England: ELF hits Rio Tinto Alcan in Essex in solidarity with Saving Iceland
Tuesday, July 31 2007 @ 04:40 PM PDT
In the early hours of 30/07/07, saboteurs struck at Smurfit Kappa, a plastics factory owned by Rio Tinto Alcan in Chelmsford, Essex. The gates were locked shut, office doors and loading bays were sabotaged with glue and a message left painted on the wall. Vehicles belonging to Rio Tinto were also sabotaged. Rio Tinto, who have recently acquired the business have arguably the worse record of any corporation for abuse of the earth and its people.
Leftist rebel group attacks jail in Mexico
30 Jul 2007 00:29:37 GMT30 Jul 2007 00:29:37
A left-wing rebel group that bombed fuel pipelines in Mexico earlier this month said on Sunday it carried out an attack on a jail in the southern state of Chiapas.
In an attack that worried energy markets, the EPR bombed fuel ducts in central Mexico carrying natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, crude oil and gasoline earlier this month.
Copper Theft
Daring thieves are stealing copper wire from all over the county, including taking it from live power lines.
Electrical workers in other states have already been killed because of copper theft. It has also caused blackouts in several California cities.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Rebels say attack on Mexican pipeline is just the beginning
Leftist rebels claim responsibility; plants forced to closeMEXICO CITY – A shadowy leftist rebel group took responsibility Tuesday for a gas pipeline blast that shut down some industry in central Mexico, including two car assembly plants.
The Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR for its initials in Spanish, said Tuesday's explosion and two similar attacks on Pemex pipelines in Guanajuato state last week marked the beginning of a "national campaign of harassment against the interests of the oligarchy and this illegitimate government."
Nigeria's Moni Pulo Seen Shutting in Output After Attack
Nigerian oil company Moni Pulo is expected to shut-in its production following an attack by militants on an oil production barge in the Calabar River in the Niger Delta, a trader of West African crude said Tuesday.
The Agbani barge, located in Cross River State, was ambushed Sunday by gunmen on speedboats.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Fuck the Law! Squat the World!
UK indymedia: Denmark, Kopenhagen. On "Ground 69" [the place of the destroyed youth centre `Ungdomshuset´] people yesterday again began to built barricades. Later the whole Jagtvej was full with burning barricades. Windows of banks, supermarkets, companies were smashed. surveillance cameras destroyed.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
ELF NEWS
Man Arrested Following Several SUV Fires 12:44 pm MDT March 23, 2007. DENVER, CO - Denver police have arrested a 24-year-old man in connection with at least two fires involving Hummer sport utility vehicles in recent days. A couple in Denver's Cherry Creek neighborhood said their Hummer was engulfed in flames earlier this week, and the flames spread to another car parked nearby. It's similar to an incident last Saturday when neighbors said they awoke to find Hummer in flames. Police said that the letters ELF left on one of the vehicles was put there several days after the arson.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Of Martial traditions by SeaWeed
linked from anarchistnews.org because i think this is a very good triste on strategy & tactics that would have been better than the one s/he published in the last Green Anarchy.
Of Martial Traditions
By Sea Weed
There is a global conflict going on right now. Even those of us in apparently open and peaceful countries are deeply involved in it. It is a war of ideology versus freedom of thought. It is a war of industrialism against nature, of the mass against the free individual. It is a war between the rich and the poor.
The vast majority of the world’s population consists of defeated peoples in this ongoing social war. But we are more than just defeated. We are kept. Kept in fear, kept in awe, kept out of touch with each other and the earth that gives us life. It has been said that our chains are long and our cages big, yet this still implies that we are prisoners. Coercion is everywhere, including the necessity to sell our labor for a wage, forced obedience to unjust laws, conscription in imperial armies, compulsory moralities and schooling, etc.
The occupying physical forces are essentially the police and the army. Over the centuries we’ve internalized much of the values and ideas of our conquerors. Most of us have now been assimilated into the ways of the civilized and the domesticated. But I’d like to explore our physical occupation, not the various skins that we must shed and the fears we must lose. If we want to claim space for ourselves, then we have to be prepared to either fight for it or to defend it if it comes to us without military (i.e. self-organization within a martial context) action. This space could be permanent (a liberated habitat or village) or temporary (squats, wilderness camps, legally and illegally built shelters or autonomous neighborhoods). It could be based in regional secessionist movements, access to land by popular movements or indigenous assertion over traditional territories. Those of you familiar with the events in Kahnesatake, a Mohawk reserve outside of Montreal, in which the cops were physically chased out of town about a year ago, are aware of how successful an organized martial action can be. Canadian anarchists and other insubordinates have an incredible amount of insight and inspiration to glean from that event. We can claim space if we get organized and aren’t afraid to lose a few teeth.
With this in mind, perhaps we can look at history generally and discover how others in our predicament have also successfully organized themselves martially, because there are countless examples of rebels organizing themselves along martial lines and winning.Official history is written by the conquerors. Their self-congratulatory folklore is that we (rebels) have always lost because the conquerors were superior (and thus had superior weapons). At this point in time most of us assume that the situation remains the same, so we might as well not even try a tactical or martial approach, because we’re sure to lose. But this isn’t the case. In North American history for instance, the dishonest image of the technologically advanced Europeans overrunning primitive savages needs to be re-examined. All over this continent the indigenous peoples rose up and used martial skills to repel the invasions. In most instances, at least initially, they had some success.Let’s look at an example from one of the very first invasions. In 1521, in what is now called Florida, the Calusa and Timucua defeated experienced conquistadors under Ponce de Leon and Hernandez de Cordoba. In fact, both of these conquerors died of wounds inflicted by the Calusa! For half a century the indigenous tribes repelled the Spanish in that region. The invasion by de Leon and de Cordoba was in fact the fourth invasion by Spaniards repelled successfully by local tribes-people.Throughout the successive invasions, there were countless examples of success. Furthermore, Europeans would not have ultimately won without adopting some native technology and skills while throughout the centuries the indigenous peoples also adapted European technology and tactics. For instance, in his excellent book, Warpaths, author Ian Steele explains that: “ Spanish crossbows had failed to compete with Amerindian longbows that were six to seven feet long, thick as a man’s arm, and very accurate at two hundred yards. Although Spanish armor had been effective against most arrows encountered on three continents, these … arrows penetrated six inches of wood and even Spanish breast-and back plates.” In many instances the indigenous successfully defended their territory for decades, some even succeeded for generations.
It seems clear that our resistance would be more effective if it were based on entire communities. Could we be aiming for a period of regional, neighborhood and village-like secessionist movements? Centralized authority can not control a veritable multitude of rebellious regions, villages, reserves and neighborhoods, each with its own focus, its specific expression of anti-authoritarian self-organization. Also by collaborating with or at least acknowledging indigenous actions for autonomy and territory, we can be part of something much larger, something quite close generally to what many insurgent communitarians, radical ecologists, anarchists and other rebels are aiming for.
As mentioned earlier, we still have to shake off the chains that we ourselves seem to willingly carry, like crucifixes, because we are believers. Part of breaking out involves shedding all those ideological skins grafted onto us through schooling, the mass media, living in nuclear families, etc. But my involvement with rebels over the past 25 years tells me that we already know that this is important. What we don’t seem to inventory is the means available to us to counter our physical occupation. We know that it is only by ridding ourselves of organized coercive authority that we will truly begin to have real opportunities to profoundly transform ourselves, so what are some of the first steps?
Part of being an insurgent today could involve acquiring a weapon and becoming proficient in its use. Weapons include rifles, shotguns, handguns, sling shots, knives and various bows and arrows, among others. These could be used for acquiring food as well as for self-defense or to chase away adversaries. This isn’t a call to “armed struggle” or an embrace of a leftist, macho fetishism of guns. Most simple weapons are also useful tools and we should make use of them in that context, for instance by learning hunting skills, then bringing home some wild meat to share with friends so we can stop relying on dumpsters and food banks and jobs. The bonus is that our familiarity with them could be extremely useful in a crisis situation or during a popular revolt.
The prisons are full. The factories and mines are full. A small class of people calls all the shots. There is a wave of extinction denuding the planet that is being caused by a system that is imposed from above. Entire populations are on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills. We need to regroup and strategize. Encouraging individuals and groups of rebellious people to get some training in survival and martial skills seems appropriate at this time. These various individuals and groups would help create a new anti-authoritarian culture that includes a widespread acceptance of a martial component. Civilized approaches have ruled us for too long. A more martial approach should be given an opportunity to contribute significantly to our resistance.
The support for martial skills could translate into anti-authoritarian “ warrior societies” or “militias”, but that isn’t the focus I’m suggesting. These are groups of individuals dedicated to helping their neighbors, comrades and friends claim space to express anger, resist the plundering of their habitat and help various grassroots initiatives to fight back through the practice of martial approaches. The members practice survival and martial skills. When a squat is about to be evicted or a wilderness camp burned by authorities, they might show up to give moral and physical support with their training and ability to act strongly as a group. Whether groups form or not, by being inclusive and encouraging as many friends, neighbors and comrades as possible to explore martial ways, an exciting new culture will be given the opportunity to emerge.
Canadian rebels can take advantage of the relative freedom and openness of our society and get these skills and tools before the chains shorten and the cages shrink. The reaction to the September 11th events in the USA proved just how quickly an open society will bring in draconian laws to protect the elite, the system they depend on and the values that allow such a system to exist in the first place.
We are all occupied peoples. The occupation is a military one and our response should therefore be, in part at least, a military one. But I don’t want a warrior ethic to be the central aspect of my community. I want the wisdom of the elders, the spontaneity, playfulness and brutal honesty of the children, the careful chiding and questioning of the fools and pacifists to also be essential aspects of my resistance, otherwise we’ll end up with martial societies rather than societies with martial skills, or worse, warrior aristocracies. I’m not suggesting a separate warrior class, but an anti-authoritarian culture that values martial skills and tactics. Training in self-defense, widespread use and knowledge of weaponry, popular study of conflict and confrontation, general encouragement of fighting back and standing up, etc. would all be central. I’m encouraging a grassroots acceptance of martial skills and approaches. I hope all rebels will make room for a warrior spirit to rise within their communities or within themselves.
The warriors we want to encourage are motivated by a concern and caring for others in their community. They aren’t based in small sanctimonious cliques. However, they care about others because they care about themselves, about life generally, about freedom for all. Our fighter exists to claim space for herself and others. In this newly freed up space genuine living can have an opportunity to express itself.
Part of preparing ourselves for secession and revolt includes the study of military history, the principles and ways of warfare. Many of us are familiar with some of the classics: Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Musashi’s Book of Five Rings, Che Gueverra’s writings, Mao’s musings and analysis and the works of Clausewitz for instance. But these are only some of the classics, mostly from an authoritarian perspective, and clearly inadequate to fully inform and inspire an emerging martial culture wanting to claim or defend space. We also need to look at the history of anarchists, like the Makhnovchina or the Durruti Column, for instance, at how they got started and how they were organized as well as at some of their specific battles and how they were won or lost. We can learn from the mistakes of countless past attempts. And, incidentally, I’m not encouraging some variant of Maoism, although the Red Army, as an army, did succeed partly because its leadership made the study of the principles of general and revolutionary war a priority. Anti-authoritarian rebels don’t have an elitist leadership and aren’t centrally organized. Federations of independent camps should be encouraged, but these alliances should be fragile agreements because ultimately it is in not becoming too formally linked that we will succeed in permanently breaking the existence of political monopolies and help create a world of free individuals, autonomous villages and vast tracts of wilderness where self-organized groups of free humans can live.
This focus of rebellious people on military history and strategy would obviously be well complimented by also including the struggles of indigenous and other autonomy seeking groups. In this respect anarchists and others could also look at the Metis rebellion around the Red River Valley and the Society of the Masterless Men in Newfoundland, for instance. Of course we’d benefit as well from a study of the battles of war leaders like Crazy Horse, Tecumseh, Chief Joseph, Pontiac and Geronimo and countless other examples.
A study of the military attempts of anti-authoritarian and indigenous rebels that focuses on specific battles and the strategies that either won or lost them the fight, can lead to many useful insights of the art of war. A look at the struggle of the Potawatomi for instance, a people who lived according to open and free principles, to survive while caught up in the conflicts between the French and English colonial powers, reveals secrets of successful warfare. Here is just one example. In the spring of 1755, Major General Braddock assembled a large army under the British flag. He was leading colonial militia and regular troops from Virginia to destroy French forts on the Ohio River. His guide and adviser was a young colonel, George Washington. Here’s a description of what transpired from James Clifton’s book The Potawatomi:
On June 8 the British were approaching Fort Duquesne in western Pennsylvania, site of present day Pittsburgh. Seeing that the British were camped and on the alert, the Potawatomi war leaders persuaded the French not to attack. Instead, they planned to attack the British troops the next day while they were on the move, stretched out in mile-long files along a narrow, forest-shrouded trail. Their surprise attack was a complete success. Colonel Washington tried to…counterattack in Indian style…but was defeated. They suffered nearly 1000 dead and wounded out of 1500 on the trail that morning. They abandoned most of their equipment and supplies… Braddock was mortally wounded. Washington barely escaped with his life. He learned a life-saving military lesson from this disaster, one that he would regularly give as advice to his own generals when sending them against British and Indian forces: “Beware of surprise!”In military theory, surprise is one of the most potent weapons available. We should keep in mind that a study of historical combat shows that surprise increases the combat power of fighting forces. It is the greatest of all combat multipliers. That is, if you are numerically inferior, for instance, your chances of winning are increased depending on the multipliers available to you. Surprise, combat effectiveness, defensive postures, these are all multipliers that can help. Shouldn’t this knowledge be generally available and understood among anti-authoritarians?
The following are just a few examples of using martial tactics to succeed in present day struggles.
Opening new fronts as solidarity with other rebels engaged in a confrontation or action. Encouraging defection within enemy ranks. Avoiding capture. Blockades. Unarresting a comrade. The ambush. Spying. Interrupting the enemies’ means of communication. The surprise. Raids on enemy stores of food and weapons. The siege. Physical battles that expand territory. Freeing captives from enemy prisons. Destruction of enemy arsenals. Destruction of enemy wealth. Regrouping. Hiding. Secret codes and other means of communication. Bolder actions. Creating clandestine camps in which to hide friendly fugitives. Insurgencies. Fleeing to areas outside the enemies’ control. Increased ability to fight as groups.
Like all strategies involving territory and occupation, the defeated have myriad choices in terms of how they live out their lives. But the choices are more limited if we agree on what our aims are, on what would constitute success, on what constitutes living. Who among us would dared have told any of the Warsaw Ghetto inhabitants who rose up against their Nazi tormentors that killing their enemy was morally reprehensible and therefore they should continue to accept daily humiliation, suffering, violence and death? Yet at the time, there were those among them who argued against the uprising on various grounds, including moral ones. Oftentimes it isn’t a question of who was more successful, but agreeing on what success is. In the case of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, those who participated in the uprising felt it was more successful to stand up to their oppressors and die with dignity, freedom on their lips, than to continue to live in Nazi hell. For others success was measured simply by staying alive at all costs, even if that meant being a traitor or accepting defeat. For others still, success was measured by being morally superior, by never adopting the means and ways of the enemy, even if that meant suffering or death. All rebels, who want to overthrow the present social order in favor of a more just and imaginative one, need to ask themselves what success means for them. I believe it means standing up to the bullies who run things. It means asserting some territoriality within which we can learn to live in harmony with each other and the world around us. To achieve this we need to listen to the hot headed, impatient and courageous warriors as much as we do to the cautious, negotiating and compromising survivors.
I know that we are all damaged people who need to heal and not just fight. We partly do this with others with whom we share affinities and openness for intimacy. We also need to analyze civilization (or domination generally) and share our insights through debates, pamphlets, publications and discussion. And we need to help create communities and/or cultures of resistance by contributing to the various projects that fellow rebels are involved in. Yet personal healing, propaganda and putting our energy into community projects, no matter how worthy, still don’t acknowledge the military occupation we are presently living under. Even attempts at “re-wilding” are vain if we don’t push for a generalized, effective, long-term momentum against militarily protected centralized authority.History is not only the story of the civilized targeting and conquering the free, it is also a chronicle of the resistance to that conquest. I have allies and kin that extend back millennia. They have won countless battles. There has been successful resistance in every area and every era. In order to honor our ancestors, and I use this term broadly in the sense of ancestors by blood or worldview, we need to give them thanks and keep up the fight. In military theory, it is said that for the conqueror to succeed the losing population must accept defeat, otherwise the conquerors only win after every single person has been killed, which isn’t normally in the conquerors interest, because they need slaves and soldiers, etc. A very large part of our population unfortunately has accepted defeat. So I want to repeat that sharing our unique world-views and critiques and creating community are as essential as acquiring martial skills. A small band of rebels can accomplish a lot, even succeeding in leading relatively free lives away from civilization, but we need to aim higher. In Ireland, in the early nineteen hundreds, small local militias with not even enough rifles to go around succeeded in thwarting the designs of one of the most powerful empires on the planet for decades. They were successful partly because they used many martial skills, from spying to engagement in actual battles and partly because they had widespread support. The fighters could melt back into the population. Disadvantaged fighters need widespread support to win. With this in mind, it’s essential that rebels stay put in one region and make strong bonds with the land and the inhabitants there. Hopefully, over time, the embers of authentic communities with martial skills will begin to glow.
Of Martial Traditions
By Sea Weed
There is a global conflict going on right now. Even those of us in apparently open and peaceful countries are deeply involved in it. It is a war of ideology versus freedom of thought. It is a war of industrialism against nature, of the mass against the free individual. It is a war between the rich and the poor.
The vast majority of the world’s population consists of defeated peoples in this ongoing social war. But we are more than just defeated. We are kept. Kept in fear, kept in awe, kept out of touch with each other and the earth that gives us life. It has been said that our chains are long and our cages big, yet this still implies that we are prisoners. Coercion is everywhere, including the necessity to sell our labor for a wage, forced obedience to unjust laws, conscription in imperial armies, compulsory moralities and schooling, etc.
The occupying physical forces are essentially the police and the army. Over the centuries we’ve internalized much of the values and ideas of our conquerors. Most of us have now been assimilated into the ways of the civilized and the domesticated. But I’d like to explore our physical occupation, not the various skins that we must shed and the fears we must lose. If we want to claim space for ourselves, then we have to be prepared to either fight for it or to defend it if it comes to us without military (i.e. self-organization within a martial context) action. This space could be permanent (a liberated habitat or village) or temporary (squats, wilderness camps, legally and illegally built shelters or autonomous neighborhoods). It could be based in regional secessionist movements, access to land by popular movements or indigenous assertion over traditional territories. Those of you familiar with the events in Kahnesatake, a Mohawk reserve outside of Montreal, in which the cops were physically chased out of town about a year ago, are aware of how successful an organized martial action can be. Canadian anarchists and other insubordinates have an incredible amount of insight and inspiration to glean from that event. We can claim space if we get organized and aren’t afraid to lose a few teeth.
With this in mind, perhaps we can look at history generally and discover how others in our predicament have also successfully organized themselves martially, because there are countless examples of rebels organizing themselves along martial lines and winning.Official history is written by the conquerors. Their self-congratulatory folklore is that we (rebels) have always lost because the conquerors were superior (and thus had superior weapons). At this point in time most of us assume that the situation remains the same, so we might as well not even try a tactical or martial approach, because we’re sure to lose. But this isn’t the case. In North American history for instance, the dishonest image of the technologically advanced Europeans overrunning primitive savages needs to be re-examined. All over this continent the indigenous peoples rose up and used martial skills to repel the invasions. In most instances, at least initially, they had some success.Let’s look at an example from one of the very first invasions. In 1521, in what is now called Florida, the Calusa and Timucua defeated experienced conquistadors under Ponce de Leon and Hernandez de Cordoba. In fact, both of these conquerors died of wounds inflicted by the Calusa! For half a century the indigenous tribes repelled the Spanish in that region. The invasion by de Leon and de Cordoba was in fact the fourth invasion by Spaniards repelled successfully by local tribes-people.Throughout the successive invasions, there were countless examples of success. Furthermore, Europeans would not have ultimately won without adopting some native technology and skills while throughout the centuries the indigenous peoples also adapted European technology and tactics. For instance, in his excellent book, Warpaths, author Ian Steele explains that: “ Spanish crossbows had failed to compete with Amerindian longbows that were six to seven feet long, thick as a man’s arm, and very accurate at two hundred yards. Although Spanish armor had been effective against most arrows encountered on three continents, these … arrows penetrated six inches of wood and even Spanish breast-and back plates.” In many instances the indigenous successfully defended their territory for decades, some even succeeded for generations.
It seems clear that our resistance would be more effective if it were based on entire communities. Could we be aiming for a period of regional, neighborhood and village-like secessionist movements? Centralized authority can not control a veritable multitude of rebellious regions, villages, reserves and neighborhoods, each with its own focus, its specific expression of anti-authoritarian self-organization. Also by collaborating with or at least acknowledging indigenous actions for autonomy and territory, we can be part of something much larger, something quite close generally to what many insurgent communitarians, radical ecologists, anarchists and other rebels are aiming for.
As mentioned earlier, we still have to shake off the chains that we ourselves seem to willingly carry, like crucifixes, because we are believers. Part of breaking out involves shedding all those ideological skins grafted onto us through schooling, the mass media, living in nuclear families, etc. But my involvement with rebels over the past 25 years tells me that we already know that this is important. What we don’t seem to inventory is the means available to us to counter our physical occupation. We know that it is only by ridding ourselves of organized coercive authority that we will truly begin to have real opportunities to profoundly transform ourselves, so what are some of the first steps?
Part of being an insurgent today could involve acquiring a weapon and becoming proficient in its use. Weapons include rifles, shotguns, handguns, sling shots, knives and various bows and arrows, among others. These could be used for acquiring food as well as for self-defense or to chase away adversaries. This isn’t a call to “armed struggle” or an embrace of a leftist, macho fetishism of guns. Most simple weapons are also useful tools and we should make use of them in that context, for instance by learning hunting skills, then bringing home some wild meat to share with friends so we can stop relying on dumpsters and food banks and jobs. The bonus is that our familiarity with them could be extremely useful in a crisis situation or during a popular revolt.
The prisons are full. The factories and mines are full. A small class of people calls all the shots. There is a wave of extinction denuding the planet that is being caused by a system that is imposed from above. Entire populations are on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills. We need to regroup and strategize. Encouraging individuals and groups of rebellious people to get some training in survival and martial skills seems appropriate at this time. These various individuals and groups would help create a new anti-authoritarian culture that includes a widespread acceptance of a martial component. Civilized approaches have ruled us for too long. A more martial approach should be given an opportunity to contribute significantly to our resistance.
The support for martial skills could translate into anti-authoritarian “ warrior societies” or “militias”, but that isn’t the focus I’m suggesting. These are groups of individuals dedicated to helping their neighbors, comrades and friends claim space to express anger, resist the plundering of their habitat and help various grassroots initiatives to fight back through the practice of martial approaches. The members practice survival and martial skills. When a squat is about to be evicted or a wilderness camp burned by authorities, they might show up to give moral and physical support with their training and ability to act strongly as a group. Whether groups form or not, by being inclusive and encouraging as many friends, neighbors and comrades as possible to explore martial ways, an exciting new culture will be given the opportunity to emerge.
Canadian rebels can take advantage of the relative freedom and openness of our society and get these skills and tools before the chains shorten and the cages shrink. The reaction to the September 11th events in the USA proved just how quickly an open society will bring in draconian laws to protect the elite, the system they depend on and the values that allow such a system to exist in the first place.
We are all occupied peoples. The occupation is a military one and our response should therefore be, in part at least, a military one. But I don’t want a warrior ethic to be the central aspect of my community. I want the wisdom of the elders, the spontaneity, playfulness and brutal honesty of the children, the careful chiding and questioning of the fools and pacifists to also be essential aspects of my resistance, otherwise we’ll end up with martial societies rather than societies with martial skills, or worse, warrior aristocracies. I’m not suggesting a separate warrior class, but an anti-authoritarian culture that values martial skills and tactics. Training in self-defense, widespread use and knowledge of weaponry, popular study of conflict and confrontation, general encouragement of fighting back and standing up, etc. would all be central. I’m encouraging a grassroots acceptance of martial skills and approaches. I hope all rebels will make room for a warrior spirit to rise within their communities or within themselves.
The warriors we want to encourage are motivated by a concern and caring for others in their community. They aren’t based in small sanctimonious cliques. However, they care about others because they care about themselves, about life generally, about freedom for all. Our fighter exists to claim space for herself and others. In this newly freed up space genuine living can have an opportunity to express itself.
Part of preparing ourselves for secession and revolt includes the study of military history, the principles and ways of warfare. Many of us are familiar with some of the classics: Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Musashi’s Book of Five Rings, Che Gueverra’s writings, Mao’s musings and analysis and the works of Clausewitz for instance. But these are only some of the classics, mostly from an authoritarian perspective, and clearly inadequate to fully inform and inspire an emerging martial culture wanting to claim or defend space. We also need to look at the history of anarchists, like the Makhnovchina or the Durruti Column, for instance, at how they got started and how they were organized as well as at some of their specific battles and how they were won or lost. We can learn from the mistakes of countless past attempts. And, incidentally, I’m not encouraging some variant of Maoism, although the Red Army, as an army, did succeed partly because its leadership made the study of the principles of general and revolutionary war a priority. Anti-authoritarian rebels don’t have an elitist leadership and aren’t centrally organized. Federations of independent camps should be encouraged, but these alliances should be fragile agreements because ultimately it is in not becoming too formally linked that we will succeed in permanently breaking the existence of political monopolies and help create a world of free individuals, autonomous villages and vast tracts of wilderness where self-organized groups of free humans can live.
This focus of rebellious people on military history and strategy would obviously be well complimented by also including the struggles of indigenous and other autonomy seeking groups. In this respect anarchists and others could also look at the Metis rebellion around the Red River Valley and the Society of the Masterless Men in Newfoundland, for instance. Of course we’d benefit as well from a study of the battles of war leaders like Crazy Horse, Tecumseh, Chief Joseph, Pontiac and Geronimo and countless other examples.
A study of the military attempts of anti-authoritarian and indigenous rebels that focuses on specific battles and the strategies that either won or lost them the fight, can lead to many useful insights of the art of war. A look at the struggle of the Potawatomi for instance, a people who lived according to open and free principles, to survive while caught up in the conflicts between the French and English colonial powers, reveals secrets of successful warfare. Here is just one example. In the spring of 1755, Major General Braddock assembled a large army under the British flag. He was leading colonial militia and regular troops from Virginia to destroy French forts on the Ohio River. His guide and adviser was a young colonel, George Washington. Here’s a description of what transpired from James Clifton’s book The Potawatomi:
On June 8 the British were approaching Fort Duquesne in western Pennsylvania, site of present day Pittsburgh. Seeing that the British were camped and on the alert, the Potawatomi war leaders persuaded the French not to attack. Instead, they planned to attack the British troops the next day while they were on the move, stretched out in mile-long files along a narrow, forest-shrouded trail. Their surprise attack was a complete success. Colonel Washington tried to…counterattack in Indian style…but was defeated. They suffered nearly 1000 dead and wounded out of 1500 on the trail that morning. They abandoned most of their equipment and supplies… Braddock was mortally wounded. Washington barely escaped with his life. He learned a life-saving military lesson from this disaster, one that he would regularly give as advice to his own generals when sending them against British and Indian forces: “Beware of surprise!”In military theory, surprise is one of the most potent weapons available. We should keep in mind that a study of historical combat shows that surprise increases the combat power of fighting forces. It is the greatest of all combat multipliers. That is, if you are numerically inferior, for instance, your chances of winning are increased depending on the multipliers available to you. Surprise, combat effectiveness, defensive postures, these are all multipliers that can help. Shouldn’t this knowledge be generally available and understood among anti-authoritarians?
The following are just a few examples of using martial tactics to succeed in present day struggles.
Opening new fronts as solidarity with other rebels engaged in a confrontation or action. Encouraging defection within enemy ranks. Avoiding capture. Blockades. Unarresting a comrade. The ambush. Spying. Interrupting the enemies’ means of communication. The surprise. Raids on enemy stores of food and weapons. The siege. Physical battles that expand territory. Freeing captives from enemy prisons. Destruction of enemy arsenals. Destruction of enemy wealth. Regrouping. Hiding. Secret codes and other means of communication. Bolder actions. Creating clandestine camps in which to hide friendly fugitives. Insurgencies. Fleeing to areas outside the enemies’ control. Increased ability to fight as groups.
Like all strategies involving territory and occupation, the defeated have myriad choices in terms of how they live out their lives. But the choices are more limited if we agree on what our aims are, on what would constitute success, on what constitutes living. Who among us would dared have told any of the Warsaw Ghetto inhabitants who rose up against their Nazi tormentors that killing their enemy was morally reprehensible and therefore they should continue to accept daily humiliation, suffering, violence and death? Yet at the time, there were those among them who argued against the uprising on various grounds, including moral ones. Oftentimes it isn’t a question of who was more successful, but agreeing on what success is. In the case of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, those who participated in the uprising felt it was more successful to stand up to their oppressors and die with dignity, freedom on their lips, than to continue to live in Nazi hell. For others success was measured simply by staying alive at all costs, even if that meant being a traitor or accepting defeat. For others still, success was measured by being morally superior, by never adopting the means and ways of the enemy, even if that meant suffering or death. All rebels, who want to overthrow the present social order in favor of a more just and imaginative one, need to ask themselves what success means for them. I believe it means standing up to the bullies who run things. It means asserting some territoriality within which we can learn to live in harmony with each other and the world around us. To achieve this we need to listen to the hot headed, impatient and courageous warriors as much as we do to the cautious, negotiating and compromising survivors.
I know that we are all damaged people who need to heal and not just fight. We partly do this with others with whom we share affinities and openness for intimacy. We also need to analyze civilization (or domination generally) and share our insights through debates, pamphlets, publications and discussion. And we need to help create communities and/or cultures of resistance by contributing to the various projects that fellow rebels are involved in. Yet personal healing, propaganda and putting our energy into community projects, no matter how worthy, still don’t acknowledge the military occupation we are presently living under. Even attempts at “re-wilding” are vain if we don’t push for a generalized, effective, long-term momentum against militarily protected centralized authority.History is not only the story of the civilized targeting and conquering the free, it is also a chronicle of the resistance to that conquest. I have allies and kin that extend back millennia. They have won countless battles. There has been successful resistance in every area and every era. In order to honor our ancestors, and I use this term broadly in the sense of ancestors by blood or worldview, we need to give them thanks and keep up the fight. In military theory, it is said that for the conqueror to succeed the losing population must accept defeat, otherwise the conquerors only win after every single person has been killed, which isn’t normally in the conquerors interest, because they need slaves and soldiers, etc. A very large part of our population unfortunately has accepted defeat. So I want to repeat that sharing our unique world-views and critiques and creating community are as essential as acquiring martial skills. A small band of rebels can accomplish a lot, even succeeding in leading relatively free lives away from civilization, but we need to aim higher. In Ireland, in the early nineteen hundreds, small local militias with not even enough rifles to go around succeeded in thwarting the designs of one of the most powerful empires on the planet for decades. They were successful partly because they used many martial skills, from spying to engagement in actual battles and partly because they had widespread support. The fighters could melt back into the population. Disadvantaged fighters need widespread support to win. With this in mind, it’s essential that rebels stay put in one region and make strong bonds with the land and the inhabitants there. Hopefully, over time, the embers of authentic communities with martial skills will begin to glow.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
ALF strikes again!
"Two incendiary bombs were found in an annexe of Templeton College, forcing the evacuation of dozens of staff and students." "Both failed to explode but are the latest in a wave of attacks on the university which refuses to end animal testing in its laboratories." A posting on the BiteBack website said the attack was carried out on February 18.
It read: "This latest action is part of an ongoing fight against the University of Oxford and its continued reign of terror over the unseen victims inside its animal labs."
A spokesman for Oxford University said: "Two unexploded incendiary devices were found at around 11.50am. The small devices were found under a little used annexe at the college.
It read: "This latest action is part of an ongoing fight against the University of Oxford and its continued reign of terror over the unseen victims inside its animal labs."
A spokesman for Oxford University said: "Two unexploded incendiary devices were found at around 11.50am. The small devices were found under a little used annexe at the college.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Hackers Attack Key Net Traffic Computers
By TED BRIDIS Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13 computers that help manage global computer traffic Tuesday in one of the most significant attacks against the Internet since 2002.
Experts said the unusually powerful attacks lasted as long as 12 hours but passed largely unnoticed by most computer users, a testament to the resiliency of the Internet. Behind the scenes, computer scientists worldwide raced to cope with enormous volumes of data that threatened to saturate some of the Internet's most vital pipelines.
The Homeland Security Department confirmed it was monitoring what it called "anomalous" Internet traffic.
"There is no credible intelligence to suggest an imminent threat to the homeland or our computing systems at this time," the department said in a statement.
The motive for the attacks was unclear, said Duane Wessels, a researcher at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis at the San Diego Supercomputing Center. "Maybe to show off or just be disruptive; it doesn't seem to be extortion or anything like that," Wessels said.
Other experts said the hackers appeared to disguise their origin, but vast amounts of rogue data in the attacks were traced to South Korea.
The attacks appeared to target UltraDNS, the company that operates servers managing traffic for Web sites ending in "org" and some other suffixes, experts said. Officials with NeuStar Inc., which owns UltraDNS, confirmed only that it had observed an unusual increase in traffic.
Among the targeted "root" servers that manage global Internet traffic were ones operated by the Defense Department and the Internet's primary oversight body.
"There was what appears to be some form of attack during the night hours here in California and into the morning," said John Crain, chief technical officer for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. He said the attack was continuing and so was the hunt for its origin.
"I don't think anybody has the full picture," Crain said. "We're looking at the data."
Crain said Tuesday's attack was less serious than attacks against the same 13 "root" servers in October 2002 because technology innovations in recent years have increasingly distributed their workloads to other computers around the globe.
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13 computers that help manage global computer traffic Tuesday in one of the most significant attacks against the Internet since 2002.
Experts said the unusually powerful attacks lasted as long as 12 hours but passed largely unnoticed by most computer users, a testament to the resiliency of the Internet. Behind the scenes, computer scientists worldwide raced to cope with enormous volumes of data that threatened to saturate some of the Internet's most vital pipelines.
The Homeland Security Department confirmed it was monitoring what it called "anomalous" Internet traffic.
"There is no credible intelligence to suggest an imminent threat to the homeland or our computing systems at this time," the department said in a statement.
The motive for the attacks was unclear, said Duane Wessels, a researcher at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis at the San Diego Supercomputing Center. "Maybe to show off or just be disruptive; it doesn't seem to be extortion or anything like that," Wessels said.
Other experts said the hackers appeared to disguise their origin, but vast amounts of rogue data in the attacks were traced to South Korea.
The attacks appeared to target UltraDNS, the company that operates servers managing traffic for Web sites ending in "org" and some other suffixes, experts said. Officials with NeuStar Inc., which owns UltraDNS, confirmed only that it had observed an unusual increase in traffic.
Among the targeted "root" servers that manage global Internet traffic were ones operated by the Defense Department and the Internet's primary oversight body.
"There was what appears to be some form of attack during the night hours here in California and into the morning," said John Crain, chief technical officer for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. He said the attack was continuing and so was the hunt for its origin.
"I don't think anybody has the full picture," Crain said. "We're looking at the data."
Crain said Tuesday's attack was less serious than attacks against the same 13 "root" servers in October 2002 because technology innovations in recent years have increasingly distributed their workloads to other computers around the globe.
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