy their habitats. The capitalist economy will
do nothing to avoid-this mas- sive destruction because these precautions
would increase the cost of pro- duction and decrease profit. This is to
say nothing of the fact that capitalist consumption is dependent upon an
unrestrained acceleration of resource consumption and ecological
destruction to feed its growth. Capitalism must expand or die. Through
its expansion, the world must die.
Veganism presents a false alternative to capitalist misery. It doesnât
and wonât ever change things for the animals or for us human beings.
Capitalism defines the condition of our suffering and dictates how we
will live, and ultimately how we cannot. The production processes that
go into making vegan products are the same as those used for any
products on the market today. Mass production is part of a global
division of labor that exploits millions and millions of people
worldwide. Resources donât turn into commodities by themselves. People
produce them. They are exploited in order to power the economy, to turn
its gears and make it function. Itâs no surprise then that capitalists
treat both animals and humans as dispensable objects. Yet the animal
liberation movement would argue for the destruction or abolition of
factory farms and butcher shops but put animal-free workhouses in their
place. This ignores the human suffering that wage work causes by
destroying bodies and dulling minds. We humans may not be raised and
killed for food production like other animals, but we are definitely
raised and killed for production just the same. The morning commute,
debt and rent, the fatigue, the boredom and the dissatisfaction â all
these will still exist in society that sells only vegan products. There
is no cruelty-free capitalism, just capital for capitalists. The economy
runs the show, taking what it needs and destroying the rest.
To counter capitalist misery we must counter it as a whole and reject
the illusion of piecemeal half-measures and consumer-reform campaigns.
More importantly, a coherent analysis of social domination requires an
unflinching critique of the moral and ideological forces that seek to
prevent this very analysis.
His Holiness is pleased at being called upon... to eradicate from the
hearts of men barbarous and cruel tendencies. -Pope Pius X
Morality is herd instinct in the individual. -Friedrich Nietzsche
Morality is a system of rules, a set of rigid codes based on an
âobjectiveâ right and wrong, which in turn are based on conceptions of
good and evil. These codes supposedly apply in all places and at all
times. That which is considered ârightâ or âwrongâ under a moral code is
not simply the correct or incorrect action for one person in a specific
time, place, or culture, but is rather the correct or incorrect action
for all people in all places, at all times. Moralists claim that their
strictures are universal standards by which their actions and the
actions of others should be judged. Thus morals themselves are
authoritarian because we must conform to them regardless of our own
will.
Morals come from some authority above us. This authority could be god,
the state, the family, or various reified ideas or entities that
validate the supposed objectiveness of a particular morality. Moral
codes define and direct the choices one makes. They must not be violated
because they are absolute and inflexible. In this way, decisions are not
based upon what one feels is appropriate to oneâs situation or desires
in the world, but rather oneâs decisions are predetermined by a moral
system. While many moralists occasionally break out of their shackles,
there is a sense of shame and guilt because they have broken rules they
believe are righteous and good. Thus morality is antithetical to anyone
seeking to think and interact in the world in ways that reflect his or
her desires.
Likewise, moral arguments are not based upon critical theoretical
thinking. Moral arguments or claims can simply be refuted by opposing
moral claims. If eating animals is wrong to a vegetarian, to a meat
eater it is not. Assertions of right and wrong can go on and on until
oneâs mouth is tired and tongue is dry. However, morality is relative to
the culture from which it evolves.[47] Notions of right and wrong are
determined by society, and particularly by those who control society.
Anyone who says that tribal hunter-gatherers are murderers because they
eat meat is merely entrenched in their own arrogant moral judgments. It
is precisely this lack of critical thought that places barriers between
recognition of common interests among people.
Some animal liberationists, full of righteous indignation, will tell
someone who eats meat how evil their food is. These indifferent or
apathetic meat eaters must be told that they participate in the murder
of innocent beings. If they do not listen, they are guilty. If they
listen but do not act, they are guiltier still. The black and white
shadows of morality cast themselves down like a judgeâs gavel. Campaigns
to âeducateâ people about animal cruelty or veganism are carried out
like missionary projects. Pious condemnations of other peopleâs failures
to commit to âending sufferingâ are much like the preacher on his
pulpit, chastising those who have yet to rid themselves of their sins.
This guilt just makes people feel like shit for their already powerless
position in society, limited by the choices that capitalism imposes upon
us. It does not foster a critical assessment of the social conditions
that contribute to animal exploitation, but rather encourages blind
obedience to predetermined rights and wrongs.
Various social institutions â religion, school, work, and the family â
impart moral obedience in us in order to regulate our actions and
thoughts internally and reinforce various institutions of social
domination. Morality is the cop in our heads, a shackle on individual
and collective realization, and an impediment to anyone who wishes to
freely determine her or his life. When we begin to decide for ourselves
what we want and how we will live, and allow others to do so as well,
weâll make great strides in freeing ourselves from prisons unseen.
Because ideology is always the form taken by alienation in the realm of
thought, the more alienated we are, the less we understand our real
situations... And the less we assert our own autonomous existence, the
more palpable an existence is taken on by capitalism, by the frozen
images of our roles in all the various social hierarchies and
transactions of commodity exchange. -Lev Chernyi, âAn Introduction to
Critical Theoryâ
Ideology works similarly to morality. Rather than adhering to the rules
of objective truths, of right and wrong, one adopts the rigid programs
and perspectives inherent or implied in an idea or concept. There is no
room for any flexibility. Ideology encompasses an as- pect of life
entirely and governs our relation to it. In this way, ideological
thinking is used in place of critical thinking. The world, or aspects of
the world, are explained and understood through the filter of ideology.
For example, democratic ideology upholds the idea of social change
through voting, political representation, and legislation. It promotes
faith in formal politics as much as it prevents autonomous direct
action. The power of this ideology, like all ideology, lies in how it
conforms and directs oneâs thinking into limited possibilities and
perspectives. Ideology stands counter to a critical theoretical analysis
that can assess situations and ideas based upon their actual usefulness
to our practice and approach.[48]
Animal liberation does not fall outside of this; it is ideological at
its foundation. It subsumes everything under animal issues. The
exploitation of people and the destruction of the environment may still
be important to the animal activist but they are seen as separate
issues. Ideology makes one incapable of seeing or understanding things
outside of it in any coherent way. Everything is framed by how it
relates to an animal issue. A vivisection lab is merely a place of
animal torture, neglecting the harm of pharmaceutical tests on humans,
the millions made in profits, and the unquestioned advance of
technology. A meat packer slices animals into pieces all day. We hate
what is done to the animals as they bleed in lines, in rows, on hooks.
But animal liberation ideology does not allow for the same consideration
of the human worker who must endure the dangers and injuries of this
tofu plant or that soymilk factory. Their degradation as replaceable
cogs within the system of production is not viewed as deserving of equal
consideration since animal and human are seen as separate categories,
the former placed above the latter.
Veganism clearly demonstrates the all-encompassing power of ideology.
Some vegans care little about how well they eat as long as they never
consume any animal products. So eating like shit (e.g. highly-processed,
chemical-laden, vegan junk food) and destroying oneâs body is acceptable
as long as itâs vegan. Itâs okay to destroy your health because it does
not destroy an animalâs â an illusion in its own right. So everything
becomes an issue of the animalsâ interests, blocking out all other
factors. The absoluteness of maintaining a vegan lifestyle takes
priority over all other concerns and maintains the illusion that vegan
consumption does not contribute to animal suffering. It blinds people to
the reality of what they consume, allowing one to comfortably embrace
its premises without critically evaluating them.
Animal liberation and veganism must be framed in a social context in
order for us to understand them in scale and scope. Animal liberation
ideology and the vegan lifestyle that springs from it are fragmentary
oppositions that fully adopt the capitalist systemâs way of
conceptualizing change. They embrace the idea that oneâs consumer
choices are primary in not only determining oneâs identity, but also as
a way of creating change. The promises of âcruelty-freeâ veganism
promote an abstracted view of social change focused on âsavingâ numbers
of animals through consumerism. This false opposition challenges one
aspect of domination while doing nothing to destroy its systematic
causes, in this case, the rule of capitalism.
Some vegans argue that their lifestyle choices are better than nothing,
in the same way some argue that Democrats are better than Republicans.
This is part of veganismâs fragmentary understanding of the social
order, which focuses its tunnel vision solely on âreducing animal
suffering.â All the while, animals are still being made into meat
machines, processed by people who are forced to work as labor machines â
both traded around in monetary terms, exploited, and used for capitalâs
ends. Capitalism defines human and animal roles within society while
veganism merely obscures this relationship by promoting illusory
âcompassionateâ consumerism.
A related ideology, popular among radical animal activists, green
anarchists, and environmental activists, blames the harm done to animals
and the earth on all humans and specifically on human nature. This is
thinly-veiled misanthropy. Animal liberationists elevate the condition
of animals because they are seen as defenseless, peaceful, and innocent,
whereas humans are seen as lacking these qualities. A misanthrope would
say some or all humans are inherently bad, cruel and uncaring, or even
that many humans love to kill, torture and hurt.[49] They would say this
is human nature. But these acts arenât a product of our nature; we are
not governed by instinct or an abstracted idea of human nature. Nor does
human history give credence to the notion that human beings are
inherently cruel and destructive. This mess of imposed misery and
domination is a product of human society, not of a human nature that
must be repressed or made moral.
The various institutions that comprise society govern our actions within
it. We are not mere individuals doing whatever we want. We have very few
choices as to how we survive, all of which are governed by buying the
products of exploitation and being exploited ourselves to make them. We
are continually taught to accept this life, much like prisoners are
conditioned into accepting their cells. Misanthropism does not explain
or illuminate hierarchical and exploitative social relationships. It is
merely a lazy ideological excuse for not thinking critically about the
problems we are presented with.
Attacking the capitalist system and its consequences requires us to
understand and act against it as a systematic whole. Otherwise, the
opposition will take the form it usually does, playing into the ideology
of reform and radicalism without any critical theory applied to how and
what we must attack. Ideology makes sheep out of people. Because we are
told, or we tell ourselves, we are free does not mean we are actually
so. We will have to be critical of all theory, ideology, and practices
if we are to determine how useful they are in transforming, or better
yet, destroying this society of exploitation.
I firmly believe that our focus must be on ending the suffering and the
death as quickly and efficiently as possible. If we all do as much as we
can, the 21^(st) century WILL be the one to usher in animal liberation.
-Anonymous[50]
The supposedly revolutionary activity of the activist is a dull and
sterile routine â a constant repetition of a few actions with no
potential for change. -Andrew X., âGive Up Activismâ
Activists play a specific role in our society. They are the specialists
in social change much like artists are the specialists in culture. This
specialization separates one group of people from the rest of society.
This condition is not accidental, as it is in the nature specialization
to be exclusive. The activist manages and represents social struggles,
confining them to single issues and recruiting members to their cause.
This is problematic from a revolutionary perspective, which is concerned
with transforming current social relations instead of reproducing them.
The animal liberation movement reproduces the activist role by standing
above and outside the realm of struggles that are inclusive and relevant
to the exploited. Animal activism dedicates itself to specific causes
and excludes those who do not adhere to its codes of morality and
lifestyle.[51] Likewise, it glorifies self-sacrifice, an idea that is
absolutely detrimental to liberation of any kind.[52] Activists see
sacrifice and suffering as some sort of skills most people are incapable
of. The activist must change society for others, for the supposed
benefit of others. The masses must be educated and shown the importance
of a cause or an issue. The animal liberation movement would make every
human a vegan, regardless of how little it will actually help anyone
determine the conditions of their lives. The worker trying to support a
family will, find very little inspiration in a vegetarian diet if it
does nothing to change the economic noose tied around his or her own
life. A vegan diet does not make dissatisfaction any more palatable.
This is not the only reason why many people do not take animal
liberation very seriously. The animal activist subculture limits
interaction amongst non-activist people and obstructs an understanding
of the struggles of others. Subcultures, activist or not, create
divisions and obstacles between the exploited. They require others to
adhere to their codes of thinking, conduct, and fashion, ultimately
alienating themselves from the possibility of building affinity and
solidarity with others. Who wants to constantly be told what to do, how
to think, and what to wear? An activist group can isolate itself from
this world, but they shouldnât expect that anyone else wants to share in
their self-imposed isolation.
Some activists may see this isolation as another selfless sacrifice for
the greater good. One must sacrifice for someone else, some animal, some
abstraction, some issue or some cause. In the process, one does not act
out of their own interests but the interests of someone or something
else. You can get the shit beaten out of you at a demonstration or go to
jail for liberating animals. The activist will claim that these are
necessary sacrifices for just causes and that your personal suffering
will, lead to less suffering for others. This is the myth of the martyr
represented in action. Suffering is not alleviated by causing more
suffering for oneâs self. Modern life is already perpetuated by
sacrifice â at work, in school, under capitalism. That is not to say we
should see something that sickens us and become passive and avoid risks.
Rather, we should take action because we want to and not because we feel
we have to. Then the risk we take is the risk of living our lives, not
sacrificing for an idea.[53] After all, Jesus already died for our sins.
Letâs not follow in the footsteps of that fool and die for them as well.
In terms of actual practice, animal liberation activists seek successful
reform campaigns rather than a widespread challenge to the system as a
whole. They are keen on celebrating their self-proclaimed victories. One
fur farm closes. A vivisection lab goes out of business. But later, the
fur farm comes back in another place with a different owner when the
fashion industry successfully markets Fur again.[54] Production starts
up again just as it always does. And the cosmetics industry still needs
to pour chemicals in rabbitsâ eyes and inject rats with pharmaceuticals
in order to prevent potential lawsuits. So another vivisection lab opens
overseas or an existing one increases its business, ultimately leading
to more animals being brutalized and killed. The âRoad to Victoryâ that
many radical animal activists celebrate is a series of insignificant
concessions doled out by the system.[55] Capitalism is flexible enough
to reform as long as its overall function is not impeded. And as long as
its overall function is not impeded, animals will continue to be
commodified and exploited. Letâs now take a closer look at the dynamics
and practice of this movement.
There are many activist campaigns that pride themselves on being radical
and grassroots. Radicalism by itself is merely an oppositional term used
to contrast some method with another. It is ambiguous and certainly does
not position a âradicalâ as having any clear perspective other than
being extreme in his or her tactics. There are many who are attracted to
the allure of radicalism because it presents itself as an alternative to
the reformist tendencies of other groups. This representation is a
falsity. The animal liberation movement embraces reform wholly despite
some presenting it as radical merely because of the tactics it employs.
PETA and SHAC want mostly the same things. They just use different
tactics and strategies to achieve the same goals.[56] But âradicalâ
tactics should not be confused with radical goals. Social transformation
is not made merely through broken windows and home demos. Departing
radically from what exists requires deconstructing âradicalismâ and not
confusing tactics for philosophy.
The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) has garnered much support throughout
the years for its commando-style tactics of live liberations, sabotage,
and fire bombings. These ALF cells are made up of small, decentralized
groups of vegetarian or vegan people who carry out actions under certain
guidelines; for example, an action can be claimed by the ALF if it
either liberates animals or destroys the property of animal industries
without any life being harmed in the process. Their short-term aim is to
save as great a quantity of animals as possible, and their long-term
goal is to âend animal sufferingâ by putting animal industries out of
business.[57] Evidently, the ALF represents the same ideological and
quantified thinking as the rest of the animal liberation movement.
The allure of the ALF is in part due to their commando-style image of
breaking laws in the cover of night. Popular ALF images have an angelic
quality to them. They save innocence from evil, just like the boring
fairy tale themes we are force fed as children. From the point of view
of animal liberationists, direct action, while practical for liberating
animals, is purely tactical rather than embraced as an ethic for how to
interact in the world, outside of representation, and mediation. Law
breaking of this sort is rationalized in much the same way Gandhi
rationalized and validated breaking the law. This perspective adheres
moralistically to non-violence and is carried out only with the intent
of challenging laws that protect one aspect of social domination while
leaving the rest untouched. Commonly, the ALF and its advocates compare
the ALF to the Underground Railroad, the network of people that assisted
slaves escaping from the South before chattel slavery was officially
abolished in the US. This comparison is self-serving and reinforces hero
worship â more illusions of grandeur.
The Justice Department (JD) and the Animal Rights Militia (ARM), on the
other hand, play into a more militant pro-violence stance. While these
groups are much less prolific than the ALF, it is worth noting their
development within the animal liberation movement. ARM is known for
beating up hunters in England, and JD is known for mailing razor blades
to fur farmers and making threats against vivisectors. Instead of
glorifying non-violence like the ALF does, these groups glorify its
opposing tactical form: violence. Here develops a tactical ideology
still trapped within its own tunnel vision. They counterpose themselves
to non-violence, which is seen as a failed method that doesnât âget
resultsâ quickly enough, quantifying social change in itself. They see
themselves as taking things âa step further.â This is the same reasoning
that groups such as the Black Liberation Army and the Weather
Underground used, culminating in spectacular acts that did nothing to
diminish anyoneâs exploitation and instead glorified political violence.
Their approach demonstrates the frustration and powerlessness of
âradicalâ action that is divorced from everyday revolutionary practice.
Rather than seeking a qualitative break with a society based upon roles
and specialists, these groups reinforce the instrumentality of
individuals dedicated to ideologies, not the actual transformation of
life for those involved.
To those who have lost their lives fighting animal abuse and to those
who took their own lives when the horrors became too much to bear; to
those who gave their freedom... Thank you. -Robin Webb, British ALF
Press Officer
Many animal liberationists love the martyrdom of the ALF. They are
revered as selfless and brave, victims of caring too much and suffering
for their compassion much like Mother Teresa and Jesus. One
representation of this can be found in Ingrid Newkirkâs book, Free The
Animals, which tells the story of a group of people who break laws and
risk imprisonment in order to save animals from vivisection labs. This
book has been a popular story among animal activists since the 1980s.
Its appeal lies in its portrayal of people who are somehow better than
the rest of us â more noble, brave, and compassionate. Like a character
from a simplistic storybook tale, the ALF warrior risks all to save
animals from evil. The animal liberation movement relishes its heroes in
the same way the media does, reinforcing leader-and-follower social
relations.
Yet many avoid illegal direct action because of the consequences of
breaking the law. The risk of personal repercussion then strengthens the
myth of the warriorâs sacrifice. Breaking the law becomes a task for
super humans, not the rest of us. ALF members appear to have been born
with special abilities and a fearlessness that we do not possess. On
pedestals, they sit like idols for worship. They are the heroes of the
animal liberation movement. Below them are people who can only applaud
like the spectator applauds a piece of art, which only someone
supposedly gifted or extraordinary can produce.
Social transformation needs no martyrs, heroes, or militants.
Revolutionary action must include a conscious effort to subvert the
roles that define our exclusion and powerlessness. The sooner we throw
hero worship and martyrdom into the fire, the sooner we can struggle for
our own freedom. Revolution begins with each one of us. We are the
executioners of fate. We must decide our own future so that no one else
will be able to.
You would have to be mad to expect protection from the State... And I am
not a fool. -Andrea Dorea, âNâDreaâ
The animal liberation movement believes animals should be given legal
rights and protections. They applaud bans on cock fighting, a truly
insignificant institution in the grand scheme of animal abuses, just
because it is seen as helping animals and adding to their number of
supposed victories. However they criticize laws that protect businesses
that use animals. They accept the stateâs rationale for why laws exist
in the first place and ignore that the legal system regulates society,
making it efficient, orderly, and controlled. Laws validate social
control, outlawing the ungovernable and protecting the powerful. Laws
and their enforcers hope to keep us from tearing the factory farm apart
with our own hands.
The state protects animal industries and other capitalist ventures; it
is the backbone and brute force of the capitalist system. The law
criminalizes anyone who would oppose the smooth functioning of
capitalism. Legal codes preserve capitalist social relations; the
concept of property and its ownership are thus sanctified. Any appeal
for additional laws merely strengthens the power of the legal system and
its mythology of justice and fairness. Faith in the law is faith in
capitalist exploitation, enforced by cops, bureaucrats, judges, and
legislators. They have no interest in changing a social order they reap
benefits from. Passing a law banning animal cruelty here, or a law
against animals in circuses there, changes very little despite some
claiming it as a victory. The factories of production continue to run
more and more animals through their mills. Misery continues and the
stateâs legal apparatus ensures it is so.
If we are to take animals out of the degrading system of production, we
will have to reject any supposed remedies provided by the electoral and
legal mechanisms of the state. The legal system only remedies the
problems of those in power. Anyone who opposes the social order will be
opposed in law. The ALF at least knows this much. Weâre better off
destroying the entire scheme of alienated political power instead of
asking for more stale crumbs and empty concessions. If we oppose
capitalism for what it does to animals, we should also entirely oppose
the states that ensure this system continues enslaving the world to its
logic.
Animal liberation has the most potential as a direct act rather than an
ideology. Liberations of animals violate their status as property.
Sabotage and destruction of animal industries can be directed against
the commodification of animals. However, when these actions are done
with the ultimate goal of animal liberation, they remain confined to a
perspective that cares only for animals. For example, many vivisection
lab raid communiqués focus solely on the oppression of animals, usually
in moralistic or ideological terms, while ignoring all the other
exploitative and disgusting aspects of the university research lab or
pharmaceutical company. Instead of breaking down boundaries to
understanding social domination, actions like these erect them and
promote limited perspectives that donât take into account the underlying
causes that turn animals into commodities. Likewise, the potential of
these actions is stunted by their confinement to a single issue instead
of being an act of solidarity linked to other social struggles. There
are, however, some notable exceptions of people liberating animals and
sabotaging animal exploitation operations without claiming their actions
for animal liberation.[58] These should not go without notice as they
are positive because they do not demarcate themselves as relevant to
only one aspect of domination but rather are attacks on one of many
forms. If we see domination and exploitation everywhere, we must not
limit ourselves; we must attack it everywhere it is found.
What we are and what we want begins with a no. From it is born the only
reason for getting up in the morning. From it is born the only reason
for going armed to the assault on an order that is suffocating us.
-Anonymous, âAt Daggers Drawnâ
The prison that is this society must be destroyed if we care to talk
about freedom. The factory farm is but one location where we find its
misery. This system of exploitation profits from animal and human sweat
and blood. It is our common enemy. We will not change anything by asking
the rulers to make misery more bearable or to exploit us, but with
better wages and bigger cages. Our lives and our relations in the world
must be decided on our own terms. To do this, we have a difficult task
ahead. Letâs not grow full on false promises, moral codes, and blinding
ideologies. Letâs grow strong on sharp ideas and self-determined action.
Some would say that something must be done. The world is getting worse
and we must act. They would tell us that we must do things that make us
feel like we can change things. Why, then, not work for animal
liberation? If our action is an expression of our desire, there is
little hope in counting converted vegans or numbers of liberated hens.
Revolution is first and foremost a transformation of our interactions in
the world â qualitative social transformation not quantified activist
victories. We must spit on appeals to those in power and act directly
for what we want. Revolution must be a daily practice if we are to have
any actual potential.
Something must be done. But we need fire as much as we need ideas.[59]
To affect any kind of real revolutionary social change, social relations
must go beyond adherence to ideologues and their false oppositions,
beyond the stratified decision-making, beyond pious proclamations. We
want something radically different, a world where we can be free to
choose how to live. This is only possible if we act outside of the
social role of activist or consumer, without political parties and their
hollow proclamations or nonprofit organizations and their single-issue
campaigns. We must be liberators of ourselves, not slaves to causes
driven by religious fervor and ideological blindness.
This critique made of the animal liberation movement should be equally
applied against all false oppositions and causes â and they are many. We
are not seeking converts to adopt our perspective. We are not asking
anyone to neglect the exploitation of animals or simply start eating
meat. Rather, we wish to foster greater critical thinking and analytical
discussion of our own daily actions as well as the theories and
practices of social movements.
In order to free ourselves from our shit-shoveling and shit-eating, we
must become active participants in an insurgency against ideology,
morality, capitalism, and the stranglehold of the state. In a word, we
must destroy everything that dominates us because the world is evermore
becoming a giant fucking prison. The misery of the factory farm and the
vivisection lab is everywhere. So, too, are our targets. We will have to
destroy the relations that reproduce and allow this society to exist and
begin a disobedience and refusal that is neither civil nor blinded.
As some dead guerilla once said: destroy what destroys you. This world
will unravel under the unleashing of our desires. For us, destructive
rebellion against this shit society is the only thing that holds any
promise of liberation. We do not want bigger cages. We want to destroy
all of them entirely.
It is not only the animals who depend on us to set them free from this
world. It is we who must ultimately feel the wind of freedom on our
faces.
c/o ABC PO Box 74
Brighton, UK
BN1 4ZQ
www.325collective.com
POB 3448
Berkeley, CA 94703
www.anarchymag.org
c/o BHUWC
P.O. Box 2536
Rottingdean Brighton, UK
BN2 6LX
www.libcom.org/aufheben
PO Box 11331
Eugene, OR 97440
www.greenanarchy.org
PO Box 993
Santa Cruz, CA 95061
www.anti-politics.net/incendio
C.P. 1244
10100 Torino
Italy
digilander.libero.it/tempi diguerra
Il Silvestre
via del cuore 1 56127 Pisa
Italy
3527 NE 15^(th) #127
Portland, OR 97212
www.eberhardtpress.org
BM Elephant
London, UK
WC1N 3XX
www.elephanteditions.net
838 E. High St. #115
Lexington, KY 40502
www.impassionedinsurrection.info
PO Box 63333
St. Louis, MO 63163
818 SW 3^(rd) Ave
PMB 1237
Portland,OR 97204
www.socialwar.net
www.anti-politics.net
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk
www.guerrasociale.org
www.geocities.com/insurrectionary_anarchists
www.klinamen.org
www.mariposasdelcaos.cjb.net
www.prole.info
www.anti-politics.net/distro
Watson
Critics by Anon. (pamphlet)
Silvia Federici (about the origins of capitalism
(pamphlet)
Adamic
(available online)
Atlantic by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker
Cangaceiros
Industrial Revolution by Kirkpatrick Sale
anarchist guerilla)
(US-Italian insurrectionary history)
The Decolonization Of Everyday Life by George Katsiaficas
Anon. (pamphlet)
Â
[1] âTroops begin combat operations in New Orleans,â Army Times,
September 2, 2005. âNow is the Time? Now is the Time! The Potential of
the Gulf Coast Crisis,â St. Louis Indymedia, September 3, 2005.
[2] âInsurrection Continues in Algeria,â Willful Disobedience,
Spring/Summer 2004.
[3] See âLes archs misogynesâ, El Wata n, 7 March 2002, which is cited
in the International Crisis Groupâs dossier on the Kabylia uprising.
[4] For more background on the complexities of the piquetero movement,
see âPicket and Pot-banger Together:â Class Recomposition in Argentina?,
Aufheben 11 (2003).
[5] âAcerca de las Luchas Proletarias en Argentina,â Communismo #49,
November 2002. We do not expect many readers to be familiar with the
ICG, but we still feel it is important to address some of their
writings. There are particularly interesting writings of theirs online
about the workerâs councils in Iraq in 1991.
[6] Technology is not neutral. Itâs a goddamn motherfucker.
[7] âSabotage Against Shell,â Insurrection #5, Autumn 1988.
[8] âThe Rural Energy War â Report from The Front Lines.â The Nation.
December 26,1981.
[9] âAnti-Nuclear Sabotage in Italy,â Insurrection # 4, May 1988
[10] âBusiness Brief â GLI Holding Co.: Sixty Fired by Greyhound for
Strike-Related Violence.â Wall Street Journal. April 6, 1990.
[11] âFrom Vandalism to Firebombing at Basic Vegetable.â Union Violence
Lookout. Vol.I, Issue 10. November 1999.
[12] âCut Phone Lines âObvious Vandalism,â Telus Says.â Vancouver Sun.
August 16, 2005.
[13] âOka, 1990.â Only a Beginning, An Anarchist Anthology. Ed. Alan
Antliff
[14] From a leaflet made in solidarity with prisoners in Lecce, Italy.
[15] Arrests were made throughout Italy beginning in Lecce on May 12, in
Sardinia on May 19, and in Bologna and Rome on May 26.
[16] For more info see âState Repression Against Anarchists in Italy.â
Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed #60. Fall/Winter 2005/2006.
[17] We are still unsure about whether or not Anna Davies is the
informantâs real name, but for the article we will use that name for the
sake of simplicity.
[18] At this time, both Lauren Weiner and Zachary Jenson have taken plea
deals and agreed to cooperate against Eric McDavid. For more information
see: www.supporteric.org
[19] State of Surveillance ACLU report, p. 13. Available online:
[20] Kristian Williams. Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in
America. p 239
[21] Williams p 237
[22] Calling this strategy counter-insurgency is not in any way a
hyperbole, because occupying armies in situations such as Algeria and
Ireland primarily developed these strategies. While there is too much to
go into here, Williamâs Our Enemies in Blue is an excellent resource for
gaining a deeper understanding of this phenomenon.
[23] For more information about the UK speed camera attacks, see
, and for the Australian case, see âSpeed Cameras: The War Begins,â
available at:
[24] Also for information on anarchist activity against immigrant
detention centers see âAn Example of Struggle Against Deportation and
Detention Centers for Immigrantsâ in the first issue A Murder of Crows.
âOaxaca Teachers Union Protests face Police Repression,â available at:
, and âUp From Below: The New Revolution in Southern Mexico,â available
at:
[25] âIn Oaxaca Mega-March, 400,000 Send A Firm No to the Repression by
Governor Ulises Ruiz OrtĂz,â available at:
[26] âIn Oaxaca Mega-March, 400,000 Send A Firm No to the Repression by
Governor Ulises Ruiz OrtĂz,â available at:
[27] In Oaxaca Mega-March, 400,000 Send A Firm No to the Repression by
Governor Ulises Ruiz OrtĂz,â available at:
[28] âOaxacaâs State TV Station Under Popular Control,â available at:
[29] âMexico Teachers Extend Protest,â available at:
[30] âVioelence Flares in South Mexico,â available at:
[31] For the APPOâs denunciation of violence, see
[32] âUnder the Volcano,â The Economist, September 28, 2006.
[33] âPolice Retake Oaxaca Town Hall Occupied Since January 2005,â
available at:
[34] âHow Many Deaths Is the Oaxaca Governor Worth?â available at:
[35] âOaxacaâs Dangerous Teachers,â Dollars & Sense: the Magazine of
Economic Justice, September/October 2006.
[36] For more information about the economic background of Mexico, see
âA Commune in Chiapas? Mexico and the Zapatista Rebellion,â Aufheben #9,
Autumn 2000.
[37] Frente Popular Revolucionario:
, and UniĂłn de la Juventud Revolucionaria de MĂ©xico:
. For interview with Florentino Lopez Martinez see:
.
[38] âLiderazgo âcamaleĂłnicoâ: Flavio Sosa, cabeza de la APPO, apoyĂł al
PRD, luego a Fox,â Diario de la YucatĂĄn, Nov. 6 2006.
[39] âOaxacaâs Social Movement Develops Radical Vision for a National
Government of the Peopleâ available at:
.
[40] Resolutions of the First State Assembly of the Peopleâs of Oaxaca
are available online at:
www.asambleapopulardeoaxaca.com
+
[41] For a look at one neighborhoodâs activities which are outside of
the APPO, see âTwo Days in the Life of Oaxacaâs Revolution,â available
at:
[42] For info on the ALF:
. For info on the radical animal liberation movement:
. For news about illegal direct action for animals:
www.directaction.info. Likewise, the internet is full of endless amounts
of information. Probably more than youâd ever care to read about
anything.
[43] This phrase is taken from Albert Einstein. Groups like Vegan
Outreach and PETA like to use this and other celebrity quotes in order
to prove that not only should we trust these revered people but that
they too believe in animal rights and so should we.
[44] Worldwide consumption of oil is 2.73 billion gallons per day. Each
day 31.5 billion gallons of oil are at sea being transported. Not all
spills come from tankers. Some come from storage tanks, pipelines, oil
wells, and tankers and vessels cleaning out tanks. This does not account
for the many more tens of millions of gallons of oil that are spilled by
consumer dumping, also still a consequence of industrial capitalism that
factors in no environmental costs into its products. Source: âAnalysis
of Oil Spill Trends in the United States and Worldwideâ (
www.environmental-research.com
)
[45] In 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound,
Alaska spilling nearly 10.8 million gallons of oil. The spillage was
only 34^(th) largest worldwide spills but was the largest in U.S.
waters. The result was major environmental damages, e.g., 35,000
seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, up to 22
orcas, and billions of salmon and herring eggs died and there were major
damages to fisheries.
[46] The industrial product distribution system is so because the larger
a market a product has, the more profit can be made from it. This fact
demonstrates capitalist profit-growth through consumer market expansion.
[47] This is descriptive of relativism, the theory that conceptions of
truth and moral values are not absolute but are relative to the persons
or groups holding them. What is wrong in one culture may not be in
another. This is clearly demonstrated in many cultures throughout the
world. Some cultures were and some still are vegetarian. Others, like
the Inuit, consume only meat. Most of these dietary habits developed
around environmental circumstances and resource availability and evolved
into cultural tradition.
[48] For more on critical thinking and the Chernyi essay, see the
pamphlet Critical Thinking at:
[49] This, of course, does not usually apply to misanthropes themselves
since often they see themselves as somehow better or more caring than
most everyone else. The logical progression of misanthropy leads to
repulsive forms of arrogance.
[50] Taken from the article âProgress of the Animal Rights Movementâ on
the ALF website.
[51] It is common to hear in animal liberationist circles gossip about
who âsold outâ veganism by eating some animal product of some sort. This
type of conversation reflects the banality of much of todayâs
conversations in which our alienation makes us prefer not to concern
ourselves with the reality of our alienation.
[52] This does not mean people fighting for social transformation will
not be harmed or killed by those in power. Rather, it is simply not
liberating to glorify punishment as some expression of social struggle.
Martyrdom is so fucking boring and uncreative. When youâre dead, youâre
dead. All the possibilities and dreams for your life then disappear.
[53] It is worth wondering how many people have turned away from
activism after feeling like sacrificial lambs. People who have snitched
out co-defendants in legal cases may have felt lengthy prison terms were
not sacrifices they were willing to make. This, however, does not mean
they arenât pieces of shit for sending someone else down the river. But
it is useful to try understanding how and why people make these
decisions so that we can understand and prevent them in the future.
[54] This is clear when looking at the trends in annual fur animal
production in the US and abroad. Fluctuations in the fur market, while
at times affected by animal activism, have yet to result in the decline
of the fur industry completely. If something can be sold, it will be
marketed and produced. Even if the fur industry were to be destroyed,
some other type of miserable exploitation would fill its place.
[55] The term âRoad to Victoryâ originated in the British animal
liberation movement but the concept behind it applies to the North
American perspective as well. The idea that one successful campaign or
another is culminating in some grand victory is, sadly, an illusion
probably promoted in order to stave off complete disillusionment.
[56] The Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty (SHAC) campaign is a perfect
example of this. They use various forms of intimidation and harassment
towards the goal of crippling a single vivisection company to put it out
of business. PETA works for the same thing but with tactics that do not
alienate their loyal membership base. There is nothing radical about
closing one vivisection companyâs labs when another one will fill that
market demand and begin killing animals just the same.
[57] Source: ALF website.
[58] Biteback magazine (www.directaction.info) and other pro-animal
direct action advocate groups often report these actions though donât
make a point to differentiate them from actions claimed by the ALF. Itâs
very likely they see any action involving animal issues as being
undertaken towards the goal of animal liberation. We, however, see
direct action for animals as positive when it isnât accompanied by the
foolish claims of animal liberation.
[59] Someone else once wrote this very fine point. Sorry I cannot credit
them because I do not remember who said it. Still, it is an important
point: practice is strongest when informed by the dynamism of critical
ideas. Likewise, ideas are only as strong as their practical
application. Otherwise, theory becomes merely another hollow
intellectual pursuit.