beyondbeyond controlcontrol && amnesia,amnesia, impossibleimpossible brilliancebrilliance isis thethe heartheart ofof imaginationimagination andand joyjoy whenwhen wewe stakestake ourour earthlyearthly relationsrelations betweenbetween thethe embraceembrace ofof fluxesfluxes wewe areare andand thethe experienceexperience ofof selfself atat ourour corecore.. nowherenowhere lessless otherother storiesstories havehave failedfailed usus CONTENTSCONTENTS

pg4, We Are Not Afraid of Their Ruins... We Carry a New Chaos in Our Hearts (rage and bile from the gut)

pg 6 , , Honor Amongst Thieves (writing from the widening circles of the U.K. judicial estate)

pg 8 , , New Technologies, Extraterrestrial Exploitation and the Future of Capitalism & 'Let's Disconnect the Cables'

pg 14 , , 'A Smart New World of Slaves ' (the opening phases of Industry 4.0)

pg 16 , , The Exarcheia Commune Rises and Defends Itself (tactics for maintaining a state­hostile zone)

pg 18 , , Symbiogenetic Desire (tracing an egoist ecology)

pg 22 , , Clarification on the Attack on the CGT Headquarters and On the Topic of 'Anonymous Disassociation' (on the time and place for co­critique)

pg 2 6 , , Nanotechnology and Transparency & taking on imperial science

pg 34 , , Market Pressurised to Temporarily Drop G.M. Product Lines After Contamination Campaign Claimed, Lombardy (communiqué: stirring the pot in civil society over our daily consumer poisons)

pg 38 , , 'The Matter of Knowing Who We Are' (the enemy is a way of seeing the world)

pg 50 , , What Could Compensate for the Loss of the Night Sky? & the possibilities of electrical disruption

pg 53 , , 'Rejoin the Circle ' (the gift as a new­old principle of existence)

pg 56 , , We Can Be Worse Still (for one who died in the battle for life)

pg 61 , , Who Is It ? & democracy's discontents

pg 6 5 , , Veganism: Why Not (an alienated solution to a problem of alienation?)

pg 74 , , 'A t the Root of My Survival ' (reflections on mutilation, facing terrorism charges, and not abandoning our own)

pg 78 , , W ild Plants: Hawthorne (berries) & Sweet Chestnuts

pg 79 , , Poems For Love, Loss & War

pg 8 0 , , Global Flash­Points (direct action reports)

pg 84 , , Rebels Behind Bars (text by prisoners & repression news)

pg 95 , , Memory as a Weapon (bridging the breech in our line, uncovering some of our grounding)

pg 107 , , P irates vs. Corsairs! (the sea­bourne phenomena off the Horn of Africa)

pg 109 , , Fraud, Fantasy and Fiction in Environmental Writing / 'The Invention of the Tribe' / Q (reviews: Ted Perry's 'Chief Seattle's Speech', various Grey Owl, James C. Scott's 'The Art of Not Being Governed' & Luther Blisset's 'Q')

pg 125 , , The Dark Months Are Coming (walking out into the witching hour)

pg 127 , , Sources & Links WE ARE NOT AFRAID OF THEIR RUINS... WE CARRY A NEW CHAOS IN OUR HEARTS

[ed. – Written before the eventual passing of reforms to the Penal Code in the Spanish State, by the anti­psychiatry collective Asamblea de Majaras. In addition to its impact on those considered mentally 'unstable', it legalised abandoning imperiled migrants off the Mediterranean coast to their fate at sea, raised formerly­considered petty theft to a higher level of Inmates of Swaleside prison (Isle of Shippey, U.K.), amongst the destruction of a wing during punishment, and upheld the life rioting 23.12.16; during a 26-day wave of prison unrest including the largest uprising for over 25 years (600 inmates of HMP Birmingham defeating multiple riot squads and burning the Offender sentence. It passed beside the Managing Unit with £6million damages, and attacking screws and setting fire to CCTV cameras at better­known 'Gag Law' that HMP Hull): this September another wing of HMP Birmingham was severely damaged in more disorder significantly constricts protest acts and underhandedly 'reduces' low­ end jailable offensives to automatic crippling fines (thus increasing MACROCOSM: THE SURFACE CREATURES control while appearing less authoritarian by reducing jailings). Once upon a time an old country was scraped The people themselves, then, were the source of We have nothing more to add to down to its bones while a new country was their problems, not living in squares. To have this text – which says nothing new, healthy minds, they must think better thoughts. but is written with a lot of heart – fashioned from the scraps of other ones from healthy minds, they must think better thoughts. except that we have taken the across the seas. Square fields and then square They must make their hearts small and liberty during translation of lawns held everything anyone could possibly predictable and ladylike. amending the places where our want, and much more. Within only a few social enemies are addressed as a The New Thought fad passed, but not its hundred years, vast stretches of artificial lighting “you”: while we empathise with the main features, which soon enough formed the need for cathartic expression, we would make the night sky safe: Nothing slithers, backbone of what became known as the self- don't direct dialogue towards those nothing crawls under here! help and mental health fields . Herein one we aim to negate, even as a poetic exercise. The authors can contact And yet not everyone handled the transition constantly examines one’s inner life for incorrect us if they want to talk about this.] well, then or now. What was the meaning of a or negative thoughts and hedonistic emotional life spent in squares? Some fell ill, in various excesses, especially in the case of positive and We proclaim from our ways, and called out for help. cognitive-behavioral psychologies [ed. – see madness, rebellious and Return Fire vol.1 pg14]. In the popular culture, But the medicine people were long gone by contagious, that we don't care But the medicine people were long gone by even cruder New Age-type tenets, in which bad then. Called alternately or overlappingly about the penal codes and then. Called alternately or overlappingly things such as disease happen due to incorrect traditional healers, shamans, wortcunners their reforms because we do traditional healers, shamans, wortcunners personal vision, still reign. (knowers of herbs), midwives, wise women, not believe in their laws or in their disorders. witches and other things depending on language Chemically and/or mechanically suppressing and tradition, these were the wild ones who negative thoughts and feelings has become Since we were born we have dwelt beyond village and hedgerow, at the edges almost a national religion, thus returning us lived in turmoil and subjected of jungles and mountain hollows. Their full circle back to Calvinism. The poor are poor, to the rule of law, the family, conceptions of the world included nuanced for instance, because poverty is all they strive religion, medicine, school, sound and odor, creatures above and below, for. In this land every negative thought, feeling work, husband, father, state... portals inner and outer. Their medicines came or circumstance is ultimately one’s own fault. and disobeying them all, and from stone and root and flower and meal and for that reason they have touch and prayer. And so the people never did learn to fully touch labeled us with their or see their own grief, their anger over living in despicable assortment of Naturally the medicine people were some of the squares. There is no cultural container for a incurable and chronic first to be suppressed, as always, no matter the longing for the wild within and without. Strong diseases. continent. emotions are supposed to play out on screens, They condemn us for life even And so new kinds of medicine people had to not through bodies, unless they are bodies before we are born, and we be developed in the new country, the kind shown on screens. will continue shitting on their who could think in squares, to stitch together This Imbolc[1] season let us begin to reclaim our scientific, political, economic, social and religious truths, the people’s minds and hearts. The first wild interiors, our sadness, our anger, our because obedience and psychologists formed an abstract mental irritability, our depression and disease and dis- submission are the only true medicine they called New Thought. ease. Let us start here in the long reclamation of ease. Let us start here in the long reclamation of diseases. Inharmonious thoughts, they said, were the the wilds without, knowing that refusal of grief source of all disease. This was in line with the and death refuses also sensuality and rebirth. We began a long tormented dominant religious sects of the time, so New journey in which we were torn Thought looked a lot like old Calvinism [ed. – from our natural environment see Return Fire vol.4 pg23]. In either case, 1. ed. – Part of the Wheel of the Year annual cycle of festivals to join the system of a world to observed by some modern Celtic-inspired pagans; the first emotional spontaneity of any kind was cross-quarter day following Midwinter (varying considerably which we do not want to extremely suspect. in name and date depending on the group celebrating it). adapt. We will always be uneasy, unstable, critical, 4. irritating, miserable, emotional, passionate, They, who deny our right as women to know that we are facing a restless, resistant, distracted, loving, decide on our bodies, at the same time disproportionately unequal struggle, but we hyperactive, overflowing... and warriors, that they violate the bodies of the will uphold our dreams and we will take not because we will not give up germinating indigenous or those that they consider a step back. That is why they fear us. our madness in the face of the blackmail “less valid” with sterilization [ed. – see They are afraid of the overflowing wrath of and emotional conflicts with which they Return Fire vol.3 pg29]... They fear us. the miserable. They are afraid of the want to domesticate us and the permanent implacable look of our rage. And that is confrontation between us and them. They enclose us in their stale and why they are going to impose this new tormented religious morals, they decide for reform of the penal code behind the backs We are sick with a dark bile of rage that us what our desires must be and they of the people and against the people, but stirs like a storm against all those who feel conceive no other reality than the model of not a thousand reforms, nor all the laws safe and secure in this uncertain world duality. They impose their dogma that we that fit in their miserable dreams, will that, day by day, destroys us. They can only experience ourselves as men or silence our voices, nor exhaust our desire contaminate the air we breathe with sulfur women and that only then can we love and to fight against the epidemic of their culture and uranium. The waters of the rivers are desire ourselves, when the realities of our of death. increasingly toxic due to their heavy metal drives are much broader and more slag discharges. Their emissions of beautiful and are not determined by their It is we, the dispossessed, against they, dioxides, methane and fluorinated polluting prejudices. They have no scruples to sign the possessors. their fear is reflected in gases are suffocating and burning nature treaties on the rights to sexual freedom, each law; our blood is ignited and when and putting at risk the survival of all but then they impose their psychiatric they spill it, they will burn along with their animals, human or non­human, and plant treatments to eradicate our “transsexuality” world. We are children of a dignified beings. They covered the planet with a and submit us to surgeries that shape us to revolution that germinates in memory and thick skin of toxic black paste and the hegemonic binomial of a desire that we we will not forget, nor forgive. surrounded the territory with rail tracks, do not feel. highways, metal fences, concrete walls, We know that this autumn they will high voltage towers and barbed­wire They are the same ones who sign approve a new reform of the penal code. fences... separating us from our siblings grandiose treaties and conventions on Another reform with which they want to gag and neighbors and filling the atmosphere human rights of the child, affirming the and lock us up, without the ropes that bind with electromagnetic radiation. They keep obligatory nature of schooling, then deny us or the walls of the cells being seen. This the mountains seriously ill from wounds them food. Children can die of malnutrition reform is not just against us the crazy, the opened by quarries, mineral extraction and and hunger but with compulsory women, the transsexuals, the migrants, the deforestation. They imprison non­human education, because they do not care that resistant, the precarious... It is against all animals to die in industrial farms, and they there are no fundamental principles that the people who defend ourselves from enlist us in industrial centers of guarantee the feeding of the smallest and their greed and their unlimited abuses. It is penitentiary exploitation. They bomb most needy creatures, only their training against all the people who are aware that civilian populations in the name of and control. It is they who go with no government is going to bring us freedom, justice and democracy, humanitarian aid to invade those countries freedom. their laws are against all those plundering entire countries for questioning where the infant mortality rate is alarming, people who recognize that only we can their hegemonic model of capitalist, white, and to take their wealth in exchange for decide on the destiny of our lives, and not patriarchal, western and Christian life, leaving all their poisons. the markets, the financial entities, the leading thousands of people into the blind economic or political interests, the reasons This humanitarian aid is their alibi for the of State... alley of their misery, destruction and death. looting, the plunder, the torture, the rape of And it is they, the self­proclaimed the women and the destruction that they In front of each of their repressive guardians of the freedoms of the world, of themselves will later rebuild according to measures, we will remain firm and this destructive world order that is nothing their order. As in the past, they keep disobedient before all eventualities. Our new, who consider us “crazy” and leaving their trace of pain and resistance will stop being that of survival, “dangerous subjects” to justify our gags, desolation wherever they go. They are to become a transforming struggle that will the pharmacological straitjackets, the the lords of death, those who invent defend its spaces of freedom side­by­side. confinement to perpetuity and the death pathologies to prescribe harmful palliative We will feel a lot of fear in front of their sentence. Our “madness” is not fooled by drugs. They claim to cure more and more armies of thugs and hired mercenaries, but the modern designs of the democratized diseases and they chronify our agony our courage, our determination, our desire chemical lobotomies and shock therapies making us dependent on their medicines, to live in freedom, the mutual support and that they use as torment and torture in the their merchandise, the compulsive and solidarity of our sisters and brothers, will most bloody of dictatorships... because unrestrained consumption that treasures help us overcome all our fears. they fear us. property as a privileged inalienable right They can start building more prisons, and not as the theft, looting or plundering They, those who throw us out of our asylums and gas chambers right now, of humanity. houses, those who after exploiting us in because the earth will be too small. their factories force us into unemployment. They condemn us to a brutalizing leisure They, those who determine who has more that reproduces their miseries and “right” to live in a territory that is not theirs estranges us. We are sick because of their and in which they can only maintain their constant violence in all areas of our lives. privileges by the harsh repression and by We are sickened and exhausted by the destructive capacity of the weapons of exploitation and by each of their moral and their armies... They fear us. heteronormative prejudices. We are sick because of the deep discomfort caused by They, the ones who subject human groups the daily alienation of a life that estranges. to a suffocating State of Exception [ed. – see ], surveilling Return Fire vol.3 pg5 They have the world in their hands and Image from a flyer left at the site of each of their gestures and imposing the they will have our bodies bound but they an arsoned church construction in Peru, control of a police state... They fear us. will never manage to appropriate our will. 11.06.11: “Family / School / Work / Psychiatry / Church – DESTROY WHAT Our convictions are solid and firm, and we DESTROYS YOU” 5. HONOR AMONGST THIEVES

[ed. – From a two­part series 'At Your Service: poverty, ethnicity, or lack of complicity with Tales from Community Service', from our own oppression/refusal to assimilate. thesituationlondon.wordpress.com.] Like in the workplace, or the community, I’m going to dive straight in, it doesn’t organizing happens through a series of really matter how I got to this moment; friendships, and through organization we from the hands of thugs in blue uniform, to are stronger. Similarly to the workplace our the loving embrace of the sham judicial organization is most apparent when we are “Judgement does not come system weighted against the poor/non in opposition, when we must fight for our white and indeed anyone who doesn’t fit survival, when we come into direct conflict suddenly; the proceedings gradually the citizen factory's standard model, with the authorities that are enslaving us. merge into the judgement.” through the hands of a lazy probation When a supervisor attempts to send one – Franz Kafka office more concerned about why I identify combatant home for not working quickly as gender­ and sexuality­queer than my enough, our collective action, our welfare, broken wrist or what work I’d like friendship, and our realization of what this Friendship sticks; there is honor amongst to do; and finally into a council estate in would mean enable us to combat thieves. Many friendships form from our Sydenham (South London) where I’m effectively the wishes of the supervisor “projects” which extend beyond the expected to clean railings for seven hours (who in this case has no understanding of parameters of the seven hour days in a day with one half­hour break and a the loneliness and alienation of the court which we are forced together. Many theoretical further two fifteen minute fag room, the bias of the judge, or the reality of combatants drive each other to and from breaks for no money whilst some middle the prison) and protect our comrade the days slavery, we socialize after “work” aged, wannabe screw gets on my case through the threat of non compliance. and we learn more about each others every time I miss a spot. situations, we build solidarity, we advise Isolation is a parasite. In the footsteps each other on claiming benefits, personal I arrive at five to nine, and spend ten towards our current situations, each of security against state intrusion, and on minutes looking for the room that we’re us was singled out, plucked from the basic methods of survival in the face of supposed to be in; by the time I find it it’s homogeneous mass by the camera, the capital. Together we make each other about ten past nine – today's particularly state thug, the security guard, the ticket stronger. jobsworth supervisor decides that time will barrier, the bank; isolated from our be taken off my hours and I will therefore friends,our comrades, our lovers And then the state strikes me a blow. have more to complete. Suddenly there is (physically in the cell, the prison, the The phone rings: “Hello Mr / Mrs / n/a an explosion, five guys (two of them courthouse, and mentally in so far as ———, I’m just calling from the control literally jumping out of their seats) start our charges, our convictions are our centre to tell you that you have been kicking off, fighting MY corner, telling the [1] individual crosses to bear), and redirected to an A.P placement ; from fucking supervisor that I don’t deserve to attempted to be individualized, now on you will be working X/Y/Z day in a lose 15 minutes from my days work and attempted to be individualized, charity shop; you will be the only that they should give me a break. After demonized and disconnected. In finding community payback member at this about ten minutes the arguing subsides each other, in sharing our stories and in placement.” End call. I protest to every and low and behold by the end of the day experiencing struggle together we level of authority, but that's just the I’ve been given my full time – this is the come a step closer to liberating problem: I am forced cap in hand as an vein my day begins in, I feel like one of the ourselves both from our physical isolated individual to the feet of my tribe. situations and our subconscious labels oppressor, without my fellow combatants to as outcasts; our high visibility jackets back me up I inevitably lose my battle and Flash forward a day or to and I’m at become a symbol of our brotherhood I’m shunted to the charity shop a few miles [sic] where they were intended to mark another site in another part of the city from my home. It’s OK there (at the shop), us out, to other us, and power shifts sat under the shade of a tree, all of us the days are easier and as an individual back into our favor, away from the (there are 4) convicts sharing a spliff back into our favor, away from the I’m treated more fairly by those who own hands of those who oppress us. and talking about our various crimes. hands of those who oppress us. the rights to my body for seven hours a day I feel more at home here than than on the “projects”, but I have in a long time, we take I’m isolated and alone in it in turns to watch each my struggle against my others backs, pick up the detention. I find some slack of the guy rolling the solace in my sisters, spliff, and cover for each brothers, and gender­ other when someone wants fuckers enslaved on the to sneak off to the shop (an workfare program[2] (what offense that can get you sent we share is of course that home, and therefore our bodies are the breached which means going property of someone else, back to court and potentially and our labour does facing prison). Everyone here nothing to improve our is friendly and helpful, of all material conditions) who the guys I’ve met on these are similarly the victims of “projects” not one has done their own low economic any harm to an individual – status; but it is not the all us are victims of a system same, because whilst our that targets us for our 6. struggle is not connected; we are not organizing for the same freedoms or against the same oppression. MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

After my first day I call up a friend “The psychiatrist concluded her evaluation: instead of state-harm. We internalise the misery from one of my old projects. I “I would consider this individual incorrigible. nationally, state of the nation, “it's your round discover that they too have been He has much hostility in him for being poor and John innit? I'll have another Guinness.” moved onto an A.P placement and seems to have an unending resevoir of energy. are finding the adjustment similarly This type of habitual criminal neither profits from Do we live fake lives? We wake up and the hard. We hang out and we chat experience nor punishment. He can only work sun's shining, we are happy. No, wrong, we against society and thereby derive power, and he about it, and we conspire to fight it, against society and thereby derive power, and he wake up, we take a happy pill, yeah now the will always be able to find followers whom he and we vent; but our ability to act in sun's shining. We drag ourselves to jobs that can impress with his intelligence and destructive solidarity with each other has don't mean a thing to us; we do it because it drives. He will never be able to work within ultimately been stripped from us and brings in the cash, it is the only equation we society. Diagnosis: sociopathic personality, have worked out to survive so far. it is hard to feel that same feeling of antisocial type.” ” – Joseph Wambaugh, camaraderie when we are not 'The'The OnionOnion Field'Field' fighting shoulder to shoulder any If we crave violence because our emotions are more. not being fulfilled, we can have virtual reality It's already here, under the carpet, behind the or some other simulation, and there's war sofa; the pedo, the bogeyman, those outlaws out reenactment tailored to business-as-usual. We I continue to meet my fellow there... Not in our home! Not in our English can see nudity everywhere except out there in combatants from the “service” of castle! Not our children! Send them to army the streets, in our day-to-day lives; we can the terrible community, and I will cadets, think about revisiting church... look! watch porn, maybe we can have sex, but is that continue to do so; the state can not Another royal baby, royal wedding, anything to the only level of connection? Are people take that away from us. I will distract us from the risk of the unknown, so we emotionally involved anymore? Is there any continue to talk with them, to share don't have to question our own comfort zone... reason to be? Are people connnected, is there with them, and to publish with them any community? Do we just sit in the pub or tales from our enslavement; we will It's behind you! It's behind you! No it's fucking club and try to hear each other speak over the never surrender. not. It stinks, it's right under the bridge of your music and drunken voices, does it feel worth nose. Here's how it goes: Mr Acceptable is Mr competing in the struggle to communicate? My advice to anyone about to start Scared, Mr Scared never dares to do what he Where can we meet to try to build meaningful on the community payback program wants, Mr Scared becomes Mr relationships, instead of would be to try your dammed Compromise, Mr Compromise just shallow acquaintances, hardest to get on a project, not an goes along with everyone else, Mr where we live so separate AP placement. You can help this Compromise eventually becomes Mr from each other in our process along, by answering your Very Frustrated who turns into Mr Bitter propped-up fantasy initial assessment questionnaire who sees himself as Mr Hard-Done-By, without worlds? Where are people in (which will be done by your case looking their relationship to the rest of the their thirties; too scared to manager) in a way that makes it world, so Mr Misinformed goes quietly about let their hair down?! seem like you may need his business, piling shit on top of shit, never Given up? Sat in the corner supervision. If they think you are really thinks and trips on every obstacle that snogging Facebook? likely to steal anything (bring up comes their way, then when their life previous convictions or fixed comes to an end, they're still in a muddle Banksy [ed. – quasi- penalties for theft if you have them), and can't decide whether they're just institutionalised Bristol graffiti artist] hurt yourself or anyone else or Mr Ordinary or Mr Blind! So they die may have said some people just don't get anything similar to this, you will as Mr Confused! There is no moral up in the morning, they just don't have almost certainly have to be put on a to this short passage because Mr the right trainers; so they haven't Mediocre never saw himself as “project”. Good luck to all future bothered to enter the rat-race. They ignore anything less or anything more combatants. the competition. In the commerce of daily than Mr Ordinary so had nothing society, there's a lot of people that are seen as of real value to say. drop-outs, but there are some of us even though conventionally crushed we have risen in our 1. AP or agency placement means a We are slowly dying. Some of us are content own field, to claim our own little bit. Because program of work that is not directly and contain ourselves with punching out our some of us know what is possible, the days supervised by Serco [ed. – international own eyes, going blind and fading away. Some corporation involved in probation when inside us we stride like giants in the of us are never grateful, always asking why; knowledge that despite of all their security schemes and other parts of the U.K. stifled artists who want to see things a different detention estate]/the state; it is measures we are still able to lift our fists and way, like punching out windows to see if outsourced to a charity or other strike their apparatus... even though we know organization who feels it can benefit from anyone will wake up! Turn on the light! inside we are not giants. Maybe fleas... our slave labour in order to lower its difficult to find... running costs and maximize profit; from We end up doubting ourselves and our own Serco's point of view these placements assessment of what we feel is desirable. Glued (G4S) warning this vehicle sometimes contains are gold­dust since they reduce staff to the spot, angry but unable to take action, (G4S) warning this vehicle sometimes contains costs massively (taking away the need for forced to anesthetise the situation... self-harm ANTI-SYSTEM SMART ROBBERS supervisors, much of the infrastructure etc) and from the state's point of view they are a perfect tool in isolating, alienating, and reducing our power; if we don’t see each other we can’t organize.

2. For more info on workfare see johnnyvoid.wordpress.com & boycottworkfare.org 7. NEW TECHNOLOGIES, EXTRATERRESTRIAL EXPLOITATION & THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM

[ed. – Translated from Catalan; a continuation of the work started by Distri Josep Gardenyes in an earlier text 'A Wager on the Future', a very incisive analysis of (among other things) changes in the property regime enforced by contemporary capitalism's cutting edge, as well as the futher­reaching colonisation of our imaginaries achieved by the above; expect excerpts in future volumes of Return Fire. Currently, the U.S. Government is preparing to revive the directive for a permanent American base on the moon to build to eventual missions to Mars; also, as 2017 draws towards its close, talk of weaponising space has also been back on their agenda, contrary to the treaty cited below.]

One of the themes mentioned in “A Castelo Branco, Portugal, 08/09/10: wreckage of a €3 million arson that Wager on the Future” that was received destroyed all machinery and materials on the site of testing for the heat- with skepticism or even laughter was the resisting coating of the first ESA European Space Agency space shuttle; the only institute carrying out such testing at that time affirmation that the colonization of outer space might be the only exit capitalism has cars for commercial sale; the technology was six years). In fact, the crash didn’t from the crises it has generated. already works and the only obstacles are come until the moment when a few new the legal regulations), the billionaire whose corporations showed the capacity to We wanted to begin 2017 by dedicating a personal crusade is the colonization of become profitable and productive, little more attention to this affirmation. Mars in the next two decades. Space X corporations that today are among the fixed a design flaw in its rockets and on the most powerful in the world, like Google, 2017 is the year of Google’s Lunar X Prize, through which the North American 14th made an effective launch, deploying Amazon, and Facebook. We are at the 10 commercial satellites from the same beginning of a phase of massive corporation (as important to 21st century capitalism as Ford was to 20th century rocket, which, subsequently, returned investment and growth in the new sector of automatically to Earth, landing on a Space extraterrestrial transport and mining. The capitalism) is offering $20 million to the first company that manages to send a X drone ship waiting – with its entirely venture capitalists of this sector enjoy the robotic crew – in the Pacific Ocean. The advantage that the logistical foundation of landing craft to the moon, drive 500 meters, and transmit high­resolution autonomous and reusable rockets (one their dream (everything connected with the launching of satellites, with their crucial images back to Earth. But they have to do could say, environmentally friendly ) are it this year. And there are already various one of the foundations of Musk’s plan for military [ed. – see Return Fire vol.3 pg33] teams that are getting ready to meet the reaching Mars in a commercially feasible and commercial uses) is already in place challenge[1]. way. He has already developed a business and profitable. Similarly, Columbus didn’t plan for developing the technology and have to invent the long­distance ships or One of which is Moon Express, which has acquiring the resources needed to the navigation equipment [to begin the already become the first company in complete the mission. European colonisation of the so­called history to receive legal permission, from 'New World'] (which had already been the US government in this case, to carry These are not isolated or insignificant developed by the Portuguese in the out commercial exploitations on the moon’s companies. And the State is also paying luxurious commercial circuits of the Indian surface. If this team makes it to the moon – attention to extraterrestrial colonization. Ocean), he just had to take them further. and they already have the necessary The UN Treaty on Outer Space, from 1966, financing and a schedule of test launches holds that space and space objects cannot They still have a few years to yield – they won’t only win the Prize, they will be armed or claimed as territory, and that profits with extraterrestrial also drop off a commercial payload that any economic activity had to be peaceful extraction before the bubble bursts. represents the first step in setting up an and for the good of all humanity. In 2015, in If they achieve it, capitalism will equipment delivery service to the moon, the Commercial Space Launch once again undergo an intense which will make the lunar mining of Competitiveness Act, the US government growth and the moment of maximum Helium­3 (a valuable fuel for nuclear clarified the legal question, establishing the vulnerability and maximum popular reactors) feasible. legal right of private companies to exploit rage that the institutions now face the moon, asteroids, and other space Another company, Planetary Resources, will have passed. objects. It gives private entities the right to will have passed. claims that the mining of metals and water own and sell resources extracted from Extraterrestrial colonization is no longer a on asteroids could be a trillion dollar space objects, but not to possess the trope of science fiction. But speaking of business. For them, water (and the object outright. In effect, they can mine science fiction, we must also point out the hydrogen it contains, which could be used the moon until it’s empty, but the great imaginary production carried out by as spaceship fuel) is “the oil of space.” private companies working there with Hollywood and other centers of cultural These are not empty words. Planetary work, which have redirected our gaze to Resources is another company that has a their robotic factories couldn’t be the colonization of space. Since the 19th business plan and the technology needed considered the owners. century, there have been occasional works to begin carrying out the mining it The dotcom boom, which burst in 2000, that posed journeys beyond Planet Earth, envisions. shows that immense amounts of capital but the current frenetic production is On the 14th of January, Space X returned can be invested in companies that do not qualitatively and quantitatively to space. It’s one of the companies of Elon generate any profits for quite a few years incomparable. Its effect is not only the Musk (who is also preparing self­driving before provoking a crash (in this case, it normalization of extraterrestrial activity, it 8. also accustoms us to imagine the first exploiters – could be the ideal terrain for chocolate, and other sectors in the poorest steps of taking our civilization and the deploying the new regime of exploitation, countries find it profitable to replace their capitalist economy beyond the Earth’s based in use and access more than in human slaves with robots. gravity well. property (a relation that is too stable in the eyes of financiers and the State). The tendency towards roboticization will only make undeniable our own incapacity Another question is that of work. Various to take over the means of production, as 19th century socialists confusedly well as the impossibility of the proposal predicted that technological advances itself. The majority of productive workers would cause the inauguration of a society will be robots and the others will make up of leisure and abundance. We should not the most privileged stratum of the commit a similar theoretical error now. exploited. This reality has already come The State invents work. Profitability is a into being in a large part of the field of secondary concern. Productive work in automobile production, the industrial space will be overwhelmingly robotic. This process that defined the previous era of We are on the cusp of an event as is a part of the same trend towards capitalism. The most modern automobile important for the advance of capitalism roboticization that we see in industry on companies and the IT companies and the war against life as the Earth. And this roboticization has not already have mostly robotic factories, colonization of the Americas. As Bob represented, at any moment, a reduction in fabricating products ideated by well Richards, chief executive officer of Moon the human labor force on a global level. It paid engineers and designers, those Express, said, “We are now free to set sail means, on the contrary, a growth of wage highly skilled workers with multiple as explorers to Earth’s eighth continent, work in the service, care, sex work, degrees, who see work as self­ the Moon, seeking new knowledge and engineering, and design sectors. The final actualization, people tied to the means resources to expand Earth’s economic two are the domain of privileged workers, of production and loyal to capitalism. sphere for the benefit of all humanity.” the intellectual capital which states will increasingly compete for, the producers of Faced with this new reality in construction, the ethereal merchandise of the new what are we to do? economy (and here we are thinking of the employees of Google and Apple, of the old The fetishization of new technologies, corporations that have adapted to the new common among certain circles of social economy, and of the small startups, that antagonists, is the cruelest possible self­ produce programs, aesthetics, and betrayal, comparable to the racist and systems). myopic celebration of colonialism offered [2] up by Marx and his sycophantic followers . The other sectors – service, care, and sex Luddism [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 work – are feminized labor that now will become more generalized. pg53] need not be a rejection of “all What effect will the monetization and generalization technology” (understood as any tool that It will be even more definitive in outer of the previously non­remunerated human beings have come up with in the space, where nearly 100% of the workforce [3] labors, that yesteryear defined last hundred thousand years ), and in fact, will be robotic, mining the fuels (green womanhood and patriarchal the first luddites, slandered by Marx and energy [sic] like hydrogen cells and nuclear) other progressives, did not reject the segregation, have for the patriarchy? that will propel the next cycle of We will leave the answering to more artisanal techniques that permitted them to accumulation. And that cycle will be maintain control over their productive perspicacious comrades [transl. – defined as the expansion of productive activity; they rejected the technological companyes, comrades in feminine], but in circuits to a new territory: the moon, the impositions that benefited the owners and passing we can point out on the one hand asteroid belt, and Mars; thus preparing the violently changed their way of life, and they the new laws in various democratic terrain for the subsequent cycle of rejected the police power that made such countries ceding certain rights to trans accumulation, which might involve more impositions possible [ed. – see Return people, and on the other hand the human labor, the terraforming and Fire vol.4 pg85]. Piracy, hacking, and the counterattack by the patriarchal institutions [4] settlement of Mars (following the pattern readaptation of technologies is a vital within the extensive growth of the Right . identified by [Giovanni] Arrighi[5], of one current that could exist in a fertile conflict cycle of geographic and institutional Capitalism has always depended on with more naturalist currents. But the expansion, followed by another cycle that slavery, but the position of slavery within populist adoration of all new technology is intensifies the exploitation and control productive and reproductive processes an acritical gesture in support of the State within the previously colonized terrain[6]). and capitalism. changes, often as a response to our resistance (abolition of visible slavery in The means of production are and always A first step is the elaboration of the democratic countries, feminist have been a machine of devastation. We a subversive critique, and movements, autonomous workers’ do not want them and now we cannot even struggles in automotive factories…). What seriously propose their expropriation. In above all a subversive practice, yesterday was a sphere of unwaged labor, the 21st century, there is no other remedy of the latest technological tomorrow will be waged, and vice versa. but to champion and practice the recovery impositions on our lives. Feminine labor is pushed into the labor of artisanal knowledge and skills that put market and productive labor becomes life and survival, on a healthy and natural We are also faced with the theoretical task unwaged once again. But this time, the scale, in everyone’s reach. But this path of conceiving how these changes will slaves are robots and their activity is of struggle, like any other, is mined with affect capitalism. As we affirmed in “23 one hundred percent legible, traps. The principal trap is Theses Concerning Revolt”, the property rationalized, and surveilled: under State commercialization. With more privileged regime that defined class society is already control. The transition will not be consumers – the designers, programmers, expiring. Outer space – for example a immediate nor homogeneous. Surely and systems architects – more artisanal moon without owners, but with many several decades will pass before timber, 9. producers can be supported, above all when the tastes of the former show a decided preference for things local and eco­friendly. Let’s take the example of agriculture. In a near future, it is possible that energetic efficiency (how many calories of energy go into producing one calorie of food) becomes a metric for evaluating the effective use of capital. For agriculture to be more sustainable and more energy efficient, machines and petroleum would have to be substituted by more human labor. Faced with the danger of a population with no work, capitalists, and otherwise the State, have always invented new forms of work. And the ecological crisis is proving works well and doesn’t provoke any to be ever more serious [ed. – see Return specific disaster. The only path of “On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong Fire vol.2 pg15]. A possible solution would discursive attack we have left is a direct and Buzz Aldrin landed on the surface be for capitalism to encourage local confrontation with the Christian spirituality of the moon. In the months leading up to agriculture, making use of its new capacity that science as well as socialism inherited their expedition, the Apollo 11 for decentralization. Thus, it would take [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg40]: the giant steps towards solving the ecological astronauts trained in a remote moon-like world, the universe, do not exist for our desert in the western United States. The crisis (created in large part by industrial exploitation. There is no rationalist area is home to several Native American agriculture), it would give employment to argument (not even within the parameters communities, and there is a story – or more people, it would offer privileged of liberalism’s most radical current, legend – describing an encounter consumers a new fetish product, and it veganism [ed. – see Veganism: Why Not] would colonize small­scale agriculture, against the mining of the moon. It will not between the astronauts and one of the transforming it into a legible commercial harm any human being or other animal, locals. One day as they were training, activity when historically it was always a and according to rationalism, everything the astronauts came across an old Native source of resistance and autonomy [ed. – else is dead matter. The only solid American. The man asked them what see Fraud, Fantasy & Fiction in arguments against capitalism’s new they were doing there. They replied that Environmental Writing/'The Invention of atrocities are spiritual. They hold that the they were part of a research expedition the Tribe'/Q]. In the poorer countries, in Earth is our mother [sic] and that we that would shortly travel to explore the the absence of many privileged consumers should adapt ourselves to the natural world moon. When the old man heard that, he and a strong state, NGOs could take rather than molding it according to our fell silent for a few moments, and then charge of this process; in fact, they already arrogant caprices; that filling the Earth or asked the astronauts if they could do are. In the US, where the portion of the the Moon with holes in search of the latest him a favour. ‘What do you want?’ they population involved in agricultural work had valuable mineral is as unforgivable as asked. ‘Well,’ said the old man, ‘the already dropped below one percent thanks massacring an entire people.[7] Those who to hyper­industrialization, this turn towards people of my tribe believe that holy made use of scientific arguments to spirits live on the moon. I was agricultural growth via small­scale justify genocide, slavery, mining, and production is already happening. Farmers’ wondering if you could pass an clear­cutting entire forests are the same markets, above all in the zones of important message to them from my – and their institutions are the same – Information Technology production, have people.’ ‘What’s the message?’ asked as the ones who today are celebrating already returned from oblivion to be once the astronauts. The man muttered the imminent conquest of the moon and again a common affair. something in his tribal language, and Mars. And the technologies that will take then asked the astronauts to repeat it The new artisanry, in order to be us there (speaking of rockets) were The new artisanry, in order to be again and again until they had subversive, must be luddite, based in developed by the Nazis in the course of subversive, must be luddite, based in memorised it correctly. ‘What does it practices of sabotage and in illegible the very same Holocaust that liberalism so hypocritically rejects, without ever rejecting mean?’ asked the astronauts. ‘Oh, I networks (which is to say, opaque its fruits[8] [ed. – see A Green Anarchist cannot tell you. It’s a secret that only from above) of qualitative exchange Critique of Science]. But we have been our tribe and the moon spirits are (which is to say, gift economies [ed. – rendered homage to humanism for so allowed to know.’ When they returned to see 'Rejoin the Circle'], like those that long that we can no longer raise our their base, the astronauts searched and were practiced in the most radical searched until they found someone who collectives during the Spanish Civil could speak the tribal language, and War). But today, the most relevant asked him to translate the secret machines for sabotage are not message. When they repeated what they mechanical looms but social had memorised, the translator started to machines, those that mediate laugh uproariously. When he calmed communication, that produce and down, the astronauts asked him what it control the networks of socialization meant. The man explained that the and sociability, and that define a way sentence they had memorised so of being in the world. carefully meant ‘Don’t believe a single We cannot continue using arguments of Not outer space mining, but rather the word these people are telling you. They moonscapes created on Earth by have come to steal your lands.’ ” convenience. Capitalism is also bad in industrial civilisation; in this case, moments of expansion and wealth; coal removal from below Hambacher – Yuval Noah Harari capitalist technology is also bad when it Forest (see Return Fire vol.3 pg91) 10. voices in protest when wars” were still the bubble bursts and a new state (or group of faced with an atrocity very much a states) must take up the lead in the reorganization current topic in of global capital. […] The alliance between the that lacks human these United merchants of Genoa and the military power of the victims. But not even States, and if Spanish state organized and impelled the first global the contemptible people by that time the cycle of capital accumulation. The next cycle was who think it is not wrong military phase led by the new Dutch nation­state, the architect of per se to mine the moon of this the interstate system or the “Westphalia system” of genocidal territorial nation­states linked in a global economy can deny that any campaign was that in essence remains valid today. The third, or introduction of new confined to the British, cycle of accumulation saw the resources into the west, far from mechanization of industry and the extension of the capitalist machinery will Iroquois world system to every last corner of the globe hasten the processes territory; still through aggressive colonization. And the fourth, the Iroquois, American cycle of accumulation saw the that are building us a and every intensification of accumulation throughout the map prison society here on surviving laid down by the British, and the creation of the tribal global financial and political institutions that exercise Earth. Lake Lleu Lleu, Chile; threatened by mining scandium for the aerospace industry, local society, power today. […] In essence, merchants who had The choice is Mapuche (see We Can Be Worse Still) destroyed were long been playing a particular game amongst survey antennas and mobbed the governor promoting engaged themselves, with exponentially mounting stakes, between the project, destroying his vehicle, because as (as they are began to invest their profits in state­making and war­ ecocentrism and the formerly-imprisoned saboteur Jose Llanquileo engaged making, not merely as another industry, but as a explains, “[we Mapuche] don’t think humans are today to one way to produce an expansion of the field in which the perfect species that can dominate all the totalitarianism. degree or their accumulation took place, and to produce the other species [but] just a part of the world.” another) in instruments to organize and regulate that field. a continuous struggle against the system of private Simultaneously, ruling elites began to extend their 1. ed. – As of yet there is still no winner of the Lunar property and the State [ed. – see Return Fire vol.3 territorialist strategies for the control of the space­of­ X Prize (despite TeamIndus from India having been pg59 and companion piece on Colonisation]. In a places in which state competition traditionally took tipped to win before dropping out), which since it's multitude of variants, the same basic conditions place (the conquering of territory, cities, resources) announcement in 2007 has seen the deadline prevailed in Asia, Africa, parts of Eastern Europe, into the space­of­flows in which the merchants moved back multiple times; though as mentioned in Russia, Canada, Australia, South America, the West operated (the capturing of markets, trade routes) as the footnotes below, China landed its own Indies, Polynesia... [T]his study led him not only to a way to fuel the engine of state growth. Capitalism spacecraft on the moon in 2013. dramatically and extensively alter his earlier views, as an interstate system rests on a dichotomous but also to champion a movement in Russia [ed. – structure that balances, in ever changing measures, 2. ed. – Author of 'Capital' and co­writer of 'The versus his previous bets on 'developed' Germany or territorialist and capitalist strategies for global power Communist Manifesto' with Friedrich Engels, Karl England] that his “disciples” there and elsewhere and organization, operating simultaneously in a Marx, in his most influential years, basically “stated scorned as “ahistorical,” “utopian,” “unrealistic” and space­of­places and a space­of­flows.” (Anarchy in that indigenous Peoples must submit to “petty­bourgeois.” Even today such epithets are not World Systems) proletarianization or disappear from the world. unfamiliar to anyone who has ever dared to struggle Anyone who did not slave for a master for monetary against the existing order in a manner unprescribed 6. ed. – “The next cycle of accumulation, if it is to gain was a lumpen, and Marx saw them – always by the “Marxist” Code of Law” (Karl Marx and the happen in any way similar to past cycles, will have the majority of the population in industrialized Iroquois). to expand into outer space. A robotic workforce nations – as reactionary, enemies of the working (resistance free) carrying out mining on asteroids class. He used much the same rationale we hear 3. ed. – This is not, in fact, the only way to and the moon, and the chemistructural development today from far­right racists: Lumpen want to take our understand or differentiate technology (for example, (pre­ or sub­infrastructure, the organic basis already jobs (scabs). They are criminals. They are no­good see Return Fire vol.4 pg 53); while clearly this is a existent on earth that makes infrastructure layabout alcoholics and drug addicts. They are vast and complex topic needing further exploration. meaningful) of Mars. (A subsequent cycle of whores. They are ignorant. As someone who has accumulation, feasibly, would be based on spent much of his adult life either homeless or in 4. The first occurrence recognizes, in a strictly colonization). Meanwhile, on an earth with new prison, but always struggling against the coercive limited way, the mutability of gender, thus possibilities for green management (statist forces of elite rule, I gotta say a big, ol’ “Fuck you!” contradicting one of the bases of patriarchy [ed. – environmentalism has only ever come at the to orthodox Marxists” (Rob los Ricos). His legacy see Return Fire vol.2 pg8]. Currently, the expense of externalizing impact, and what could be could hardly be clearer than his words: “England progressive wing of the State presents gender more external to the biosphere?), an expanding has a double mission to fulfill in India: one identity as just another consumer choice, consumer society in an ever more capricious destructive, the other regenerative; the annihilation deactivating the more conflictive elements of the service sector and a highly paid design sector (with of the old Asian society and laying the material transgression of gender [ed. – see Rebels Behind the private cities of Google and the NSA, perhaps, foundations of Western society in Asia.” However, as Bars; 'Yet Another Fenced World'], but it is a as the dichotomous model). [December 2013], an interesting and little­known side­note, Marx contradiction that cannot be permanently China landed a rover on the moon. Anyone who himself had something of a change of perspective in maintained. As such, it is different from the reformist mistakes this for an extremely tardy attempt to keep his later years prompted by his reading of Lewis feminist victory in which labor and political rights for up with the Jones’ is missing its significance. China Henry Morgan's 'Ancient Society' (and especially it's “woman” were won at the cost of losing autonomous has guaranteed itself access to processes of capital depiction, rightly or wrongly, of the Iroquois of feminine spaces, a quid pro quo that preserved the accumulation in space. With a space program far America's north­eastern seaboard) and exposed by power of the institutions. In that vein, we can note cheaper than the US government’s, [they have the posthumous publication of his unfinished that against the snail’s progress of the institutionally become] the first country to match the US for new 'Ethnological Notebooks'; thus he tossed aside his mandated equalization of wages, the new high­paid satellites in space, and they have also developed insistence on progressive human development labor that is cropping up like autumn mushrooms is killer satellites and other anti­satellite weapons that necessitating a chain from "primitive" indigenous, to squarely within the staunchly masculine information could destroy all of the expensive little orbiters on peasant, to capitalist labourer, to socialist 'new technology sector. which global communications, and the US capacity man'. “In a note written just after his conspectus of to deploy military force around the world, across the Morgan we find Marx arguing that “primitive [sic] 5. ed. – “Arrighi revises both Marx and world Pacific for example, depend. With no need to communities had incomparably greater vitality than systems theory to define four stages of capitalism, overcome US superiority head­on, just as the Dutch the Semitic, Greek, Roman and a fortiori the each marked by a systemic cycle of accumulation. navy and American colonial army often used modern capitalist societies?” Thus Marx had come [Paramount to this revision is Arrighi’s identification] guerrilla tactics or evasion to confound a superior to realize that, measured according to the “wealth of of capitalism as a dichotomous fusion of state and force, the Chinese have the potential to make US subjective human sensuality,” [Iroquois society] capital. In this view, the State is far more important military might meaningless, and the liquid capital to stood much higher than any of the societies than a mere “organizing committee” for the give themselves the advantage in outer space “poisoned by the pestilential breath of civilization”. bourgeoisie, as Marx and Engels, covetous of a investment. As higher levels (in this case perhaps Even more important, Morgan’s lively account of the state of their own, would have it. […] Each cycle literally) of competition require higher levels of Iroquois gave him a vivid awareness of the actuality begins with the rise of a new leading state and form collaboration, it is unlikely that terrestrial states, at of indigenous peoples, and perhaps even a glimpse of institutionalized planning that organizes a global least in their present form, will find themselves of the then­undreamed of [by him] possibility that accumulation of capital, subtly interrupted by a adequately equipped to the task of organizing such peoples could make their own contributions to signal crisis that heralds the switch from industrial to capital accumulation beyond planet earth. Power the global struggle for human emancipation. […] financial expansion, experienced as a golden age structures like Google may prove vital in organizing When Marx was reading Ancient Society the “Indian that marches inevitably to the terminal crisis when the new material expansion and also linking the 11. power of terrestrial states to achieve the cultural Japanese origin] towards concentration camps” unification necessary for the regulation and starting from '42.” Similarly, it was Nazi organization of capitalism. After all, the concentration camps where the gene and “The end of a millenium is fast totalitarianism that liberal freedom most requires is biotechnology industries of today were first spawned approaching and the circle will present not the secret police nor the torture chambers of the in earnest, the now re­branded 'life science' itself again, always the same and always Communist Party (although these will never go companies. Just as transhumanism (see Return different. The rapid destruction of world away, neither in China nor in the US), it is the Fire vol.4 pg43) is nothing but another name for the panopticon society [ed. see Return Fire vol.4 pg9], stinking eugenics philosophy that the Nazis resources [sic] carried out by the the apparatuses of communication, the embraced, like Americans, Swedes and British (and plunderers in power is an inescapable instantaneous imposition of legibility on oral culture, more) before them. fact. This will either be brought to an and immediate enclosure of any new commons, that the likes of Google and Apple have already end, or it will be transformed when the achieved [ed. – see the supplement to Return Fire 'LET'S DISCONNECT included of tomorrow build one world vol.4; Caught in the Net]. If these changes come to suited to their own needs and another pass – and they will to the extent that we allow them THE CABLES' for the needs of others. In other words, to – there will no doubt appear another wave of even the present battle against the leftists who claim that it was all an economic [ed. – Below we reproduce a translated version of operation, that the State has now expired, that a claim (in which we take responsibility for any wastage of natural resources could capitalism is self­regulating, that the decentralized mistakes during our editing) for actions against become an industry in the future, the forms of production that are coming to the fore are one of the major new tech companies blazing a foundation of the exploitation of the new reality. They willfully forget how much state path in the new workhouse conditions and also tomorrow. That is why we propose an power continues to concentrate, how the new implementation of workplace robotics, Amazon, in decentralized industries only function in relation to Berlin. So far, the pre-Christmas period of 2017 immediate systematic attack on all the unprecendented phenomena of concentration, that has indeed been the season for opening fire on forms of capitalist expression, both in without drones raining missiles from the sky, there this multinational I.T. and trading hydra: we are no iPhones, that without nuclear submarines, the backward ones still linked to rapid there are no satellites, and without the State, learned of this attack at the same time as several and irrational exploitation and the more whatever its form, there is no capitalism” (Anarchy in Amazon pack stations were paralysed by advanced ones linked to the electronic World Systems). unspecified means in another German city, Munich, specifying the same solidarity with the control of the planet. In a not too distant 7. ed. – One could certainly say that mining the years-long struggle of Amazon workers against future they will shake hands, crushing moon impacts other very profound relationships it their working conditions, which was manifesting us in the middle. In order to do this we has with varied plant, human (menstrual cycles in nationwide Block Black Friday protests on must have the courage to look being an obvious example) and other animal life, November 24th. Meanwhile, anonymous arson ocean tides, etc.; but we wholly agree with the need wrecked a significant amount of stock on the third backwards as well as forwards. for an approach embracing what Western culture floor of an Amazon distribution centre in Rugeley, Backwards to seek certain values that exorcises to the separated realm of the 'spiritual'. the English Midlands, during the crucial lead-up are no longer considered 'modern'. In to the capitalist frenzy of the holiday season; the 8. ed. – As well as the many things utilised by the this research we could single out a few same sweatshop had a similarly mysterious fire at elements that relate to human action: victorious Allies after their dismantling of the Nazi the same time last year. As was noted by the state and recruitment of many of its elements, the saboteurs of Munich; “[s]mooth logistics is the consistency, courage, respect for one's anarchists Silvia, Billy and Costa reminded us prerequisite for Amazon’s ‘Prime’ concept of fast fellows (human or animal), being harsh during their court statement when on trial for a delivery of orders. We remain unpredictable!”] planned attack on the laboratories of IBM in with oneself, frugality, a correct Switzerland (see Return Fire vol.4 pg73) of a consideration for the environment. But famous example: “The German branch of IBM, In solidarity with Amazon’s fighting others too that are only apparent in Dehomag, whose publicity proclaimed in Gothic workers and in support of Block Black contrast: play, love, fantasy, joy, characters: "Hollerith's perforated cards allow you to Friday, we attacked three express vans tenderness, dreams.” – Alfredo M. see everything", traded with the Nazis as well as labelled with ‘AZ Amazon’ and ‘drs Bonanno, 1989 with the American government throughout the war. It amazon’ in various ways during the night of took half a century for us to discover, thanks to the American journalist Edwin Black, the responsibilities November 23rd – burned down, stabbed tires, of IBM and proto­computers in the Holocaust: smeared with paint, and left the call: ‘strike!’ all those who are up to something criminal, “When the Nazis tried to identify the Jews by name, the tension may become apparent before the IBM showed them how to do it. When the Nazis There was this side note in the media, as impending shoplifting or breaking away; wanted to exploit this information to launch the once again a ‘terrorist’ was arrested – anything out of the rut of normalization. expulsion and expropriation campaigns, IBM Amazon denounces the potential terrorist provided the necessary means. When the trains had to run by a timetable, between cities or customers in the search for hydrogen Amazon is at the forefront of this poker concentration camps, even in that case IBM showed peroxide [ed. – for making explosives] game. Last year Amazon was the company them the way[...] The application of the Nuremberg already the next ingredients for the big bang with the most research expenditure laws was based entirely on Hollerith technology, the – thanks to the algorithm… worldwide. So there are already test phases only one capable of establishing the genealogical with supermarkets without staff. ‘Amazon trees that the Reich needed [in a short time] to The basic bet of Amazon and Co. is that Go’ relies on customers being registered via identify all the half­Jews, the quarters, the eighths and even the sixteenths, with the speed and with all the feedback-loops, the sensors, app when entering the store, as well as the exhaustiveness hoped for. [...] IBM did not limit its microphones, cameras and data, you can products that are removed from the shelves – business to the Germans alone, even though they not only add value but end up with the the working customer in the panoptic shop. were among its best customers in the 1930s. technological attack on your body and So soon will also burst the service bubble, Undoubtedly convinced of the neutrality of your actions. There is a twofold of the reservoir for the countless industrial technology, Watson, its boss, sold machines to [U.S. President] Roosvlet at the same time as Hitler. constantly consuming and directing on the workers. [Three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor] the US one hand and the control and delimitation on Census Bureau could provide various reports on the the other: whether it be the emotion So we end up with the fighting workers of Japanese population of different cities in the United detection with cameras, which already takes Amazon, which are already monitored in the States, by place of birth, citizenship, sex, etc...” place in the shops, smartphones as panoptic factory at every turn by means of Thanks to the applications IBM and the responses perceptual aids, Google Home[1] or the scary permanently connected with wireless provided during the 1940 census, the Census [2] Bureau had been able to determine the ethnicity of spy dolls in the nursery . devices in the warehouse. all Japanese­Americans. The American administration used the Hollerith systems to draw Consumers of the global flow of goods are If it is primarily about the ‘optimization’ of maps of population density by locating people by supposed to be rewarded for unsolicited the work processes, it is about two things in block of houses – even if the census was emotion surveillance with personalized and the supervised supermarket: on the one anonymous and without address – and “allowing to controlled advertising. While on the faces of hand, to reduce the costs; the working organize the movements of populations [of 12. customer, who serves themselves, boldly pays independently, and does not need service staff. On the other hand, it’s about ' TOOLS OF THE TECHNOLOGY ' the information which gets generated. Barring some big surprise, if things keep Who will stand in front of which shelf and The online sales (think Amazon) that are Barring some big surprise, if things keep advancing in this direction, solutions like a how long? What emotions can be read in the the major factor provoking the closing of advancing in this direction, solutions like a universal wage become necessary. A pace? When do I shop happily, when I was shopping malls and the recession among universal wage become necessary. A growing part of the Silicon Valley elite previously depressed and slowly walked retail giants rely on warehousing and growing part of the Silicon Valley elite already supports the universal wage. It’s through the isle? delivery. The first is already largely already supports the universal wage. It’s roboticized, and the second is one of the progressives who are making the proposal, but we need to be clear that it reflects the This is about much more than marketing and prime fields for the development of but we need to be clear that it reflects the needs of social control, and nothing else, product placement, because the online giants autonomous and drone technology by the needs of social control, and nothing else, the same way that welfare was an attempt are already making almost as much profit likes of Tesla and Amazon. Meanwhile, the same way that welfare was an attempt to institutionalize the poverty and racist through sales and advertising, as with the cashier positions in supermarkets are to institutionalize the poverty and racist exclusion that fueled the struggles of personal data they are collecting diligently already being replaced by “automatic” exclusion that fueled the struggles of earlier generations [ed. – see Return Fire and suggesting life-saving technologies for checkout. And a few hip brand stores have earlier generations [ed. – see Return Fire vol.1 pg48]. Marx was dead wrong. the whole of humanity. While labour started deploying what some of us were vol.1 pg48]. Marx was dead wrong. Socialism was not the result of the exploitation is almost on a perfect level, predicting when RFID tags [ed. – see the Socialism was not the result of the evolution of society’s productive profits are now generated through generated supplement to Return Fire vol.3; Smarter evolution of society’s productive capacities. Our productive capacities were data and information of the customers – Prison?] came out: a dystopian parody of capacities. Our productive capacities were never so scarce as to rule out universal through access and control of human the free warehouses of the anarchist never so scarce as to rule out universal abundance. Socialism, if it comes, will be a behavioural patterns and their generated collectives in the Spanish Civil War, where abundance. Socialism, if it comes, will be a strategic imposition by the State, taking needs: the working customer. anyone could just walk in and take strategic imposition by the State, taking whatever they needed. The catch, in the advantage of the evolution of its capacities for social control, as a needed measure to We do not want to be governed by modern version, is that when you walk in for social control, as a needed measure to bail capitalism out once again. information – and to the satisfaction of the with your mobile device, they have your bail capitalism out once again. bank information, so when you walk out managers’ faces, blissfully grinning at the In the meantime, workers can expect to with the products, they get deducted thought of the dull masses who are storming find their bread and butter in the sectors automatically. A shoplifting proof the shops on Black Friday like controlled with a future. For the privileged workers, environment in which the potential thief is zombies. this means design, programming, and the person without a cyborg phone. applied scientific research. For those of us So we also participate in a labour dispute, Anyways, with the roboticization of without degrees, or for the suckers who although we actually insist on vehemently industry, which is already well under way, went for humanities, this means the parts of refusing wage work and on trying to keep it was the service sector that was supposed the service sector that are in expansion: each others away from it. to save the economy, creating new jobs so restaurants, tourism, and in general the you still have consumers to buy all the production of experiences, which, The conflict of the striking workers useless, toxic shit being produced. And the sickeningly, turns out to be driven by at Amazon represents for us only a service sector is still growing, but the people’s need to post content on their social part of the gigantic problem of the bigger chunk of it is on the cusp of a huge media[...] change of the working world, the decline, at the exact same moment that roboticization is on the cusp of huge steps Restaurants and bars are already a major isolation of the battlefields and the roboticization is on the cusp of huge steps isolation of the battlefields and the forward in every sector, as well as a new employer for suckers like us, but it will go isolation of the struggle. sector, extraterrestrial exploitation, a lot further. Extreme sports, self- something that’s discussed here. improvement, personal trainers. Sex work And also the strikers will suspect that in ten on steroids[1]. Lines will blur, and the years there will be no picker and packer Roboticists – experts and people who are affective economy will come to define a anymore, because Amazon is already making a huge amount of money off this much larger part of the service sector. The working on computer-controlled drones to shift – are actually really scared. They keep isolation and misery that the traditional staff the warehouses. improving AI, but at the same time they’re family engineered and that internet and worried about how they might bring about entertainment technologies took down to Let’s disconnect the cables the total collapse of the economy, an the ninth layer of hell will be solved by Let’s be more than a zero and a one unfortunate surge in unemployment, or the new employment categories that don’t yet obsolescence of the human species (there explicitly exist. We can talk about a suicide The white transporters are certainly still in explicitly exist. We can talk about a suicide are different versions, the latter is Elon economy: the new sex/affective/ your streets. Musk’s take). Tellingly, they keep on entertainment/experience worker will help – autonomous groups & others designing, and keep on profiting, but us find the will to live again. Self-care will they’re worried. This behavior belies the become a growth sector. idea that technology is useful, that it is 1. ed. – So-called 'digital assistant', like its dependent on human will. I’ll skip the competitor Amazon Echo; a 'smart' device that critic John Simpson notes can “eavesdrop on everything debate over absolute truths for now, but in 1. It’s always disappointing when needed and from conversations to your toilet flushing habits to the present moment, when technology intelligent critiques gain traction right at the children's movements and the books on bedside resides at the scale of the organization of moment when capitalism needs them (I won’t say tables. They would know when you go to sleep and human society for the satisfaction, not of they arise at this moment, as though Capital calls whom you wake up with.” the ideas it needs into being, since they tend to exist biological needs but of economic and long before, though they remain obscure). 2. ed. – Presumably a reference to the “My Friend ultimately technocratic needs, there is no Unfortunately this seems to be the case with sex Cayla” doll, another 'smart' device (this time for such thing as freedom unless we’re talking work. It’s great that the victimistic views of priests, children) that connects to the internet via Bluetooth about the intent to destroy the whole social workers, and essentialist feminists have been and carries out conversation when asked questions; fucking system. Even elite designers are challenged, but the possibility of a radical practice incidentally also collecting and transmitting fucking system. Even elite designers are within sex work may well depend on the ability of everything it hears to a voice recognition company in just tools of the technology, the way the sex workers to stake an innovative position in the the U.S. The doll is now banned in Germany, but on factory worker is an adjunct to the machine struggle against capitalism, because it is in the sale in the U.K. For more on 'Internet of Things' (in contrast, possibly, to the artisan, who interest of the new economy for sex work to be re- innovations, see the supplement to Return Fire vol.3; develops and deploys her [sic] own tools). legitimized and diversified. Smarter Prison?. 13. that are highly differentiated allow 'A SMART NEW WORLD OF SLAVES' algorithmic measuring of the individual engagement of anybody working on demand. Thus immense pressure is In Germany also, crowdworking platforms created to adapt behaviour to tap into are growing, like the Berlin company enormous reservoirs of self­optimization CrowdGuru or Clickworker GmbH from and self­ratification by means of Essen and there is no saturation in sight. competition. As soon as a task can be precisely framed and modularized it can be outsourced to The accessibility, speed of arrival and “non­employees”. For most tasks a friendliness of Uber drivers is evaluated in minimum fee is determined – most of the each fare. Those who reject fares on their time announced as a competition. The only drivers app will score less. Those who get one paid is the winner of this competition – stuck in traffic jams and are replaced with all the others will go empty handed. a click by impatient customers not only Platforms that pay per hour offer an app for lose their fare, but run a risk of losing their download. The crowd worker has to use it so­far­high scores. The number of points to log in when they are working on a billed gained, determines which drivers are task. But not only the working time is preferably assigned, and thereby what scored. In irregular intervals (six times per these mostly precarious drivers will earn. Click­ & Crowd­Working in hour) screenshots are made and keyhits The price of fares from Uber is about 25% Platform Capitalism and mouse movements per minute are less compared to common taxis anyway. registered. “We don‘t control, we facilitate “Crowdsourcing” is a mixture between Additionally another 20% from this the framework for protection and trust”, “crowd” and “outsourcing”. Jobs are no dumping price will go off and be says one platform manager. “Trust” is longer deferred to employees of a transferred to Uber for acting as agent. generated by accessible company, but dumped on an army of What looks like a computer game from the evaluations, similar to those of online digitally working nomads. The outside, haggling after high scores, is delivery services. Employers evaluate the crowdworking­platform ‘Mechanical Turk’ inevitably internalized as one‘s livelihood. by Amazon is one of many that offers work of their digital nomad visibly to minimal assignments. 500,000 people in all potential future employers. To 190 countries stand­by for assignments keep up the appearance of like the editing of websites, texts, product fairness, micro­jobbers may also descriptions, or the transcription of audio. pass judgement on their employers (that will not have any The starting signal to use the swarm of effect though). "clickworkers" was given by Amazon in 2006. when the corporation started to sell Even if a small bohemian world CDs. Hundreds of thousands of CD covers thinks they can design their lives in had to be checked for sexual content a more flexible and autonomous before they could be uploaded onto the fashion as freelancers “in the name digital platform. A task a computer wasn‘t of enhanced autonomy” ([Michael] good at accomplishing because of its Burawoy) and push the fusion of nebulous criteria. In imitation of work and free time under conditions decentralized distributed computers in the of maximized independence of location to cloud, Amazon thus invented the crowd – a the limit: the popping­up digital sweatshops Companies like Foxconn and Amazon even manage to generate a next to all­ kind of “massively parallel” human will ultimately serve to weigh down wages computer: twisting the human­machine – in every branch of business. The german encompassing registration of all off­line working steps through consequential relation, the computer now asks people trade union Verdi rightly states a to help it with its work. Everybody could “cannibalisiation of the employment application of high­tech surveillance. The rating of employees in some of the sign in on a digital platform to check CD market”: Freelancers will do the same work covers for a couple of dollars per hour. on worse conditions. The DGB (German Amazon plants is even more insidious (see Succeeding this specific task Amazon Trade Union Association) sees that as a the passage Efficiency­Training Humans to elaborated its job platform. Amazon “modern type of slavery” where everybody Become Machines). Because of the high charges 10% of the total fee paid by any tries to underbid everyone else to gain rates of sickness of up to 20% the gigantic “employer” for the accomplishment of a acceptance of a bid. In case of sickness online retailer introduced a presence task mediated by Amazon. What is paid is and age things get even more ugly for bonus. Not only for every single employee, left to the employer. The status the micro­ crowdworkers. There is (currently) no but for team­rating. Especially robust workers assume in a job like this is that of social security or reliable work regulation teams that called in sick less than others a modern­day labourer. The question of which heed this kind of labour without received a bonus of 70­150 Euro a month working contracts or social security is rights. To be able to reject any claims per person. This not only poisoned the obsolete. The unilaterally defined terms of made on them Uber and Deliveroo avoid atmosphere at the workplace, it also the service platform rule in favour of the calling their drivers ”employees” speaking negated sickness as a normal part of employers‘s despotism. Isabella Mader put of them as self­employed instead. life; especially as a result of a monotonous it these words: “wage theft is a feature, not Welcome to a smart new world of slaves. one­sided work induced stress[…] a bug”. Payment is often considerably delayed – sometimes deferred. Amazon Permanent Evaluation Through Efficiency­Training Humans to clearly states on its website what the Digital Recording Become Machines balance of power looks like: “If the work All digitally recruited on­demand­service­ Amazon employees work under enormous performance does not meet your providers share a common fate. Their work stress. Contradictory to their contract of standards, reject it and don‘t pay the performance is constantly rated and employment, most of them work overtime worker.” assessed. Digitally received benchmarks and on Saturdays. Strictly hierarchical so­ 14. called leaders pass down pressure to the algorithmization of the working process analyses procedures of companies to pickers and packers of their team by listing manages to take to a whole new level of automate the working process. Artificially their mistakes. Pickers “pick” the ordered perfection: the complete quantification, intelligent controlling systems are articles from the shelves walking up to standardization and thereby compulsory supposed to ensure a seamless integration 20km a day – trackers record their walking acquisition and devaluation of work – of robots into the working process. performance to the split second by formerly only in production, now also in in Competition with robots devalues human allocating exactly wherever they are, while administration and development. In more workforce at a ripping pace. Foxconn a hand scanner records all the work and more office jobs the individual work wants to automate some of its plants in sequences involved determining the next load is also rated and controlled by a ticket China completely, and replace all human step. If a picker is delayed the system system. What is already standardized by employees by robots. In Kunshan, China, triggers the alarm: leaders exactly defined specifications of Foxconn has dismissed 60,000 of the once automatically receive a message on performance in sevice and typical call 110,000 empoyees in 2016 for the their screen. A so­called feedback center jobs now expands to the more freely fabrication of iPhone7, and replaced them ensues. “For the sole reason of optimizing organisable office job settings. In future the with robots. According to South China the process”, of course. Packers also have office person will work like at the prodiction Morning Post 600 companies in Kunshan a minimum to perform: to pack 200 line. Companies will try to concentrate the are supposed to add robots to their individual parcels or 100 multi­parcels an unavoidable creative work on a few well­ production line which will result in a wave hour. But the constant rating of the paid employees. of mass layoffs. employees is not without consequences: a […] If less and less people work and the green card means praise, a yellow card is The result: a few jobs in the development the equivalent of a written warning. Three department where people tell computers necessity of labour as a normative force yellow cards mean dismissal. what to do. And more and more devalued of order only applies within strong jobs where the computer tells people what limits then disciplining by labour will no longer be sufficient to maintain (self­) The requirement: everybody is to do. governance. The solution for the ruling supposed to be above the The separation of creative assignments class is already perceivable. The future average. What is mathematically that will remain the prerogative of people in order will not only be based on the impossible is the dynamic the long run is a necessary requirement for evaluation of work, but by judging and adding value to any individual activity and principle of continuous re­ (future) ”robotization” of thereby other tasks devalued [ed. – see New life­expression. Self­employment will be enforcement of work pressure Technologies, Extraterrestrial extended to every area in life. People have by competiton within the staff. Exploitation & the Future of Capitalism]. long since stopped being members of their The consequence: an overall Amazon‘s pickers etc. will no longer exist workforce only. Their assets as a whole are so much entangled with themselves coercion to self­optimize[1]. in its most modern German plant Winsen, near Hamburg in Lower Saxony. At the end that they themselves become added value. of 2017 robots will bring the required shelf We sell ourselves, not only our manpower Even if employees want to rationalize their segments to the packer, who will pick the [sic]. The social value determined by the tasks to avoid unnecessary walks penalty required product to pack it. rating and scoring of networks like points are dealt out. Any deviation from the Facebook [ed. – see the supplement to algorithmic allowance will be sanctioned – Industry 4.0: Return Fire vol.4; Caught in the Net] for the sake of standards. Any trace of advances to the real economic (self­)worth. individuality means a loss of control – loss Running the World as a Company of replaceability. Amazon wants every Industry 4.0 is the term to describe the […] We have to attack the evaluation employee to be replaceable by a colleague whole of production. A new regime of process and the participative enforcement anytime – without losings at handover. An production that aims to control all global of ourselves through permanent (self­) informant from the administration reports: production and cash flow, as well as the measuring as a basis of being “My working instructions dictate the exact workforce behind it with the help of a digital (heteronomously) steered. position of my keyboard and mouse on my infrastructure. There is the talk of a fourth desk. And also where my waste­paper industrial revolution after mechanizing in [ed. – Edited slightly from the original translation.] basket sits under my desk. It is absurd and the 18th century, elecrification in the 19th century and automation of the 20th oppressive”. 1. ed. – “In the technology industry, corporeal century. manipulation is a rite of passage. Fledgling Dequalification by Digital startup founders tote bottles of open­source The propagandists of Industry 4.0 are Production Lines future­smoothies to exempt themselves from the designing a scenario in which humans, time­wasting ritual of the lunch break. They What production lines have only managed machines and intelligent systems are convince themselves that intermittent fasting and rudimentarily, the transformed into an integrated digital­ geometric nootropic pellets will stimulate their human workforce and become parts of a mental faculties. As self­proclaimed global, highly efficient, self­controlling “biohackers,” they purport to treat their bodies as production process applicable at will. computers – machines that require inputs in order to generate outputs. [...] Yet, while the Supposedly needed therefore is an [Silicon] Valley acolytes voluntarily reboot their “architecture and a system of bodies in pursuit of seven­ or eight­figure regulations consisting of millions of salaries, workers placed lower in the socio­ inter­linked instances adding value corporate pecking order face far more invasive, worldwide[...] that is safe, robust and paternalistic forms of bodily control – with no highly accessible.” such promise of flush autonomy. [...] Companies like Walmart and Humanyze are encroaching on The emphatically launched their employees’ bodies with RFID­chip implants [ed. – see the supplement to Return Fire vol.3; virtually necessary hype already Smarter Prison?], badges that record audio has left huge traces. Compass, a and movement, and “self­improvement” health German start­up in Silicon Valley campaigns” (Our Bosses, Ourselves). 15. Tactics The primary tactical component on the THE EXARCHEIA COMMUNE anarchist side was the barricade – construction, defense, and use as a RISES & DEFENDS ITSELF weapon. The Exarcheia barricade varied from street to street. Usually low, – a review of the battle sometimes waist high, on occasion higher, but never above eye­level so that the fighters could see over and anticipate [ed. – The second in a series of dispatches from neutralize the unfortunately offset side police charges. Most included tires, wood Greece by a travelling comrade reflecting on the streets that link the main avenues. The taken from construction sites, large anarchist space in that country. This regards the side streets were one of the real dangers planters from the sidewalks, anything that 2016 annual anniversary of the killing of Alexis of the plan, because should the Police Grigoropoulos (see Return Fire vol.1 pg17), actually have the ability to turn a barricade could be ripped out of the ground, torn always a conflictual date in the Athenian they would then have flanking access to at off a wall, or broken was used to raise neighbourhood. We publish this as fighters gear the barricade just one inch taller. In one up for the 2017 date as we speak... not (at least least one, perhaps several, adjacent case two steel police barricades had been unnecessarily) to add to legend of this often­ streets and barricades. The barricade that used to block a side street. In many romanticised anarchist stronghold, but for its my team was tasked with defending instances barricades caught fire, either tactical and methodical inspirations.] was located such that the side street deliberately set or by accident. Once alight, would have given the cops the the fires were allowed burn unchecked. “Ons Danse le Lachrymo…” advantage of flanking us effectively The actual battle tactic was to taunt, – graffiti, France, July 2016 from the side and rear. Not good. In harass and generally disrespect the forces (transl. “We Dance the Teargas”) order to counter this threat a series of of authority in a vocal and physical fashion. smaller side barricades were set up on This included standing in front of the “Comrade, will you watch these while these side streets, effectively slowing any barricade throwing stones at the cops in I throw one?” He is tall, masked from head belligerent force from going on a free ride the hopes of pushing them off their to toe in black, and is known to me. As he from one street to the next, one point of adjacent corner. Occasional chants could speaks he motions to a milk crate stuffed defense to the next. Two small pedestrian be heard rising up from various barricades, with Molotovs. “Sure… go ahead,” I say as streets also lead into the Square and these the only one I recognized being a chant I light a cigarette and settle in to guard the were barricaded as well. Finally there was calling cops murderers. The cops would precious weapons stash while he tosses a hope that at one or two points the charge and be driven off by Molotov and the thing at the Social Enemy. Ten minutes anarchists could push hard enough to stone barrages. In one case the barricade I later he returns and in spite of the dark move the fighting up the street was at was turned by the cops, but only for night, his black clothing, and the shadow effectively expanding their territory and a moment. A swift counter charge by we stand in, he glows with happiness – like maybe even be able to sever a police line anarchists pushed them off the barricade the Molotov he just launched, he is alight. of reinforcement, or even better, retreat. and back down the street. It’s fun to watch a cop retreat, especially as the ground Strategy The one huge downside to the system of around them sputters and roars in flame The strategy was simple, and for the barricades was simple – if one or several and smoke. anarchists new, defend the beating were turned it would have given to the anarchist heart of Athens, of Greece, police the ability to flank every remaining In terms of cop tactics they are hard to perhaps the world. Block, stop and turn barricade from the rear. A rock and a hard guess. But it seemed a pattern of varied back any and all attempts by the Athens place scenario. Everyone seemed aware harassment and probing. They seemed to Police to get to Exarcheia Square. And do of this, and as fighting was heard in other move personnel from one barricade to so in a coordinated fashion between all the streets I saw more than one rioter glance another over the course of the night. The various groups, teams and squats. Each nervously over their shoulder in barricade I was at was very active with entity taking responsibility for one or two anticipation of a police charge from the three or four charges an hour, usually streets – ensuring they are effectively rear. Fortunately this never happened. beginning with a barrage of flash bang blocked. This in contrast to grenades followed previous years when the by teargas, loads of rioting was scattered, teargas; then a unfocussed and usually charge, and a developed into clashes retreat. I saw this around the Polytechnic, the tactic deployed over University complex set off and over, on almost several blocks from the every street. Some Square. This year, the streets, hotly Polytechnic and its environs contested early in played no role whatsoever, the evening, were but Exarcheia Square sure as virtually empty an hell did. Finally, in crystalline hour or two later. form, the strategy was to take Other streets, like and keep liberated territory, to mine, felt the brunt free a community – if only for of the fighting. a few hours. There was one barricade situated on The strategic plan included a downhill street, in blocking all the approaches other words allowing to the Square and by some tactical establishing a secondary advantage to the system of barricades to 16. cops on a charge, which while contested, it Hand thrown chunks of whatever. The finally dumped arms and hostilities ceased, was not a main point of fighting. I kept most desperate thing I saw in about 11:00 pm. thinking that the reason must be that the Exarcheia that night was insurgents retreat was hampered by the sloped street. scrambling to get their hands on stuff Cops: 200­300 (a guess). Based on my Finally, the weather helped the observations of the number per charge (20 to throw. One scene that I’ll always insurgents – it was a humid, rainy cool cops maximum) and the number of remember was of a bunch of young night. The two pedestrian walkways, barricades being simultaneously probed people kicking a pylon cemented in swathed in tiles that get slick as shit when people kicking a pylon cemented in and harassed – upwards of five, and the wet, went effectively uncontested. The the sidewalk to loosen it. They number of police needed to provide cops realizing that short of wearing shoes eventually succeeded and it had the logistics, support, command, reserves, and with soles slathered in krazy glue there added benefit of producing further to steer traffic well out of the area. was no way to safely run and retreat on a hunks of concrete when it was finally surface that was, in effect, as treacherous hauled out. Tiles torn out of walls, Snapshots as ice. Almost all insurgent forces like empty bottles, anything not actually As I sit and write this on the Isle of Lesvos inclement weather to fight in especially nailed down was loosened, ripped out a short 24 hours after the battle a number against regular troops, one Special Forces and thrown at the police. of scenes come to mind. Sitting in a room guys told me that rain and 45­55 degrees discussing preparations for the night, many Fahrenheit is sufficiently gloomy for regular In addition I saw slingshots, and an actual, of the militants standing, pacing, nervous soldiers to begin to lose heart. In his honest­to­God, David­slays­Goliath sling with energy to get started. As I guarded the words, “It tears the morale out of you.” being used. The projectiles used included Molotovs having some Italian comrades Athens on the evening of December 6, ball­bearings, marbles, stone or concrete wander by. They asked for a Molotov, 2016 was misty/slight drizzle, with a chunks. These were clearly weapons of which I provided and we all agreed that the temperature hovering at 50 degrees. harassment, used during lulls to further Greeks had done something very right. Perfect. infuriate and demoralize the police. Helping a young woman overcome by gas, who, when the Riopan got into her eyes Weapons Finally, though linked to a cop weapon, the and nose immediately recovered. Like a anarchists have found the use of gas The Exarcheia Molotov is a brilliant stoned person suddenly sober – she masks absolutely essential. There was technical innovation of the weapon, and straightened, said, “Thank you Comrade,” little breeze on the night of December 6th worth taking note of. In general they use turned and headed back to the barricade and even small amounts of teargas were 500ml beer bottles, filled half way or a bit she was attending to. The sight of burning devastating as it settled into corners, less with a flammable liquid, usually gas. barricades, great arcs of Molotovs fuses doorways and hung in the damp, unmoving They then take a length of gauze bandage sputtering as they flew and struck home in air. and extend a portion into the gas and tape the ranks of the police. The shouting, the remainder at the opening of the bottle On the cop side little was new, the usual chanting, laughing, talking – the feeling for a fuse. The traditional dangling fuse suspects. Flash bang grenades, though in of really finally being alive. One’s hair being a relic of the past. This Athens these don’t use launchers, they are standing on end as the flash bangs accomplishes two things, first as the hand thrown. What is devastating in their explode and teargas projectiles clatter on bottle is only filled half way, the gauze repertoire is teargas, Brazilian teargas. the ground and cloud the street. wicks gas and inundates the remaining air Having been gassed recently in France, in the bottle with gas fumes. Turning the I’m beginning to be something of a Finally on my way back to the apartment I was staying at, I noticed a small store Exarcheia Molotov from a simple device lachrymator connoisseur, and I can tell open, with several people playing cards at that delivers fire into – a bomb. The damn you that Greek gas is dense, acrid and things actually explode in massive purplish a table in the back. I knocked on the door – acidic – far more so than the Gallic red flame as the remaining liquid gas needed smokes and something to drink. variant. In terms of first aid there is erupts and spreads fire to anything it They motioned me in, and asked where I Riopan. A kind of Maalox [ed. – a brand of touches. Next the taping of the wick at the was from, a few questions and finally one antacid that counter­acts tear­gas], but in opening of the bottle, again inundated with of the older men asked, “So tonight did you handy single serving foil packets. The liquid gas makes a perfect “fuse”. It can be see the riots?” “Yes,” I answered not ground around the various barricades was easily lit and thrown without the danger of wanting to give too much away. “And who littered with these white foil packs. And the self­immolation by a flopping, flaming piece are you with, the young people or the faces of many insurgents looked clown­like of cloth. I would very much like to meet cops?” Hesitantly I said, “The young as they poured the white liquid liberally into and congratulate the folks who people, always.” He smiled broadly and eyes, onto the mucous membranes, and It’s brilliant, it’s developed this thing. finally taking a swallow to clear the acidic, answered, “So are we.” easy, and the Athens Police hate them like noxious gas residue out of the throat. the plague – with good reason. The Exarcheia Molotov is a fearsome and Order of Battle effective weapon. Some comrades have Anarchists: 800­1,000. Organized as teams further advanced this innovation with an of between 5 and 10 fighters. Those from attached canister, which explodes on Exarcheia were assigned to various impact. I have no idea what’s in this barricades and maintained themselves canister and asked one of the guys who within their area. Those from outside was throwing these infernal devices what Exarcheia roamed, the sound of flash bang made them work, but as he spoke no grenades drawing them to specific streets, English, and as I speak no Greek it militants would frantically move from remains a mystery. The explosion is loud, barricade to barricade as cop charges like a flash bang, with the attendant changed location and intensity. In a lull dispersal of flaming gasoline to the most hung out in Exarcheia, drank beer, surrounding area. More information later, talked, and scrounged for more stuff to perhaps. throw. The number dwindled over the night to perhaps two hundred when the militants 17. ' COMBATIVE SYMBIOGENETIC DESIRE SOLIDARITY ' – an egoist conception of ecology

[ed. – Currently distributed in Exarcheia, An Unfortunate Silence anticipating December 2017 clashes...] Egoist anarchism has regularly had Social power against criticism leveled against it for its relative state repression is founded on silence on issues of ecology. This criticism combative solidarity. is well­placed: other than a few references By participating in the resistance to how non­human animals are exemplars we build our capacity for collective of egoism due to their seemingly self-direction. unalienated relationship with their desires[1], …you too can: egoist literature is sorely lacking in this regard. This lamentable absence likely has – open the door to your house or to do with the proclivities of its authorship building to those who are more than anything else, as an egoist persecuted by the cops analysis is readily applicable to ecology. existence, but it is also profoundly difficult – provide protesters with The identity eliminativism – the denial of to describe with words: the qualitative access to the roof oneself as having an essential self, a always eludes the symbolic; however – throw an (empty) flower pot from perspective that will be defined and circumspect and technical or poetic and the balcony developed further in this piece – implied by pithy the phrase, it can never completely egoism is the basis of this ecological capture the real of our experience. The – put out a bucket of water for the phenomenologist [Maurice] Merleau­Ponty, neutralization of teargas worldview, as one’s sense of self expands to subsume and be subsumed by one’s while not an anarchist egoist (actually, for – offer water, Maalox solution (1/2 habitat and symbiotes. Through such an at least part of his life, a Marxist! *gasp*), water) or Riopan pills to those analysis, one steers clear of the twin nonetheless beautifully described how injured by teargas alienations of, on the one hand, the tiny perception is neither subjective nor objective but a gestalt from which the two – offer first aid and protection self, that is, the self as an independent, are artificially rendered: “The visible about to the injured enclosed, free­willed subject who remains relatively stable through space and time us seems to rest in itself. It is as though – come out on the street and stand and who interacts with a world of objects; our vision were formed in the heart of the against the state murderers and, on the other hand, the reification of visible, or as though there were between it – communicate with other the nonhuman world, that is, the construal and us an intimacy as close as between neighbours and protesters, gather of nonhuman organisms as a more or less the sea and the strand […] What there is together and coordinate unified whole that acts collectively for the then are not things first identical with Good and into which one can dissolve themselves, which would then offer – contribute to the building of themselves to the seer, nor is there a seer barricades and provide oneself or to which one can swear allegiance [ed. – see who is first empty and who, afterward, “ammunition” with any objects you Return Fire vol.1 ]. Eschewing both of these would open himself to them – but no longer need pg24 alienations, one finds oneself able to something to which we could not be closer – take video documentation of the experience a symbiogenetic desire that than by palpating it with our look, things we actions of the occupying police forces unites a love of oneself with a love of one’s could not dream of seeing ‘all naked’ and publicize their violence through ecosystem. because the gaze itself envelops them, means of counter-information clothes them with its own flesh.” (without filming the The Expansive Self: faces of protesters) Identity Eliminativism What is traditionally called the object of perception, then, is as much a part of An egoist conception of ecology begins – stand up against incidents ourselves as what is traditionally called the with the notion of the expansive self. The of arrests subject of perception – we are so expansive self regards the inner world, our accustomed to think only of the latter as – observe the daily movement of thoughts and emotions, and the outer being truly ourselves. With the dissolution police forces and share this world, our phenomenality or sensory of transitivity of identity, the importance of information with fellow fighters experience, as inseparable, as each perception to identity becomes clearer still. – encourage those who fight reciprocally informs and defines the other. David Hume is instructive on the point of Insofar as identity can be said to exist, it is – do all that you can imagine so as to identity eliminativism, when he observes our perceptual totality, shifting from contribute to the struggle that there is no essential substrate, no moment to moment. When we walk fixed and quintessential I, that exists – organize in structures of resistance through the world, all that we touch and and partake in their collective perceive is an extension of ourselves; behind his phenomenality or the thoughts and feelings he has about it; instead, his conversely, there is no I that exists strategy building sensory experience and his reflections of separately from our phenomenal that experience are the whole of his being. TO THE BARRICADES, experience. Thus, the self subsumes and We are not merely a body, which is only for FREEDOM and SELF- is subsumed by the world, annihilating this part of our perception, but instead ORGANIZATION subject/object dichotomy that alienates us from other beings and places. everything we perceive, everything with WITH OUR CONTINUOUS which we interact. And among that with STRUGGLE WE HONOUR If our language sounds strange here, it is which we interact are of course other THOSE MURDERED because we are trying to talk about the beings, meaning that our consciousnesses BY THE STATE ineffable. Perception is the basis of are inextricably intertwined. 18. that we might dissolve ourselves into or act celled organisms) symbiotes who, in turn, We are therefore experiencing at all times on the behalf of for the Greater Good. are inhabited by bacterial symbiotes; up to the ultimately ineffable phenomenon of While there is certainly a great deal to one­third of a termite’s weight can consist nigh­infinitely many mutually co­created draw from the observation that organisms of these creatures, each of which is consciousnesses. When we encounter one often are deeply enmeshed symbiotically, dependent on the others for survival. Other another, human or nonhuman, being or that the niches in ecosystems are often species of termites have their massive place, each becomes forever a part of the mutually reinforcing; these phenomena are nests inhabited by a fungus that acts as a other – whatever beauty, strangeness, or counterposed by the fact that, at times, kind of external stomach for the insects, upset that encounter might bring, we know, organisms also demonstrably act inimically enabling enhanced digestion. The fungus as those feelings pass from immediate to the stability of the biosphere: take occupies a larger volume of the nest and intensity yet leave us permanently cyanobacteria, photosynthetic possesses a greater metabolism than the changed, that we have only encountered a microorganisms whose evolution might termites themselves, and it possibly new and stimulating aspect of ourselves have annihilated most life on Earth 2.3 influences the behavior of the insects with which we were previously unfamiliar. billion years ago by filling the atmosphere through chemical signaling not unlike the with oxygen that was toxic to the anaerobic kind that happens among differing organs The Tiny Selves: majority of life. Considering of the same body. The Reification of Identity contradictions like this one, what can it To highlight my meaning with a foil, mean to act in accordance with the In the same vein, an immensely distant opposite to the expansive self are various biosphere? ancestor of our cells may have been conceptions of what Jason McQuinn has formed similarly, through smaller and taken to calling “the tiny self” – the self as Even were this not the case, the simpler cells fusing into larger and more mere body, the self as the free­willed identification of a Gaia or Life would be yet complex ones. Margulis’ Symbiogenetic bourgeois economic agent, the self as another case of self­alienation – we do not Hypothesis posits that at least some social role or identity, and so forth. Each of experience a biotic/abiotic totality except in eukaryotic cells – the complex cells that, in these is a reified self, an idea of who and cases of adventurous imagining; and, to this case, make up plants and animals – what we are that comes from giving undue whatever extent there is one, we are surely came about through larger cells engulfing weight to one aspect of ourselves, to as much a part of it as anything else, smaller cells, the latter becoming hypostatizing one part of our experience meaning our desires are its desires. It thus organelles of the former. and imagining that it is all that we are. cannot grant to us any metric of value. Unfortunately, a pernicious desire to A parallel, then, can be drawn The expansive self is diametrically recapitulate this reification of the between this biological opposed to these conceptions of self that nonhuman, for “life [to be] about something understanding of inseparability and [4] characterize the dominant culture: the bigger than ourselves”, persists in anti­ emergence in the organic and the civilization theory today [ed. – see Return Cartesian self [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 gestalt sense of identity – or, Fire vol.4 pg92]. pg54] that sees its distinctiveness as self­ perhaps better, lack of identity – evident or the bourgeois self that imagines described above. Recognition that a separable entity that is self­willed and The Platonic [ed. – see 'The Matter of therefore morally entitled to and Knowing Who We Are'] urge is strong: each of us is constituted by every responsible for its economic success. insofar as we put our weight in recent other being we encounter entails a [5] archaeological findings , the very perspective of intimacy, a desire to To take just one case here, as I have beginnings of Civilization may be live as deeply and vivaciously as characterized by believing in things “bigger discussed this issue at greater length possible. As an ecological [2] than ourselves”, things greater than actual elsewhere , Descartes’ cogito ergo sum (“I perspective, then, reveals itself as and particular beings or events, things vast perspective, then, reveals itself as think; therefore, I am”) contains, like every one that treats all organisms, ideology of domination, a subtle and eternal. Whether it can be said to be humans and nonhuman, as potential presupposition: “I”. Stirner rejects out of an essential human characteristic is hand the Cartesian split by describing unclear, but it is certainly an urge of symbiotes, cocreators with whom himself as “creator and creature [Schöpfer present human beings to reify aspects of we can have various relationships. their lives, perhaps due to a relationship und Geschöpf] in one” – he does not with enslavement [6] or depression[7]. presuppose himself as a separate entity Just as one might have a close and Though some seem to think an ecological of his phenomenal perception but intimate, a friendly, a cordial, a neutral, an perspective entails reifying something antagonistic, or a hostile relationship with a instead recognizes that subjectivity and great and beautiful and leaping into it with human, one might have any of those objectivity are simply synthetic outstretched arms; an alternative lies in relationships with a non­human. One might conceptual frameworks, sometimes persistently refusing reification, rather than therefore strive toward unions of egoists useful instrumental constructions that simply choosing which is ostensibly the among the organisms in one’s habitat, have no existence beyond our moment­ right one. maximizing mutualistic interactions and to­moment imagination of them. minimizing antagonistic ones through Nietzsche [ed. – see Return Fire vol.2 Symbiogenetic Desire Stirner’s understanding of infinitely pg52] similarly repudiated this atomized Biologists, most famously Lynn Margulis[8], revisable collaborations among beings who self as a linguistic fiction, a mode of employ the beautiful term symbiogenesis combine their powers toward the pursuit of thinking imposed on us by the subject­ (etymologically meaning something like cooperatively achieved, but individually verb­object structure of our language. origin of life together) to describe the recognized, values. Even non­animals, phenomenon in which two or more surely, experience something [ed. – see Nature: The Platonic Residue ostensibly distinct organisms become so Veganism: Why Not], possess a Yet the expansive self is also the very closely intertwined in their lifeways that phenomenality, and have some notion of antithesis of any conception of Mother they more or less merge into one creature. value, one we can often infer through [3] Nature, Gaia perspective , or other interspecies communication; though surely reification of the nonhuman – it is not By way of example, certain termites are their experience of value is unspeakable advancing the notion that there is some able to digest wood through having their and ultimately incomprehensible to us. transcendental whole we could call Life guts inhabited by protist (complex single­ 19. Through such unions, we become logistical­economical choice, but instead 8. A number of biologists dating back to the early symbiotes of one another; our sense of self one of whom we fundamentally want to be. 1900s have discussed variants of this theory. expands to encompass the bodies, lives, Margulis put forth the modern version, still and values of others through The anti­civilization insurgency thus controversial but widely accepted, arguing that animal and plant cells first formed through the symbiogenetic desire. takes on an irredeemably personal unification of simpler cells. She has since character. We do not resist civilization argued, more controversially, that symbiogenesis [10] Practically, an interspecies union of egoists because it is “innately wrong” or because ought to be considered a major factor of would surely entail the abandonment of it is “the domination of nature”[11], we resist evolution, influential on a par with selection by agriculture, a thoroughly stultifying practice it because it is an absolute assault on competition. that homogenizes experience and ourselves. There is no need to mediate squelches the diversity of mutually co­ such a desire through an unfounded claim 9. ed. – “[T]he endless parade of meaningless interactions and activities in which we are forced created consciousnesses. Subsistence about transcendental goods and evils or a to participate: working, paying rent, buying and through some combination, varying with conceptualization of the nonhuman; it is bioregion, of foraging and selling, paying bills, dealing with the presence of one immediately felt. cops, bureaucrats, bosses, landlords, etc., etc. horticulture/permaculture would mean not [makes us] dependent on the totality of the social only a richer and more diverse habitat; but The flattening of living ground into dead, order and at the same time transforms us into also would entail an intimate relationship uniform parking plots is the flattening of our atoms that mainly seem to bump into each other with it through regular interaction. In this affect. The mediation of our lives through randomly due to circumstances beyond our way, we truly inhabit our ecosystem, representations is a stifling of creativity and control in the meaningless, ceaseless movement enriching ourselves as well as our dreams. The denuding and toxification of of commerce. In the United States, an ideology symbiotes from whom we are inseparable. the biosphere is the restriction of our lives has grown around this that absurdly goes by the name of “rugged individualism”. The absurdity is Similarly, the abolition and destruction of and the narrowing of possibilities. Our the homogenizing and toxifying institutions dual. First of all this ideology defines sorrow and rage is not directed at some “individuality” precisely in terms of this atomized and infrastructure characterizing civilization essential metaphysical Other that attacks existence in which each one is nothing more follow from such a perspective, as they Nature; it is directed at a immediate than a cipher, equal to and separate from every could only limit and stultify ourselves and mutilation of our experience, of one else in their nothingness. Secondly, these our connections [ed. – see What Could atomized beings that are the “individuals” of this Compensate for the Loss of the Night ourselves. ideology are made absolutely dependent by a Sky?]. social order that defines their lives as a 1. [Max] Stirner writes, for instance, when competition for the same petty ends, thus imagining a conversation with people who feel guaranteeing their ongoing identity and Anti­Civilization Egoism they need absolute values to guide them lest separation. There is certainly nothing rugged in The gaze of the rapacious capitalist they merely follow their instincts and passions such abject dependence. The aspect of social objectifies the biosphere, treating it as an and thus “do the most senseless thing possible. fragmentation that this ideology seeks to justify – object to be plundered by whoever has the [Thus each deems himself the] devil; for, if, so atomization – may play a major part in our tenacity and guile to best exploit it. The far as he is unconcerned about religion, he only inability to create real projects of affinity together paleoconservative or libertarian gaze deemed himself a beast, he would easily find that spring from our own lives, particularly if its romanticizes it, regarding it as the wide­ that the beast, which does follow only its impulse ideological justification has penetrated into our (as it were, its advice), does not advise and own ways of conceiving individuality. […] The open terrain of rugged individualism[9] on impel itself to do the ‘most senseless’ things, but concept of individuality that this society imposes which one might live off the fat of the land. takes very correct steps.” Stirner, Max. The Ego stands as a crystalline and pure object outside of The liberal or conservationist gaze and His Own, trans. Steven T. Byington, ed. all relationships, but real concrete individuality is, spectacularizes it, transforms it into a thing Benjamin R. Tucker. in fact, a relationship. I become who and what I that should be cherished and preserved for am in relation to Esther, Dave, Tiger, Susannah, its beauty. Again, all of these 2. See my “In Defense of the Creative Nothing” Mary, Ivy, Anais, Membrane, Brendan, Brandon, perspectives are iterations of alienation Avram, Mandy, the woman at the coffee shop, predicated on reifying the 3. Note that by Gaia Perspective, I do not mean the preacher in the church my parents made me to refer to the Gaia Hypothesis advanced by attend, my parents themselves, the cops, the subject/object dichotomy; they merely James Lovelock. state, the economy, the technological apparatus, dress it in different skins. As M. Kat [ed. – and, we must add, non­civilised lifeforms] Anderson writes, “These seemingly 4. Hayes, Cliff. “Slaves to Our Own Creations”, etc., etc. None of these relationships determines contradictory attitudes – to idealize nature Black And Green Review, vol. 1. who I am, but all play a role in how I create who I or commodify it – are really two sides of am. A relationship is not a crystalline statue. It is the same coin, what the restoration 5. Consider the recent claims by archaeologist an activity, a movement in course” (Life as ecologist William Jordan terms the ‘coin of Klaus Schmidt – leader of the excavation of Totality). Goebekli Tepe, the earliest known human alienation’ [...] Both positions treat nature monument – that a human turn toward religion 10. Tucker, Kevin, Black And Green Forum. as an abstraction – separate from humans was the beginning of Civilization as its and not understood, not real.” construction precipitated, perhaps necessitated, 11. Zerzan, John, “Patriarchy, Civilization, And the domestication of plants and animals in order The Origins Of Gender”. But the egoist perspective dissolves this to furnish the sedentary lifestyle dictated by the alienation [ed. – at least in theory...]. It construction, maintenance, and worship refuses the notion that our selves are of the monuments. The monuments limited to this little bag of skin; it insists that themselves display symbols that might be interpreted as the human domination of we extend our bodies to encompass our the nonhuman (humans holding, perhaps perceptual horizons. I am every person I controlling, various animals that might be have met, however fleetingly; every river I considered dangerous) and the triumph of have swum in lovingly or passed by, barely patriarchy (phallocentrism). noticing; every mountain I have climbed or merely glanced upon while driving; every 6. Rosset, Clément. “The Cruelty intoxicant I have consumed; every Principle”. Joyful Cruelty. advertisement to which I have been subjected. The habitat in which we choose 7. Real, Terrence. I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy to live thus becomes not merely a of Male Depression. 20. natural world in which the theories may or may not be true. Our ' THE POND ' historical disappointment in the nature of nature has created a cold climate for ecologists[1], who assert once again that we are limited and obligated. Somehow they must manage in spite of Individual man [sic] has his particular integrity, to be sure. Individual man [sic] the chill to reach the centers of humanism [ed. – see Return Oak trees, even mountains, have selves or integrities too (a poor Fire vol.4 pg40] and technology, to convey there a sense of our word for my meaning, but it will have to do). To our place in a universal vascular system without depriving us of our knowledge, those other forms are not troubled by seeing self-esteem and confidence. themselves in more than one way, as man is. In one aspect the self is an arrangement of organs, feelings, and thoughts – a Their message is not, after all, all bad news. Our natural “me” – surrounded by a hard body boundary: skin, clothes, and affiliations define and illumine freedom instead of denying it. insular habits. This idea needs no defense. It is conferred on us They demonstrate it better than any dialectic. Being more by the whole history of our civilization. Its virtue is verified by enduring than we individuals, ecological patterns – spatial our affluence. The alternative is a self as a center of distributions, symbioses, the streams of energy and matter and organization, constantly drawing on and influencing the communication – create among individuals the tensions and surroundings, whose skin and behavior are both soft zones polarities so different from dichotomy and separateness. The contacting the world instead of excluding it. Both views are responses, or what theologians call “the sensibilities,” of real and their reciprocity significant. We need both of them to creatures (including ourselves) to such arrangements grow in have a healthy social and human maturity. part from a healthy union of the two kinds of self already mentioned, one emphasizing integrity, the other relatedness. The second view – that of relatedness of the self – has been But it goes beyond that to something better known to twelfth- given short shrift. Attitudes toward ourselves do not change century Europeans or Paleolithic hunters than to ourselves. If easily. The conventional image of a man, like that of the nature is not a prison and earth a shoddy way-station, we heraldic lion, is iconographic; its outlines are stylized to fit the must find the faith and force to affirm its metabolism as our fixed curves of our vision. We are hidden from ourselves by own – or rather, our own as part of it. To do so means habits of perception. Because we learn to talk at the same time nothing less than a shift in our whole frame of reference and we learn to think, our language, for example, encourages us to our attitude towards life itself, a wider perception of the see ourselves – or a plant or animal – as an isolated sack, a landscape as a creative, harmonious being, where relationships thing, a contained self. Ecological thinking, on the other hand, of things are as real as the things. Without losing our sense of of requires a kind of vision across boundaries. The epidermis of a great human destiny and without intellectual surrender, we the skin is ecologically like a pond surface or a forest soil, must affirm that the world is a being, a part of our own body. not a shell so much as a delicate interpenetration. It reveals the self ennobled and extended rather than threatened as part of Such a being may be called an ecosystem or simply a forest or the landscape and the ecosystem, because the beauty and landscape. Its members are engaged in a kind of choreography complexity of nature are continuous with ourselves. of materials and energy and information, the creation of order and organization. (Analogy to corporate organization here is And so ecology as applied to man faces the task of renewing a misleading, for the distinction between social (one species) and balanced view where now there is a man-centeredness, even a ecological (many species) is fundamental.) The pond is an pathology of isolation and fear. It implies that we must find example. Its ecology includes all events: the conversion of room in “our” world for all plants and animals, even for their sunlight into food and the food chains within and around it, otherness and their opposition. It further implies exploration man drinking, bathing, fishing, plowing the slopes of the and openness across an inner boundary – and ego boundary – watershed, drawing a picture of it, and formulating theories and appreciative understanding of the animal in ourselves, about the world based on what he [sic] sees in the pond. He and which our heritage of Platonism [ed. – see Symbiogenetic all the other organisms at and in the pond act upon one another, Desire], Christian morbidity [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg40], engage the earth and atmosphere, and are linked to other ponds duality, and mechanism have long held repellent and degrading. by a network of connections like the threads of protoplasm The older countercurrents – relics of pagan myth [ed. – see connecting cells in living tissues. […] To convert all “wastes” – 'The Matter of Knowing Who We Are'], the universal all deserts, estuaries, tundras, ice fields, marshes, steppes, and application of Christian compassion, philosophical naturalism, moors – into cultivated fields and cities would impoverish nature romanticism, and pantheism [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 rather than enrich life aesthetically, as well as ecologically. […] pg43] – have been swept away, leaving only odd bits of Even deserts and tundras increase the planetary opulence. wreckage. Now we find ourselves in a deteriorating Curiously, only man and possibly a few birds can appreciate environments, which breeds aggressiveness and hostility this opulence, being the world's travelers. Reduction of this towards ourselves and the world. variegation would, by extension then, be an amputation of man. How simple our relationship to nature would be if we only had to choose between protecting our natural home and destroying it. Most of our efforts to provide for the natural in our philosophy have failed – run aground on their own determination to work out a peace at arm's length. Our harsh reaction against the peaceable kingdom of sentimental romanticism was evoked partly by the tone of its dulcet façade 1. ed. – As far as institutional ecology goes, we follow Canadian comrades but also by the disillusion to which it led. Natural dependence of Knowing the Land is Resistance in “[describing] the mainstream science and contingency suggest togetherness and emotional surrender of ecology as “dominator ecology” to refocus attention on the power to mass behavior and other lowest common denominators. The relationships created by the practice of science as it is commonly carried out [ed. – see A Green Anarchist Critique of Science]. […] We need to environmentalists matching culture and geography provoke critique and fight dominator science to create space for us to trust our own outrage for their oversimple theories of cause and effect, experiences again[...] These starting points are: rooted in relationships, against the sciences which sponsor them and even against a deep listening, urban ecology, re-enchanting, and unexpertness.”

21. CLARIFICATION ON THE ATTACK ON THE CGT HEADQUARTERS & ON THE TOPIC OF 'ANONYMOUS DISASSOCIATION'

[ed. – This text deals with events that unfolded during the Spring of 2016, when the introduction of “Classes cancelled, wild demonstrations, graffiti, breakage, the French Minister of Labour's amendments to the tear gas, a government under stress and a faculty on strike. Something is labour laws served as the kick­off for uprisings across that territory, detonating the tensions one on its way to be born. “We” are on our way to be born. To name what is on its way by street­poster described had been building against a name of that which has preceded it is to try to kill it. It would be a process of “exploitation, state of emergency [ed. – see Return neutralization to attempt to bring together all that we have seen in the streets since last Fire vol.3 pg5], all police power, paranoia, virtual Wednesday, that which has been bubbling for weeks, the rage that growls all over in life and future promises that look too much like this [1] dreary present”. Quickly escaping the control of the the “shadow of the CPE” and all the howls. What could be the relation between the unions who had summoned the mobilisations, soon words of the unions and the school kids who tagged “the world or nothing” just before black blocs and rowdy young people (and more) methodically attacking the banks? None. Or just perhaps a miserable attempt at less ostensibly impacted by the specific law recuperation performed by zombies. Never have the unions or the politicians been so changes were heading the demos, fighting cops, trailing destruction and aghast Leftists. This visibly trailing behind a movement. If they are so feverish in their desire to frame moment was characterised by some as 'ni loi ni everything to their liking it is because everything could very well escape their control. travail'; neither for (or only about) law nor work. [W]e have taken to the streets and we have been numerous. The organizations have

The union bureaucracy typically (i.e. in a mirror followed us. The risk of not coming on board was too great for them. If they were to image of the fist­fights in Perpignan with anarchists stay behind, their mandate would be null and void. Those which they pretend to on May Day 2006) tried to control the movement represent would have taken to the streets without them, without being able to put their and physically police it's participants. (This isn't banners at the front, without being able to cover our voices with their terrible reserved for moments of mass rebellion; just months before, as Air France workers chased down soundsystems, their boorish slogans or their dead & buried discourse. They would bosses effecting redundancies and tore the shirts have been been bared naked.” – The World or Nothing off their backs, knocking out their two security 1. The CPE was another labor reform bill that guards, the union deputy secretary general sparked intense protests in Spring 2006. physically stepped in to protect the targets of their rank­and­file's rage.) True to form, the union 'demonstration stewards' at demos began “The secretary­general of the CGT Philippe still deemed relevant well into the next year, aside handing over 'trouble­makers' to the cops. Sam Martinez had already justified the prohibition of from the fact that this specific summary on the FantoSamotnaf pointed out that “[f]ar more than participation in demonstrations sent the day before (presumably ongoing) situation of denouncement probably anywhere else in the world (other than the demo of 14th June to 130 people (including and clandestinity was still previously untranslated? dictatorships, or semi­dictatorships) the unions in some CGT members): “It’s normal – they are Because we deem that it composes an ongoing France are very much an intrinsic part of the state casseurs [hooligans]” he said, judging them on the chapter in the debate specifically within the and work as a central part of the management of basis of the police files and not even on any judicial 'anarchist galaxy'; when tactical disagreements capital. The union question is probably the most proceedings. [...] In Marseilles, on 12 May, the CGT can themselves lead to denouncement in the central question facing any would­be social stewards assaulted with sticks and teargas loads of most unfavourable circumstances: in this case movement in France that doesn’t want to end up different demonstrators in order to disperse them. over the question of whether making public a repeating old mistakes and being inevitably And during the demonstration on 17th May in Paris claim of responsibility for a destructive act defeated. [...] It’s vital to know that probably less they charged the protesters who were slow to really adds something to its achievement, or than 8% of workers are in unions – about 4% less disperse. Similar abuses have been reported in rather enters the stage of political spectacle than in 1968. Of course, this is partly due to the several other cities” (Sam FantoSamotnaf). (even if to counter the cops' or media's claims or huge increase in unemployment, part­time jobs and framing). The day after the CFDT received their trashing, it auto­entrepreneur status since that period. However, was the turn of the CGT: masked individuals broke To be clear, we think this to be a worthy topic worth like in ‘68, that doesn’t mean they don’t have a several doors and windows of the Paris HQ, and further exploration (and regret that some consider significant detrimental influence on struggles. [...] “managed to escape the cops thanks to the the debate already 'aborted') – but clearly not in the The unions strongly oppose any communication complicity of the crowd in the street who cheered us time, tone or format that's outlined as having between the more obviously integrated, and and covered our retreat”. What resulted from that happened in this case. Also, we have included usually older, workers and younger proletarians, attack, a denouncement from an altogether following the piece an example of a much more unemployed or in precarious work, and those different angle, is the subject of this article. As fruitful dialogue between anarchists a year later, destined to become so. Hence their blatant was also to be read on the walls of Paris during the again in France, and reflecting on themes within the hostility towards the most radical elements during months­long insurgency: “We have discovered, or 'Dangerous June' call­out by comrades for an the struggle – those who smashed things up, rediscovered, what it means to run across the intensification of solidarity with prisoners (and other particularly the high school students.” pavement, to play in spaces where policing controls accused) in Italy. This is how the call­out for that our every movement. We knew that this society of mobilisation in part read: “In particular, active Soon the unions themselves found themselves in misery depended on our servitude, and our fear of solidarity is an essential instrument to respond to the firing line for their attacks, as was the case when cops, but we’ve learned that we are strong enough state violence and not take its blows passively but the Paris headquarters of the CFDT was stormed by to overturn it, that they can’t prevent us from playing maintain a stance of attack, so as not to develop a hundred rioters (“it unfortunately was not a like wild children who destroy everything they pass.” attitudes of victimisation [ed. – see Memory as a surprise”, an official lamented: “[in recent weeks] The new president imposes an updated version of Weapon; The Origins of Victimisation], which is our locals in Bethune, Limoges, and Toulouse were the law, dubbed “Loi Travail XXL” by opponents; just what repression wants. Thinking in terms of either flooded or damaged”) after unions again last month at a protest in Rennes against the new offensive, of permanent and internationalist collaborated fully with police on a day that saw more work ordinances, hooded youth swarmed estate conflictuality beyond each one’s path, the risk of than a hundred arrests in Paris and a manhunt for agents and damaged a bank (immediately being isolation can be reduced and one of the enemy’s radicals. Of the other organisations involved, one denounced by the unions organising the event), most important goals can be made ineffective. To of the more notorious is the CGT (Confederation while a jobcentre in Foix was tagged and had oil express solidarity with specific contexts and projects General de Travail), whose 'Force Ouvriere' patrol poured all over the floor and staircase. doesn’t mean to have to conform to the discourses demos armed with telescopic batons, pick­axe and practices of those who have been struck, nor handles, baseball bats and helmets, attacking As we have reported on before (see Return Fire does it mean to necessarily follow in the wake of a demonstrators and sabotaging the uprising (just as vol.4 pg18), such unions are a clear enemy on our given struggle or practice: if we recognize ourselves they did as the 'Service d'Ordre' during the events of path, and we celebrate attacks against their in a common horizon we can act in solidarity May 1968 – see Return Fire vol.2 pg96). structures. But, this aside, why is this event in Paris according to our own individual tension.”] 22. Despite Martinez's claims, the comrades communique: badly wounded and hunted had the opportunity to enter the building by cops, without, perhaps, having the time in order to further their destructive and the opportunity to enter into analysis passions, as illustrated by the photos of on the role of unions, absent from the the smashed­in door. It's therefore neither communique – whatever our disassociated the lack of time, nor the security guards, friends say. nor the so­called security system that would have been triggered that stopped From that moment on it's been very easy, them. whilst sitting in the warmth behind one's computer, to criticise the communiqués of The same day (25.06.16), in the midst of comrades who, surely for understandable the media hype, the anarchist site health and safety reasons had to write “Brèves Du Désordre” disassociates quickly before parting so as not to leave itself publicly from the comrades under Martinez's account and the statement of the pretext that an action such as this the police prefecture as the sole versions should not be claimed and that they didn't of events. agree with the comrades' perspectives on solidarity. Being in this situation means neither having the time to adhere to stylistic Here's the brief response made by one of conventions on solidarity, having used the the comrades responsible for the attack the verb “falloir” ('have to'[2]) instead of the following the disassociation (Comment on acceptable imperative form – as if that Indymedia Nantes on 27.06.16): On the night of 24­25th June 2016, changed anything in terms of 'authoritarian language.'language.' comrades from a 'cell among many others' “Disassociation? attacked the national headquarters of the Finally, it would have been possible to CGT union. The action was subsequently Disassociation not of the act itself, but of add this analysis on the role of unions claimed to denounce the collaboration of the claim – and so by extension, of the parallel to the communique, as there is the unions with the police prefecture and in individuals who wrote it: individuals who wrote it: no contradiction, without saying to the solidarity with the rebel prisoners in France cettesemaine.info/breves/spip.php? no contradiction, enemy – even involuntarily – “it wasn't us, as well as members of the Conspiracy article1746&lang=fr enemy – even involuntarily – “it wasn't us, Cells of Fire [ed. – see Return Fire vol.1 look elsewhere”...look elsewhere”... pg40] – the latter individuals now nearing The reason given: it's pointless to claim so the end of their trial for their alleged plain and clear an action, those that don't Perhaps this was also in the pipeline, in a escape attempt [ed. – see Rebels Behind get it are simply “blind and anaesthetised”. text proposed anonymously and written in

Bars; 'Yet Another Fenced World']. The a more general way to integrate the act This is then the reason for which our communique also mentioned that the and the responsibility claim to produce a anonymous disassociates consider worth comrades [who attacked the CGT] were clear analysis. And maybe it would have getting into an anti­union tirade – been agreeable with that proposed in the seriously wounded, being hunted by been agreeable with that proposed in the completely relevant as it happens – and “Brèves du Désordre” – without ownership, cops, and living in clandestinity. “Brèves du Désordre” – without ownership, which could be well mistaken for a claim without exclusivity and anonymous. itself.itself. On the 25th June 2016 a media furore was One actor in a 'cell among many others', underway, and Martinez, representative of Besides, the points made would have created for the occasion, that carries no the CGT, several ministers, including the certainly been appreciated if the authors name, but has the practices[3].” Minister of Labour El Khomri, Interior hadn't deemed it necessary to paint the Minister B. Cazeneuve and the Prime comrades who authored the communique We emphasise that it's not acceptable to Minister M Valls, along with all the with false intentions by suggesting that the disassociate oneself from comrades on the representatives of various unions, one by use of the word 'treason'[1] implied a past use of the word 'treason' implied a past run, injured and under the fire of the one made public statements of complicity with unions targeted. complicity with unions targeted. media, with the sole aim of promoting condemnation against the action (which of course comes as no surprise...), stating Omitting (voluntarily?) the conditions under one's own strategy of propagating one's that police forces would be reinforced to which the comrades produced the subversive ideas. defend the HQ of trade union federations and to find the “visibly well­organised” Besides, we are persuaded the people responsible for the attack. debate on anonymity which the partisans against claims of Such a political and repressive mobilisation responsibility make out to be is not explained so much by the level of over, on the contrary lives on violence used, as by the target chosen, as across actions and their the attack was of relatively low intensity communiques, across messages (despite being judged to be of unrivaled of solidarity and responses to magnitude by the media). international calls and proposals that emanates from it, and lives The comrades effectively showed that it on in all the anonymous acts, was possible to attack and even enter the sometimes carried out by the headquarters of the most video­surveilled same comrades, from whom union federation in France, one which was certain purists disassociate most well­protected by private security as themselves once more. well as by a heightened police presence in these times of social conflict and the state Complicity with the cell of the [4] of emergency. The graffiti reads; “we are all 'hooligans'!” ACCA , and the CCF, both of 23. which equally experienced the wrath of 5. ed. – Two attacks took place the same month Added to this is the small but very 'anonymous disassociation' in the most as the CGT smashing; the first torching a van of harmful device, the Linky [ed. – see difficult times. French insurance company AXA in the centre of Return Fire vol.4 pg36]. The dangers of Athens (clarifying that it was not in solidarity this meter have already been explained by "with the unions that try to manipulate the revolt A special wink to the anarcho­nihilist to satisfy their own interest"), the second fire set others who are more knowledgeable than commando 'Gianfranco Bertoli' [ed. – see against vehicles at Peugeot­Citroën dealership us. The Linky is just a prelude, a Memory as a Weapon; The Origins of in Thessaloniki: "For almost four months the pioneering device in the new wave of Victimisation] of the FAI/FRI [ed. – see unrest continues in Paris and other cities of the domesticating technology that is coming. Return Fire vol.2 pg44] and the anarchist French territory over a proposed new labour law, Domotics [ed. – see Return Fire vol.2 cell “Les Casseurs” , who take material despite the intensifying control and repression in pg63] is progressing, the old cybernetic response to the recent ISIS attacks [ed. – see action with fire in complicity – among dream is embodied [ed. – see the [5] Return Fire vol.3 pg5] and in view of the Euro others – with the 'rebels in France'. tournament. The struggle is manifested by all supplement to Return Fire vol.4; Caught means, from occupations of squares, theatres, in the Net]. Let us not stop here, let us A nod equally to all those, anonymous or factories, to attacks against banks, stores, and go back to its roots, to the genesis of not, who act in reality through destruction, large­scale clashes with cops." nuisances. Behind the Linky lies the fire, the propagation of ideas in all ways omnipresent industry and the logical imaginable without ever disassociating dispossession of the material means to from comrades under the fire of Grenoble: incendiary attack produce our own energy. repression. targeting 12 vehicles of energy company ERDF / Enedis It’s about attacking, and the targets are Through informal organisation and many. We are attacking those who are polymorphous action, let's spread The most deadly enterprises are responsible for the present state of the chaos! strategically adorned with new names. world. We are opportunists. Why this Suez becomes Engie, Vinci becomes target rather than another? Vinci, Suez, some anarchists, Indigo, ERDF becomes Enedis [ed. – all Eiffage [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg60] today anonymous.... energy and techno-industrial utility firms]. and the CEA[1] are all enemies. There are These changes of appearance do not others too. Their arrogance is unbearable. miraculously deceive. In a world where We look for weaknesses, seeking where to 1. ed. – The communique read “One hundred communication falsifies everything, let strike to remind them that people resist detainees because of the union betrayal”. us frankly expose those responsible for and turn their criticism into action. 2. ed. – The communique read “[solidarity with] the organized disaster. ERDF works on the comrades of the CCF who want to escape. the constant electrification of our We wish to share this practice of sabotage. WE MUST HELP THEM.” territories. ERDF is deployed between It is old but it is still current. It is putting a each production site and consumer home. wrench in the cogs of the machine. We are 3. Practices of attack and clandestinity, not of It is this network, this mesh of cables that aware that the ERDF and their misdeeds some sort of exclusivity or imagined ownership. plug human beings into dams, wind will not be stopped by our action. But we [ed. – footnote in original post] turbines, photovoltaics and nuclear power are aware that without offensive actions 4. ed. – As part of Black December 2015 (see plants. EDF, alter-ego of ERDF against it, ERDF is free to expand its grip. Return Fire vol.4 pg64) this group bombed a administers doses of energy control police training centre (also used by cops from bureaucracy. We will not discuss the It is not a question of dialogue or criticism other states) in Brescia, Italy; comrades Juan insignificant distinctions that others like to of ERDF. With the sabotage of these and Manu are under investigation over the act. make between the industrial modes vehicles we attack an enemy, we establish of electrical production. We a balance of power, and we demonstrate condemn them all. that we can overcome our fears. Because it is no longer possible for us to Let us explain the night we contemplate misery by dressing our destroyed the ERDF vehicles: We wounds or simply doing nothing. But had firelighters in our pockets, a few sabotage is not an end in itself. This liters of flammable material and our practice is just one of many others in determination, sabotage then became necessary for us knowing the our lives. We choose them in order to evidence against one of the fully live our lives. thousands of avatars of the capitalist infrastructure. Due to the vital function of this company in flow management.

Due to the environmental devastation caused where EHT [extra-high-tension] power lines run [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg90].

Due to our acute addiction to the electrical industry. “Linky fuck off”: tag in Limoges by where women of Bordeaux, France: CFDT office heavily fire- Des Élus Contre les Compteurs LINky (People Against damaged a week after the events in Paris Linky Meters) burned 20 Enedis vehicles, 23.10.17 24. Crest: incendiary attack Even if we advocate conflict, we think discussion, and to share it with you. So we against the offices of energy that debates about praxis have all to can always find new angles of attack, new often crystallized around polarized weaknesses, new targets. company Enedis positions that do not reflect the complexity of the points of view. We The joy we felt that night, we want to A Proposal for Dialogue, reject consensus at all costs but do not share it with others. Solidarity & Attack want to participate in a dogmatic struggle. To Krem, because he always knew how to As individuals, it is difficult to speak of We are really excited by the idea that keep silent. solidarity because we do not want to attacks are varied and we are not satisfied express it as a group, but to individuals with certain debates (recurring signatures To Kara, because even if she did not know whose feelings we feel would be or not, for example). Even if it seems how to keep silent, she had the courage to sufficiently close to establish a dialogue. really important to us to communicate our go back on those statements. actions and we do not find ourselves in We feel in solidarity with people who, [anonymous?] insurrectional perspectives, To Damien, because his words and his through their actions and their discourse, we do not feel the desire to break with determination give us strength [ed. – seem to convey a will to fight in the here people whose attacks are part of this goal. regarding all three of these cited and now against power in all its forms. individuals, see Rebels Behind Bars; We respond to the call for a Dangerous New Accusations After Damien For us the most sincere way of supporting June because it expresses these nuances Kidnapped & Beaten]. individuals in revolt is to revolt ourselves well[2]. and to attack. That people who consider To the Brussels anarchists who face an themselves potential accomplices to be During the night on Thursday [June 8th] anti-terrorist trial for having fought transmitted by force can allow our ethics we penetrated within the enclosure of the without mediation against all the prisons and passions to guide our actions and not ENEDIS building in Crest, supplier of the [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg68]. the fear and resignation brought about by energy that allows in particular this world To the accused of Scripta Manent [ed. – repression. of shit to turn. We spilled 10 liters of see Rebels Behind Bars; A Letter from gasoline and lit it with hand-held lighters Anarchist Comrade Anna Beniamino Through the attack we want to break the (we had a plan B in case the lighters failed). about Operation Scripta Manent & isolation and express our anger and 10 liters of gasoline made a breath of More…], who refuse to take on the role of sadness. In times where distances are no fresh air. When the grille was put back victims. longer counted, we reaffirm offensive and in place, the building was in the grip of irrecoverable positions. the flames. We learned later that they To Nicola Gai and Alfredo Cospito [ed. – had largely devastated it. see previous link] who have been able to We believe that if we want to sharpen take firm positions despite the risks, and practices and critiques it can be interesting A little thought for the incendiaries of who have given themselves the means of to share, to confront others. We are not Grenoble; we found your method of attack their ambitions. interested in the idea of producing ideas and communicating particularly relevant. labelled ‘anarchist’ that everyone can Your critique is very well articulated, we To those who want to fly away even if accept and adapt to their local discourse or could not have done as well. But we want they burn their wings. context. We like the dissent and conflict to take advantage of the opportunity to Konspiration d’Individualités that allow us to take a stand. We are as raise a few points, and thus participate in Complices et Kaotiques (K.I.C.K.) disgusted by the omnipresent apathy as the creation of a dialogue through attack. we are deeply moved by the beauty of [Conspiracy of Complicit those who revolt without waiting for We share your observation about the Individuals and Chaotics] either objective conditions or the nuisance of technology. Nevertheless it is favourable social ground or the strategic only one aspect of the new forms of 1. ed. – The Atomic Energy Committee, created moment. Our choices will never be domination. For us, at the genesis of these in Grenoble in 1945 to build the atomic bomb, convenient since they are always in nuisances there is civilization itself. So we going on to nuclear submarines, reactors and motion. We have no one to convince, nor do not want to attack technology as one aircraft carriers, regularly polluting the Isere any desire to wait until we have a of the excesses of the system, which we river with radioactivity. In collaboration with thousand plans, only the desire to meet could transform / replace, but as one of the French military the CEA founded the nearby Minatec – see Return Fire vol.4 pg38. other accomplices in the impatient and the aspects of the domestication of life. irrepressible urge to fight. We do not want to be content with a 2. ed. – From the call-out: “In this respect, we criticism of capitalism but to challenge the recognize the importance of multiform actions The attack can take many forms and very concept of society (as fair and and practices within anarchism. Precisely for us the interpersonal dominations egalitarian). We are against all societies because the more differences that exist in a context, the stronger the possibility of not must be at least as much attacked as because they can not exist without the this existent which chokes us. We do not getting stuck on pre-arranged dogmatic submission of the living beings that they positions, provided that any specific struggle want to focus on one another. We reject are composed of. Whether it is through and attack is part of the wider view of tension this logic and want to make each aspect of smartphones, Linky counters but also via towards subversion. To recognize the value of our insubordination visible. In support work, family, culture, morals, justice, the this diversity also means to lay the foundations therefore with those who take action in the exploitation of fauna and flora… for opposing all centralizing and dominating face of repression, in their affections, their tendencies within anarchism. This is only friendships, their sexualities. To fight against technology, it seems possible through an attitude of constant self- necessary for us to question the process of criticism and critique between the different We do not live in the past, we do not want domestication that makes us civilized approaches, an attitude that goes towards qualitatively significant growth of both hope for the future; our revolts have no beings [ed. – see 'The Matter of Knowing future, so they can not be postponed until analysis of what surrounds us and the various Who We Are']. We wanted this kind of possible ways to organize the destruction of tomorrow. critique to be a kind of interpersonal what oppresses us.” 25. NANOTECHNOLOGY & TRANSPARENCY

[ed. – Various mainstream press, with comments technically feasible, creates the ideology that we by the collator, mostly concerning 'nano­silver'. call techno­totalitarianism, and is materialised in The industry, sensing negative image, has the world today as the converging sciences changed tactics from initially promoting nano­ (nano­, bio­, informatic, robotic, they cannot be tech components in products on sale or in separated) aim to equip the system to produce production a decade ago, and entered a phase anything anywhere, fabricating more durable of relative media silence on its uses. Meanwhile products (of interchangeable parts rather than the same institutions that sung praises on the requiring exclusively important substances), 'safety' of asbestos, industrial food, the Dalka made from less materials... In other words, to shield, atomic energy, etc. continue to release continue the industrial nightmare we already are their creations into the environment. Indeed the and have been experiencing beyond and second translation presented here especially world of states, multinationals and their above the crises it has provoked, as others have shows the cynical 'introduce the product and see innovations. (And as far as the questions raised said before eloquently enough (see Return Fire what happens later' attitude that leaves us all as in these articles about 'regulation' go, it's enough vol.4 pg73). Hence, we have reason enough to their consumers in techno­industrial society; to read from a 1978 guidebook for corporate assault the ideologies and structures of these whether we bought them or not. To a certain executives: “Regulatory policy is increasingly sciences – as exemplified in the chronology we extent the laboratories could misleadingly be made with the participation of experts, especially have added to the text below – aside from any seen as the source of the problem when for academics. A regulated firm or industry should technical hair­splittings, before any 'disaster'. more than half a century it's already been be prepared whenever possible to co­opt these Finally, big thanks to Cicada for the additional daily life and the whole world that has experts. This is most effectively done by translation help!] become the field of experimentation. identifying the leading experts in each relevant field and hiring them as consultants and Of course, we offer a few words regarding the advisors, or giving them research grants and the 1st Translation: media sources reprinted here, which require the like. This activity requires a modicum of finesse; usual reading between the lines for subversives From WOZ Nº22 it must not be too blatant, for the experts to make into their own tools (or not, as the case themselves must not recognize that they have may be). These words have to do with the “The industry is producing more and more lost their objectivity and freedom of action.”) archetypal State­subjectified 'concerned citizen', consumer goods containing nanosilver. But infantalised despite delusions of 'inclusion', that Increasingly today, this citizenist form finds itself most of these consumer goods are neither these articles were no doubt first written to not so much disturbed as complimented by useful nor sensible. If anything, they are 'inform', and the sterile so­called 'dialogue' within another rising trend: catastrophism. Much has only a threat to the environment.” – De civil society over these technologies (as before already been said about possible nano­induced Franziska Meister with genetic engineering, nuclear, etc.). Some disasters, available with a simple web search. 'Notes on Technological Domination & the Myth While the well­known precipice Western of the Citizen' put it like this: “Since they will allopathic medical science has brought us to A silence has fallen on the clamor never be able to make any decisions by regarding the near­obsolescence of antibiotics surrounding nanotechnologies. New themself, for the citizen everything is from their rampant use and corresponding materials with new properties are transformed into a mere object of knowledge that resistance­building (to take one example) finds diffuseable thanks to tiny, highly reactive is to be endlessly studied. That is why they will resonances with the immunity­building nanoparticles. Where have these new only accept debates that are stripped of all responses to anti­bacterial nanosilver mentioned materials ended up? practical implications. The “debate” in effect below, in the same breath the scientist­prophets constitutes the privileged framework of civil sell us the CO2 emission reduction promised by society effusiveness: pleased that their nanotechnology, hence heading off another The answer is surprising: dissatisfaction has been submitted for review, catastrophic horizon... Catastrophism can nanomaterials have been present in our they listen religiously to the tranquilizing words of shore up the State via justifying 'climate daily lives for a long time; in fact, they the experts who reveal to them the security measures' in military (see Return have penetrated the most intimate indispensable “objectivity” of their accredited Fire vol.3 pg7) as well as scientific terms spheres. For example, nanosilver. With it, Ph.D. knowledge; the more progress they make when it is divorced from any subversive horizon, we wash up, we brush our teeth, we anoint towards the illusory acquisition of this and basing our critiques solely on 'health' or our armpits, our face, and all over the body knowledge, the more they think that the time has 'environmental' concerns fares little better in in the most intimate areas; we dress with it, come to commit to a comprehensive and fully terms of leaving the door open to recuperation justified decision. At the very moment when their by the next expert and their 'solutions'. from socks to underwear to slippers. We certainty seems most fixed, however, they are use it to cook and package food. Because once again seized by their sickly lack of resolve, While we won't discredit the more dramatic nanosilver disinfects, it kills fungi, and they collapse scorned and despondent in threats sometimes painted (rather, acknowledging that the terrain it bases its bacteria, and other microorganisms. the ditch of their specific uncertainty. For they Meat is kept fresh longer under a film of will never want to reach a conclusion. arguments upon is not our own), these articles address the mundane, everyday nanosilver; it sterilizes the dishes; our […] And when, during the debate at La Villette, it appearance of nano­tech in our lives. And it is socks do not stink; we do not stink. was announced that the development of GMOs exactly in this way that we come to the heart of [Genetically­Modified Organisms] is an the matter for us. Within an certain scientific The hygiene industry is big business. indispensable last resort if Europe does not want paradigm (a dominant one, despite the Globally, no other nanomaterial is used in to lose ground economically to the United protestations of some individual scientists as many consumer goods as nanosilver. In States, they displayed their apathy with regard to powerless to affect the impact of scientific­ recent years, the rate of use has been very what was clearly nothing but a decree. Because universalist thinking on culture), the dream is still high and growing like never before seen. they renounce all use of their will and that articulated by Francis Bacon (see the discernment, the citizen, at the same time supplement to Return Fire vol.3; Smarter The estimated annual worldwide use of that their masters show that they are ready to Prison?) in his utopian work 'New Atlantis'; “the nanosilver surpasses thirty tons; in face all challenges, is logically reduced to Knowledge of causes, and the secret motions of Switzerland, the annual production is of the need to tolerate everything.” Engaged in things; and the enlarging of the bounds of about three tons, a third of which is used in false (or at best partial) 'debate' with science and human empire, to the effecting of all things the textile industry alone. In Europe, this industry you can find all kinds of NGOs, possible.” (On how literally he pushed the means that, after Germany, Switzerland is consumer groups, more­or­less 'green' political imperial part of that, see Return Fire vol.3 the second largest producer of nanosilver parties, and the other civil opposition that in pg31.) That same “effecting of all things for textiles. most other aspects goes hand­in­hand with the possible”, the impulse to realise all that is 26. In the long run, communities of some explained. “Our initial concerns were just moulds and some fungi would change into that, while still having antibacterial another variety. Investigations of such properties, nanosilver particles would be complexity are so far rare, as are studies harmful to the residue.” of multiple generations of aquatic organisms – meanwhile, nanosilver's In fact, several studies have shown potential environmental dangers cannot be that nanoparticles continue to be assessed without these studies, the active even in the residue where they researcher points out. obstruct the work of the nitrifying bacteria in charge of eliminating toxic But to what extent does nanosilver truly bacteria in charge of eliminating toxic penetrate the environment? There is no substances from the water. If, unlike reliable data on this, among other things, in Switzerland, these residues are not However, doing business based on our because it is very difficult to detect the burned but instead are spread onto hygienic demands has its downside. An nanoparticles in the environment and the fields as fertilizer, the results may increasing number of studies have shown measure their quantity. However, a be even more toxic, according to a that, albeit at different speeds, nanosilver colleague of the researcher was able to US­based study. “By doing these can become completely washed out. show in a recent study that certain experiments, nanosilver is poured According to EMPA, the Federal Institute purification facilities can retain about 95 directly into the residue,” says the for Testing and Materials Research, it is per cent of nanosilver. Once in the researcher. “These experiments sufficient for certain fabrics to be washed a discharge water, one part of the cannot be equated to the real few times in the washing machine to nanoparticles is transformed into saline conditions, because the silver remove the nanosilver. Even nanosilver silver sulphide. “Thanks to this [process], conditions, because the silver surfaces immediately lose their anti­rotting its toxicity drops a lot, because it emits nanoparticles have a history, which properties which are supposed to keep almost no silver ion,” the researcher starts already in the sewage pipes.” parasites away; in fact, according to a Swiss study, about 30% of nanosilver was in the sewer after one year, and after two and a half years the nanosilver was absent. “[Nanotechnology] creates new ‘products’ actually starting from the manipulation of atoms, subatomic particles and molecules. Unlike biotechnology that What Happens in the manipulates the structure of DNA, creating organisms through the recombination of genes, Water? nanotechnology ‘breaks down’ matter transforming it into atoms with the possibility of Often, much of the nanosilver artificially synthesizing them and thus of creating something material from nothing (atom by from consumer goods ends up in atom). At the moment, attention is focused on carbon atoms, the skeleton of matter, but soon it the water system: through the could be extended to other elements. In short, scientists would like to control the elements of the sewage pipes, it ends up in Periodic Table at will; according to science, this would allow combining the characteristics of a purification facilities, or is fed product (such as color, resistance, melting point) in a manner completely different from what directly into lakes and rivers. And has been possible up to now. For example, the enterprises that deal with nanotechnology have this is a problem, primarily tested new products such as stainproof fabrics, self-cleaning windows, cement with special because the active principle of characteristics, anti-pollutants for diesel, etc. [...] But the applications unfurled before the great nanosilver is based on the fact public are just shoddy goods, useless innovations to satisfy infantile desires generated by that in aqueous solutions the technology in the ‘consumer’. And, in fact, the applications described above for the silver ions are isolated. The true manipulation of matter turn out to be just the tiniest part of the results sought in current research toxic effect on bacteria comes projects. [...] But as always, every fear, and not just those that are most absurd, is set aside in from these ions and does not stop even against other aquatic the name of progress to the benefit of humanity. Furthermore, the world of science has always organisms. “We have tested been defended by maintaining that the misdeeds of techno-science are due to the bad uses that nanosilver particles of different have been made of the knowledge; by maintaining, as always, that technology is neutral, just as sizes in different coatings,” says those who, with their studies of nuclear science, then fully contributed to the bombs that fell on one researcher at the ETH Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the tragedies of nuclear accidents and to the proliferation of (Federal Polytechnic of Zurich), armaments, were quick to say. It is certainly not by allowing the usual experts from the same “the result was always the academic-political world the only say in the matter that we will be able to resolve such same: silver ions of questions. Nor will we be able to do so by placing our trust in the information arising from the nanoparticles have an acute scientific world since one of its current prerogatives is to openly make people accept the new toxic effect on algae.” And technological applications of scientific research. In reality, its transparent information merely algae are always at the communicates decisions to us that have already been made in our names and over our heads and beginning of the aquatic food discloses the results of research that has already been carried out. Who knows if in the case of chain [ed. – see Return Fire nanobiotechnology, as already happened with biotechnology, those who claim to oppose it will vol.4 pg24]. once again venture into demands for regulation, precautionary rules, independent structures of Under the national research control. Then the story will end just as it did for biotechnology: a minimal opposition to program “Opportunities and applications related to food with arguments easily recuperable (and recuperated) by a part of the Risks of Nanomaterials,” her scientific clique, with transgenic food that already makes part of our daily diet. No opposition at team examines the effect of all to medical biotechnology that is rather looked upon by all as a great opportunity for sick nanosilver particles on aquatic people. And these things are really what the entire apparatus that has everything to gain from communities, such as algae, biotechnology focuses on: no more debate on GMOs in the dietary field, no more alarmism, no moulds, and microorganisms, in more news, despite the fact that there are still people who want to struggle, opposing the harm the real world. “We observed a with the only possible solution: destruction.” – The Nano-Nightmare great susceptibility of algae to silver ions,” says the researcher. 27. Attention: multi­resistant bacteria! in circulation,” says one researcher, “and they will Speaking of history: how harmless is it if “Switzerland is internationally seen as become more and more each day we treat our body with nanosilver an oasis of uncontaminated nature, at least in the numerous. Is it really cosmetics and we wear it in our tourist sector. Mountains, woods and springs from justifiable?” The researcher antimicrobial underwear? The federal which fresh clean water gushes out. Clearly, tourism expressed doubts about the office states in its Nanomaterials and is as sneaky a form of marketing as it is Health Information Platform that nanosilver alleged antimicrobial effect on schizophrenic, because while it boasts of cannot be presumed as a danger to human clothing. “Nanosilver is very uncontaminated valleys it forgets other small details: beings. dynamic and unstable,” he warns, and indicates the Beznau, the nuclear power plant with its 47 years of Meanwhile, in Germany, the Federal studies; they've demonstrated radioactive waste production – and its disposal is at Institute for Risk Assessment is more that in normal lab air present unknown; the Basel pharmaceutical district prudent. It presents studies on animals nanosilver particles totally with its aquifers and soil pollution following decades that show damage to the intestinal flora sulfurize after only two weeks, of chemical and pharmaceutical industry activities caused by large doses of nanosilver, at which point they no longer (some of them owned by politicians in the Swiss accumulated in the liver and spleen emit silver ions. Even with air government); the fertilizers, herbicides and where it attacked the immune system at 50­60% humidity they ‘phytosanitary’ chemical treatment constantly sprayed, cells. Only because of some unique cases transform quickly. “The without which modern conventional agriculture can’t reported up until now can it be inferred that antimicrobial effect could also survive; the sites of the multinationals (from Nestlè to there is certain potential toxicity even for swiftly deflate by simply Novartis), which have more skeletons than money in humans, especially with the intake of wearing treated clothing,” says their closets; the highways that give us huge quantities pharmaceutical drugs containing the researcher. nanosilver. “Unfortunately, we still know too of CO, O3, NO2, SO2, C6H6, PM10, PM2.5 and This begs the question: who little about the potential harmful effects on much more disgusting stuff. In other words, this is no will change their own washing health that nanosilver could have,” stated a happy island. There’s no river or breath of air that habits for antibacterial researcher after an international doesn’t contain toxic chemical substances and the clothing alone? Who would conference of experts held in February, functioning of techno-industrial society requires that wear their nanosilver­plated 2012. “So, now, we are not able to evaluate these substances be constantly transported throughout underwear for one week the health risk for the consumer.” The Europe. […] Industrial progress has put us in the instead of a day? According to German institute is concerned, above all, situation of living our lives in environments colonized the researcher, “You should about the danger that wide­spread by the needs of the market economy and techno- leave the decision up to the nanosilver applications through products of industrial society. Air is becoming ever less breathable consumer of whether or not daily use poses: it could lead to the they want these fabrics. And and ‘green areas’ are disappearing in order to make extensive formation of resistance to for this to work, you absolutely space for advancing urbanization.” antibiotics. Thus, the extensive use of need labelling.” nanosilver could become a dangerous boomerang for the human being. The EU has decided: since the summer of 2017, This is exactly what was shown in a recent cosmetics (and since 2014, study by Australia's University of New food products) must include a South Wales: in that experiment, note of some kind. The nanosilver effectively killed the proposed German Institute promises bacteria, escheria coli, which is one of the that with the revision of the most responsible bacteria for causing EU Order on Biocides, even infectious diseases. However, at the same textiles produced with time it caused aggressive growth of nanosilver must have a label. – Between Militarisation & some vaciloform bacteria, and these are Risk Propaganda not only resistant to silver ions, but can And in Switzerland? The diffuse even faster in the air, while Federal Council wants to transmitting their resistant properties to examine labeling. health and the environment at risk? In spite other microorganisms. “Nanomaterials: Effects on the Environment and on Health,” a new study of everything, there is no need for action “The antimicrobial effect of the nanosilver being conducted right now by an on the part of the legislator. does not work with all bacteria,” says one evaluation center for effects of technology, The emergence of a new technology researcher, “and if consumer goods recommends the introduction of mandatory usually raises the request for a containing nanoparticles are diffused labeling and statements “in the sectors of moratorium. This is the case with increasingly over the long term, opposite mass consumption.” It also suggests a ban nanotechnology, which works with tiny effects could take place.” This is especially on circulating the “non­specific use of particles. Above all, the NGO, ETC Group, fearsome for the health sector, where nanosilver in consumer goods.” is fighting for an immediate moratorium on resistant germs have been found in Numbered days for microbial underwear? the commercial production of nanosilver applications, for example in skin nanomaterials. Not sharing this view is the flora after having used it for treating burns. 2nd translation: Center for Evaluation of the Effects of Also for this reason, the German Institute according to the NZZ [Swiss Neue Technology (TA­Swiss), who conducted a large study on nanomaterials' effects on explicitly renounces the use of nanosilver Zürcher Zeitung] from May 31, 2013; in “widely consumed products.” In the environment and on health with funding particular, it views critically the continuous does not seem to be the same from the Federal Environment Office. diffusion of fabrics containing this active “Center...” mentioned above... antimicrobial substance. “A moratorium would be counterproductive Unnecessary Nano Moratorium at this point,” said Professor Emeritus of More Harm Than Good Nanoparticles offer great opportunities for Medicine, Peter Gehr. “The level of “Many products containing nanosilver are product improvement, but can they can put knowledge of how human, animal, and 28. plant cells react to nanomaterials has deceive ourselves with democratising These nanoparticles also escape into the improved over the years. Although there labeling...” etc. And, watch out to not environment, like with titanium oxide in have been some “critical knowledge gaps;” disturb these great humanitarian and sunscreens or nanosilver in fabrics. At very high doses it has been proven to cause little is known about possible long­term democratic benefactors, even if it had effects on human health and the damage to aquatic organisms, explained only to do with that pseudodemocratic environment. For this reason, it would be eco­toxicologist Kristin Schirmer of the necessary to continue the research on the legislative theater of a moratorium. Eawag Aquatic Research Institute. But the risks, but alarmism would be out of place”, (Marco's note.)] long­term effects in this case are not Gehr said. “A moratorium would not solve examined and remain virtually unknown. In existing problems. An ethically responsible Nanoproducts: Soon, More practice, according to the study, it risk management would be decisive. Transparency? would never be made visible to the consumer which products contain Opportunities for nanomaterials should be Nanomaterials promise lighter­weight exploited only when new risks are bikes, socks that do not stink, and even nanomaterials. The labeling requirements are not uniform, although the EU proposed considered to be reasonably acceptable lower [!] CO2 emissions. But those tiny for the person exposed to it. Nanoproducts particles can be dangerous to health and a definition as early as 2011. “Consumers that could be viewed as toxic could be the environment. A study by TA­Swiss currently cannot exercise their freedom of limited, but it would also be a risk to not reveals some knowledge gaps. “There is choice because of a lack of information,” take advantage of this new technology's little transparency on what products criticized the Romanda Huma Khamis consumer organization. Therefore, the opportunity,” Gehr said. contain nanomaterials,” Martin Moller, study recommends greater market director of the Institute for Applied Ecology transparency for the consumer with a Martin Moller, who leads the study, sees in Fribourg im Breisgau, said in front of the product registry and mandatory labeling. opportunities in the climate protection field, media yesterday. Although Switzerland Additionally, it proposes a national for example. He believes that the use of does not produce nanoproducts on an research center on the effects of nanomaterials could reduce the material industrial scale, it works with them in large nanomaterials. The question of and energy requirements for producing quantities. common goods, and, therefore, contribute residue/waste disposal should also be to the reduction of CO2 emissions. The research center for the evaluation of resolved. Moreover, he believes a research center the effects of technology (TA­Swiss) for the gravity of climate and summarises what is known about the [Technoscientific totalitarianism candidly nanotechnology should be initiated here. effects of “nano particles” on the announces the inevitable catastrophe that environment and health. From those it is ongoing and hypocritically evokes a lack In Switzerland, large­scale industrial draws recommendations for politics, of “freedom” of choice due to a lack of nanomaterials are not produced, but industry, and science. “information” on the part of the consumer, they are already diffused in other ways, in order to – with the typical, stupid According to the study, in Switzerland for example: in paints and varnishes for arrogance of power, as the former there are eight nanomaterials that are protection against ultraviolet rays; as deserves – implicitly declare that it is about produced or worked with in large sunscreens; as an antimicrobial the introduction of “technological quantities. Among them are zinc and additive in textiles and foodstuffs; in innovations...” (Marco's note.)] titanium oxide for UVA protection in colour tennis rackets and in bicycle frames; paints and sunscreens; nanosilver with and, as an adjuvant for the fluidity of antibacterial effect for fabrics and food 4th translation: food. However, it is almost never made preparations; silicon oxide to facilitate the An article from the NZZ, “Swiss visible to the consumer where these fluidity of tires; nanocarbon fibers for Economic Forum, Technology." nanomaterials are contained. Ta­Swiss, bicycle frames and tennis rackets. Nano whose job it is to advise policy, therefore particles are composed of metal, or [From the same NZZ issue, an article titled recommends introducing mandatory even carbon, with particles ranging “Research and Technique” informs us that information and labeling obligations for from just one to 100 nanometers – nanoparticles are on “swimming spots and consumer products, such as cosmetics about 1,000 times finer than a human and food. Consideration should also be fields,” and “how researchers notice,” or, hair. Their size allows them particular given to the introduction of a “nano product rather, fail to notice, “carbon nanotubes, characteristics which can be useful, though registry.” But a “Lex Nano” [Nano Law] nanosilver, and other tiny particles in the also harmful.[1] would not be necessary. The compatibility environment.” And they admit that, “concerning the amount of nanomaterials of legislation and EU rules would have to May Have Carcinogenic Effect be monitored. produced on an industrial scale in water, in For humans, inhalation into the lungs the field, and in the air, as of yet would be especially problematic, almost nothing is known.” 3rd translation: according to Peter Gehr of the Especially because “nano­ From the Swiss newspaper Institute of Anatomy at the environmental analysis is “Landbote”. [This “study,” or rather, University of Bern. At high still in its infancy,” and this clutch of federal techno­totalitarian concentrations, certain “there are no methods of nanocarbon tubes and state propaganda, typical of scientific, study;” but, “don't worry... titanium oxide could be we will think of political, industrial, and NGO gangs in carcinogenic. “The long­term Swiss style, can be found as an E­ something.” We cannot effects of nanoparticles are, in avoid mentioning the Book at vdf.ethz.ch. Always with the practice, unknown and should typical compound same ingredients: omissions; lies; be examined,” Gehr said. But exercise of alarmism would also be out of place, incredible contortions of logic; the minimization although there may be a need for threat of “Well, it's us who decide” on coupled with announcements public awareness, as certain the “opportunities” for health and the of inevitability nanoparticles would indeed be environment; “anyway, nanomaterials concerning “our” samples of potentially dangerous. techno­ are here and that's that;” “let us Professor Gehr, false nano-critic 29. totalitarianism. Case in point: the for Intellectual Property in Bern, every success stories described above are not researcher, Thomas Bucheli of the year since 2006 there have been about isolated cases, in fact they reflect a trend: Agroscope research institute of Zurich, 10­15 nano inventions per million the volume of the global nanotechnology responsible for open­field GMO inhabitants (with about 8 million market has grown only in the last year from experiments... Simultaneously, he inhabitants in Switzerland, that means $600 million to a total of $20.7 billion. By comforts us by stating that the nano­ 80­120 patents per year). Thus, 2017, sales should already be at $48.9 particles in the environment would still Switzerland ranks first in the world – billion [ed. – and expected to grow another be almost non­existent, while also followed by Japan, Germany, and USA. 17% between 2017 and 2024] – that is, an threatening us with the facts that “a Now, more than 600 companies here [ed. annual commercial growth of 18.7%. growing number of patents” (most – by now surely more] produce or work Equally optimistic are the statements made likely including some of his own) with nanomaterials in order to achieve in the “Swiss Nanotechnology Report”: with “indicate that carbon nanotubes, greater diffusion in the treatment of the relationship initiated by the Federal titanium nanoxide, and the like, in the materials and surfaces. One example is Institute for Testing and Materials future could also be used as active found with the company Schoeller de San Research (EMPA), nanotechnology would ingredients in fertilizers and in Gallo. They produce a fabric called be a “sector from the future with enormous pesticides, for example as a carrier Nanosphere with the so­called lotus effect economic potential.” The need to exploit substance or as UV­protection.” And (water drips from clothing while taking that full potential would be based on an then, the inevitably high dose of hypocrisy: away dirt) for companies like Levis and effective transfer of knowledge and “Given the scarce knowledge of these Black Diamond. Another company that technologies from laboratories to environmental effects, Bucheli warns focuses on nanotechnology is Solothunrn's against the large­scale use of long­term Spring Pharma. They quietly and enterprises with the least friction stable nanomaterials.” (Marco's note.)] successfully sell Daylong brand possible. That was precisely the objective sunscreens, which contain nanoparticles of pursued by IBM's research section and “Small and medium­sized enterprises are titanium oxide. Those tiny solar particles consulting firm: with a budget of 90 million pioneers in nanotechnology. The reflect the sunlight as if they were billions Swiss francs, IBM Research partnered with nanotechnology market is booming. of tiny mirrors. Even larger particles have the Higher Technical School of Zurich Whether in sunscreens, computer chips, or this same effect, but nanoparticles can (ETH) and finished constructing the repellent coatings, more and more Swiss produce more fluid and transparent Binnimg and Rohrer Nanotechnology companies are using nanotechnology for creams. Center in 2011 in Ruschlikon [ed. – after their products.” – Alex Hammerli an attempt by Earth Liberation Front­ A third story of nano success is Switzerland to attack the construction Innovations from the laboratories are SwissLitho. Using IBM's so­called Nano­ failed: see Rebels Behind Bars; Good having an increasing impact in our daily Frazer technology, they've developed a News At Last From Italy!]. This was lives. device that can produce three­dimensional based on an “Open Collaboration Model,” Since the invention of the tunneling nanostructures. The heart of that meaning that expensive nano research microscope in the 1980s by IBM technology is an extremely sharp and laboratories would be open to cooperation researchers and Nobel Laureates, Gerd resistant silicon tip which can withstand up with companies and other research Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, at Ruschlikon to 500 degrees of heat. With this institutes. The nanotechnology center near Lake Zurich, hundreds of products technology, it is possible to not only offers 950 squared meters of floor space in with nano properties have made their way produce smaller­sized chips for computers, sterile environments for basic research on into mass production – almost always in a but also to produce new electronic or new materials, and construction of stealthy manner in relation to the general optical chips [ed. – see the supplement to elements at nano­scale. It is necessary for the laboratory's air to have a smaller public. Meanwhile, Switzerland has a Return Fire vol.3; Smarter Prison?]. amount of particles, since tiny particles can leading role in the nanotechnology disable the nanostructures. In addition, the market. According to Heinz Muller, an Unbridled Growth The latest figures from the US market research center has special laboratories expert on patents for chemistry and analyst, BCC Research, show that the that, with shielding and measures to biotechnology at the Federal Institute

“The role of the experts has always been to justify the technological system, to explain how the ongoing parade of disasters are mere separate incidents, aberrations that do not reflect at all on the system itself. We can no longer let them be the ones to make the decisions about these matters. And taking back the capacity to decide for ourselves on this matter can take only one road, that of attack against the system of domination and exploitation in all of its aspects. By the time the scientific experts are telling us about these technologies, they are describing a decision that has already been made over our heads. To seek any dialogue with them or with the ruling powers they serve at this point about them is useless. We need to recognize these developments for what they are – a further stealing away of our lives, an attack upon any capacity for self-determination that may be left to us. The opposition to these latest technological developments cannot go the path of so many past movements of opposition, that of attempting to dialogue with the masters of this world. In such dialogue, the masters always win. Perhaps in a few places, the monstrosities produced by these technologies have to be labeled, so that we have a “choice”. But the monstrosities still become a normal part of our existence. Nanotechnology creates the tiniest monstrosities capable of the greatest horrors, because they are capable of carrying the systems of social control directly into our bodies. We cannot even pretend that there is any room for dialogue here any longer. This is a blatant display by the rulers of this world that the maintenance of social peace is an act of war against all the exploited and dispossessed. It is necessary for those of us who desire the freedom to create our lives on our terms, who desire to remain human individuals capable of any sort of autonomous action, to act destructively against the entire system of social control, the totality of this civilization in which machines ride people and people slowly transform into machines. Here and now.” – The Tiniest Monstrosities

“Science is the eternal sacrifice of life, fleeting, ephemeral but real, on the altar of eternal abstractions. What I predict is therefore the revolt of life against the government of science.” – Mikhail Bakunin

30. cushion external sources of interference, About the source: This such as changes in temperature or synthesis and commentary vibrations, minimize inaccuracies. was originally released in Italian by Marco Camenisch (see Return Fire vol.2 pg70) IBM is committed to nanotechnology in from a jail cell in Lenzburg, order to “further expand established Switzerland, as one of many information storage, processing, and translations or instructive/ transmission technology, as well as to analytical and solidaritarian develop new technologies,” according to texts created during his three Matthias Kaiserwerth, director of the IBM decades inside. In these Lab in Ruschlikon. He indicates that, most recent months, Marco finally began a staged according to Moore's law, every 18 months release; involving day trips to so far transistors on the computer chips the outside, weekend leave are doubled. “If we want to maintain this permits, a external job, and rate of speed we will face several finally bail (as of March 2017, challenges, such as overheating, the comrade completed the process). In the build­up to manufacturing, and gradation of the The grafitti, near industrial centres contributing to his final exit, Marco building elements.” In short, miniaturization the degradation of the Patagonia Sea outside Huasco, communicated from has reached its limit. “Nanotechnology Chile, reads “Marco Camenisch to the street!”, left in Saxerriet prison that “[t]he the desire to see him “free and wild[...] looking here offers enormous potential to possibility of continue my towards the infinite horizon”; as we hope the comrade overcome these challenges with new political/personal relations can now once again, on the outside at last designs and materials,” says Kaiserwerth. (especially my writing) has smart electricity meters. […] Siemens: for their been strongly reduced in recent years due to the work in favor of wider surveillance, for example Huge Figures repeated transfers and consequent connected video surveillance systems, facial reorganization of this work, sometimes starting Swiss research is at the top of the world's recognition... ABB: a leading company in the again from scratch. And now, in this long field of automation and energy, which has nanotechnology research, with the passage ‘between inside and outside’ such disseminated its robots worldwide in the service corresponding budget: possibilities have been reduced even more of capitalism and would prefer to see people as (often to a flicker…) or otherwise taken up, ex­ machines [ed. – see 'Tools of the Technology']. 90 million Swiss francs = cost of the novo, in an intriguing as it is impervious Finally, a car each from Implenia, Alpiq and construction of the IBM nanotechnology reorganization of the remains of solidarity EAGB, actively participating in the unappreciated research center and ETH Zurich. beyond the walls in this prison society. These are enlargement of Bässlergut prison.” efforts that all those directly involved in solidarity including myself, having to cope with in ‘spaces’ 16.04.17, Cremona, Italy: Monsanto receive four 100 million Swiss francs = donation by at times even more limited and certainly more molotovs against a headquarters; lab equipment entrepreneur Adolphe Merkle in 2007 to uncertain than the ‘prison­prison’. So in no way and experimental seeds are destroyed, hundreds the University of Fribourg. With that money, is it due to indifference or lack of personal and/or of thousands of euros damage. 'Bayer & a research institute for nanotechnology political solidarity if now and in the future I won’t Monsanto, Criminal Marriage' reads the graffiti, science in Marly, on the outskirts of be able to maintain the bulk of correspondence referring to the new merger between the two bio­ Fribourg, was built. and writing that I have done up until recently.” tech giants. This is the fifth major anti­biotech We know that the transition of leaving prison is attack in the area of Cremona since 2001... often difficult, even in the best of circumstances 120 million francs = the budget of the 24.01.16, Santiago, Chile: As a collaboration of and with a much shorter sentence, and we feel federal Nano­Tera Initiative for 'Circle of Individualists for Anarchy' and the isolation from comrades and projects (slowly nanotechnology­based sensor research built up or maintained over years of prison) that 'Kapibara Group' (both of the Informal Anarchist [ed. – see Return Fire vol.3 pg31]. he must be experiencing now. Hence, to show Federation / International Revolutionary Front), our respect and appreciation for Marco, and some gain access to the science faculty of 140 million francs = the funding of the knowing that this text was unavailable in English, Andrés Bello University, place a timed incendiary (a mixture of potassium nitrate, gasoline and oil) national research center “Nanosciences,” we found it fitting to include it here, to continue our shared trajectory. “Always resisting, always and exit without being spotted or apprehended. coordinated since 2004 by the University of “A proliferation of attacks and coordination of Basel. contributing, always in solidarity (even by being silent… :­) )” (Marco). groups and individuals to hit harder and constantly against patriarchal civilization and its [This is all due to the magical politics of the techno­industrial fabric, the path is arduous and democratic circus, largely paid for by the TAKING ON uncertain, only our actions in the present reveal ignorant “free and informed” consumer, on our real convictions.” The large facility is totally destroyed in the huge ensuing blaze. occasion good voter or indeed... IMPERIAL SCIENCE July 2015, Ospedaletto Euganeo, Italy: taxpayer! (Marco's note.)] September '17, Basel, Switzerland & Saint­ Mangimi Veronesi, animal breeders and feed Louis, France: Tyres popped on vehicles of the producers, have been subject to protest since following: “Bouygues: this construction group 2014 over the use of G.M. grains. Molotovs are builds and manages prisons and detention 1. ed. – “[In a mid­2000's study], some rats were placed under lorries loaded with fodder; 15 centers in France. The company is also involved made to inhale carbon nanoparticles: their lungs destroyed. in the construction of the nanotechnology center look like those of the victims of abestos. Carbon in Grenoble, and maintains the protected G.M. nanotubes bass were introduced into the water plantation site in the open air around Zurich[...] some bass they lived in: they developed various Adecco: work agency. Because “work is to life cellular abnormalities. Nanoparticles can already what oil is to the sea”, as was so well formulated be found in sunscreens, in self­cleaning glass or in a leaflet distributed during the labor law [ed. – in some rubber tyres [ed. – and by now much see Clarification on the Attack on the CGT more]. Toxicologists have shown that their very Headquarters & On the Topic of 'Anonymous small size allows them to move everywhere in Disassociation']. […] A car from the council of the body, across the skin, blood cells or the “NO GMO, NO BREEDING” Haut­Rhin. We simply despise authority. Enedis: blood­brain barrier. Why do insurance a French electricity company that is constantly 28.08.15, Louvain, Belgium: Fire part­destroys companies refuse to insure the environmental being targeted for attacks [ed. – ibid.] because of the front wall of the nanotechnology and and health risks of the nanotechnologies?” its involvement in the nuclear waste storage chemistry research centre of the Université (Resistance to Nanotechnology in France). project in Bure or for the installation of Linky Catholique, by placing a backpack containing 31. inflammable material and a detonator genetic sequencing, petroleum extraction, in the vicinity of the engine room. finance, market economics, aeronautic and “Everywhere around us, science, business automotive industry, nano­tech, logistics... 05.03.15, Itapetininga, Brazil: 1,000 and governments have shaped the existent, women from the states of São Paulo, 04.03.13, Naples, Italy: 4 of the 6 pavilions of placing us all in suspension on an artificial self- Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais the Science City of Napes (and with them, this regulating scaffold that is anything but solid: occupy FuturaGene Technology and being the dense technological cluster of the city, namely, industrial-technological society. Over destroy seedlings of G.M. eucalyptus. dozens of start­ups) burn to the ground in a deliberate arson, with 50 million euros damages. thousands of years of civilization, it is now 06.01.14, Bristol, U.K.: Bomb placed condensing into its most total and global against the offices of construction firm 07.10.12, Oakland, U.S.A.: During a destructive expression which is multinational capitalism, to Vinci “with the aim of cutting off power anti­imperialist march, the Oakland Scientific whose harmful effects and illusions we are all lines, scorching the exterior and Facility is among those damaged. “Countless starting a fire inside. ” The company lives contained, controlled, reduced, stolen, and forced to entrust our lives. With the stupid are building the “Biological Life arrogance that throughout history has marked destroyed by civilization, colonialism, patriarchy, Sciences Centre soon to open at the and capitalism. 11 years of war in Afghanistan, every dominant power, it cannot afford any University of Bristol [which] will offer hundreds of years of colonization and my entire questioning of itself and the present into which we courses for "the next generation of life of being socialized, categorized, identified[...] are forced. Open to alterations, albeit always false biologists" as well as current Fight Genocide, Destroy what is civilized.” specialists, aiming to improve solutions, only if they can reinforce its legitimacy, collaboration with the university's 05.09.12, Buenos Aires, Argentina: To but that cannot continue to reproduce in a nanotechnology centre and just across “express solidarity with Marco Camenisch, who continuous spiral whose circles are increasingly from the Medical School's genetic went on hunger strike”, visit to the Leloir Institute shrinking around us asphyxiatingly. Where the engineering, vivisection and animal “known to promote development of the breeding labs. The world capitalist internal bio- and nano-technologies of this spiral disgusting nanotechnology, present and future of system sees advances in fields like that is detrimental to the system itself are not the technological system of control. There we this as key to the next round of unfurled a banner with which we greet our simple and additional technological developments discovery, enclosure and wealth comrade and on leaving paint bombs and rocks among many, but are the key technologies with creation. As the area around Bristol full of our liberatory hatred were thrown.” which the whole edifice on which we are deported and Bath houses the biggest hi­tech Marco's strike, against the “global techno­ design cluster in the world after scientific, patriarchal, terrorist and totalitarian far away from our natural world is restoring and, America's Silicon Valley, this inside of the techno-industrial spiral, representing system of the multinationals and imperialist "revolution" is happening on our States”, he dubbed 'Operation Fukushima' (see the ring of the chain that goes to close the steel doorsteps, "with Bristol being an Return Fire vol.1 pg43) after “the appalling pain exciting and ideal place to carry out circle of dominion over our life and everything that and annihilation administered to life by the few research over the coming years." […] exists. Where the profitability-concern of the bosses and many servants of civilization and One of the main thrusts of this drive is progress for the power and wealth of the few. It owners and of the multinational corporations is not synthetic biology, a disturbing practice could also be called Chernobyl, Muhleberg, so much that the masses must become dominated using the latest technology for Beznau, Lucens, Hiroshima, depleted uranium, by material progress, but about the “limits” of this "rewriting and rebuilding natural IBM, Trino Vercellese, Superphonix [ed. – see systems to provide engineered world. Then comes the need to obtain new Return Fire vol.1 pg79], Ansaldo [ed. – ibid.], surrogates." [ed. – For example, to materials, new substances with new properties, biotechnology and nanotechnology, asbestos, make them produce pharmaceuticals cancer, Deep Water Horizon [ed. – see Return new forms of energy production, new and or energy; unlike older genetic Fire vol.1 pg28], Xstrata [ed. – see Return Fire ‘improved’ plant and animal species, new food engineering which 'cuts and pastes' ], Monsanto, TAV [ed. – see applications, industrial and medical applications existing genes between species, vol.2 pg40 Rebels Behind Bars; A Letter from Anarchist obtained by the manipulation of life and of matter. synthetic biology creates new DNA Comrade Anna Beniamino about Operation Innovations that, as with all the key innovations of modules programmed to self­ assemble with other modules to create Scripta Manent & More…], alternative civilization, are born out of military needs for 'designer organisms' (mostly viruses energy...” It was in solidarity with repressed imperialist war on the outside and inside, the /bacteria for now) capable of functions Italian anarchists (see Return Fire vol.1 trinity of conquest, control and exploitation. War, normally associated with mechanical pg75/78), and against daily harassments he now more than ever, transcends the military field production lines.] In 2012 a conference endured in Lenzburg prison. at the University of Bristol stated that and has expanded its front, in fact, to every 04.09.12, Toluca, Mexico: “[L]ike the Teocintle expression of the living and the material from the synthetic biology "could become a driving force of the national economy," [ed. – wild maize species considered a harmful macro to the nano and even beyond the planet and the government have declared it a weed by agri­business] corrodes malignantly itself [ed. – see New Technologies, top research priority. The European domesticated corn fields, ” three litres of petrol Extraterrestrial Exploitation & the Future of Union has now awarded £3.3 million to deployed to torch a CIMMyT minibus used daily to transport international scientists to a research Capitalism]. Thus every productive sector is the University of Bristol just to create "public awareness" promoting the center, which “among other activities, develops invested in these technologies, but no longer practice. [W]e're moving fast into a Sustainable Modernization of Traditional content with the narrowness of the research labs – future where even lifeforms "in nature" Agriculture Program (MasAgro), in collusion with even after it transformed [everything] along with are the products of laboratory the Mexican state through the Ministry of space into one deadly and sickening landfill – is experiments, and nothing remains that Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) and agencies transforming the entire planet into a laboratory, a isn't engineered somewhere along the line by a human­centred system of such as the Inter­Development Bank (IDB); new living world – or rather a dying, engineered scientific totalitarianism.” whose job is to promote genetically modification one. Not – as the great “greenwashing” campaigns or "improvement" among small farmers to of media terrorism and state want us to believe – to 10.06.13, Toluca, Mexico: Explosive increase production/domestication of maize and attack on seat of the National Council wheat seeds, and to try to counter the same solve social and environmental disasters arising of Science and Technology; it is the problems that these technologies have created from the system, but always and as ever to second time the same group bombs (soil erosion, water scarcity...) [yet] if bio­ reproduce this system of domination and the place, and they also take credit for technologists house 28,000 seed samples of exploitation with the end of completing once and burning a police truck less than three maize to "guard" ancient biodiversity, or if GM for all the techno-industrial complex enclosure.” weeks earlier. CONACYT, as well as foods are labeled, "controlled" or "perfected" for G.M. “collaboration with the scientists the purposes of this perpetual monolithic – Call for an Escalated Anti-Genetic of the International Maize and Wheat civilisation, this would only be the cleverest trick Engineering Struggle Improvement Center (CIMMyT)”, is the system.” Informal Anarchist Federation / also part of running the “Abacus” lab Earth Liberation Front 'Anti­Civilisation Fraction' containing a supercomputer to develop are again responsible. 32. April 2012, Trento, Italy: (e.g. optimistic or pessimistic), self- During the inauguration of a A GREEN ANARCHIST esteem (e.g. desire for self- new laboratory of IBM (see preservation), stress (e.g. subjective Return Fire vol.4 pg73), CRITIQUE OF SCIENCE opponents are present with perception of pain), or willpower (e.g. how determined one feels). megaphones to disrupt. In creating a priestly class of expert Humans use processes where These fundamentally unscientific addition to the Swiss authorities that mediate to the we start from experience, form elements of decision-making and nanotechnology centre public the Discovered Truth of the mentioned above, the event conjectures, and then test character prove essential to our Universe. With imperial science a is promoting IBM's “model predictions based on tentative own wellness but imperial science small professional cadre actively of the city of the future [ed. explanations. We compare results pushes them to the margins. confines deeper understanding to – see Return Fire vol.3 with our peers. Our evolution of Cultures with other forms of within their own compartment pg31], where mobility, trekking, foraging, tracking, science however respect those through models and instruments security and surveillance hunting all involved this process. elements' place and value. These systems, access to the beyond the lay person's awareness These things constitute a form of elements also do not usually or cities, the identification, or access. It moves ever further “science”. While even this even often fit solidly within the financial transactions, toward abstraction beyond the lay encounters the problem of science-or-religion dichotomy; we medical systems, are all person's ability to confirm or refute, induction, the problem of the cannot reduce these decision- connected to each other developing characteristics of through a technological uncertainty of the future remaining making features or influences upon religious dogma. infrastructure of ubiquitous despite previously clear the world to someone's belief or and pervasive computing. It experiences, the dominant culture Imperial science divorces itself non-belief in an Invisible Sky is already happening: in embraces a distinct form of science from ecological ethics, instead Daddy or Magic Man, and yet they Stockholm IBM have that has its own features. Harmful embracing exclusively purposes remain unscientific. created the video control features. utilitarian to certain human system for the license Imperial science can certainly help Empire has a specific form of cultures. It attempts to magnify plates of cars entering the us understand certain information city, whose owner is science. Imperial science begins by control over lifeforms and and trends, industrial science automatically charged the attempting to remove the actual landbases and further human especially, because it comes at a fee for the movement in the physical world from the pursuit of all knowledge regardless devil's bargain of sacrificing any centre, and has also understanding by the use of a sterile of the cost (sometimes excepting other consideration: we know how worked for the New York laboratory to disconnect, isolate, white humans or all humans, police Real Time Crime calories work because the Nazis and reassemble parts; these othertimes not), facilitating the self- Center, a database wanted to know how little they attempts can expedite access to destructive project of Dominion. obtained by integrating all could feed Jewish death camp certain claims on knowledge but “Welcome to the Machine”, page the data from the different laborers. Calories do exist as a devalue intimacy, participation, and 41, [Stanley] Aronowitz speaking: institutional repositories to concept measuring a phenomenon, create personal profiles of co-determination, which lead to “The point of science – and this and might yield useful insights, but any suspected displayed narcissism and over time cultivate may or may not be true of we cannot reduce understanding to directly by the individual hostility to aliveness and wildness. individual scientists – is to make just numbered measurements, and police officer.” Imperial science conceals its the world subject to human viewing lifeforms, landscapes, or implicit values and filters domination. If they can abstract, 23.06.10, Pulley, the totality of matter in solely (observability, detachment, and then they can predict on the Switzerland: Despite 24 utilitarian lenses enables abuse. objectifiability, quantifiability, basis of that abstraction, then they hour guard, a double fence, Imperial science has no conflict predictability, controllability, can try, at both the human and CCTV and plain clothes with, and in fact has higher uniformity), proclaims itself natural levels, to use that cops in the surrounding compatibility with, for instance, “neutral”, and discards or prediction in order to exert control. streets, an experimental Nazism, whereas the hunting field of G.M. wheat is disciplines the anomalies and Genetic engineering is a great methods of traditional indigenous attacked with herbicides. mysteries that do not fit in its example, although almost any field peoples intimately entwined to their Unlike in 2008 and 2009 framework, potentially will work as well. The ideology landbases, based at least in some when the field was also demolishing their immense underlying its conceptualization is part on empiricism, testing 'decontaminated', the subjective worth. that we cannot and will not depend research centre this year on nature to yield its own educated guesses, and peer review, did not issue a press Imperial science prefers productivity, both in terms of its have no receptiveness to practices release about the attack. unidirectional cause-and-effect own development and human need. that disregard their spiritual place “Opposition to genetic understandings while ignoring We're going to intervene, because as members in an interdependent engineering is part of a interdependent, co-determining the process of maturation has to be web. We must not accept the wider opposition to the total connections. Imperial science reasoning behind attempts to control of society and life faster, the output has to be more possesses a bias toward instruments grind up every form of life in that is being created thanks possesses a bias toward instruments plentiful, production has to be machine gears just to squeeze out to the development of nano and numbers, and assumes a cheaper, humans have to be more machine gears just to squeeze out and biotechnology. For disparate, mechanistic universe. It in control of the process.” Imperial some new insight that will further these reasons, we also also often implicitly maintains the science promotes the human a subsection of humans' control want to express our philosophical system of Western exceptionalism responsible for of the world. Imperial science tries solidarity through concrete rationality which reasons through leading us to long-term disaster as long as possible to avoid actions with those who the use of hierarchical binary (planetary biotic collapse). But philosophical and ethical challenge; oppose this technoscientfic oppositions, e.g. subject/object, forms of comprehension do not as a litany of experiments with capitalist system, and in forms of comprehension do not mind/body, matter/spirit, have to yield forms of domination. coerced use of surgery, pathogens, particular with Marco radiation, psychological torture, Camenisch, Silvia, Costa masculine/feminine, even if reality Humans also use very physiological torture, and and Billy... [ed. – see does not always fit such a physiological torture, and perspective. And imperial science unscientific elements to pharmaceuticals under the guise of Rebels Behind Bars; successfully make decisions: Good News At Last From pushes itself as the only acceptable “necessary research” confirm, from intuition, instinct, imagination, Italy!] , revolutionary path to understanding. antiquity to modernity. Empire prisoners who are now inspiration, associations. And we makes science a heartless terror; cannot objectively quantify such jailed in Switzerland Imperial science divides cannot objectively quantify such intimacy and balance put it back accessibility to methodologies and things as personality (e.g. because they understood accessibility to methodologies and in its rightful place. words are not enough...” tools by specialization and class, propensity for self-care), attitude

33. MARKET PRESSURED TO TEMPORARILY DROP G.M. PRODUCT LINES AFTER CONTAMINATION CAMPAIGN CLAIMED, LOMBARDY

[ed. – Lombardy is the most populous and richest region in the Italy, “For now we have used the home to Milan, and one of the richest regions in Europe. The enemy’s instruments against it. following action took place while the European Union pretended to We have fed civilization with consider ruling against use of glyphosate herbicide. We have fed civilization with the poison it produces…” That year, 2016, had already seen an Italian mobilisation against Nicola and Alfredo Cell the European Authority for Food Safety (based in Parma), “the F.A.I./F.R.I. internationally recognized body to which the European Commission F.A.I./F.R.I. refers to concerning toxicities such as GMOs, pesticides, chemicals and nanotechnology. [C]lose relations allow a continuous exchange Choices of Attack of administrators, scientists, managers and the inevitable technical Safety is a recurrent staff: what better way to permit a capillary distribution of GMOs also in Europe. Thanks to contamination thresholds tolerated in food and theme in today’s industrialized seeds, GM feed, transgenic crops in the open field… the work of society, which safe it cannot spreading has been underway for too long. Europe has given itself feel in that it spreads hatred, a body called upon to guarantee the safety of every toxicity along violence and poison back and the lines of the American FDA [Food & Drug Administration]. To forth over itself daily. By protect, as well as the interests of the biotech­chemical­ pharmaceutical multinationals, an economic, political and social periodically establishing the system that clings to the new bio­nano­technological revolution, tolerability levels of the cancers producing more and more environmental and social disasters that that it itself develops, it is underlie techno­industrial development, of which the manipulations attempting to accustom people of the living are deadly. We are not for the creation of a safer, to accepting them. So ‘fine transparent and democratic EFSA[...] Dealing with techno­scientific particles’ are allowed to pile up power and its principal manifestations – biotechnology, nanotechnology, computer science, neuroscience – is not just to within a certain threshold, torture in prison should be focusing on some aspect of this particularly harmful society. [...] their health in an endless circle of Some call it green economy, others scientific progress and yet limited to denying prisoners poison­antidote­poison. others catastrophe management, covering the areas that once any kind of reading inside the redesigned will widen the network where all the relations of power most punitive prison units, are developed in every link, such as the launching of a GMO or the Currently any food product intended for manipulation of the germ line, from where there is no return.” (The water is potable if it only human consumption is accompanied with writers also called the mobilisation in solidarity with Silvia, Billy and contains a given amount of a maximum residue of herbicides that it Costa: see Rebels Behind Bars; Good News At Last From Italy!) heavy metals… So what is may contain ‘according to law’. We decided This action followed in the footsteps of hugely successful anarchist ‘sure’ is just the constant to increase the amount of these residues consumer sabotages wrought by in Greece. First in 2013 during the poisoning we are subjected to; that can normally be found on the shelves pivotal Christmas period (and then again in this year in the same it is power alone that of all the supermarkets, concealed in timeframe) in solidarity with Italian prisoners Nicola Gai and Alfredo establishes the recommended products that are passed off as safe. Cospito (see Rebels Behind Bars; A Letter from Anarchist daily dose. Comrade Anna Beniamino about Operation Scripta Manent & Starting from the week between May and More…), batches of Coca­Cola (a company known to produce G.M. for ingredients) were tampered with: “This way we provoke a We decided to highlight how June, while most people are getting ready boycott, not begging for the consumers’ “sensitive ecological unmanageable these limits are to elect those who will make decisions consciousness” but based on the decisiveness of direct action today. We overcame those that about their lives, we are gradually instead. Our goal is not, in any case, to harm someone who might could tie down anarchist action replacing some of the products in the consume these mass production commodities, that’s why we send a long time ago, turning it into a supermarkets with ‘ours’ with higher this claim of responsibility before we start placing these products mere cumbersome repetition of maximum residue limits. So far we have back on the shelves.” Coca­Cola announced a precautionary removal of “every single plastic bottle 500ml PET of Coca­Cola violent slogans and innocuous only replaced the number of products that Light and Nestea (of all tastes)”, to millions loss in their profits and practices, as we savoured the can be seen in the photos attached. We high publicity. In the second wave, various Nestlé and Unilever beauty of discovering and intend to finish our stocking by the end of brand products were also contaminated and had to be withdrawn. reinventing new means of June, the final deadline we have decided While so far all such actions (initiated by the animal liberationists in attack each time. The limits we for this action. past decades) have successfully avoided injury to random people are facing today are instead (more than can be said for the bombings, arsons or even rock­ those that establish the safety Each week we will add an injection of throwing that we otherwise accept as if they only risked the attacker of a food product. poison to the water­poison solution that we and their specified target) this cell doesn't back away from the replace. We will do this because we only importance of articulating the anti­social element (see 'The Matter tamper with substances that the food of Knowing Who We Are') in their critique of apathy. We If the average consumer feels industry uses as it likes, starting with only reproduce this not because we agree with every point they make protected by the controls the (see footnotes), but because it opens the doors to continuing many very fabricators of noxious a small amount of poison because, unlike important discussions in the anarchist space, while explaining yet substances apply, with this the white coats, we don’t know what another method available to disrupt business­as­usual (though we action we are making clear effects it might have. So, we’re interested ourselves prefer forms of action that don't rely on pressuring the the impracticability of a in being effective, not in playing word capitalists and state to do something but rather do it ourselves – games. This is our first test. Its 'direct action' as we'd call it – we are not moralists on this point). mechanism of self­control in continuation and exacerbation will depend industries such as food, Shortly after this Lombardian contamination campaign, an on to what extent economic and ‘social’ explosive parcel detonated inside the Milan premises of bio­tech chemicals, agriculture, interests come into conflict. firm Algamundi SRL, a start­up company that had won a engineering (which are competition in the Milan EXPO (see the supplement to Return Fire coming to resemble each Our operation will cover the whole of the vol.3; Smarter Prison?), leaving one professional lucky to get other more and more), where away with bruises and hospital examination: an almost identical Lombardy region, making a fool of various parcel was intercepted at the mail department of the EFSA. Police it’s not true that the distribution chains that have been visited, suspect anarchists, mentioning the exposé published the year consumers’ health comes studied and chosen for the best outcome before by the comrades of Fenrir magazine on the activities of before profit, but occurs of this campaign against poisoning. What Algamundi SRL... Domesticators out of our genes, and our lives. precisely to the detriment of we are aiming for is clearly withdrawal Wildness remains.] 34. from the market of the products we clean. As for the have used, in the period of time decided Misura biscuits, by us, but we also want to throw the we began at the contradictions that the whole of society bottom of the is based on in everyone’s face, even of package by those who try to look the other way. For slightly opening we know that a coat of green paint the heated seal, won’t be enough to clean up a world just enough to now addicted to its own noxiousness, pass our needle because allowing oneself to be through, then repackaged them poisoned little by little is equivalent to with paintbrush dying day after day. and glue. We shall begin with a technical description of our operation: the poison used is This done, the first Monsanto’s Roundup [herbicide], a bottle couriers resupplied Since Monsanto's 1996 incursion, Argentina’s entire soy crop of liquid concentrated per 560 square the supermarkets (the world’s third-largest) and nearly all its corn and cotton are genetically-modified and glyphosate is used metres. Our kit: a syringe, a funnel, a 1.5­ for this initial test. roughly eight to ten times more per acre than in the U.S.A., litre bottle of water, tweezers, a with cancer rates two to four times higher than the national screwdriver, a fine­tipped paintbrush, glue. The choice of average in affected croplands, as well as higher rates of hypothyroidism, birth defects and chronic respiratory The products poisoned: Misura soya protagonists for illnesses. This farmworker Fabian Tomasi, after routinely biscuits, Suzi wan soya sauce, Kikkoman our action was all handling the substance for three years, is wasting into a soya sauce, Save soya sauce (in the too easy. Various living skeleton from neurological disorder 'polyneuropathy'. ‘traditional’ and ‘Japanese style’ versions). technology sectors Thanks to this sort of ‘equivalence in extend their interests to the food industry substance’ introduced in the 1990s in the Obviously we try to give the investigating so as to incorporate it. The same US by one of its future directors infiltrated cops as few clues as possible, which is companies that invest in technological through the watchdog agencies, it why some of the attached photos have research and aim to have genetically managed to avoid testing and get the go been retouched (we are not professional modified organisms (GMOs) passed into ahead in relation to its new creations. After photographers and we had to make up for the world are at the forefront of the trading in a vast range of herbicides, a lack of technical knowledge, as well as chemical pesticide sector, also becoming through genetic engineering it managed to distractions during ‘posing’). The batches actual owners of seeds and crops. Patents obtain patents on many GM plants that and other product codes have been copyright anything at all. were resistant to its own herbicides or covered or erased in order to prevent which were even able develop the targeted batches being withdrawn while Monsanto has a crucial role in this field. [1] leaving others on sale. herbicides within themselves . It is here, Born in the early 1900s it had an in this making all aspects of our lives We began by adding an injection of immediate impact on the chemical sector artificial and thinking that their Roundup to the bottle of water, but as we during the Second World War thanks to an unscrupulous actions will be met with said this is only the early stage solution. increase in the use of DDT [ed. – see vile resignation, that our circle closes. We took care to avoid any possible Return Fire vol.2 pg37], which was Roundup is the most widely used herbicide damage to the product packaging and we sprayed over entire populations and in the world. Its active component is found a perfect way to violate their fake passed off as panacea, concealing its real glyphosate, a herbicide which can now be food safety for each of them. We took a toxicity. Since then it has been engaged in found in most ground water. It is related to syringeful of sauce out of all the sauces a long trajectory of political intrigue, various types of cancer, kidney conditions, and added an injection of the solution. As impositions and coercion through which it Parkinsons and Alzheimers by the holders for the biscuits we injected a syringe of became one of the major economic giants of scientific truth themselves. Monsanto Roundup solution into the bag and shook in the world, to such an extent that it has was granted a patent for Roundup in 2002 it. Eyebrow tweezers helped us open both attracted the attention of another giant, from which followed a series of GM crops types of Save sauce. We inserted one end Bayer, which is negotiating a merger resistant to the herbicide being introduced into the back of the opening of the cap, precisely at this time. The Monsanto into the market. then a screwdriver allowed us to take off empire ranges from chemicals to the cap with its seal intact. To close them agriculture, passing through genetic Among them Roundup Ready soya again we just had to push down on the engineering. It was responsible for the (practically the species most cultivated in cap. As for the Kikkoman sauces it sufficed spreading of Agent Orange (100% dioxin) the world) has enslaved thousands of to unscrew the cap along with the plastic in Vietnam, the cover­up of toxicological farmers to this multinational as they are film, take off the anti­drip cap and do the data concerning its PCB [polychlorinated being forced to pay concession rights in same in reverse after the substitution. The biphenyl] patents, research in the nuclear order to be able to plant. The ‘green procedure for the Suzi wan sauce was also field, up to our time. First in line in the race revolution’, as the vast operation of pretty simple. Pulling the cap hard along for the appropriation of every right over the spreading GMOs throughout the world led with the seals and pressing everything existent, it was quick to take an interest in by the ‘humanitarian’ Rockefeller back to redo the package was quick and equating GMOs with normal crops. Foundation was called[2], has been made possible their dependency on of the ‘seeds of the bosses’ thanks to financing of farmers in difficulty. While the litres of this pesticide sprayed over the soya plantations all over the world run into millions, one more syringe shot is a drop in the ocean[3].

35. As the European Union keep on the evolution of so­called anti­terrorism through actions, as the first text that suspending judgement over the legislation [ed. – see Return Fire vol.3 launched this informal projectuality [of the carcinogenic effects of glyphosate, we are pg5], repression in the streets, etc.). F.A.I.] proposes: technical/theoretical/ throwing the problem back on the plate. Legality and recuperation go hand in hand, practical growth through the developing of so it is we who favour certain practices, not the actions. “To reconcile organization and To the Accomplices, in as far as they are illegal, but in as far as theoretical/practical debate with the To the Insurgents they are more effective. We simply realise anonymity of groups/single individuals is We were tired of thoughts of freedom that if we have to face a problem in an possible by means of a dialogue diffused atrophied by the political realism of the incisive and resolute way, the solution through the actions, which, besides giving theoreticians of the revolution “not here, naturally ends up in illegality given that the their specific destructive discourse, also not now”, and of crippled actions lacking legal instruments ‘offered’ to us (counter­ carry other messages (through the continuity, effectiveness and information, raising social awareness of a adopted methods and means, the goal communicative clarity, so we decided to problem, demonstrations and protests) do being communication), independently of take a turning point in our lives and not satisfy us, nor do they interest us[4]. the material damage.” projectualities with this first contribution to – We are rebels, insurgents not the struggle against the noxiousness of – Spontaneism is not synonymous with insurrectionalists. We rebel every day, filing civilization and against the development of informality and even less does informality away at our own, individual chains. We the economic strategies of dominion in an mean disorganization and superficiality. have no masses to educate, to foment for eco­sustainable style. Our turning point Actions are planned spontaneously from ‘the coming insurrection’. We are not came about with the kind of action that we the idea of one or more insurgent minds, preparing any ground by trying to ‘unite the have chosen. To a form of now they consolidate through critique and specific movement and the people, consolidated attack, always and anyway analysis and go on to solve tactical and guerrilla and insurrectional perspectives’. effective, we have added a new poisoning logistical problems, to then bloom like We are not seeking roles of leaders or of the enemy’s merchandise, drop by drop. poisonous flowers in the fields of dormant vanguards, present or future. After all, A dripping of poison that fights against and society. today’s revolutionary leaders will be the highlights the daily global poisoning that hangmen of tomorrow’s rebels as soon as hyper­technological, consumerist, – Informality doesn’t mean meeting with they put their arses on a bench. That is alienated and alienating society is ‘other political affinity groups’ so as to why we hate politics, which through imposing. coordinate the struggles, but informality is mediation turns the free dialectical flow the antidote to political delegating. It is the This homeopathic between thought and action gangrenous. method that makes relations between We have neither the time nor the desire to administration of their poisons individuals qualitatively better, avoiding build a long­term revolutionary process. It interweaving ‘political’ relations for the is showing up the daily reality of isn’t the sun of the future that dazzles us sake of quantitative growth. Informality is self­poisoning that but the lightening in the clear sky of an act open but not transversal. industrialized civilization is of revolt, chosen, meditated, planned and above all urgently necessary against the – We adhere to the International inflicting on bodies and minds. ever more rapid advance of the machinery Revolutionary Front in critique and The turning point was also the decision to of dominion. continuity. In critique because we are not an ‘armed organization’ nor do we want to enter the seas of the debate that has been – We adhere to the F.A.I. in critical bouncing from one side of the globe to the become one; nor do we feel the need to continuity, critically because we point it out in relation to the disarming and other thanks to the actions which, from that understand the risk of transforming a free far off 2003, have been carried out by reformist critiques of the mainstream. On network – in time and space – into a the contrary we are proud to be part of the various and different individuals and platform. To propose an ‘informal groups that adhere to the Informal chaotic front of comrades at war with platform of polymorphous anarchist Anarchist Federation [F.A.I.] and its further society, face to face with the enemy, arms action’ with structures and extension the International Revolutionary in hand. Coming back to the text from infrastructures means to cage a beast Front [F.R.I.], as they continue to give living which the Informal Anarchist Federation that must by its very nature stay wild. and stimulating perspectives to the was born: “Moreover whoever is part of the Action is multiform, multifaceted and thought­action binomial that is at the root Informal Anarchist Federation is a militant iridescent like life, but multiformity of anarchy. Throughout the years we of it in all respects only in the specific cannot become an easy slogan to have read the dialogue that has been moment of the action and its preparation; it conceal the defects of the action itself established through actions and doesn’t invest the comrade’s entire lives like a bank of fog. We are in the streets, claims: it alternates from critical and projectuality, which leads to putting in anarchist bookshops, at events, any armed­struggle specialism out of the contributions and basic methods to concerts, in squats every day; but if we way once and for all.” slogans and collections of greetings were to relate all this to the real attack on often with simplistic reductions of power that we feel is urgent and – We are individualists not collectivists. problematics. We are going to try to necessary, we would be deceiving The drive at the basis of our action is dissect some of the problems and undo a ourselves. It would mean levelling anarchy individual. We create free and unstable few basic knots, which for us are sources and raising what is, or at this point should associations of individuals in order to make of useful discussions. be, anarchist ‘daily life’ to a means in itself. the action more effective. Collective struggle claims lead to delegating, the – We don’t want to compensate for the seed of politics, and to reformism. Stable practical organizational lacks of single organizations of synthesis crystallize the individuals with ‘structures’ or worse container instead of strengthening the ‘infrastructures’; mere union does not contents: they give professional politicians – The legal­illegal dichotomy is created by mean strength, quite the opposite, a springboard and the lazy an alternative [5] power to the extent that it wants to raise structures sclerotize action . On the and the shield of numbers (even if small). the measure of its tolerance, based on contrary, we believe that the old hypothesis social pressures and tensions and from its of a network of comrades who, without We don’t underestimate the fundamental own risk assessment (we see for example knowing one another, come into dialogue importance of dialectics among comrades, 36. be they inside or outside prison; for this requirement for them to be developed into a place between cultivated plants, wild plants and reason we are thankful for the writings of commercial crop for human consumption. variants of the cultivated species. This genetic the comrades in prison (Nikos Romanos pollution will confer upon these plants certain [ed. – see Return Fire vol.1 pg75], Alfredo 2. ed. – Actually the so­called Green Revolution undesirable properties and capacities for pre­dated GMOs, though one continues the work resistance that could have a deleterious effect Cospito, Nicola Gai, the imprisoned of the other: “Genetically modified crops, for on the rhizosphere, and not just on farmland. [...] comrades of the CCF [ed. – see example, are regularly sold to us as a means of As Monsanto’s director of corporate Clarification on the Attack on the CGT “feeding the world.” But why is the world hungry? communications boldly proclaimed: “Monsanto Headquarters & On the Topic of At least in part because of the previous wave of shouldn’t have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech 'Anonymous Disassociation']…) for the agricultural improvements [sic] – the so­called food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as stimuli they offered our minds and Green Revolution, which between the 1940s and possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job” [...] practices, and the written claims of the 1970s promoted a new form of agriculture that One will get a better appreciation of the gist of comrades who adhere to F.A.I. (CCF depended upon high levels of pesticides and this declaration if one considers the fact that herbicides, new agricultural technologies, and Monsanto occupies responsible positions in that Urban Guerrilla Cell, Kapibara Group [ed. high­yielding strains of crops. The Green very same regulatory institution… As with the – see Nanotechnology & Transparency], Revolution is trumpeted by progressives as nuclear industry, once again the regulator and Fireworks Committee for an Extraordinary having supposedly “fed a billion people” who the regulated are one and the same” (Some Year [ed. – see Rebels Behind Bars; A would otherwise have starved. And maybe it did; Enemies of the Best of All Transgenic Worlds). Letter from Anarchist Comrade Anna but then we had to keep feeding them – or should I say us? – and our children. In the 4. ed. – Much could be said about such a Beniamino about Operation Scripta simplistic dichotomy between il/legal actions; we Manent & More…]…), which albeit meantime it had been discovered that the pesticides and herbicides were killing off vast tend to agree with some Barcelona comrades on different and often contradictory have swaths of wildlife [ed. – and by 2000 in India as this matter. “With this communiqué, we wish to helped us dissolve doubts and pushed many humans were dying annually from these claim the following actions, as part of a struggle us to concretise our action. as died at the notorious Bholpal pesticide factory for the destruction of the State, Capital, explosion], and the high­yield monoculture crops patriarchy, and any system of domination, a The great challenge in these times is both were wrecking both the health of the soil and the struggle for the free creation of voluntary and mad and necessary. crop diversity, which in previous centuries had solidaristic relations at the global and local level; helped prevent the spread of disease and in other words, a struggle for anarchy. May 5, at Mad that scattered handfuls of dreamers reduced the likelihood of crop failure. It is in this night, we told a child the story of the maquis [ed. are trying to fight dominion, necessary that context that we now have to listen to lectures – anti­fascist partisans] and the anarchist struggle against Franco and against democracy they do it. from the neo­environmentalists [ed. – including former chief of UK Greenpeace, to name one] [ed. – see Who Is It?]. May 13, we cooked a Danaus Plexippus[6] Cell and others insisting that GM crops are a moral healthy meal for a comrade who has a chronic illness. May 17, we wrote a letter to a comrade INFORMAL ANARCHIST FEDERATION obligation if we want to feed the world and save imprisoned for participating in a riot. June 12, we / INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY the planet: precisely the arguments that were made last time around. GM crops are an attempt took care of the infant of some friends who suffer FRONT to solve the problems caused by the last economic precarity and the imposed obligation of wage labor. June 16, we spoke publically with First week of June 2016 progress trap; they are also the next one. I would our neighbors about the need to burn the banks 'Til next time be willing to bet a lot of money that in forty years’ time, the successors of the neo­ and attack the police in order to realize our environmentalists will be making precisely the dreams. June 19, we told some leftist activists same arguments about the necessity of adopting that the masked­ones were not police infiltrators 1. ed. – Despite the company line that GM crops the next wave of technologies needed to dig us but ourselves, and that it was necessary and reduce pesticide use, many drastically increase out of the trap that GM crops have dropped us good to mask up and take the streets with force. pesticide use through the promotion of neatly into. Perhaps it will be vat­grown meat, or June 20, we gifted vegetables from our garden superweeds – some of which cannot be killed, synthetic wheat, or some nano­bio­gubbins as to friends and neighbors, without money or except with increasingly large amounts of yet unthought of. Either way, it will be vital for exchange. Why do we claim these actions? In pesticides and in some cases flamethrowers. growth and progress, and a moral necessity. As the last months, we have also barricaded roads Plants engineered to withstand repeated Kurt Vonnegut would have said: “so it goes” ” with dumpsters, burned banks, injured spraying also have the unique ability to absorb (Dark Ecology). Indeed, as you could read in the journalists, smashed shop windows, and large amounts of it and remain healthy, earning claim for an Anonymous web attack on attacked cops. For us, the attacks against the them the title “pesticide plants”. All over the Monsanto, “In 2006, AGRA, Alliance for a Green system are essential to our struggle. But we’ve world these pesticide plants are also fed to the Revolution in Africa, was established with fooled ourselves. A struggle does not consist animals on the meat, milk, eggs production funding from Bill Gates and The Rockefeller only in attacks. The attacks are not more lines. The longest­term feeding study ever on Foundation. Among the other founding members important than the need to care for ourselves, to GMOs found that rats fed a lifetime diet of GM of, AGRA, we find: Monsanto, Novartis, Sanofi­ preserve and spread our collective history, to maize became as ill as those fed the herbicide Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Procter and Gamble, create relations based in the gift, solidarity, and glyphosate (Roundup). The increasing Merck, Mosaic, Pfizer, Sumitomo Chemical and reciprocity, to imagine new worlds and new introduction of GMOs is leading to an increased Yara. The fact that these corporations are either struggles, to confront our isolation and establish use of animal experiments, as this is a chemical or pharmaceutical manufacturers is no subversive and honest relationships with people coincidence.” At the G8 summit of outside of the categoric and political ghetto in world leaders in 2013, the British which the Spectacle hides us” (Communiqué for prime minister pledged £395 Anarchist Actions in Barcelona & Response to million from the UK Aid budget to the Nihilist Comrades). support private initiatives involved 5. ed. – For a more nuanced account of in spreading GM crops in Africa; anarchist organisation, we recommend the an investment under the guise of relevant sections of 'A Wager on the Future'. aid, to lock small­scale farmers into a dependency on corporate 6. ed. – The monarch butterfly (Danaus providers of seeds and chemical plexippus) is considered an iconic pollinator fertilisers. species. A 2016 study attributed a decade's ten­ fold decline in overwintering numbers of the 3. ed. – “Finally, we must take into eastern North American monarch population to account a factor that works to the the loss of breeding habitat (namely the many detriment of natural biodiversity species of milkweed), highly correlated with the Bombing by the Earth Liberation Front of the ultra- and environmental equilibrium: adoption of herbicide­tolerant G.M. corn and soy, polluting genetic-engineers BASF's Netherlands the genetic pollution affecting the which now constitute 89% and 94% of these headquarters, in Arnhem, 16.04.96 flow of genes that normally takes U.S. crops respectively, with heavy glyphosate. 37. ' THE MATTER OF KNOWING WHO WE ARE '

The bourgeois definition of class society, delineated by essential or cultural differences, went out of date a long time ago with the universalization of a consumer culture, which unites bourgeois elements with proletarian elements and newer elements. If in the past anarchist companions[1] could throw a few orsini bombs[2] into the Liceu Theater it is because in that epoch only the bourgeoisie could be found there.[3] Currently, the average customer in a cinema in Nou Barris will be poorer than the average customer in Sarrià[4], but there is no defined line between the two groups; neither will consist exclusively of owners, politicians, and their wives and both groups are probably watching the same film, a radically significant difference with the prior epoch.

It is even clearer that the Marxist definition The guidelines of the class war, in it another way, a being of the world. of classes is no longer in effect. If we those times when we all seemed to Once we have replaced in our imaginary understand classes as a difference in the belong to one class or another, the commune of citizens or the commune relation to the means of production, of producers, which is to say that of slaves obviated an important truth right up and machines, with the commune of currently very few people are actually until the historical moment in which owners of anything. Nearly all the means worldly beings; once we know in our bones the good proletarians began to of production are in the hands of banks or the good proletarians began to that we are the heirs of a tradition of corporations whose directors, that is to convert themselves into rebellion against a process of colonization say, the wealthy, earn a wage. An revolutionary bureaucrats. The begun in a first instant by ourselves in the incredibly high wage, but a wage revealed truth is that the enemy is form of autochthonous patriarchies and later carried out by a new State and its nonetheless, and if they don't do their job not a class but a point of view, a nascent capitalism [ed. – see Return Fire well, they can be fired (even subjectivity, and all of those who democratically, by the stockholders). vol.3 pg87]; then there is nothing else but look at their lives from above, Sometimes they're even sent off to prison. to struggle with all our strength and across Meanwhile, an ever growing part of the whether a banker or an immigrant the length of our lives, struggle with more poor are also being paid with stocks in mother on welfare, have taken the force than that which can be added up in their own companies; ever more of them side of domination. the few years it falls on us to live through, have access to capital, even if it is in because in our struggle we concentrate a [5] miserable quantities. Rich and poor exist, The comisiocrats of 15M who feared continuity of rebellion that has lasted without a doubt, but tied to the system spontaneity and needed to centralize centuries and will last for centuries more. with mechanisms that are more and information and all decision­making spaces; the employees who agreed to Once we wipe that colonization clean from more equal. It is precisely the unification salary cuts in order to save the company; our beings and understand as something of their relation to the means of production the citizens who identify with their alien and imposed all thinking linked to the that has dissipated the difference between politicians; the syndicalists who take on the State, including the most democratic, the them. problematic of raising production and the most civic, the most progressive, our progressives who take on the problematic utopias will no longer betray us like so And if the system no longer needs classes of security, crime, and terrorism; anarchists many times in the past. Once we to reproduce itself and if there was neither in '36 who got themselves off on the understand not only the hierarchies but rupture nor revolution in the dethroning of opportunity to join the government and put also order, democracy, production, the bourgeoisie (belying the Marxist thesis, their supposedly libertarian economic equality, and unity as a violent imposition, which confused the relation between theories into practice[6]; the activists who all the recuperators in our midst will start to economic power and political power), by care about their image in the media; the look like invading Martians, and it will be what force does it govern? scientists who reduce climate change and that much more difficult for them to trick mass extinction to carbon levels and us. For all these reasons the [Put another way], if the son of immigrants temperature statistics. communication and diffusion of other can become president of France or of the imaginaries and a history of our own is United States, if there are poor people who The enemy is a subjectivity, it is falling into vital. spend their lives imitating rich people and the trap of putting the needs of order the system can get rid of any one of its above our own desires. The most The social war is this: a struggle against directors, even sending them to prison to profoundly rebellious act is to understand the structures of power that colonize us reinforce the illusion of justice, how do we oneself as a being that lives through an and train us to view the world from the recognize the enemy? entire web of other living beings, or, to put perspective of the needs of power itself, 38. through the metaphysical lens of with extra­ domination, in which the universe has a neighborhood center and follows laws and can be networks only quantified and assigned value. The prize among people from for winning the social war is not physical the scene. (the taking of factories and land) but metaphysical (the reappearance of the To create world). relationships in the neighborhood, that The Social War in the Beginning is, natural instead Having come to this point, we can assume of arbitrary ones,[9] that in the beginning, we are quite alone in it is necessary to our social war. The few places where there behave in a is general support for a struggle against surprisingly old­ progress and order tend to be indigenous fashioned way, territories where people still remember talking with their colonization, have never surrendered neighbors about to it and have collaborated with it less than family and the have the people of fully conquered lands. weather, baking In the West, the few generalized struggles them cakes, inviting also have something to do with anticolonial them over to eat, struggles, as in Euskal Herria [the Basque taking care of their Country], Ireland, or among the kids, asking their descendants of slaves in North America, help to fix the but given that for a long time they have refrigerator or move understood their anticolonial struggle in a mattress. And national terms, they have swallowed the above all this metaphysic and the social relations of their attitude cannot colonizers and, as such, are fighting to come from a reproduce another model of the dominant pragmatic calculation designed to create a Minneapolis, U.S.A.; colonial momument civilization, with a different flag and other symbolically blood-splattered and tagged holidays.[7] network between anarchists and normies, to “build the neighborhod,” rather struggle with weapons adequate for To fight against a colonization of which it must arise because you sincerely miss sabotaging order. hardly any popular memory remains is, in the lost commune. This is “appearing in the beginning, to appear crazy. In a the lives of the others”. It is normal that in the season of the schizophrenic society, the most coherent[8] rupture, more rebels will approach social people must lack shame. Only the boldest Someone who is not motivated to get to positions, seeking complicity outside of the person can be the first to break a norm know their neighbors, which is to say a traditional affinities. In this way they can when they see that norm is oppressive. In more antisocial person, is not capable of play the important role of finding an age when very few people understand creating an intra­neighborhood network. confluence between the different conflicts, themselves as combatants in a social war, But they are capable of doing something eroding the single­issue alienation with they will be isolated and as such they will equally important: fomenting the struggle which mediatic democracy disciplines legal think affinity is the most important and the combative, antisocial spaces that movements. And within this new characteristic in their struggle. Simply to attract all the other freaks, isolated ones, conflictivity born in the collectivization of all exist and begin to gain visibility, losers, and solitaires who always constitute the complaints that before were companions will have to defy the social the struggle in ages when the State is monopolized by progressives, within this peace, which means having a disposition strong enough to fake a lack of real new totality of antagonisms, the towards antisocial attitudes. problems. companions disposed to put themselves alongside the others will be able to carry These isolated rebels will grow stronger Society in Rupture out a critical participation and spread anarchist visions and tactics. But if they creating ties with other rebels who live in And when the bold and isolated have trick themselves and fall into populism – other neighborhoods, other towns, or other achieved the exhumation of the social which is to say, forget who they are, forget cities. Thus they can multiply their peace – or if this is achieved by their heritage of thousands of years of strength, exchange ideas, avoid isolation, spontaneous events – and the others struggle, in order to accept the democratic protect themselves from repression, in begin to take to the streets and question prejudices that will make it easier for them sum: create a small tribe or nomadic the dominant order, which is to say, when to comunicate with people still immersed in commune that moves across a mute and there is a social rupture or at least an normality – they will betray the struggle sterile social terrain. Yet by seizing the affective rupture with normality, what do and betray themselves. strategy necessary for survival, they those who have already spent a long time place an obstacle in their path, which rebelling do? many struggles have never managed to In the moment of populism and possibilism, the antisocials have the vital surpass. Knowing only the relations of They will be much better positioned if they role of keeping alive the idealism that the affinity, they become incapable of breaking have already worked towards resolving the companions who are forgetting the goal of with the isolation created by the mediatic tension between their social and antisocial the struggle have lost; of provoking; of State and by the conservative customs of attitudes, if they have already begun to making impossible any pact with normality; society itself. appear in the lives of the others and of continuing to attack and destroy; of learned how to act in heterogeneous going farther and ridiculing any self­ In a city with many companions, a spaces; but also if they already have a interested pragmatism. tendency forms, among others, to strong practice of attack to supply the new substitute intra­neighborhood networks 39. Often the ruptures don't last long or spread[10]. Anarchist interventions can “The insurrection is the meeting of society at the barricades assembled sabotage the recuperators who attempt to from the smashed remains of everything that isolates us. For me it is a vital concept neutralize them; they can bring more fuel in the anarchist vision of revolution, and it is something that we must prepare the to the fire by transmitting experiences of ground for and fertilize at every moment, even and especially when it seems like the self­organization and attack. In the wrong moment. Just as the anarchists of Spain would never have been able to resist moment of rupture, those who remain in Franco’s coup [ed. – see Who Is It?] and create space for a revolution if the pistoleros their antisocial position cannot respond [ed. – see Return Fire vol.2 pg80] had not irresponsibly embarked on a course of with agility, and those who reject their old armed struggle a decade earlier, I think the anarchists in Greece facilitated a social antisocial position will disappoint themselves when the situation calms down insurrection when they wed their uncompromising and illegal approaches with again, if they do not betray it first. Both recognition of the importance of communicating with society, in the years before attitudes are necessary to confront the true December 2008 [ed. – see The Exharchia Communes Rises & Defends Itself]. The question. ability to be antisocial allowed them to adopt a course Greek society was not ready for, and the need to be social brought them back to the people who would eventually rise Who Are We? up, because the insurrection is a function of society and not of a political movement, as All the terms they have given us to answer important as those movements may be in the development of necessary social this question are inadequate. We need to characteristics. The anarchist participation in those movements, because it was both reconstrue the web of signifiers itself, the critical and enthusiastic, won a greater visibility for anarchists and their ideas. grammar that operates invisibly between Simultaneously, the fact that the anarchists had never succeeded in consolidating as a the proferred elements. As [Michel] single movement seems to have helped them immensely to diversify and spread and Foucault points out in Les Mots et les include a greater portion of society [ed. – see 'Combative Solidarity']. And in Choses, in the classical age (the 17th December, the lack of a single program and the diversity of strategies made the task of century), the sign stops being a worldly police repression impossible. What the rebellion in Greece shows, as do the rebellions form and loses its affinity and organic in Kabylia, Oaxaca, and China, is that although insurrection becomes second nature to relation with the signified. Previously, there was a fundamental grammar that rested on everyone and vanguards can only get in the way, the insurrection does not a magical vision of the world based on spontaneously provide the people with what they need in order to go from insurrection sympathies and symmetries that served to to revolution. We still have to find the answers to certain questions, and those of us justify the established order. We can who never go back to normality, those of us who keep dreaming of freedom, need to imagine – and there are archaeological suggest and deploy these answers when the moment comes. Once we’ve burned traces – an even older fundamental everything, how do we reveal and attack the social relationships that underpin grammar resting on a magical order in capitalism and the State? What structures and infrastructure can we target that will which the power of transformation was weaken the counterinsurgency without putting society in a passive disaster mode, within everyone's reach, in contrast to the waiting to be rescued? How do we help other people believe in another world they Renaissance [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 would be willing to fight for, and to spread visions of stateless, communal societies that pg54], when the world, although magical, begin now? […] Spontaneity is a crucial element without which the insurrection would was an already written text and the only not exist, but spontaneity is not a God that will deliver us from Egypt if we walk magic consisted in discovering it. through this desert for long enough. The anarchists, doing what they always do, miss The new rationalism facilitated an strategic opportunities that previously had never been possible. The apolitical people, aggressive change in the established exercising secret desires, will have their spirits crushed when a temporary return of order, another step away from the world order prevents them from being the selves they only just discovered, and with the help and towards alienation. Language became of this demoralization the temporary return of order will win the appearance of being an arbitrary species, something to be permanent. But order is never permanent. Although we may never achieve the world analyzed outside of its terrestrial context. we want, the very dynamics of control and rebellion ensure that we will never lose and The knowledge of the new science the State will never win. Either we will destroy it, or we will continue fighting against it achieved its ideal form in the chart, the and troubling its pathological dreams forever. Nature itself is chaotic, making total encyclopedia, the zoo: a neutral space, control impossible. We may not have ultimate defeats and they may not have ultimate objective and even invisible in which to victories, but there are steps forward and steps backward.” expound a series of units ordered in accordance with a logic that hides the – What Greece Means (To Me) For Anarchism violence that uprooted them from their organic relation with the world [ed. – see A Together with this change, human beings around. In the rebellions against feudal Green Anarchist Critique of Science]. And have ceased to be a perfect reflection of a order and incipient capitalism, rebels if in recent years the sciences have begun divine order in the world and they have seized the torch of the believers, they to show an interest in spontaneous orders, been converted into, on the one hand, signaled the authorities as the evil ones in the network of relations and interactions beings that have nothing to do with the and it was in the name of God that they between things, it is not because they have world because they have surpassed it[11], burned priests, disemboweled counts, and begun to see the world, but because they and on the other hand, biological machines proclaimed the free commune, “the world have fully taken the machine apart, made of the same raw material as the turned upside down”. Regarding the scrutinized its elements to the umpteenth entire dead and mute universe. second class, the hierarchies of the age degree and now are beginning to put it also delimited the lines of war; it would not back together again and get it running so The prior Christian order was based on be possible to be part of the aristocracy or that everything functions according to their categories of identity that were transparent the church – which would mean owning the commands. It is no longer a question of and simple, as useful for the rebels as for lands of others and directly involving capturing some or many elements from the the authorities. Everything was based on oneself in administering their oppression – world and using them as tools for the good the dichotomy between good and bad and also rebel against that system.[12] In of the economy, but of reconstituting the (believers and infidels) or in one's position fact, it was the new bourgeoisie – who had world as a great machine [ed. – see within the social hierarchies. The first class no defined place in the old classifications Return Fire vol.4 pg73]. of each category was very easy to turn 40. but could only be understood as belonging libertarian utopia, but another complex Though there is not a final answer to the to the ranks of the oppressed given their of hierarchies with fewer possibilities question, “Who are we?”, we can approach lack of noble blood or position in the for control. There are many people on the truth by better understanding what they Church – who diverted the struggles that other continents who can claim a free have stolen from us in order to convert us almost destroyed Authority and directed commune that was crushed by capitalism – into the lost beings we currently are. As them towards the formation of the current a before to reconstruct – but those of such, we should arrive at a better system. European descent[14] (or Asian in the great understanding of capitalism. Contrary to majority of cases[15]) cannot. In the the official history, which is believed by In contrast, all the categories within European case, capitalism arose from a many anticapitalists, capitalism did not which we understand ourselves today civilization divided into a series of feudal arise from “mercantilism” in the 18th to serve to hide the fracture lines of the territories and cities with distinct balances 19th centuries. We gain nothing by social conflict. None of them contain all of power between authorities and people, understanding capitalism in this way, of those who must struggle, on one side, all loosely united by the Catholic hierarchy. dividing history into symmetrical phases and all that we must destroy, on the other. The latter was a collective attempt by a just because. On a global level, there was Citizen/foreigner; obviously not. decentralized network of elites to a great change whose defining features Man/woman; neither [ed. – see Return safeguard the fragments of the dream of appeared and achieved hegemony Fire vol.3 pg35], unless the ones from domination of the fallen Roman Empire between the 15th and 17th centuries. It SCUM[13] are right, a possibility I would not [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg76], which was a heavy blow, the invention of a new be biologically capable of ascertaining nor itself was a logical evolution of the social motor of power that would impel all asserting. Human/animal; on the most democratic Roman Republic, which was a the subsequent changes in the forms of morbid days, it would seem to be valid, but bold project of warlike brotherhoods of social control. We inhabit a completely who will administer the revolutionary Italic tribes, a society with very little family different reality if we understand the genocide if not ourselves? Such a question hierarchy (perhaps less than any other current system as one that flowed or reveals the incapacity of this category to society in the world that has ended up evolved naturally out of the prior one, and illuminate a criterion for liberation. creating a State), a very free society not as something that was violently People/government; first democracy and according to the patriarchal­occidental imposed in accordance with specific then fascism have obscured this distinction concept of freedom[16]. Why did they favor strategies during a particularly agitated age to the point of converting it into a mere warfare and minimize feminine spaces of social war. demogogic trick. Worker/owner; it excludes within the civitas? Why did they unburden If Adam Smith [ed. – Scottish philosopher the invisible ones who still resist the logic themselves of wide and defined family and author of 'The Wealth of Nations', the of production and it obviates the fact that relations (the clan, segmentary lineage) first modern work of economics and the the work that animates workers will always but without creating another concept of the foundation of free market theory] identified dominate them, even if they organize it collective, moving instead towards an capitalism as something distinct from themselves [ed. – see Return Fire vol.1 atomization and privatization of the earth mercantilisim, it is because he was pg59]. Besides, many owners work and and tolerating a weak aristocracy that constructing the ideology of capitalism, many workers receive such privileges that evolved in parallel with the brotherhoods? which needed to hide its roots in the war We could ask similar questions of the they act more like owners. Rich/poor; but against the communes in the colonies and Germanic tribes that conquered Rome but just until recently, the European masses in Europe, and portray its creation as a quickly assumed its dream, already having thought they were rich. free contract between isolated individuals much in common. But in no case will there in an already existing commoditized Currently, there are no categories that help be a definitive answer. terrain, as though it were something us understand our history, our relation with natural. the system and our desire for liberation. Nor can we give the easy answer that The closest to this last criterion would be “we are human beings and human It was between the 15th and 17th centuries an ideological category, an “ism”. But it is beings are like this,” because in the that banks appeared and extended their not our adherence to a doctrine that same history we find the silenced role power. It was then that money ceased to defines our relation with the system, our of the Slavic and Celtic tribes who for be a symbol of exchange – a token common history, and the rebel desires we the most part did not seek commissioned express to a greater or lesser degree! The to erect a State in the by a king to category of “anarchist,” perhaps the most Roman style as the authorize and pure, does not approach the “good” of Germanic tribes did; rather quantify yesteryear because tying the moral value many of them resisted the commerce in to the ideology creates a moralism and a empires of the day and also order to possibility of vanguardism incompatible resisted the Church[17]. In appropriate a with anarchy; what's more, the majority of 983, when the Slavic share, as it people who create and who will create inhabitants of the place where had been since anarchy are not anarchists. we now find Berlin rebelled its invention by against the Germanic nobles the first states Beyond the given categories, one finds an that had installed themselves [ed. – see entire process of uprooting that invades all atop them, like parasites[18], 'Rejoin the the spheres of existence. They have done they killed or kicked out the Circle'] – and so much to make us forget who we are, to priests and nobles and began to be leave no word nor memory that might afterwards lived in peace: the principal illuminate a pure being that existed before horizontal, pagan, and free. form of all their processes of colonization and that Two centuries later, in the production in can still communicate with us through all year 1147, the Church had to itself, the the thick mists of history! We can only declare a Crusade parthenogenic imagine when the mistake began. against them to A warrior of the Pictish Celts (of what's creation of now Scotland) who repelled the Roman reconquer them and value, debt, As we have noted, in the continent of its expansion; Celts are known more for their subject them to authority. legacy in Wales, on Eire, and in Brittany and birth capitalism did not replace a than on Mann, in Galicia and in Asturias 41. speculation. As such it was then that speculation and price inflation began, first with food, creating a new mechanism of blackmail. It was then that the institution of wage labor as we currently understand it appeared, something inseparable from the forcible theft of self­sufficiency, a process that also began in the same epoch with the The matter of knowing who we are flee with more people. The new installment of the old Roman laws that demands the creation of a new “we,” experiences of self­organization, the privatized communal land and with the a “we” that positions itself by way of new attempts to create the commune, beginning of enclosures [ed. – see Return the negation of a “they,” an enemy. must return to the dominated terrain to Fire vol.4 pg55] carried out to appropriate And this enemy is the rationalist, infiltrate in the imaginary of the people such land. This was also the beginning of democratic, and civilized way of who remain totally colonized. Each rural the criminalization of poverty and an project must maintain links with the city. seeing the world. We cannot use their unprecedented intensification of the role Each anarchist idealism must contaminate ethical guidelines. We cannot and techniques of the governing structures ethical guidelines. We cannot itself in the cloudy waters of the social in regulating and disciplining daily life and position ourselves within their movements. Our future is just as much the reproduction. At the same time, within the legality. We are not their citizens, we contamination as the reclaimed soil. We same process of the formation of the new are not the inhabitants of a country will only finally be born in full when the State, colonialism was impelled, something that has simply been occupied, as monuments of State and Capital lie in qualitatively distinct from the antique forms though capitalism were just a bad ruins. Meanwhile, we cannot be more than of imperialism and within which slavery neighbor and not the basis for our the negation of their system, the fragments was linked to wage labor, enabling its existence. As such, championing of a suppressed memory, the frustrated yet mercantilization (slaves produced above all “independence” does not suit us[20]. tenacious desire for freedom. goods for the consumption of the new “independence” does not suit us . The idea of self­defense carries with workers, thus subsidizing their cheap The idea of self­defense carries with Yet knowing that their system is alien to us, labor). They did the same thing with the it the possibility for coexistence. we will know that we musn't fight like good new feminine labor [ed. – see Return Fire Better would be the certainty that our citizens, but like barbarians, bandits, vol.2 pg8]. existence spells their destruction. gangs, antisistema[21]. We do not have leaders nor authorities nor followers; what In the face of all this, the changes of the [W]e are our loss, we are everything they we have are companions, including trees, Industrial Revolution and the end of have stolen from us. Only this can signal to lovers, children, friends, neighbors, earth, mercantilism are more a question of us what we might be in a free world. Only all the beings that comprise the web in degree and new techniques, just as this brings us together with all the beings which we live. A right cannot be eaten, a neoliberalism constitutes a change that dominated and colonized by Capital, law does not allow you to breathe, a boss arose from the very same capitalist bases. without using a false populism to constrain does not clean the house with you. All of those who are already at war. All of us who those who guarantee the illusory mode of It is necessary to understand that are living beings – who are not machines, life of the citizen are worthless. capitalism did not arise as an evolution of bureaucrats, police, or voluntary slaves – an earlier homologous system. It is have something in common: they have […] In the city and in the country, we have necessary because we should understand stolen the world from us, the commune, to recreate a bond with the earth and biopower[19] as a type of power that is the clean air, the forest, the stars, the proclaim the new communes. But we completely new and innovative and that celebrations of equinox and solstice, the cannot repeat the mistake of confusing a supplies the State with previously day and the night free from the chains of commune with a milieu that hides its lack unimaginable capacities; because we hours and minutes [ed. – see Memory as of material­affective relations behind a should understand the strategic role of the a Weapon; The Tyranny of the Clock], façade of politico­aesthetic relations. Each State and how close we came once to freedom of action, the running of our time we create a commune, we also destroying it; because we should bodies and lives and memories. If we have to flee from it, in order to take it understand the true bases and principles define “we” as our loss, we join with the everywhere, to infiltrate ourselves into the of capitalism unencumbered by free others, with those who do not struggle yet, daily life of the others, to choose open market ideology. without letting them disuade our actions by imperfection over closed perfection, to being a passive majority. If we identify include the obedient and timid in our There is now nothing beneath these bases. ourselves with our loss, we break with the subversion. Reality itself has been transformed and categoric isolation imposed on all those what was lost was the world, the who defy the roots of the system, and we Given that the people who are not currently interconnectivity of beings, and with it, the signal a path of struggle away from struggling will not become empassioned by knowledge of who we are. We could aspire dialogue and towards the recovery of all our commune, the latter will always remain to be the “creative nothing” of Stirner [ed. – we have been deprived of[…] half­finished, incomplete, abandoned. This see Return Fire vol.1 pg92], the “species is good. We cannot let ourselves be beings” of Marx [ed. – see New Not Horizontal, But Circular enclosed. As such, we do not aim for self­ Technologies, Extraterrestrial We need to develop a consciousness of sufficience, as this is a lie as long as the Exploitation & the Future of Capitalism], who we are, an identity that constitutes a State exists. It is better to only achieve a or the “future primitives” of Zerzan [ed. – circular motion. For every escape from the partial self­sufficience because the see Return Fire vol.4 pg92]. But for now, prison society [ed. – see Return Fire vol.1 important thing is not to tie ourselves down those are proposals and not realities nor pg7], we need to undertake an infiltration with the illusion that we have left the the memory of another reality. to smuggle in more metaphorical weapons, system behind, but to recover the carry out ideological sabotage, and then knowledge and abilities that late capitalism 42. has stolen from us. Today, operating an separated from “us” and forcibly liquidated. the community that exists as a memory invention as complex as a metro train is as No more perfect examples of anarchy are and as a hope, that contradicts capitalist easy as operating an elevator. Through needed. What we need are imperfect alienation even though it does not exist in industrialization and then automation, examples that interrupt the social peace, our daily lives due to its continuous capitalism has robbed us of the knowledge visibilize conflicts and awaken people's decimation[25]. we once had to feed ourselves, educate imaginary. They will be more useful if they ourselves, heal ourselves, provide are imperfect and near than perfect and far The pacification achieved by democracy ourselves with home and clothing, take away, already separated by an ideological often directs us towards a fetishization of care of ourselves, transport ourselves. enclosure that signals them as an element violence. And although pacifism is an That knowledge was our direct connection of an alien reality. irremediable weakness [ed. – see Return to the world when it still existed. We need Fire vol.1 pg16], aggressive attitudes can to recover it in order to recover the world. Identifying ourselves with our loss, we assume an exaggerated importance in our always move far away from capitalist circles. […] What we want is to recover our lives in normality and towards utopia, but at the a struggle that breaks with their civilization. same time we return to those who stay It is less important to be militant than to In the city we will squat vacant lots for within normality, because they also know who we are. The workers movement gardens and in the countryside we will comprise a part of our loss. […] The in France, for example, is very militant. cultivate, not to achieve full food antisocial tension is this: a balance They claim the use of sabotage and take sovereignty now, but to recover the ability between loving people for what they could their bosses hostage. But they fight to to feed ourselves, once it is actually be and sometimes are; and hating them for defend or achieve the dignity of being possible, and above all to influence the the indignity they swallow, the heights they Frenchmen [ed. – and elements have been reality of the others. We will learn self­ refuse to reach. known to repress those fighting differently; guided medicine and crafts to facilitate our see Clarification on the Attack on the lives in struggle and to serve as an open Dissidents of Utopia CGT Headquarters & on the Topic of invitation to everyone else: desert life in But the antisocial tension is not a mere 'Anonymous Disassociation']. In general the market already, in the commune we double line that has its strategic function in they have accepted the national idea, their take good care of ourselves! But these the current situation. It is a contradiction particular social contract, and there the projects of self­organization cannot serve one feels in their guts. It is the curse of State is stronger than in other European as the first step in a process that will solitude and the rejection of any limit. The countries, except those where the people replace capitalism, as the partisans of de­ antisocial or individualist concept of liberty accept the national idea and are also growth[22] believe. Capitalism will never is so extreme that it cannot be conciliatory instead of militant (e.g. the permit itself to be replaced because it is programmatic; it is not practical. But it is Netherlands or Germany). Aggressivity not a blind or unconscious structure. It has exactly such an impractical contradiction within labor struggles does not threaten the already devoured whole societies that that we need in order to avoid the power of the State because it occurs on a offered idyllic examples of how to live in a monstrosities of rationalism! The stage that forms part of the national idea. cooperative way. Capitalism must be rationalist revolutionary is the most destroyed. frightful horror history has ever seen: Building up in ourselves a great capacity having overturned the entire world, he for violence, at least we recover the [P]eople do not remain obedient for lack of [sic] has the possibility to order all the possibility to struggle, but we exclude examples of freedom, because they contradictions of nature and put in those people who by nature are not believe logically that no other life is practice the dictatorship of combative. The disgraceful truth is that possible. They believe because they are abstractions[23]. many of the historical strategic debates afraid to defy the system that dominates in libertarian circles have been nothing them but also keeps them alive. The logic, […] An antisocial tension will exist in any but the distinct socio­emotional needs the reasons, are all just justifications. future. Many anarchists fight because we clamoring for their prioritization within are very sensitive to the imposition of a struggle that obliges us all to choose The State is an addiction and a cautious norms. Born in an antiauthoritarian utopia, one and renounce the others. People bet. The difference between an example we would still see much hypocrisy and whose blood boils opt for insurrectionalism; and the imaginary is that an example of imposition. Above all we reject the idea of the patient ones who place importance on anarchy tries to convince, based on the a utopia in which rebellion is outdated and the opinions of others choose syndicalism; supposition that people live according to unnecessary. We don't believe in a impatient and creative people find their their ideals and their own choices, which is rebellion that will abolish the need to rebel, solution in individualism; and those who not the case. The imaginary is a tool. to transgress. Knowing that the only want to quickly solve the problems that People surrender because they are perfection is chaos[24], we will be unable to people suffer seek their path through a dependent on the system. Animating an create a new authority[…] certain activism. But strategies cannot be a anarchist imaginary returns to people a question of character. It shouldn't be like tool that is vital for the self­organization of Militants or Warriors? this. life. Nonetheless, we do not struggle to facilitate the struggle for anyone else. We There are severe and serious critiques that But the imaginary does not struggle for our own freedom and to must be made of syndicalism's concept of feed off of perfect examples of avenge our dead. We are not the militants production, Iberian insurrectionalism's idea of informality or Italian insurrectionalism's utopia that prove the of an organization or movement that will install the utopia. We struggle to aid others antirepressive practice, the leftism of possibility of another life. The only insofar as they form a part of activism, and so on. But each of these imaginary feeds off of ourselves. practices has turned into the refuge of a certain type of person, in a milieu where questions and contradictions, In certain aspects, or in the case of certain they can satisfy the emotional need that not complete answers. individuals if they are more egoist, we fight impelled them to struggle, be it the need to for our unique desires, to learn and to find affinity, to communicate with more [W]ith the discourse of progress and the grow; in other aspects we fight for the people surpassing the barriers of normality identity of the “civilized,” [anarchy] was community that sustains our lives and joys, and isolation, to attack power and destroy 43. of value. We are going far. If we attack combative posture of a warrior who attacks “Many anarchists seem blind to the from a place of anxiety and impatience one who is more powerful. We need real spirit of Authority, and they cling [ed. – see 'At the Root of My Survival'], arrogance to inspire us, to remind us that to central values of Western civilization, out of desperation, we will lose our even though we are alone, it is always like monotheism, objectivity, the right of strength when we do not produce possible to attack and we are braver than intervention. There are many different immediate results, when the inevitable the miserable cowards who work as thugs kinds of people, people with different repression falls. for the State. needs, so it follows that there should be But arrogance, if it is the only mood we are many anarchist strategies. But we […] The truth is we are fascinated by the image of being a few against the State. We capable of, hides those elements Western anarchists too often see have assumed our isolation, our necessary to survive repression. We also differing strategies as evidence that one antagonism with society, to the point of must be sensitive, humble, cautious, and side is right and the other is wrong. We maintaining it. We adore a Ravachol[26] attentive to the State's changes of mood make a dichotomy or a crusade where more than a Louise Michel[27] because we and its probable reactions to our attacks. there should be a tension or a balance. identify more with him who declared war […] It would be better if those of us who We may not believe in one God, but we on society and fought with a few affines, cannot live in their false peace because of still believe in one Truth, and we also than with her who moved among the anxieties that push us to struggle think we have the right of the barricades, assemblies, and tirelessly were, instead of militants, missionary to impose this truth on other neighborhoods, who did not only fire from warriors: the warriors of a community that people. I think this is a reason that bulwarks but also cured people or moved does not yet exist, but a community that nearly all anarchists are white. The them to action. also includes people with the heart of a tradition is Eurocentric, and we don’t healer, mother, artist, grower, builder, listen enough to other people, don’t The State has moods. It can go through storyteller, and even the people who reject allow other people to adopt anarchism to conciliatory and arrogant phases. It does community itself, who question it and leave it in order to seek out the heights and their needs without denouncing them.” not always act in its best depths Novatore spoke of [ed. – see – Void Network interview interest. The Return Fire vol.1 pg89], those who seek with Peter Gelderloos mode of to form Stirner's union of egos [ed. – see attack of a Symbiogenetic Desire]. A community of a deceitful peace, to ease the suffering of Ravachol all living beings, of all the people who have others. Given that each of these practices demands a refused or might one day refuse to be scorns the character of the others, each strong machines and slaves. All the others, those must also defend itself from the criticisms response who prefer to be functionaries, will die, no matter how unreasonable they become. from the either because they attempt to imprison State, and kill us, or because they will never learn Any strategy that does not embrace human because such to feed themselves without capitalism, heterogeneity is destined to fail. a mode because they believe food comes from the questions and supermarket. On the one hand, as the first weeds, those ridicules the of us who fight, now and always, are State's In this path, the most important thing is not different from those who only begin to fight strength. one or another attitude of struggle, but the during a rupture. On the other hand, there Even if it is in memory and the projection of who we are. is no sense in constructing our struggle in a conciliatory a way that excludes those who do not have mood, it will […] The insurrection cannot feed the heart of a militant. Anarchosyndicalism have to itself in that sterile terrain that and insurrectionalism both have committed quickly suffers a lack of imaginaries. We the error of underestimating all that is not respond with suffers a lack of imaginaries. We militance, whether that is the militance of repression to can burn everything that the revolutionary organization or the preserve the constitutes an obvious aggression militance that sustains an informal illusion of its against our lives – police stations, continuity of acts of negation of the monopoly on banks, government offices, and existent. force. perhaps, if we are very smart, the Arrogance television station – but we will hold […] The important thing is to find a always rhythm we can sustain and thus not provokes an back before the task of become the very ones to destroy us. arrogant transforming that which maintains Among us, there have always been the response. our survival in an abusive and more beautiful companions – the more “WE HAVE MAINTAINED A SILENCE But we manipulative way: the food sensitive, anxious, or brave – who CLOSELY RESEMBLING STUPIDITY”: cannot lie: industry, work, closed and single­ transform their lives into roses of fire, anarchist Niel Robert's the attacks graffiti near his 1982 suicide family dwellings, transportation, who will burn themselves in order to of all the bombing of the much-protested institutional education and set all the lies alight, who will explode Police Computer Centre in Ravachols institutional education and in bomb blasts in order to sound the Wanganui, Aotearoa, then of history fill healthcare; that is to say, the gears considered a groundbreaking furious beating of our heart: here we development in surveillance; us with joy of the capitalist system. are, still and always. currently, CCTV sensors in and hope. Wellington analyse behavioural The word […] The path towards rebel magic can only movement and even detect But it is we who will guard their beauty, graffiti paint fumes, while “arrogance” be pointed out. It consists of discovering those of us who receive their gift. We New Zealand police monitoring stems from our bodies, exploring the mysteries of the shouldn't continue building a culminated in a major 'anti- ancient world, the interconnectivity between the terror' operation against martyrology that teaches the hasty indigenous militants and their Greek and existent, the fact that we are our relations – path, the suicidal path, as the only one anarchist accomplices in 2007 refers to the that we are much more than ourselves, 44. that we live for thousands of years, that history and future mix, that in our own 1. transl. – “Compañeros” is usually translated as “comrades”, though “camaradas” also exists in brains memory and imagination are linked, Spanish. We have decided to use the literal that the earth itself is alive [ed. – see translation, “companions”, to avoid the partisan Return Fire vol.4 pg39]. It consists of connotations of “comrade”, and to convey the abandoning the philosophy of exchange intimate connotations of “compañeros”, even and value in favor of a philosophy of though these are more pronounced, perhaps mutuality and gift [ed. – see 'Anarchist uncomfortably so, in English. Perhaps the alternative sticks; we consider it worth a try. Relations in Practice'], of recognizing that we do not live through a measured 2. ed. – An early kind of grenade which explodes exploitation of resources that surround us; on impact; used in Felice Orsini's attempted 1858 instead we live thanks to the gifts of other assassination of French Emperor Napoleon III, then commonly by anarchists in the remaining 19th beings that also form a part of ourselves, century in Europe. that we should honor with gifts of our own. 3. transl. – In 1893 the anarchist Santiago It consists of recognizing that we can Salvador carried out an attentat [assassination] in achieve what we believe impossible, that the posh Liceu Theater on Las Ramblas, “Human regeneration can only Barcelona, killing some twenty members of high ten people with enough enthusiasm and emerge from cultural regeneration. society. [ed. – To vindicate his companion Paulino bravery can easily realize an attack that a (By ‘cultural’ I mean not the system of Pallás Latorre, a Catalonian­Argentinian anarchist hundred people doubting themselves could commodified mediations that currently whose attentat of a general during a military never do, that a person who is crazy parade sadly only killed the horse. Coincidently, pass under this term, but freely chosen enough can set five trained riot cops the bombs were thrown into the audience during actions and interactions characterised by running. But the craziness that permits the play “William Tell” which is the same play that spontaneous creativity). The attempt to the Emperor Napoleon III and his wife were on us this power is not a calculated bet but prompt human regeneration in the their way to during the attempt on their life by a surrendering of oneself to the world, a Orsini over 35 years earlier.] absense of cultural regeneration can all knowledge that dying is nothing more too easily result in totalitarianism. 4. Respectively, a poor neighborhood and a rich than returning to the earth. The crazy neighborhood of Barcelona. rebel is the one who understands herself Human and cultural regeneration are [sic] as just another element, but instead of dialectically interrelated, but the latter 5. transl. – Those who tried to locate power in the dozens of commissions and subcommissions that being fire or water or air she is the passion provides the all-important context within which the former can succeed. Fredy formed as part of the putrid experiment in direct for freedom and she will do what her democracy during the 15M movement. [ed. – The nature demands of her. One such as this Perlman, [talking of indigenous Spanish anti­austerity movement starting on March cannot be stopped, not even by killing her, resistance to civilisation]: “The 15th 2011 which became known as the because she is not an individual but a spirit resistance is not primarily a clash of “indignados”. From 'From 15M to Podemos': that travels from body to body, visiting even arms[...] The resistance is in the “Before the 15M movement started, Barcelona had already witnessed a one­day general strike with the most timid if they know how to open drums, not in the spears; it is in the majority participation, in which anticapitalist themselves to the world. music, in the rhythms lived by discourses were frequent if not predominant, and communities whose myths and ways which resulted in large scale occupations, rioting, continue to nurture and sustain them...” looting, and clashes with police, constituting an important step in the reappropriation of street This passage raises the question of the tactics that would make other victories possible in relationship between drums and spears, the following years. A combative May Day protest culture and armed resistance. but we are had abandoned the typical route through the city not in the position of these indigenes: center to snake through several rich neighborhoods, sowing destruction and a small civilisation has deprived us of those measure of economic revenge. The 15M things that Perlman sees as the heart of movement broke out just two weeks later, and its resistance. We have no free communities official discourses called for total pacifism and of individuals, no life-sustaining myths symbolic citizen protests to achieve a better, healthier democracy through constitutional reform. and ways, no substantive community. Almost no mention was made, within this official So we cannot resist in the same way. discourse, of the conditions of daily life, of […] So what options are left? Clearly, collective self­defense against austerity and the for us, there must be a closer, more direct self­organization of our survival. But where informed relationship between the did this official discourse come from, and how was […] When an old lady marches in a protest it produced in such a huge, heterogeneous crowd? drums and the spears, even if the latter 15M wasn’t huge from the beginning. In fact, the and imagines the street free of cars and are subordinate to the former. But to first assembly in Barcelona, the first night on Plaça full of gardens; when a young boy lights forego the spears would be madness. Catalunya, there were just a hundred people fire to a shopping center that he and his The spears must have their place – but present. Some of these were adherents of “Real friends have filled with gas cans and Democracy Now,” a new group based in Madrid their place remains rooted in the world imagines a forest growing out of the ruins; that had produced the original call­out for the of the drums. And if the drums no countrywide protests and occupations. Their when a mother entertains the fantasy of longer sound, then we must beat them. discourse was extremely reformist and made no conducting her own birthing with friends in And if we have no drums, we must mention of the growing waves of real protest and a free community where her daughter will social conflict that had been growing in Spain, never know of prison, of marriage, of build them. And if we’ve forgotten how building off a tradition of struggle that contained a advertising that assaults her self­esteem, to play them, we must remember or great deal of collective knowledge. This history of pollution, of institutional education; learn again. And if we can’t renew our was absent from their perspective, which was continuity with the past, then we must perhaps the only way they could feasibly call for a when all those worlds flourish parallel to movement based on pacifism and legal reform. our own, we will be stronger than ever. make a virtue of our discontinuity and They did mention the “Arab Spring” [ed. – see make it all anew.” Return Fire vol.2 pg87], above all the uprising in […] We are the bomb in the heart of the – Beyond the Fragments Egypt, but only in the most condescending, machine that wants to grind us up. manipulative way. They described it as a nonviolent movement, and they portrayed it as 45. having already won its objectives, when, as is 9. Here I use these two words literally. Arbitrary is actually remarkably lucid in describing the actual clear now and was clear then for anyone with a relations are those that are chosen, that is, those inversion of popular stereotypes of the (hetero­) radical perspective, the struggle had only begun. of affinity. Natural relations would be those of the sexist mind (i.e. women = needy and weak, men = [...] Empowerment was little more than a slogan in family or neighborhood, even though nature itself strong and independent); what we found as the plaza. With even a hundred people in an is a construction [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 equally disturbing about it as the rampant assembly, not everyone can participate. Once the pg92], as one can choose how to understand essentialism is the proto­transhumanist desire for number of participants grew from the hundreds to family or where and with whom to live. a single­sexed breeding program, as if capitalism's the thousands, commissions and subcommissions reproductive technologies have not always been a started popping up like mushrooms after a rain. 10. ed. – “Contrary to what many have written, tool of the patriarchal­scientific establishment – Experienced moderators began directing the though an insurrection does meld all those who see Return Fire vol.3 pg26.] assemblies, putting in practice techniques for a enter its furnace, it does not surpass identity; in modified consensus process that had been fact pre­existing identities – not political beliefs or 14. ed. – At least one exception to the historically­ developed during the anti­globalization movement. courage or material poverty – are generally what successful colonisation of Europeans living Proposals were developed and consensed on in determine whether people feel called on to run into indigenous life­ways would be the nomadic Sámi commissions, then they had to be clearly read out that furnace, or to look on in astonishment. For this people of Sámpi (northern Scandinavia). They to be ratified by the general assembly. A hundred reason, despite all the poetry and encouragements have been seriously undermined by the people, if I recall correctly, could block a decision, of insurrectionists, insurrections do not leap establishment of national borders (Norway, Finland and a smaller number could send it back to the national boundaries. Those who considered and Sweden) and historical farming settlements commission for more debate. To truly have any themselves French did not join the immigrant creeping north, and by forced Christianisation, meaningful influence on a decision, someone insurgents of the banlieue [suburban estate boarding schools and sterilizations, with the usual would have to spend two to four hours during the ghettos], excepting a small number acting out a attendant suicide crisis among the young of a day at a commission meeting to draft the proposal, conscious political project (some of whom were culture undergoing destruction. After Swedish in addition to the several hours that the nighttime mugged by the insurgents, and others of whom eugenics claimed to prove the ‘inferiority’ of the general assembly lasted. More difficult proposals were accepted). In the Greek insurrection, people ‘Laplanders’, the modern Swedish state now want were in commission for days or a whole week, and who thought of themselves as living beings in to claim that Sámi is not an ethnicity at all so they in any case you had to go to the commission struggle against authority saw the protagonists as can complete their genocide, while still using meetings every day if you wanted to make sure one melded group; people who saw themselves as images of the culture for the tourism industry in a that the old proposal wasn’t erased by a new one. Greeks saw them as students, anarchists, and country whose world­famous social democracy Clearly, only a small number of people with a immigrants acting separately. The insurrections was and is build from the proceeds of the mining certain level of economic independence could that jumped state borders from Tunisia to Syria industry (see Return Fire vol.2 pg41) devastating participate fully in these directly democratic [ed. – see Return Fire vol.2 pg87] filled precisely Sámpi (among other projects). On top of industrial structures. Even if everyone enjoyed economic that vessel that gave its name to the revolt, the forestry, hydro­electric dams, military test ranges independence, the structures themselves Arab world. The nation, understood separately and wind parks, like all Arctic indigenous peoples necessarily function as funnels, limiting and from the nationalist projects of European states, is the Sámi are already feeling the effects of concentrating participation so that a large, simply the largest imaginary community a person industrial society’s global warming. heterogeneous mass can produce unified, can envision based on their history and their ability enumerated, homogeneous decisions. In any to communicate with the world around them. An 15. ed. – Again, with some exceptions; see Fraud, given assembly or commission, certain styles of insurrection, it should be obvious, occurs within Fantasy & Fiction in Environmental communication and decision­making are favored, the imaginary community of its participants. Writing/'The Invention of the Tribe'/Q. while others are disadvantaged. Direct democracy Knowledge of rebellion, particularly its images, 16. ed. – At his Anti­University event in London is just representative democracy on a smaller among the population of a neighboring country will this summer, Peter Gelderloos refers this tradition scale. It inevitably recreates the specialization, destabilize the political authority that seeks to first to Athenian democracy; which “had – and this centralization, and exclusion we associate with manage them, but that population will not rise up was very important to their society – certain existing democracies. Within four days, once the without an independent spark. The eros effect visions of freedom and equality. And I say 'certain' crowds exceeded 5000, the experiment in direct does not surpass local realities or strong identities. visions because the caveat is in this case the most democracy was already rife with false and We could speak here in terms of frictions of important part; this was a very patriarchal vision of manipulated consensus, silenced minorities, distance. The insurrection is as fluid and freedom and equality. It was equality between increasing abstention from voting, and domination unrestrained as a great wave, but it does not break men; freedom of citizens. So this gave this sort of by specialists and internal politicians.”] on smooth terrain. All sorts of inevitable identities and natural limits to empathy act as barrier reefs or warrior class of men the ability to conquer, to take slaves, although that took some time to develop... 6. ed. – Reference to the tragedy of the Spanish sea dikes to slow or stop the wave. On the one So within the society itself there had to be this Civil War, when ‘anarchists’ upheld democratic hand, immigration and globalized information equality among men. [This new democratic state] government in the name of anti­fascism: “Diego create empathic links that subvert these barriers; proved to be in both commercial terms and military Abad de Santillan, the anarchist economist who on the other hand, nationalism, citizenship, and terms an extremely effective model for state power, was eager to mobilize state power to impose an the media mobilize to neutralize the subversions. because it could ensure that you could get a much anarchist economic model [succeeded], partially, Radicals and organizers must counteract these larger percentage of the population actively in creating an anarchist dictatorship. [...] Catalan measures by proliferating a culture of serving as state agents (supporting what was in President Companys’ personal notes confirm the internationalism and solidarity and promoting the end an imperial project, and a project of reality on the streets: if the anarchists had only decentralized and self­organized media that can dominance, of conquest) much more effectively ignored the government, it would have spread images and news of revolt across the than these really top­heavy, hierarchicies based on disappeared, for it had become powerless after planet in the face of the selective censorship now competing family lineages and based on workers’ militias defeated the fascist coup attempt. in place, in which images of violence are almost unassailable privilege and many other factors that It was the CNT [ed. – see Memory as a Weapon; strictly associated with insecurity, and rarely with weren't present in this new Greek model of the The Origins of Victimisation] that resurrected the popular challenges to authority.” state. So this obviously has very important government, by accepting dialogue with Companys ramifications for today, if we understand and then by joining the Central Committee [of Anti­ 11. The vision of human surpassal of the world is democracy [as the emergence] of a much more Fascist Militias]” (A Critical Review of Anarchism & a logical evolution of the vision of the human powerful, much more militaristic model of the state; the City). reflection of the divine, while the materialization of the earth and all the things in it constitutes a one that was more effective at creating commerical rupture with the prior vision of a spirit or animus empires. [...] The Romans were extremely 7. The exceptions to this are highly interesting. For that unites and lives in everything, although patriarchal; and this is another society (like the example in Val di Susa [ed. – see Rebels Behind Christians prepared for that rupture by insisting Greek city states) formed by warrior brotherhoods Bars; A Letter from Anarchist Comrade Anna that only humans have souls. which had ideas of formal equality (internally) and Beniamino about Operation Scripta Manent & had ideas of the necessity of decision through More…], where there is generalized support for a 12. The many conflicts between layers of the elite, assembly, that then became a very effective struggle against progress. What elements make its such as priests, bishops, knights, and kings that empire.” exceptionality possible? characterized the Middle Ages constituted attempts to shift the balance of power but not the 17. ed. – “A destructive mode of being is somehow 8. transl. – In Spanish, “coherent” is not only way power was understood and reproduced. inflicted at an early age on every child in the internal, as in the coherence of the ideas held or Western world. One wants to call it Hebrew or words uttered by a single person, but also refers to 13. transl. – Valerie Solanas' “Society for Cutting Greek or Christian with Lynne White, but judging whether their ideas and actions cohere; do they Up Men,” a manifesto popular among Barcelona from the wreckage of the interiors of China and walk the talk. feminists in recent years. [ed. – The notorious text India, the Buddhists and Hindus offer no helpful 46. alternative. […] The poisoned ontology­ontogeny idea that a job is not something one does simply to capitalist: Switzerland (we should also mention carried into Europe by Mediterranean cultures [ed. survive, but that one is encouraged to pursue a job Scotland, which has a similar history with the – see Return Fire vol.3 pg87] between the fall of that blends leisure with labor, therefore paid hours presence of Calvinism and a strong participation in Rome and the Reformation [ed. – see Return Fire and unpaid hours are all spent toward the same the witch hunts, but which was never granted as vol.4 pg54] was diluted and resisted by the ends, is another aspect of Biopower. This is, of much autonomy since it lost its wars against pagans and heathens who were, ostensibly, course, a controversial idea. To imply that today’s England). Capitalism arose as a strategy of social converted. The desert mind from the social democracy is a refinement of yesterday’s control implanted by the elites who would form the Mediterranean rim, a Platonic [ed. – assertion of national fascism would be a tragic and impossible new State (progressive princes with bourgeois and Greek philosopher Plato that the ‘Real’ in ideal truth for many. Subjectification is the process Protestant theoreticians) but it was a renovated form lives outside of our possible experience], through which individuals and groups of people patriarchy that allowed it to put down roots and prophetic, self­centering, dualistic, schizoid, eco­ are molded and lured into accepted roles and completely change the terrain of existence.” We alienating way of being, could not have been less identities by dominating mechanisms and don't know the further thoughts of the authors on like the Celtic way that it eventually quashed and disciplinary technologies as permitted and this matter, but in an interview one Barcelona absorbed. As Japanese philosopher Watsuji assimilable by Empire. […] Today we experience anarchist further described the difficulties they Tetsuro has remarked, it is astonishing that a constant subjectification and re­subjectification: In were facing during the recent popular push for hemisphere of people in the north could believe the store I am the shopper, at home, the independence: “One thing that's really really that their whole existence hinged on things that consumer, or in the kitchen, the cook. Identities noteworthy is... most people in the street are happened to a small, distant, desert­fringe people such as male and female, gay and straight, hipster, extremely enthusiastic about it so any criticism of two millennia ago. […] The Protestants might be musician, or entrepreneur are all identities as the referendum process will be very difficult to get regarded as hard­liners who could see that the subjects. At the protest, we are collectively across[...] [because things are polarized] they'll northern pagans were doing to Christianity, the channeled into the role of the activist, or even automatically associate any criticism of the compromises that the Church was making to gain terrorist. In this sense, Empire has successfully referendum process with a position in favour of the a lease, the whole infiltration into the orthodox and constantly absorbed, or assimilated, dissident Spanish State, in favour of the historical religion as described by [Jean] Seznec in The elements of society by channeling them into a oppression of Catalan culture and language (I Survival of the Pagan Gods. Like the Indians of group that can be either demonized or mean it was largely prohibited during the fascist North America centuries later, who went democratized into the system, thereby eliminating regime; these things are important). If anarchists in underground with their religion as the American subversive activity. The act of turning individuals the past had never been sympathetic to certain [ed. – and Canadian, British, Spanish, French...] into subjects, more generally, is to make them aspects of national liberation (aspects which I government sought systematically to destroy their digestible to Empire; they then are circulated think should be important to anarchists [ed. – see culture, the Britons, Finns, Hungarians, and between apparatuses as needed by capital as a We Can Be Worse Still]; obviously not any inter­ Germans retained their “superstitions” in private means toward generalized control. There is a class kind of alliance, obviously not any support for and brought them masked to church. The prelates, place for everyone, and no one is left out” (The creating a new state, but support for self­ in what they thought was a strategy of assimilation, Ancient Origins of Biopower, Part III: organisation of human communities – which also kept the polytheistic holidays, but their success Domestication). includes linguistic and cultural elements), if none was their own perversion” (Paul Shepard). of us had been supporting those struggles in any way in the past, then if all of a sudden we just 18. This is how many States in Europe and Asia appear in the streets now when there's a possible began throughout history; influenced by the rupture then people will very easily see us as just example of another civilization, a group that we opportunists, with actually nothing to say. In the currently understand as an ethnicity [ed. – see past few years there's been some anarchist Fraud, Fantasy & Fiction in Environmental presence [in Catalan liberationist spaces] but Writing/'The Invention of the Tribe'/Q] formed as definitely not that much, and in part that's also a religious­bellic institution, conquering a because of the Left (I mean, the Left has been neighboring society and installing itself on top to interested more in hegemonic politics and not in colonize it and convert it into the base of their new entering any real debates, not in receiving State. criticisms), so overall the independence Left has been really vital in creating the sort of segregation 19. ed. – “[T]he practice of nation­states and their or separation between views which has made it regulation of their subjects through “an explosion harder to be critical participants in some kind of of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving movement around that. And now we're definitely the subjugations of bodies and the control of facing those limitations. And anarchists have been populations.” The science of Biopower, by in the streets, without a doubt, but it's just like this extension, is known as biopolitics. [Michel] overwhelming mass psychology is really hard to Foucault elaborates: “By this I mean a number of deal with and also really really dangerous; I mean phenomena that seem to me to be quite 20. ed. – Presumably a reference to the drive for if they win independence due to an act of popular significant, namely, the set of mechanisms through Catalan independence from the Spanish State; a disobedience and popular participation, then they'll which the basic biological features of the human matter which has of course been very topical once create a state which is much stronger than the species became the object of a political strategy, again of late. From elsewhere in the original text: Spanish State, which is suffering a huge crisis of of a general strategy of power, or, in other words, “It is not a coincidence that in the few places democracy; now you'll have a state in which (at how, starting from the 18th century, modern where people collectively resisted the witch hunts least in the beginning) there is no crisis of Western societies took on board the fundamental (and the patriarchal and capitalist advances they democracy, there's a great deal of loyalty, and biological fact that human beings are a species. represented [see Return Fire vol.1 pg6]) are the there's a reduced list of who the public enemy is, This is what I have called biopower.” Biopolitics is places with the strongest popular struggles in there would be a greater ability of the state to thus more simply a science of controlling and Europe of the 20th century: Euskal Herria and repress those public enemies, repress anarchists managing populations of people using the Eire. [transl. – And without overstepping our for example... So if there's fighting in the streets knowledge of their biological needs and impulses. bounds as translator, we might also mention the and people see anarchists fighting in the streets, The focus here is the manipulation of our sensual popular resistance in support of heretics going up against the police, going up against the experience of everyday life, the effective throughout the Middle Ages in the Balkans or the military if that's an issue [ed. – all of whom's leave recuperation of an entire species from their era proximity of the Cathar territories [ed. – diverse was cancelled at the time, though not reported and displaced into an increasingly technocentric Christian heretics (often with a focus on gender upon], then we'll win more camaraderie, more and inversed society. One example would be the parity, and against taxation by the Catholic Church) solidarity, and it might be more difficult for the new transition from fascist control to democratic control. against whom in the south of France a crusade state afterwards to repress us, but yeah, it's a Implementing the tools of voting, representation, was launched by the Pope in 1209, playing a role difficult situation. [...] It's a situation where it's and state­ funded aid to further pacify citizens and in the creation and institutionalization of both the really hard to defend an anti­authoritarian concept implement them within the process of control. Dominican Order and the Medieval Inquisition] to of independence and self­determination without Labor unions and other progressive reforms in the Pyrenees, and thence to Catalonia.] Neither defending [an] authoritarian and ultimately modern mass society could even be within the can it be coincidence that the [European] country nationalist concept of political independence.” interests of power, creating a more passive that fought most fiercely for its political Another recent text 'About Catalonia' also stressed population, blurring the lines of responsibility for independence, but did not solidarize internally the historic legacy of cross­class nationalist the traumas inflicted by the culture as a whole. The against the imposition of an even more intensive alliances: “In a civilized southern Europe, which population then feels invested in the flow of capital, Christian patriarchy today enjoys an autonomy that has been hierarchized for more than two thousand even identifying with the their productivity. The means very little and has become extremely years, which has known the notorious influence of 47. the Roman Empire [then] the Catholic Church or of a Committee of Public Safety (or Public Health), attempts to control the underlying chaos. Even various Maghrebian civilizations, Catalonia a police organization that considered itself the some anarchists failed to see this. Like many emerged as an important power from the Middle embodiment of the general will. The virtuous others, they got distracted by the aura of officiality Ages onwards. The First Catalan State was born in committee members conscientiously applied the – the titles and processes, commissions, 1162, with the unification of several counties findings of reason to human affairs. They schedules, and diagrams. All that was a farce. The previously under the control of local lords. Its court considered themselves the nation’s surgeons. imposition of an official framework was intended to then adopted Catalan as the official language. They carved their personal obsessions into society redirect our attention just the same as it sought to Later, the region was integrated into the Kingdom by means of the state’s razor blade. The control our participation. Next time, hopefully, we of Spain, retaining certain institutional privileges, application of science to the environment took the will know not to take it seriously.” the fueros, negotiated by its elites for themselves, form of systematic terror. The instrument of and not for the beautiful eyes of the miserable, the Reason and Justice was the guillotine. The Terror 25. ed. – Some (though clearly not all) who use exploitation of whom they lived off, not without decapitated the former rulers and then turned on the term egoist would consider the two some conspicuous luxury on the part of Lerida, the revolutionaries. Fear stimulated a reaction that inseparable; see Symbiogenetic Desire. Girona, & co.. This is what we are referring to swept away the Terror as well as the Justice. The 26. ed. – As the Dutch­French anarchist François when we speak of a Catalan nation. It is from this mobilized energy of bloodthirsty patriots was sent Claudius Koenigstein was better known, sent to mythical past that the Catalans of today derive abroad, to impose enlightenment on foreigners by the guillotine in 1892 for a string of bombings their origins. Some “libertarians” fantasize about force, to expand the nation into an empire” (The including that of the living quarters of the executive an ancient autonomy, which obviously does not Continuing Appeal of Nationalism). of the Public Ministry and the councillor who had include those subjects who expressed their anger. presided over the Assises Court during the trial of There has in fact never been any popular 24. ed. – Again, from 'From 15M to Podemos': three imprisoned and tortured anarchists. autonomy in the history of Catalonia, if we were to “Even during the general assemblies, the chaotic judge the result – the achievements of an margins could not be extinguished. Many 27. ed. – “Louise Michel, terror of the bourgeoisie. opposition to its elites, any more than there’s been thousands of people boycotted the votes. Some of The bastard child of a twilight aristocrat and a poor anything similar in neighboring Provence or us refused on principal, as anarchists, to legitimate servant woman, she grew up in poverty and Occitania [ed. – on the 'French' side of the such farcical exercises of authority in the name of became a schoolteacher in Paris in the 1860s. She Pyrenees]. Everywhere, the historical struggles of the people, a collective whole that was only first published a book on education for the the peasants or craftsmen have been confronted effaced by the artificial imposition of unity. Many developmentally impaired titled, “No more idiots, with the various fractions of power: those of the others didn’t vote because they found the no more madmen”; colleagues recalled her as a monarchy, the Church or the commercial and assembly boring (much like the child in the compassionate and radically innovative teacher. merchant nobility, which have never ceased to classroom who daydreams, not because she [sic] Converted to anarchism by another woman who claim and negotiate local privileges as against the is unintelligent, but because she is, in fact, more had run a sort of neighborhood Food Not Bombs central power, against their loyalty towards it. [...] intelligent, because she is not engaged by the during the Prussian siege [of wartime Paris], she Language, like social organization, is largely authoritarian, pacifying method of education). became one of the fiercest militants of the Paris derived from the hierarchical relationships of Others because, once the crowds had surpassed Commune. Beforehand, she had participated in societies in “our” region of the world. There are, of fifty thousand, they couldn’t get close enough to the Vigilance Committees in Montmartre, which course, certain peculiarities, social practices which hear. The margins of the plaza became an unruly arranged mutual aid for the poor and planned may oppose certain forms of power, or power country of whispered conversations, criticisms, protests against the emperor and later the new itself, which are especially forged in struggles. But and occasional heckling. Weren’t all these other republican government. She would first attend the this part of southern Europe is not a region of spaces also decision­making spaces? Don’t we Women’s Vigilance Committee, then often would “peoples” who have preserved a way of life and make decisions in every moment of our lives? Why head over to the meeting of the Men’s Committee, “autonomous” logic vis­a­vis the external power, as is the formalized, masculine space of an assembly dressed in male military attire. In early 1871, the existed in regions of the world where populations more legitimate than the common kitchen, where new Republican government attempted to disarm of tribal people lived who had not known many decisions and conversations also take the French people to secure its own position. In civilization. It is a territory whose borders have place? Why is it more legitimate than the hundred March, concerned about the rebellious workers moved, a region of cathedrals and castles, the clusters of small conversations and debates that who refused to hand over the cannons they used land of crusades against the Cathars, the City of take place during the day, on a small scale, to defend the city against the Prussians, the the Popes, the Inquisition and trade, of allowing people to express themselves more Republican army marched into Montmartre. Louise colonization. […] And if among the famous intimately and more fully? Even if we participate in Michel is staying at the house of the radicals who Catalan conquistadores, there are certainly not as every formal decision, are these the same are holding on to the cannons. The house is many Catalans as Basques, history still recalls decisions we would arrive at in spaces of comfort, surrounded by soldiers; many are arrested, some sympathetic characters such as Joan Orpí i del spaces of life rather than of politics? Is it possible killed. The soldiers pay no attention to a woman, Pou, last conqueror of Venezuela, Gaspar de that our formal selves become a mere who, posing as a nurse, slips out, and then sounds Portolá in Mexico, etc.” representation, a manipulation produced during a the alarm call, rousing the vigilance committee to few boring hours of meetings that is used to the defense of the cannons. A workers militia 21. transl. – “Antisistema” is the word the Spanish control us during all the other moments of our confronts the soldiers, while old women put their press assigned to extralegal political and cultural lives? [...] Again and again in the plaza, we saw a bodies in front of the cannons and contemptuously rebels, principally so as not to visibilize anarchists correlation between democracy and the paranoia refuse to be moved. The generals demand that the by mentioning them. It carries with it the odor of of control: the need for all decisions and initiatives soldiers fire on the crowd. The soldiers refuse. By dangerous, uncivilized radicals. to pass through a central point, the need to make the end of the day, the generals are dead and the the chaotic activity of a multitudinous occupation entire city is rising in revolt. The Paris Commune 22. transl. – “Decrecimiento” refers to an anti­ legible from a single vantage point – the control revolutionary and anti­capitalist movement that has begun. On the barricades, Louise Michel fights room, as it were. This is a statist impulse. The tirelessly, helping lead the people’s defense seeks to slow and then reverse economic growth need to impose legibility on a social situation – as a non­conflictive way to transform capitalism. against the invading army and refusing to and social situations are always chaotic – is surrender. When the city falls and she is finally This current could contain anyone from ATTAC shared by the democracy activist, who wishes to [ed. – reformist and anti­combative alter­ captured and put on trial, she makes one of the impose a brilliant new organizational structure; the most defiant courtroom statements in history, globalisation group; see Return Fire vol.3 pg17] tax collector, who needs all economic activity to be to permaculturists. concluding: “Since it seems that every heart that visible so it can be reappropriated; and the beats for freedom has no right to anything but a policeman, who desires a panopticon in order to 23. ed. – “As influenced by rationalistic doctrines control and punish. [...] Calling as [philosopher Jean­Jacque] Rousseau himself the 15M movement imperfect had been, French revolutionaries [of 1789] tried to doesn’t cut it. All the apply social reason to the human environment in oppressive dynamics, all the the same way that natural reason, or science, was habits of passivity and starting to be applied to the natural environment. authoritarianism in our society Rousseau had worked at his desk; he had tried to followed us into the plaza. But establish social justice on paper, by entrusting there, in that collective space, human affairs to an entity that embodied the we had the opportunity to general will. The revolutionaries agitated to confront them. The structures establish social justice not only on paper, but in the of direct democracy only midst of mobilized and armed human beings, masked or exacerbated those many of them enraged, most of them poor. dynamics; they were feeble Rousseau’s abstract entity took the concrete form The banner reads; “NEITHER SLAVES NOR PRISONERS NOR REINTEGRATED Free & Rebellious” 48. little slug of lead, I demand my share. If you let me multiple Paris bakeries. Confronted live, I shall never cease to cry for vengeance… If by a would­be arresting officer, her “I think a lot about how our politics (therefore/ you are not cowards, kill me.” The court were young companion Jean Pouget that is, our lives) must have room for emotions: for indeed cowards. Despite having reputedly killed jumped in while Michel hijacked a expressions of all kinds of emotions, not just (righteous numerous policemen and soldiers, Michel wasn’t carriage and initially escaped. or otherwise) anger. And I think about how hard it find executed, but instead deported to the South Pacific Pouget was caught with a loaded that. What do I talk about? What do I try to avoid? penal colony of New Caledonia. During her time revolver on him (which she claimed Which feelings do I try to pretend aren't there or don't there, a revolt broke out among the indigenous on trial was hers), and a search of matter? Those times my neck aches from holding my population; unlike many transported Communards, his lodgings found “three files tongue set firm in my jaw, locked with the weight of who side with their captors against the so­called sharpened like daggers, a copying everything I don't say. But of course I want what I can't ”savages," she supported the rebels, reportedly press, six hundred copies of a have. It's not an ideological test I fail. We all want what showing them how to cut telegraph lines to gain an sixteen­page pamphlet entitled ‘To we can't have. If what we wanted as simple, realistic, advantage against the French. Pardoned after the Army’ [distributed seditiously we'd never talk of revolution. We wouldn't talk of seven years in exile, she returned to France, amongst soldiers in Amiens, anarchy if we could easily shape our desires to fit this greeted by a crowd of thousands upon her arrival. Bordeaux, Marseilles, Vienna, world. Those people I have been closest to have almost Ever wondered why anarchists to this day carry the Rouen, Rheims, and Troves], a large always been people with whom I have shared an black flag? It was Louise Michel, who in 1882 number of Anarchistic journals and identity that came about because of what we call demanded that anarchists march with it rather than pamphlets, and some incendiary politics, or ways of living that grow around certain the customary red flag to distinguish ourselves and explosive instruments”. Pouget directions of thought. And maybe I could just have other hobbies. There are other forms of intense from the followers of turncoats like Marx [ed. – see got 8 years.] On a trip to Algeria, moments people share. But there's something precise & New Technologies, Extraterrestrial Exploitation where she was attempting to spark a special about the common pursuit of the impossible. ], who condemned the rebellion against the French colonial & the Future of Capitalism Then, all you have is each other. […] This is it: in government, she fell ill, and died in Commune from his armchair. She would spend 30 hegemonic anglo masculinity, is anger the only strong more years touring, speaking, leading riots, Marseilles in 1905; thousands rallied emotion men are allowed to express openly, with organizing radical schools, giving away nearly to the funeral of the defiant woman passion? The same can be said of anarchist politics: everything she owned, and agitating for liberation. who never married, never stopped except in our case, it's for everyone. [I]f our texts speak [ed. – Aged 47, she was also sentenced to 6 years fighting, and became the anti­ only of anger, we're not fully human.” prison and 10 years police supervision following an heroine of the French nation” (The – Taking Things Too Far 1883 demonstration which she headed as it looted Ex­Worker #26).

Talking to people more, and more creatively, about our problems, TRYING FOR SPRINGS and being engaged in other people’s problems more and better than we are now. Being around long enough to see things through, and “More faults are committed while we are trying to oblige than (if we travel) of coming back frequently enough, and for long while we are giving offense.” – Tacitus enough, to maintain connections and information about significant events. Becoming tougher people, who challenge each other As people who reject the status quo, we are all critics. But emotionally as well as ideologically and ethically, who ask each most of us have learned how to critique badly, and so we either are, other (and ourselves) hard questions including “how do we live or are perceived to be, judgmental, dogmatic, sloppy, and with insoluble discrepancies?” (The point of these hard ideological, as opposed to helpful, contextual and interesting. conversations is to increase our ability to meet each other’s Anarchist culture, to the extent that [ed. – at least in certain parts needs in real life situations, from violence to arrest to drug use of the West] it operates on middle class white (protestant) values, is to raising children to dying.) a culture of interpersonal niceness, with a mythology that tells us What kind of support do we need to learn in order to become that people respond better to support and that support always looks tougher (that is, able and willing to keep fighting for what we want like calm voices and careful communication, that good intent on when things are difficult)? Obviously there is not one answer for everyone’s part is not only essential but is always apparent. (If we this. Just as obviously, we are all traumatized by this culture, and to are paying attention, we can all remember times when people have the extent that we are explicitly and consciously outside of the said sadistic things to us in a calm voice, and other times when mainstream, we get stepped on and beaten up. So being gentle with people have hurt us needlessly from good intentions.) Sometimes ourselves and each other is appropriate. But not always appropriate. none of the above is true, frequently it doesn’t need to be true, and The more monolithic the concept of support comes to be, the more in fact we are hampered by the assumption that it is true. Not only proud or comfortable the role of victim, and the less likely we are that,but support and care look different coming from different to recognize our full range of option for acting in the world. people. Especially in a culture that has mixing of diverse peoples, it is inappropriate to expect that nice, support, or care, will (or should) An appropriate toughness includes being able to avoid getting always if look the same. The homogenization of what support is wrapped up in questions of intention. (Intention is too often brought supposed to look like increases as more and more people rely on up as a way to manipulate and deflect.) The ability to get and learn from therapists – people trained in formal institutions to something useful out of someone’s critique does not depend on interact with their clients in specific ways (ways that are considered how well-intentioned the critic is. How many stories have we neutral, but that reflect and promote values from a specific culture). heard of people who were told they couldn’t do something and And many times this increasingly narrow range of options means were motivated to succeed by that resistance? How many times are that our bottom line is departure, that is, the conflict resolution we told that “we can succeed” by people who care nothing for us tactic that we fall back on more and more is the abandonment of the and merely want to sell us something? conflict, be it embodied in person, place, or situation. Anarchists have chosen to be against most things in this culture, This tendency towards abandonment seems to increase how have chosen to fight on most possible fronts. As part of that fight, often and desperately people cling to the rhetoric of we take on our deepest assumptions about what we are taught, community. Community comes to be misunderstood as a about appropriate relationships to other people and the rest of the world. This requires being tough in a way that nice society doesn’t place where everyone likes each other, where everyone teach us or support. How do we learn to be tough in the ways that agrees with each other; it could be better understood as a we need to be? place where people appreciate what they like about each other and live with what they don’t like, where there is How well we are who we want to be is an issue of luck, which we enough of a buffer of size and variety to allow that and can’t do anything about, and of will, which we can. where, even if and when people leave, they don’t disappear. “A good critic is the sorcerer who makes some hidden spring gash lf we broaden our range of conflict options, what do we have? forth unexpectedly under our feet.” – Francois Mauriac

49. WHAT COULD COMPENSATE FOR THE LOSS OF THE NIGHT SKY?

It is at best hubris and at worst obscene light pollution that obscures our view of the – Artificial Night Lighting and Sea Turtles to think that we can even answer the night sky; the later is light pollution that (2003) Sea turtle hatchlings exposed to question; to think that we could even disrupts the normal light­dark patterns that lights may fail to find the sea after crudely predict the consequences of such are part of the ecosystems that animals – emerging. “What happens is documented a monumental change in our lived human and nonhuman – have evolved in on the beach surface by their experience. But in reality there is no concert with. flipperprints…Instead of tracks leading prediction to be made because most directly to the sea, turtles leave evidence humans now live in cities where the night The human health effects are significant that they crawled for hours on circuitous sky has been blotted out. We do not need and are still being documented. paths (‘disorientation’), or on direct paths to predict the consequences rather we In 2012, the American Medical Association away from the ocean and toward lighting need to determine what we have lost. It is issued a report on the health effects of (‘misorientation’).” a relatively new experience for light pollution stating: “The natural 24­hour – Apparent Effects of Light Pollution on humanity to be living without stars and cycle of light and dark helps maintain Singing Behavior of American Robins consequences are only now coming to precise alignment of circadian biological (2006) “Proliferation of artificial nocturnal light. rhythms, the general activation of the light may be strongly affecting singing central nervous system and various behavior of American Robins at a The New York Times biological and population level.” Magazine recently cellular – The Effect of Light Intensity on Sockeye featured a slide show processes, and Salmon Fry Migratory Behavior and of images by entrainment of Predation by Cottids in the Cedar River, photographer Thierry melatonin Washington (2004) “increased light Cohen that show release from intensity appears to slow or stop out­ cityscapes and the the pineal migration of fry, making them more (normally absent) vulnerable to capture by predators such as starry sky. Cohen’s gland. cottids” project is titled Pervasive use – Studying the Ecological Impacts of Light “Darkened Cities” of nighttime Pollution on Wildlife: Amphibians as and it re­inserts what lighting Models (2007) “Results…demonstrate that has been lost so that disrupts these artificial night lighting has the potential to we can better know and feel what has endogenous been taken from us. The sky in Cohen’s processes and creates potentially harmful affect foraging and breeding as well as photographs is brilliant and it is not a health effects and/or hazardous situations growth and development of frogs and product of his imagination, it is the genuine with varying degrees of harm…Even low salamanders…artificial night lighting sky of the world we live in, he has just intensity nighttime light has the capability should be considered an additional factor photographed it in places where it remains of suppressing melatonin release. In that negatively impacts amphibian visible and inserted into a cityscape where various laboratory models of cancer, populations” it is generally hidden from view. melatonin serves as a circulating – Street Lighting Changes the Composition anticancer signal and suppresses tumor of Invertebrate Communities (2012) The project highlights the fact that we are growth. Limited epidemiological studies “invertebrate community composition is born into a denuded landscape (skyscape?) support the hypothesis that nighttime affected by proximity to street lighting and so often only notice the loss that lighting and/or repetitive disruption of independently of the time of day. Five happens during our relatively short lives. circadian rhythms increases cancer risk; major invertebrate groups contributed to We don’t frequently question the most attention in this arena has been compositional differences, resulting in an desecration that occurred prior to our own devoted to breast cancer.” increase in the number of predatory and individual existence. But obviously we scavenging individuals in brightly lit suffer from decisions made prior to our Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night communities. Our results indicate that birth just as our decisions today will either Lighting – a volume edited by Longcore street lighting changes the environment benefit or harm those who follow us. That and Rich – catalogs the deleterious effects at higher levels of biological we are not always aware of the harm that on animals. Many animals are disoriented, organization than previously attracted or repelled to artificial lighting. has been done does not lessen – in fact it recognized, raising the potential that it Migratory birds are drawn off course and may amplify – our loss. At some point – or can alter the structure and function of crash into illuminated buildings. Nocturnal more accurately, at a great number of ecosystems.” points – a decision, or more accurately a foragers are faced with what is effectively a long series of decisions, was made that “perpetual full moon” and stars are not important to our well being. consequently may have That we can blot out the night sky without reduced time to obtain suffering…or at least not suffering in a way needed calories or else that couldn’t be offset by some perceived face greater exposure to benefit. But what benefit could be predators. Predator­prey sufficient? And how can such a decision relationships and be made and imposed on the whole reproductive patterns can community of life? be disrupted. Wildlife corridors may be In a 2004 article in Frontiers in Ecology effectively blocked. Below and the Environment, Travis Longcore and is a short list of more Catherine Rich distinguished between specific findings from the “astronomical light pollution” and recent scientific literature: “ecological light pollution”. The former is 50. – Does Night Lighting Harm Trees (2002) 11.06.13, Mikashevichi, Belarus: Arson of a power number of actors with very rudimentary equipment Artificial lighting “can change flowering booth for a granite quarry by “a group of dedicated could take down large portions of our grid,” the earth liberation warriors. Resulting short circuit left chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory patterns, and most importantly, promote quarry and nearby village in total darkness. It was a Commission said. “I don’t think we have the level of continued growth thereby preventing trees strange feeling to suddenly hear silence where just physical security we need.” from developing dormancy that allows a minute before there had been constant industrial them to survive the rigors of winter noise. To see stars in the sky that had been blocked April '13, Derrylin/Ballyconnell, Ireland: Three out by quarry lights just moments before.” high­voltage poles are cut down (and one for weather.” Additionally, disruption of communications set ablaze) at the power station of flowering patterns can in turn negatively 16.04.13, California, U.S.A.: An assailant (possibly the Quinn Group (producer of cement and concrete affect pollinator species. two) enters manholes at the PG&E Metcalf power products, container glass, radiators and plastics); substation (who supply Silicon Valley), southeast of not the first time the company has been sabotaged Even aquatic animals are not exempt San José, and cuts fiber cables for the stations in those lands over the years. from the bright lights of humanity [sic]. communication before more than 100 high­powered rifle rounds damage 17 transformers and three 21.09.12, Belgium: Comrades of Suie et Cendres Fishing boats, offshore oil rigs, and transformer banks. Cooling oil then leaks from a note that a fire “in the high tension electrical supply research vessels project light in places and transformer bank, causing the transformers to cabin paralysed the Indaver garbage incinerators in times that would otherwise be dark. In overheat and shut down. State regulators urge Lillo, the harbour zone of Antwerp. The two ovens of some cases, aquatic animals live and/or customers in the area to conserve energy over the the cancer production plant were put on standstill for feed at very specific depths. A particular following days... “There are ways that a very few a few days.” depth can normally be assessed by the amount of sunlight that penetrates the water. This is disrupted by artificial light “If politicians speak of a blackout, they do so likely to frighten thereby generating conflict and the population, to get the vote. To evoke a power shortage is making a exacerbating competition. preparation work in people's minds for the construction of, for example, a new nuclear plant. Never is the question raised of why all this energy would be needed. A 2001 article in Monthly Notices Yet modern voracity of capital could perhaps be measured through its energy of the Royal Astronomical consumption. To give a simple example: getting rich Eurocrats and managers in 1 Society calculates that: “about hour 20 minutes with a Thalys [high-speed train] from Brussels to Paris requires the one­fifth of the World population, equivalent electrical energy that five Brussels households on average consume in a more than two­thirds of the year! [...] We must break through the lies of the state. It says we're all in the same United States population and boat, that we must all make efforts to take care of then. But it is not like that. We are more than one half of the on it's boat against our will, or at least, without having ever really chosen. Notorious as the galley slaves of the past, to make the insane real life machine. Because since European Union population have European Union population have we were born and we we die in the hull, the hull of the work, obedience, already lost naked eye visibility consumption, our eyes were never able to scan the horizon and the sky. So if the of the Milky Way. Finally, about government says it is terrorists who want to sink the ship, it's just because it wants to one­tenth of the World retain its power over the chained slaves. So it's up to you to choose between staying population, more than 40 per chained a lifetime or escape, also taking the risk of having to swim by yourself; for cent of the United States you to choose between submission and rebellion, between obedience and dignity.” population and one­sixth of the – We See More Clearly in the Dark European Union population no longer view the heavens with the eye adapted to night vision”. So in exchange for compromised human health, dead animals, damaged ecosystems, and a sky void of stars we have gained the ability to forego sleep by working graveyard shifts under fluorescent lights. If there is such thing as a birthright “If the present society looks like a big open air prison, its barbed wire would be in it must include the full use of our eyes and fibre optics and its watchtowers would be more like networks of communication. [...] an unimpeded view of the night sky. These decentralized and highly complex infrastructures have made possible for new forms of exploitation (it suffices to think about the present necessity to be reachable in every moment on a cellphone, in the logic of the flexibility of work), and thus it is THE POSSIBILITIES OF there that today exploitation can be attacked. Fibre optic cables, networks of ELECTRICAL DISRUPTION transportation... [...] infrastructures of communications as well as the cellphone networks... […] sabotages of public illumination systems, fires to generators and 06.05.15, Santiago, Chile: Anarchists enter a electric transformers, sabotages of axes of railway transportation or of networks of substation of Chilectra provider and leave an public transportation. In a present analysis of the metropolis the importance of incendiary “composed of 1.2 liters of benzene plus transportations (of human beings, merchandise, information) would not be negligible. 400 grams of polystyrene” inside a cabin. Due to the actions of those who “take advantage of the last […] If some cracks in normality, in the social reproduction, offer some possibilities, dark sighs of this sky”, much of the capital city is then it is important to have imagined them beforehand. What to do in case of an temporarily with power... electrical shortage? What to do when the public transport doesn't function anymore

06.10.13, Arkansas, U.S.A.: Two power line poles and generate an incredible chaos in a city? […] During a riot, cutting off electricity is severed east of Little Rock. Cops connect the act not only a question of making it harder for the police forces to advance, but will have with two more within 6 weeks before; a high­ echoes that go well beyond any technical consideration of the moment. We don't live voltage line felled by connecting a metal cable in the same way when its dark. This aspect is even more vivid in relation to energy between a transmission tower and a train track close by in order to, according to the FBI, “utilize a networks; where the consequences can usually go way beyond the first imagined moving train to bring down the tower”, and in objective.” – From Short-Circuit to Social Blackout Lonoke County a substation is burned out and left with the tag “you should have expected U.S.” 51. 26.02.11, Bristol, U.K.: “[T]argets are everywhere 28.10.10, Paris, France: Daytime power outage at July '10, U.K.: “Over the past three week three and in direct accordance with their being, so comes the Ministries of Economy & Budget disrupts office mobile phone antennas have been destroyed by fire our attack, a ‘smart’ cctv van was paintstripped in functioning – an internal investigation suggests “that in the Nottingham area. […] These actions were broad daylight, later that night internet and it is a malicious act” performed by “experienced simple and repeatable. The tools were old rags, telecommunications cables were set on fire.” people”; “and this, the same day as there is a call flammable liquids and a lighter.” Dedicated to “all out for a strike against pension reform.” those who are imprisoned by civilization” in struggle.

optic fibers and electrical ON SABOTAGE & ARSON ATTACKS IN EUROPE cables. Indeed, for those who dream of stopping If silence is frightening, it is perhaps because the absence of the reproduction of domination, it seems to be paramount that familiar sounds tends to project us on ourselves. When we they can look elsewhere and otherwise. It is not that the local advance in the silent darkness, it is not uncommon for us to police station should no longer attract the attention of the speak to ourselves, to whistle a little refrain, to think out loud so enemy of authority, or that the window of the bank would as not to find ourselves prey to the anguish. This is not easy not deserve to be smashed, or that the court should not and may even require some exercise, as our brains have receive what it deserves, but it is also true that domination been conditioned to identify silence with danger, darkness has spread over the territory a vast number of relatively with risk. It is the anguish that the emptiness provokes, the small and unprotected structures, of which more and more, feeling of being on the edge of the abyss and not being able to if not almost everything, depend. It is in these little things that turn our eyes away from the abyss that opens before us. Yet it is the invisible web which encloses us and which allows the also at such times that one tends to be closer to oneself, restructuring of capital and of the State materializes. It is there without an intermediary, with a much more assertive that the arteries of domination which irrigate the exploitation presence of mind and emotion. and oppression can be attacked; this is where technological prostheses and their enslaved chatter can be silenced. It is difficult to find silence or darkness in the modern world. Industrial noises always accompany us, the devices emit their This is what happened when a fire destroyed the technical electronic sounds permanently, and if not, there is almost installations and cables of France 3, on April 21st, 2017 in always someone to fill the void with gossip as impenetrable as Vanves (Hauts-Seines), disrupting emissions. This is what superficial. Today, the fear of the void, the anguish of silence happened when anonymous hands cut an Orange telephone is sublimated by permanent connectivity. Never alone, never cable in Morbihan on May 4th, fifteen minutes before the in silence, never before the abyss. And so, never face to face presidential debate, depriving thousands of viewers and with ourselves. Calls and voices from the “inside,” the whole hundreds of companies of their connectivity. This is what universe of imagination, consciousness, sensitivity, reflection, happened on Monte Finonchio in Trentino, Italy, when in are rendered mute, ignored, flattened and replaced by the solidarity with imprisoned anarchists, several relays and cabins continuous bombardment of information, E-mails, for radio, television, mobile telephony and military appointments, consumer warnings, reminders. Thus, the communication were destroyed by fire on June 7th, the day modern world is completing the inner universe of the after the conviction of an anarchist comrade for a bank robbery individual. With an annihilated interior, the human being will by the court of Aachen in Germany [ed. – see Rebels Behind find themself in ideal conditions to accept slavery, even to Bars; Aachen Case Verdict]. This happened on June 12th in embrace slavery without even having the ability to understand Hamburg, where a subway station was set on fire. This is what the state in which they are in: caught in the web. happened a few days later when night owls burned a television transmitter and a mobile phone antenna in Piégros-la-Clastre in All this is certainly not new. The history of oppression did not the Drôme on June 15th, and later stated that “the pylons which start with the smartphone. Not so long ago, the conditioning of grow everywhere are sensitive and vulnerable points because the human spirit was done mainly through a galaxy of camps. they are points of concentration of flow and because it suffices The factory camp, the education camp that is the school, the a few liters of gasoline to seriously damage them”. And on June control camp that is the family authority and the places of 23rd, it is in Vilvoorde in Belgium that a relay antenna is worship. Nevertheless, despite the threads woven between all destroyed by a voluntary fire. these structures of domination, there was still, relatively speaking, a lot of emptiness [ed. – see Fraud, Fantasy & These few examples, probably far from exhaustive and all Fiction in Environmental Writing/'The Invention of the drawn from the last few weeks, show that everywhere, the snip Tribe'/Q]. And this void fueled the revolt in the camps, and vice is possible. It must also be said that, unlike the authoritarians versa. The prisoner who is mutinous has, nevertheless, their who can only conceive of the world’s upheaval through the eyes riveted on the horizon beyond the walls, it does not matter taking of the temples of power and the management of large if their imagination of this horizon pleases us or not. Although masses, a sort of impossible symmetry with a much better the camps of all types have certainly not disappeared, the equipped enemy, we anarchists emphasize the agility of small ongoing capitalist and state restructuring, notably through the groups, the capacity of the individual, the spread of increasingly widespread introduction of technology, is aimed, hostilities rather than their centralization, inter-individual beyond increased exploitation and control, more totalitarian, to relations of reciprocity, trust and knowledge. Such a way of the elimination of all emptiness. The adage of permanent organizing seems to us much more interesting to attack the ever connectivity is at the heart of this deadly symphony. Connected, more tentacular enemy, dependent on the interconnection we are always a bit at work, a little in family, a little in the between all its structures. Faced with the spread of a vast supermarket, a little at the concert. Connected, one is always number of small transmission structures on the territory, nothing exposed to the injunctions of power, to the summons to is more appropriate than a myriad of small groups, acting consume, to the eyes of the control. We are entirely at the autonomously, able to co-ordinate with each other when this disposal of capital, we are the slaves who wear invisible collars. makes sense, practicing the old art of sabotage against the arteries of power. In the silence they impose on machines, in the Someone said that if this society is an open-air prison, the perturbation they inflict on the “real time” of domination, we modern cells must be these antennas and communications relays will find ourselves face to face with ourselves. And this is an that contrast everywhere with the blue sky, and the barbed wire unavoidable condition for a practice of freedom.

52. “service” realizes this belief in scarcity, making mere existence a cause for 'REJOIN THE CIRCLE' anxiety: Get to work! if you don’t want to die cold, hungry and alone. In other times [ed. – Written during the author Dion Workman's we called this slavery[...] time living at the Shikigami forest garden project in Japan, as a two­part essay these passages are extracted from.] Monetized Life The loyalty of school children, indigenous This past week I have been feeling knowledge, drinking water, the human genome – it’s all for sale. deep gratitude for the gifts of October. genome – it’s all for sale. – Lewis Hyde, The Gift The delicious Akebi (chocolate vine) – Lewis Hyde, The Gift fruits that have appeared everywhere amongst the trees, It is commonly believed that the origins of money lie in barter. the walnuts and chestnuts littering the ground, the first of Money, we are told, developed as a technology to facilitate the winterberries, little raspberry like fruits peeping the otherwise cumbersome direct exchange of goods. As out from under a carpet of deep green foliage, the anthropologist David Inubiwa (wild fig) fruits, Graeber, in his book Debt: persimmons, salads of tender The First 5,000 Years, points chickweed, dandelion, out (as have many others) plantain, sorrel and there is virtually no pomegranate, the warm sun anthropological evidence to on my face, the cool moist earth support this view and plenty of under my feet. Receiving a squid evidence suggesting that it is from Tsuchiya­san I give thanks erroneous. Barter, the direct also for the gifts of community, for the exchange of goods based on an gift economy in which we participate. agreed upon value of the goods by the trading parties, is found where people have Via Tsuchiya­san we are part of a (at least) previously come into contact with money. three­way gift economy which also Money and barter are systems where the includes a local fisherman whom we are monetized, as “services.” The guidance of emphasis, the value, is placed on the yet to meet. Passing on our surplus to our elders has been replaced with object of exchange, that is, on the material Tsuchiya­san, and often things we have educational institutions, life coaching, goods or services. The purpose of the made with our surpluses, we receive the counselling, therapy, the physical exchange is acquisition. In traditional gift surplus not only from Tsuchiya­san’s contributions of our young ones replaced economies, such as potlatch, for garden and kitchen but also the surplus by labourers, hired help, contractors etc. example, we see something very catch of her fisherman friend. I don’t know As our economic system, with its insatiable if our gifts ever make it directly to this need for growth, converts every natural different. Objects that help meet particular fisherman but they will certainly resource [sic] into money, taking them material needs are indeed transferred make it out to Tsuchiya­san’s circle of away from us so they can be sold back to but the value does not reside solely in friends and family as there is simply too us, so too are our relationships slowly but the object but, rather, in the giving and much for her to consume on her own. In surely being replaced by services for which receiving. The purpose is not acquisition the words of a Pirahã hunter­gatherer “I we must pay. [Charles Eisenstein] of material goods but the strengthening of store meat in the belly of my brother.” […] support networks or gift circles. And here we must understand “brothers To break the psychological tyranny of our and sisters” in the widest possible sense: deeply engrained fear for tomorrow is no What does it mean to strive for “financial all creatures, all plants, Earth itself, are easy task. Increasingly our belief that independence”? That we don’t want to be our kin, or, more precisely, are us. scarcity is the ground state of Earth is dependent on others, to need others. We being actualized. Our (agri)culture has want to be free of obligation and The gift economy is, of course, not limited made it so. The shift from hunting and responsibility. If you do something for me to goods. With Tsuchiya­san we also gathering to agriculture has altered the and I pay you for the service I have met my participate in another ancient form of the environment from one that abounded in an obligations and therefore owe you nothing. gift economy, a form absolutely astounding diversity of wild plant and Job done, money paid, we’re finished. fundamental to the development of culture, animal foods to a homogenous landscape “Nice and clean.” the defining characteristic of culture: the of agricultural crops that we must sow and intergenerational passing down of tend today in order to harvest tomorrow. This hard won “independence” is illusory, knowledge borne of experience. And thus begins the process of deferment of course, for we have actually exchanged that has come to dominate our culture interdependence, with family, friends and […] Such exchanges, so essential, are (exemplified in the Judeo­Christian­Islamic community for near total dependence on now largely absent not only from rural religions but present throughout all money and the goods and services it can communities that have experienced a agricultural peoples), a process of rewards afford us. We are no longer intimate with mass exodus of young people but for work done where nature no longer the people who sustain our lives. The throughout our entire culture (in the gives freely but must be coaxed into giving, monetized life is a depersonalized life. cities of our most “affluent” societies there where we must toil to “make our living,” seems to have been a mass exodus of old where paradise will come later, always The Gift Circle people, shunted off to retirement and later. Our monetizing of everything, every The dynamic of the gift is very different. nursing homes, hospitals, or self­exiled natural resource converted into a “good” The gift builds relationship. The feelings of somewhere). Our relationships have been and every relationship converted into a gratitude we experience in receiving gifts 53. foster our desire to give back, to share our course the simplest method is to start carried it to its conclusion and today find gratitude. And, on the flip side of gratitude issuing currency and then demand taxes ourselves in a world of abstractions where we have obligation. We feel a sense of paid in that currency. What was formerly everything has been reduced to number. responsibility to those who are generous given away is now sold and co­operation toward us. We look out for them and care disintegrates into competition. The market The fate of life is determined by the for them. The gift attends to our self­ emerges. monetary value that can be extracted from interests by fostering the interests of the it. If we see more value in a field of soy community at large. More for you means The functioning of markets requires an beans than a prairie then prairie will more for me. element of scarcity. There must be a become field of soy beans. Sacred land or need for something not easily obtained. uranium mine? Rain forest or hardwood […] The gift economy, in fostering Either new needs must be manufactured or decking? Endangered species or pelt? relationships of gratitude and responsibility, the meeting of existing needs made Numbers in a ledger. relies on social witnessing: a community difficult. When intrepid explorers, awareness of who is generous and who missionaries, anthropologists and the like Living in the Real World stingy which consequently determines the encountered “primitive” societies they did From the mistaken view of ourselves as level of generosity shown to individual not find barter or market mentalities discrete and separate beings we have community members. How, and by whom, because what they generally found were developed our stories, our cultures, your needs are met directly relates to how people who lived in a world of abundance, philosophies, sciences, technologies, you have treated others. not scarcity. Needs were met by the gifts of economies…that support and reinforce this the gods. The world, the entire community view. We have written ourselves into a In the modern world we often of life, was a gift circle where, as long as monstrous fiction and remade the earth as bemoan the loss of community. It behaviour appropriate to a gift circle was a backdrop for our dystopian plot. seems the more “affluent” the maintained, all ones needs would be met. society at large the more keenly the But we are not separate, are we? When we Of course, the simple minded savages loss of community is felt. But this look at a forest freshly clear cut we feel the couldn’t possibly be allowed to continue should not surprise us for the pain of the forest. We feel the sense of loss living in such a state of ignorance. One of of the creatures whose home has been dynamic of money undermines any number of ingenious methods of razed. Thousands of years of steadily community bonds by removing our inducing scarcity was introduced, increasing separation has not completely interdependence, our needing each necessitating the establishment of extinguished our sense that we are those other. This need for one another is markets, the use of money, the collection creatures, we are those trees. When we of taxes, debt, poverty, theft, prisons, and the foundation of community. allow ourselves, when our rational mind so on, and so on… From living by the gifts momentarily drops the prison guard of the gods to survival of the fittest. More The gift circulates through the community role it has been educated to play, we for you means less for me. – and we should note that the movement of feel the truth of our interdependence. the gift is indeed one of circulation and not If money has undermined the bonds of exchange, for where, as Charles Returning to live in the real world requires human community then it’s severing of our Eisenstein points out, our gifts are just that we live in that world of connection to the larger community of life exchanged we are moving into the realm of interdependence. That is to say, not just has been even more complete. As the barter and are no longer in the realm of the believe, or even know, but live. quote opening this section suggests, our gift. As the gift flows through the economy is a monstrous machine that community it infuses the feelings of From the moment of your birth, no, before consumes the natural world to create generosity and gratitude that strengthen that even, you have been receiving the money. Although the overt buying and our communal ties as our needs are met. gifts necessary to sustain and nourish you. selling of human life is generally looked Spirit is breathed into the community. Before you were capable of “earning your down upon in our “enlightened” age [ed. – keep” you received the gifts of life, of at least, if it isn't for an hourly rate...] the Earth. It is no wonder that we often The Community of Life rest of life is still up for grabs. “For a price, experience deep feelings of gratitude for What is the origin of this monstrous you can buy anything, even the pelt of an simply being alive, for we’ve been machine that chews up beauty and spits endangered species.” [Eisenstein] out money? receiving precious gifts non­stop the whole out money? Although money is not the root cause – Charles Eisenstein, Sacred Economics time we’ve been here. What has changed? of our (self)exile from the community of Why do we now feel anxious that what we life, but is, rather, a manifestation of it, it The fictitious story of money’s origins in need will no longer be given to us? Is it has nevertheless become a ferocious barter conveniently supports the notion because we have not maintained the enforcer of the belief that we are discreet that markets will spontaneously emerge, behaviour appropriate to a gift circle? beings separate from the rest of life. sooner or later, wherever there are human societies. Again, David Graeber shows us Marcel Mauss noted that traditional gift Our sense of separation goes back at least that such an assumption is highly economies contained a trio of obligations: to the Neolithic and the first agriculturalists. “the obligation to give, the obligation to problematic as the emergence of With agriculture a new binary view of the markets had far more to do with rulers accept, and the obligation to reciprocate.” world is born, a world of competition, of us [Hyde] We have all been given gifts, ways meeting the needs of their armies than against them: crops or weeds, beneficial it ever did with meeting the needs of the in which we are able to make unique insects or pests, domestic or wild, good or contributions to life on our beautiful planet people. If markets are inevitable then it is evil, etcetera, etcetera. Some, such as and, if we are not to renege on our only to certain kinds of societies. Getting John Zerzan, would place the origins of obligations then we must be giving “the people” to participate usually required our separation even earlier with the generously of our gifts. To do not what you forceful coercion such as undermining emergence of symbolic culture; love but what you think you must do “for social networks and stealing land representational language, number and the money” is to renege on your (enclosing the commons, or privatizing, as art. No matter when we place the origins of obligations. Behave inappropriately and the we call it today. As [Pierre­Joseph] our separation, with money we have gift circle is broken. To overcome your Proudhon said, “Property is theft”). Of 54. survival anxiety, to put aside the monetized illusion ' ANARCHIST RELATIONS IN PRACTICE ' of security, and wholly offer up your [A]narchists in the small Catalan city of Manresa and moments for play and games. The activities of care gifts for the well­ held the first Gathering of Libertarian Infrastructures [in – the kitchen and the children’s space – were in being of all life is to 2015]. Specifically, the initiative reflects a sentiment central, visible locations and were staffed collectively. re­enter the gift that there is a lack of creative or constructive projects Money was not present during the gathering; on the circle. that put anarchist relations in practice, support and contrary everything was shared as a gift, and the few amplify the struggle, and utilize anarchist methods to costs for the preparation were assumed by everyone via […] To refuse a gift respond to the needs of daily life. In fact, as the call- a donation jar and a visible list of expenses, which were is to proclaim that out for the gathering states, Catalunya boasts an removed as soon as the minor debts were repaid. There we do not want to unusually high number of projects that embark in was a gifts table where people from varied projects left such a direction, but such projects quickly become be in relationship such a direction, but such projects quickly become samples of what they make, from books and pamphlets divorced from other aspects of the struggle. with the giver. The divorced from other aspects of the struggle. to homemade remedies to vegetables from the garden. obligation to accept We know what often happens. Cooperatives and projects After a night of healthy partying, on Sunday morning for a solidaristic economy end up in self-exploitation or also requires that thirty people worked shoulder to shoulder to fix up new even transform into capitalist businesses with an we be open to all spaces in La Ruda (the anarchist athenium in Manresa alternative character. Projects that fail due to exhaustion gifts that come our where the gathering was held). The purpose of putting fall into a productivist logic, or collapse under the way, that is, not to aside time for communal labor was to take advantage of imposed need to pay rent. have fixed ideas the collective force of all the people present and to get to about how our Projects that little by little distance themselves from know one another in a non-intellectual space. needs are to be the struggle as they come to inhabit a reality Emphasis was also placed on the question of reskilling met. Let’s face it, different from that of those comrades who remain and artisanal techniques. The pertinent analysis holds we don’t know “in the streets.” Projects that limit themselves to a that capitalism currently trains us only in the skills best. The evidence legalistic path in order to avoid repression and the necessary for increasingly absurd jobs [ed. – see 'Tools of that is significant loss of energy and material that such of the Technology'], skills that are useless for the self- everywhere. Our repression brings. Or, projects that, even as they evade organization of survival, whereas useful skills and “knowing” is so capitalist dynamics, condemn themselves to self- artisanal crafts are disappearing. wrapped up in our isolation in their search for self-sufficiency [ed. – see story of separation 'The Matter of Knowing Who We Are']. New technologies make us progressively stupider and that it is woven more dependent[1], meaning that our values of mutual Other comrades, often the youngest and most active, through with aid, solidarity, and self-organization rarely go develop an idea of struggle centered on abstract and desires to control beyond a superficial, abstract plane. As such, the combative activities, such as writing and debating, the world around gathering constitutes an attempt to visibilize and protest, and sabotage, all of which are vital, but are by us. It is time to let encourage those projects that recover skills such as themselves incomplete. Thus, the constructive part of go. Remember, the healing, carpentry, agriculture, and more. the struggle is divorced and distanced from practices of “weeds” are often collective self-defense, propaganda, and theorization. In And perhaps most centrally, the initiative marks a more nutritious the end, all of us are weakened. strategic decision to encourage a gift economy, so that than the crops. such projects will not perpetually have to support This is a predictable dynamic. Capitalism always offers This is a predictable dynamic. Capitalism always offers themselves within a capitalist market or with alternative us tools for “achieving our dreams” and realizing any The earth gives us us tools for “achieving our dreams” and realizing any currencies that still perpetuate a quantitative and and all creative projects, but they are tools that what we need. and all creative projects, but they are tools that productivist logic. Long before we got reconduct us towards mercantile and productive the idea that we relations. Democracy will also give us permission for As one text distributed at the gathering states, the gift could run the show, nearly any initiative, but with regulations and conditions economy is that which most closely approaches Earth generously that will not allow us to step out of the game that the anarchist ideals, and it is one we still practice in our provided for our powerful control so easily. intimate spaces. Yet in general anarchists have not every need. We made a concerted effort to spread the relationships and […] Given that the recent proliferation of new practices based in reciprocity and a true communal must reciprocate if organizations in Catalunya, and new failures, has led to we want to live in feeling, necessary to enable such an economy, meaning a climate of cynicism, the level of participation in the that the only alternatives are the cooperatives and the gift. Nothing gathering came as a surprise. can demonstrate alternative currencies that never seem to leave the capitalist orbit. this more clearly Around 70 people from 45 different projects turned out, capitalist orbit. than looking at the from all the provinces of Catalunya and beyond, from Participants set themselves the objective of holding a city, town, and countryside. The projects came from the current state of this city, town, and countryside. The projects came from the gathering twice a year. planet. Since fields of free education, rural self-sufficiency and attempting to take ecological farming, pirate radios and propaganda, printers and publishers, self-organized medicine and 1. ed. – Yes, even the open-source, participatory ones: “Intelligence over the reins is within anyone’s reach through reading, reflection, study, healthcare, artisanal crafts, carpentry and metal we’ve run vital life healthcare, artisanal crafts, carpentry and metal curiosity, discussion, even sensitivity. Intelligence can stimulate and workshops, liberated and open-source technology support systems in workshops, liberated and open-source technology can be stimulated, but it cannot be shared. Because it is unique, workshops, internet platforms, and more. and differs from individual to individual. Those who speak of to the ground. Not “shared intelligence” are speaking of power. When everyone starts reciprocating the One of the objectives of the gathering was to to go to Wikipedia to know who, what, where and when – and no gift ceases to flow. transform the dominant mode of meetings and one any longer makes the effort to read dictionaries, encyclopedias, To rejoin the circle encounters in a way that reflects the social relations books, to confront then various versions and try to understand – we must use the we want to foster. Aside from debates (on the concept that day (and it doesn’t seem distant) Wikipedia will be dictating Law, univocal and equal for all. Its successive reconfigurations will gifts given us and of the gift economy and on the idea of using our projects not be able to change in any way this totalitarian effect, but rather give back to to counter the results of austerity), people also came will consolidate it. Shared intelligence can only be an enormous Earth. together in diverse spaces: a decentralized and informal project of standardization and control. Aspiring to a shared space for weaving networks, a space for workshops of intelligence means hoping for the advent of a single modern artisanal and other skills, moments for communal work thought” (To the Customers: Insurrection and Doublethink). 55. being captured, an area that had been raked multiple times by family and friends. “Santiago WE CAN BE WORSE STILL Maldonado who fought on the barricades of Chiloé [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg24], defending the – reflections & thoughts on the month following sea. Santiago Maldonado who fought for the immense southern land. Every time the strong the disappearance of Santiago Maldonado Patagonian wind blows, he will be there. Whenever the rebels of the world try to storm the heavens, he will be there. Rest comrade, the sea, the land and [ed. – Report by 'Some anarchists in Buenos Aires', and other extraction elsewhere on more than million the forests for which you gave your life are waiting to concerning the rage unfolding in Argentina, a hectares it owns in Argentine Patagonia (see provide you shelter ” (statement by comrades of the country haunted by the ghosts of 30,000 Return Fire vol.3 pg66). In the Chubut province Ghiraldo Library). They have taken the comrade disappeared during the 1976­1983 military near the Chilean border has become a focus point away from us, but we hope all that remains in their dictatorship, and more continuing into democracy... for landless indigenous workers who since 2015 hands is the compost that will fertilise a thousand To update so far: one month to the day after have set up the Pu Lof community on unused rural more rebellious roots, nourished by the ash of this Santiago's disappearance, tens of thousands of tracts around the town of Cushamen (Mapuche genocidal, ecocidal system and its components. people demonstrated on September 1st in Buenos territory for over 1,400 years, which Benetton now And indeed, within 24 hours of the expert's Aires, with six cops wounded in the capital and holds the deeds for), and has seen an explosion of proclamation on the body, the municipal Casa de la more coming under molotov fire in Bolsón, violence from authorities intent on breaking the Provincia in Rio Negro was trashed and left with a Patagonian region. Across the Brazilian border, the recuperation movement, with the first brutal mass banner for the freedom of Facundo Jones Huala, Argentine consulate in Porto Alegre was paint­ raids ordered by Benetton in June 2016. (Among the the Argentine Military Attaché’s office facade in splattered, while barricades were erected and police dwellings, clothes and equipment torched by police Montevideo (Uruguay) was badly fire damaged, and attacked in Valparaíso, Chile. So far, aside from have been stocks of organic autochthonous seeds; we imagine more by the time this reaches you... embassy rallies in a couple of capitals and attacks this is because Mapuche still preserve their seeds on Benetton stores (see below) in Milan and Madrid, without genetic modification which stops In the broader context, (by surely conservative there has been little reaction on the so­called 'Old multinationals from selling their own tailored stock figures) in 2017 so far almost four people a week Continent'... This was also noted by some comrades and creating a dependence on copyrighted (largely indigenous) are killed worldwide defending postering “in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula: versions. Since the raids, others have pointed out the land, especially from mines, plantations, wild A Corunha, a port city from which hundreds of Benetton's political relations with the Minister of's political relations with the Minister of animal exploitation and infrastructure projects, and immigrant ships left for Latin America. But Homeland Security, Patricia Bullrich.) A pamphlet particularly in Latin America. Agribusiness has practically nil is the information on this side of the distributed in Pontevedra (Spain) reminds us that comparatively come to the fore compared to the Atlantic[...] Nor did we expect it to be any different. “while exhibiting disgusting advertising where they composition of these figures in recent years, as Colonizing Europe has never ceased to be so, but show people of all colours and ethnicities smiling industry demand grows for soy, palm oil, sugarcane little is said here about the devastation European and so happy (but all following the racist and and beef (which, besides the aforementioned wool, multinationals and their allies carry out in South colonial stereotypes of Western civilisation, of Argentina is famous for). However also in the America: it is hidden behind the mask of NGOs and course), [United Colors of Benetton] crush the 'richest' countries, defenders of the earth are the most hypocritical and paternalistic charity. ” Mapuche communities that try to recover their land, increasingly under the gun as the scrabble for today bought by that company to pasture the 1,000s 'resources' heats up further; for example during These events unfolded as part of the struggle of the of sheep they have enslaved to produce wool. ” the Standing Rock mobilisation in the U.S.A. (see Mapuche people (see Return Fire vol.3 pg59, also Return Fire vol.4 pg16) North Dakota legislators including a glossary of the Mapudungun vocabulary Anarchists, for almost as long as they have called only narrowly decided against a bill allowing drivers below), fighting against European colonisers more themselves such, have a history that in it's better to run over and kill protesters without being jailed than 500 years (immediately before which they moments has always included solidarity with anti­ (similar laws have in fact passed in other U.S. stalled and defeated the Inca Empire's southward colonial insurgencies; while in 1850, in New States in response to confrontational road, dock and push). Wallmapu, their historic territory, is cut in half Orleans, Joseph Déjacque (see Return Fire vol.4 airport blockades), while on its heels in that colonial by the nation­state borders of Argentina and Chile, by the nation­state borders of Argentina and Chile, pg29) dreamed of slave rebellions and the territory 66­year­old James “Jim” Leroy Marker died so they cannot move freely around their native land. so they cannot move freely around their native land. dissolution of racial boundaries, Louis Michel in Florida in defense of the Withlacoochee River The Mapuche are also no stranger to forced police The Mapuche are also no stranger to forced police embodied these dreams quarter of a century later after firing on the protested Sabal Trail pipeline and disappearances, including under democracy; such disappearances, including under democracy; such by joining her force with rebels of so­called New its construction equipment and getting into a fatal as José Huenante, detained September 2005 in the as José Huenante, detained September 2005 in the Caledonia and Algeria (see 'The Matter of high­speed chase by County Sheriffs. (He may have Chilean city Puerto Montt, never to be seen again. Knowing Who We Are'). Likewise today, as in other chosen the date and location to coincide with a call “to honor the anniversary of the 1973 Wounded Especially in light of the history of colonists from the parts of the world, in Argentina anarchists and “to honor the anniversary of the 1973 Wounded Knee Stand­off on the Pine Ridge Reservation [ed. U.K. (famously from Wales) emigrating to Argentina, Mapuche find themselves side­by­side facing the Knee Stand­off on the Pine Ridge Reservation [ed. – see the companion piece to Return Fire vol.3; we'd like to add some words to counter the'd like to add some words to counter the historical enemy, as was the case when Diego Sebastián – see the companion piece to Return Fire vol.3; amnesia so many of us seem to find ourselves in Petrissans and Leandro Sebastián Morel went to Colonisation] and to stop the pipeline from going in right now. Following the British­funded 'Conquest of'Conquest of prison (with a third comrade of the Anarchist Black the ground through the wetlands and endangered the Desert' genocides (see below), the Argentine Cross of Buenos Aires forced underground) after species habitat of Halpata Tastanaki Preserve (a President donated 900,000 hectares to the British Leandro robbed a T.V. production company owned site named after a Seminole leader of the armed company Argentine Southern Land, to construct a by a host, media producer and businessman known resistance that fought U.S. invasion of indigenous railroad for the country’s export system to better for evicting Mapuche from their own land to build communities in the mid­1800s).”) vast tourist complexes. Rather than an expression of profit from the expropriation. Today, the case is not Finally, just in these last days of autumn, young an updated third­(fourth?­)worldism, “allyship” (see atypical of Joseph “Joe” Lewis (British business Mapuche warrior Rafael Nahuel fell to Argentinian Return Fire vol.3 pg67) or common Western fetish magnate among the 300 richest people on the police bullets on November 25th in Río Negro as the for indigenous culture (see Fraud, Fantasy & planet,) whose massive purchase on Patagonian for indigenous culture (see Fraud, Fantasy & eviction of the mountain­top Lafken Winkul land Fiction in Environmental Writing/'The Invention land included the Hidden Lake, a Mapuche site of Fiction in Environmental Writing/'The Invention recuperation, which he had travelled to join along ), the facet we find vital in anarchist high significance, to which he subsequently closed of the Tribe'/Q), the facet we find vital in anarchist with his aunt and cousin, ended in a shoot­out. access. Last summer, Mapuche fighters burned his involvement in such struggles is the survival of other excavators preparing a hydroelectric dam along the ways of being in this increasingly monocultural and Enough being said, let's hear the words of Río Escondido, on Lewis’ private property, being totalitarian world, as imagination itself becomes an imprisoned anarchist Marcelo (see Rebels Behind built in cooperation with Edenor electric company, of endangered species; and lessons we could learn Bars; Concerning the Juridical Situation of Our which Lewis is the biggest stock owner. (That attack along these lines from engaging with indigenous Comrade Marcelo Villaroel Sepulveda) about his was also in solidarity with Facundo Jones Huala of examples that Chilean agitators of Sin Banderas Ni relation with Santiago. “Since we were taken the Cushamen community (see below), wanted for Fronteras describe as “[o]ffensive actions of prisoner in the region dominated by the Argentine extradition to Chile over Mapuche land recuperation resistance that, combined with the propagation and state [ed. – see Return Fire vol.1 pg72], our paths actions, in the end released only to be re­arrested implementation of ways of living and relationship crossed. There were us, the prisoners in the and now awaiting transportation over the border to modes contrary to those imposed by the state, province of Newken and there was Santiago, in the face 'terror' charges for arson on a colonist farm.) capitalism and civilisation, build an antagonistic city of La Plata, next to us in a universe of active reality that preoccupies power and keeps it busy comrades, sharing complicity and standing in Since 1991, Argentine Southern Land was acquired with its eradication, isolation and extermination.” solidarity… It’s been more than 9 years since our by the Bennetton family of Italy, where it produces footsteps have crossed the continuous path of the 10% of the wool for fashion chain United Colors of October 20th, the Argentinian State announced brotherhood, this path that sets both of us on the Benetton, in addition to the mining, deforestation, what we had intuited already with heavy hearts; same side of the trench[...] The rebellious and transgenic soy plantations (see Market Pressured the body of Santiago had just been “found” (i.e. ancestral fire is incinerating the machines of to Temporarily Drop G.M. Product Lines After planted) in the icy waters of the Chubut River, 300 predatory capital, the insurrectionist blood spilled Contamination Campaign Claimed, Lombardy) meters upstream from the place where he was seen from our fallen comrades is among our war rituals...” 56. On August 1st, members of the Pu Lof more leftist organizations bringing together of anarchists. During the march, there was Mapuche community in resistance in the a “peaceful” gathering in the Plaza de vandalism on some of the central streets of province Cushamen barricaded National Mayo, in front of the Pink House, the seat the city. The march ended in the same Route 40, along with allies in solidarity. of government. In front of the multitude, plaza where it had begun, across the street They cut off traffic in solidarity against the one of Lechuga’s brothers read some of from the Buenos Aires Senate. Under the legal proceedings confronting el Lonko his writing, leaving his anarchist, anti­ astonished gaze of several indignant Facundo Jones Huala (for the second time). police position completely clear. citizens, the street was cut off, a well­ Minutes later, cars and trucks arrived placed truck was destroyed, and the carrying about thirty border police armed One of the things that makes us quite senate was attacked with rocks and a pair with rifles. The peñis (Mapuches) began angry is the way these events have been of molotov cocktails, resulting in some throwing rocks, responding to the presence used by political parties – the PO, the destruction and burning the facade of the of the bastard forces of order. The MST, the MAS socialist convergence, and building. Two hours later, two individuals [1] [3] Gendarmerie advances to the shots, Kirchnerist parties – as well as NGOs, left large cans filled with naphtha , burning burning the precarious houses and and unions like the CGT [General two cars parked next to the senate. No one belongings of the Lof, forcing the occupiers Confederation of Labor], with its dark claimed responsibility for the attack. history during the Peronist period,[2] to retreat across a river. Santiago Several days later, the intelligence chief of involving the Argentine Anticommunist Maldonado (“Lechuga” [Lettuce] or “el the Buenos Aires police was fired. Alliance and para­police groups. They use Brujo” [the Witch­Doctor]) fell behind partial images and histories of our In some of these gatherings and the rest. Some of the inhabitants of the comrade to give themselves a few more marches, as well as in the streets and Lof saw that the Gendarmerie grabbed kernels of legitimacy in the middle of an universities, and above all on social Santiago; others testified as to hearing the electoral process. The kidnapping of networks, we have seen that the a police say they “got one.” Lechuga is not a political campaign. majority of the public has empathized Afterwards, images and testimony began These scavengers would never feel with Santiago, and a smaller part has to circulate about how Santiago was strange defending private property, the supported violent actions. It is true missing, and that it seemed the border police, or even the same that in Argentina, to speak of forced Gendarmerie had taken him away in a governments that repress them and disappearances is to speak of the bury them in the misery of everyday life “unimog” all­terrain military vehicle. The military dictatorship and of histories – because they themselves desire to authorities were silent through this whole that have been engraved in social process. obtain that same power, and exercise sensibility. The vast majority of that same authority. We have nothing to On Friday, August 4th, various anarchists do with them, or with their conciliatory politicians try to hide the and individuals in solidarity entered the responses to our comrade's kidnapping. continuation of the repressive seat of government in Chubut province, apparatus – hide the similarities demanding Santiago’s return. The place On Thursday the 17th, a march was called between the dictatorship and the was ripe for destruction. Computers, in Córdoba Capital, where a great current democratic government. notebooks, windows, and decorations were multitude demanded that Santiago be Repression, torture, and forced all viciously destroyed, and fliers and returned, alive and whole. The police disappearances never really ended… graffiti were left behind referring to the deployed a massive riot­control apparatus. repression in Cushamen. That same night, in the early morning, We believe that it is necessary to expand some anonymous deployed a rudimentary this conflict. From the first moments, On Monday, August 7th, a gathering was device that burned out the doors at the comrades and allies creatively called in the Plaza del Congreso, bringing entrance to the Association of Non­ demonstrated around the world, first in various organizations and groups together commissioned Officers of the National Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru, but then with Santiago’s family. The gathering Gendarmerie in Córdoba. No one claimed in the U.S., Spain, India, France, Syria, ended up being quite large, and many responsibility. Days later, a national march Colombia, Mexico, and many other corners comrades showed up. Enraged not only against trigger­happy cops resulted in of this worn­out planet. These because of what had happened, but also confrontations and destruction throughout demonstrations have spread not only the because the political apparatus – getting the center of Córdoba. Later, various news of what happened to Lechuga, but ready for their elections – had been anarchist, platformist, and political spaces the fact that solidarity must be distributing fliers for their Leftist Front. On were raided, including a dining hall, as well internationalist and without borders other the same day, after the gathering, Entre as the homes of mothers whose children than the limits that we set for ourselves. Ríos street was cut off, and the occupiers were murdered by the police. Here, they threw rocks and firecrackers at the infantry, only left with posters, flags, and fliers that The Press Takes Aim fending off the two city police and one had to do with Santiago’s case (as well as & the State Pulls the Trigger the milk from the dining hall). A few people National Congress guardsman who had What to say about the news articles and were detained, but they were released been stationed nearby. Afterward, two journalistic investigations by mercenaries after a few hours. police motorcycles were set ablaze. In the like Jorge Lanata, Mauro Viale, Eduardo end, the group dispersed, without any arrests or injuries on our side. On Thursday the 24th, the group On Friday, August 11th, marches and H.I.J.O.S. (made up actions were coordinated throughout of children of the various parts of the country: Bolsón, disappeared) and Bariloche, Rosario, and Buenos Aires. In other leftist groups the capital, human rights groups (including called for a gathering a section of the Madres de la Plaza de and march in the Mayo, the mothers of individuals Plaza San Martin in disappeared during the period of La Plata. Quite a few dictatorship), gathered alongside family people attended, members and friends of Lechuga’s, with including a black bloc 57. Feinmann, and other information lackeys in conspire to kill and disappear someone. As buildings. The result was not only a visible the press? They put forward the name of she says, this police force is not the same increase in the number of police (in plazas, the Mapuche Ancestral Resistance (RAM, as it was 40 years ago, always playing the border police buildings, train stations, a separatist guerrilla group), crediting them same game of “bad dictatorship, good police precincts, and troubled with more than thirty actions from one day democracy [ed. – see Who Is It?].” neighborhoods), but that they brought out to the next, from flyering to the burning of the shiny toys that we hadn’t seen for a ranches, the death of a border policeman The Bullrich family has always known how long while: Federal Police armored in San Martin de los Andes, and the sale of to defend their ideological and economic vehicles, water cannon trucks, and troop weapons and drugs. They pass along interests. Adolfo Bullrich headed a transport vehicles all over the place. images of possible future Santiago business that auctioned land off after the Everything but the army in the streets. Maldonado's – individuals who could face disastrous Conquest of the Desert – a the same fate – in Mendoza, Entre Rios, campaign pushed forward by the ten­ This new escalation of repression that has and Buenos Aires; they put together president Avellanada and continued by been taking place – and will continue – in theories that Santiago was a hostage of Julio A. Roca, the goal of which was to the streets of the Capital, demonstrates the Mapuches, that he had died in an annihilate the native peoples who lived in that the ministry of security, as well as the attack on a ranch, that he was never in the Patagonia, seize immense land holdings, bosses of police “intelligence” intend to Lof, or that he was a simple artisan or reaffirm national sovereignty, and generate restrict all solidarity, rage, and the actions hippy backpacker. juicy business contracts with English and that were unleashed following Santiago’s Welsh companies, as well as whoever disappearance. Perhaps these sparks can After the attack on the seat of government wanted to invest. Esteban Bullrich, bring us to break new limits… in Chubut, the press attributed the attack to Patricia’s brother, left his post as Minister In some of our spaces, their harassment is a cell of the RAM, stating that the attack of Education in order to stand for election. plainly visible. Now it’s not just phone taps “alarmingly” took place two blocks from the In an election ad, Esteban spoke of the and cops following some comrades home, obelisk, and that they went in shooting; but positive changes that the Cambiemos but investigative teams taking pictures, if we look at the place for two seconds government had generated during those infantry trucks on the corner, and patrols through the photos that were released, we months, stating “We have put more kids in coming and going. can see clearly that there were several school, more pavement on the streets, and circle­A signs painted up, and that the more young men in prison…” Are these All of this responds to a specific damage was not done by bullets. Their words surprising, coming from someone context. In some neighborhoods of the exaggerations really are limitless… who defended the repressive murderer province of Buenos Aires, police have [5] Luis Patti so that he could exercise his been stopping members of collectives to The state needs to vindicate its position in congress? He did declare that in ask for their documents and check their own authority – it needs to a democracy, there is space for debate belongings; the notable increase in patrols between different ideologies… create internal enemies. The and police officers is not just an effort at control and surveillance, but also at the After the proposal for a week of action for unemployment crisis and the same time, an attempt to clean up the Santiago went out over the internet, state general economic crisis have terrible image of both the border police and security forces were put on alert – so much the cops. During Children’s Day, border resulted in an emergent malaise so that a senior official in the intelligence police brought trucks of toys to different that can be felt clearly in the department of the federal police sent a schools and cafeterias – that is to say, they [4] document to the governor of the province streets ; what could be better shamelessly repeated slogans of of Buenos Aires, María Eugenia Vidal (of than blaming the economic “solidarity” in the same places where they the center­right PRO party) ordering an perform intelligence work, go in shooting, collapse on non­Argentine increase in security and patrols in the and carry out fierce repression. If their streets. The document described possible students, like Jorge Lanata’s intelligence work was designed under the attacks, and risks to individuals belonging news program argued? Or framework of Project X in the Kirchner to the security forces, infrastructure, and blaming the destruction of the epoch, when they built a database formal economy on pirate disc vendors, like the América 24 news channel tried to do? What could be better than the president Mauricio Macri saying that the workers have to stop messing around with all of this about blocking roads, have to going over their bosses heads – because this discourages foreign investment?

Declarations from Patricia Bullrich (the Minister of National Security) have said that she won’t allow the Gendarmerie to be crucified (“…I’m not going to throw the Gendarmerie under the bus…”), claimed that the Maldonado case is not a forced disappearance, and declared through 31.08.17, Buenos Aires: headquarters of the “anti-terrorist” Federal Operations clenched teeth that she thinks it’s Special Group burns; after the demonstration the next day, the 35th Gendarmerie impossible that thirty border police would Battalion near met the same by molotovs, and still the revolt wasn't over... 58. following militants and organizations, now they’ve come out onto the field of play more than ever before, becoming one more shock force that the State can employ in its favor.

Of course, the law follows not far behind, not only with the reform to law 24.660 (which removes almost all prison benefits and temporary releases, giving more decisive power to the Penal Service), but also the increases in sentences, Left: 31.12.12, Police post totally burned, including state-of-the-art technology broadening legal definitions of illicit delivered the week before, at the Cardenal Samoré international mountain pass in the Andes (the only one open year-round) closing it to freight for two weeks. association, carrying weapons, and Right: 28.08.17, as the 'Luchsinger case' (see Return Fire vol.1 pg67) trial damage to private property. against 10 Mapuche opens, 29 forestry trucks in Los Ríos ('Chilean' Wallmapu) torched by arms-wielding fighters of Weichan Auka Mapu (Fight of the Rebel Territory); who incinerated 18 more in the two weeks before. Relationships Between Mapuches [6] [7] Mapuche, as well as the Qom , the Wichí , López. Although Hebe de Bonafinni (one & Anarchists [8] We have seen that in the last couple years, or the Guaraní , not to mention the tribes of the founders of the Madres de la Plaza some Mapuche communities have been living in the Amazon, who resist the de Mayo) might have said that López was leaving aside legalistic angles of struggle, advance of the machines and “human a jailer and that Santiago was a social and have decided to occupy the properties progress” understood as civilization. We activist, she said it to defend Kirchenerism. of large landholders and portions of state share much with the Mapuche who are And what’s more, it’s a lie – López was a land. Machines have been burned, there fighting in the south of the region, but there carpenter and was disappeared in 2006 have been coordinated attacks on various is also a chasm distancing us from them. because he was going to testify against positions on single ranches – similar to Their forms of organization and the Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz, a leader of what is going on in the Wallmapu on the relationships that they have developed, the forces of repression during the Chilean side. involving themselves with nature and the dictatorship. López’ disappearance land are a demonstration of their own, demonstrates that even after 15 years, the The media have taken it upon themselves specific cosmovision. As anarchists, we military still has plenty of power. Nor do to declare that all Mapuches belong to the recoil from their desire to advance and they want to talk about Luciano Arruga – a RAM, or that the Mapuches who live in the obtain their own Mapuche nation. We youth from the marginal neighborhood Lof belong to the RAM, generating a respect their rebel dignity, and will stand in Lomas de Mirador, who was kidnapped, perfect internal enemy. In reality, the RAM solidarity, but we do not share in the totality murdered, and buried as a John Doe in the [9] are nothing more than the abbreviation of their struggle . la Chacarita cemetery, because he refused with which some Mapuches claim their to steal for the police. Nor do they want to actions in the Wallmapu in Argentina. No Demands on the State; remember Cristian Ibáñez, who was Permanent Conflict detained by the police only to later appear El Lonko Facundo Jones Huala is Against Authority to have “killed himself” in his cell in a police recognized as belonging to this Mapuche We all desire that our comrade be returned precinct in Jujuy, or Marcelo Cuellar, who group. At the moment, he is detained in the alive, that he might follow whatever path he was murdered in the town of Libertador prison at Esquel, where he spent 18 days might desire. We know that the state is General San Martín in 2003, at a march on hunger strike, awaiting a presumed responsible for this disappearance, following Ibáñez’ murder – both were extradition to Chile. He has recognized the because that is one of the functions of militants with the Combative Classist occurrence of a historic confrontation not persecution and the “extermination” of the Current. They don’t want to talk about only with the Argentine state, but the “disturbing elements” that impede the Carlos Fuentealba, killed by police Chilean state as well, along with the normal functioning of society. For the same repression in Neuquén during a labor corporations that have devastated reason, we cannot demand anything of our organizers’ roadblock of Route 22nd in indigenous territories without fear of persecutors. They are responsible for the 2007, or Juan Carlos Erazo, killed in reprisal, with the excuse of “progress” [ed. disappearances for trafficking, connections Mendoza in 2008 following a brain abscess – see Return Fire vol.1 pg11]. This is an between the narcos and the police, resulting from an injury when he was hit by ancestral struggle that has lasted more executions of youth in our neighborhoods a rubber bullet and tear gas, during a than 500 years. The RAM is only a small at the hands of the cops, the approval of factory takeover where he worked. They expression of this long struggle. laws raising sentences, playing with the want to forget that on June 17th, 2010, lives of prisoners, responsible for the Diego Bonefoi was murdered by police in Harassment and persecution not only by application of new technologies for social Bariloche, shot in the back of the head. On the forces of order, but also by the control, for the destruction of natural the next day, the neighborhood organized business owners and the media is territories in order to put up concrete walls a protest, and two more youths were killed disgusting. They try to justify both and plantations of soy or GMO corn – in the resulting police repression: Nicolás repression and the advance of everything that turns the wheels of Carrasco and Sergio Cárdenas. On neocolonialism. They throw out headlines capitalist progress. October 20th of the same year, Mariano alleging that the Mapuches are connected Ferreyra – a militant in the Workers’ Party to the FARC [ed. – Revolutionary Armed We feel that they have tried to – was shot twice and killed by Forces of Colombia, Marxist­Leninist depoliticize our comrade. They have strikebreakers from the Railway Union, guerrillas], that they have military assault attempted to deny his anarchist during a protest organized by workers weapons, that they are “fake indians”, and convictions, and they have tried to hold him whose jobs at Roca Railways in many other idiocies. up as a slogan for one more political Avellanada had been outsourced. During campaign. On one hand, Cristina Kirchner the Kirchner era, indigenous peoples For us as anarchists, it’s impossible not to and her bootlickers seem to have very have had the same fortune. The be angry with the ways that the state short memories: They talk about Santiago, indigenous community member Javier harasses, attacks, and disappears the but they evaporate when we bring up Julio Chocobar, part of a Diaguita community in 59. Tucumán, was resisting displacement long as they remained subservient to the Fascist aforementioned Facundo Jones Huala, asserts alongside other members of the State. Mussolini's problem was that he never that “I'm not Argentine or Chilean. I'm Mapuche. community. On October 12th, 2009, an ex­ had the support of the working class and thus I am pre­existing to both States. I do not want to police member in service of the had to turn to the traditional middle classes. build another nation.” Albeit spoken from a very Thus much of his revolution only remained on different context, we find it interesting to think landowners drove in and started shooting, paper. This was not the situation which faced the over the words of one anarchist in Barcelona: killing and injuring other inhabitants of the Perons. More than 15 years before they took “There's certainly an anarchism as a radical community. On November 23th, 2010, in power, the generals smashed the powerful extreme of liberalism, in which rights are purely Formosa, some indigenous Qom members anarcho­syndicalist trade unions and only small an individual affair, and therefore questions like of the community La Primavera blocked a remnants remained. [...] Eva Duarte­Peron was culture and language – these are collective road to reclaim their lands. The police able to build a labour movement by filling an realities, realities that don't make sense on an repressed them violently, murdering two organizational vacuum (and where necessary individual scale – don't have any importance; members of the community, Sixto Gómez smashing her weakened opponents). Thus and that strain of anarchism in my mind takes a and Roberto López… Peronism (Argentine fascism) had a solid base fairly Eurocentric read of national liberation among the workers. With prodding from the ever­ movements, only understanding them in a energetic Evita, the movement nationalized the European or Western context in which national This has not only taken place under banks, insurance companies, mines and liberation movements are always nationalist and Kirchenerism. All governments are of one railroads. As a result, Argentina had probably always seek the creation of a new nation­state. color, and have dozens of repressive the largest state­capitalist sector outside of a Whereas a vision that focuses more on cultural murders on their hands. Further back there Stalinist regime. Wages were forced up by and linguistic self­determination would realise are Víctor Choque, Teresa Rodríguez, decree and a host of social benefits introduced that nationalist movements also destroy that self­ Mauro Ojeda, Francisco Escobar, Aníbal for Los Descamisados (literally “the shirtless determination [through the homogenizing force Verón, Carlos Santillán, Oscar Barrios, the ones,” the working class followers of the Perons). inherent to all State­building projects.] Such a youths Maximiliano Tasca, Cristian Gómez, Even the Church was attacked. The “anti­ view would also take into account various anti­ imperialist” game was played to an excess, colonial struggles that were not fighting for a new Adrián Matassa, Miguel Bro, Javier alternating between violent anti­Americanism State but that were fighting against the Barrionuevo, Petete Almirón, Dario and anti­British sentiment. The foreigner was imposition of the State (as a Western artifact). Santillán and Maximiliano Kosteki, and so made the scapegoat for all of Argentina's And you could also consider that probably the many more who have been beaten, problems” (Larry Gambone). The Peróns gave four most revolutionary, multitudinary examples tortured, disappeared, and murdered by their name to the political movement known as of anarchism in practice would be the forces of order – in neighborhoods, in Peronism (a political phenomenon that draws Cataluña/Aragón 1936, Machinovchina in 1919, police precincts, in psychiatric hospitals, in support from both the political left and political the Balkans commune in 1903 and the Shinmin brothels and jails. right), which in present­day Argentina is commume in Manchuria in 1929; three out of represented mainly by the Justicialist Party. four of those arose in part because anarchists took part in an anti­statist, anti­nationalist way. Their hands are bloody – soaked with the 3. ed. – A flammable oil containing various So there's certainly a rich history there and a lot blood of the marginalized, the blood of hydrocarbons, obtained by the dry distillation of of room to maneuver that doesn't put us in the illegals, the blood of rebels. Passivity is not organic substances such as coal, shale, or dead­end of nationalism.” More strongly, another an option: it’s time to demand vengeance petroleum. comrade from the same territory describes the Vengeance against the executioners, and 4. ed. – Rising prices for transport, electricity, more 'radical' version of this liberalism: “Starting vengeance for the life of misery they have gas and food as well as austerity measures are from the fact that “every nation and all cultural imposed. Vengeance for their constant a part of this, having provoked a general strike in identity is an artificial social construct of violence. There has never been peace, April. domination,” there is a cosmopolitanism straight with so many dead, and we know who is out of a catalog that, under the mask of a sort of fictional “nihilism” (culture is domination, ergo, responsible. We know their names, their 5. ed. – Argentine politician and a former senior police officer responsible for various tortures and deny culture, we deny civilisation completely, titles, and their intentions. They try to call murders from the 1970's onwards, now jailed. In forgetting that our own anarchist ideas and us infiltrators, to call us violent, and we 2008 while Patti's actions during the 1970's were nihilism itself are cultural constructs and fruit of reply: WE CAN BE WORSE STILL… still under formal investigation the Supreme that same civilisation) plays the game of Court of Argentina ruled that he should still be domination without even stopping to reflect on it. allowed to take his seat in Congress. It is common to find among anarchists, 1. ed. – A political group formed by supporters of especially those anarchists born in the so­called the late Néstor Kirchner, president of Argentina 6. ed. – The Toba people, also known as the “First World” and in countries or regions where from 2003 to 2007; and of his wife Cristina Qom people, are one of the largest indigenous there have been no centrifugal tensions, that Fernández de Kirchner, president 2007­2015. groups in Argentina, and historically inhabited slogans, in principle valid and legitimate, such as the region known today as 'the Pampas' as well “Neither Homeland nor Borders” or “The Poor 2. ed. – “Peronismo, largely the invention of as parts of Bolivia and Paraguay. Have No Country”, become an apology for a sort [Juan Domingo] Peron's brilliant wife, Eva, was of “citizenship of the world” more false than a 7. ed. – The Wichí are a large group of peoples the nearest thing to perfect fascism that ever plastic coin. I ask all these people: what is more ranging about the headwaters of the Bermejo existed. Forget about all the propaganda and cosmopolitan than neoliberal globalisation, River and the Pilcomayo River, in Argentina and foolishness that has encrusted around the word cultural homogenization, the disappearance of Bolivia. “fascist.” Forget about Nazi­fascism and the identities and cultures, the ways of being, clerical fascism of Franco [ed. – see Who Is It?] 8. ed. – The traditional range of the Guaraní is in existing and acting in a territory, and the and [António de Oliveira] Salazar [dictator of present­day Paraguay between the Uruguay imposition of what I would call “substitutes for Portugal 1932­1968]. By fascism I mean the true River and lower Paraguay River, the Misiones uprooting”; that is, this vulgar culture of essence of that was a revolutionary movement – Province of Argentina, southern Brazil, and parts emptiness, where no­one knows, understands or or left­wing fascism. True pure fascism, as of Uruguay and Bolivia. relates to their territory and environment envisioned by Mussolinin [ed. – see Who Is It?], because of the lack of a worldview that allows grew out of the militant left­wing of Italian 9. ed. – We don't know enough about the them to understand and attack their conditions of Socialism. It was an attempt to impose the Argentine context to say, but for sure there are existence from their own context; where the Social Democratic program through dictatorship Mapuche in struggle in Chile who do not want to same products are consumed here as in China, and armed force. The movement dispensed with erect an 'independent' nation­state, Mapuche or with the same canned flavors; we speak the the sterile positivism and evolutionism of otherwise (see Return Fire vol.1 pg68, not to same colonising languages, and we think of the Orthodox Marxism, substituting romantic mention problems equating indigenous concepts same terms and the same frameworks that have emotionalism, extreme nationalism, a cult of the of place to a possessive, territorial, noun­based been instilled in us all, without even asking will and of the “man of action.” The goal was to language like English); obviously alongside ourselves where all that comes from: beyond nationalize industry and subordinate all classes others who do, comprising a very heterogeneous repeating that “everything is a construct” and to the needs of the State. The working classes movement. Hence there is no single 'Mapuche conforming to that?” (The Unbearable Folly of were to benefit from this revolution – but only so struggle'. In Argentina, Isabel Huala, mother of Being: a Critique of Referendums & Anarchism). 60. When one speaks of totalitarianism, thought runs immediately to a form of WHO IS IT? implacable domination that has historically been embodied in the figure of a single [ed. – This text dates back to the early 2000's; germinates in. But we could also say that despite dictator. Hitler the Fuhrer [Germany, 1934­ since then, if anything we have seen an the legitimacy the figures of the banker, the cop 1945], Mussolini the Duce [Italy, 1922­1943], intensification of the totalitarian aspects that and the politician have lost, it is precisely democracy exhibits, for example in the wave of democracy that has rejuvenated that system in Franco the Caudillo [Spain, 1939­1975], expansionist wars the Western powers have country after country via people's enchantment Stalin the Little Father [Russia, 1922­1953], undertaken to install regimes (itself nothing new, with the new political parties that rose from the Ceausescu the Leader [Romania, 1965­ but with an more explicit emphasis on the ashes of abandoned self­organised forms 1989], Mao the Great Helmsman [China, compulsory moral character of democratic values coalesced during those uprisings or movements; a 1949­1976], Pinochet the generalissimo than they permitted themselves when they still had recuperation aided in some places by some to compete with the Communist powers for an anarchists misplaced promotion of so­called 'direct [Chile, 1972­1990]: all are examples of image of liberty; in the age of 'anti­terrorism', democracy' (see 'The Matter of Knowing Who dictators from a not too distant past that is anything to endow the cowed mass with an illusion We Are'). We would do well at such moments to nevertheless considered difficult to repeat. of protection or integrity against the phantasmal remember how alone we stood against this In the course of the past few years we threat is justified as de facto 'democratic'). For democratic totalitarianism in the days before have been experiencing the end of the era example the previous Prime Minister of the U.K. austerity or whatever other flash­points, because of individual dictatorship as this form of passed laws giving police powers to apply for court this is both the place referenced in this text, and power receives nearly unanimous orders to limit the “harmful activities” of individuals the place we are returned to in the places where creating a “threat to the functioning of democracy” passing anarchist influence in moments of rupture condemnation. And if in a few parts of the (more specifically citing those whose activities aim has again waned. world, regimes still survive that are led by at a “purpose of overthrowing democracy”); bans strongmen, the tendency to replace them include publication on the web and social media or Finally, we join the author/s in emphasising the with modern democracies is taking hold in print anything not submitted to the police for falseness of the dichotomy between dictatorship without much dispute. The Fuhrer, the approval, and power to close premises where and democracy; the latter has been swift to resort 'extremists' seek to influence others. (One could to welcoming the former when situations get out of Duce and their like have had to give up point out that these measures initially target hand (Franco and Pinochet, both mentioned their place to somewhat disembodied, Muslim cultural groups or others 'at risk of below, both served democratic governments in cold systems of domination, without radicalisation', while at the same time seeing 'anti­ militarily vanquishing rebellions before coming to surprise, from which the human hate' discourse already levelled against anarchists power as autocrats), and comrades of countries element is almost completely banished. and other liberationists, as in the U.S. to designate that have transitioned from dictatorship (including anti­police violence, or the trial (still) pending but not limited to Greece, Indonesia, most of Latin But a dictatorship – a totalitarian against comrades in Belgium (see Return Fire America, etc.) frequently point out the continuation system – does not necessarily have to vol.4 pg68) for actions and propaganda against of one in the other; see our ending chronology...] be led by a single individual to be 'victimised' Eurocrats...)

However, it's important to mention one difference today; for the first “ “And that reminds me,” [the driver said,] “you better get out soon[...] time in decades, the elite I got orders wherever there's a family not moved out – if I have an accident – you know, consensus over the neo­liberal strategy of capital (free trade get too close and cave the house in a little – well, I might get a couple of dollars. And my agreements, de­regulation, etc.) youngest kid never had no shoes yet.” which has dictated the world “I built it with my own hands. Straightened old nails to put the sheathing on. Rafters are wired to system politically and the stringers with baling wire. It's mine. I built it. You bump it down – I'll be in the window with a economically since the second Great World Slaughter appears rifle. You even come too close and I'll pot you like a rabbit.” to be crumbling. But it's probably “It's not me. There's nothing I can do, I'll lose my job if I don't do it. And look – suppose you kill too soon to say where these me? They'll just hang you, but long before you're hung there'll be another guy on the tractor, and cracks actually lead (for example, he'll bump the house down. You're not killing the right guy.” although not limited to the U.S. – “That's so,” said tenant said. “Who gave you orders? I'll go after him. He's the one to kill.” the U.K. exit from the European Union being one obvious correlate “You're wrong. He got his orders from the bank. The bank told him: 'Clear those people out or – the failure to resolve this tension it's your job.'” is perhaps personified for many by “Well, there's a president of the bank. There's a board of directors. I'll fill up the magazine of the U.S. President Donald Trump, who rifle and go into the bank.” mouths off against global trade to win votes but has yet to prove The driver said, “Fellow was telling me the bank gets orders from the east. The orders were: himself willing or capable of 'Make the land show profit or we'll close you up.'” changing this very basis of U.S. “But where does it stop? Who can we shoot? I don't aim to starve to death before I kill the man wealth; and despite press and that's starving me.” leftist alarmism – amounting to little more than a revision of the “I don't know. Maybe there's nobody to shoot. Maybe the thing isn't men at all. Maybe, like you authoritarianism of the Obama said, the property's doing it. Anyway, I told you my orders.” presidency before him – and his “I got to figure,” the tenant said. “We all got to figure. There's some way to stop this. It's not like proven willingness to grant the lightening or earthquakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by God that's something we resurgent right license to target social movements, is ultimately can change.” The tenant sat in his doorway, and the driver thundered his engine and started off, more an expression of American tracks falling and curving, harrows combing, and the phalli of the seeder slipping into the ground. white supremacist democratic Across the door-yard the tractor cut, and the hard, foot-beaten ground was seeded field, and the traditions than 'fascism'). tractor cut through again; the uncut space was ten feet wide. And back he came. The iron guard bit This was written in the deathly into the house-corner, crumbled the wall, and wrenched the little house from its foundation so that it silence before the wave of fell side-ways, crushed like a bug. And the driver was goggled and a rubber mask covered his nose insurrections finally broke and mouth. The tractor cut a straight line on, and the air and the ground vibrated with its thunder. through to the Global North The tenant man stared after it, his rifle in his hand. His wife was beside him, and the (France 2005, Greece 2008, England 2011, U.S.A. 2014, etc.) quiet children behind. And all of them stared after the tractor.” Today the system must overcome – The Grapes of Wrath more visible social crises than the '90s years that this article surely 61. considered such. One can consider any cudgels except under very specific Today more than ever before, regime in which power is concentrated circumstances; rather it uses the organs of politics is action as an end in absolutely into the hands of a group of information. These don’t leave bruises on people who, thus, come to have control the skin, but preventatively nullify all itself, particularly in its over all aspects of everyone’s existence to awareness, extinguish every desire, parliamentary form in which the be such. From this one can deduce that placate every tension; the individual shuffling of people and things the most important element in a totalitarian dissolves and her [sic] alienation from the serves no other purpose than that world becomes irreconcilable. system is not so much who holds the of disguising not only the power as how it is exercised. It does not matter what reasons such a system adopts Freedom is simply self­determination. It is uselessness of the work, but also to justify absolute control, whether racial the choice each individual makes its essential unity. The numerous purity or the development of markets. It concerning his existence and the world in political parties that throng into isn’t even particularly important whether which she lives. But a choice in a situation the parliament today are the control is secured violently through the in which there is nothing to choose, “natural” heirs of the different presence of tanks in the street or gently by because conditions determined by others means of media anesthesia. It is the limit the situation, is a choice only in name. factions that battled inside the old inexorable application of this control to all Thus, a regime that represses challenges single dictatorial party. As in the aspects of life that counts, the fact that it with blood is denounced as totalitarian; it case of the factions, the various leaves no loophole, it gives no possibility of hinders different choices. But what can parties share the same vision of escape. one say about a regime in which no significant social tumult ever breaks out, a the world, the same values, the Thus, democracy itself is also a form of regime that has nothing to hinder because same methods. Only the details dictatorship – certainly less obvious, it does not even provide for the possibility differentiate them. but not for this less effective, quite the of different choices. As someone has said, Totalitarianism has met with almost “The most perfect police state has no need contrary – that must impose its values universal condemnation everywhere, and for police.” A decisive aspect of the in every field on all individuals and yet every day we can see how democracy totalitarian form – the single party – can social classes for its own self­ is just another form of totalitarianism. And express itself completely now even within preservation. From this perspective, many one of the worst. A modern democracy is the western political systems. consider it the most perfect totalizing rarely shaken by revolt. Democracy has system. The main reason that it has taken hold as the political system most succeeded in replacing the old and Contemporary political analysts themselves are forced to admit that when impermeable to the risk of revolt. Even if obsolete forms of power is that it is not such a revolt managed to emerge, it would merely one of the various forms power can one takes the economic bonds and the increasingly clear agreement on the have difficulty fueling the passions of assume; democracy corresponds to the individuals since it no longer has a role in very essence of capitalism, to the normal principles of the market economy between the left and the right into account, the the collective imagination. And this still functioning of market society in its doesn’t take into account that even in such expansion. Within the marketplace, social discourse and the programs of the great parties overlap more and more. Instead of a hopeful case, the wrath generated would classes don’t exist; there are only “free and not find anyone against which to direct equal” consumers. This “freedom” and presenting objectives that obviously differ from one another, developed through the itself, precisely because in democratic “equality” covers a basic role in the systems power is not embodied in a gathering of consensus, that consensus use of opinion polls, the great governing parties have reached the point where they human being, but is represented by an which represents the highest virtue of the entire social system. democratic system in the eyes of its no longer divide on specific objectives… supporters. These considerations no longer succeed in It goes without saying that the rousing amazement, expressing a situation parliamentary and union institutions never In fact, the classic totalitarian regimes are that has in fact become familiar. Among furnish the governed individuals with based on an exercise of violence that is, the apologists for the totalitarianism of the adequate means for making their claims, paradoxically, a profound sign of market, this familiarity loses all shame and while dissatisfaction – even when weakness. The conditions of life that are becomes inescapable. In his last book generalized – leads in the best of cases to imposed are intolerable – everyone knows celebrating global capitalism, journalist the formation of some current of this – and it is up to the forces for the Thomas Friedman – columnist for the New opposition. When there is not a figure in a maintenance of order to materially obstruct York Times, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes – position to polarize the totality of the the realization of a different life, the does not hide his satisfaction in opposition against itself in an enduring possibility of which still remains as the establishing that political choice has been manner – precisely when there is no conscious aspiration of the majority of reduced to Pepsi against Coca Cola – dictator – in a situation where a governing people. On the other hand, in slight nuances of taste, slight functionary becomes the object of a democratic systems the very possibility political variants, but never any widespread challenge, the normal interplay of a different life is to be deviation from the respected of institutions can even act to eliminate him assumption of the rules of eradicated. To maintain order, the [sic] in order to mollify at least a part of the gold, those of the main democratic state does not take out discontent. The lack of a king whose head street, the multiplicity of its can be cut off, of a strong authoritarian parties, which has been figure capable of drawing popular hatred proclaimed as a sure sign of onto itself, in other words of someone to democratic health because it whom we can attribute the responsibility supposedly guarantees the for the exercise of power, constitutes the possibility of choice, thence of genuine great bulwark in defense of “freedom”, is seen ever more democratic totalitarianism. In the old and clearly for what it is: a caricatured dictatorships, power had the competition between moustache of Hitler or the jaw of Mussolini, identical things. and it could be seen goose­stepping in the street or wearing the black shirt. But today 62. in the modern democracies, who is power? And the aim of the question is not to identify the particular people who exercise power, which is still possible on some level, but to attribute the responsibility for the existence that we lead to them. Over and over again it is said that today there is a single social system managed by people who are mere cogs in a machine, petty functionaries who cover most administrative roles. The very concept of (Not-so-wild)fires rage this Septermber across North America's Pacific coast responsibility comes to lose all meaning. Responsibility is the possibility of can imagine what would happen when consider the functioning of wheels and foreseeing the effects of one’s behavior other factors can be planned. cogs as a global support to a collective and changing this on the basis of such undertaking, rather than to speak in the Here is another example. Numerous customary manner of obedience to foresightedness. But the cog in a machine “experts” have had to agree that the origins has no foresight; it has no need of leaders. In this light one would never have of the huge storms that periodically strike to ask those who collaborated and obeyed foresight; it can never do anything but spin. the coasts of the United States and Therefore, it is no longer possible to “why did you obey?” but “why did you give eastern Asia are undoubtedly found in support?” If these observations don’t attribute the fault for an action to anyone, climactic changes brought about by human even if the action was most aberrant. minimally shake up the conscience of activity. On the other hand, in the face of anyone who finds themselves reading the series of earthquakes that shook the Let’s look at an example taken from the them today, naturally it is because they entire planet in the summer of 1999, the realm of what is commonly called “judicial refer to persons who served a dictatorship experts thought it good to reassure public errors”. Consider a man who has been of the classical type. Under Nazism – opinion that in this case at least the sentenced to prison for life but actually did Hannah Arendt tells us – all those who responsibility lies elsewhere, in the not commit the crime of which he was collaborated with the regime were equally unfathomable workings of nature. This may accused. He is placed under investigation, responsible. When power is embodied in be true, but whatever they say about the arrested, incarcerated, tried, sentenced one man, the Man himself is responsible causes, they fail to consider the effects of and kept segregated for the rest of his life. for it as well as the “black shirt”, as the these cataclysms. If seismic tremors Who is responsible for all this? In the old partisans who shot the adolescent “black escape human control, we are facing a totalitarian systems, the response was shirts” without posing themselves too many natural fact in which we are unable to much too simple. Everyone would have ethical questions well knew. On the other intervene and to which we can only submit; seen the unfortunate fellow dragged away, hand, when power has no name or but when these tremors destroy the condemned and locked up by the hired surname, no single person is more modern cities of Greece causing deaths thugs of the dictator who would have been responsible than any other. Thus, the very and injuries while leaving the acropoli considered responsible for the injustice people who justify the shooting of a 16­ intact, then we are facing a social question. perpetrated. In modern democracies, on year­old “black shirt” are horrified, at the To build houses, apartments, entire cities, the other hand, no one is held responsible. same time, by the violent death of a using building techniques and city planning The police officer who arrested him is not personage of the democratic state. projects intended to bring the highest level responsible since he was limited to of economic profit and social control carrying out orders from someone else. without considering even the most Nor can we blame the prosecutor although But were these young “black shirts” of elementary safety precautions cannot be he asks for the sentence, because he does yesterday actually more responsible than considered among the inborn human not decree it; this is done by someone the president of the United States for characteristics. else. Even the judges are not at fault since rendering our existence intolerable? We they have to make a decision on the basis In the end, who is responsible can’t get rid of the thought that personal responsibility persists not of evidence presented to them by for the thousands of deaths on someone else and then apply the only under the Nazi dictatorship but provisions of a penal code compiled by the job? Who is at fault for under the democratic one as well. It someone else. Finally, one cannot blame poisoning nature? Who do we doesn’t nullify the responsibility of its the guard, who as the last link in this chain, hold accountable for the wars, functionaries. If it dilutes this is certain to have a clean conscience responsibility, it does so to disguise it, unlike someone else. Yet that man finds the massacres, the deaths of to render it impalpable, invisible to our himself there in prison, and it is his body millions of people? Is it possible eyes. In the threadbare dialogue with that is enclosed behind bars, not that of to exit from this dense fog? which dominant thought has entertained someone else. Thus, in the dictatorships itself for decades now, responsibility is said that once existed the fact that power was In a famous essay entitled “Personal embodied in one man made him Responsibility Under Dictatorship”, which responsible along with his underlings, but took a polemic that arose from the trial of in modern democracy the distribution of Nazi Adolf Eichmann as its starting point, power through out the social apparatus Hannah Arendt recalled that the principle removes responsibility from everyone argument of the defense was that without distinction. Eichmann had been a mere cog, but regardless of whether the defendant is This exists as a social reality that is quite incidentally a functionary, he is in fact tangible, concrete and above all tragic. It is accused because a functionary remains able to grind up human life without anyone a human individual. In order to clear the being blamed. And if this happens when field of a confusionism that could only 14.06.17, London, U.K.: Grenfell flats, human responsibility is indisputable, we serve self­interest, the writer invites one to after repeated legal threats to the residents who warned likelihood of fire 63. to have gone through the same shipwreck that is supposed to have made History, “Democracy is not something supernatural, DEMOCRACY'S Meaning, Reality sink forever. All one something far from our selves. It’s our daily life. needs to do is stop listening to this DISCONTENTS chattering for a moment and here is what It’s the way we describe the cultural poverty of the 19.11.17, Viña del Mar, Chile: Street one would see: these alleged shipwrecks modern mega-cities; the emptiness, the poverty, the loneliness, the alienation. Today, democracy blockade on the voting day for the that never were such reappearing. first round in the Presidential receives proud laudations by ‘inflated’ politicians, All discourse that sets out to compare Elections. “Each Forest cut, each ‘firm’ prosecutors, ‘uncorrupted’ cops, ‘truth- Lake and River that dries, each Hill human life to the functioning of a loving’ journalists, ‘charity activist’ wealth owners. devastated, every species that is machine, in that unrelenting process of And is now the time that we have to strip extinct ; each one of the Cabros that making the individual disappear, omits democracy from its ‘sanctity’ and throw it where it falls into the trap, who are repressed one thing: individuals are not cogs, and beaten by the police and live deserves: in the cesspool of history. And it’s now they are human beings. They were through the abyss that is prison; that we have to finish with this alienation that human animals under the Nazi dictatorship every Peñi and Lamgien beaten, and are such under that of the democratic submits subconsciously the illusions – the illusion tortured and killed in Wallmapu [ed. – see We Can Be Worse Still]; each state as well. The difference between a of the ‘most perfect’ regime in history, the illusion of normality, equality and peace.” Woman abused by a priest, each cog – which is a mere piece of metal – and Child violated and killed in the youth a human being should be evident. A – December 6th (see Return Fire vol.2 pg98) detention centres… each, and more person is always in a position to discern of these same miseries that are and choose. If this is not so now, if one has “Carl Schmitt, the influential German political endorsed by the violence and the indeed become a mere cog, this would be theorist, jurist, and unrepentant Nazi whose work very existence of the state, they are further confirmation of the totalizing and was later taken up by the neoliberals at the also the miseries that are totalitarian reality in which we find University of Chicago, said that government was guaranteed to those who believe in and perpetuate democracy.” ourselves unable to live, and of the urgent not a monopoly on violence, but a monopoly on necessity of its overthrow. In any case, the decision. This seems true. In fact, the State permits 18.10.17, Santiago de Compostela, social system in which we live is not an and depends on private violence in the form of Spain: An early­morning molotov is inherent aspect of the world; it is a patriarchy, racism, employment conditions, fascist launched against the residence of the president of the Xunta de historical project. We are not free to decide street gangs, and so on, in order to maintain itself. Galicia, currently occupied by the whether or not we are born into it, but we What the State requires, in order to maintain power, president of the PP (ruling Popular can decide whether and how to live with is the prerogative to decide, in increasingly Party, directly set up by the fascist it. From the moment we accept taking on miniscule spheres of life, what is allowed and what regime during the transition to one of its roles, participating in its isn’t; to decide the course of the country and post democracy to retain the old guard). The same night, three ATMs are also administration, we accept the facto legitimate and regulate the initiatives taken by responsibilities implicit in this. Being easily torched, as is another one dawn the the capitalists. And when some social power interchangeable particles of a very following day. The first wave of contests the reigning order, the State must be attacks coincides with a day called in complex system does not free us from our involved in the resolution. The pacifists are wrong all Galicia to demonstrations about responsibilities, because we could have when they say that violence is the government’s the recent wave of over 50 chosen to refuse that system. Thus, even concurrent fires in the Galician and strong suit. If they ruled through violence they in this case one cannot excuse herself by Asturian mountains (the worst for saying that he only obeyed, that she only would never have legitimacy. In fact, the years in these 'green deserts' of followed the current, that he only did what government’s strong suit is communication. It is to eucalyptus/pine monoculture everyone else did. Because before occupy the central position, the role of mediator and forestry, itself already an industrial obeying, before following the current, protagonist, in any decision. It will make itself disaster and plan of Franco's regime before imitating others, a human being feared if it has to, but above all it survives by to turn the region's ecology into a sacrifice zone). The PP maintain poses herself, must pose himself, a making itself heard and making itself necessary, to very close ties with the paper­ question: would I consider it appropriate to the point where people cannot imagine a solution to pulping company ENCE, the main do this? And then she must answer a social problem that is not tailored first and responsible for much of the Iberian himself. Just like the Germans of whom foremost to the needs of state. This is exactly why Northwest monoculture; including Hannah Arendt spoke – we too are in the [anarchists] refuse to make demands. We will not the marriage of the much­hated situation of having to choose whether to ENCE plant in Pontevedra's director dialogue with the State, we will not sit down to chat give our support or at least our consent to to the Deputy Director General of with Capital. We will not tell them what we want this social organization or not. Once again Environmental Coordination of the because they already know: we want them to die. choice comes into play. In the myth of Er, Department of Environment, Territory and Infrastructure of the Plato makes the destiny of each person [...] The police know that we propose solutions to Xunta de Galicia. This PP president depend on the choice each one makes of their violence because they use the literature seized from our homes as evidence in the trials against us. had just extended the life of the their model for life: “There was nothing ENCE plant another 60 years... necessarily preordained in life because The politicians know we envision a world without each person had to change according to their authority because we talk about it in the July 2016, Sydney, Australia: “Over the past two months some the choice she made.” Now, we can communiques that accompany the bombs placed anarchists around Sydney mounted choose to give our contribution to the outside their houses. The journalists know we a campaign against politics and the maintenance of this world. Or else we can criticize their control of culture and information democratic process. This election choose to withhold it. In either case, we because they fancy themselves investigators and we takes place in a period of historic make a choice for which we alone are put these texts for free on the internet. And what disillusionment with the political spectacle and the politicians who responsible, not someone else. If it is true they all know is precisely what they refuse to say in that “the original choice is always present represent it, and never before have those embarrassing moments when they must admit so many parties been on offer, to in each subsequent choice”, then we must that we exist: they have no place in our future. We direct that mistrust back into the also know how to accept the are going to destroy them.” electoral process. We reject this consequences of our actions. All of us, process in its entirety. Elections are – The Logic of Not Demanding no­one excluded. a charade to confuse us about where power lies, and how things can be 64. changed. With the following petty acts of anti­ political sabotage, we draw a line. Thousands of anti­electoral posters were pasted up throughout VEGANISM: WHY NOT Sydney. Hundreds of anti­political slogans were painted across the city. A dozen banners were – an anarchist perspective tied to highway overpasses. Political advertising of every party was vandalised, or taken down lifestyles that could be and later burnt. Party activists caught spreading described as vegan. It is political propaganda were confronted, harassed and sometimes relieved of their material. Unlike rather directed at the very every political party we do not measure success intersectionality that people based on opinion polls or ballots.” choose to identify as an important common ground – 18.06.13, Paris, France: “A week after the based on the argument that murder of a comrade[*] in Paris by fascists, a week after the ever­so­democratic police raid there actually is no common [against undocumented people] in Barbès… a ground there – and at the bank ATM burned[,] the window of the Pré St­ motives and beliefs behind Gervais Socialist Party section shattered by that identification. blows, [the headquarters of the Left Front] completely covered with tags. […] Neither democracy nor fascism!” The New Thing * ed. – Clément Méric, militant syndicalist and anti­ The rate at which veganism is fascist, beaten to death by two neo­nazis being promoted by hipsters, Proponents of an ideology typically fail to 31.03.13, Aceh Tamiang, Indonesia: “[W]e NGOs, and – increasingly – businesses, burned down 3 buildings owned by the Major of distinguish between those who have not leaves no room for doubt that capitalism, Aceh Tamiang, Hamdan Sati. […] We have no yet encountered the new ideas they offer, the perennial opponent of animal citizenship because we are borderless. We are and those who have absorbed these ideas liberation, to say the least, has become the the angry ones who light the fire of freedom.” and moved on. The very point of an new best friend of veganism. Of course, ideology is that you’re not meant to move capitalism also buddied up with the 17.06.12, Athens, Greece: In the early evening of the election day, around ten people enter a on from it; however every ideology, at the feminist movement, and only the stupidest polling station and burn the ballot box. Two very best, has only been a resting point in anarchists took that as a reason not to fight police officers guarding the polling station are an onward theoretical journey. patriarchy. However, the fight against attacked and have to be taken to hospital. patriarchy and the feminist movement are “Everything around us seems to unwind in Anarchism, I would argue (perhaps simply not necessarily the same thing; there have coercive binaries: memorandum/anti­ because I don’t wish to move on from it), is also been intelligent critiques of particular memorandum, drachma/euro, fascism/anti­ more a body of thought, a legacy and feminist movements as the best form of fascism. […] Yet we don’t for a moment forget tradition of revolt aiming towards total struggle against patriarchy, which, the only real binary: Revolution or consistency freedom from all coercive authority. Its with the existent. [The 1,000ml of petrol that we regardless of their validity, have made for various ideologies – syndicalism, placed in the ballot box] are our 1,000 votes, they healthy debate. Likewise, fighting the are our 1,000 challenges in an unpacifiable war.” primitivism – have constituted resting exploitation of animals and veganism are points, while a few guiding principles have not the same thing, and the question of 30.05.12, Bristol, U.K.: Broken windows, paint­ remained permanent, but by no means whether the latter is useful for the former is bombs and tags for the Bristol Conservative ahistorical. Association. “Brand A, or Brand B, Pepsi or also necessary to debate. Cola, Labour or Conservative, we are allowed to It would be a mistake to critique It is vital to note that green capitalism is chose anything we want as long as it’s within the becoming the predominant strategy to pre­written guidelines of capitalism, the state, veganism as an ideology, or as a and the myth of democracy.” body of thought and tradition of allow Capital to survive what may be the practice, because there do not even biggest crisis it has ever created [ed. – see 21.05.12, Genoa, Italy: A device blows up in a exist any vague guiding principles New Technologies, Extraterrestrial skip next to the polling station in Rapallo, two Exploitation & the Future of Capitalism]. cop cars are torched in the same area outside that all or nearly all vegans share. A Veganism plays a demonstrable role in the police HQ, and more skips were burned great many vegans do not believe it is greening capitalism. Every vegan who has outside another polling station. absolutely wrong to kill other animals absolutely wrong to kill other animals ever spouted a statistic about the amount 24.10.11, Montevideo, Uruguay: Arson on the for food, and an increasing number of water used to produce a pound of beef seat of the Communist Party; “we decided to hit do not believe in animal liberation in or the amount of methane emitted by the the democracy/dictatorship of the progressive any radical sense of the term. world’s sheep is actively supporting government. […] Against the milicos of [ ] capitalism by participating in a great smoke dictatorship and the squaddies of democracy! * ” Veganism can only be fairly critiqued as an * transl. – The democratic regime had granted the screen which hides the true nature of how former dictatorship amnesty. intersectionality, a minimal practice of the present economic system actually abstinence that for a variety of reasons 09.01.10, Athens, Greece: Bombing outside the functions. All talk of efficiency is coming very different people choose to identify as out of the mouth of Capital itself. Greek parliament. “Democracy’s new social an important common ground. For many, contract is ratified across western capitals: in­ Historically, capitalism has needed an ever between confiscated cars, endless queues the motive is social, to signal belonging to growing population, although in the future it forming outside social security services, the a group or completion of a trend, justified may find a way out of this obligation. But torturing take place inside police stations, new on the grounds of health or ethics. For for the meantime, capitalists must find a cell phone special offers, flat­screen TVs, others, the motive is revolutionary, to way to feed a larger population on less, unemployment benefits, psychological problems develop that minimal practice of and in the wealthy metropolis, veganism and loneliness, upsurges of nationalist pride and abstinence into a maximal practice that provides the perfect solution[1]. unpaid loan installments. And most importantly, might seek, among other things, animal non of this was forced upon anyone, nor was it rights, animal liberation, or the abolition of As stated in the introduction, veganism in carried by the order of some junta generals. [...] This is why we claim that democracy is the all domination and exploitation. its totality is not an ideology or a tradition technique and the ability of power not to be of struggle; it only exists as these things for understood as oppression.” As such, this critique of veganism is not a minority of those who identify as vegans. at all directed against particular diets or In its totality, veganism is only the identity 65. of those who choose it. Because veganism exists as a chosen common “In some manner or another all forms of life eat some other living thing and then, ground between those who struggle for in turn, are eaten by someone else. Our deaths are usually sad for ourselves but, as Juan animal liberation and those who are Matus [ed. – of the Yaqui; see Return Fire vol.3 pg59] points out so well, our deaths are actively working to save capitalism, not also gifts for someone else, if only for micro-organisms. Human beings, for example, to mention to vacate any struggle they stalk and eat all manner of plants, animals and birds, but we in turn are hunted and eaten come in contact with of its radical by other living animals as well as by bacteria and other tiny living things. Ultimately, of content, it could only be justified if it course, worms, bugs and plants will feed upon our bodies and help [the earth] to digest inarguably were the only way to us. [Earth's surface] is largely comprised of the transformed bodies of our relatives who coherently live and fight for anarchist have been dying for millions of years. “Soil fertility” is, in large part, nothing but a ideals. This, I will argue presently, is not measure of the extent to which a particular bit of ground is saturated with our dead the case. (One could also counterargue ancestors and relatives. Death, then, is a necessary part of life. […] Killing is a serious that veganism is potentially useful as a business and it requires spiritual preparation. Moreover, one should feel the pain and common ground if it serves subversively as sorrow of killing a brother or sister, whether it is a weed, a tree or a deer. If one does not a sort of gateway drug into more radical feel that pain, one has become brutalized and “sick.” ” – Jack D. Forbes politics. Given the self­evident facts that more people are turned away by veganism than attracted to it, and that those who are people whom anarchists wish to dominate project of engineering the very meaning of attracted to it tend to be wealthier and at the end of the day. Rather, kings and life. A right to life could also be hipper, veganism makes for a other authorities constitute a political safeguarded by a shared community simultaneously uninviting and anemic project of domination, and killing them is a ethos, but such a community determination gatekeeper.) rejection of their project, a demonstration would be powerless against the realities of that their control is imperfect, and an nature (unlike the State, which has the Animal Rights invitation to more acts of rebellion and capacity to reengineer nature). And nature Animal rights is a common objective for disorder that will end, if successful, not knows no rights; once it gives us life, it only those vegans whose motivations are with more subjects, but with no subjects, guarantees us the certainty of death. The ethical, and not only based in health or and therefore no domination. Western tragic ideal, which is inextricable fashion. I don’t know why these people from the capitalist war against nature, hate other animals so much that they Killing need not be an act of negation, presents death as a bad thing, and would wish rights on them, but I imagine either. It can also be the foundation of a apparently so do some vegans, but to the their malice stems from an ignorance of relationship. The lion is not the king of the rest of us, this only appears as the meaning of rights, of the policing of jungle (nor is it even a typical member of a philosophical immaturity. living relations in a legal framework, of the jungle ecosystem, to get pedantic). The democratic project [ed. – see 'The Matter predator does not dominate the prey, nor One could, in counterargument, make a of Knowing Who We Are']. Because a does it negate them. It enters into a distinction between death by natural propensity towards democracy is one of relationship with them, and this relationship causes and death by killing, but this only the most common strategic and theoretical is mutual – or in other words, of a sort that increases a separation between humans faults among anarchists at this time, one anarchists should find interesting and and other animal species. If human ethics must again skeptically question the potentially inspiring. Many animal and the behavior of other animals exist selection of this common ground that liberationists have human exceptionalism in completely separate spheres, then it breeds so many vices. Because the animal so ingrained, they actually reproduce the becomes impossible to talk about rights agenda is so naïve and reformist, I ­ism they are combating (this at least they animal liberation without “liberation” will subsequently focus on the framework would have in common with other identity taking on an entirely Christian or of animal liberation, in an attempt to avoid politicians). If human morality must stand colonial meaning (such as the creating an easy­to­demolish strawman. above natural relations such as the one “liberation of Iraq”). If a human killing for between predator and prey, then it is food is not natural, then we have nothing in Thou Shalt Not Kill hypocrisy to talk of speciesism; we could common with other animals, in which case One of multiple ethical justifications for only talk of salvation. And if we then shift the only honest vegan discourse would be veganism argues that a vegan lifestyle is the terrain of the argument to point out that one of “charity towards defenseless the only coherent realization of the moral the natural relation of predator and prey is animals.” Of course, “natural” is a sophistic truth that it is wrong to kill other animals. If absent in industrial food production, we and often manipulated category anyways the moral prohibition against killing is not would be dishonest to not also admit that [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg92], but coming directly from pacifism or we have no coherent moral qualm against let’s remember that this line of argument Christianity, it can only base itself on an killing for food, merely a contextual begins with a vegan attempt to separate analogy with the fundamental anarchist rejection of killing as an industry. But this “natural” and “cultural” forms of eating. prohibition against domination: killing is a would make us luddites at heart, not Having thus alienated us from nature, a form of domination, and thus it is contrary vegans. to anarchism, except possibly in cases of vegan could make the irrefutable argument self­defense. The analogy is a flagrantly Speaking from the gut for a moment, I find that we have the choice whether or not to false one. Though Authority has long the moral against killing to be utterly kill other animals for food, but this flaunted its legitimate ability to kill, repulsive. I think it’s a disgusting reasoning is circular, resting again on the annihilation of its subjects has always been disconnection from the natural world and assumption that killing other animals is a last resort, and this last resort is always our animal selves. Killing can be a wrong and should be avoided if possible. taken in order to educate the living. beautiful thing. It can also be a tool in the (They may tack on a multicultural [ed. – Domination is only successful when the service of domination. It is not simply and see Fraud, Fantasy & Fiction in subject is kept alive so its activity can be inherently one or the other. Environmental Writing/'The Invention of disciplined and exploited: there’s got to be the Tribe'/Q], demeaning, and victimistic something to dominate. A prohibition against killing seems to be exception for hunter­gatherers, poor people just the idea of rights in disguise. The right with limited food access, and others who There’s nothing un­anarchist about killing a to life is meaningless without a political “don’t have a choice”). It would be more king, because kings are not a type of authority to enforce it and to engage in the logically coherent to argue, also irrefutably, 66. that eating anything is a choice, and given democratic rights from an elite to human involvement in so many world the majority of humankind. This problems, we should stop eating extension was not a gradual altogether. sequence of delayed charity but a violent process that Which brings up the question of eating incorporated the new citizens plants. It’s unfortunate that so many into the rationalistic Cartesian[2] facetious jackasses, when they first hear conception of man [ed. – see about this weird thing called vegetarianism, 'The Matter of Knowing Who think they’re being so clever when they ask We Are']; rights were a trojan why it’s okay to eat plants if it’s not okay to horse for a more detailed eat animals, because there is actually an domination. Vegan morality, in important point to be made here. other words, constitutes another alienation from nature; to The consensus view on why it’s okay to eat prevent killing or the infliction of plants and not animals is because plants pain, human society would have do not have central nervous systems to remove all remnants of (although neither do several members of ecosystem relations from our the animal kingdom) and therefore can feel food production, producing no pain. There are a number of things “There is no difference [between plants and animals human and natural spheres that wrong with this argument. First of all, it is in terms of their aliveness]. That we think there is is ideally do not touch at all. not falsifiable and not empirical (in the best a direct result of our schooling, which has taught us possible sense of this term) to assert that inaccurate maps of the reality around us. Plants have This alienation is most obvious plants do not feel. A great many cultures as sophisticated a neural network as most animals, in in the bizarre aversion to pain that have an infinitely better track record – expressed by some ethical some instances their neural networks dwarf our than the consumer culture that birthed vegans. Rather than own. We are the only culture in the history of the veganism – in living as a respectful part of constructing a sensible ethical world that has forgotten this. To think that plants are their ecosystem and not exploiting animals framework, in which it is simply sentient, as we are sentient, is a huge step. For many insist that all living things have personhood wrong to lock up another living people taking the next step and understanding that [ed. – including much beyond Western thing or to enforce coercive non­ places also contain livingness, that they extend concepts of living/dead; see Return Fire reciprocal relationships with meanings outward to us is even harder. Still, all of vol.4 pg39]. And within the skeptical and other living things, the veganism us have walked into a restaurant with a friend and mechanistic confines of Western science, which is based on a prohibition suddenly stopped and said, “This place feels funny, there are also a number of indications, on of killing permits the the level of organic electrical activity for let’s leave.” If we extend that feeling capacity contradiction of killing plants by outwardly into the wild of the world we immediately example, that plants interact with their elaborating an immorality of the environment in a way that could feel the livingness and intelligence of place. All causing of pain. (As a side note cultures prior to the emergence of Christianity and encompass feeling. They inarguably regarding non­reciprocal Islam understood this. Once we reclaim that display rejection or attraction to different relationships, it is important to understanding it is much harder to treat the outside stimuli, depending on the consequence of recognize the centrality of those stimuli for their wellbeing. coercion in order to distinguish world carelessly, for we know, deep within between non­reciprocal ourselves, that it is as alive as we are alive and that On the other hand, if a complex central caring that we feel interferes with careless attitudes nervous system is the sole basis, in human Authority and non­reciprocal and behaviors. [M]ost of us have been trained to see beings, for the capacity to feel pain, there parasites, the latter inhabiting an the plant world as a simple, and unintelligent are a great many animals with such simple important ecosystemic niche). background to the human world. It takes many years nervous systems that it would be hard to believe they could feel anything more than I find it hard to understand to escape that training, still it proceeds in slow attraction or repulsion to different stimuli. someone who does not increments. The first step is to allow the sense of Exactly why a living being should be comprehend that pain is natural, wonder we had as children to return, to let ourselves valued based on what comes down to its necessary, and good. When we feel the touch of the world upon us and to follow its supposed similarity to human beings is inflict pain on others, our lead. It begins with simple things such as coming something that vegans should have to faculties of sympathy provoke upon a magnificent old growth tree in a forest and explain. a conflict within us, and such being overcome with the feeling that it engenders conflict is also good, because in us.” – Stephen Harrod Buhner If it is domination to kill, why do we respect it makes us think and animals and not plants? If it is wrong to question what we’re doing, cause pain, why do we give animals the whether it’s necessary, and cause for conflict, sympathy, or doubt. benefit of the doubt, and give other living whether there’s also an element of the The depersonalization and degradation of things the short shrift when in neither case beautiful in it. Evolving to eat animals animals that accompanies ideas of human is it certain if or what they feel? Is our only and also to feel sympathy, our biology supremacy is one such ideology that criterion their similarity to us? Could the saddles us with a choice. Either we accomplishes an end run around emotional advanced ethical arguments of veganism form an intimate relationship with that conflict. Veganism, which extends human be little more complex than those PETA which we eat, understand it as a supremacy downwards to include the posters that always champion cute privilege to accompany the other whole of the animal kingdom and puppies, and never crabs or cockroaches? creature in its last moments, and look depersonalizes the rest of the natural world, is another. With both the loud, proud In any case, the downward extension of forward to the day when we will also be meat­eaters and the vegans, the effect is the right not to feel pain to those creatures killed and eaten; or we avoid this the same: to not have to feel sympathy or most similar to ourselves (but only similar difficult process by forming an ideology to us in a mechanical understanding of so we know that what we are doing, a respect for the living beings which you ourselves) closely mirrors the extension of priori, is right, and therefore not a must kill in order to survive. 67. From Boycott to Insurrection are fertilized with manure or slurry from represents how environmental movements A great many vegans do not believe that it industrial meat farms. The commercial of various stripes have aided capitalism. is fundamentally wrong to kill for food, but alternative to this, generally, is chemical they understand the shamefulness of fertilizer, which constitutes mining and the When the reformist environmentalists of locking living beings up in cages, and destruction of the oceans: is veganism in the ’80s promoted responsible therefore of the meat industry. As long as this case any kind of step forward? (Or, to consumerism (e.g. 101 Things You Can Do the meat industry exists, they want no part use another example, when a friend asked to Save the Planet), they played their part of it. Maybe they see their veganism as a me to hand her her jacket, which, she self­ in increasing domestic electricity efficiency boycott of the industry, which, along with righteously pointed out, was not made from in the US. This increase in efficiency other tactics, will bring it down, or maybe it animal skin, her sense of superiority was enabled a decrease in prices, which is simply a coherent emotional response. quickly deflated when I said, “Here’s your allowed an increase in total electricity More likely to approve of freeganism[3], this jacket made from petroleum products.”) consumption, and all the accompanying type of vegan will say that they might eat consequences for the environment. Within meat if they lived in a healthy, ecologically It goes further than this. Imagine a vegan a market economy, a decrease in meat sustainable society, but within industrial vertical monopoly that produces food, from consumption could lead to a decrease in society they consider it impermissible. It is start to finish, without bees, without meat prices, which would lead to a net important to distinguish between these two manure, and hell, let’s pretend they even increase in meat consumption as those types of radical vegans – those who think it use organic fertilizers and pesticides, and segments of the population not yet won is absolutely wrong to eat meat and those don’t use giant tractors that crush moles, over by veganism take advantage of the who think it is situationally wrong, leaving insects, and other animal life. Only rich drop in prices. aside for now non­evangelical vegans who people would be able to afford this food, see veganism as a choice befitting their but regardless of the final price, all profit Some mythical vegan movement that particular struggle – because the moral made from the buying and selling of this became large enough to cause a collapse vegans will often respond to criticisms of food represents a return on investment, a in the meat industry through boycotts and vegan ethics with arguments based on the cash flow that a diverse web of banks, accompanying sabotage would find itself in tenets of situational vegans, confusing the insurance companies, and investors turn a dead end, having promoted a change in distinction between the specific context right around and put into other industries – capitalism that would allow greater they use rhetorically, and the absolute the weapons industry, clothing efficiency in world food production, a ethics they use it to defend. For example, a manufacture, vivisection, adventure higher world population, and the typical response to the first version of this tourism, prosthetic devices, turkey destruction of article deliberately conflated the two factories, cobalt mining, student loans, ecosystems on a arguments, dodging the ethical criticism of it doesn’t matter. greater scale. The veganism by falsely painting it as an alienation from ethical apology for the factory system of Let’s put this more concretely. Every nature would food production. As can clearly be seen in single vegan restaurant in the reach its the preceding section, the ethical criticism world, as long as they meet the logical is based in the possibility of a healthy, minimum definition of a restaurant conclusion: ecological, non­industrial relationship with (selling food) supports the meat most animals our food. In this section, the struggle industry, because in industrial would be against industrial food production is taken civilization, there is no meat freed from as a given, and the only criticism made industry and vegetable industry, there their cages, but against veganism in this respect regards is only Capital, expanding at the they’d be fucked its efficacy in challenging and undermining expense of everything else. all the same. this industry. The vegan argument against stealing meat Not only does veganism While they can be counted on to be less is indicative: if you steal meat, the encourage an ignorance of market manipulative than moral vegans, practical supermarket may lose money, but they will mechanisms, it also conflates vegans generally obscure the true order more meat product to replace their consumption with agency and thus functioning of capitalism and thus hinder stock, so more meat will be consumed. promotes a fundamental democratic the struggle against animal exploitation However, it is the profit made by the myth. People are held responsible for what and ecocide, two phenomena which supermarket that is reinvested primarily in they buy and consume, and therefore the cannot be viewed entirely separately, even food distribution of all kinds, and consumer arena is portrayed as one of free though animal rights, and certain versions secondarily in all other industries choice, rather than a violently imposed role of animal liberation, highlight the former at imaginable. What’s good for veganism, in [ed. – see Return Fire vol.3 pg87]. All the the expense of the latter. this case – buying vegetables and not violence and domination of the capitalist stealing meat – is good for capitalism, bad system is ingrained in the role of the Although it seeks to be strategic for the planet, bad for animals. Ethical consumer, in every corner of a society in nature, practical veganism consumption of any kind is a mirage. All based on the production, buying and creates a false understanding of consumption fuels Capital and hurts the selling of commodities. Except for the most capitalism and a false sense of planet. Stealing meat is better for animals skilled of evaders, and the inhabitants of a than buying vegetables from a few remote jungle and mountain regions moral purity or superiority, both supermarket, but both stealing and buying (all of whom base their antiauthoritarian of which are fatal to the struggle are a dead end as long as we don’t subsistence strategies in part on hunting[4]), against domination. dismantle the industrial civilization that is it is impossible to opt out of capitalism. A destroying the Earth and exploiting or vegan lifestyle in no way damages In the first place, true veganism is liquidating all its inhabitants. capitalism, ends ecocide or animal impossible for anyone who lives within exploitation, or severs one’s material capitalist society. Most fruits and Not only is there no modern example of an connections to even just the animal vegetables are pollenated with bees or effective boycott against an entire product industry, given the interlaced nature of wasps, many of which are commercially category as opposed to a single brand, the industrial society. Assuming that veganism farmed. A substantial proportion of fields very idea of better consumer choices has anything to do with animal liberation 68. would be like calling an anarchist a evolved to absorb their nutrients from food you never were,” simply doesn’t apply to hypocrite for having a job, driving on state and not from pills (in the case of iron, her. She’s someone who is extremely highways, going to a hospital, or dietary pills and “iron­fortified” foods dedicated to animal liberation, who has put occasionally opting to follow the law. The contain the inferior non­heme iron from her freedom and her body on the line, who exploitation of animals and the destruction plant sources); has always been conscientious about her of the environment are hardwired into the diet. In the first few years, she did great – heme iron, which is only found in animal present system. What matters is that we with a vegan diet, but after long enough sources, has an absorption rate of fight this system. What we eat and what she caused herself health problems that between 20% and 35% whereas the non­ we buy or don’t buy in the meantime are she could no longer ignore. Her case is heme iron found in plant sources has an choices whose only ramifications are more dramatic than most, but it’s probable absorption rate of between 2% and 20%; personal. that a lot of the time, what appears to be – absorption rates of heme iron is always the loss of motivation to maintain a diet is The nature of industrial society is high, whereas absorption rates of non­ related to the general loss of motivation completely missed when we see agency heme iron are affected by other dietary that accompanies anemia or a B12 in consumer choices. As long as we take elements (animal protein and Vitamin C shortage. Other times it’s just the case that care of ourselves and our comrades, how raise non­heme absorption rates, soy people are listening to their bodies without we survive the blackmails of capitalism is proteins and the phytic acid found in leafy realizing that’s what they’re doing. unimportant. The only thing that matters greens lowers the non­heme absorption are our attacks against the existing rates); Regardless, when we hear someone tell us system. Political veganism is an exercise in that a vegan diet can work for anyone, and irrelevance. – unabsorbed iron, whether from pills or if we gave up on it it’s because of a non­heme iron, damages cell tissue and personal failing, we know in our bones and It is no coincidence that many of those causes health problems; in our guts that this is just ideological anarchists who reconquered the ability to – lack of iron or especially B12 can build authoritarianism. When we weren’t eating feed themselves – rewilding, scavenging, up over time and take years to manifest in meat, we experienced it the same way or setting up farms – were among the first health problems, but when such problems when some jerk told us we had to eat to abandon veganism. They had left arise they can be gravely serious; animals. Eating, ultimately, constitutes a consumerism behind, inasmuch as they very personal relationship. A sure way to could, and were coming in contact again – there are no vegan foods that are make an enemy is to devalue their diet. with natural realities, and reciprocal naturally high in iron; Which again raises the question of the relationships that don’t fit into easy ethical strategic common ground constituted by – zinc, another important mineral, is frameworks [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 veganism. Looking at vegans as a whole, lacking in many vegetarian diets, and is pg95]. and at anarchists as a whole, with whom also blocked by the phytic acid in leafy do we feel more affinity? greens; The Healthiest Diet Before I point out some common vegan – B12 is not found in plant sources, a B12 The supposed health benefits of veganism health misinformation, it’s only fair to point deficiency is extremely dangerous but it are not as simple as they are often out the lies on the other side. The most can take 5–20 years to manifest, and its presented. Many of the studies cited by common scientific argument I’ve ever symptoms are masked by the folic acid vegans to their favour do not actually heard against the universal applicability of which abounds in vegan diets; measure a strictly vegan diet, but mix a vegan diet states that people of certain vegans in with those who eat very little in – vegan B12 can only be reliably gotten in blood types need to eat meat in order to the way of animal products (i.e. the studies certain brands of nutritional yeast, survive. I looked it up, and the study is will ask respondents if they eat meat “less although some people’s bodies reject the thoroughly discredited, and it was flimsy to than once a week, two or three times a yeast, or in pills or artificially fortified foods, begin with. Furthermore, to the best of my week, once a day” and so on). Once there which often have low absorption rates. (For knowledge, the dairy industry propaganda are more vegan capitalists, such studies myth­busting regarding vegan foods that that milk is good for your bones is also will surely find their funding[5] (it won’t be are supposedly high in iron, or the false; broccoli, in fact, is much better. But a long now), but until recently, the scientific argument that humans are naturally lot of research and a determination not to establishment hasn’t been so interested in vegetarian, see the appendix [ed. – be suckered by fables from either side has reifying veganism as a category so much omitted for lack of space, but available with led me to the conclusion that not everyone as comparing relative amounts of different can be healthy on a vegan diet. Most of all, the original text at theanarchistlibrary.org]). food groups in a diet. These studies are personal experience and the experiences also affected by the fact that vegans and of friends has corroborated that It follows from the above facts that vegetarians tend to be more health conclusion. some people, provided they are conscious and wealthier, meaning that extremely conscientious about their regardless of the meat question, they’re To the best of my knowledge, the following diet, can live healthily and happily on a putting higher quality food in their bodies. facts are solid, and rarely mentioned by vegan diet. A few will feel bad on such a those vegans who ply the supposed health diet from the get go. And a larger The arguments about meat consumption advantages of their diet: group, after a matter of years, will being bad for the heart are complicated, become increasingly unhealthy and – humans evolved on an omnivorous diet; but vegan interventions in these arguments even develop anemia or other have tended towards simplification. High – different people need different amounts conditions. A friend of mine who had cholesterol in the blood can be bad for the of various nutrients, such as iron and B12; never accepted my arguments against heart, and meat is astronomically higher in veganism finally ended ten years of cholesterol. However, the body is not a – some people have lower or higher veganism only after her body demanded it machine you pour ingredients into. absorption rates of these nutrients; of her. She had developed anemia, a There is no strong connection between – dietary pills are often an unreliable severe shortage of B12, and depression, cholesterol in the diet and cholesterol in source of nutrients, not only because they and was feeling so bad that she was the blood stream. Furthermore, cholesterol are generally produced by profit­interested becoming suicidal. The arrogant, cultish is an important nutrient. Some studies companies, but also because humans commentary of, “if you’re not a vegan now have suggested that animal fats trigger 69. cholesterol build­up in the bloodstream, but Religious Tendencies other studies point out that the former The almost systematic presence of conflate saturated fats from animal sources misinformation in specifically vegan circles with transfats, which come from processed indicates a religious quality to veganism. vegetable oils and abound in many vegan Many vegans consistently formulate their diets. There is a general consensus on the lifestyle as part of a dedicated struggle for harmfulness of transfats, and a multiplicity liberation, but those who are exempt from of studies that allege some health risks the critique of dogmatism should still be and some health benefits from animal fats. asked why they choose to create common What seems to be undisputable is that ground with those vegans who are there are many benefits from animal fats, moralistic and manipulative. and all of the health risks are neutralized by sufficient physical exercise and enough Dogmatism is in many ways reinforced by fiber in the diet. On the other hand, the very construction of veganism. someone who does not lead an active life Veganism creates a righteous in­group on animals struggle against being locked up, and has little access to fresh food should the basis of an illusion of purity. Many of us and nature in general throws down walls not eat red meat, although baked, boiled, have had the frustrating experience of and erodes boundaries. But veganism, in or raw fish will generally improve their arguing with vegans who go in circles, the minority occasions when it is health. claiming that they do not support the meat accompanied by actions for animal industry even after they are forced to An undisputed fact is that in the countries liberation, imposes an ethical space on the acknowledge that all industries are animal kingdom that other animals had no with the longest life expectancy, and interconnected; we are reminded of hand (paw?) in creating. Veganism generally also those with high rates of arguing with Christians whose every proof refuses the possibility of learning from heart health, people tend to eat moderate comes back to the bible, or more precisely, other animals – for me a precondition to high amounts of animal fats, but very their desire to believe in it. The fact that the for real solidarity, but evidently not for low amounts of processed foods. idea of purity or non­responsibility does not them – by rejecting the development of square with how capitalism actually As far as the heart goes, what is most functions, and thus a vegan diet which an ethical framework in which we all certain is that fiber is good for it. There’s does nothing to materially attack the depend on each other and sometimes no point beating around the bush: meat structural causes of animal exploitation eat each other, as in the animal world. has no fiber. But if meat is not crowding cannot be accepted, because the actual On the vegan sanctuary farms, do they put plants out of one’s diet, it probably isn’t bad meaning of veganism, as such, is the the rescued foxes in with the rescued for your heart, and no study I’m aware of embrace of the illusion of purity, the chickens? And if they feed the rescued has demonstrated that meat in moderate entering of the in­group. dogs and cats meat instead of tofu, is it quantities is bad if it is accompanied by okay because they’re just animals, but lots of fiber and exercise. In other words, The existence of this in­group can also be we’ve risen above that kind of behavior? by most accounts, a diet based on fruits, seen in the place of vegetarians on the Such an attitude crosses the line between vegetables, and meat is healthier for most moral hierarchy. Any well read vegan ally and savior. people than a diet based on fruits, knows that, within their own logic of vegetables, and grains. But the heart is responsibility, a vegetarian is just as Go Omnivore not the only organ in the body. What I’ve responsible as a meat eater for animal There are innumerable ways for never heard a vegan mention are the exploitation, because the production of omnivorous anarchists to live coherently studies documenting the negative health eggs or dairy is integrated with meat and formulate a diet that realizes their consequences of a diet lacking animal fats, production, in that morally direct way they struggle for total liberation in their daily life. such as higher rates of depression, fatigue, find somehow more visible than, say, the Necessarily, this great diversity of diets and violent death. Nor do many vegan integration of the transport industry with would have one point in common: the websites mention that soy is toxic when meat production[6]. However, the vegan recognition that, because capitalism is a unfermented (nearly all commercial tofu, who is prone to judge or prosyletize (who coercive and totalizing imposition, purity is and all TVP, is unfermented). Only tempeh is not every vegan, and perhaps not even neither desirable nor possible, thus what a and authentic bean curd pass this hurdle. the majority, but a common enough figure) person eats should not model an ideal but As for seitan, though it is not a soy will place the vegetarian who consumes highlight a conflict. product, the gluten it is made from is bad milk daily higher up on the moral scale for a comparable percentage of the than the omnivore who eats homegrown This could take the form of scavenging or population as the cow milk which vegans fruits and vegetables and eats meat once a stealing to feed oneself. Both of these often demonize. Soy dust is also an week. activities cultivate low intensity illegality allergen that increases asthma rates, and thus antagonism with the dominant particularly in port cities where rainforest Another religious feature of veganism can system. And both, if they are realized soy is unloaded and sent to market. be found in its concept of liberation or within an expansive anarchist practice, solidarity. The vegan model is remarkably suggest possibilities for elevating tactics Given the moralistic weight of the concept similar to the militant Christian charity of and moving towards collective action. In of the “natural” [ed. – see Return Fire the abolitionists, given the fact that they the former case, one can sabotage trash vol.1 pg24], it is no surprise that some are speaking in the name of beings who compactors and other capitalist techniques vegans have alleged meat consumption to do not speak for themselves, and of enclosing an inadvertently created be unnatural for humans. The fossil record, building solidarity with allies who will commons [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 the diets of the most closely related never criticize or demand anything of pg55] (the trash). In the latter case, one primates, the length of our intestines, and them (in the case of the abolitionists, the can organize proletarian shopping or our ability to digest raw meat all point to an ideal of the mute slave was not a reality but supermarket raids [ed. – see Return Fire omnivorous diet going back to the a desired condition reinforced by the vol.2 pg25]. beginning of the species. The specific general lack of direct communication allegations regarding evolution are between the abolitionists in the North and In places with easier access to physical debunked in detail in the appendix. the slaves in the South). Clearly, many space, such as rural areas or decaying 70. urban areas, one can seize land to create exploiting and betraying ourselves. None why those of us who have already passed gardens and farms and promote the self­ of this is a choice, just a reflection of the through veganism and out the other side organization of our own food supply. This fact that we live in hell. Until the present should be closeted in common anarchist tends to work better, and enable a fuller social order is destroyed and all of the spaces, or treated as less dedicated in the realization of anarchist ideals, if it is cages and prisons opened and razed, the struggle for the end of all forms of modeled on an ecosystem rather than a only choice we acknowledge is negation. domination. factory, which means gardens and farms Unlike the naïve vegan novice out to with animals. Depending on the scale this change the world, we don’t kid ourselves Against consumer society, could include bees, fish, chickens, goats, into thinking we can live our ideals. That’s against civilization, and more. Such projects will pose the exactly why we’re at war. until no one has to live in a cage! difficult but necessary challenge of figuring out a mutual and respectful If we seek to realize our struggle in our relationship among all the species that diet, abandoning veganism creates more live off the farm; planning from within possibilities for self­organization of food, a rather than from above, learning how to mutual relationship with our environment, listen to the other beings that use the bioregional flexibility and sensitivity, and farm and allow them to impact the anticivilizational ethics. If we reject the plans; and adapting new norms for totality of this society or lack access to an dealing with the emotional conflict we autonomous space for maneuver, the only should feel when we kill other living thing that matters is attacking the existent beings. and sustaining ourselves in the meantime. In either case, an omnivorous diet makes In places where we have contact with sense. 1. ed. – “The Animal Aid Society's “Campaign to wilderness, we can – as many people are Promote the Vegetarian Diet” calculates that ten doing now – relearn many important skills Stay Vegan acres will feed two people keeping cattle, ten related to feeding ourselves. If this is truly There is a major operative difference eating maize, twenty­four munching wheat, and done not as a hobby but as the realization between the statements “I don’t eat any sixty­one gulping soya. The same space would of a desire for liberation, it will necessarily animal products” and “I am vegan.” All probably support one or fewer hunter­gatherers. entail conflict with the State and interrupt identity, on some level, is a political choice. There is nothing wrong with their humane effort state narratives of progress [ed. – see The strategy behind the identity of “toward fighting hunger in the Third World” of course, but what is life to be like for the sixty­one Return Fire vol.1 pg11] and citizenship veganism is poorly thought out. The practice of not eating animal products, on people and what do we do when there are 122 [ed. – see 'The Matter of Knowing Who or 488? And what becomes of the Fourth World the other hand, may have a number of We Are']. Where indigenous peoples of tribal peoples or the Fifth World of nonhuman continue to practice their traditional forms justifications. life? The quantitative­mindedness links them of food production, they almost always find philosophically with the nationalistic maximizers themselves in conflict with the State. I don’t care to convince anyone to abandon who assume that military advantage belongs to a vegan lifestyle. There are plenty of good the most populous countries, with the politics of And then there’s another take entirely, reasons to live that way, though the only growth­economists and with the local greed for sales” (Paul Shepard). in which neither our diet nor anything ones I can think of are strictly subjective: some people feel healthier on a vegan diet; else about our lives is purported to be 2. ed. – “[René] Descartes was the man who some people find it emotionally easier or consistent with our ideals. It’s a famously said “I think therefore I am” for those more sensible to struggle for animal possibility that veganism seems to miss who haven’t studied classical philosophy (which liberation if nothing they eat once had a entirely, and it goes like this: many of us is generally, in my opinion, a bunch of white men face; some people do not want to put are poor. We eat whatever we can get from trying to place humans above the rest of the anything in their bodies that lived a tortured world, but that is a whole other can of worms). the dumpster, steal when the security life, and veganism serves as an effective He is also the philosopher responsible for the guard isn’t looking, or buy what we can on psychological barrier against some of the popularization of the contemporary concept of a shitty wage. There is no dietary option in worst atrocities of capitalism, even if the mechanization of the body and the body as this world that satisfies us, not in the practically speaking it makes no difference an individual thing, separate from the context of its existence. Prior to Descartes, people thought expensive eco­friendly supermarket, not in in ending those atrocities or one’s material that their bodies were part of a greater whole: the cheap bulk section of a discount store connection to them. that may or may not exist in our their community and the larger community of the land they lived on. Descartes’ ideas were very neighborhood, and certainly not in the What I intend with this article is to appealing to the ruling class, who were trying to permaculture farm outside of our city indignantly reject the much­tossed­around establish a new order: capitalism. In the infancy where the escapist hippies spend all their argument that it is incoherent for of capitalism, ideas about the body needed to time feeding themselves while the world anarchists to eat meat, and morally change. Waged labour turned the body into goes to shit. superior for them to be vegans. I want to capital, something that exists beyond the natural reach people who are dedicated to the cycles of a wild human body. Capitalism required We eat whatever food we can, sucking principles behind veganism but whose that the ruling class have more control over bodies in order to extract higher profits. down the poisons of this shitty world, just bodies are suffering from the diet, to Reconceptualizing the body as machine, as to live another day and gain another emphasize that it doesn’t work for something that existed to be controlled and put opportunity to wreak destruction, to attack, everybody. I want to attack an ethical to work, served the ruling elite in their to destroy a small piece of what degrades framework I find immature and overly enforcement of budding capitalism. Capitalism us. Cannibalism is the norm in our world. civilized. And most of all I want to also required the newer idea of land We eat our fellow animals, raised in contribute to an end to the days when privatization. Descartes ideas of the “individual”, extermination camp conditions, we wear veganism is the norm in collective something separate from all else, created a clothes made by fellow workers in anarchist spaces, and anyone who does philosophy where land exploitation was sweatshops, we breathe air so polluted it not follow this lifestyle is marginalized in justifiable. Humans who are not connected to a land base have an easier time exploiting it. gives us cancer, we walk down streets every social center, at every conference. There was much rebellion against Descartes paved with petroleum byproduct, and we’re There are a great many reasons against ideas and against the beginnings of capitalism. forced to spend a large part of our time generalized veganism. There is no reason 71. The peasantry did not easily accept the view of law of the human hero. The latter is promised he that for many people it has in fact become body as separate and rebelled against land will become a great hunter if he follows certain synonymous with problem solving. Even people privatization and waged labour. So it was in this rules: “When you kill goats, treat their bodies who are critical of most other aspects of the time that almost 200 different crimes were respectfully, for they are people. Do not shoot culture we live in, find themselves reverting to punishable by death as a means of the ruling the female goats for they are your wives and will science when pushed to defend their ideas, e.g. class to enforce capitalistic ideas and force bear your children. Do not kill kids, for they may anti­civilization anarchists who refer to biology bodies to act as controllable machines” be your offspring. Only shoot your brothers­in­ when attempting to convince about an optimal (Descartes & the Creation of the Individual). law, the male goats. Do not be sorry when you diet, or to anthropology to prove the superiority kill them, for they do not die but return home. of their blue print for future societies. [...] On a 3. ed. – Freegans refuse non­vegan food/goods if The flesh and skin (the goat part) remain in your practical level there is the understanding that they have had to pay for it, but will use it in some possession, but their real selves (the human part) scientists are operating within a system that is cases if they have stolen, found, or been given it. lives just as before, when it was covered with based as much (if not more) on hierarchy and In this way they claim not to support the industry. goat’s flesh and skin.” In other Amerindian funding as it is on paying attention to what is narratives, the hunter becomes a privileged son­ actually going on around us. There are multiple 4. ed. – “Hunting is a social relationship between in­law of the spirit master of the game species by accounts (even from conventional sources) humans and animal persons carried on in terms mating with the master’s daughter. Although the showing that who is funding a study has a and acts that signify, among other forms of neo­Darwinian sciences of our animality, substantive impact on what the study discovers, sociality, respect, reciprocity, propitiation, culminating in the current Evolutionary from tobacco’s impact on health to the possibility sympathy, taboo, seduction, sacrifice, coercion, Psychology, would have it that we still suffer of restricting the spread of genetically modified recognition, compassion, domination, genetically from the ferocity that the human organisms, but these examples are merely the temptation, surrender and various combinations species found adaptive in its long history of most obvious. The more subtle ones have to do thereof. Hunting is a culturally­informed, surviving by the killing of animals, the with how we ask questions (“when did you stop transpecific sociology. People are thus engaged ethnographic evidence is that hunting is beating your child?”), who we ask questions of in transactions with the spirits of animals that generally more involved with making love than (related to the questioner’s access, biases, correspond to exchanges between human making war” (The Western Illusion of Human language, etc.), what questions we think to ask, persons and groups. Especially these Nature). and how we understand the answers we get, as transactions are likely to resemble exchanges well as what meta­interests the questions serve with relatives by marriage, insofar as the latter 5. ed. – One of the reasons we chose not to (how are the assumptions of this culture fed similarly involve fraught negotiations for the prioritise space for the appendix here is a and/or challenged by who, how, and of whom transfer of life­powers from one group to another. skepticism we hold in general towards these these questions get asked?). [...] While on one [Claude] Levi­Strauss relates a tradition kinds of studies (though it's certainly worth hand science is a response to the superstition (originally recorded by J.A. Teit) concerning the reading for description of vegan ideologues' and hierarchy associated with religion, it also origin of the wild goat hunt along the Thompson manipulations within the scientific realm they continues christianity’s theme of a pure abstract River people of Northwest America, in which the appeal to the authority of). Dot Matrix's words on and universal truth, separate from the sludge of goat principal is not only human but a brother­in­ this resonate: “Science is so widely accepted everyday life, with scientists and doctors in the position of clergy that is, people who know more about us than we do. Some people believe in science (as something they don’t understand “My relationship to other animal species is mechanical and that can solve their problems) in ways similar to disconnected. Aside from pets and pests, I relate indirectly to livestock how others believe in god. Some people cite through mediation of an enormous industry which uses techniques I barely scientific references the way that other people understand and which I am shielded from by my life in a city. Unlike with pets, I can cite scripture. Traditionally, science posits a neutral objective observer, a fantastical being to only relate to livestock categorically. I can form no bonds with particular cows, compare to any angel or demon: this neutral chickens, pigs, and fish. I can only consider them all generally, as the multiplied observer has no interest other than truth, which reiteration of livestock I have met and the treatment I am aware that they receive. What comes from information, and information is I am actually presented with in my everyday life are various cuts of raw meat, received inside of laboratories, with carefully products which may or may not be based on animal substances, menus with pictures identified variables and carefully maintained control sets. (The mystification of this awesome of prepared dishes, items that were tested first on other animal species, and observer is only magnified, not ameliorated, by propaganda put out by corporations and/or activist groups. Livestock and lab animals the addition of peer review, in which a body of are represented to me, but they aren’t actually a part of my experience. This is true for knowledgeable colleagues examine the everything I eat, wear, medicinally treat myself with, and use. The world that I live in experiments and data to verify their validity).” is a giant, illustrious production that has been designed by human beings, for human 6. ed. – “Oil spills damage bird­nesting sites, beings… to shelter each of the individuals who can afford it, away from the coat beach habitats in sludge, and poison and wilderness, from agriculture, from mass-production, from landfills, and from slums. directly kill fish, birds, and other marine life. [...] Although there are some cracks through which unwanted elements seep through Pipeline construction destroys wildlife habitat. Oil and into my everyday life: pollution lowers the air quality, global warming fucks with refineries spew pollution into waterways, the weather, a disease will gain entry through products, the tap water tastes terrible, poisoning animals and destroying their breeding sites. This says nothing of the resource wars for animals being transported can sometimes be seen on the roads, a forest fire will make oil that have claimed hundreds of thousands of the headlines, etc. Regardless, the way in which consumption takes place – although lives, and continue to, in Afghanistan, Iraq and changing – doesn’t speak to the origins of the materials very loudly. Before the Africa, as well as destroyed the ecological problem of what to consume is the problem of how to go about consuming. Perhaps integrity of those regions. The fact is, organic even the question of how to go about producing! What would most effectively change soybeans used for tofu, tempeh, and fake meats, just like any other product in the store, use the my relationship to other animal species is those more basic questions which would same industrial distribution system that dramatically alter the way I confront that which I consume. Without those changes, all consumes enormous amounts of oil and other of my consumption choice is derived from abstract considerations, from the world of resources to package, store, transport, and representation. […] There are times when I may feel like I have been tricked and if I distribute food and non­food commodities the had known better, would not consent to the consumption of one product or another. world over. This translates into mountainsides But the fact of the matter is that where consent is concerned, it is my own consent and rivers destroyed from mining fossil fuels, forests cleared for packaging materials, chemical which is to be questioned and not that of the entities which I am making decisions for pollution from the manufacture of the inks, one way or another… whose life quality and quantity is calibrated by the mechanisms adhesives and lubricants, and so on and so of markets and conditions produced by human civilization.” – squee forth. All these industrial processes poison animals and destroy their habitats” (The Harvest of Dead Elephants). 72. ' CONNECTIONS & TRANSFORMATIONS '

[ed. – Drawn from two Paul Shepard essays, 'Animal Rights & Human […] The crucial moment in the hunt is not the “taking” of a life but Rites' and 'Searching Out Kindred Spirits'.] the moment of respect and affirmation for a giving world. […] In the hunt, we focus our attention on the mystery of life-giving [Today's concern for the well-being of animals] has an Oriental[1] substance – a substance available only in death (whether that of expression, a logic by which rights of creatures, so frustrating in plants or animals). [“Rights” and “ethics”] are pale, rational- their semantic and practical aspects, can be serenely refined to the legalistic concepts. In the case of the hunt, such socially defined purity of nonkilling. A recent example of this view was Albert concerns are wholly inadequate. In killing, some people try to Schweitzer, who, combining St. Augustine[2] with Hindu Jainism[3], work down the scale of life as they imagine it – from big, smart was devoted to the protection from death or injury of all life, animals to the mindless fish – hoping at last to eradicate the however minute or inconspicuous. Schweitzer's “reverence for life” butchering of bodies like their own. This frantic perpetuation of life was an endless chain of excruciating decisions in all things medical is deeply inorganic, a denial of our own bodies. and horticultural. His unshakable conviction of the rights of life over death and of the priority of human value did not mitigate It is, in truth, a denial of every aspect of our nature. We are each his sombre sense of judgement and responsibility. For him, too, porous, actively exchanging with the world at large [ed. – see the care of life was associated with giving shelter. He kept captive a Symbiogenetic Desire]. What we take in – and not only as physical small menagerie of wild animals so that he could admire them. As food – becomes some aspect of the self. Perceptually, animals among all wild captives made into pets, these animals were constitute elements of the potential self as it grows. In their amputated from their gene pool and from fellow creatures and taxonomy, animals provide us with the concrete reality of habitat; no amount of loving care could prevent them from categories of existence. In our dreams, they model for us – as becoming neurotic and flabby monsters. reflected in our childhood mimicry in dance and play – our vast range of feelings. Schweitzer's impulse to “extend to all all that respect which we have to our own,” however much influenced by Eastern thought, is The great miscalculation is to say, “Welcome all births, save all clearly related to Western humanitarian social justice. It was part lives.” Compassionate on the surface, its effect is to destroy life, in of the colonial mind, a kind of obligation to those “less the long perspective causing more havoc than does ordinary fortunate” on a scale where rank is confirmed as much by malevolence. The alternative is not an ascetic otherworldliness that responsibility as privilege. Charity has always had something of will “deny birth and welcome death.” Instead, it is as if one were to the readiness to be resigned to a status quo [ed. – and indeed say, “Celebrate new life as provisional, affirm that death will this was borne out in Schweitzer's paternalistic conduct towards balance the scale, and accept that human beings are part of the the recipients of his 'aid' in the colonies, despite his critical whole.” filibuster]. That the relationship between nonhuman species should require human intervention, though as old as the old “dominion” Regardless of food habits, everything from protozoa to tigers precepts in Genesis [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg40], could only incorporates other life to live – other life that must be searched out be acted upon by those who knew themselves to be the instruments and must die. All are hunted in turn. The great predatory carnivores of God's will. Even so, Schweitzer is no exception to the general demonstrate it most plainly, but even they, in the end, are pursued sense of alienation that preoccupied European philosophy and by microbes, fungi, and plant roots. […] Like all human activity, literature at the time [1920's-30's], for it was a strategy in which hunting can run amok – in both killing and estrangement. We all humanism and technology combined to prove human know of the modern abuse of hunting protocol, the secular transcendence. trivialization of killing. […] We are easily seduced by our own empathy because of our fear and outrage at the indifferent […] Apprehension of connectedness to nature is precisely the destructiveness around us. However, kindness towards animals weakness of Western ethics. Marriage and diet are the universal demands a true sense of kinship. To be kindred does not mean that means and symbols of relationship. […] In the cynegetic [hunting- we should treat animals as our babies. It means instead a sense of gathering] view the world is an exquisitely elaborated comity laced many connections and transformations – us into them, them into us, through with eating habits, the most conspicuous and important and them into each other from the beginning of time. To be kindred threads of connection and significance. When one senses, however means to share consciously in the stream of life. momentarily, that experience of a world of beings which it produces, the loneliness of modern humankind can be seen as an 1. ed. – Western fascination with, projection onto, but ultimately patronising ecological as much as a social phenomenon. No one could be of aspects in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and East Asian cultures; lonely in a world so richly populated. famously a thrust of 19th century European art and literature. 2. ed. – St. Augustine (354-430), Roman African, early Christian theologian […] Diversity and kinship of life not only from Numidia, influential on Western philosophy, and helped formulate the include the fact of death but require it. doctrine of original sin (to be remedied by the restraint of law on humans). 3. ed. – From the same author: “The Buddhists’ contemporaries and fellow Causing death – requiring it in order to live – pricks our travelers, the Jains, famous for ahimsa (harmlessness), are familiarly conscience. In the city, it is possible to hire professionals who hide portrayed moving insects from the footpath. But this is not because they the death in the slaughterhouse. But in the world at large, the hunt love life or nature. The Jains are revolted by participation in the living must be faced. […] Among traditional hunters, intelligent quarry stream and want as little as possible to do with the organic bodies, which are like tar pits, trapping and suffocating the soul. Historically, it would are the most prized and respected. Animals are not classified into are like tar pits, trapping and suffocating the soul. Historically, it would appear that both Buddhists and Jains got something from the Aryans, who levels of significance that excuse the killing of “lower” forms brought their high-flying, earth-escaping gods from Middle East and preserve the “higher.” Instead, it is just those great sensitive pastoralism. In the face of these invasions, the Hindus and their unzippered beasts – aurochs, horses, elephants, and bears – that are most polytheism [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg41] survived best in the far south appropriately killed and most deeply revered. Where we seem the of India, where the Western monotheists penetrated least. At a more consumption of animals as participation in the transfer of energy, as practical level, everywhere the “world” religions have gone the sacred do traditional hunters, they also see it as the movement of an forests, springs, and other “places” and their wild inhabitants have endless spiritual flow. To live and to die is to be surrounded by vanished. The disappearance of respect for local earth-shrines is virtually a measure of the impact of the otherworldly beliefs.” beings whose coming and going are intrinsic to life itself. measure of the impact of the otherworldly beliefs.”

73. under the anti­terrorist law and I ended up imprisoned in the hospital ward of 'AT THE ROOT OF MY SURVIVAL' Concesionada Prison, Santiago 1, because [ed. – The comrade Tortuga interviewed here was badly injured going into action. His right hand and of the multiple injuries my body had three fingers of the left were amputated as a result, dozens of skingrafts were done, and (at least to sustained. begin with) his sight seriously damaged. While he was in intensive care on the verge of death, and the From this regimen, which was a pretty mother of his daughter raided and put in the media, Tortuga's own family denounced his ideas and way difficult place to be since it wasn’t designed of life, freely telling police of his social circles. In letters that he composed while imprisoned, for somebody to be there permanently, but Tortuga brought up the consequences of struggle in the era of a global politics of 'anti­terrorism' rather was a ward designed to receive – as well as more timelessly – in a way that bears reflecting on. “I will not deny that things were prisoners or new arrestees as a kind of difficult, because there were days dark as the depths of the sea, when everything was crumbling around clinic, like for after somebody gets into a me, my life as I had constructed it went to shit. But this helped me, with the pain caused, to learn that all this I had built I had not made sufficiently solidly as to endure the praxis of my discourse. [If family, fight with another prisoner or after getting friends, comrades and lovers took off flying,] many thought that it would be better for me to just sink beat by the guards, after getting stabbed, alone before I would take more people down with me, since they believe that I would never get back up or for people with illnesses that are easily from this, if all these people underestimated me because in their smallness they thought that they treatable… so living there was, pretty... themselves wouldn’t be able to stand such a fall as mine, today they are not at my side, it is only for their well, it wasn’t very normal. So it was there mediocrity, because know this: I do not lack the affection to forgive them, after everything, not one of us that I had to get used to the idea of living in was prepared for this. [...] And it is that on this occasion I can contribute with some examples, through that situation. which I encourage other comrades to share their experiences, since the possibilities of struggle are infinite, madness, rape, exile, mutilation, victory, torture, clandestinity, laughter, imprisonment, pain, The first few months of my incarceration betrayal, amnesia, dependency, beatings, humiliation, death, all of these, none, others, and so many passed, and after the visit of a loving more, and how many of the warriors in the street today who fight against power and its designs know this? That is, how prepared are we to assume the costs of the social war if we do not know these kinds comrade I got ready to write my first letter, of things? Can we speak of not repenting without having all this in consideration? [T]o be recognized as and at the root of this was that my friend an enemy of authority is not easy, less so when you are labeled as a terrorist in the media, your social adviseme that the silence surrounding my environment is affected almost unanimously[...] few are the brave who dare to remain with you. Public situation was not a good sign for the rest of opinion does its work and through all the possible methods the system tries to isolate you. They our comrades. Basically from there I wrote don’t have to get their hands dirty with the death penalty anymore, these days the methods are more the first letter, about 7 months after the sophisticated and democratic [ed. – see Who Is It?]; they make your life cease to have meaning failed attack, which is entitled 'Letter to the because they distance you from everything that you are a part of. And they don’t just do this physically Indomitable Hearts', which was published by getting you in a cage, but also psychologically to reduce your convictions. They demonize you collectively, they erase the memory of what you once were and they transform you into a television case, the 5th of January, 2012 if I recall correctly. in a failed explosive attack, in a bank robbery with a policeman killed, or into a member of a phantasmic After this would come a second letter, terrorist organization. You are that, you are your letter of presentation, to such an extent that if you don’t become aware that you are much more than what the press says. You end up believing it[...] your which would be a gesture of support and days no longer have the sense they did before, you are worth nothing and you have ruining the lives of solidarity with Freddy Fuentevilla, Marcelo everyone around you – why keep existing? Why cause more pain? They no longer need to stain their Villarroel [ed. – see Rebels Behind Bars; hands with your blood; please, we are civilized people, instead they incite you to finish yourself off[...] Concerning the Juridical Situation of This is the hidden discourse that reproduces our shiny Chilean democracy; there are no longer any Our Comrade Marcelo Villaroel revolutionaries, now they minimize us as mere terrorists, because clearly a revolutionary is someone Sepulveda], and Juan Aliste Vega, who at with feelings, with ideas, love of freedom and a companion of the oppressed: that is, someone worth imitating. Instead the terrorist is a shadow with impunity who has no heart and is obsessed with the use that time were in the middle of an of violence due to past childhood traumas – so how to face this situation? [...] I took my time, I went international week of agitation and support as slow as a turtle, I exercised every day without a break, whether it was cold or hot, I was disciplined for their case. And we should remember with myself, and it was a question of practice, patience and perseverance (the 3 “P”s like I told you) [and that just recently these three were well,] here I am, look at me one year after the bombing that almost killed me. Who said that I would bite convicted [ed. – see Return Fire vol.3 the mud of humiliation forever? Who said that I would be defeated for the rest of my life? Who said that pg52] in the Caso Security and the death the struggle does not make us great? If my ideas can bring me to lose my life, they can also bring me to of the police corporal Luis Moyano and the recover it, that was always my gamble...” Tortuga is serving six years of 'supervised freedom'. On preparing for and surviving prison more generally, for those in the U.K. (especially those at risk of being injuries of another police officer. But before gendered 'female' by State classification) we recommend 'Bang­Up & Smash' by ASBO, free online.] then they spent many many years in prison [ed. – see Return Fire vol.1 pg72], and The Ex­Worker Podcast: Who are we Ex­Worker: For those who haven’t read ever since I came to realize that prison is a speaking with today, and where are the book, can you give us a brief summary kind of passage for any combatant or we? of your case, and if you have an idea of comrade who takes “the idea” [of what the book covers, what’s in the book anarchism] seriously, they’ve been in my Tortuga: With Luciano Pitronello, el and in your letters? everyday thoughts. Tortuga, and we’re in the self­managed social center and autonomous library Tortuga: Well, I transported a low­power So the way that I made myself present in Sante Geronimo Caserio. bomb by hand to a branch of the trying to express solidarity with them, Santander Bank in the early morning of through the impossibility of being Ex­Worker: And how long has the space June 1st, 2011 [in Santiago, Chile], around locked up in prison, and above all in been around? Is it new? 2:30 in the morning, more or less. Due to the hospital ward, especially in the the premature detonation of the Tortuga: Yes, it’s new. it’s been 3 or 4 condition I was in, I told device, I was injured in my months since we got here and started myself I would do hands, my eyes, and my setting things up, and it’s been just a something to skin, because a certain month and a half that we’ve been able to show solidarity, percent ended up burnt. open the doors to the public. which Afterward I spent about basically Ex­Worker: Have you heard that there’s a three months in a consisted of book of your prison letters translated into hospital, and then refusing to English in the United States? two more months in eat for 20 intensive care, but at that point I hours a day and Tortuga: Yeah, I mean… I heard because was no longer imprisoned, I had consuming two small you told me like a second ago, but it’s still been moved to my mother’s meals. One of my letters a surprise. house. From there I was charged resulted from this time, 74. which I suppose is in the book… but in reality I haven’t seen the book so I don’t “Able-embodiment is temporary, conditional, and under direct know if all the letters actually do appear, assault by the pollutions and economic obstructions leaving your health to but I hope they do! chance and a function of your zip code. [...] I think the impulse to burn it all Well, this was the February of 2012. down or to retreat to the wilderness and find some long ago purged part of ourselves Afterward there was a week of agitation in there or to die trying are feelings we all move through. [I]t is critical that we think as solidarity with me, which started on the disabled people, even if we momentarily experience able-embodiment. As climate 20th of March, which I believe is the day health worsens, our own health worsens too. How will we replace industrialized that my trial began, or the preparations for medicine, or rob the healthcare industry of the power to profiteer off our disabilities? trial – I don’t quite remember anymore[1]. How will we grow and manufacture our own pharmacies? How will we reclaim our What I do remember is that the day I bodies, our narratives, our medicines, and our assistance tech from capitalism? In our entered the prison was the 22nd of utopian futures, healthcare is a community function, and the health of the commons is November, of 2011. where that value plants its roots. Beyond the medical model, how too will we create So the months went by, and I wrote a third sustainable communities structured in such a way to weather not only climate change letter, a third communiqué, which as I but the physical changes of human experience? How will we modify our understand it is the most valuable in terms communities to account for multiple modes of accessibility, and to treat soil health, air of wanting to pass on a little of the quality, water potability, tree health, animal health, and human health as one holistic experience of being in prison, that in reality equation? [...] Other disabled people have other types of needs. Others have different wasn’t much time, and might not be the forms of mobility, sensory experience, and physicality. Disability is wide-ranging experience that all comrades have in and diverse in scale. Our experience of life is marked both by hyper-visibility and prison. So in this third effort I wrote a invisibility, social stigma, and the embodiment of difference. Whereas one may argue communiqué at one year on from the failed that other forms of prejudice can be resolved by changing social attitudes about their bombing that affected me, which is entitled focus, changing attitudes towards disability will not resolve difference. Prejudice 'The Abyss Does Not Stop Us'. isn’t the cause of lost limbs, deafness, malfunctioning organs, etc. And while In there I basically offer three capitalism is undoubtedly exploiting the health and life out of disabled people reflections. The first is about prison. everywhere and informing ableism particularly in relation to employability and The second is about what it means worker efficiency, neither is capitalism the cause of disability. Disability is rather an morally, socially, even emotionally, to experience of being human. As we age, our bodies break down on the way to death. be charged as a terrorist, or as an As we experience the wildness of life, disability becomes us. As we are born, our enemy of the state, which is what bodies map an orgy of natural physicalities innate to human biology, mind and flesh, happened to me. And the third is more inside and out. The eugenicist and capitalist fallacy of the perfect worker is a dark specifically about my case, and deals magic spell freak witches and wizards everywhere have been disabling.” with the subject of mutilation, to have – Our Disabled and Climate-Changed Futures one’s body reduced physically; this is the theme. I try to cover each of these three themes from two perspectives: three themes from two perspectives: Villaroel Sepulveda], who received the And it’s a heavy story, because for political the first being a general manner, how to impact of a bullet on her spine during one prisoners in Chile to be able to achieve understand the problem in general of the Lautaro’s operations. On the 14th of privileges like leaving the prison for certain terms, and the second being from my November, 1990 they were trying to rescue amounts of time, visiting other parts of the own subjectivity, how I see things, how a political prisoner, Marco Ariel Antonioletti, prison, and other benefits, they have to I felt in certain moments… how I from a hospital. In this operation the undergo a lot of mobilization: hunger confronted things, basically. Lautaro killed 4 prison guards by a small strikes, rebellions… Here in Chile between 2000 and 2004 there was strong agitation In this third letter I also responded to the bomb, and a cop went down too. The cop wasn’t really in the plans, let’s say, and it by and for political prisoners. So Marcela proposal [ed. – see Return Fire vol.2 was he who fired the shot that left our Rodriguez, who was like the symbol of pg44] from the comrades in Greece of the compañera [ed. – see Return Fire vol.2 what nobody in society should ever be like International Revolutionary Front and the pg34] paraplegic. After she received the – because she was a woman, an armed Informal Anarchist Federation. I conclude impact of the bullet, the group rescued woman who robbed banks, who would that at the root of my survival was the Antonioletti and carried the two of them off carry a machine gun where she went solidarity that the comrades showed to a truck. Just a few minutes later, the (that’s what they called her actually, the me. Because in every one of these three radio announces that there was a woman “Machine Gun Woman”) – she was processes – being locked up in prison, with Marcela’s features involved in the photographed in MAPU Lautaro being charged as a terrorist or enemy of escape, but with the damage to her spine operations, basically they wanted her the state, and becoming disabled – in they had to take her back to the very same head, they wanted her as a trophy. So the every one of these processes I was hospital they had rescued Antonioletti pressure on the government to allow this gripped by this weapon that we have as from. She went to prison, of course, after terrorist to leave prison, to be on the street, anarchists, which is solidarity. being operated on and put in a wheelchair, put them in an uncomfortable position. Ex­Worker: Were there any other and continued fighting. Eventually, what they offer her is prisoners who inspired you to carry on extradition. Now, what is extradition? Her story is really comforting because she Basically, it’s forced exile. Marcela during your time in prison, either through spent 12 years in the San Miguel Prison, in their words or writings or deeds? Rodriguez is free in any part of the world the hospital section. When I found out this except Chile. The powerful part of the story Tortuga: Yes, definitely. When I was story, which I found out through a book is Marcela ends up accepting asylum locked up I discovered the story of Marcela called 'Rebellion, Subversion, & Political (which isn’t truly asylum) in Italy, with her Rodriguez, who was a militant for the Imprisonment', written by Pedro Rosas, wheelchair and all. A woman who can’t MAPU Lautaro [ed. – see Rebels Behind who also ended up prisoner in the High even move around just by herself winds up Bars; Concerning the Juridical Security Prison (CAS) for MIR [ed. – see being more dangerous than all these other Situation of Our Comrade Marcelo Return Fire vol.1 pg73] guerrilla activity. folks. It’s crazy, this story! 75. And when she leaves prison the our comrades that they’re not alone. I’ve deny that these people, these spaces are reporters go crazy because she also seen on the internet some fighting back. This is something you can’t communiqués from an anti­prison lie about.. was always this press magnet. collective “Vuelo de Justicia” (“Flight of Coming back to your question – support They try to record her in the airport, Justice”, named after an incredible prison for prisoners, the way I see it, has and the last image of her in Chile is break in 1996, look it up!) And as I deteriorated. It has deteriorated because of Marcela in her wheelchair, understand it, although I don’t know a ton, the anarchists here in Chile, or the anti this collective has been pretty active crossing the border immigration authoritarians, the nihilists, the looking after lots of the comrades in prison. guards to board the plane, raising revolutionaries, however you want to call There’s also a website for a periodical that her fist and shouting “la lucha them, are encountering prison as also gets printed, which is called something pretty new in our lives. In continua” – the struggle continues. 'Publicacion Refractario'. It’s well known, general the anarchist “movement” in Chile and also has a pretty internationalist When I found out this story, I said “I can’t is very new[2]. I mean, Caso Bombas [ed. – character; it’s very good. They’re always give up, man. If she could do it like that, I see Return Fire vol.1 pg73] demonstrated publishing updates about the comrades in can’t give up here." That’s also how the this. When police raided a few squats, prison, developments in their case, legal story of Savvas Xiros is, from the 17th of everybody ran for cover, everyone hid their work that the comrades have to face, and November organization in Greece. In 2002, face. This shows you how unstable the material for supporting a comrade if they he was injured by a failed bomb and ended movement was, evidenced by how should get imprisoned. up in circumstances similar to my own. But unprepared we were to live through prison, lamentably, he is going to spend many Ex­Worker: In the anarchist movement, and even less prepared to confront it. years in prison, here in Chile and Through this you can see that in a lot of because he is part more broadly, cases that you might say “good, they’re of a terrorist what role does getting support” or “they’re getting organization… well prisoner support attention” but obviously something is in reality it’s not play? missing. Something is missing like… terrorist but Why are we appealing to show that revolutionary, and Tortuga: cases were frame ups? Why do our they’ve been According to my comrades stay silent? Or like, why don’t operating for 29 way of thinking we ever stand up to the judges? And I years. So the luck about this topic, include myself, I criticize the way I’ve that Savvas Xiros here in Chile gone about things too. Why do we had, the luck of there is no appeal to innocence? Why do we accept Marcela Rodriguez movement. the way we’re treated? is truly cruel There are because at the heart of it they both have basically individuals that struggle, each There’s a ton of things that we might not disability and prison as their destiny, yet in their own rhythm and pulse, in their always capable of confronting. So for even with this heavy baggage they are own particular and unique ways, but example I see, well I don’t want to idealize capable of continuing to struggle. there isn’t a… I don’t know how to say anything, but I think it’s worth understanding that Greece is a little more So I look at myself and I see that I can still it… there isn’t a movement, so to speak. advanced, at least in terms of history, and go on, and so I can’t give up, man! So for There’s convergence, gathering points, in Greece it’s a different conversation. The me, these compañeros are a compass, but beyond this… it’s difficult to say. comrades there confront these issues in a they’re my north; they’ve shown the way Because unfortunately, and I don’t like to different manner. So if you’re over there because they’ve raised the bar to where I say it, there’s a lot of people just here for and looking at the situation here… well have to meet it. It might be a strange way fashion. They’re around because politics is here, if in Greece they’re walking upright, to look at it, but that’s really how I see it. a means to other things: to find friends, to we’re crawling on all fours. Of course Like that. [Tortuga went on to describe a find romantic partners, to feel a sense of throughout the world there are other places prisoner support project that he’s involved belonging, to feel like you’re part of where there aren’t even comrades, where in, and his perspectives of the significance something. So sometimes you can find there isn’t anything going on. But it’s of prisoners and solidarity among comrades who are super excited, very important to keep in mind how recent all of anarchists and antagonists in Chile.] involved, but at the end of the day it only lasts for a year, a year and a half. this is here, to understand how much Tortuga: Projects of support for comrades Repression comes down and they run. I further we have to go. But I’m not satisfied in prison... there’s the project I was telling believe that to call something a movement with crawling, I want to gallop, I want to you about – the solidarity raffle, which is it has to be something that moves you; it’s run, I want to fly. And for this, you have to organized by a group of folks and what we something that can maintain itself against work. do is give away prizes in the form of a repression, and when there’s not Ex­Worker: Three questions in one: after raffle in order to collect some funds, even repression, onward! your time in prison how has your though it may not be a ton, for our So I don’t believe there is a movement orientation to anarchist strategy changed? comrades in prison. This is an event that here. What no one can deny is that there And I don’t mean which acts or tactics are happens every month. Every month we are communities in struggle, which is more important, but I’m speaking about the look for an event where we can hold the different to me. This social center for me is anarchist project in general. How has your raffle, and we assemble a schedule of a community of struggle. The Sacco and orientation changed and what tasks do you events on our webpage, can I give it to Vanzetti [ed. – see ] think are most important? OK, that’s one; you? Return Fire vol.1 pg86 library is, for me, a community of struggle. secondly, what would you say to someone Ex­Worker: Yes, please! For me, the squat Isla Tortuga is a considering risking their freedom to do community of struggle. Regardless of the something, like taking direct action? And Tortuga: It’s rifasolidaria.wordpress.com. forms of how each community or group what would you say to someone who Basically the idea is generate a steady involves themselves – their form, their would never consider that, who just want to stream of funds which, like I said, isn’t a rhythm, their pulse – we have different live a life of safety and comfort, but who ton but it’s at least a small effort to show ways of going about things, but you can’t are still anarchists? 76. Tortuga: Well, this reply may disappoint can defend what you’re doing with enough To the comrades who would never think of you a little, but my outlook hasn’t actually passion, then it’s alright with me. focusing their struggle on direct action, I drastically changed. I still hold the same would respond with basically the first And what would I say to the comrades who beliefs that I did on the first of June in points I made about fighting in an illegal want to carry out direct action, or who are 2011, you know? For me, there isn’t some manner – because I’m using the carrying out direct action? Well… I know big difference between a comrade who vocabulary of power, which is a that if somebody is listening to this they’re carries a bomb in their backpack or one contradiction, but, well, what can we do? just listening, they can’t make a case out of who carries a book. For me, both tools, Life is a contradiction itself! Well, OK, it my words alone, but whatever. I would say when aimed directly at the bowels of doesn’t matter if somebody doesn’t want to to be careful, take care. For me its like they power, can achieve the same task. It’s all confront power with a gun or a bomb. say, you’ve got to face reality, but you’ve the same for me if a comrade carries a Getting involved in a newspaper or got to take care. You have to give yourself submachine gun or carries a something, that’s fine, but I think the time to plan well. microphone. To me what is central is important thing to understand is that where the attack is directed towards. For the anarchists, or the nihilists or prison, death, clandestinity, having to The tool you utilize is a question of the revolutionaries, what we have plenty go to battle are things that don’t only comfort and familiarity, it’s a question of is heart. But war isn’t won with heart face the comrades who pick up a of whether you feel satisfied with what alone. We need to use a little more weapon. In the dictatorship here, you’re doing: to feel pleasure basically, prudence – so the action won’t be unfortunately it was a struggle of fire and to feel good and that what you’re doing today, it will be tomorrow but it will also blood. To have had a newspaper, a printing is the right thing. If you feel like the thing be better. It will be better planned, more press, just copying a flyer would mean to do is publish a newspaper – great! Then focused on the safety of those involved, torture, possibly even death. So in this I’m happy for you. If what you think is and other small details that I don’t know if I sense, if you’re not going to use a gun, needed nowadays is to attack capital in can pass on here. But like I’ve written, one that’s fine by me. What’s most important to some direct manner – all right then, do it! mistake, one small neglect can change me is that you can defend your project and But for me, what upsets me is knowing that everything. And we are far too valuable to your idea. something needs to be done and not doing be needlessly putting ourselves at risk. I Ex­Worker: Anything more for our it. In there I see a contradiction in my way think my most focused advice today listeners, the gringos of the north, or the of understanding the struggle. would be, more than anything, that this rest of the English­speaking world? comrade value herself [sic], that she So my way of responding to your question not feel like her life is just a material Tortuga: Keep it up, Seattle May Day!!! wouldn’t be to say that we’ll have a better contribution to the struggle. I would tell revolution by having more of one thing, or this comrade to value herself a little that one thing is better than another… I don’t know, the library, doing workshops, more, that she give herself time and direct attacks, expropriations: to me these room to breathe. That’s all, that the all have the same worth, there isn’t one struggle is for your whole life, it won’t that’s more valuable than another. If you change by waiting one more night.

Mayday 2012, Seattle, U.S.A the anarchist plots hatched the sudden flame in the dark amongst the sudden flame in the dark EL TORTUGA 1. ed. – Court began July 20th, with rallies in – poem for Luciano the looking-glass swamps el tortuga, we too know the Concepción, Valparaíso and Santiago and a bomb­ and embroidered trees feel threat clearing part of the complex. From the [ed. – From 325 magazine #9, the joy of a bulls-eye on a of those guerilla nights beginning of the case, plate­glass of Santander near the time of his wounding.] paper wall when only the present moment Bank fell to explosives or blows in Tultitlan and exists, (twice in the same night) in Bristol, while incendiary we send you our vision with exists, we stand, el tortuga, when only war walks masked messages of solidarity arrived from Russia, which we also when only war walks masked steady and strong, through the sullen, daring Indonesia and beyond on the back of similar deeds. held like all the people walk into a future we cannot held like all the people streets, 2. ed. – “Perhaps one of the most disastrous clearly see streets, before us and beside us, provoking sunrise consequences [of the dictatorship] was the on the turtles back you walked strong and blind, and the awakening of life into production of a generation lacking in almost all senses: emotionally lacking, lacking a sense of your shell catches our tears injured but unbowed the promise of a better day by the flames you set against than today belonging, lacking existential paradigms, and thus of joy, of sorrow, lacking passion, lacking will… castrated in the the enemy fresh hollow-ways down those nights are ours too broadest sense of the word. Our parents were the and we lend you our own those nights are ours too which we slide and in our sleeplessness, children beaten, raped, tortured, and murdered by hands and in our sleeplessness, into new worlds, we send you our dreams the imposition of first world shock necessary for the delighted as children, setting their own flames violent mutation from the “Chilean way to socialism” carving deeper into freedom against the same enemy remember, el tortuga, [ed. – the plan to put Chile on a 'non­capitalist' road if you are held now in the to 'development'; a contradiction in terms...] to the with every thought of you we share with you if you are held now in the hands of our kingdom of commodities[…] And our inheritance, the stealth of the night air hands of our we do not know you, jailers, you are held more our American dream that we lived – and we did live which only the saboteur it – we carry it in our bodies: the insecurity, the yet we feel you, brother, tightly knows, terror, the impossibility of recognizing ourselves as and we felt each moment in the hearts of your comrades, guided by owls through the in the hearts of your comrades, a community or continuity from the past, not to known and unknown, we send you the deep valleys, underworld, known and unknown, mention as a community in antagonistic struggle[...] the falcons calling across blue the scent of dark grass, the and for those of us who accept Along with our guts, they cut us off from our history and here we are, improvising, relearning, sky cooling concrete, that we will all, in the end, the sunsets which pour light the quiet dust, reinventing ourselves [ed. ­­ see 'The Matter of be burnt by our own fire, Knowing Who We Are']. […] This construction of into the hills the moonlit stench we take strength from the fact like evening wine into an ideology, worldview, spirituality, or whatever it of abandoned alleyways, that may be called, within the anti­authoritarian vermilion cups the startled thwack of wings in even in flames you did not spectrum is recent and, like everything new, is we send you the strike of a the trees, kneel. complex and is constructed basically from match, that spectacular, lonely wind experience, ergo beginning from trial and error” the midnight routes, exhilarating determined skin L.L. (Anarchic Practices in the Territory Dominated by the Chilean State). 77. WILD PLANTS – Hawthorne (berries) & Sweet Chestnuts

Hawthorne (berries) As well as eating or stewing, you can mash This medium­sized deciduous tree them through your hands to remove the prefers moist, alkaline soil and full sun (but seeds (although very time­consuming) and is tolerant of most soils), and lives to a then dry out the paste into a sweet fruit great age. They are often planted as dense leather that will keep for years. hedgerows to enclose land, as their thorny boughs make a sturdy barrier; an old Due to their association with fairies, it has Cornish expression is “thick as haglets” been considered very bad fortune to cut (the Cornish name for hawthorne), and the hawthorne. Especially in Celtic mythology, branches have a history in Mayday rituals. myth abounds of humans being laylaid by These trees will also be found in such creatures to places where time and protects the bones from degeneration woodlands (especially at the edges) and passes differently. Into this century in and decay. The B vitamins also strengthen on waysides. Ireland, public works have been diverted the nerves. Once dried, with both the due to reluctance to tamper with this tree. casing and the inner skin removed, the There are many dangerous red berries, so nuts can be beaten into a powder reputed Sweet Chestnuts make sure you identify hawthorne correctly to cure coughs when combined with honey (use a guide or someone whose Another deciduous tree, in an electuary. experience you trust). The fruit (which the nuts fall from sweet ripens through September) is a bright red chestnut in their The skin enclosing the to dark purple, and also enjoyed by many densely­spiked shell from chestnuts inside the casing birds. The texture when ripe is akin to the mid­October onwards. is slightly astringent, but texture of avocado. The seeds must not be After the last ice­age comparatively easy to remove eaten because they produce cyanide in the forced the trees south and after brief intestines; a couple aren't deadly to an stranded them in an Eastern blanching adult but could be to a child. You can cook European valley (the nuts being too big after you the berries then discard the seeds, or just for birds or the have eat around them raw. The taste is like wind to made a cross starchy over­ripe apple, and while some disseminate), the opening at the are tasty enough to use in their own right, Roman Empire spread end which is their high pectin content makes them them again throughout tufted to peel popular to add to other fruit that you want temperate Europe as they used the away the casing. to jelly; just­ripe berries have the most nut to make bread and feed their They may be roasted pectin, over­ripe berries the least. horses. Until relatively recently or boiled or they were a primary food source pounded into flour Here in Britain hawthorne is one of our real for rural poor in much of the (used for congealing medicinal treasure­trove plants. southern continent (as well as soups or baking breads and Traditionally, this plant was used to treat Turkey and parts of Asia); rich in cakes, or polenta), and store hypertension and cardiac failure. Both of starch, natural oils and a number of well into the cold months. The these are prevalent killers in western vitamins, including vitamin B1, vitamin flour doesn't rise as wheat flour societies, especially Britain. In diverse B2 and vitamin C. They thrive in areas does but the bread stays fresh places such as Devon, the Isle of Man, and where the rocky, thin soil prohibits growing for up to two weeks. When roasting, the Highlands of Scotland, hawthorne has grains, and (especially as they combine ensure that you perforate the traditionally been used in folk medicine as carbohydrates and proteins) they are external shell to stop the nuts a primary heart tonic, as well as being nutritionally superior to the above and can exploding. The meal of the chestnut used for centuries to correctly balance high replace them in the diet. has also been used for whitening linen and low blood pressure (it's actually a beta cloth and for making starch. The Marones blocker, improving nutrition, energy There is records of chestnuts being used in variety contains 15%, and by expression reserves, and energy release of the heart western medicine as far back as the yield a thick syrup, from which in turn a muscle). The berries are astringent and ancient Greeks. Eating them not only will very usable sugar can be derived. useful to cure sore throats once they've improve the blood (in atrophy, fatigue, been cooked in water for a while. It may starvation) but also will increase the also break calcium and cholesterol energy and it will supply the body with The nuts have a history of eating to deposits in the arteries, making it helpful natural sugars that will squeeze out the encourage fertility and sexual desire and for arteriosclerosis (hardening of the desire for sweets (though they're not may be carried as a charm by women who arteries). It's also rich in Vitamin C and recommended more than 4­5 times a week) wish to conceive. Staves made from anti­oxidants, promoting the scavenging of and the high dietary fibre can prevent chestnut wood are said to encourage harmful 'free radical' molecules. diabetes and improve digestion. It will also longevity, increase energy, enhance balance cholesterol, decrease intuition and help with grounding and At this time of year, there tend not to be as inflammation all through the body, and centering of energy. In Japan (where they many thorns as earlier in the season and lower the risk of blood clots building up in are eaten on New Year's day for success any still present grow at a 45 degree angle the body. This will eventually lower your and strength the coming year) they away from the trunk. The advantage of this risk of stroke, heart attack and coronary symbolise both difficulties and is that you can run your hand along a heart disease to a large degree. The overcoming them. branch from base to tip and collect a good magnesium present in sweet chestnut handful of berries with very few prickles. forms the hard enamel around your teeth 78. POEMS FOR LOVE, LOSS & WAR

' Outward is Inward to the Heart ' The visions we find on the mountain­top The Old Ones say inward they are looking in dreams outward is inward to the heart outward they are looking for signs and inward is outward to the center but both inward because and outward for us do not leave us there are no absolute boundaries for we are not separate no borders we are like the atomic nuclei no environments which cannot be studied no outside except in motion no inside because motion is of their essence no dualisms and we cannot be studied no single body alone no non­body for we do not exist alone. We don't stop at our eyes – Jack D. Forbes We don't begin at our skin We don't end at our smell Bone­blade In Their Right Hand, Acorns In Their Left We don't start at our sounds I can lose my legs That figure on the hillside and go on living In their right hand they hold a knife carved from bone I can lose my eyes In their left hand they hold a sack full of acorns and go on living I can lose my ears People would look upon the figure in confusion and distrust and go on living “Who is this being who’s footprints leave runes in the ground? I can lose my hair Who calls to the hawk, deer and fox, that answer them back? my nose They could not be a man, for their claws and teeth, yet they run across the surface of the earth my hands like a man!” my arms and go on living This is what people would say when discussing this being but if I lose the water Often they would only catch a glimpse, as the creature ran through the town at night I die Children would lie and claim they had seen it in it’s home in the forest past the hills, but If I lose the Sun children are clumsy and noisy, and the creature hides itself from them I die For the creature, though a trickster, saboteur and thief, was not so cruel as to frighten children If I lose the plants and animals I die But never without their knife, the creature would use the bone blade to pick locks, to steal what For all these things was stolen, and to sabotage the machines of the towns people are more a part of me For this being is vengeful and takes delight in ludic vengeance against those who cut down the more essential to my being forest, ploughed the land, dammed the river and stole their friends homes than is that One day though the creature lead the children away from the town, so it could enter with them which I call “my body.” far away and safe from the flames they unleashed, after freeing imprisoned wild horses, in A mountain for seeking visions, revenge of the barbaric engagement and all those other acts An ocean for getting dreams, The mothers and fathers were alerted by the creatures call, but nothing could be done to save A lake of mirrors to give us names, the town, which burned to the ground Sacred Circles arounding us. And after the children return to find their parents safe, they all stare at the figure on the hill Black Elk has told us that Who in their right hand they hold a knife carved from bone at the Center of the Universe dwells Wakan­Tanka And in their left hand they hold a sack full of acorns the Great Holy, – Julian Langer and yes, that Sacred Center is within each of us, as with Crying in the Rain Huehuetéotl, the Sacred Fire, Crying in the rain. in the Center of the sweatlodge. Feeding cycles of mist and dew, sweat and blood, rearranging vapors that And we know that our eyes are permeate and bind. not windows, Cycles feeding cellulose, lignin, flesh. Rainfall, that drifting water sanctum. that indeed we do not Cast a stone into the waters, watch the ripple of its waves. “see” the world at a distance, Even a single drop can still add up to so much. Liquid echoes. that our “seeing” is within In cleansing rain, wash it all away. our heads, within our minds. The torments of the past, the fears of the future. Wash it all away. For if the eyes were windows Redeeming torrent. we could pick up a dead creature's Re­surface, head above the waters. eye and look directly through it Take the next breath. like clear glass Still alive. but any hunter knows Surviving. it can't be done. – autumnleavescascade 79. attempted escape case [ed. – see GLOBAL Rebels Behind Bars; 'Yet Another Fenced World']. This action is FLASH­ for the imprisoned comrades in UK, POINTS Greece, Chile, Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, France, Philadelphia, U.S.A.: “On a warm spring Spain, Italy and night, we went to a construction site where around the world. War there was once a wild and abandoned to the ‘Smart Cities’ place. We did what we could to hinder the [ed. – see Return Fire progress that has befallen that area: weeks earlier, five youth armed with clubs vol.3 pg31] and the prison­society. Long removing survey stakes and dividers, fought screws and scaled the 30ft fences live anarchy and the wild.” stealing and destroying pieces of what was with ladders stolen from a storeroom, but being built, and smashing the machines that had been returned after an armed police 05.07.16, Greece: “On June 22nd 2016 the homogenize and commodify the land. We operation. German police bastards once again raided don’t know what they intend to build on the the Rigaer 94 squat after the whole site and we don’t care. Any domestication of Magdeburg, Germany: “Saxony­Anhalt has Nordkiez area had been declared a ‘danger wild places infuriates us. We took this action problems in recruiting new cops. Next year, zone’ with permanent controls and police as a contribution to the month for the earth they need to hire up to 700 instead of the presence. However they have failed to and against capital.” current 350. The minister of the interior and contain the conflict in this corner of Berlin the police union agree on the fact that there [ed. – see Rebels Behind Bars; A 08.06.16, Mexico: “At 4am, while so­called is a lack of “suitable candidates”. […] ]. [As a gesture of mexico city was blanketed by police, Comrade in Prison September 9, under the slogan “A long night pollution, and restless capitalism, 320 birds complicity] and within the framework of the Festive Arrest at ‘Sternstraße 12’ crime and 3 foxes were liberated from Mercado call for a Black July, we took a stroll in scene – at the station” the cops will practise Sonora, a crowded distribution point of Kolonaki (a posh area in the center of new forms of public relations and nonhuman creatures kidnapped from their Athens) and began indiscriminately burning recruitment attempts. […] While in other homes and crammed into horrid conditions cars with the intention of the fire spreading parts of the building “daily operations” of human negligence. All the human­labeled uncontrollably to as many vehicles as continue, in others there’s a party. In a bird species that spread their wings, such possible.” Claimed by F.A.I./E.L.F. [Informal relaxed party atmosphere police training as Amazilia beryllina, Aquila chrysaetos, Anarchist Federation / Earth Liberation flyers are distributed. For children, there is a and Pharomachrus Mocinno, are found Front] 'Chaotic Behavior in Constant Revolt'. “Sherlock­Tour” for taking specimens of within the bioregions of 'mexico'; and so, we traces and clues. For the older ones, it’s are hoping, they have great chance of 06.08.16, Bristol, U.K.: 'Eco­Anarchist GAV [volunteer cops]. That includes returning to their perch, or at least finding a Vandals' visit Easton­in­Gordano service reconstructed scenes and explanations of viable new one where they can rest and station: “whilst the truck drivers were what is necessary, “when the person continue to exercise their colorful existence. inactive in their cabs, 10­15 cars on four car­ refuses.” The event is organized in close The foxes were tended to by a comrade and transporters were spray­painted causing collaboration with the “Kulturanker” transported to their bioregions where, once their greedy earth­destroying companies association, which is organizing the festive released, began to frolic once again in loss of time and money infinitely larger than evening (voluntarily). While all are calling for rejuvenation. […] Everyday we choose how that we expended doing this opportunist more cops, we have begun their disposal. we interact with our surroundings. Everyday crime. Solidarity to all the imprisoned […] “Almost the entire fleet of federal police there is a creature trembling in the corner of comrades and those on the run.” vehicles was destroyed by fire in a cage. Everyday a sprout is pushing Magdeburg” (From an article in the regional against concrete. Let us not forget our West Lothian, U.K.: A masked group torch press)[...] Wednesday to Thursday night, potential to act upon our values. Whether it three screws cars in daylight at HMP September 8, [s]even police vehicles parked is spreading stories and inspiration, Addiewell, fleeing in a car later found burnt at the Magdeburg central station went up in nourishing seeds, or slipping on a mask and out 20 miles away in Edinburgh. smoke, as well as eleven ‘Deutsche Bahn’ quietly opening doors... etc... we ALL have vehicles. The press writes that the damage a role in the fight for 29.08.16, is estimated at 750,000 euros. Why the liberation. In instinctual Dublin, ‘Deutsche Bahn’? We remember 2014, insurrection, Transborder Ireland: Heavy when the DB provided the Nazis with extra Animal Liberation” damage to trains to take them directly from the central infamous station to the ‘SKET’ industrial park. We 28.06.16, Bristol, U.K.: As Oberstown remember the propaganda hostile to unions a continuation of the youth prison against the railway workers’ strike last year. Phoenix Project (see after inmates We remember the ‘CASTOR’ transportation Return Fire vol.2 pg45), utilised a staff train when the DB made its railways fire is set at an Avonmouth strike (over available to the nuclear industry. We police depot. “The depot their repeated remember the transport for the German also stores crowd control assaulting by Army, from military post to armoured barricade units, CCTV vans, the youth) to vehicles.” This East German area is no staff support and military seize keys and stranger to such attacks; in 2012, 12 brand vehicles occasionally. We set fire on the new police cars were set on fire in the state dedicate the action to the roof, rioting late capital. Two days later, police cars parked at imprisoned members of the into the night a police station in Halle were set on fire. Conspiracy of Cells of Fire and forcing riot and Aggeliki Spyropoulou, police to retake 26.09.16, Cañete, Chile: Police as well as to those in the the prison. Two headquarters holding the anarchist Joaquín 80. García (just captured after being parked on residential streets, challenged us When an animal is hurt (not fatally) inside underground; see Return Fire vol.4 pg72) to immobilize them. […] Broken windows the necropolis, and is categorized by the are attacked with pyrotechnics. Part of a and popped tires are love letters to circulate ghost of the Law as non­native for the ghost string of anti­vivisection, meat industry and between us. Never mind quantifying how of the Nation [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 bank vandalisms (and a railway blockade) much these acts hurt our enemies. By pg30], then it is killed as an indication of coordinated across the length of Chile by pulling up our masks and smashing their ”mercy” from the executors of ”humanity”[...] 'Freely Associated Action' of the Earth & storefronts, we open up that beautiful space Even if someone wanted to take a wounded Animal Liberation Front (E.L.F. / A.L.F.] cells. in which we can become ourselves, where animal to a vet for nursing there is a fine for nothing is sacred but the ties that bind us those who treat animals that are not ”native” and the disgust we share for their miserable for returning them to the ”wild” (namely in Ontario, Canada: “So back when world.” the public gardens of the city). The stupidity, Enbridge started shipping in pipeline the excessively willing obedience segments for their line 10 expansion 02.10.16, Chevrilles, Switzerland: At the downgrading the life of an individuality into [ed. – for tar sands crude; see Return construction of a new migrant detention a worn out product, and the hypocrisy of Fire vol.4 pg29], we started sabotaging facility where “authorities want to hold caring in the name of the ruin of ”animal them. There are vast networks of people prisoners in order to drive them to welfare”, or the real feeling of caring pipeline infrastructure throughout Turtle the border quickly and unnoticed[...] we channeled through institutionalized thinking Island ['North America']. They are have fractured the lock of an exit door to the of morality and the Law trigger our hate and indefensible; perfect opportunities forindefensible; perfect opportunities for drill two holes and forced access to the these people are our enemies. The effective direct action that harms nothing building. Each of the seven floors, we paradoxical anthropocentric caring for non­ but an oil company’s bottom line. It’s in opened the water pipes to cause flooding. human individuals is a contemptible chain this spirit that we found ourselves going Damage had to delay the work underway for us because it doesn’t emerge from an for long moonlit strolls through the and inflate the invoice of the dirty work of interest of fully engaging with ones own trenches of the freshly dug line10 right­ the authorities and the companies who relations outside of rationalized contexts[...] benefit.” of­way. Wherever we felt the urge, we We aren’t saying that these people don’t save lives of animals in different cases or drilled various sized holes into pipeline 03.10.16, Montevideo, Uruguay: “Death to help them in general contexts, we don’t segments while spilling corrosives inside Nazism, fascism, communism and present them as we ”would like” to attack others. We do this in solidarity with the democracy. Always anarchists.” Arson them in ideological frames but we attack Indigenous peoples of this area. […] attack against the home of Oscar Piquinela, them for what they are. Parts of the societal And lastly, but not least, to our secretary of the Inter­Parliamentary machine who work well with the capital and comrades and co­conspirators: Uruguayan Group, an official at the the ideologicalization of the pet business...” A How­To from the heart Legislative Palace who was displaying neo­ You’ll need 1) a decent cordless drill, 2) Nazi insignia on his balcony. “[That a state 16.10.16, São Paulo, Brazil: 7 wards of a a good smaller­gauge cobalt or titanium agency official] does not have a problem psychiatric prison burned in an uprising; 55 drill bit – preferably with a pilot point, with expressing ideas as rancid as Nazism, inmates escape into the countryside. and 3) cutting oil. (Oh, the irony!) is sufficient evidence that ideas supposedly antagonistic like democracy and Nazism 19.10.16, Athens, Greece: Statement from With a righteous sense of adventure, can coexist. Let’s not forget that in Germany a crew who “took part, alongside many prove your stealth ninja skills by getting the Nazi party came to power through the other groups and individualities, in the street into the right­of­way. Once you’re ininto the right­of­way. Once you’re in electoral appeal of the Republican clashes around the Polytechnic in Exharchia there you’re pretty invisible from the democracy. Both share authoritarian and [ed. – see The Exharchia Commune road so long as you’re not fluorescent, marginalizing behaviors. Democracy with Rises & Defends Itself], that lasted for adorned in glitter or fucking around with it’s innocent mask of tolerance and classic several hours with constant attacks with a headlamp too much. Take a breath, discourse of ‘social peace’ also has a past molotovs, stones and fireworks against take a look, and then find your way to an and present endorsement that is stained in antiriot police squads. [...] But we don’t want empty pipeline and start drilling! Go blood, just ask the parents who have lost to limit ourselves in a routine of anticop slow (so there’s less noise, children at the hands of the democratic hate; along with the attacks against the reverberation, and friction) and apply police [ed. – see We Can Be Worse Still], cops, we promote the practice of attack enough pressure so that you see metal or just ask the social and anti­social fighters against the structures and symbols of shavings coming up – and then keep at who have been persecuted, beaten and domination, from the most obvious like it for 10 to 15 minutes. Cutting oil willit for 10 to 15 minutes. Cutting oil will imprisoned...” banks and ministries, to those urban help the process along by keeping the elements that serve the normal function of 09.10.16, Porto, Portugal: Graffiti and drill tip cool and effective. the metropolis: road signs, traffic lights, damages against the headquarters of cameras, bus stops… as well the Have fun.” construction firm Vinci, in solidarity with the representations, symbols and idols of Power Z.A.D. (see Return Fire vol.1 pg81). in the form of icons, monuments, statues[…] We don’t see anarchic violence as a U.S.A.: “Last week, we decided to ring in 15.10.16, Edinburgh, U.K.: “We don’t sacrifice or as a revolutionary obligation; Kara Wild’s trial in Paris [ed. – see Rebels tolerate any non­human individuality to be instead, we demystify it, we turn it into a the subject of control of the faithful of the Behind Bars; New Accusations After banality, we use it in a ludic way, making it Law, lovers of the society of prisons.” Arson Damien Kidnapped & Beaten] by raining obtainable for everybody, without of a van of Society for Prevention of Cruelty the streets of Chicago with shattered glass professionalisms or restrictions.” and popping a cop tire for each month that to Animals, by 'Nocturnal Gale'. “This law she has spent in prison. The windows of abiding fossil, ”controls” the ”wellbeing” of U.K.: Four separate car dealerships hit by yuppie shops on the thoroughly gentrified non­human animals by removing the anonymous arson attacks in the Salisbury north side stood tall and vulnerable to our ”defective” ones who would taint the area; in each case the technique is placing hammers. The tires of sheriff cars, brazenly sterilized cage of the worshipers of the Law. a flammable device under the wheel arch.

81. Montréal, Canada: “In response to the Wrexham, 02 & 07.02.17, Leipzig, Germany: “We have wandered far and wide. recent smashings of gentrifiers in the U.K.: “It is We have seen the beauty of natural chaos deep within ancient neighbourhood [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 important to We have seen the beauty of natural chaos deep within ancient woodlands and amongst the weeds that crack the concrete. In the pg91], and in the context of twenty­two announce one solitude of the mountain tops and in the silent encounters with other businesses being vandalized in the last week before solitude of the mountain tops and in the silent encounters with other nocturnal individuals stalking in the night. When sharpening our year, the city and the police have publicly the opening of nocturnal individuals stalking in the night. When sharpening our announced a renewed collaboration. HMP Berwyn knives in the shadows of the forests and conspiring around campfires They’re desperately trying to reassert that two of the with our fierce accomplices, those with whom we share the desire to control, faced with people who “aren’t afraid houseblocks break out of the cages of our domestication and become feral beings. of the police”, and their initiative to install in the prison We have witnessed first­hand the devastation that the kingdom of more cameras shows it. […] Over the last are “humanity” wreaks on the earthly environment, we have stood on the structurally few months, friends have been playing edges of vast and desolate quarries, we have walked through the clear unsound due Camover in the neighbourhood of cut forests and along the oil­slicked beaches strewn with plastic and Hochelaga. We’ve destroyed around twenty to sabotage in the corpses of fishes and birds, feeling the hatred and anger building security cameras. For your pleasure (and 2015. After up inside us more and more like the blackness that gathers in our certainly for our own as well!), here’s a our action in lungs. We have seen the horrors inside the factory farms and we eachlungs. We have seen the horrors inside the factory farms and we each photo in which we see a friend May 2015 [ed. knew then in our hearts that liberation alone could never be enough. sporting a necklace of optical – see Return trophies. […] We Fire vol.4 We have set off incendiaries, torching the machines and infrastructure decided to play, pg60] [we] that annihilate the wild, momentarily paralyzing the norms and and will continue knew that to procedures of civilized order. We have launched attacks on the this game of regularly employees of ecocidal companies by daylight and moonlight, feeling revolt, which is attempt to more alive than ever as they fled before our knives, molotovs and simultaneously attack the stones. Our acts of vandalism have caused powercuts and severed thrilling and prison would internet and telephone connections to countless homes andinternet and telephone connections to countless homes and frightening, where be businesses. We have rioted with criminal intent that does not stop at we learn to overcome impossible merely breaking a few windows and our rabid hands move to steal fears, deal with stress, due to the every necessity for our survival that comes within reach. and expand our capacities, because this is prison walls ultimately about more than the gentrification being built We are amoral, illegalist, antisocial and unrepentant individualists at of a particular neighborhood. What’s around the war with techno­industrial society[...] With courage and determination happening in Hochelaga speaks to a history site. After we continue to practice new techniques in the application of the of struggle against domination as old as intensive destructive arts, improving our methods of sabotage, attack and civilization itself: a multiplicity of wild and research, it evasion. As we will stop at nothing, our attacks will erupt uncontrollable worlds that resist and evade soon became asymmetrically as we scurry from shadow to shadow and our fires will the world of order and ‘progress’.” apparent that continue to spread... ” Cluster of Vodaphone antennae located and, we could have “covering the bottom of the exposed cables in flammable gel and then London, U.K.: Report via 325.nostate.net, a dramatic placing two slow­burning incendiaries between the cables”, destroyed. shortly after an anti­gentrification demo led effect with “Mobile phone antennas, besides functioning as important pieces of to a brawl between Class War activists and little effort. In technical infrastructure for the smooth­functioning of society and the Foxton estate agents; “Class War London July 2015, a process of mass stupification also emit massive amounts of toxicity in opened up a water main outside gated strong acidic the form of radiowaves and microwaves, resulting in tumors and brain estate agents Foxtons, which flooded powder was damage in creatures dwelling nearby and are known to interfere with dozens of expensive multi­million pound poured into the navigational senses of birds and insects, leading to mass die­offs homes in a posh area. 100s of people had the of entire colonies of bees and thus causing irreparable damage to to be evacuated and the cost of the damage excavations of existing ecosystems.” Part of the same group also “destroyed 7 is extensive. Boris Johnson, the ex­mayor the hunting towers and when I was finished, my desire was asking for and now foreign secretary also had his groundfloor more. More moments of silent activities between the singing of the basement flooded by waters which were slabs of two of birds.” Six cars burn. reported to be up to 2 metres deep in the the prisons’s surrounding streets. The rich people were houseblocks. “When we first began claiming some of our acts of destruction as the reported to have been taken to some kind of This has Wildfire Cell, we also associated our little gang with the ALF, ELF and refugee camp for the upper class.” Turns made two of FAI as part of a final experiment in communication between other out 'devastate the avenues of the rich' was these interesting individualities within the “Anarchist” camp who we were notinteresting individualities within the “Anarchist” camp who we were not more than a slogan all along! buildings in direct contact with. Then in our second communique we abandonedin direct contact with. Then in our second communique we abandoned structurally the use of these acronyms and spoke briefly about some of our unsound – motivations for doing so. [...] We retained the name of the cell to mark their clearly our departure from [the] hypocritical idea of fighting for an foundations external goal or cause, for some better future or mystified idol. will eventually [O]ur acts of destruction are acts tending towards our self­liberation. crumble and Acts which aim to break the chains that society has forced upon us the buildings from birth and create the potential to escape the great cage could momentarily by decivilizing ourselves and becoming dangerous. collapse over […] We are not saying that all who call themselves “anarchists” fall into time. Given this ideological trap, there are still some unique ones who claim this that the “identity” for themselves, that is their discretion. Amongst these few we strength of proudly count some of our close allies and accomplices.” these slabs has been greatly reduced, intrusive investigations cage people in these buildings. This action is dedicated to every human being that has 10.12.16, Tyneside, U.K.: Anarchist attack and a full re­build of these houseblocks would be necessary before attempting to died in the prison system at the hands of smashes police car windscreen. the State.” 82. U.K.: Vodaphone mobile phone mast BEING burned “in front of Kenneth Steele House, SUBVERSIVE the serious crimes unit of Bristol police near IN THE FACE Temple Meads train station in Bristol. This is OF THIS not only a hit to the company but to the SYSTEM IS pride of the cops and their facade of NOT control.” The comrades also sabotaged a TERRORISM, car of G4S, “a massive global private IT IS SURVIVAL.” “Down with the Anti-Terrorism Law: freedom for Mapuche & anarchist security company that run a number of prisoners”, “Strength compa” (left: in Spanish, right: in Mapudugun) private prisons, including youth 22.07.17, London, U.K.: Masked youth prisons and migration centres. 04.05.17, Indonesia: “Prostitutes, in collaboration with raise a burning barricade in the north of the […] It was the state who came our non­prostitute illegalist comrades, yesterday city outside the shop Rashan Charles was to their rescue when HMP undertook an action [not] undertaken exclusively by suffocated to death in by pursuing cops, Birmingham (privately operated prostitutes, [but] at the initiative of a prostitute. […] A by G4S) saw explosive riots... and attack the riot squad when they arrive prostitute had the opportunity to service a member of [ed. – see We Are Not Afraid with projectiles, forcing three retreats and the Central Jakarta Military Police, and subsequently trashing a bank and other businesses. of Their Ruins... We Carry a identify this SOCIAL WAR CRIMINAL’S home address identify this SOCIAL WAR CRIMINAL’S home address Fireworks launched at police helicopter. New Chaos in Our Hearts].” (and penchant for smoking methamphetamine). In (and penchant for smoking methamphetamine). In Earlier the same month, London police's 22.03.17, Grenoble, France: revolt at the social war criminal’s blatant hypocrisy, killing of Edir Frederico Da Costa in a stop­ “Wednesday night we were not the prostitute passed pertinent information onto their search also led to rioting and cops in the tired so we went hunting for so­call “criminal” comrades, all of whom have been hospital. collaborators.” 3 vehicles of the similarly persecuted by those who we recognize as 23.09.17, Melbourne, Australia: “15 queer Communal Center for Social the most reviled foot soldiers of fascism. We anarchists (including sex workers, drug Action set on fire. “The C.C.A.S recognise these State thugs as directly complicit and users, disabled people, people living with co­manages misery, thus giving responsible for the innumerable arbitrarily beatings, blood borne viruses and survivors of child a moral guarantee to sexual assaults, prison sentences, harassment, and abuse & spiritual abuse perpetrated by democracy [ed. – see Who Is extortion we have all experienced for engaging in the fundamentalist christians & churches) It?]. This social policy seems to same so­called “vices” these repulsive hypocrites disrupted and intervened in the launch of us more dangerous even than enthusiastically embrace (and indeed profit from, the national Coalition For Marriage the blows of truncheons of their personally and systemically). campaign. The Coalition For Marriage is a colleagues in uniform. All cops […] Using their PRO­fessional wiles and skills, the front group for the fundamentalist religious are not in blue[...] integration is prostitute filmed the encounter and undertook a covert organisation, the Australian Christian Lobby a form of incarceration.” assessment of goods which could be easily liberated [whose members have worked with racist 18.04.17, Liège, Belgium: from the dog’s home. The prostitute also identified right­wing groups]. […] In an attempt to ' “Don’t you have a light?” & when the dog would be engaged in his job of torturing deprive the religious fundamentalists of a friend' “set fire to a police our friends and comrades, and when his home would platform, and to make their event as station [which] was completely ostensibly be empty of his (presumably long­suffering) uncomfortable as possible, we engaged in a destroyed[...] We dedicate this wife, lowly paid domestic slaves, and children. series of constant disruptions, beginning action to the imprisoned with two people unfurling a banner reading Hence, with the knowledge of the dog’s long holiday comrades who are accused of “Burn Churches, Not Queers” as the 1000 weekend plans, a team of us visited the dog’s house bank robbery in Aachen [ed. – strong supporters of Christian to ensure it was empty. With ease, we were able to see Rebels Behind Bars; fundamentalist ideology entered the venue.” gain access. Once inside, we joyfully and Aachen Case Verdict]” and The Christians homophobic speeches were mischievously liberated and expropriated as many of “the Montreuil compa and interrupted (with slogans and enthusiastic the social war criminal’s expensive and ostensibly Damien [ed. – see Rebels kissing among the anarchists), and the highly prized possessions as we were able to Behind Bars; New merchandise table upset. Mainstream transport. Accusations After Damien media report the intervention as “domestic terrorism”, and some pacifistic 'anarchist' Kidnapped & Beaten]...” In addition to loathing uniformed dogs, we undertook groups also distance themselves... this action to provide anonymous resources to several 30.06.17, Chile: 20 molotovs informal networks of similar minded insurrectionistsinformal networks of similar minded insurrectionists 21­22.11.17, Aragón, Spain: Letter­bombs wreck offices of the Agricultural and anarchists we have enduring solidarity and (accompanied by instructions to leave the & Livestock Service and respect for (and several of us participate in). We felt it premises and alert the police; presumably General Directorate of Civil was similarly essential to provide material support, the devices were timed) delivered to the Aeronautics, “in the context of solidarity and resources to our friends currently Italian Chamber of Commerce and three the month for anarchic agitation incarcerated in spirit­crushing local prisons. incarcerated in spirit­crushing local prisons. branches of an Italian insurance company. for Earth liberation[...] The other Following controlled detonations after motivation for our actions are Post successful­action, we collectively decided that Post successful­action, we collectively decided that evacuation, two turned out to be fake. the recent deaths of the the ultimate mockery would be to sell the goods we the ultimate mockery would be to sell the goods we Though press report a responsibility claim weichafes (Mapuche [ed. – see expropriated back to members of State apparatuses expropriated back to members of State apparatuses they received from anarchists, they decline We Can Be Worse Still] due to their inherent corruption, petty scams and due to their inherent corruption, petty scams and to cite the signature. One possible reason warriors) Patricio Gonzáles and culture of extortion. In Jakarta, our enemies in the the comrade/s of anarhija.info brought up Luis Marileo[...] IMMEDIATE cops, military, special forces, and ‘human’ drones FREEDOM FOR THE was that it was the work of “hypothetically working for State departments, are primarily of the ‘dismantled’ comrades, which could MAPUCHE POLITICAL reviled, aspirational moneyed class. Seemingly those PRISONERS WHO WITH interfere with future or ongoing of this ilk share a desperate penchant for parading investigations...” Around this time, a major GREAT STRENGTH AND their consumer ‘goods’ as an affirmation of their COURAGE WENT ON anti­anarchist trial is due to start in Italy existential identities. […] Hence, to our amusement (see Rebels Behind Bars; A Letter from HUNGER STRIKE [ed. – see and contempt, we are confident the last place they will We Can Be Worse Still], AS Anarchist Comrade Anna Beniamino investigate in searching for the liberated property isinvestigate in searching for the liberated property is about Operation Scripta Manent & WELL AS FREEDOM FOR ALL each other.” THE PRISONERS OF WAR – More…)... 83. This way hub of radical activity in that city (including the the pilots semi­autonomous spaces on Rigaerstraße street). REBELS BEHIND BARS were able Shortly after this court­report, 'Comrades and to follow friends of Rigaer 94 and the resistance in – text by prisoners & repression news Friedrichshain' released a text we will quote to Nero, contextualise the situation there: “In Berlin it is arrest him forbidden to organize a flea market, where A Comrade in Prison and afterwards return to Rigaerstraße. everything can be given away for free, it is (Germany) Already before the shift that night, they had forbidden to play music in public spaces or just been told to expect attacks with laser gather in the street with many people. It might be On October 18th 2017, the trial against pointers in the Rigaerstraße. Just as well, allowed if one requests a permission with the police. We did all of these things without having a our friend and comrade Nero took place at since the helicopters have been terrorizing permission and every time we did, the police the neigbourhood for decades and it‘s not the Amtsgericht in Moabit. He was charged came and attacked us. As a response, many with blinding a police helicopter with a just the squatters who are fed up with it. stones were thrown towards the cops and their laser pointer. On that night [June 16th], a Coming to an end, the witness was asked cars. […] Due to gentrification, the population in concert was taking place in Rigaerstraße[1], to name the number of operations carried our part of the city, is being slowly replaced. If which led to riots in the streets. Nero was out in the Rigaerstraße. Claiming he was you don‘t have the money, you can‘t pay the rent arrested in the Südkiez in Friedrichshain, lacking permission to testify, he refused an anymore and you have to move. This is why assaulted in the police station and let go answer. After finishing his performance, several luxury cars and new investors are being attacked in our neighbourhoods. […] When the again the next morning. A month later, Angelo joined the irritated visitors, to follow state attacks us, like last year, when the cops the rest of the trial. After that everyone civil cops where waiting at his work raided the Rigaer 94 twice and once occupied place and arrested him upon his arrival. agreed, that it was unnecessary to hear the house for over three weeks, while destroying Since then it has been three months he any more witnesses. Only one friend was large parts of it, it becomes possible for us to has been in custody in the JVA Moabit. heard by the judge. He stated that Nero mobilize many people from outside our circles. was staying at his place and was in fact not For weeks over the summer 2016, cars all over Cops where already waiting in front of the homeless but just one of the many people the city were burning and during a bigger court house in the Turmstraße and civil in this city in trouble of finding an demonstration many people attacked the cops. […] The autonomous movement was fueled in cops where snooping around the apartment and, being a worker, has limited the '80s by the difficult housing situation and the time to stand in an endless line at the neighbourhood, to harass visitors. Press many squats, that existed all over the city. The and police witnesses had gathered in front Bürgeramt to officially register [as experiences since then show us that as soon of the court room. The trial was supposed homeless]. Apart from a couple of stupid as we take one step backwards the enemy to start at 9:20 AM, though it took over an questions from the jury, there was nothing moves up right behind us. In the cases, where hour before the press and visitors where left to say and the judge retreated until the squatters negotiated with the state, they always allowed inside. After having read out the proclamation of sentence. lost. In the cases, where we did not negotiate, we charges, the judge declared, that a deal may have also lost, but by fighting the struggle When the doors to room 101 opened we won new activists for our structures. As a had been agreed upon, stating that the again, all the cop witnesses had occupied realistic stop over, we are trying to make one part sentence should not be over 20 months, the visitors seats, even though they were of the city impossible to control, a process which should the defended admit to the charges no longer needed. The three cops who had should be expanded chronologically and that is. The confession included the been in the helicopter and Mr. Habedank, spatially. Maybe the cops will attack our spaces in Friedrichshain again in the near future. Then blinding of the helicopter with the the director of LKA [ed. – State Criminal we will ask you for help, by attacking authority, no intention to support the riots in the Police Office of Interior Ministry] 5, who did Rigaerstraße. These charges can legally matter where you are.” Police have designated not mind to show several visitors that he the area a 'Danger Zone', which allows them be met with 1­15 years in prison. With a knows exactly who they were. Everyone stop­and­search from people without reason, simple “yes” under pressure, the sentence was excitingly awaiting the sentence. breaking into homes without a search warrant was set between 16 and 20 months. During the proclamation of sentence, the and confiscating everything, and periodically judge did not miss the chance to give a there is media hysteria, comparing the place to Afterwards the pilot was called to the Syria and other nonsense. It seems like many of seemingly endless moral speech towards stand. Angelo Koepp is not only a pilot but the same problems are faced by comrades in the audience. He integrated all the horror also a great actor. Obviously, he had Berlin as in many other cities of Europe and the scenarios, that had been brought up by the practiced his performance many times, to world at this moment, with the right hand of State pilot in his sentence. He agreed with the repression and the left hand of rising living prices create dramatic scenes, in order for our prosecutors demand of 18 months in pushes the conflictive zones against the wall and friend to receive a harsh punishment. prison, without parole, since that would starts to funnel them out of the centers. We wish Without naming any sources, he talked only give Nero the chance to continue fortitude upon the fighters of Friedrichshain about a long­term disabled colleague, who in the confrontations to come! allegedly after a similar attack still requires his fight against the police. We hope that a reading aid. He also explains, that he will fight this struggle in there, just as usually the helicopters are only equipped successfully as he did it out here. Lastly with one pilot. But as chance might have it, the judge decided against letting Nero during all the laser pointer attacks, two out for a while before his sentence pilots where on board to prevent a crash. started. He also held another long moral Angelo was not shy about imagining speech before he proclaimed his catastrophic scenes in case of a helicopter decision, saying that since our friend did crash by explaining how the 330 liters of not apologize for his actions, there was kerosene, that where still in the tank could danger for repetition and his missing rent have created a monstrous fire ball. contract was taken as a flight risk. Strange, how when two helicopters Therefore our friend is and will stay in collided at the Olympic stadium, no such prison. fire ball could be seen, even though a lot Blow up the prisons, blow up the more kerosene was in play then. Only the palaces, blow up the pigs! steep angle, with which the laser was pointed at the helicopter, prevented such a 1. ed. – This article refers to the situation in a disastrous fire ball. neighbourhood of Berlin that has long been a 84. wave that spring they had “fiercely fought before the search, when I emptied my New Accusations After against the BAC (riot police) and the pockets before undressing, he immediately Damien Kidnapped & protest marshals of the CGT (General took my 2 packets of rolling papers aside, Confederation of Labour trade union), who but he seemed disinterested by the rest. I Beaten [& letter] (France) could no longer contain the revolt and knew I was done, and indeed, at the end of joined forces to repress it with huge blows the search, he said to me: “And here, there is During the night of July 29­30th, of truncheons and gas”, while his only nothing?” Then he pulled out all the sheets anarchist comrade Damien Camélio was police interview statement was “I am one by one until the SIM cards appeared. ambushed by cops as he was leaving the neither guilty nor innocent. I am an In the days that followed, some of the hospital he had just checked his collapsed anarchist. I have nothing more to say...” prisoners who I am close to have undergone partner (now recovered) into, in Saint­ similar searches. Malo, Brittany. Here is part of his account: During his sentence, like ones he has “When I got outside the hospital a cop car served before, he released a number of Last night on May 17th, an ERIS was parked in front of me and four cops letters, for example claiming solidarity with intervention squad broke into my cell at were waiting for me next to the car. other prisoners or comrades facing around 8PM. For those unfamiliar with the repression, and to contribute to an ERIS, they are squads that receive the same They yelled: “Hey Camélio, give us your anarchist discussion on 'justice' scheduled training as the GIGN, GIPN and RAID, papers so we can check them.” in Paris. We have included parts of one overtrained and equipped with various I had nothing to hide so I handed them of these letters here, while he was held protections similar to those of the CRS [ed. over. A cop asked me: “Are you carrying a in Fleury­Merogis (Europe's largest – various special units] – bulletprooof vests, weapon?” to which I replied that yes, of prison) which we feel gives a context to plastic shields, hoods under their helmets so course, I always have a knife on me. He the extreme enmity the French state they cannot be recognized, reinforced asked me to show him it. I took it out and holds the comrade in (not that police gloves, shin guards, etc, etc. They are he snatched it from my hands while the violence is always so discriminating, of usually armed with batons and flashballs other three cops jumped on me at the course, but their memories are long). which they shoot at point black range, of same time. course, since a cell is not bigger than 9m². Finally, his imprisonment provoked many I was thrown onto the ground, my hands solidarity actions (not least the burning of In short they shocked us and threw us into were cuffed behind my back and they then another Jaguar in Paris for his birthday), the corridor, glued to the wall with our hands beat me to the point where I was having one of the more innovative which we insert on our heads and then handcuffed. Myself trouble breathing. I tried to struggle a bit at the end; and the news of his recent and my co-detainee were then dragged into because it was really too much and at the beating followed in form. September 21st separate search rooms. For the rest, we know time I was afraid they would kill me. They (also the second trial date of Kara and the story, thorough strip search, with the strangled me so much that I lost Krèm over the action mentioned below in particularity this time that one of them consciousness. When I woke up the blows the footnotes), in Grenoble, 'some forcibly lifted one of my legs to keep them were still raining down on me.” nocturnals' entered a vast police barracks; apart as much as possible so that his the fire they set devastated nearly 2,000m2 colleague who was squatting could look at After 36 hours in custody the comrade was of criminal investigation laboratory, offices, my anus better, with his Mag-lite so close to released with serious injuries and an order garages and 50 vehicles (including my ass that I could feel the heat produced by to attend court on charges of contempt of intervention vans and logistic trucks; one the bulb. authority and resisting arrest. After hospital gendarmerie officer suffered smoke­ treatment, he was diagnosed with a major At the time it made me think of the Théo inhalation trying in vain to battle the blaze), affair[1], but I found nothing better than to fracture of the right hand requiring 42 days to the tune of around 20 million euros. of intensive therapy and a perforated right say to him with a sly air: “Well my pig, you are doing a good job!”. eardrum which may cause irreversible damage (deafness), as well as “huge […] After the strip-tease, they threw us into bruises on my arms, back, ribs and legs as the waiting room. They had blocked the well as large bumps on my skull and cuts windows with sheets of paper glued to the in my mouth.”. It’s May 18th, the date of my parole, but outside, but as one of them was slightly torn, I’m still in the slammer and I’m going to be I could see what was going on in the In the same letter he announced these staying here. corridor. injuries to the world, Damien also named his assailants (specifically, police officers Sentence judge Catherine Ardaillon, left- There were a large number of people: Grenot, Remond, Cuzon and Lercorvaisier); wing trade unionist, activist at the Evry matrons, ERIS, all the lieutenants, the the latter have now filed defamation tribunal and at Fléury-Mérogis prison, has director, plainclothes cops and the charges, although the initial – harder to decreed that all the same, for cases like prosecutor. substantiate – charges of contempt and mine, its lucky that there are prisons and They completely emptied the contents of the resistance have been dropped. therefore adjusting my sentence is out of the question. cell into boxes that were loaded into a truck Damien had only a month before been to take them to the scanner. Then I saw them […] For several weeks now, I have been go into the cell with dogs. Later my cell released from prison, after his arrest in subjected to numerous searches, searches of December and sentenced for riot neighbours told me that they even heard my cell, searches of my body, etc. They them dismantling parts of the cell with a damages during the 'Ni Loi Ni Travail' found nothing until an informant (who screwdriver. rebellions (see Clarification on the must have been very close to me, to give Attack on the CGT Headquarters & on such precise information) told them where Meanwhile, my cell mate, who is far from the Topic of 'Anonymous I was hiding my SIM cards. So a few days being a good strategist, was trying to Disassociation'), namely for attacks ago they found 3 SIM cards hidden inside a break everything, banging everywhere against the Chamber of Commerce, a packet of new rolling papers. They were and playing hide and seek by crouching Jaguar showroom, a job centre and hidden interspersed between the papers at right under the windows when they lifted supermarket during a wild demo that took the bottom of the packaging. During the the paper to see what was going on. Well, place on April 14th 2016 in Paris. Damien search, the guard reacted in a way that of course, the director ordered the ERIS to emphasised that during the combative betrayed that they had an informant: just forcibly remove him to solitary confinement. 85. In these cases, I prefer to make myself as […] I want to salute the Greek comrades discreet as possible in order to observe and and say that the Nemesis Project[3] is an listen to everything that happens and is said, exciting proposal. the people present, etc. A wink of solidarity to Kara and Krèm[4]! [5] I was left alone in the waiting room until For a dangerous June ! 1:30AM. The search took approximately 5.5 hours. – Damien

When they took me out of the waiting room, 1. ed. – 22-year-old black youth beaten and raped they conducted a rather strange search: this with a telescopic baton by four cops during a routine time they searched in my mouth! The Mag- February 2017 stop-search in Paris, sparking riots. lite so they could see and then “put your Further Persecution of 2. ed. – Against a production line in one of the prison tongue to the left, top, right, bottom, spread workshops (where via providers like Iccub, products Ilya While Inside by your cheek with your finger,” etc. For a of brands such as Hachette, Bourjois Parfums, Yves moment I wondered if they were going to Rocher and Post-it, have merchandise packed by Russian Authorities take me to the scanner itself, these idiots! prisoners). Three other prisoners were also accused. In solidarity with them, tags appeared on the walls of [continued from Return Fire vol.3 pg86] Then I understood: they were looking for a the prison courtyard: ‘Fire To The Prisons’ and ‘a SIM card. The first three they already had, screw who commits suicide is partially forgiven’. Following his complaints, in April the they had to analyze them and see whether 3. ed. – Modelled on the Phoenix Project (see Return comrade Ilya Romanov was awarded there was anything interesting to find. Fire vol.2 pg45), so far this had comprised of a 3,400 euros by the European Court of bombing at an Athenian judge's home, bomb-threat at Human Rights in compensation for a Santiago military barracks, parcel-bomb to the A few hours later, the lieutenant confirmed 'unreasonably long' detention during the my suspicions: during the search they found German Minister of Finance, and fire-bomb in the Chilean National Association of Judiciary Officials. investigation. However all accounts of 2 phones, a charger and a SIM. The Ilya's are blocked by the state, and when lieutenant told me that everything had been 4. ed. – Both still imprisoned when he was writing; elderly relatives of his tried to transfer the sent off to be analyzed to determine who it they were among the 6 accused of burning a cop car (that initially still had the cops inside) during a money to Ilya they were detained by the belongs to. police demonstration in Paris against the force police. In May he began a four­month frequently used against the during the Ni Loi Ni stretch in solitary confinement, and in July, He asked me some questions and I said I did Travail days; the cop union had also invited major not know who it belongs to. He did not figures of the neo-fascist National Front to the event as revenge for his publicising the horrible insist, something that did not surprise me, for photo-ops. The sentences this October for five conditions in Russian prisons, authorities because I knew that the result of the analysis ranged from a fine to between 1 – 5 years in prison seized his mobile phone and used his would be for my part negative. (some of those years suspended, hence their release), account in social media to spread a video whereas the sixth (on the run) was sentenced to 7 clip calling for terrorist attacks. For this In reality, they did not succeed in finding years in absence for lighting the car with a flare. reason a new terrorism case has been anything concrete [but that did not prevent 5. ed. – see Clarification on the Attack on the CGT them from rejecting my parole.] Headquarters & on the Topic of 'Anonymous opened against him. Disassociation' Perhaps the new Minister of Justice, the “TERRORIST” IS THE STATE... bastard of Bayrou, remembers the attack on Ilya Romanov appreciates mail: 431130, Mordovia, the church in Pau, the town of which he is LONG LIVE TUNGSTEN Zubovo­Poliansky district, st. Potma, n. Lepley. the mayor, made with a Molotov cocktail CARBIDE! and claimed by the GADI (International Direct Action Group) in January 2014. An In solidarity with Damien. An occasion to share A Letter from Anarchist action and cell for which I claimed the remarkable effectiveness of a little pocket responsibility and participation following companion. Comrade Anna my arrest on charges of terrorism. I was very pissed off this evening. I was Beniamino about Since I have not given any news for a long thinking of Damien facing trial, thinking of the Operation Scripta time, I will quickly recollect the sabotage great demo of 14th April, when we had fun of the prison workshops that I was smashing everything, of all those arseholes Manent & more… (Italy) accused of[2]. As for the judicial procedure, who are ruining our lives, of our diver’s masks which was not very interesting, I will simply and gas masks getting bored since we stopped smashing everything every Thursday [transl. – The prosecution in Turin have decided say that they could not determine who was during the four months of protest against the to put an entire anarchist tendency on trial: [1] responsible. What is interesting is that the Loi Travail, demos were often on Thursdays – anti­organisation Anarchism . This isn’t a economic damage caused from inside the sometimes also Tuesdays]. sensationalist and defensive prison was not negligible. In fact, many Near the Porte des Lilas [north­east of Paris], overstatement, it’s what Turin’s Post-it customers would have been impacted investigating judge, Anna Ricci, in Norway, Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, I smashed the screens of 7 ATMs, 4 JCDecaux enacted with the arrest warrants issued in Austria, France and England. It seems that billboards and the windows of a RATP [Paris public transport] car and one belonging to SPIE July 2016, and enforced in September, the delivered merchandise was in some case (prison building contractors). probably to avoid disrupting the summer not what had been ordered, and in the other holidays of some pubic official. cases was badly made and therefore All this with much appreciated discretion (relatively discreet: it makes a little ‘plop’, unsellable. The inquisitors’ choice is clear from the especially on car windows), thanks to a ridiculous framework that appeared in the It is possible that following the small [tungsten carbide] wheel used to cut arrest warrant papers, a product of the debates surrounding the collage of tiles, 22mm in diameter, attached to a lace strong enough to take the weight of the deleterious encounter between the mind of anti-election posters that were shards of broken glass. To the cops [ed. – some cop and the rushed reading of a pasted up in the courtyard, some i.e. in a stop­and­search] it’s a funky necklace Wikipedia summary. prisoners wish to put into practice but it’s glass’s worst enemy. They can be found The framework gives shape to a repressive in the here-and-now the anarchist in all good DIY shops. Manichean [ed. – i.e. dualistic] vision of a proposals that emerged from it. Handyman Bob ‘social anarchy’, a good and harmless one, 86. and an (anti­social and anti­classist) The operation is being led by prosecutor infiltrators’ in contexts that in themselves, ‘individual anarchy’, violent and liable to Roberto Sparagna, new to so­called anti­ were democratically acceptable. repression, whose method is the ‘anti­ terrorism proceedings but well­known for organization model’. having run trials for so­called organised This time, having followed a temporal and crime. It is unknown whether this logical format that inverts the classic By making the necessary distinctions, this operation was down to him or the input action/repression sequence, repression is framework aims to define a specific camp, of Turin cops: the latter seems much retroactively looking for unsolved actions to create a cage, so that from a generic more likely, as the bulk of the and political positions consolidated over ‘insurrectionism’, (a sub­product of the anti­ investigation was conducted and archived the course of 20 years, as a restraint and a organization model), always violent and by the DIGOS over the years and because warning against the current “excessive” liable to punishment to varying degrees, of little picturesque background events like shows of solidarity. These are clearly sub­species can be pulled out to form the “greetings from Dr. Petronzi” (Turin’s aimed at repressing unwelcome [2] different strands of the investigation for ex­DIGOS chief), which Sparagna made solidarity and the spread of an Italian cops: ‘classic insurrectionism’, sure to extend to the arrested during one of anarchist feeling that openly talks about ‘social insurrectionism’, ‘eco­ his interrogation attempts. prisoners and actions, publishes and insurrectionism’ and the ‘Informal Anarchist supports them. Federation’ [hereafter, F.A.I.]. It matters little whether the prosecutor is essentially a puppet/ventriloquist or That different tensions and tendencies whether he’s driven by his own will; the exist within Anarchism is a fact, but it’s declared intent is to repress and silence also true that this type of rigid an anarchist component that has always categorisation is an inherent feature of the supported, and continues to support, mindset and requirements of the direct action, solidarity with inquisitors, who are set on delineating a revolutionary prisoners, the multiform specific area in order to make their practices of anarchist destructive action manoeuvres as best they can: it is within and permanent rebellion against political this space that the following operation lies. conformism and compliance inside and outside the milieus of the movement. Historically, solidarity with revolutionary prisoners has been a Everyone is charged with article 270bis, some since 2003, others since 2008[9] focal point of interest for anarchists The cops’ ambitions aimed even higher, as relating to FAI/FRI to various degrees, as and a way to come together and evident in the raids, failed arrests and most both ‘promoters/organisers’, as well as build a rebellious sensibility: of all, in the accusatory framework that ‘participants’. revolutionary solidarity not spans 20 years of anarchist actions and solidarity with revolutionaries. A.C. and N.G. are also charged with article publications. [10] 280bis for a string of attacks carried out The excursus begins with the Marini trial[12] Devised by Turin’s DIGOS [political police] from 2005 to 2007 on the basis of what is in 1996 and ends with the current Croce and prosecutors back in 2012, in the wake defined as a ‘serious investigative Nera Anarchica, tracing an optimal line that of 20 years of recurring and failed framework’ even if, in actual fact, the same starts from critiques of how the Marini Trial repressive attempts, operation Scripta comrades had already been investigated was handled, passes through the various Manent led to the arrest of 5 anarchists: by the same cops, with the same articles and claims presented in Pagine in A.M., V.S., D.C., M.B., A.B., all already ‘evidence’, both shortly after the same Rivolta, KNO3 and CNA, and ends with under investigation and/or arrested [11] events and in 2012 , using the usual writings containing discussions and calls to following various anarchist publications on armoury of phone tapping, eavesdropping, be present at the Adinolfi trial (WITH OUR action and repression, specifically, Pagine video recording, tailing, DNA sampling, etc. HEADS HELD HIGH and HERE AND in Rivolta[3], the Croce Nera Anarchica and the cases had been archived. NOW) and finally, with today’s CNA. bulletin[4], KNO3[5]. In addition, there were [6] the arrest warrants for A.C. and N.G. , two Launched on the back of the 2012 arrests, This is why it is not an overstatement to comrades in prison since 2012 following an this investigation is an attempt to apply an claim that this legal proceeding is one that attack on the managing director of Ansaldo associative charge to the case of Adinolfi’s is being extended to an anarchist wounding and to investigate a whole Nucleare, Adinolfi, which was claimed in feeling, even if it is trying to hone in on the political area of comrades who expressed court in October 2013 as the Olga Cell circle: cornerstones of anti­authoritarian solidarity with those arrested and with their (FAI/FRI). For years, they’d been known as thought and method such as direct action action: the cops used article 270bis and the editors of Pagine in Rivolta and Alfredo and the rejection of representation, affinity their so­called ‘crimes of intent’, in order to had already been prosecuted for KNO3. and informality, revolutionary solidarity and sift through what had already passed mutual aid, become, in the words and Four other anarchists have been put under through the hands of various Italian paper rubbish of inquisitors, the dangerous investigation, all of whom were imprisoned prosecutors, putting everything together raw material that must be repressed as during the Ardire operation[7], part of which under their jurisdiction by reviving and soon as it appears. converges into these current legal rehashing a series of case files that had proceedings, along with 4 more whose previously been archived. It is neither simply a ‘crime of opinion’ arrests the judge refused to validate in the that’s being put on trial, nor the censorship July warrant and led to the prosecutor’s This attempt to bring everything of the democratic freedom of expression: unsuccessful appeal attempt in October together is also mentioned in the this is the war that authority is waging 2016. In addition, 32 raids were carried out judicial order itself and had seeped into against the bond between thought and across Italy, during which a comrade and the media quite extensively in recent action that lies at the basis of anarchism. editor of CNA was arrested and is still years, as well as in August 2016, with being held in prison under the AS2 [high­ newspaper articles that described ‘anti­ By trying to strike publications, blogs or security] regime[8]. terrorism summits’ held between the any other means of communication different prosecutors and made grand anarchists decide to use, repression only The investigation is still underway claims of ‘bad masters’ and ‘violent reaffirms the validity of these means: to be 87. a thorn in the side of subjugation from Rome opened a separated proceeding and silence. against him, whilst keeping him in the high security AS2 regime. “Repression is the bulldozer of a capitalism that is destroying the world, of – Anna 9. From 2003, because this is the year identified a civilization that isolates men and women Anna Beniamino, C.C. Rebibbia Femminile, Bartolo as the beginning of FAI following the attack on Longo 92, 00156 Roma, Italy [correct as of 14/11/17] the interior minister at the time, Prodi and in order to later socialize them into its because of the text that claimed responsibility for virtual community. […] There is no doubt it. For some of the accused, it’s 2008, because that a strong repressive wind is rising. I 1. ed. – see Return Fire vol.3 pg80 they’d already been put under investigation for think that the decisive stake in play is that the same attack, without having been formally of being able to interpret this repression. 2. Turin’s prosecutors have produced several charged. judicial proceedings based on this framework in Current living and working conditions the last two years, which resulted both in the 10. This refers to: the explosive device against can be imposed through an increasingly attempts to put 3 eco­anarchists who had been the RIS carabinieri forces in Parma in October massive use of terror (terror of remaining previously sentenced in Switzerland for 2005, an action claimed by Coop. Artigiana unemployed and of not being able to pay attempted sabotage of IBM [ed. – see Good Fuoco e Affini (occasionally spectacular)/FAI; the quickly rising rents, terror of the police News At Last From Italy! below], on trial yet explosive/incendiary parcel sent to the then again for article 270bis ['subversive association mayor of Bologna Sergio Cofferati in November and of prison). Repression acts against with the purposes of terrorism'] and to investigate 2005, also claimed by Coop. Artigiana Fuoco e atomized individuals whose increasing and charge anarchists engaged in a solidarity Affini/FAI; the double explosive attack on the dependence on a bankrupt way of life is fund for prisoners, with raids and warrants, using carabinieri training centre in Fossano (CN) in rendering them incapable of any material the same article 270bis. June 2006 claimed by FAI/RAT [Tremendous or ideal solidarity. It is a mistake to Anonymous Revolt]; the explosive/incendiary 3. Pagine in Rivolta was published under the parcels sent to the then­mayor of Turin, separate the repressive attacks from this subtitle ‘revolutionary anarchist periodical’ from Chiamparino, the director of Torino Cronaca, progressive disintegration of the world – 1997 to 2002, with 14 issues that had a variable Beppe Fossati, and placed on the premises of in the sense of a direct experience of circulation that reached one thousand copies. It Coema Edilitia, a company involved in the reality and of one’s fellow human beings, had articles of analysis and critique of the construction of the CIE migrant detention centre outside of the media and mercantile bell- in Turin in July 2006, all claimed by RAT/FAI; the anarchist movement, chronologies of direct jar, outside of the tomb-like apartments of actions, claims, prisoners’ lists and news on 3 explosive devices set off in sequence in the repression. Turin neighbourhood of Crocetta in March 2007 the concentration imposed by urban and claimed by RAT/FAI. planning. Knowing how to interpret 4. The CNA [Anarchist Black Cross] bulletin repression also means not falling into the targeted by repression is the one published from 11. In the summer of 2012, during the illusion that those in power strike us 2001 to 2005, and today’s CNA published since investigation and subsequent arrest of A.C. and because we are a real threat (with all the 2014 with a blog and a journal. The editors of N.G., prosecutors in various Italian jurisdictions Croce Nera Anarchica of 2001/2005 were the reopened a series of archived case files relating locking up of identity that such an illusion targets of the 2005 ‘Operation Croce Nera’, a to the attacks that the FAI had claimed over the entails). If we are a detonator, as someone 270bis operation, which led to the arrests of previous 10 years. has said, the aim of those in power is to seven comrades that led to no avail, 3 of whom separate us from any explosive material, are among those investigated within Scripta 12. In 1995, about thirty anarchists were arrested i.e., from any social context of struggle. Manent. and put on trial by Rome’s prosecutor Antonio In word and action, we should do the Marini in collaboration with ROS carabinieri 5. KNO3 came out in 2008 as a single issue that forces for article 270bis, in addition to a series of exact opposite.” – A Friend of Ludd was subtitled ‘revolutionary anarchist paper’. In specific offenses. The associative charge 2008 it was the object of a 270bis investigation, referring to the so­called ORAI organisation was ‘Operation Shadow’, led by Perugia’s prosecutor dropped in 2004 and a sentence for subversive Emanuela Comodi, in collaboration with the propaganda and other specific offenses were 6th 2016 with raids on the homes of 34 ROS carabinieri forces, in which the associative confirmed. comrades with pistols drawn (while Nicola crime was dropped during the first degree trial; in and Alfredo were notified in prison of the 2015 the appeal trial resulted in a sentence additional charges), with at first 15 people against A.C. and A.B., whilst a third comrade charged of various of the actions named was put under investigation for article 302 with above, all for “subversive association with the aggravating circumstance of terrorism linked terrorist aims” and seven of those locked to articles published in KNO3; other comrades up awaiting trial. All of those jailed were were sentenced for the sabotage of a railway This letter from Anna Beniamino, published track and for car theft. in the third bulletin of the current CNA, was instantly put in solitary confinement, translated into English in April. Operation subject to constant harassment, and 6. ed. – see Return Fire vol.1 pg78 Scripta Manent was launched September denied contact with each other or outside. 7. ‘Operation Ardire’ began in Perugia with Nevertheless, the comrades began a prosecutor Comodi, in collaboration with ROS series of spirited rebellions against carabinieri forces and led to seven arrests in their jailers, variously undertaking hunger­ June 2012. It was based on article 270bis and strikes against their isolating conditions, referred to a series of attacks claimed by FAI/FRI refusing to comply with medical tests or between 2009 and 2012. The jurisdiction of the fingerprinting and photo procedure, and case passed from Perugia to Milan after a high court ruling in the appeal court, and for some of breaking the windows of a screw's office the accused, S.F., E.D.B.,G.P.S. and G.L.T. [ed. on one of the high­security wings many of – see Return Fire vol.1 pg75], it was passed them are held (and then the panels over from Milan to Turin and brought into Scripta the air vents in his individual cell that Manent. All those imprisoned were released in prevent view of the outside). 2013 after serving the maximum [pre­trial] term. June 2nd, Italian political police notified 8. D.C. was arrested during one of the raids seven more comrades of their charges within Scripta Manent after electric material for in a parallel investigation focusing on the common use (9­volt batteries and bulbs) was “When a society has destroyed all possible adventure, the only possible anarchist websites RadioAzione, Anarhija found in his home. Prosecutor Francesca Polino adventure is TO DESTROY THAT SOCIETY” and Croce Nera Anarchica (in the last case 88. also its hard­copy version, its distributors comrade who runs the Croatian between the claims of various attacks and and those who organised the presentations RadioAzione will be tried separately, even pieces of writing by the comrades on trial, of the same journal in Italy) under 270bis though she faces the very same charges.) on the contacts between the latter and on and also '(terrorist) criminal association', the distinction between the good, the bad, It seems obvious that what we are facing is while two of those comrades were also the social, the radical, FAI members and a concerted attempt to criminalise charged with 'attack with the purposes of so on, in the anarchist galaxy. One of the solidarity itself, and to wear down specific terrorism'. One of the comrades classic analyses devised in courtrooms anarchists who practice it through summarized the content of the accusations and police stations. […] To this it adds methodical and repeated targeting of those like this: “Translation of texts, the ‘necessity’ to identify leaders (still who raise their voice (or not only) in predisposition, solicitation, defending of according to a script and an investigation) complicity with the accused. Anti­ criminal acts, conception and i.e. the founders of the subversive terrorism being an international dissemination through the web­sites and association: precisely for this reason political project, police departments journals of ideological “insurrectionist­ Anna Beniamino, Nicola Gai, Alfredo across Europe and the world definitely armed struggle” propaganda, money Cospito and Danilo Cremonese won’t comparing notes and strategies for the raising to support the imprisoned be able to be present at the neutralisation of radical forces (and the comrades, and the attack against a proceedings in the courtroom, as they cowing of the population at large), it substation of ENEL [manufacturer and will be subjected to video conferencing. distributor of electricity and gas] in can't help but remind us of the strategy deployed in the Spanish State these last Civitavecchia, January 12th, 2016, signed For a defendant video conferencing few years too (see Return Fire vol.3 pg82), by “Pyrotechnical Committee for an actually means the impossibility to be but with anything a heavier focus on Extraordinary Year/F.A.I.­F.R.I.” (In some present in the courtroom alongside factionalising the Italian anarchist reports on the repression, the bombing in comrades, friends, families; the difficulty to movement and confining it to ideological Cititavecchia is cited as being against the determine his/her own intervention at the enclosures backed up by walls erected by courthouse (for which a claim exists from trial (for example any defendant’s the distribution of policing. The comrades the same F.A.I. group); we're not sure statement can be immediately interrupted targeted in this operation, by the where the confusion comes from.) It also with a simple click); to communicate face­ prosecutor's own theory, are those emerged that Gioacchino Somma, of to­face with his/her co­defendants; to ‘get least 'integrated' with the broader RadioAzione, has been surveilled for six out’ of the prison walls. years with a key­logger installed on their anarchist movement in Italy; often computer, wiretapping, and physical tailing slightly older, some being parents, and/or The operation Scripta Manent is a direct holding positions the difference of which (even for a journey of 600 kilometers). attack on anarchists, on anyone who from others held by other anarchists have struggles without mediation or According to the comrade, “on January been at the root of disagreements over the compromise.” So, with the trial just having 10th the Public Prosecutor’s Office of previous years. While we reject 'unity' and begun this November 16th, the accused Naples demanded an arrest for me, the the erasure of (in our eyes quite important) Marco Bisesti, Valentina Speziale and comrade of [RadioAzione's Croatia version] differences within the anarchist space, let's Alessandro Mercogliano refused to and two other Greek comrades (one of understand and expose (not to mention participate in the trial in solidarity with the strategise against) the state's tactics. which is already imprisoned for C.C.F. comrades subjected to video conferencing membership [ed. – see 'Yet Another Comparison could also be made to the from the high surveillance units AS2 where Fenced World' below]). From that moment 'Green Scare' case in the U.S.A. (see they are locked up. November 19th, on, everything has been taken over by the Return Fire vol.4 pg78); sometimes the Claudia and Stefano declared the same: Public Prosecutor’s Office of Turin and the state seems to wait until years after actions “The fact that our comrades are being prosecutor Sparagna [in charge of have happened, assuming that the people denied the right to physically attend the Operation Scripta Manent], since the they are going to target will be in less courtroom, that the principle of Office of Naples did not have jurisdiction 'integrated' positions within the milieu and participation in the defence, which the law over the crimes we are charged for. easier to isolate. This gives credence to that supports the democratic lie What are we accused of? the analysis that has been emerging in guarantees, is thus cancelled, is yet Of providing counter­information through recent years among anarchists of another demonstration of how partisan the web­sites and magazines, translation of repression primarily as a means of use of legality is. Especially for this reason, claims of responsibility from across the enclosure [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 we will no longer take part in this farce, world, of support, solidarity and complicity pg69]; the task is ours to combat it. deserting the hearings and entrusting with the anarchist comrades Alfredo technical defence to lawyers aiming to Although not part of the Scripta Manent [Cospito] and Nicola [Gai], raising money bring out as far as possible the case, it's worth mentioning in this context for imprisoned comrades. Of creating an contradictions that support this system, that two other comrades were sentenced Italian­Croatian­Greek F.A.I. cell. without justifying our being and without on separate occasions for publicising their claiming any crumbs of democracy.” In some parts of the documents, the support for the action Alfredo and Nicola Gioacchino Somma absented himself; prosecutor on duty tries to foment the rifts were initially locked up for; in the case of “I have never gone to the courtrooms one, because he had responded to a which exist between some of us and the where my funeral was being prepared in denouncement from within the anarchist rest of the anarchist movement, and the past and I will not do so now!” furthermore he invents out of thin air, scene itself of the attack, which cost him a through wiretapping transcribed in his own 14 month sentence for incitement (initially In his statement to the court, Alfredo way, a disagreement between me and the with aggravating circumstance of claimed affinity with the actions of the FAI promoting terrorism added due to a new comrades of CNA [Croce Nera Anarchica], for which they are being accused, while law created to prosecute people based on while there has been a full cooperation denouncing the targeting of “a significant blog entries, though it didn't stick in court). since the beginning, and I believe that it is part of all those who have shown solidarity the only anarchist journal in Italy worthy of A summary was offered by the anti­prison in these years, among them my dearest reading, so much so that I am accused of group Cassa AntiRepressione Alpi friends”, but said that unlike for the action organizing the presentation of this project Occidentali: “[Scripta Manent] is in Genoa (responsibility for which he had in Naples.” (In June it was decided that the essentially based on a comparison spat in the faces of the judges at that trial) 89. he couldn't take credit for the other actions. THE PRISON OF GAZES The prison cart is not to be meant simply as a For our part, thinking of the isolated closed cart used to transport convicts who were comrades in these heavy days, we have – notes on trial by video­link previously subjected to the additional included an article written by an Italian Convicts’ Chains & the Public Gaze punishment of being chained in public; rather, it should be seen as a technical innovation that anarchist while jailed in a separate case on Up until 1836 it was still normal in France to marks a change of paradigm. This vehicle was the subject of video­conferencing in the make convicts walk to the prison in chains. The conceived as a prison on wheels lined with tin. future prisoners wore iron collars and were context of trials (as was the case in his Impenetrable to the outside eye, it parades chained together and forced to walk along the own). Repression strikes again, the war sadly through the streets without revealing public road dragging proof of their conviction continues, but in whatever form we anything of what it contains. and showing crowds of people the brace against the tide and try to elude consequences for anyone who broke the law. the police enclosure, find the rhythm The wretches riding in it, be they already convicted or awaiting trial, all travel in chains; appropriate to our moment (be that The path to reclusion, the last journey before but now they are in small single cells, which memory, attack, care, propaganda, disappearing behind the secret obscurity of prevent them not only from looking out but prison took place in full view, in a public whatever best serves), knowing that our also from meeting the gaze of the other ceremony with a strong visual impact that multi­formed practices ‘passengers’. Instead, a central corridor allows could unleash all kinds of feelings. The are too expansive to fit in the guards to keep an eye on all those being departure of these human chains attracted their fucking legal transported through a peephole. masses of people, exhibited the convict to the codes or ideological crowd, exposed them to insult and spitting, but divisions. For this reason Thus Gazette des tribunaux describes this also to feelings, compassion and complicity; in mechanism of internal control: ‘The opening we welcome the diversity a complex ritual whose outcome was not and slanting position of the peepholes are of responses to the case predictable, the march exposed the convict to made in a way that the guards can keep their (maybe even more so the public gaze and showed his [sic] gaze to eyes on the prisoners constantly, hearing the than certain of the the public. slightest sound, without the prisoners being accused do!); the Tattoo able to see or hear one another.’ Circus benefit event in ‘The chain brought its celebration with it to all Genoa as much as the the cities it passed through’. The convicts bore Not simply a closed wagon, therefore, but a not only iron collars and chains, the obligatory solidarity attacks across technical device developed with precise aims: signs of punishment, but also ribbons of straw, the world (from vandalism hide the convict from the public eye, prevent garlands of flowers and colourful pieces of rag of prison staff's cars and him [sic] from seeing the outside world and which they themselves had sewn on to weird improve the techniques of surveillance. Not home in Bristol to the headgear and berets flaunted for the occasion. just a mobile tin box, but a ‘panoptical cart’ arson a 4x4 of the A colourful and irreverent touch of joyous [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg9], a prison of Presidency of the madness, of harlequin mockery dressed in gazes that wipes out the mocking splendor of Argentine Nation in rags, could turn this dismal march into an the chains of the convicts, making them blind, Buenos Aires). In these ‘itinerant fair of crime’, a sort of nomadic silent, invisible and controllable. days, making a public tribe of convicts that mocked the chains with stand to defy the narrative which they were restrained, cursed the The secret obscurity of prison extends and of “anarchist terrorists” judges and invoked torment on them. anticipates his arrival; its shadow falls upon the (despite the risks convict keeping him out of sight even before he And then the songs, convicts’ songs. Marching clearly being so great) sets foot in jail. Bourgeois reformist modesty songs sung together that deeply impressed the transports without showing how it punishes, is in itself an act of people and became famous and passed on from without making a spectacle any longer. No sabotage against the state mouth to mouth. Songs that often ‘excited more exchanging gazes between the people and apparatus and media pride in the face of punishment’ rather than the criminal, the only permitted gaze is that of machine, and the more moaning remorse for the crime committed. All the guard at the penitent prisoner. diverse opportunities this contributed to spoiling a celebration of there are for people to justice set up by power as a ritual of guilt and The Video-Conference & the participate in crossing repentance, making it socially dangerous as it Disembodied Gaze that threshold (whatever was capable of overturning the symbols of Let’s get back to Italy now. The last frontier in their dispositions), the power, changing the order of its discourse, the field of ‘transport for judicial reasons’ is the better. We'll leave it there overpowering its moral code. trial held by video-link, where the transport takes place in an immaterial form. with the words of those To quote the Gazette des tribunaux of 19th July who burned out a couple 1836: ‘It is not our custom to lead men away The defendant on trial, if already in prison for of mobile phone antennas this way; it is necessary to avoid such a previous convictions or on remand, can be one week after the first horrible spectacle in the towns that the convoy judged at a distance without having to leave the Scripta Manent arrest, passes through, it being in any case of no prison. He [sic] is taken to a specific room the first in a long wave of education to the population.’ Not long inside the prison and follows the proceedings arsons on Italian masts, afterwards the transport of convicts to prison on a screen under the watchful eye of the radio base stations and ceased to take place in public rituals. A guards and the technological gaze of a camera other infrastructure in the technical change intervened to clear public focused on him, transmitting his image to the context of the case; “May roads of such a contradictory spectacle: the courtroom where the trial is taking place. prison cart. our daily life, with or Like the shift from ‘chains’ to without repression, be The Prison Cart & the Panoptic Gaze ‘prison cart’, the introduction of the (also) destructive! May ‘prison cart’, the introduction of the Michel Foucault, who studied the origin of solidarity, even more video-conference marks a shift that prison and its accessory devices carefully, sums up a change in paradigm. In when repression strikes, writes that ‘imprisoning, which ensures be (also) attack!” privation, has always involved a technical fact, video-linking is a technological project’ and that ‘the replacement in 1837 of device and as such it is not neutral, The trial the chain gang with the prison cart’ is ‘a on the contrary its mediation continues. symptom and summary’ of a technical involves profound changes that sink mutation, a ‘shift from one art of punishing to deep into the living flesh of those another’. deep into the living flesh of those who have defied the law. 90. In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo describes the 1. ed. – Severe isolation conditions, suspended only punitive device par excellence, the scaffold: when a prisoner co-operates with the authorities, ‘The scaffold is an image. It is not merely a when a court annuls it, or when the prisoner dies; framework, a machine, a lifeless mechanism of introduced in 1975 as an emergency measure to deal with prison revolts during the 'Years of Lead' (see wood, iron, and rope. It is as though it were a Memory as a Weapon; The Origins of Victimisation] being having its own dark purpose, as though and never removed by any other democratic regime... the framework saw, the machine listened, the mechanism understood; as though that 2. ed. – This text was written by Mattia Zanotti, from arrangement of wood and iron and rope the High Security Unit of the prison of Alessandria, Italy. He was then awaiting trial on charges relating expressed a will. In the hideous picture which to the struggle against the Lyon-Turin international its presence evokes it seems to be most terribly T.A.V. ('Treno Alta Velocita', high-speed trainline) a part of what it does. It is the executioner’s construction; for which, the longest tunnel in Europe accomplice; it consumes, devouring flesh and would have to be dug through the Alps mountains drinking blood. It is a kind of monster created Some Provisional Conclusions (releasing toxicity from the harmless-when- by the judge and the craftsman; a spectre Introduced in Italy for prisoners under the undisturbed uranium and asbestos they contain, seeming to live an awful life born of the death 41bis regime[1], video-conference in trials is fouling ground-water, and expanding the reach and now rapidly being extended to all prisoners connectivity of trans-national industrial capitalism). it deals.’ Specifically, in the Susa Valley of northern Italy whom justice considers ‘worthy’ of special (where the decades-long battle against the project is Unlike the scaffold, video-linking is not a attention. It is the case of Maurizio Alfieri, a fiercest), around 30 people in Maddalena had raided device that enforces a sentence already rebel bank robber not inclined to prison a construction site for the works and torched a imposed, let alone death, which is no longer domestication; it is the case of Gianluca and significant amount of machinery and equipment contemplated by the penal code; but even more Adriano, anarchists accused of having carried despite worker and police presence; just a few days than the scaffold, articulated as it is with a out various actions against ENI, some tycoons after the site had been cleared (with violent clashes) microphone and cameras, it is a ‘structure’ that of the rubbish business and other poison- following an occupation of over a month by producing giants [ed. – see Return Fire vol.3 opponents of the T.A.V. project. Mattia and six others ‘sees’, a ‘machine’ that ‘hears’. Certainly it were charged with participating in the attack, which doesn’t ‘eat flesh’, but in its own way it pg71]; it could be, actually it is already in the prosecutors attempted to upgrade to a terrorist ‘disembodies’ the accused, dematerializes his desire of the Turin prosecutors, the case of offense due to the importance of the infrastructural [sic] body, reduces him to a bunch of bits Claudio, Chiara, Niccolò and the present project of the T.A.V. to both Italy and the European producing a sensorial and visual impact within writer[2], accused of having committed an act of Union. Sabotage and rioting has been a part of the a process that should not be underestimated: sabotage on the High Speed site in Chiomonte. arsenal of (some of) the opponents of the T.A.V. through it the presence of the defendant, during the over-20 years it has been resisted (see A special exemption for the ‘right of defence’, Return Fire vol.2 pg58/64/65); Italian paratroopers however distant, becomes spectral, his body is fresh from foreign battlefields have been among the treated like a video interference to whom which foresees the physical presence of the troops the State has dispatched to occupy the area words can be allowed or taken away by a defendant alongside his [sic] lawyer during and quell disorder, and the prosecutors for Mattia's simple ‘click’. trial, justified with the usual pretext of case alone spoke of over a hundred attacks against ‘security’ and ‘public order’. A new danger, the project in the area just in the two years leading It’s the triumph of reformist scruples that in that of video-linking destined to take root and up to the site raid. On trial, Mattia and his three the past cleared the streets of the human spread rapidly, if it is not uprooted comrade co-defendents proudly claimed their part in chains of convicts which now, through the immediately; as, we know, it is today’s the raid. These are some of his words during the exception that becomes tomorrow’s rule. The trial: “I knew Maddalena and the Clarea Valley new technologies, ‘frees’ the courtrooms before the TAV yard was erected there. In those from an annoying and strident presence so paradigm lying under this new ‘technical woods I walked, slept, ate, sang, danced. In those that the abstraction of the law can go mutation’ is complex, and it’s difficult to assess places I experienced precious fragments of life forward undisturbed. It also denies the and unveil all its facets at this very moment. together with friends who are no longer there and embrace between co-defendants, who can’t see whom I carry in my heart. To those places I went each other even on that occasion. No emotional Definitely the kind of trial procedure that is back many times in the course of the years. In the contact with the public either, who don’t even emerging shows a gradual disappearance of daylight, in the night, in mornings and evenings; in summer, winter, autumn and spring. I’ve seen those appear on the screen. No complicit gazes, no the accused, a growing conditioning of the jury in advance and the overwhelming places changing and trees falling down after being greetings to family and friends. Once you enter cut down to make room for barbed wire. I’ve seen the prison, even before trial, you don’t get out inquisitorial power of the prosecutors. What yard expanding and a piece of woodland again, even to attend trial. Entombed, buried in I have tried to do here is to highlight some of disappearing, headlights popping up and the army concrete. The very jury is made to see you as the repercussions of this technical mutation, coming over to watch a desolate landscape from the being so dangerous that you can’t be taken and to focus on the topic of the ‘gaze’, i.e. the same armoured vehicles that patrol the mountains in before them. Somehow your guilt is implicitly visual exchange between the prisoner’s gaze, Afghanistan. So I went back again to the Clarea designated by the way you ‘appear’. the judicial gaze and the public gaze. Many valley during the now-famous night of May.” He is other considerations could be made, just as currently serving a sentence of 3 years and 6 months on house-arrest. In all this, the accused is reduced to a passive important or even more so. For example, on spectator. He [sic] observes his trial on a how video-linking prevents the defence lawyer screen as if it was an episode of Forum or from discussing with his [sic] client during the Quarto grado. His only right, in good TV trial; or the fact that in the spectacularisation of tradition, is to be allowed to call his lawyer trials special effects and optical illusions are during proceedings. And yet it is his life that is likely to be more determining than the facts at stake. It is his body that will be possibly under examination. But my faith in the law is destined to imprisonment. It is his, the so little that I won’t dwell on certain details. I’d amputated view of the horizon. It is he who is rather conclude these random notes on video- deprived of the embrace of his loved ones. His linking by quoting the lyrics of some old prison sense of smell deprived of spring. Finally, it’s songs, those sung in the streets by the chain his gaze, dejected or proud, that faces gangs. Heart-to-heart words that speak for ‘punishment’ – preventive or definitive – day themselves. after day. Video-linking is the technological ally that perfects the imprisonment of gazes. ‘Greedy for unhappiness, your gaze is seeking Cowardly, it multiplies the eyes peering at he an infamous breed among us that whines and [sic] who went beyond the boundaries of the mortifies itself. But our gaze is proud. law, but it no longer dares to look him in the Goodbye, because we don’t give a damn eye. A cybernetic metaphor of blindfolded about your chains or your laws.’ justice equipped with artificial eyes, but which The poster reads; “Collaborators, companies, cops, politicians & judges: remains blind all the same. We step up the fight and our response. Our choice is sabotage of the existent.” 91. In total, these old convictions add up to remarks from them, like “it's nice in here.... Concerning the juridical 46 years, establishing its end on February, such a well­preserved building.” I found it situation of our 2056. only proper to leave them with the phrase “if you like it so much, why don't you come comrade Marcelo There are a number of irregularities in this and stay here?”. Naturally, merely the math, and although the legal issue is not thought of staying in any prison institution Villaroel Sepulveda… our focus and never was, we believe that it is scary to a visitor, scary enough to make or, how the state’s revenge becomes urgent and necessary to face this any person – even a subhuman – shut situation that represents a clear revenge their mouth and simply leave. perpetuates itself in silence against a comrade who holds high (Chile) subversive autonomous and libertarian The women's prison of Thebes is a [continued from Return Fire vol.1 pg72] convictions, a comrade who has never newly built progressive monstrosity abandoned the direct confrontation for total with oblong branching corridors, Last September, at the 4th Military liberation, nor has it ever renounced its cameras covering every angle with no Prosecutor’s Office in Santiago, the refusal combatant history — leaving it as a blind spots, with male and female of the petition to prescribe the sentences commodity for books or prizes of borrowed guards, automatic doors with iron bars made by our comrade Marcelo several stories, where hundreds of renegades hide every 10 meters, empty concrete months ago was announced. while roaming around different pseudo­ radical spaces. courtyards smaller than a basketball Immediately, Marcelo appealed this court, surrounded by walls that end in refusal, leaving the resolution of the appeal Our call is to get rid of the verbiage and the barbed wire. Outside these walls there are in the hands of the Martial Court, where it false gestures of solidarity to face this and security areas up until the external wall that was reaffirmed in the first days of October. each of the revenge that come from the separates you from freedom. There are State (as a constant policy against all guards in small raised kiosques that These condemnations correspond to those who do not deny their ties and supervise the place almost 24/7, in case some causes originated by actions convictions). someone finds a hole to escape. framed in his old militancy at the “MAPU­Lautaro”, organization in which It’s time to act, to realize that no A small fenced zoo is located between the our comrade was an active fighter since comrade in prison is alone. outer door and the main entrance of the a very young age and of which, while prison. There is neither access to nor imprisoned, in 1995, he was expelled FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF ALL visual contact with anyone but visitors, because of “anarchist deviations”. PRISONS!!! prisoners cleaning, and while on your way to the warden's office. They figured the Marcelo served his sentence without WHEN MISERY EXISTS, THERE WILL scenery looks more natural with interruption for 11 years, two months and BE REBELLION!!! imprisoned animals next to imprisoned fifteen days from October 13, 1992 until People near Marcelo people. After all, democracy usually December 28, 2003, remaining only his Santiago­Valparaíso ($hile) “decorates” its little monsters. After night prison until March 2005, when he October, 2017 three weeks of adjustment, I am now granted the so­called “probation”, which permanently[1] on C wing, at a ward with a obliges him to sign a document [at the To send letters: Marcelo Villarroel Sepúlveda , Unidad Especial de Alta Seguridad, Cárcel de Alta 14 people capacity. I would say that the police station] every week until completing Seguridad, Modulo H Norte, 1902 Avenida Pedro forced cohabitation with 12 other women is 20 years of penitentiary control. Montt, Santiago, Chile. not the simplest of things. With zero The first days of November 2007 for personal space and all sorts of vagaries, Marcelo are marked for him by his “ Yet Another Fenced anyone could easily go beyond their limits. participation on the Bank Security robbery, Apart from 2.5 hours per day that I'm along with other other comrades, action in World” – Olga Oikonomidou allowed to go out in the yard, the rest are which a cop died and that caused an speaks [+ updates] (Greece) confined to a 20x30m room. This is the answer from the State without precedents. space allowed for one to move. In this Marcelo decides to assume clandestinity, On March 19th [2011] a jeep of EKAM room I drink coffee, I eat, read, write, listen and in February 2008, in his absence, he [Greek police anti­terrorist unit] along with to music, think. This is the place I've spent has his “probation” revoked. 3 cop cars stop in front of a huge rolling my life for the last 2.5 months and will iron door. A guard asks for the papers. continue to do so, indefinitely more. The In March 2008, he is detained in Argentina Everything checks out... and the door walls are painted up to the ceiling with and in September 2014, he is sentenced to opens. As it shuts behind us, yet images of meadows, trees, seas and fish. 14 years for 2 bank robberies. another fenced world appears They tried to give prison a more humane face. To make prisoners In that same period, as penalties related to before me. It is the prison of believe that lack of natural old causes emanated from the always Eleonas at Thebes. I get out of landscape could possibly be replaced sinister “Military Justice” were revised, the the jeep escorted by two women with paint. During the first days of condemnation remained as it follows: of the anti­terrorism squad that, for the last four days, had been stay, it seemed to me like a bad joke, – Illicit terrorist association: 10 years and a successfully playing the now it has become irritating. day. role of my nanny. It took a – Damage to a cop car with serious few minutes of The staff act in a similar, injuries to carabineers: 3 years + 541 days. waiting until contradictory manner. – Co­author of murder qualified as terrorist: Typical prison guards trying to pretend that the 15 years and a day. kind of work they do could be – Theft with intimidation, Law 18.314: 10 somehow exonerated. They think that years and a day. they delivered me to my new politeness could compensate for the – Explosive attack against the embassy of life­guardians. In those few standard evening and morning count, for Spain: 8 years. minutes, I kept hearing the insensitivity and indifference they 92. demonstrate when inmates very frequently for men or women only. The roles and self­mutilate in fits, or at addicts' outbursts. social identities one is attributed at birth It is them who are handing out psychiatric and carries from then on, are gender drugs generously to avoid troubles, while based. This is the deepest segregation depon (paracetamol) seems to be the drug society has ever abided by. Social norms for any other illness. It is them, who – define women as the weaker sex, and the depending on the command – will not social implications in every day life are hesitate one bit to lead you to isolation, vast. Continuous reproduction of such a who will conduct a humiliating strip search, notion automatically defines a subject as who have the audacity to get a 'free peek' inferior, presents it as a victim and it ends at your letters. It is them who will lock the up being treated as protected species. But door on their way out when it reaches 9pm, as in any relationship, there is he who as easily as they wish you goodnight. transmits and he who receives/accepts. Hypocrisy at its best. In here, wishing The female gender in its vast majority does not seem appropriate. There is no accepts its social identity and is lead to the good night or good day in prison. There logic of victimisation, either to renounce is only day and night. responsibilities, or to rest on its laurels, justifying its inertia, since “demands” are The logic of sovereignty dictates a certain automatically brought down. A victimised segregation of people according to perception of any issue, leads to defeatism seemingly fragmentary features. Thus, it and non­utilisation of one's ability and creates ostensible communities resulting in capability. The power and responsibility of the reinforcement of inequality and an individual on both a personal and competition. The morality of society collective level, is what promotes liberating a woman, overcoming the standardised responds to this calling not just by moments, conditions, or actions. Speaking perception of gender roles (mother, reciprocating this logic, but most of the for myself, I have never thought of myself wife, chick) that society itself has times by becoming its biggest supporter. as the weaker sex, and I never wanted to imposed on her. Social class, ethnicity, gender are just be passive. I released myself from the guilt some of the examples that shape syndrome society imposes on you, and I've During the '70s when the revolutionary perceptions and attitudes daily. Prison is a always walked my way according to my organization RAF [ed. – Red Army Faction, crucial part of the system and the personal values and will. On my path, I've authoritarian Marxist­Leninists] was active inmate community is a compact, small­ come across stares that were still and had a number of women participating scale representation of society. So it's trapped deep inside gender in it, German authorities [operating against only natural that the symptoms of the sick stereotypes, many times. In my opinion, subversives] would command to “shoot the world we live in, are transferred behind the even within the anarchist milieu there is women first”. The very fact of essentially walls as well. On one hand, prison great prejudice lurking on behalf of overcoming two roles, made women more somehow collectivises the inmates forcing men, and complacency or even gender determined, more conscious, thus more them to identify themselves within a role exploitation on behalf of women. In dangerous in comparison to men, and their common identity negatively marked by my eyes, I can't think of a rebel who will gender­based compatibility to delinquency their penalty. At the same time, not fight for the abolition of social roles. (always according to the state­official­ segregation appears in all its magnitude Primarily for oneself on a personal level, scientific approach), who were pursuing a when men and women are chucked into and secondarily for others, at a global more natural path. different hellholes. Men and women will be level. It is both a process of introspection, proportionally segregated once more in as well as basic denial of the ways of this Every era though, has its own protection wards, drug addict wards, gypsy world. Since nothing in this life is granted characteristics and conditions. The anti­ wards, under­aged wards, mothers wards, to you, you have to earn it yourself. The authoritarian movement often searches insubordinate wards, white [isolation] bottom line is, how well can a woman within the outlaw milieu for a prison cells. Each one of these overcome the residue imposed on her by revolutionary subject, assuming that categories requires different treatment society, and act freely and no longer be questioning the law through one or depending on the actual interests of the confined in it. It's only then that the roles more illegal acts also involves the system. The submissive worms (snitches) are broken, and finally abolished through questioning of the extant system. and former clappers of the system (corrupt active attitude. Mutatis mutandis[2], it also assumes that a cops thrown away by the system itself) will woman that questions the law, questions be protected, the mothers will be used to I chose to be active in a world of her social role as well, even unconsciously. show pretextual humanism, the addicts will passiveness. I chose active participation in As a matter of fact, real life in women's receive degradation and indifference. a revolutionary organisation. I did not prisons, and specifically in the prison of There are decent female prisoners follow anybody and I was not carried away Eleonas of Thebes, it can be ascertained experiencing some of these conditions, by anything. I chose. I was present at the that the modern­day petty­bourgeois such as the treatment of being an addict, conversations, decisions, actions, as I am behaviour of social roles has been who could surely be far more detailed and now present to pay the price. I claimed transferred behind the walls as well. The descriptive about their experiences. responsibility for my actions while I could illegal act that occurred was nothing but a of taken advantage of my gender status to momentum. Characteristically enough, the As an anarchist revolutionary, I believe that get a more favourable treatment. But how majority of women don't talk of the “crime” gender segregation is an issue with much decent would that be? Throughout they committed, but of the crime a man social implication, both inside and outside history, a woman involved in urged them to commit. Which actually the walls. It is both an underestimated, and revolutionary ventures, practically means they don't even find a part of distortedly overestimated issue at times. I breaks two roles. On one hand, she themselves in the illegal act that brought find that for ages, there's been a well­ consciously abolishes her identity as a them to prison in the first place, thus rooted perception amongst people as to law­abiding citizen questioning law and reproducing the logic of victimisation. The which attributes and behaviours are suited order, while on the other, her identity as role of the mother was able to stand aside 93. for them to break the law, but as they head up high. In their minds, the word in armed revolutionary struggle, she spoke experience the condition of confinement, “staff”, as they now want to be called, in April via video­connection from prison the identity of the mother­protector is will always mean “guards/torturers of during the Anarchist Black Cross Festival quickly brought back into play. They feel human beings” and their uniform will in Vienna, Austria, along with other Greek that it might just be their only salvation to always be a target. Solidarity to prisoners prisoners, and also about the conditions get away, or their curse since they are never loses its meaning, as well. Not by around them, solidarity across the walls, forced to live apart from their children. defending the prisoner role, but by the topic of claiming actions (see Many times, this role will become a guide opposing to confinement itself. To the Clarification on the Attack on the CGT for some of the behaviours they will have condition that deprives us of the most Headquarters & on the Topic of to put up with in prison, it will become their precious thing we have, physical freedom, 'Anonymous Disassociation') and fear and tolerance. The extortive penal which in itself is associated with bone­ membership, and the choice of breaking system will step on this weakness, and ask crushing restrictions of many kinds. From out of jail. This last point relates to the fact for exchanges of any kind, prioritizing on the disruption of sexual relations to the that, July 8th 2016, the Koridallos prison submissiveness to prison rules, and humiliating dependence on prison court convicted all imprisoned C.C.F. reports about other prisoners. At the same machinery for communication. Within this members to an additional 115 years in time, it will cater to humiliate them in many context, you find particular delight in small prison each, with various other alleged ways, making them bear much more than pleasures that break away from this collaborators inside and outside given their own body search, but that of their repressive machine. sentences ranging from 75 years inside to children as well, who are often of young 6­year­suspended­sentences, for a foiled age, if the prisoner wishes to see them in Solidarity should remain alive and kicking, escape plan (the second by the comrades open visitation [ed. – i.e. not behind glass]. supporting the movement of prisoners, since their capture, the first ending with In front of this aggressive actual condition, unscathed and alert in cases involving them holding screws hostage with guns in along with their own inability to overcome political prisoners. In my opinion, solidarity their hands in 2011 but ultimately failed). social identity, they channel their vigor into rallies should not be confined to specific dealing with inside prison survival, ritual dates, as is New Year's for instance, “The attempted prison escape of CCF from simulating it with the lives they ran outside but should keep their reflexes sharp so our probable graves, confirmed that the prison. Frequent visits to the hairdresser, they can transmute into leverage when struggle for freedom never stops while it exchange­selling of clothes, make­up. correctional whims go out of their way to sounded the alarm of the state apparatus. test prisoners. Solidarity should serve as a It made the damage it would inflict to both In the old days, desperate outlaws mainly tool to give prominence to anarchist the validity and the reliability of the state comprised inmate population. People who prisoners' cases, not person­focused, not visible, if it was successful. So an escape had absolutely no hope to see any kind of based on personal relations, not by guilt­ plan, became the occasion for a whole change to their actual realities, banned innocence criteria. Besides, no one in this repressive operation with revenge for the from consumption, marginalized by society. world is innocent, we are all guilty. Some years our tenacious attitude and non­ Α forced no­way­out placement at the for their consciousness and action against repentance as its sole purpose. [...] The lower social scale generates rage, which is anything that oppresses them, and yet pursuit of new arrests and raids in homes a necessary condition for the birth of any others for their tolerance towards resulted in two detentions. Of the mother of liberating attempt. Besides, rage by itself is repressive institutions. Christos and Gerasimos Tsakalos [C.C.F. not political or apolitical. It all depends on prisoners] and the wife of the latter [ed. – which way it's going to want (or actually I send out my revolutionary regards to democratic repetition of the practices used manage) to be expressed. This rage those who tenaciously choose to act by the previous military junta against the seems to be missing nowadays, right here against the stubborness of our times. relatives of rebel prisoners, once again; and now. On the contrary, here and now seems to be dominated by resignation. see Who Is It?]. The criminalization of While the majority of women are foreigners – Olga Oikonomidou family relations showed nothing but the Olga Ekonomidou [Όλγα Οικονομ ίδου], Dikastiki clear vengeful intention of the state. To and do not even know of the events that Fylaki Korydallou – Gynaikeies Fylakes, TK 18110, [3] blackmail and emotionally destroy those took place on "September 3rd" street or Korydallos, Athens, Greece. what followed them, they create a large who have hurt the prestige of its structures. gap between mere survival and wise [E]ven six months after, our loved ones, insurrectionary behaviour. From a 1. ed. – Transferred out after beating a snitch either from within prison or from the subjective standpoint, having the moved onto her ward; see latest address above. restricted areas they are due to court awareness of the actual external condition orders, still give us smiles of patience and 2. ed. – Medieval Latin phrase meaning “the trust, maintaining their own dignity” (letter and the actual concerns, these women still necessary changes having been made”. find themselves at significant confusion. from Olga, also in solidarity with Tamara 3. transl. – It refers to the fascist pogrom [ed. – Sol and Natalia Collado; see Return Fire The prison population does not consist of against migrants] unleashed with the active vol.3 pg79/81). desperate people (setting aside the addicts participation of police force after the murder of who due to their addiction on one hand, Manolis Kantaris in May 2011 [ed. – stabbed to These family targetings led to the C.C.F. death during a robbery]. and the insidious manipulation and members and Aggeliki Spyropoulou (a repression through psychoactive drugs on fugitive from the escape case, she was the other, have limited capabilities). arrested at home of the C.C.F. brothers' Nowadays, financial crime runs women's mother) going on hunger strike; they were prison, along with large amounts of drug soon joined by about a dozen more radical trafficking. No one is in any way excluded prisoners in Greece who combined their from consumption, fact which by itself Olga is one of the imprisoned members demands, and then eight solidarious alienates rage, and in conjunction with of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire (C.C.F.); prisoners in Turkey joined in. After 32 days, social identities, in the end it enables see Return Fire vol.1 pg41. This was her the strike finally ended when the leftist women to remain victims of their own written contribution to a 'Women Against Syriza government's Minister of Justice illusions. This notion of course is not Imprisonment' event at the Patission 61 & signed an amendement to free their unanimous. There are still, and always Skaramaga occupied space in Athens. relatives; but still Evi Statiri, the partner of will be, some who hold their dignity and Also on the topic of the position of women Gerasimos, wasn't let out, so she 94. MEMORY AS A WEAPON

Downham Market Food “According to Walter Benjamin, remembrance plays a profound role for those resisting the momentum Riot of historical progress. In the Theses on the Concept of History, remembrance is assigned a condition of [ed. – Put out by The Black Plume ('a journal of total redemption when utilized against coercive forces. It holds liberation', based in the the power to make the otherwise historically complete The graffiti, in Bolivia, reads; English county of Norfolk) as “suffering of the victims of the past” incomplete, creating a “THE BIG DAY WILL COME” (in Aymara) part of their series on realm of continual struggle, a tradition that extends deep “FREEDOM FOR THE C.C.F.” (in Spanish) rebellious history in that into the precedent and up to this very moment. With every area. Perhaps a little dry and connection to the past, those before us rise from the dead undertook hunger­strike herself (during historicist/materialist, but we which there was arson of the office of the are glad nonetheless to see and fight with us and within us, creating a discontinuity in Member of Parliment responsible, as efforts at remembering our the books of history- an opportunity, however slim, to Minister of Justice, for the initial pre­trial roots in these pacified times, redeem those made invisible by the pens of historians. We detaining of the relatives) before release. and 're­storying' our call this solidarity, and it exists both inter-temporally and surroundings (a task inter-spatially. It reaches across borders as much as obviously not only to be left Whatever else has been said, comrades of to historians, even amateur beyond the clock. When in solidarity, we act with the the C.C.F. (and not only) have consistently ones like us). This tale strength of all those who struggle. Discontinuity in history showed that struggles don't end in includes moments of will be named here as the ahistorical break; a break from prison, but another breach opens recuperation that, 200 years the linearity of progress, resulting in a context beyond on, many still have yet to history. A break in a line, of course, does not recreate a from there... learn how to avoid. Quotes cycle. Breaks in history have occurred since its inception, were uncited in the original.] and every time they do, historians pave over them; they Aachen Case Verdict A wave of discontent become forgotten, ignored, or reformed into something swept through England in else. The project of the unsatisfied positions itself in the (Germany, Holland, Spain) 1816. Following the end mode of frequency. On the wave of subversion, the [continued from ] Return Fire vol.4 pg70 of the Napoleonic Wars in inflection point, the center, is linear history- it is order. The court result: the Dutch comrade is 1815, France’s European Each inflection is a moment of chaos. When the space cleared definitively, as is one of the neighbours considered between inflections and wavelengths are reduced, the anarchists from Barcelona; but the second the country a liability and moments of chaos overwhelm the moments of order until was sentenced to 7 years and 6 signed into the Treaty of chaos is continuous and in every moment, rupturing time Paris the need for an months for the robberies. and space, until the clock stops. In chaos, we breathe, occupational force. The the earth begins to spin again, and the seasons resume She speaks Spanish, Italian, English and German: British component of this their impact upon our lives.” Lisa Dorfer, JVA Willich II, GartenstraSSe 2, 47877 coalition military – – Ahistorical Break: A Bridge Between Worlds Willich, Germany 150,000 strong in total and called by some the Army of Occupation – Good News At Last was led by the Duke of Wellington. Thirty From Italy! thousand men were sent [continued from Return Fire vol.4 pg73] from the British Army alongside an equal At the trial court in Turin, the Supreme number from Austria, Court confirmed the “non­procedural Prussia, and Russia as default of jurisdiction”, as already decided well as smaller numbers at first instance and in appeal, for the from five other European principle of not being able to process twice states. a defendant for the same act. It then closes the case once and for all. The The financial cost of this comrades have come out with their heads occupying force was held high. propped up by France so that, in theory, the countries of the Army of Occupation would not lose Norwich prison, today Mónica and Francisco out on having to undertake Deported (Spain, Chile) this task. By 1816, though, Britain’s financial situation met dire was increased to refill the country’s coffers [continued from Return Fire vol.3 pg82] straights and reverberated throughout emptied during the conflict; and freak On March 7th, after three and a half society and became what is proverbially climactic conditions caused much of the years inside, Mónica and Francisco were known as the “food riots”. Three key year’s harvest to fail. Back then, as it is finally released to Chile, due to a Spanish factors came together to create this perfect today, those most affected by a failing law that allows for the expulsion of foreign storm: the war irreparably changed the economy were the poor and working prisoners. They are on the streets! international commercial market; taxation classes. 95. Weighted beneath the pressure of many in the local high prices and falling living population. Their conditions, people across the solution to the crisis of the moment, which led to country took to the streets in 1816 country took to the streets in 1816 families unable to feed as an expression of their rage. themselves due to low Norfolk was no exception. wages and high prices, was to offer a slightly “It was on the 16th May in this year that an increased wage and alarming riot occurred in Norwich. Late in slightly lower price on the evening a large number of the flour when bought by unemployed assembled in the Market families of four or more Place and created a disturbance by individuals. This was not throwing fire­balls. They next smashed the nearly good enough. windows at the Guildhall and proceeded to Crowds from Downham the New Mills, breaking all the street lamps and other nearby villages and the windows of several houses on had gathered for the their way thither. On arriving at the mills, decision and, after the ringleaders broke into the stores and hearing the bullshit Impression of the famed torching of London's Newgate removed a large quantity of flour, some of Jail and the liberation of its prisoners during the 1780 solution, reacted with Gordon Riots; see Return Fire vol.1 pg61 which was thrown into the river and some outrage. From their carried away. Returning by way of St announcement in the Magistrate Dering, stricken with terror at Andrew’s Bank Street, and Tombland, in market place, the magistrates were chased the sight of this approaching mob, each of which localities the mob committed by stick and bludgeon­wielding rioters all acquiesced immediately to their demands great depredations, they marched to the way back to The Crown, where the and released both Southery men. It seems Magdalen Street, and made a hostile crowd apparently threatened to the crowd took this small victory as fuel demonstration in front of the residence of defenestrate the trio. for the possibilities of their communal Dr. Alderson. Upon the doctor coming out power and, rather than dispersing in to remonstrate with them, the ruffians “Thus pursued, the magistrates attempted satisfaction, began demanding that the knocked him down and subjected him to an escape by a back way, but were doors of Downham prison be thrown brutal ill­treatment.” followed and pelted with stones and dirt. Mr. Pratt and Mr. Dering received several open and all inmates released. Dering, Because the cream of the British Army violent blows, and with difficulty obtained afraid, agreed once more and the prison crop were stationed in France, it fell to the refuge in different houses – Mr. Dering at was emptied, and the inmates disappeared “B Team” troops to fight the rioting people. Mr. Wales’, Mr. Hare at Mr. Lemmon’s, and into the mass so that they would not be The Yeomanry Cavalry, volunteer horse­ Mr. Pratt at Col. Say’s. Mr. Dering was the recaptured. mounted units used primarily for principal object of the mob’s vengeance, domestic situations, were tasked in and was so hunted that he had to be Unfortunately not everybody got away. The many counties to undertake defence of concealed in a garden for two hours, the Upwell Yeomanry, with the help of special the State and calm the dissent through excited people declaring they would constables (volunteer police types), were force. These forces were first created in murder him if they could find him. He and able to seize 19 of the rioters following a the 1790s following fears of an invasion of Mr. Hare afterwards escaped to Mr. reading of the Riot Act by John Dering at Britain by Napoleon and drawn from small­ Safiery’s. Shops were meanwhile 5pm in the market square. This caused the mob to peter out and disperse, leaving time farmers, with officers drawn from the plundered of their goods, and publicans Downham quiet once again. It is said some gentry as was commonplace throughout were compelled to make gratuitous of the rioters went onto the the military at the time. So what we find in distribution of beer.” the 1816 riots once again are the Cambridgeshire town of Littleport and Yeomanry Cavalry from working classes continued their attack on the injustices of Upwell were sent to combat pitted against the the State when riots broke out there on the looters and rioters in working classes at 22nd May but only one man by the name Downham and in the the behest of the of Thomas Sindall appears to be confirmed ensuing crackdown wherein upper classes and at both outbreaks. many of those participating the State. in the riots were arrested, Of the 19 that were arrested in Downham, Though riots word came to the small nine men and six women were sentenced raged in Norwich, parish of Southery that two to death following a brief trial in August it was not the only men from the village had 1816. Thirteen of these sentences were place in Norfolk been taken in. On the commuted but two still hung at Norwich that saw uprising morning of 20th May a Castle: Daniel Harwood, 22, who was and insurrection. meeting was held by the taken from a pregnant wife; and Thomas Violence broke out parishioners during which it Thody, 25, who was taken from a wife and in Rockland, and was decided that they two children. There is no word of what Wisbech was would march to Downham happened to their families. occupied by 120 cavalry due to the threat in order to demand the release of their of unrest, but it was Downham were the fellow villagers. Picking up others en route, The food riots of 1816 continued to rage most spectacular actions occurred. a crowd of between 700 and 800 arrived in throughout the rest of the country but the Downham armed with sticks, scythes, Downham incident appears to have been Just days after the events in Norwich, pitchforks, and even shotguns to join the three Downham district magistrates – the final mass disturbance relating to unrest. The total crowd now numbered the post­Napoleonic fallout in John Thurlow Dering, Mr. Hare, and Mr. around 1500 and comprised both men and Pratt – met at The Crown pub to discuss women. Norfolk. concerns and demands put forward by 96. The necessity of production is so easily Is it because it transforms nature? Yes, but 'An Enemy of the proved that any hack philosopher of what can I do with a nature ordered in industrialism can fill ten books with it. terms of profit and loss, in a world where Desire to Create' Unfortunately for these neo­economist the inflation of techniques conceals the thinkers, these proofs belong to the deflation of the use­value of life? Besides, [ed. – We encourage a critical look at this poetic 1967 text, so wonderfully hostile to left­ and nineteenth century, a time when the misery just as the sexual act is not intended to right­wings of domination, to authoritarian of the working classes made the right to procreate, but makes children by accident, communists and capitalists of all stripes. If it is work the counterpart of the right to be a organized labour transforms the surface of admittedly rather pro­'modern technology' slave, claimed at the dawn of time by continents as a by­product, not a purpose. (imagining the reduction of work hours that has prisoners about to be massacred. Above Work to transform the world? Tell me never been the aim of those producing such all it was a question of surviving, of not another one. The world is being tools – see New Technologies, Extraterrestrial disappearing physically. The imperatives of transformed in the direction prescribed by Exploitation & the Future of Capitalism), production are the imperatives of survival; the existence of forced labour; which is perhaps this could be chalked down to the from now on, people want to live, not just why it is being transformed so badly. technophilic delirium in some rebel quarters during the '60s when, as they claim below, “a to survive. generation, drowned in mortification, felt such a Perhaps man [sic] realizes himself in his rage to live”, including reaching for rather The tripalium is an instrument of torture. forced labour? In the nineteenth century dubious 'liberators'. Of course, work has now Labor means 'suffering'. We are unwise to the concept of work retained a vestige escaped the factory (in the case of 'feminised' forget the origin of the words 'travail' and of the notion of creativity. Zola describes labour, never having lived there in the first place) 'labour'. At least the nobility never forgot a nailsmiths' contest in which the workers and permeated much of social life; this chapter their own dignity and the indignity which competed in the perfection of their tiny is still remarkably prescient about the shifts that marked their bondsmen. The aristocratic masterpiece. Love of the trade and the may have only been hinted at in those days.] contempt for work reflected the master's vitality of an already smothered creativity contempt for the dominated classes; work incontestably helped man to bear ten or The duty to produce alienates the passion was the expiation to which they were fifteen hours which nobody could have for creation. Productive labour is part and condemned to all eternity by the divine stood if some kind of pleasure had not parcel of the technology of law and order. decree which had willed them, for slipped into it. The survival of the craft The working day grows shorter as the impenetrable reasons, to be inferior. Work conception allowed each worker to contrive empire of conditioning extends. empire of conditioning extends. took its place among the sanctions of a precarious comfort in the hell of the Providence as the punishment for poverty, factory. But Taylorism [ed. – see Return In an industrial society which confuses and because it was the means to a future Fire vol.2 pg28] dealt the death­blow to a work and productivity, the necessity of salvation such a punishment could take on mentality which had been carefully producing has always been an enemy of the attributes of pleasure. Basically, work fostered by archaic capitalism. It is useless the desire to create. What spark of was less important than submission. to expect even a caricature of creativity humanity, of a possible creativity, can from the conveyor­belt. Nowadays remain alive in a being dragged out of The bourgeoisie does not dominate, it ambition and the love of the job well sleep at six every morning, jolted about in exploits. It does not need to be master, it done are the indelible mark of defeat suburban trains, deafened by the racket of prefers to use. Why has nobody seen and the most mindless submission. machinery, bleached and steamed by that the principle of productivity simply Which is why, wherever submission is meaningless sounds and gestures, spun replaced the principle of feudal demanded, the old ideological fart wends dry by statistical controls, and tossed out authority? Why has nobody wanted to its way, from the Arbeit Macht Frei of the at the end of the day into the entrance understand? concentration camps to the homilies of halls of railway stations, those cathedrals Henry Ford[1] and Mao Tse­tung [ed. – see of departure for the hell of weekdays and Is it because work ameliorates the human Who Is It?]. the nugatory paradise of weekends, where condition and saves the poor, at least in the crowd communes in weariness and illusion, from eternal damnation? So what is the function of forced boredom? From adolescence to Undoubtedly, but today it seems that the labour? The myth of power retirement each 24­hour cycle repeats carrot of happier tomorrows has smoothly exercised jointly by the master and the same shattering bombardment, like replaced the carrot of salvation in the next God drew its coercive force from bullets hitting a window: mechanical world. In both cases the present is always the unity of the feudal system. repetition, time­which­is­money, under the heel of oppression. submission to bosses, boredom, Destroying the unitary myth, the exhaustion. From the butchering of power of the bourgeoisie youth's energy to the gaping wound of old inaugurated, under the flag of age, life cracks in every direction under the crisis, the reign of ideologies, blows of forced labour. Never before has a which can never attain, separately civilization reached such a degree of contempt for life; never before has a or together, a fraction of the generation, drowned in mortification, felt efficacy of myth. The dictatorship such a rage to live. The same people who of productive work stepped into the are murdered slowly in the mechanized breech. It's mission is physically to slaughterhouses of work are also arguing, weaken the majority of men [sic], singing, drinking, dancing, making love, collectively to castrate and stupefy holding the streets, picking up weapons and inventing a new poetry. Already the them in order to make them front against forced labour is being formed; receptive to the least pregnant, its gestures of refusal are moulding the least virile, most senile ideologies consciousness of the future. Every call for in the entire history of falsehood. productivity in the conditions chosen by capitalist and Soviet economy is a call to Most of the proletariat at the beginning of slavery. the nineteenth century had been physically 97. enervated, systematically broken by the To the extent that automation and torture of the workshop. Revolts came from cybernetics [ed. – see the supplement to The Origins of artisans [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg85], Return Fire vol.4; Caught in the Net] from privileged or unemployed groups, not foreshadow the massive replacement of Victimisation workers by mechanical slaves, forced from workers shattered by fifteen hours of [ed. – It's easy to sympathise with this revision of labour. Isn't it disturbing that the reduction labour is revealed as belonging purely to the received wisdom about the opening of the of working time came just when the the barbaric practices needed to maintain 'Years of Lead' in Italy, when also here in the spectacular ideological miscellany order. Thus power manufactures the dose U.K. there has always been a chorus (usually produced by consumer society was of fatigue necessary for the passive from the most dubious of sources or anonymous beginning effectively to replace the feudal assimilation of its televised diktats. What comment threads) ready to cry 'false flag' or myths destroyed by the young carrot is worth working for, after this? The 'agent provocateur' in the face of blows struck bourgeoisie? (People really have worked game is up; there is nothing to lose and claimed by anarchists, which has never for a refrigerator, a car, a television set. anymore, not even an illusion. The convinced us... This account may come across as rather brusque, but is an important reminder Many still do, 'invited' as they are to organization of work and the organization of what provocations we must possibly face if consume the passivity and empty time that of leisure are the blades of the castrating struggles gain traction, without cutting and the 'necessity' of production 'offers' them.) shears whose job is to improve the race of running. However we would argue that the fawning dogs. One day, will we see response to repression needs more than Statistics published in 1938 indicated that strikers, demanding automation and a ten­ increasing attacks alone (especially when we the use of the most modern technology hour week, choosing, instead of picketing, end up overcommiting our energy and resources then available would reduce necessary to make love in the factories, the offices towards this goal as a singular fetish) so as not working time to three hours a day. Not only and the culture centres? Only the planners, to end up in the dead­end of a duel with the are we a long way off with our seven the managers, the union bosses and the State... but that's another conversation.] hours, but after wearing out generations of sociologists would be surprised and “We commit to freeinging the prelate Marco workers by promising them the happiness worried. Not without reason; after all, their Ussia as soon as the Church makes a which is sold today on the installment plan, skin is at stake. statement in favour of release of political the bourgeoisie (and its Soviet equivalent) prisoners detained in Spain... Our action’s pursue man's destruction outside the purpose is to place the Church before its workshop. Tomorrow they will deck out conscience and its responsibilities, in their five hours of necessary wear and these critical moments for the Spanish tear with a time of 'creativity' which will people, since after 27 years of fascist grow just as fast as they can fill it with dictatorship the Spanish democrats who the impossibility of creating anything are claiming a minimum of freedom of (the famous 'leisure explosion'). expression and of association recognized by the charter of human rights, are still in It has been quite correctly written: “China prison…” – Kidnapping of Ussia, April faces gigantic economic problems; for her, 1967, Rome: First of May Group''Sacco & productivity is a matter of life and death.” Vanzetti' ' [ed. – see Return Fire Nobody would dream of denying it. What vol.1 pg86] seems important to me is not the economic 1. ed. – Arch capitalist Henry Ford famously imperatives, but the manner of responding expanded market for his products by raising “The science of USA in the service of to them. The [Chinese] Red Army in 1917 salaries while increasing mass­production and crimes... we are targeting one by one the was a new kind of organization. The Red credit, thus undercutting the threat of the more people responsible for the genocide in revolutionary demands of the labour movement Army in 1960 is an army such as is found Vietnam! [President] Johnson doesn't give of his time by turning producers into consumers in capitalist countries. Circumstances have a damn about the marches of peace, we shown that its effectiveness has been far (encouraging even the most precarious workers to aspire to inclusion), heading off the last major are using his own weapons: dynamite and below the potential of a revolutionary crisis that capitalism faced. John Connor sabotage!” – Attack against the American militia. In the same way, the planned reminds us that he was big on “psychological company Dow Chemical, 30th of March Chinese economy, by refusing to allow profiling and home checks on his Detroit workers 1968, Milan: Anarchist Group... (the rest of federated groups to organize their work so that he also had ‘scientific’ control of their the flyer unreadable because burned) autonomously, condemns itself to become morals and character ensuring they were hard­ another example of the perfected form of working and subservient. (Despite – or perhaps “We condemn the Church for its activity capitalism called socialism [ed. – see because of, as we’ll see below – of his against the revolution... for the criminal act 'Tools of the Technology']. Has anyone prematurely Modern attitudes to managing of supporting the Spanish fascism...” – production, Henry Ford was also prepared to bothered to study the modes of work of Attack against the church St. Babylas, 10th resort to cruder 19th­century union­bashing of June 1968, Milan: Anarchists primitive [sic] peoples, the importance of techniques – Pinkertons – and even to issue the play and creativity, the incredible yield Tsarist anti­Semitic forgery Protocols of the “Comrade, destroy the banks... destroy the obtained by methods which the application Elders of Zion as a pamphlet to his employees, churches... destroy the universities... raid of modern technology would make a The Eternal Jew[...] The Nazis hailed Henry Ford the department stores” – Attack at hundred times more efficient? Obviously as “the American Hitler” and saw him as the Rinascente, 30th of August 1968, Milan: not. Every appeal for productivity New World’s fuhrer. More significantly, they Anarchists comes from above. But only creativity is learned Ford’s techniques of mass production and car consumption to hold the favour of the spontaneously rich. It is not from “Last minute: the police killed again, two German lower middle class on assuming power.) farmhands in Sicily! It is their own sacred 'productivity' that a full life is to be Fitting that his great innovation, the assembly farmhands in Sicily! It is their own sacred expected, it is not 'productivity' that will line – where workers were forced to work at the mission. People revolt! Against produce an enthusiastic collective rate of not just one machine, but all machines in authoritarianism, against the laws, the response to economic needs. But what can one factory – was modelled on the disassembly State and the Church that sanctifies we say when we know how the cult of work lines of Detroit’s slaughter­houses, where living everything. Long live anarchy!” – Attack is honoured from Cuba to China, and how flesh was butchered and commodified.” with dynamite against the municipal offices well the virtuous pages of [François] of Genoa, 3rd of December 1968 (in 2. ed. – French Prime Mininster 1847­1848, said Guizot[1] would sound in a May Day solidarity with the dead people of Avola): only enrichment by hard work merited suffrage. speech? Revolutionary Group Carlo Cafiero[1] 98. “Comrade worker, inside the banks there is and that his action was perfectly included wealth... destroy the banks... Within the in the tradition of propaganda of the deed universities lies the culture of science, [ed. – see Return Fire vol.1 pg84], of destroy the universities, inside the anarchist individualistic terrorism. churches lies the dynast of mind... destroy the churches. Inside the department stores Having said that, and after putting these consumer goods can be found, destroy few points of references, we can start our them!” – Second attack at Rinascente, 15th journey through the past dispelling some of December 1968, Milan: Anarchist myths. The Piazza Fontana massacre was Brigade Ravachol [ed. – see 'The Matter not for anarchists, as many historians affirm, “the loss of innocence”, but instead, of Knowing Who We Are'] There are many legends and falsities built the birth of a new figure, of a new role about those years. One of most persisting “American science is a tool for accepted in fear of repression. A role is the one that see the anarchism of the enslavement of people... the amazing steeped in a pathetic and manipulated 60’s as the weakest link in the space expeditions are not feeding the “innocentification”. The anarchist­victim of revolutionary movement. An anarchist exploited.” – Attack with dynamite at the the system, the anarchist­naive child who movement struck by repression and NATO base Camp Darby, 3rd of January plays easy with revolution, with the risk of fabrication precisely because of its 1969, Pisa: Anarchist Group J. Most[2] being approached by cover agents and hypothetical, intrinsic weakness and turned into a tool for power. Almost all because it could have been infiltrated “Defendants! Burn the judges’ gowns! Turn anarchists voluntary or involuntarily, with easily. Another falsity (to say the least) the courts of law into a battlefield... the the courts of law into a battlefield... the only a few exceptions, were wearing the concerns the roles of clown and struggle continues with all available means struggle continues with all available means same cloak in those years. After Piazza slanderers, which our victimisation and the against the authority of the State and of the Fontana there was a spreading of left­wing intellectuals assigned to the Church. Greetings!” – Attacks with legalistic and acquitting counter­ actors of this tragedy. Pinelli the innocent dynamite at the Courthouse and at the [7] dynamite at the Courthouse and at the investigation in which the caricature martyr, pacifist of “anarchy does not meant Ministry of Education, 27th and 31st of of the bloodthirsty anarchist bomber bombs but the justice in freedom”, March 1969, Rome: Anarchist was replaced by an even more idiotic Valpreda the anarchist individualist, naive Revolutionary Association for the Social caricature of the anarchist helpless and manipulable, who claimed with “head Revolution victim predestined by the State held high” his innocence, his being just all violence. Many joined the game, either for talk of “bombs, blood, anarchy” and no The historical interpretation of a a quiet life or to get their comrades out of action. We, the anarchists, were the first certain anarchism has always been partial, prison, but someone went even further, responsible for such distortion of manipulated and often as bad as the one contributing on their own to this new reality. A distortion which stems from the of the official historians. The purpose of “investigative” trend through no less need to defend ourselves from an this writing is to reach the source of this legalistic, caricatural and snivelling accusation considered defamatory, a Victimisation which corrupted, and is still counter­investigations. massacre that hits regular poor souls, corrupting, the Italian anarchist movement random customers of a bank for farmers, for more than forty years, since the We can not understand entirely the tragic mostly family­based. This alternate reality [3] massacre of Piazza Fontana . Risking to events of Milan and the following confusion was so absorbed by anarchists, and even be considered a “revisionist”, before I and panic among the anarchists without by the same actors of that tragedy, that develop my theory I have to specify some making a brief reference to the slow but every good thing done in past years issues. Although I am sure that it was the gradual evolution in which a part of the deliberately was erased, and buried. The State which placed the bomb in Piazza movement had been involved in years “panic of defence” brought to a general Fontana, I will accompany this my between 1962 and 1969. Across Italy, stampede and to an almost total fall back; certainity with some “other” certainties: during these years, the anarchists of action in these years just few examples to the lived moments of great vitality, I would say – the belief that many of the attacks contrary, but significant ones: shooting of almost of renaissance. Various nucleus presented as fascist by the extra­ Commissioner Calabresi and the massacre and affinity groups, very mobile, with [9] parliamentary left of that time, were indeed at the police headquarters in Milan by the young and not so young people, increased anarchists attacks completed with anarchist Bertoli, who would dearly pay the the strength of their actions, from the responsibility claims of high reliability consequences of his action, not only with attacks of low intensity with nitrate to more more than 20 years in prison, but through – the belief that Giuseppe Pinelli was not a powerful attacks with dynamite. This the constant defamation and almost total pacifist, a nonviolent, a martyr of the left, a upgrade was accelerated thanks to the isolation by a frightened and crazed little saint of democracy, but instead, an influence of the Spanish FIJL and of their anarchist movement. anarchist revolutionary that shortly before direct expression: the international group he was murdered by Calabresi[4] and his First of May. This evolution occurred at the The theory I want to support with this my colleagues had actively and specifically same time in other European countries article is that the so­called “strategy of collaborated with an anarchist organization with better results: like the Angry Brigade tension” was set­up against anarchist engaged in armed struggle with bombs in England, the Hashish Rebels in movement not because it was the weakest [8] and kidnappings across half of Europe, Germany, GARI in France. In Italy the link, but instead because it was the only with International anarchist group First of collective shock of the State massacre segment of the revolutionary “left” credible May[5], direct expression of FIJL[6], and as a abruptly interrupted this evolution, for set­up a such plot in those years. natural consequence, like every anarchist blocking its development. This massacre Mainly for two reasons, first because in consistent with what he did, he believed in and the subsequent Pinelli’s murder that historic moment it was the most active revolutionary violence represented for the anarchist movement in terms of armed actions, bombs and the “original sin” after which nothing will be even with a background of two – the belief that Gianfranco Bertoli was an like before. From that moment the “games” kidnappings[10], and second for its individualist anarchist ­ not a fascist, a stopped and the positive trend that got international contacts with groups like First puppet or a useful idiot in the hands of through the movement at that time turned of May and FIJL which carried out armed “corrupted” intelligence agencies, as many into a strong, although not permanent, actions across half of Europe for years. It anarchists shamelessly assert even now – standstill. would have been more difficult to set up a 99. fabrication against the communists, at time police which heralded the “explosion” at too disturbingly for an anarchism that from less active in terms of armed struggle. Not the station, some newspapers talked also this period came out “purged” of its own without reason the only communist whom about a claim of responsibility, about flyers interior. they tried to implicate in the Piazza found at the scene, as it had already The specific anarchist organizations FAI / Fontana events was Feltrinelli [transl. – happened in the previous Milanese GIA / GAF [transl. – Italian Anarchist influential publisher, communist militant, anarchist attacks. The newspapers made a Federation/Groups of Anarchist died under mysterious circumstances in big deal about these “dreadful” attacks. Initiative/Federated Anarchist Groups] after 1972], due to his contacts with some of The Milanese anarchist movement the oppressive wave that followed Piazza these anarchists, particularly with Corradini immediately covered its own back talking Fontana, will try to dampen their internal and Vincileone[11]. A concrete example of about provocation and putting on the same conflicts and at least in one thing they will the "operative" contacts of the level these attacks considered fascist and manage to join up: to consider as revolutionary publisher with those the anarchist attacks at the Ministry of provocation all those actions of some note anarchists was when some weeks before Education and at the courthouse of Rome claimed by anarchist over the past months. Che Guevara[12]'s death in Bolivia, through which were claimed by the “Anarchist [13] An important testimony regarding these the mediation of these two comrades, International 'Marius Jacob' ”. The theory years is being given by Ivo della Savia Fertinelli sought for support of the First of of conspiracy, shitting on actions by their himself who as fugitive gave an incredible May to organize joint solidarity actions with own in order to clean themselves, was the interview in “Corriere Della Sera” [transl. – the Bolivian guerrillas. After Guevara's prelude of Piazza Fontana. For these death, the First of May started up a wave mysterious explosions were held important daily mainstream newspaper] in of coordinated attacks across Europe responsible some comrades, which we which he narrated with no reserve to a without precedents: November 12th 1967 already had the chance to meet, Giovanni journalist the origin of the anarchism of in Bonn three bombs exploded at the Corradini and Eliane Vincileone. Together action in Italy: “in 1963 we have witnessed Greek, Bolivian and Spanish embassies; in with them the young Paolo Braschi was the formation of the first anarchist groups Rome at the Venezuelan embassy; in arrested as well: the luckiest one was Ivo which started to carry out the direct Milan in the Spanish Tourist Office; in della Savia who managed to escape the actions. By direct action we mean the Hague at the US, Greek and Spanish arrest, becoming a fugitive. These four attacks. I took part in these groups embassies; in Madrid at the embassy of comrades were contributors of the journal structured in a very rigid way. There wasn't USA; in Geneva at the Spanish Tourist “Materialismo e Libertà”. any problem regarding the numbers, that is Office. we were not concerned if we would be Before I move on with our story, I would many... the action itself would have made a Ten coordinated attacks in a single day: better comment briefly the effervescent very clear choice... from 1963 till 1967 we the organizational skills of anarchists in cauldron which was the anarchist Milan have witnessed in Italy the material Europe had no equal, all thanks to the at the end of the '60s. In Milan during that constitution, the articulation, the libertarian youth and their will to act and period of protests and large liberal preconditions in order to reach a certain coordinate; this array of forces took place ferments, among the many experiences of situation, to guarantee more effectiveness, when in Italy Fertinelli's GAP [transl. – struggle two small anarchist groups took the greater connection... These days the Marxist “Groups of Partisan Action”] were their first steps. The “older” group included police found themselves in front of a barely more than an idea and the Red Ivo della Savia and Braschi, with more new affair, that was disorienting: Brigades were still far from their birth, experience with explosives, in touch with anarchists were striking with a since their first attack took place in 1971. Corradini and Vincileone, in close contact periodical regularity, and every two­ We can say it with certainty that the cancer with the youth anarchist federations of three months there was something of the anarchist Victimisation was born on other countries, with FIJL and First of May. happening in the quiet Italian society... December 12th of 1969 among the ruins of In the youngest group, the most You can see, as an example, the attacks the Agrarian Bank in Piazza Fontana. A “boisterous” one, Valpreda, Claps and against the Spanish embassy in Naples glimmer was already seen on April 25th of Derrico took part, who were considered and the failed attack against the same 1969, always in Milan, on the Resistance “out­of­control” by the Milanese milieu, with embassy in Genoa...”. Day, when small incendiary devices based less practical experience but with an on nitrate salt and gasoline exploded in the individualist anarchist strong mind. They This evolution will be interrupted suddenly currency exchange office at the central called themselves the “iconoclasts” and by the widespread of paranoid station and at the Trade Fair, which had published a paper named “Land and conspiracies that will follow after the been targeted (as power structures) by the Freedom” in which they expressed quite massacre of Piazza Fontana. The student movement in those days. The plainly their "violent" ideas. They will get “wallowing of self­pity” will reach its zenith smoke of fire at the station sent a dozen of involved in the fabrications of Piazza after the murder of Pinelli, with the passengers to emergency room for Fontana and they will end up as a distortion of this comrade’s image by examination, but were immediately consenting meat for the grinder of various majority of the movement in a victimized, released from hospital; the other counter­investigations, to which however pacifistic and democratic figure: dozens of mechanism, at the trade fair, broke some they will owe their freedom. The Milanese assumptions, millions of trial documents to windows: so harmless that even the political police were more concerned about confirm the most abstruse theories about “Rivista Anarchica” [transl. – magazine of the group that was revolved around international conspiracies, black plots, red Italian Anarchist Federation] called them Corradini and Vincileone, according to their plots, opposite extremists, CIA, KGB, paper bombs in March 1971. The devices words. This concern for the couple was “corrupted” intelligence agencies. From all were very like those used by anarchists at result mainly of their international contacts, these trials paperwork and from the Rinascente [transl. – huge luxury in a police report we could read: “At least subsequent and parallel counter­ department store in Milan] concerning the until the end of 1962 they were a centre of investigations a new “science” was ignition (there is a reference at the anarchist activism that always attracted a born, which will have in anarchism of beginning of this article, in a excerpt of the number of youngsters. In a similar milieu action one of its most illustrious responsibility claim): the usual electric was developed, although it couldn't be victims. In the name of this “science”, resistance, the usual gasoline bottle and confirmed if and which part played the named “strategy of tension”, in every the usual clock as a timer. The attackers' couple Corradini, the kidnapping of vice firecracker or bomb in years that will follow, intention was not of course to cause consul Isu Elias”. Soon, the movement the accusation of provocation will show up victims, there had been phone calls to the forgot these two militant persons, maybe regularly as stopwatch. Every time an 100. anarchist group strikes, the mummies of At the 9th of September 1970, the youthful Let me finish with a consideration, in my “revolutionary” immobility even today dig federations and the First of May in memory opinion the deepest meaning of what those out this very old and useful theory against of comrade Pinelli exploded several years represented for anarchists, is well anyone who dares to turn into action those devices simultaneously in Paris, London, given in the opposite and distorted things about which thousand other people Manchester and Birmingham in buildings interpretations made by the same keep babbling. The Italian anarchism in the of Italian delegations. It was the only action movement of the two, in my view, most beginning of 70’s will be characterized of a certain range carried out in Europe for emblematic figures of that period of time, intensely by the campaign regarding the Pinelli. This insufficient revolutionary Pinelli and Bertoli, victim and executioner: liberation of Valpreda[14]. A campaign that solidarity was due to the legal defensive – Pinelli: martyr of anarchy, good father, was completely focused at the judicial part, line pursued by the comrades in Italy. worker, conscious proletarian, avowed almost completely concentrated at the pacifist. judicial defence and at the pursuance of For some people outside of the borders of – Bertoli: fascist, crazy, provocateur, spy, pathetic approval by the democratic public Italy to remember Valpreda too, we will drug­addicted subproletarian, violent, thief. need to wait until the February of 1972 opinion. It was not the bourgeois press that when a bomb in his solidarity exploded at presented them that way, but our own the Italian embassy in Brussels. In Italy The cherry on top of this campaign was newspapers, "Umanità Nova" [ed. – things were not so different, there were the nomination of the “illegalist” Valpreda in weekly newspaper of Italian Anarchist very few important actions (which got off the voting list of “Manifesto” [transl. – Federation] in primis. These two masks the rails of civil symbolic protest) to frame important Communist daily newspaper], an are telling us a lot about what the Italian in reaction against the events of Piazza attempt that was a failure since he didn’t anarchist movement became after the Fontana. Few actions, but significant; at get elected. Whoever went off the legality panic that followed the bomb in Piazza the 17th of May 1972 the commissioner rails was automatically accused for Fontana. They are showing us a decay, a Calabresi, the most responsible for the provocation and lynched ideologically. retreat in front of the repression. We will murder of Pinelli, got killed outside his bear the high cost of these fears, of this house by unknowns. Even in this case the Outside of the borders of this “beautiful lack of courage with a stall that will extend indignation of a part of movement sprang country” the comrades who had throughout time. Maybe you are up: unbelievable but even many cooperated with Pinelli and his “Black wondering why I drug up these old Cross”[15], the youthful federations, FIJL, anarchists, including Valpreda, cried foul. Lack of someone responsible to slander, stories? Because I am convinced that if First of May, the English Black Cross, were some knots of the past do not get all confused and dazed. The information they attacked this action by raving about untied, we risk to fall continuously in they were receiving from Italy was “conspiracies” and about a spurious the same mistakes. contradictory, the Italian movement was usefulness from the side of authority to totally in the grip of the infiltrators­hunt, it eliminate a disturbing witness. With no And I am still more convinced that the seemed like you couldn’t trust anyone, scruples, they tried to smear an exemplary, answer to repression is the main field completely in panic, the Italian anarchists lucid, surgical action. where every revolutionary movement is were seeing secret agents and This operation of slander failed, the whole playing its most important game, of its own provocations in every corner of the street. movement became galvanized, Lotta credibility. Very often the repressing An enlightening example for this Continua praised this gesture of revenge, operations are being answered with widespread and contagious paranoia is some decades after some of its former backtracking exclusively at the legal level, offered by Octavio Alberola, one of the militants will bear the huge cost of merely crying about fabrications, claiming founders of First of May, in the book “El imprisonment because of their former their own guilty as innocent, practically Anarquismo Espanol y la accion enthusiasm. With this date the historians demanding justice to the court, relying only revolucionaria, 1961­1974”, co­written with will start the so called “Years of Lead”. on the lawyers. For this reason I believe Ariame Cransac in 1975, when he start to Exactly one year after, at the 17th of May that critically revisiting the history can help number the actions occurred in those 1973, in front of the Milanese police us untie these knots in order years he stops, confessing that after a to move headquarters that had just completed the certain date onward he will not speak forward faster. unveiling of memorial tablet of Calabresi, about Italy due the provocations and the individualist anarchist Gianfranco fabrications in motion in that country, which “Nothing beautiful and new can be written Bertoli launched a handgrenade that made scarcely credible the actions carried on old and filthy pages.” resulted in several dead and injured out in that period of time. These doubts of – C.C.F. [ed. – see Rebels Behind Bars; people. Alberola indicate the confusion and the 'Yet Another Fenced World'] panic that was reigning within the Italian The comrade, after the arrest, claimed with anarchist milieu, where the huge majority pride his being an anarchist individualist TIMELINE was found unready in front of these tragic and explained his gesture as a revenge for 29.09.62: kidnap of the Spanish vice consul Isu events, and couldn't be able to give a Pinelli’s murder: slandered publicly by the Elias in Milan. Anarchists. collective answer so aggressive as the whole anarchist movement, the kind souls violence and the repression which struck of “Revolution” turned him immediately in a 06.03.62: attacks at the headquarters of the them. At that moment the Italian movement fascist on payroll of the corrupted airline company Iberia and at the Spanish transmitted only discouragement, intelligence agencies. Among the few National Research Council (CSIS) in Rome, at the same time as a bomb at the Ministry of Victimisation and doubts to movements of exceptions “Ponte della Ghisolfa”, a Technology in Madrid, with claim of responsibility other countries, and all these when Milanese anarchist association, that by CIL [Iberian Liberation Council] (issued by the between French, Spanish, Swiss, English, despite its dissociation from this “insane” Defesa Interior). Anarchists. and Italian youthful federations had been (sic.) gesture, it recognized him as a established strong contacts, which had comrade (that did wrong, but always a 27.11.64: two molotovs destroy the Seminary of Opus Dei Rome. Anarchists. already produced the first concrete results, comrade). Many years after, persuaded by by the way putting in a difficult position the a democratic magistrate they will change 17.12.64: firebombs inside Vatican and at the old immobilist of European anarchism, for their minds, but this is another story, very Pontifical University. Anarchists. example Montseny[16] of the FAI [Iberian ugly, that I don’t want to narrate. An ugly 02.01.65: bomb at the Spanish embassy in Anarchist Federation] gets very busy to story of manipulations and political Napoli. Anarchists. tone down these new ferments. interests[17]. 101. 25.04.65: bomb at the offices of the Spanish 01­03.05.69: Milan, arrest of the anarchists 5. The birth of Grupo Primero de Majo (First of airline company Iberia in Milan. Anarchists. Paolo Faccioli, Paolo Braschi, Ivo Della Savia May Group) could be traced back at the 1st of (fugitive), Eliane Vincileone, Giovanni Corradini: May 1966, when they kidnapped the prelate 31.04.66: kidnap of prelate Ussia. First of May all accused for bombs 25th of April. Marco Ussia in Rome. It was a journalist who Group 'Sacco & Vanzetti'. “baptised” the group in this way. The kidnapping 07.12.69: Corradini and Vincileone released. was organized, with the support of some Italian 12.11.67: Rome – bomb at the Venezuelan anarchists, by the militants of FIJL [ed. – see embassy, Milan – bomb at the Spanish Tourist 12.12.69: massacre of Piazza Fontana. following footnote] and CNT [ed. – see below], Office, at the same time other attacks in Geneva among them Octavio Alberola, one of the best and Bonn claimed by First of May and by 15.12.69: Pinelli was murdered. minds of DI (Defesa Interior), a body that stems International Revolutionary Solidarity Movement. from the Iberian Liberating Movement (which 03.03.68: Turin, bomb at the American 1. ed. – Named after a 1846–1892 anarchist who united FAI, CNT and FIJL) to fight the Franco consulate, simultaneously other bombs in Hague set up a rural Swiss haven for fugitive anarchists regime [ed. – see Who Is It?] with guns in their and London, claimed by First of May Group and and was among 30 initiating an insurrection in hands. After the dissolution of DI, caused from by International Revolutionary Solidarity Benevento province of Italy in 1877, taking two internal sabotage carried out by the faction of FAI Movement. villages before capture by government troops. and CNT “immobilists”, the FIJL was left alone to fight. The First of May Group was one of the tools 26.05.68: firebomb at a Citroen dealership in 2. ed. – Named after Johann, a German­born created by anarchism in order to continue the Milan. International Anarchist Group. U.S. anarchist, a notorious 1880's rabble­rouser. struggle. [ed. – “The CNT was a major force in Spain and Catalunya in the 1930s, with over a 3. transl. – The Piazza Fontana bombing: 12th 16.06.68: firebomb at the Bank of Italy, signed by million members and a leading role in the war December 1969 at 4:47pm a bomb exploded at "Anarchists". against fascism. During the Franco years, they the headquarters of National Agrarian Bank played a major role in coordinating the resistance 23.07.68: firebomb at the Ambrosian Library in (some 200 metres from Cathedral), killing 17 from exile, though according to many they had a Milan. Anarchists. people and wounding 88; the same afternoon moderating, stifling effect, owing to a conservative three more bombs exploded in Rome (one at 20.08.68: bomb at the Cinema Palace of Venice mentality and their legal status, exacerbated by 4:55pm at the underground passage that leads to [transl. – main venue of the Venice Film Festival], pressure from the French authorities. Accordingly, National Bank of Work, and the other two between claimed by Anarchist Group 'M. Nettlau'[18]. most of the anarchist urban guerrillas who fought 5:20 and 5:30pm, in front of the Altar of through those decades against Franco’s police did Fatherland and at the entrance of Central 23.08.68: unexploded bombs at Milan Cathedral, so outside of the CNT. Nonetheless, the weight of Museum of Risorgimento, that is of Italian at the churches of St. Babylas and at the church their legacy made the CNT a major rallying point unification; with a total of 17 wounded people), of St. Ambrose, claimed by "Anarchists". for the “insubmission” movement when the while a fifth in Milan was found unexploded in the fascists cosmetically altered the state into a 25.08.68: bomb at commercial metropolitan headquarters of the Italian Commercial Bank. The constitutional monarchy after Franco’s death (and police station in Milan. Anarchists. same year, on April 25th a bomb exploded at the the assassination of his handgroomed successor Fiat stand at a Milan trade fair, in which five by the Basque group ETA). That movement, 31.08.68: failed incendiary attack at Rinascente, people were injured, and there was also a bomb though it brought out hundreds of thousands in signed by Anarchist Group Ravachol discovered at the city's central station. The Piazza the streets in what appeared ready to become a Fontana bombing was initially attributed to 04.09.68: during the international anarchist revolution, failed, hindered according to some by anarchists. After over 80 arrests were made, conference in Carrara the international Black the moderating effect of the behemoth CNT and anarchist suspect Giuseppe Pinelli died after Cross was born; Giuseppe Pinelli is responsible according to nearly everyone by a terrorist arson “falling” from the fourth floor window of the police for the Italian section. occuring at a key point in the mobilizations, station where he was being held. One of the engineered by the military and blamed on the police officers who were interrogating Pinelli at 03.12.68: bomb at the municipal offices of anarchists” (Dreams, Demands & the Pragmatic that moment was the Commissioner Luigi Genoa, signed by Anarchist Group Carlo Pitfall).] Cafiero. Calabresi, murdered in revenge in 1972. Two members of communist organization Lotta 6. FIJL (Federacion Iberica de Juventudes 23­24.12.68: second attack at Rinascente, Continua, Adriano Sofri and Giorgio Pietrostefani Libertarias) was established in 1932 as a youth signed by Anarchist Group Ravachol. were convicted of plotting his assassination, and anarchist organization, thousands of its militants other one, Ovidio Bompressi, was sentenced for took part in the Spanish civil war in 1936. During 25.12.68: TNT bomb at the Courthouse of carrying it out; all of them were sentenced to 22 the following anti­Franco resistance it became the Livorno, signed by Anarchist Group People’s years of prison (Sofri was released in 2012; most vital component of Iberian anarchism. Justice. Pietrostefani is still fugitive in France, according the Mitterrand Doctrine those convicted for violent 7. transl. – Counter­investigation: the recourse of 03.01.69: attack at the NATO base Camp Darby acts in Italy of far­left during the "Years of Lead" anarchist in technical matters of legal nature, that in Pisa, signed by Anarchist Group J. Most. would not be extradited; Bompressi was released are setting aside the political identity of anarchy 19.01.69: Milan, bomb at the police barracks. in 2006 for serious health reasons). Anarchist with purpose of creating a victimized image of an Anarchists. Pietro Valpreda was sentenced to prison on anarchist who is being persecuted for his ideals. charges of being responsible of Piazza Fontanta 26.01.69: Milan, bomb at the Spanish Tourist bombing, in 1987 was acquitted by the supreme 8. ed. – Revolutionary Internationalist Action Groups; French and Spanish anti­fascists. Office, signed by Anarchist Group Barcelona 39. Court of Cassation for lack of evidence. 9. Anarchist Gianfranco Bertoli, on the 17th of January 1969: Turin, bomb in front of the church 4. transl. – Luigi Calabresi was a police officer May 1973 (day of the first anniversary of the S. Christina, signed by Direct Action Group. and Italian State Police official in Milan. He chose to enter the police over a career as an attorney murder of police commissioner Calabresi, at the 08.03.69: Vercelli, attack against the police and was sent to Milan, where he was assigned to inauguration of a memorial plaque inside the yard headquarter; anarchists arrested. investigate anarchists group, as a police of the Milanese police headquarters in commissioner. Three police officers interrogating Fatebenefratelli St.), threw a handgrenade at the 27.03.69: Rome, TNT bomb at the Ministry of anarchist Pinelli (member of the Milan­based main door of the police HQ, where, as Bertoli Education, signed by Anarchist International anarchist association “Ponte della Ghisolfa” and himself told, a cop kicked the bomb back resulting Marius Jacob Group. responsible of the Italian branch of the Anarchist in the death of four people. His intentions were to Black Cross) regarding the Piazza Fontana hit the authorities present at the celebration in 31.03.69: Rome, TNT bomb at the Courthouse, bombing, including Calabresi, were put under order to get revenge for Pinelli’s death. He was signed by Anarchist International Marius Jacob investigation in 1971 for his death, but legal sentenced with a life sentence and released on Group. proceeding concluded it was due to accidental probation after 21 years of prison; his whole life he reaffirmed his being an individualist anarchist 03.04.69: Turin, bomb at the Memorial to causes. Calabresi was killed by two shots from a and the reasons of his gesture, denying the Carabiniere, signed by Anarchists. gun outside his home in 1972. In 2004 the Italian President awarded the gold medal for civil merit to allegations of being a fascist manipulated by 25.04.69: Milan, bombs at the FIAT stand at the the memory to commissioner, and the Pope Paul intelligence agencies, made by the magistrates Fair Trade and at the currency exchange office in VI declared him “servant of God”, martyr of and the media, and by a part of the same Central Station. justice. anarchist movement. 102. I light a cigarette that I sloppily rolled “When the attacks are seen as an individual duty, the task of every anarchist, myself. I stand in front of the house where I we are all converted into militants or hypocrites. When all the aspects of our struggle are live in an European metropole. A catholic equally valued, the one who is not cut out for being a warrior need not boast or front a church faces me in defiance from the tough image. The partisans struggled as a community, and everyone had a role depending opposite side of the street. The cigarette no on their abilities. We must do the same. The acts of destruction must come from the longer raises the quality of my life, it is now collective body and go back to it. They should be formulated to restore the dignity of the as much a part of my everyday life as was the strip-searches in prison. whole body, not just that of the individual perpetrator or the brand name of the spectacular clandestine cell they belong to. They should be celebrated by the whole community, I can never speak for anyone else without bringing everyone back to life.” – Lev Zlodey & Jason Radegas committing a most horrific crime to myself, I can always only speak from my own 10. In Italy, before the Red Brigades [ed. – Anarchist Federation, participating in the drawing experiences, my contradicting interests and authoritarian Marxist­Leninist armed group], it was up of an anarcho­communist program. After the desires. the anarchists who used the method of outburst of [the Spanish] revolution in the July of kidnapping as a mean of political pressure. At the 1936, she is taking part in the struggle against the The prison that I was defying 29th of September 1962 some young anarchists, putschists of Francisco Franco. At the 4th of The prison that I was defying in a quite improvised way, kidnapped in Milan the November 1936, she becomes one of the four when I was lighting a cigarette Spanish vice consul Isu Elias, to demand the ministers of CNT in the new government of Largo with a battery and a piece of steel commutation of the death penalty for their Caballero: Juan Garcia Oliver gets to the Ministry comrade of FIJL in Spain, who was destined to of Justice, Juan Peiro to the Ministry of Industry, wool, is the same prison that I the garrotte. The goal was achieved: the life of the Juan Lopez Sanchez to the Ministry of Commerce defy when I today choose to act young anarchist was saved. Then, at the 1st of and Montseny to the Ministry of Health. At the end for myself, for my liberation and May 1966, they kidnapped the Spanish councilor of revolution, she and her partner Germinal of the embassy in Rome, the prelate Marcos Esgleas were forced into exile in France, where to be able to live together with Ussia (see footnote 5). she was arrested and released by the Vichy other free individuals. This is not government, she managed to avoid her extradition a prison with a given name or a 11. Eliane Vincileone and Giovanni Corradini, to Spain, becoming one of the most important editors of "Materialismo e Libertà" [transl. – representatives of the CNT in exile, and of the specific place to find for Materialism & Freedom], published in 1963 as “a “immobilist” component among the Iberian confrontation. It is a prison that I periodical of actions and libertarian studies” in just anarchists. three issues. They both had contacts at see us all living in. international level, with FIJL and other militant 17. About that see Gianfranco Bertoli – by Alfredo anarchists. They were arrested for bombs in Fair Maria Bonanno, "Carteggio 1998­2000" The shapes it takes are so many and its Trade, the 25th of April, and released at the 7th of guises are so different but what they all have 18. ed. – Named after Max, 1865–1944 anarchist December 1969 due the lack of evidence. The in common is that they are substantialized as historian and student of the Welsh language. couple had bonds of friendship with the publisher soon as you try to approach the spontaneous, Giangiacamo Fertinelli, and their names will the wordless, the immediate, the unmediated appear several times in the investigations and in the information files of that time. Vincileone was THE WAR OVER MY LIFE – that, which is your life. There are many among the anarchists under arrest at the police [ed. – By an anonymous Swedish comrade, different names for this prison – shame, HQ in Milan when Pinelli was murdered. included for its slightly more thoughtful treatment justification, obligation, duty, obedience - of attack and rebellion in the course of one's life.] that all are deriving from the same source, 12. ed. – Notoriously authoritarian Marxist which is, to be ruled by someone else's guerrilla leader, important in the Cuban revolution. The battery feels cold against my interests. 13. ed. – Named after 1879­1954 anarchist fingertips. I stop grubbing about in the desk member of 'Workers of the Night' expropriators. drawer. Slowly the filter of the cigarette The prison walls most simple to aim ones arsenal at, are of course the ones right in 14. transl. – Pietro Valpreda frequented the pastes itself onto my lips. The thread of steel “Bakunin Circle” in Rome, before founding with wool from the workshop is diligently front of us. Whether it be a local cop station, several friends the “22 March Circle”. He was prepared with the eyes and the fit for the a company or one of the state institutions arrested following the December 12th 1969 Piazza battery. Solemnly I construct the that so innocently, through hard paper work, Fontana bombing, and his name was splashed smouldering gear. First at the positive pole. administrate our life circumstances. across the media as “the monster of Piazza Important that the smouldering point, the Fontanta”. For three years he languished in jail eye, is proper. And so the other end follows But what then is a demolished wall when awaiting trial. In 1972 he was released pending a at the negative pole. The smouldering you later finance its reconstruction with the trial, thanks to the so called “Valpreda law” taxes you pay from the work that has been introducing limitation to pretrial detention even in appears quickly. Hurriedly the tobacco filled the case of very serious crimes. In order to mouth of the cigarette meets the glowing more or less imposed on you? When, after achieve the release due to the parliamentary eye. Puff. Puff. The cigarette is lit. The smell all, there is yet another wall and yet another immunity, the “Manifesto” nominated Valpreda in of burned metal, battery acid and tobacco still... behind the first one? parliament elections, but he did not reach the smoke. It is past lockup. I'm really not the quorum. The Italian judiciary took 18 years to smoker type, I'm doing the snuff but then Attack is a splendid act but is so easily conclude that Valpreda was acquitted for lack of again the forbidden smoking ritual... A institutionalized into becoming yet another evidence. He died in 2002. heretic ritual. A spit in the face of the unreflected part of ones administrated 15. The Anarchist Black Cross was formed in Italy, correctional institution... a manifestation of everyday life's constitution. The attack is Milan, in the first months of 1969, partly thanks to a fervent need within me, to refuse that indeed an act of self-defense when it is federated anarchist groups, in order to support the uniform which they are trying to impose on aimed from a slave to a ruler but how long anarchist prisoners. One of the most important me. It raises the quality of life... are we gonna act like slaves, how long are promoters of this initiative was Giuseppe Pinelli. we gonna defend ourselves? How long are The Italian branch published even a bulletin, of 9 issues from June 1969 till April 1971.

16. Federica Montseny (Madrid 1905 – Toulouse 1994) began her militant activity in CNT, alongside with her parents, Catalan anarchist, creators of "La Revista Blanca" in 1898. In 1936 she is present at the local committee of CNT and at the committee of the peninsula, of the Iberian 103. we gonna let our ideas – our passions and heart's desires has, that my passions wills – give in to the fear of really becoming and ideas has, is just one big self- a threat to the ruling interests? When do we delusion. To confuse them means in quit our roles as submitted and start acting this case to hand over my arms to the with the self-confidence of one who lacks State, in one self-loathing weapons masters? When do we stop believing in amnesty. To hang up my boots and be change and start to destroy the foundation of pleased with the existence this society this prison, that surrounds us all from first offers me. This means to not feed breath to the last? myself with the lie that I can live a life on my own terms within this society. We can only be ruled so far as we allow ourselves to be. It might sound cynical but it To never compromise means to never is at the same time a statement hard to stop fighting as long as my freedom “If we take a look back at our normality, we see disarm. Ultimately: the one who rather and my life is being restricted and that direct violence from the State and its chooses to die than to bow before a master, ruled by someone else. institutions is not the most freedom-killing one, is in no way better or worse than any other but rather carries with it a catalytic potential for individual – disgusting moralist values don't The gate opens slowly. The sun makes revolt. No, the worst of all, and what could make belong here – but what we can say is that it me peer. On the parking lot the hacks' the most freedom-committed of individuals rot dies as itself. It chooses to die of and for cars are reflecting the sun in their away in a concrete landscape, is the itself, for its will to live completely in shiny paint. The air above the asphalt bureaucratically administrated power: the Job accordance to its own passions, needs and is rippling. It smells of freshly mowed desires. It chooses to die rather than to serve lawn and elder. My clothes are so last Centre, the Tax office, the Social Insurance someone else's interests. autumn's fashion and way too warm. Authority, the Social Security Administration, the The sweat is pushing through my Migration Authority, the Prison Institution, the Most people continue, however, barely eyelids. They say that if you turn Juvenile Office, the Bailiffs and all of their living, to kill themselves for someone else's around, you will come back. I turn capitalist collaborators (career coaching firms, interests. Few are of course the ones who around in defiance, smile and reach asylum entrepreneurs, debt collectors, “child wish to die but, confronted with the out a long finger. I think a bit about entrepreneurs”, etc.). Together with the morals possibility to really live, will they dare to the time that has passed. A tear enforced by society, telling us how to act and take the chance? appears in my eye but soon what our obligations are as slaves; religious and disappears into the sweat. The smile patriarchal structures in families and local expands. I turn back again, let go of What does it really mean to live in communities… You should want to work, but no what I have in my hands and constant hostility with the existent, one wants to hire you. You get a job, but you’re with the state, with the interests cartwheel over the baking-hot asphalt. Soon my ride arrives with not paid any money. You are promised asylum, that tries to rule me? Put aside the loud music through the rolled-down but in the end you still have to go underground. rather exciting taste it gives as the windows... You are supposed to be eager to learn, but your words roll out of the mouth, it is of intelligence is defamed. It should come as no course something that receives a Constantly enriched of experiences in surprise that, because of all this, a hatred towards new answer every time a comrade the struggle against the existent, from the existent is formulated, and conscious steps asks herself [sic] that question. one prison to another, I throw myself are taken to attack it. Rather it is worrying that so with a fighting spirit in to the war many keep submitting to these social relations.” For me, this means to never become over my life! – Concerning the Rågsved Riots comfortable in the circumstances that the rulers create for us – circumstances they create in an illusory exchange for our submission. I enjoy life as much as I can but I never sink so far into the sofa that I can't get up again.

This means that my everyday life does not only consist of pure survival, or to “take care of myself” according to the latest fashion, or to achieve something that does not correspond with my passions, dreams, needs and wishes, may they be social or societal expectations or obligations.

For me this means a constant conflictuality with my current existence, which is to say, with the interests that try to rule my life. This means the active search for the materialization of my anti-authoritarian rage and opportunities for confrontation with all the structures that maintain this society.

This means to never compromise with these structures. To never fall for the promises of change, accommodation, negotiation or improvement. For my basic survival I do of course need to make practical compromises but to confuse them with the place that my 104. Here, society at large, smiling a sigh of relief & giving a knowing ' FORM DEFINES CONTENT ' nod, no longer sees them as lost children; having got it out of their system: they’ve grown up & accepted the responsibility to be truly [ed. – From a 2008 letter from anarchist then-prisoner Eric McDavid who effective in the world (please re-read that; how many rationalize walked away from a career to peruse ecological direct action (see Return their choices/actions by adhering to those loaded terms and Fire vol.1 pg70); in January 2015, after serving 9 years, he was released.] concepts, consciously or not). ‘Form defines content’ is a hard To those familiar with debates, it’s known that when one side lesson to learn, and regardless of the intent that initiates a career, a establishes the terms to be used, it’s only a matter of time before change of priorities is inevitable: concessions are made. Through they’ve won the match – the other views have conceded to that this a distance is maintained (activist vs. ‘those in need’) – fortified particular frame of reference/mind-set which leads to a particular by a colonialist based behavior [ed. – see Return Fire vol.3 pg67] outcome. i found it curious (to say the least) that so many that has nurtured a divide & conquer loop-hole which only we can adhered to the given definition of freedom shoved in front of close. The safety net which rides along in the back pocket of the them. What is your definition of freedom at this moment? How are privileged becomes a web that bears it’s own poison. you to share it with others without it being explored by & for yourself? Whose definitions do you with to utilize in perceiving And where do the costs arise? your reality? When that is given up, what occurs? Within this No matter what choices we make, we’re always allowed back into constellation, what are the benefits of exploration? & the the fold. The deeper the deviation, the trespass: the higher the toll repercussion of leaving it obscured? for return. Actually at that point, the cost is irrelevant (made stark [Sorry, this following bit of constructive criticism may be hard for by some of the G.S. ['Green Scare'; see Return Fire vol.4 pg83] some to digest] cases) because all that matters is the return to comfort: that familiar (given level of) freedom. And who couldn’t relate to the choices Another aspect of this undoing feels like it’s been manifesting itself made? We’ve been shown repeatedly the outcome: “it’s only for some time by the way the (anarchist/radical) community [sic] natural.” has been/is received by the larger communities [sic] with which it comes into contact & interacts (please forgive the generalizations). From my perspective the type of Death we’re Dancing with here is The folks who have lived within those communities for generations the fear of letting go – letting go of what we’ve been taught have seen time & again how “energetic youth” (be it from schools, (programmed) defines us – that which we are to hold most sacred. churches, radical groups, etc.) come in to make a change – perhaps What are the definitions which define your reality? What choices gaining some window dressings here & there; but soon most end up do they open before you? And which are closed? What unfolds leaving & making way for another up & coming generation of because of those choices? exuberance. The majority of those who leave go on to some form of schooling in order to “use the system for good.” So many, falling Basically: How do you wish to Live your Life? back on to careers after they’ve earned their credentials as activists.

elements, the craftsman for so long as he have developed and could not continue to The Tyranny of the felt it necessary to perfect his product. Time exploit the workers, the clock represents an was seen in a process of natural change, element of mechanical tyranny in the lives Clock and men [sic] were not concerned in its of modern men more potent than any [ed. – By George Woodcock; first published in exact measurement. For this reason individual exploiter or any other machine. It 'War Commentary: For Anarchism', March 1944] civilisations highly developed in other is valuable to trace the historical process by respects had the most primitive means of which the clock influenced the social In no characteristic is existing society in measuring time, the hour glass with it's development of modern European the West so sharply distinguished from the trickling sand or dripping water, the sundial, civilisation. earlier societies, whether of Europe or the useless on a dull day, and the candle or East, than in its conception of time. To the lamp whose unburnt remnant of oil or wax It is a frequent circumstance of history ancient Chinese or Greek, to the Arab indicated the hours. All these devices where that a culture or civilisation develops the herdsman or Mexican peon of today, time is approximate and inexact, and were often device which will later be used for its represented in the cyclic processes of rendered unreliable by the weather or the destruction. The ancient Chinese, for nature, the alternation of day and night, the personal laziness of the tender. Nowhere in example, invented gunpowder, which was passage from season to season. The the ancient or medieval world were more developed by the military experts of the nomads and farmers measured and still than a tiny minority of men concerned with West and eventually led to the Chinese measure their day from sunrise to time in the terms of mathematical civilisation itself being destroyed by the high sunset, and their year in terms of the exactitude. explosives of modern warfare. Similarly, the seedtime and harvest, of the falling leaf supreme achievement of the ingenuity of and the ice thawing on the lakes and Modern, Western man, however lives in a the craftsmen in the medieval cities of rivers. The farmer worked according to the world which runs according to the Europe was the invention of the mechanical mechanical and clock, which, with it's revolutionary alteration mathematical symbols of of the concept of time, materially assisted clock time. The clock the growth of exploiting capitalism and the dictates his movements destruction of medieval culture. and inhibits his actions. The clock turns time There is a tradition that the clock appeared from a process of nature in the eleventh century, as a device for into a commodity that ringing bells at regular intervals in the can be measured and monasteries which, with the regimented life bought and sold like they imposed on their inmates, were the soap or sultanas. And closest social approximation in the middle because, without some ages to the factory of today. The first means of exact time authenticated clock, however, appeared in keeping, industrial the thirteenth century, and it was not until capitalism could never the fourteenth century that clocks became 105. common ornaments of the public buildings The new capitalists, in particular, became the strain of having to work to time in the German cities. rabidly time­conscious. Time, here schedules, all contribute to digestive symbolising the labour of workers, was and nervous disorders, to ruin health These early clocks, operated by weights, regarded by them almost as if it were the and shorten life. were not particularly accurate, and it was chief raw material of industry. 'Time is not until the sixteenth century that any great money' became on of the key slogans of Nor does the financial imposition of reliability was obtained. In England, for capitalist ideology, and the timekeeper regularity tend, in the long run, to greater instance the clock at Hampton Court, made was the most significant of the new types of efficiency. Indeed, the quality of the product in 1540, is said to have been the first official introduced by the capitalist is usually much poorer, because the accurate clock in the country. And even the dispensation. employer, regarding time as a commodity accuracy of the sixteenth century clocks are which he has to pay for, forces the operative relative, for they were only equipped with In the early factories the employers went so to maintain such a speed that his work must hour hands. The idea of measuring time in far as to manipulate their clocks or sound necessarily be skimped. Quantity rather minutes and seconds had been thought out their factory whistles at the wrong times in than quality becomes the criterion, the by the early mathematicians as far back as order to defraud their workers a little of this enjoyment is taken out of work itself, and the fourteenth century, but it was not until valuable new commodity. Later such the worker in his turn becomes a 'clock­ the invention of the pendulum in 1657 that practices became less frequent, but the watcher', concerned only when he will be sufficient accuracy was attained to permit influence of the clock imposed a regularity able to escape to the scanty and the addition of a minute hand, and the on the lives of the majority of men which monotonous leisure of industrial society, second hand did not appear until the had previously been known only in the in which he 'kills time' by cramming in as eighteenth century. These two centuries, it monastery. Men actually became like much time­scheduled and mechanised should be observed, were those in which clocks, acting with a repetitive regularity enjoyment of cinema, radio and capitalism grew to such an extent that it which had no resemblance to the rhythmic newspapers as his wage packet and his was able to take advantage of the life of a natural being. They became, as the tiredness allow. Only if he is willing to industrial revolution in technique in Victorian phrase put it, 'as regular as accept of the hazards of living by his faith or order to establish its domination over clockwork'. Only in the country districts his wits can the man without money avoid society. where the natural lives of animals and living as a slave to the clock. plants and the elements still dominated life, The clock, as Lewis Mumford has pointed did any large proportion of the population The problem of the clock is, in general, out, represents the key machine of the fail to succumb to the deadly tick of similar to that of the machine. Mechanical machine age, both for its influence on monotony. time is valuable as a means of co­ordination technology and its influence on the habits of of activities in a highly developed society, men. Technically, the clock was the first At first this new attitude to time, this new just as the machine is valuable as a means really automatic machine that attained any regularity of life, was imposed by the clock­ of reducing unnecessary labour to the importance in the life of men. Previous to its owning masters on the unwilling poor. The minimum. Both are valuable for the invention, the common machines were of factory slave reacted in his spare time by contribution they make to the smooth such a nature that their operation depended living with a chaotic irregularity which running of society, and should be used on some external and unreliable force, such characterised the gin­sodden slums of early insofar as they assist men to co­operate as human or animal muscles, water or wind. nineteenth century industrialism. Men fled to efficiently and to eliminate monotonous toil It is true that the Greeks had invented a the timeless world of drink or Methodist and social confusion. But neither should be number of primitive automatic machines, inspiration. But gradually the idea of allowed to dominate mens lives as they do but these where used, like Hero's steam regularity spread downwards among the today. engine, for obtaining 'supernatural' effects in workers. Nineteenth century religion and the temples or for amusing the tyrants of morality played their part by proclaiming Now the movement of the clock sets the Levantine cities. But the clock was the first the sin of 'wasting time'. The introduction tempo men's lives ­ they become the automatic machine that attained a public of mass­produced watches and clocks in servant of the concept of time which they importance and a social function. Clock­ the 1850's spread time­consciousness themselves have made, and are held in making became the industry from which among those who had previously merely fear, like Frankenstein by his own men learnt the elements of machine making reacted to the stimulus of the knocker­up or monster. In a sane and free society such and gained the technical skill that was to the factory whistle. In the church and in the an arbitrary domination of man's functions produce the complicated machinery of the school, in the office and the workshop, by either clock or machine would obviously industrial revolution. punctuality was held up as the greatest of be out of the question. The domination of the virtues. man by the creation of man is even more Socially the clock had a more radical ridiculous than the domination of man by influence than any other machine, in that it Out of this slavish dependence on man. Mechanical time was the means by which the regularisation mechanical time which spread would be relegated to and regimentation of life necessary for an insidiously into every class in the its true function of a exploiting system of industry could best be nineteenth century there grew up means of attained. The clock provided the means by the demoralising regimentation reference and which time – a category so elusive that no of life which characterises co­ordination, philosophy has yet determined its nature – factory work today. The and men would could be measured concretely in more man who fails to conform return again to tangible forms of space provided by the faces social disapproval a balance view circumference of a clock dial. Time as and economic ruin. If he of life no duration became disregarded, and men is late at the factory the longer began to talk and think always of 'lengths' of worker will lose his job or dominated by time, just as if they were talking of lengths even, at the present day the worship of of calico. And time, being now measurable [1944 – while wartime the clock. in mathematical symbols, became regarded regulations were in force], Complete liberty as a commodity that could be bought and find himself in prison. implies freedom from sold in the same way as any other Hurried meals, the regular the tyranny of abstractions commodity. morning and evening as well as from the rule of men. scramble for trains or buses, 106. Turkey, that has been brought to the PIRATES VS. CORSAIRS! world's eyes for the worst reasons [ed. – see Return Fire vol.3 pg97], may became [ed. – Privateers (French ones of the Breton port This May 11th super methane vessel La a member of the European Union. of St. Malo being the first known as corsairs), Mancha Knutsen, transporting LNG [Liquid According to a European Parliament report while using similar methods to pirates, were Natural Gas] for Fenosa Natural Gas, of of 2014: “while US has an abundant supply licensed by a State, such as the notorious Sir Spain, was attacked by pirates in the Francis Drake of the British Empire or the of cheap gas from the “Shale Revolution” Barbary Corsairs of the Ottoman Empire; in Guinean Gulf, south from Nigeria. [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg14], the EU remains dependent on gas imports. comparison to the general historical view (rightly According to the maritime website Maritime or wrongly) of pirates of that era as being Ukraine's crisis raised concerns around Herald, the methane vessel was harried by lawless, cross­racial and anti­hierarchical.] [2] another boat with at least seven armed the security of Europe's gas supply . men on board. After the alarm sounded, Europe is well connected to its main the vessel's captain had to take evasive suppliers through a network of pipelines, maneuvers to stop pirates boarding. The but there are plans for new pipelines to pirates shot against the vessel's tower, but transport gas from the Caspian Region in the end gave up and went back to the [ed. – see Return Fire vol.2 pg83], and land without hurting anybody or causing later perhaps from Iraq and Iran crossing material damage. Unlike how companies Turkey and Italy.” are used to working nowadays, this vessel didn't carry any security guards. These plans are an alternative for the gas supply from Russia to Europe, that saw its La Mancha Knutsen left Aliaga's harbour, construction of a new pipeline that would “I will defend France, its vital interests, its in Turkey. The ship belongs to the connect the Balkans and Austria denied for image, its message. And I make thisimage, its message. And I make this consortium Trygve Seglkem and to NYK, disrespecting European Union's trade commitment before you: I will defend and has been constructed by Hyunday rules. Europe, the community of destinies that Heavy Industries in South Korea. gave itself upon the people of this continent. Its our civilization that is at stake. Our way of being free.” – Emmanuel Macron, 2017 inaugurationinauguration speech as French President

France is one of the European countries that is most interested in the trade of natural gas imported to Europe, because they will be one of the biggest distributors, and also because France is one of the strongest countries in the European Union and NATO. France's new presidential speech lets us foresee an iron freedom. “Our way of being free” never was, and still isn't, in relation to other people outside the “community of destinies” free from moral, ethical and technological superiority. We “In our times, piracy, which was never eradicated but has long remained confined in constructed our civilization in ways that the archipelagoes of southeast Asia, is seeing a revival in several poorly controlled depend on energy sources, which are maritime zones of the planet, notably Africa [ed. – also on rivers like the Brazilian transforming this world environmentally Amazon; and the Serbian and Romanian stretches of the Danube, within the and socially. The main global energy source pushed to the 21st Century is European Union...]. But it is what is raging off the Somali coast that has recently non­conventional natural gas, and caused the most losses and disruption, and has kept the media’s attention. Once Europe is betting high in it's energetic again, myth finds its way into the story, and the journalists have sought to forge a independence. On a environmental level new malevolent figure, one who menaces the well being of western consumers in the debate is everywhere. What about the upsetting petroleum and merchandise imports produced in countries with extremely social level? The ocean bed will be the low wages: the Somali pirate, like the eastern barbarian, is driven not by political or future depositary of natural resources to be religious fanaticism but by the even more vile lure of money. So, looking closely at explored on a large scale by what is really going on with the pirates of the Horn [of Africa], at their motivations multinationals, from energy sources to and their practices, it’s actually the myth of David and Goliath that comes to mind: minerals like lithium or copper, and their cause, which is just short of being universal, comes largely out of self-defense organisms for biotech [ed. – see Return against the voracity of the powerful[...] there aren’t very many of them and they have Fire vol.1 pg31]. Europe is prepared. What little to eat; their means, particularly their weapons, are ridiculous; the highly diverse about the “others”? coalition of their enemies controls the world empire – more particularly the seas – and has incomparable technical mastery of naval combat. As this aspect of things In 2016 NATO stated that the inevitably became more clear – despite the dissimulation or the lies of the military- Operation “Ocean Shield” was industrial complex’s parrots, and at the risk of tarnishing the glory of the brave completed with success. Initiated in gendarmes of the sea – the public powers and their media relays have 2008, the objective of the operation progressively de-dramatized their discussion of the Somali pirates.” was to protect shipping from pirates – Brethren of the Coast in the Western Indian Ocean, off the Somalian coast[1]. But... 107. “If Turkey's membership fails, this will due been exploited by the rest of the world. Fishing 20,000 ships pass there annually. The industrialised to the Turkish, not European, lack of will to trawlers from Europe, North America and Asia have world simply cannot allow the population of a country been helping themselves to the huge fishing grounds without a real government to have any form of control apply to European standards.” off the 3,300 kilometre coast of Somalia. In its peak, over the shipping routes. [...] There is more to be (Jean­Claude Juncker, President of this IUU trade (Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated) in poached from Somalia than just fish. Large oil and European Commission, to German Somalia generated some US$300 million annually gas reserves, as well as iron ore and aluminium are newspaper Bild). for the first world [sic], according to calculations by suspected, and exploitation of a uranium mine is the UN. This is a world­wide problem, and the UN under way. [These are the reasons] why every The methane vessel will be the first of four estimates that about one in five fish consumed country wants to be involved in the ‘battle against LNG Knutsen boats that will deliver natural worldwide is fished illegally. The pirates come in piracy’” ('Pirates' vs Pirates: Somalia Through the gas, where the vast majority is fracked gas large fishing trawlers from rich countries (who have Eyes of a German Court). [3] long ago depleted their own fishing grounds), to Spain , coming from the LNG Sanine registered under flags of convenience of countries 2. ed. – Europe's main gas supplies from Russia run Pass of Cheniere Energy, Louisiana, USA. who never signed any agreements on fishery quota. through Ukraine. An uprising in 2014 against the The delivery is one of hundreds expected The depletion of what was once described as ‘a then­President comprised nationalist/fascist factions, to happen starting in August of this year as rainforest of fish’ soon removed the livelihood of the those wanting to join the European Union, anarchists, supporters of the Russian colonial part of a contract of 20 years. According to coastal population of Somalia[...] The industrialised countries also discovered another use of the Somali powers of the country, elite factions and many others the website thefreeinline.wordpress, some waters: as a giant waste dump. Ever since the (during weeks of bloody combat, in Kiev alone at shipments arrived before the period London Convention of 1993 banned the dumping of least 88 people were killed within the span of 48 stipulated by La Mancha Knutsen. The waste on sea, industrialised countries have been hours, many shot by snipers on the roofs of contract to import natural gas from the looking for a way out. Greenpeace reports of ships government buildings), ending with Russia annexing the Crimean Peninsular and battling Ukrainian company Fenosa Natural Gas from the cruising the oceans for years, trying to find a ‘suitable’ place to dispose of their cargo. While the troops, and neo­liberals in power in Kiev. From 'The USA is similar to Energias de Portugal's disposal of a tonne of toxic chemical waste in Europe Ukrainian Revolution & the Future of Social contract. costs more than €200, dumping the shit in Somali Movements': “The events in Ukraine must be waters costs as little as €2, so the economic understood as part of the same global trajectory of incentive is obvious. For radioactive waste the ratio is revolt as the Arab Spring, the plaza occupations in even steeper. Organised with the help of the Italian Spain, Occupy, and the Gezi uprising in Turkey. This Mafia, pretty much every European is not good news. In each of the previous examples, country got rid of their unwanted initial police repression caused a single­issue protest waste this way for years. Other to metastasize into a generalized uprising, countries, like Australia joined in. transforming a square in the heart of the capital into The extent of this scheme was a fiercely defended urban autonomous zone. This literally uncovered during the tsunami seemed to offer a new political model, in which of 2004, when hundreds of rusted people cohere around tactics rather than parties or barrels were washed up along the ideologies. (It is telling indeed that Occupy was coast of Somalia, poisoning many named for a tactic rather than a goal.) All these people. [...] With little fish to catch, revolts could be broadly interpreted as reactions to some of the out­of­ work fishermen the consequences of capitalism, though anti­ decided to take matters into their austerity proved too narrow a frame: Turkey and own hands and started their own Brazil saw protests over the effects of ascendant Civilization and Europe's heart have ‘coast guard’ operations. They stopped foreign economies, not recessions. [...] A few years ago, it fishing vessels and demanded money from their was possible to hope that the coming insurrections been attacked by pirates, terrorists and owners to compensate for the fish they had taken. As would be a naturally fertile ground for anarchist refugees. The pirates and terrorists are the new Somali coast guard became successful, resistance. Now it is clear that, although anarchists the ones that couldn't seek refuge; they others copied the business model. Regular trade can find new affinities within them, nationalists can are all hostage of a global system that vessels were hijacked and ransom was demanded. capitalize upon them just as easily. This may be an According to reports by Reuters from December inherent problem with movements that cohere feeds civil wars at their homelands, 2009, a stock exchange system has been set up in around tactics, and it poses serious strategic using them as human resources there Haradheere. A former pirate at the time said: ‘[Four questions to anarchists. [...] What had been a purely or in another place in the world. The months ago] we decided to set up this stock symbolic conflict over space with Occupy became pirates, former fishermen, saw the sea exchange. We started with 15 “maritime companies” full­on paramilitary urban warfare in Ukraine. By taking the front lines in confronting the authorities, become the dump of the Western garbage, and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking. The shares are open to nationalists and fascists have won themselves toxic garbage that killed all fish that used to all and everybody can take part, whether personally legitimacy as “defenders of the people” that will [4] feed them . Forced by hunger or many at sea or on land by providing cash, weapons or serve them for many years to come. Surely fascists other times by armed paramilitary groups useful materials... we’ve made piracy a community around the world have been watching, and will be with Western technology, they started to activity.’ [...] No warships ever stopped the poachers emboldened to try the same thing elsewhere when the opportunity arises. Fascists, too, are plugged into work in exchange for a reward of the ship's or the ships with poisonous waste. Instead, Somalia was declared a ‘failed state’ and simply written off. a global imaginary; we ignore this at our peril. [...] goods. On the ships, pirates and the ship's Only once the Somali population started defending Identifying ourselves, via word or deed, merely as crew fight against each other but they have themselves, did the rest of the world react. As soon antagonists is not clear enough when we are not the the same goal: survive and go back to their as ‘free trade’ was threatened, the rich countries only antagonists of the ruling powers. Our opposition homes. Deciding what will be the destiny of decided to gang up and deploy warships [ed. – to all hierarchy and domination must be remaining fishers have been shot and killed by Italian communicated in everything we say and do; both (depending on the ship's cargo and Russian naval guards under suspicion of being otherwise, we risk bolstering a reactionary interest) are the Masters, emperors and pirates, and in 2012 European Union troops were opposition.” their heirs (i.e. Capital); the pirates' and authorised to fire on 'pirate positions' on land; see crew's destiny was mixed, but the destiny Return Fire vol.3 pg35]. The Horn of Africa is one of 3. It's not known yet where the natural gas delivery the world’s busiest shipping routes — more than will take place. Barcelona's refinery is the more likely of the corsairs working for the empires was to be chosen due to its large storage capacity. But exactly like they teach in school: Fraternity; this is only one of the seven refineries adapted to Equality; Liberty! [ed. – 'enlightened' treat and distribute gas in Spain. watchwords of the French Revolution that 4. ed. – “The fishing industry is the clearest example brought the bourgeoisie to power; see 'The [of actual luddite wars in the 'third world']. Those Matter of Knowing Who We Are'] (i.e. using older boats and nets and maintaining the Globalization). ecology of their areas over centuries have sometimes been forced to literally ambush and burn the mechanized trawlers brought in by modern 1. ed. – “Ever since Somali dictator Siad Barre was industries and states to 'improve productivity'. This toppled in 1991, the country has been in a civil war. particular war has taken place all over Asia's The ‘Transitional Federal Government’ that is in shorelines, till governments have been forced to place controls merely a few blocks in the capital demarcate areas for the operations of the two Mogadishu. The absence of a real government has different sciences” (Western Science and Violence). 108. FRAUD, FANTASY, & FICTION IN ENVIRONMENTAL WRITING / 'THE INVENTION OF THE TRIBE' / Q

invalid or nonexistent. To say that a Fraud, F antasy & particular area of forest is populated by certain species or is rich in certain F iction in chemical elements, for example, may be correct; but it is a very impoverished E nvironmental expression of what the forest is in its W riting entirety. While the first version of truth aspires to express this entirety ([Martin] Heidegger's aletheia, or 'unconcealment'), Introduction: the second version, 'correctness', merely Environmental 'Frauds' maps it onto a particular system of Over the past century, there have been understanding, and then in turn, re­ several enthusiastically embraced imposes this understanding onto the world. accounts of environmental lore that have If we insist on the reality of those qualities eventually been recognized as less than that tend to be ignored by merely 'correct' entirely authentic. Among the most well descriptions, then we are forced to look for known and less obviously concocted of means of expressing them other than the these is the case of 'Chief Seattle's forms of science that have been speech' – a homily of ecological wisdom conscripted into the cause of industrial that turned out to have been written not by growth. There are clear implications here the chief of the Suquamish himself, but for the sort of world that results from our rather by Ted Perry, a white University behavior, given our enormous professor, loosely based on what Seattle technological power; for qualities had been reported as saying.[1] A second scientifically plausible, politically unrecognizable by such sciences tend to case concerns the writings of 'Grey Owl', acceptable, and economically exploitable; have a limited life expectancy. Spirits and who claimed to have been born to an and as the world is physically gods once seemed real; and today not only Apache chief and a Scottish woman, and reconstructed through the application of ecosystems, but the idea of the ecosystem whose books about his life in the Canadian technology, so the first criterion of truth may be in danger of following them into wilderness enjoyed wide popularity in the seems to fade. For example, the statement oblivion. 1930's. He was later revealed as Archie that nature is 'a human creation' expresses Belaney, who was born in Hastings on the the growing skepticism in the industrialized There are implications, too, for our south coast of England and later adopted world that there is anything genuinely identities as human beings. If the world his chosen identity after emigrating to 'other', anything outside and beyond seems entirely rationally understandable, Canada. While these writings have often human action and human reason; and as then feeling, spirit, and emotion become simply been dismissed as fraudulent, their technological rationality colonizes the 'irrational' and therefore suspect. Of enormous popularity suggests that they world ideologically and physically, so such course, not all experience can be directly tapped into a deep­seated need among statements – which would have been taken as a valid guide to what is true or Euroamerican readers, and that this might viewed as absurd even 50 years ago – moral; and it is one of the tasks of a usefully be regarded as symptomatic of become increasingly accurate descriptions sophisticated culture to interpret and something that is denied in industrial of the way the world is. Thus the notion of articulate experience appropriately. A firm truth as founded in the character of a society. If a symptom can be regarded sense of identity needs to be grounded in a natural reality that is greater than the form both as the expression of a repressed world that is experienced as it might take within any particular cultural need and as an attempt to compensate complementing our senses, faculties, and system or era is giving way to the idea of for it, what is it that is repressed in the indwelling expectations; and this truth as reflecting the principles of one modern world, and how might it be experience motivates our intuition of the specific, technologically transformed world. In order to first version of truth, which grows out of our authentically expressed? This reflects a widespread but tacit explore these issues, I begin with a lengthy embodied resonance with those aspects of acceptance of the 'end of ideology' the natural world that we have interacted detour into the character of truth in modern hypothesis, implying that the sort of world society. with in the course of our evolutionary we live in today is the only possible world. history. Since we evolved as multi­sensory Given this 'idolatry of the actual', creatures, it is reasonable to assume that Truth, Correctness, & Identity ecologically sound lifestyles tend to be all our senses and faculties have a part to A truthful statement is commonly viewed as unrealistic, childish fantasies or play in forming our identities. What David understood either as one that accurately as harmless aberrations. And while Levin refers to as “the body's primordial refers to some transcendent property of intelligent, communicating, nonhuman and archaic attunement[…] its implicit the outside world or as one that is creatures are common in children's stories structures of pre­understanding [of] what is consistent with some consensual system and Hollywood science fiction, we are basically good, basically true, and basically of thought such as logic; or as some expected to leave them behind when we beautiful”[3] provides our fundamental moral combination of these. As modern humanity close the book or leave the cinema, and epistemological orientation. This first distances itself from the natural order and returning to a 'real' world that is version of truth accepts that although the encloses itself within a technologically increasingly bereft of such qualities. senses, along with intuition, feeling, and created realm, the emphasis is shifting instinct, provide us with meanings that may from the first of these criteria to the This shrinkage of the real toward a reified be difficult to articulate, they nevertheless second. Increasingly, truth is defined in present leads to the view that qualities that enable us to reach out to insights and terms of that subset of the real that is are inexpressible in scientific terms[2] are 109. forms of relation that are omitted by many intrinsic value. Nevertheless “they did not “In his 1936 essay The Storyteller, scientific models. believe that their feelings could be part of a Walter Benjamin focuses on the professional justification for not shooting transition from oral storytelling to the For example, Robert Ryan, in a study of the elephants. Given that such production of written novels. He writes: three urban natural areas in Ann Arbor, justifications were closed off for him, “The earliest symptom of a process Michigan, found that the more active users Douglas­Hamilton concluded that he was of an area developed a 'place­specific whose end is the decline of storytelling is supposed to find some facts that would attachment', protesting against proposed the rise of the novel at the beginning of independently justify this position so that changes, favoring minimal management modern times. What distinguishes the aesthetic considerations would not have to and a policy of letting nature take its be mentioned.” Truths expressible in the novel from the story [is] its essential course. Ryan notes the “very real sense of dependence on the book. The language of science are easily personal loss or grief when favorite natural [5] accepted. Truths that cannot be so dissemination of the novel became areas are changed or threatened by expressed may be constantly reborn in possible only with the invention of change”, emotions which are, however, the fringes of consciousness, but are printing. What can be handed on orally, “not always verbally expressed.” The also constantly extinguished when they the wealth of the epic, is of a different emotional relation to place, in a sense, was venture into the unsympathetic gaze of kind from what constitutes the stock in not merely an element of self, but reached the technological world. As a result of trade of the novel. What differentiates the beyond self to become a stabilizing force this repressive denial of our experience, novel from all other forms of prose within the ecosystem, suggesting a truth shrinks back towards correctness; potentially more integrated self­place literature [is] that it neither comes from and the resulting unease is interpreted as system. Writ large, this may be the nascent oral tradition nor goes into it. This individual pathology.[6] Visions of a healthy form of a natural process that is usually distinguishes it from storytelling in world based on felt truths and relations as stifled by forms of 'education' which particular. The storyteller takes what he well as on scientific knowledge are emphasize the detachment of self from tells from experience – his own or that conventionally seen as unrealistic world: a process of growing into the world, reported by others. And he in turn makes fantasies rather than possibilities to be so that identity is no longer simply it the experience of those who are worked towards; and so the corporate personal identity, but becomes that of the world replaces nature as the grounding listening to his tale.” Two things happen person­in­the­world.[4] This form of identity, basis of our lives. here: first, the power retained in the act of and its implications for ethics and storytelling is curtailed. To Walter epistemology, sits uncomfortably with our The 'Natural' in Industrial Society Benjamin, storytelling is a unique skill roles as consumers and workers; and it Nature in its entirety is vastly more that facilitates “the ability to exchange may embody a deeper truth that complex than the models we use to experiences” both between individuals transcends short­term industrialist realities. and inter-generationally. By extension, understand it [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 ]; and so while science offers us storytelling provides what he calls Truth defined in this way as not only pg30 powerful understanding, there are certain “counsel”, described as “less an answer scientifically understood, but also as aspects of nature that cannot be viewed to a question than a proposal concerning the sensed, felt expression of the forms through a scientific lens – as, I think, many the continuation of a story”. If wisdom that a healthy life in a healthy world might take, is only partly conscious and scientists would agree. In a discussion of is, as Benjamin writes, “counsel woven cartography, for example, Tim Ingold refers remains mostly at the level of 'gut into the fabric of real life,” then to the “discrepancy between truth and feelings' within modern society. storytelling is the practice by which accuracy[…] the more [we aim] to furnish particular social groups remain Frequently, the forms in which it is expressible are either marginalized or a precise and comprehensive autonomously in control of their own intrinsically suspect: poetry and film are representation of reality, the less true to life personal narratives and realities. The viewed as 'leisure' activities, licensed to this representation appears.” He continues: novel diverts this process, mediating self- depart temporarily from the important stuff “[In the cartographic world] all is still and determined storytelling and reflecting a of life such as share prices or genetic silent. There is neither sunlight nor more generalized modern logos. structures; and environmentalists are moonlight; there are no variations of light Secondly, the skill of storytelling falls rightly suspicious of religious or shade; no clouds, no shadows or out of practice, and the experiences of fundamentalisms, specious pseudo­ reflections. The wind does not blow, diverse peoples and generations are lost, sciences, or fanciful 'New Age' neither disturbing the trees nor whipping thus breaking the continuity of group- orientations. Sometimes, we feel the water into waves. No birds fly in the specific narratives. While the novel pressured to translate our felt sense of sky, or sing in the woods; forests and crystallizes the malleability of oral what is right into the language of science, pastures are devoid of animal life; houses storytelling, the rise of the information as Eugene Hargrove points out in referring and streets are empty of people and traffic. age goes one step beyond anything to Ian Douglas­Hamilton's study of the [To dismiss all this] is perverse, to say the least. For it is no less than the resembling a story, claiming “prompt attitudes of rangers in a stuff of life itself[...]” verifiability”, a form of communication Tanzanian national park. In this case, elephants where “no event any longer comes to us were demolishing Curiously, however, without already being shot through with most of the trees, scientific models explanation”. On the other hand, it is the and one obvious are often regarded exact lack of explanation that exemplifies course of action as incorporating the story, where it is “left up to [the was to cull the more accurate, individual] to interpret things the way he elephants. But deeper [or she] understands them, and thus the none of the understandings narrative achieves an amplitude that rangers wanted than the realities information lacks”.” to shoot the they describe. – Irreducibility Everlasting: elephants, Jean­Pierre Language and Control feeling that they Dupuy has had great pointed out that 110. the term 'model' in scientific discourse has cannot express, and in the repugnance we are taught that “every creature is specified a meaning opposite to that of everyday feel about the technological transformation in its essential nature through the bestowal speech. Normally, when we 'model' of nature. Our difficulty in articulating such of attributes passed down along lines of something, we produce a representation, feelings does not make them invalid, but descent, independently and in advance of an imitation of it; whereas a scientific tells us something about the narrowing its placement in the world.” Consequently, model “[enjoys] a transcendent position, conceptual frame within which we are “difference is rendered as diversity. Thus not unlike that of a Platonic Idea [ed. – see tacitly expected to locate not only 'external' living things are classified and compared 'The Matter of Knowing Who We Are'], nature, but also our own lives and [in] terms of intrinsic properties that they of which reality is only a pale imitation. [...] identities. As Leon Kass has argued: “[In are deemed to possess by virtue of It is at this point that the hierarchical crucial cases] repugnance is the emotional genealogical connection, irrespective of relation between the imitation and the expression of deep wisdom, beyond their positioning in relation to one another imitated comes to be inverted. Although reason's power fully to articulate it. Can in an environment.” A butterfly, we learn, is the scientific model is a human imitation of anyone really give an argument fully like a moth, but different to a buddleia. In nature, the scientist is inclined to regard it adequate to the horror which is father­ ecological systems, however, butterflies as a 'model' [for] nature. Thus nature is daughter incest (even with consent), or and moths have few significant taken to imitate the very model by which having sex with animals, or mutilating a relationships; while butterflies and man [sic] tries to imitate it.” corpse, or eating human flesh, or even just buddleias do. Our systems of (just!) raping or murdering another human classification, then, are selectively based in In other words, our understandings of being?[7] Would anybody's failure to give those specific natural characteristics that nature are claimed to be more real, more full rational justification for his or her we can recognize and cognitively order, basic, than the natural world they set out to revulsion at these practices make that and we tend to ignore those other less describe; and this suppresses all those revulsion ethically suspect? Not at all. On accessible natural characteristics that have qualities of nature that exist beyond the contrary, we are suspicious of those to do with relation and systemic science. While the domesticated world who think that they can rationalize away functioning. The conceptual structure of can, with some violence, be made our horror, say, by trying to explain the rational thought, in other words, diverges consistent with scientific understandings, enormity of incest with arguments only from and takes precedence over the the wild world is, literally, another story. about the genetic risks of inbreeding.” ecological structure of the natural world. Wilderness stretches away from us, extending beyond the horizon not only While scientific language offers us the As Steve Buchmann and Gary Nabhan of our vision, but also of our most powerful system of understanding the point out, a “biologically rich place is rich in understanding and our imagination. world has known, it is not a complete relationships as well as in species. That is what makes it so hard to define: understanding. A mature scientific Conversely, the loss of biodiversity is it is partly accessible, but also partly awareness should be ready to recognize always more than the simple loss of inaccessible. As Edward Abbey remarks, the limitations of science, and to draw – species; it is also the extinction of wilderness “means something lost and albeit critically and cautiously – on other ecological relationships.” This suggests something still present, something remote vehicles to convey and develop intuitions that the essence of a creature and at the same time intimate, something and feelings that are scientifically (including a human being), far from buried in our blood and nerves, something inexpressible. being defined just by innate beyond us and without limit.” In order to characteristics, may reside partly in its express some of what is beyond the Cognitive & Ecological Realities developing relational extensions into horizon of current understanding, we have Much of what we hint at when we refer to structures larger than itself. Just as the to embrace forms of communication such 'ecology' has to do with the emergent pink lady slipper orchid cannot reproduce as fiction and myth. Myth need not be in properties of large systems – those itself without being part of a larger opposition to reality, but can expand and properties that depend on, but are not structure that also includes the bumble deepen understanding so that it reaches reducible to, the properties of components bees that pollinate it, so humans are toward currently unrealized possibilities. of such systems. Similarly, much of what dependent on the cultural structures that As Robin Riddington explains in makes us human reflects the emergent according to [Clifford] Geertz “are not mere discussing Dunne­za mythologies: “In properties of cultural systems that are expressions, instrumentalities, or our thoughtworld, myth and reality are scientifically inexplicable and empirically correlates of our biological, psychological, opposites. Unless we can find some untestable. Rational understanding can and social existence; they are prerequisites way to understand the reality of mythic explain the behavior of individual cells of it.” Consequently, the silent but thinking, we remain prisoners of our fairly adequately, that of individual relentless dilapidation of cultural, social, own thoughtworld[...] the language of creatures rather less adequately, and that and ecological relations, although difficult Western social science assumes an of the larger systems we are part of hardly to quantify, is as devastating for us as the objective world independent of individual at all – which is why we have little absence of bumble bees is for the pink experience. The language of Indian stories comprehension of the direction our society lady slipper orchid. Adopting a relational assumes that objectivity can only be is heading in, and even less of the large­ identity, then, suddenly brings into focus approached through experience. A hunter scale ecological systems it is displacing. forms of damage that have previously encounters his game first in a dream, then Consequently, the most fundamental seemed ephemeral. Loss of community, of in physical reality. In the Indian issues of our time are precisely those extended family ties, of ecological thoughtworld, stories about talking animals we can articulate least clearly; and this relatedness, no longer seem less real than and stories about summer gatherings are largely accounts for our persistent biological damage; and terms such as a equally true because both describe attraction to cultural identities and texts 'broken heart' or an 'emotional wrench' personal experience. Their truths are which express more adequately our begin to appear less as metaphors than as complementary.” potential place within the natural world. descriptions of previously hidden realities. Ecological meanings that are becoming As soon as we learn to count and to Those emergent properties that we term endangered continue to exist in the categorize, we are cemented into a 'ecological', and that cognition finds difficult resonances evoked by the Seattle 'speech' cognitive system that organizes the world to cope with, tend to be omitted from our or in Grey Owl's words, in the properties of through conceptual similarities and definitions of both nature and humanity. nature that we sense experientially but differences. As Tim Ingold points out, we Today, the cult of individualism [ed. – see 111. Symbiogenetic Desire], fostered by evolves through ever greater complexity of 'personal growth', experiences of self as capitalism, has pushed any structures organization, including temporal undergoing profound transformations as larger than the 'things' we can see and organization; so while the basic we grow into larger systems are rare and identify to the periphery of what is components of life – say, molecules – often pathologized. As Anand Paranjpe cognitively acceptable. Just as “there is no remain the same, they become involved in notes, “one gets the impression that in such thing as society”[8], so ecosystems, increasingly complex patterns, processes, Western philosophy and psychology there supposedly, are no more than “transitory and cycles as we move towards more is a cultivated sense of aversion for any assemblages of biotic and abiotic inclusive levels of functioning. Defining a kind of personal transformation.” elements that exist (or could exist) person or other natural entity by their contingent upon accidents of fixed attributes rather than by the environmental history, evolutionary structures and processes they grow chance, human management, and the into during their lives puts a boundary theoretical perspective one applies to around the individual ego and denies define the boundaries”.[9] According to that growth can occur across this Donald Worster, when population boundary. If we assume that “persons ecologists look at a forest, they see “only embody certain attributes of appearance, trees. See them and count them – so temperament, and mentality by virtue of many white pines, so many hemlocks, so their ancestry, [and] these are passed on many maples and birches. They insist that in a form that is unaffected by the if we know all there is to know about the circumstances or achievements of their life individual species that constitute a forest, in the world”[12], then identity shrinks and can measure their lives in precise, towards our genetic and social origins, and quantitative terms, we will know all there is it becomes impossible to extend oneself to know about that forest. It has no into any cause, idea, or vision that extends 'emergent' or organismic properties. It is beyond one's own life. However, not some whole greater than the sum of its experience teaches us that if we work to parts, requiring 'holistic' understanding.” conserve wilderness, join a community, change our spiritual allegiances, or give As one population ecologist puts it, if birth, these changes affect who we are. ecosystems have properties that are more than the sum of their parts, then “the study Inherited attributes, rather than being taken Transformation & Authenticity of these systems should perhaps be as a starting point for growth and 'Grey Owl's' exposure as 'really' Archie carried out by theologians rather than transformation through participation, are all Belaney reflects this conventional view of scientists.”[10] Such views veto the scientific too often taken as boundary conditions for identity as largely predetermined. However study of emergent properties, which are identity. Our blindness to larger systems far removed Grey Owl's new lifestyle was viewed as unreal or even nonexistent, just carries with it a secondary blindness: that from the English cultural landscape, his as Thatcher's statement about the which prevents us from recognizing the accident of birth cast him as definitively nonexistence of society denies that we are possibilities of our own transformation English, and therefore restricted the defined partly by the structures we grow within these larger systems. As individuals, identity choices available to him. The into and participate in. The slippage is we can supposedly develop attachments to enormous diversity of possible from methodological reductionism to a few other humans while our relations occupational choices in industrial society ontological reductionism: in other with the rest of the world remain conceals what virtually all these choices words, it is one thing to recognize that instrumental, based in assumptions of have in common: the assumption of a lifelong radical separation between the understanding the pieces is a useful human control and economic exchange. individual and the rest of the natural world. step in understanding the whole, but Experiences of participation and empathy, In this situation where almost all quite another to claim that the whole especially with non­human entities, are [11] identity choices embody the same simply is the sum of the pieces. Writ regarded as, at best, harmless underlying pathology and repression, it large and translated into technological indulgences. Consequently, while our is not surprising that more adventurous actions, this error obliterates the restless unease drives us towards souls may attempt to abandon this systems whose existence they deny: consumerism and narcissistic forms of social context for not just one that more ecological adequately systems, but also expresses their social, linguistic felt resonance and cultural ones, with the natural along with the world. emotional and spiritual But this is a move possibilities that that is fraught depend on their with problems. existence. Ethnicity and family Furthermore, background are not denying the the only defining existence of aspects of identity; emergent but simply pushing properties results them aside in the in an emphasis on impulse to trade in constancy rather one cultural frame than change. Life for another is as 112. unrealistic as the opposite error of over­ exclaim that the author and his or her work that certain types of experience cannot emphasizing them. Also, the desire to is 'not really Indian'. Rather, it suddenly easily find authentic expression within embrace another cultural framework as a falls within the 'mainstream of American industrial society, and are fundamentally 'lifestyle choice' within industrial society letters'”.[13] incompatible with current economic has spawned facile blends of New Age structures. Since Euroamerican society is philosophy, pop psychology, commodified If feeling, spirituality, and based on peculiarly irrational forms of Asian religion, and supposedly 'Indian' ecological insights were seriously economic 'rationality' and the rigorous wisdom, in which the conscious adoption recognized and applied within exclusion of other meanings, it is difficult – of an 'alternative' stance covers up the less mainstream white society, the without serious consequences – to conscious perpetuation of conventional embody ecological or religious principles in consequences would be allegiances. In these respects, Archie one's working life while remaining part of Belaney was certainly not the most momentous, subverting our this society. Ecologically sound practices – dishonest of the 'whiteshamans' who have exclusive reliance on science and along with growing vegetables, spiritual emerged over the past century or so: at the entire anthropocentric [ed. – exercises, or camping in the wilderness – least he lived in the wilderness rather than see Return Fire vol.2 pg11] are 'leisure' activities that are separated staying in Beverley Hills and writing about justification for the industrialist from the serious business of earning a an entirely invented experience, and he [14] living. If we are sufficiently wealthy, of exploitation of 'natural'natural resources'. was closer to Thoreau [ed. – see Return course, we can retreat to our islands of It is therefore necessary for feeling Fire vol.3 pg54] than we might ecological correctness within the ocean of comfortably acknowledge. The difference, to be accorded a low status environmental desolation [ed. – see New of course, concerns identity: although he compared to rational argument, and Technologies, Extraterrestrial lived on the fringes of society, Thoreau relegated to a partly dissociated Exploitation & the Future of Capitalism]; never claimed to be other than realm where it cannot seriously but such 'solutions' do little to challenge Euroamerican. Why, then, did Belaney feel challenge industrialism. If a semi­ the direction of mainstream society, and the need fraudulently to claim Indian embody geographically already­existing permeable boundary is established parentage? psychological dissociations. For all but a between these two realms, the few, an authentic relation to nature can A possible reason is suggested if we 'other' can be both acknowledged'other' can be both acknowledged exist only as fantasy; and it flourishes in compare the impact of the two men's as a fringe interest while being this role precisely because our working writings. Before his exposure, 'Grey Owl' ignored when the important lives often fail to fulfill our need to feel sold hundreds of thousands of books, drew decisions are made. The ascription grounded and in contact with the natural large audiences across the world, and was of ecological wisdom to native world. A diversity of cultural and spiritual courted by kings and queens. In contrast, options, together with their associated cultures or past eras therefore Thoreau was a little known social isolate; cultures or past eras therefore environmental beliefs and practices, are and after the first print run of his most protects mainstream white culture, allowed a superficial existence in order to famous work, 'Walden', the book remained allowing this wisdom a sort of camouflage and compensate for their out of print until after his death. It appears dissociated survival within a opposite: the inescapable uniformity of a that if fraudulently pretending to be a subordinated sphere that is moored capitalist economic and political reality that Native American is reprehensible, not loosely alongside technological is now the unquestioned basis of our lives. being a Native American in the first place society without ever being fully is almost as bad. One wonders how well society without ever being fully In rather the same way that a mistress can known the 'Seattle speech' would be if it accepted into it. 'Native literature' is perpetuate a moribund marriage by was instead referred to as the 'Perry one facet of 'multiculturalism' in delaying transformative change, these speech'. Could it be that recognizing the modern society, suggesting the sops to a healthy lifestyle and identity maintain industrialism – and its underlying depth of our colonization by superficially democratic interaction superficially democratic interaction assumptions – by providing temporary industrialism, we believe that only of a range of ethnicities, religions, relief from it. However, as the object those writers who are separated from and cultures while actually relations theorist Harry Guntrip suggested, us by cultural background or the cementing them into predefined while fantasy is healthy if it is a precursor passage of time are felt to be to action, it is pathological if it is a acceptable as sources of environmental places within an unshakeable [15] substitute for it. We need to ask wisdom? Holistic environmental politics of economy and power. ourselves: does the action we are awareness seems to exist in a realm This allows spiritual and taking challenge industrialism, or does environmental awarenesses to be that is set apart from mainstream white environmental awarenesses to be it exist in the interstices allowed and society, a realm also inhabited by the 'taken into account' in policy'taken into account' in policy shaped by industrialism? If the latter is ethnic, the spiritual, and the emotional; formulation where there is no risk the case, then our humanity is being and what exists in this realm can only that they would have any kept alive through a 'life­support be admitted to consciousness if its significant effect; or – if there is system' of leisure activities and subsidiary and subordinate status is such a risk – they may be 'lifestyle choices' just to the extent that first accepted. In other words, the truths we remain available to be used within inherent in this awareness are dismissed as 'unrealistic'. But nobody ever suggests that the industrialist system. There is no acceptable only on condition that they shortage of parallels here: forests, for scientific and economic 'realities' are simultaneously discredited. This is scientific and economic 'realities' example, are allowed to flourish to the consistent with Wendy Rose's observation should be 'taken into account': they extent that they provide 'timber'; so natural that Native American writers are shelved are the unquestioned basis of tendencies are permitted and used by the under 'Indians', 'Western', or some such decision making. system to strengthen itself. Similarly, label, whereas their white counterparts are human needs and desires – most shelved under 'literature'. Furthermore, “if Simply to dismiss Euroamerican fantasies obviously, sexuality – that could be part of a Native American writer happens to gain about native cultures as 'fraudulent', a healthy world become perverted and international prominence [as in the case of therefore, is to miss the significance of this distorted when harnessed as part of the Scott Momaday] critics and ethnographers phenomenon. The underlying problem is industrial system. 113. In contrast to most indigenous societies, white formulas[...] Cows, bats, mosquitoes, and feeling from economic 'realities'. industrial society defines 'culture' and blackbirds, coyotes, magpies act in their Anything that challenges this dissociation 'nature' in terms of their supposed individual, peculiar ways”. This is a world leads to an unbearable degree of cognitive opposition to each other, leading to a which is allowed to be, seemingly dissonance, in which mutually chronic, institutionalized lack of incoherent because it has not yet been incompatible beliefs threaten to overwhelm psychological integrity. Our socially learned made to fit within a humanly recognizable our psychological equilibrium. characteristics, rather than complementing order. One thing does not 'symbolize' and expressing those tendencies that another, conforming to any anthropocentric The assumption made by 'Grey Owl' that derive from our embodiment as living taxonomy of comprehension: things and he could not, as Archie Belaney, achieve creatures, are often seen as replacing creatures just are, in their own peculiar the more natural lifestyle he craved was well founded. As a teenager in Hastings, them; and so our resonance with the ways, and relating to them involves a self­ natural world, if we are to retain our basic he “loved to go off on solitary walks to look transformative effort of empathy rather [18] cultural orientation, has to occur in a than an attempt to assimilate them to a for plants and wild animals” ; but in the dissociated realm. This is a recurring pre­existing cognitive pattern. Bevis stiflingly provincial life of southern England, theme in theories of psychopathology from illustrates this by referring to the writing of these activities were necessarily part of a Freud onwards[16], suggesting that it is the D'Arcy McNickle: “Archilde is at Mission dissociated realm of bodily awarenesses and inarticulable intuitions. Such basis of a persistent cultural malaise. In School, and one afternoon a cloud "[by experiences of contact with the natural Carl Rogers' 'person centered' approach, curious coincidence] assumed the form of world, in one form or another, are for example, psychological distress is a cross – in the reflection of the setting important in the psychological viewed in terms of a lack of congruence sun, a flaming cross. The prefect was the development of most children; but as between a bodily­based experiential self first to observe the curiosity and it put him Cynthia Tomashow notes, for many of us, and a conscious self­concept that develops into a sort of ecstasy[…] 'The Sign! The “this aspect of identity seems to shrivel through the introjection of social mores and Sign!' he shouted. His face was flushed and recede [to the dark reaches of the denial of embodied awareness. The and his eyes gave off flashing lights ­ consciousness]”. Instead of developing notions of truth, reality, and identity Archilde did not forget them. 'The Sign! and incorporating our bodily awarenesses implied by these two versions of self Kneel and pray!' The boys knelt and as we reach out into the world, we instead differ fundamentally; and one of the prayed, some of them frightened and on learn that rational thought, the main tasks of education [ed. – see the point of crying. They knew what the technological power that flows from it, and Return Fire vol.2 pg27] is to reduce the sign signified[...] the second coming of the economic structures within which resultant conflict by instilling the belief Christ, when the world was to perish in 'business' can flourish are the that embodied 'truth' is misleading and flames." The cloud, of course, melts away, fundamentals of life. Unlike most of us, frivolous while consciously learned but curiously Archilde does not need this Belaney rejected this socialized mode rationality is reliable and correct. But empirical proof to reject Christianity's of being: what we play at, he made the since conscious learning cannot symbolic use of nature: "It was not the centre of his life, rejecting capitalist completely eliminate embodied disappearance of the threatening symbol society and his past identity within it. In awareness, these repressed feelings which freed him from the priest's dark order to do so, he lied about his will seek ways of expressing mood, but something else. At the very parentage; but whether this course of themselves symptomatically through an instant that the cross seemed to burn most action demonstrates less integrity than entirely different form of relation to the brightly, a bird flew across it[...] It flew past our more usual acceptance of the world, one which implants us and returned several times before finally dissociations inherent in industrialized empathically in the world as it disappearing ­ and what seized Archilde's life is debatable. Under current abandons detachment and 'objectivity'. imagination was the bird's conditions, the choice may not be a clear This implies a form of identity, and an unconcernedness. It recognized no 'sign'. one between truth and untruth, or between understanding of human being, that utterly His spirit lightened. He felt himself fly with authenticity and fakery; for each choice rejects the basic assumptions of industrial the bird." ” carries with it its own particular brand of life, since – as Tim Ingold says of the For Archilde, openness to his sensing of inauthenticity. Ojibwa[17] – the “achievement of empathy the world takes precedence over any means taking on another way of being, elaborate conceptual scheme. The world The Hunger for Form [and] full understanding is attained not comes first. This is also true, Bevis argues, The dearth of ways expressing and through translation but through of other native American writers: in James justifying our embodied awarenesses metamorphosis.” Welch's work, for example, “[the natural makes us hungry for any suitable form; world] is strangely (to whites) various, and this makes it easier to understand the But while native ways of being can be objective, unsymbolic, as if it had not yet enormous popularity of the Seattle 'speech' appropriated as fantasies within an been taken over by the human mind.” and the writings of Grey Owl. The industrial lifestyle in rather the same unexpressed emotional needs of way that tribal artifacts are used to Renouncing consumer society for the Euroamericans, unable to find more decorate a modern living room, world that Welch and McNickle imply authentic modes of expression, give rise to indigenous realities, if taken to heart, demands more than cosmological tourism. the invention of forms of 'indigenous more often directly challenge rather To paraphrase another critic of mercantile wisdom' that are often unrecognizable by than complement Euroamerican society, it is generally easier for a camel to the indigenous peoples concerned.[19] representations of nature. The world pass through the eye of a needle than it is Although this flourishing tradition of represented in Native American writing, for for an affluent inhabitant of the 'whiteshamanism' and the disingenuous example, diverges from the neatly industrialised world to live in a spiritually literature it has generated are exploitative arranged conceptual order that our and ecologically consistent way. The of the peoples and traditions they parody, cognitive representations assume, impossibility of reconciling the fundamental the emotional needs that underlie them are embodying – as William Bevis puts it – an industrialist assumption that we are real enough. These needs should be “apparent fragmentation of the natural separate from the natural world (including frankly recognized, and expressed in world into a huge cast of individual 'micro­ our own bodies) with the indigenous belief honest forms such as fiction that is characters', a fragmentation that has not that human society is grounded in the acknowledged to be fiction, so keeping been properly noted because it does not fit natural world leads us to dissociate nature alive the vision of ecological integrity until 114. such time as it can be realized in physical into the realm of a repressed, dissociated, movement away from these realities reality. cultural unconscious. As Rudolf Kaiser toward healthier ones: as [Herbert] suggests, the Seattle 'speech' seems “to Marcuse observed, to “the degree to which Such subjective awarenesses are allowed touch on an idea and a feeling that have they correspond to the given reality, to play only minor roles in the material but so far largely been banned from our thought and behavior express a false illusory world that focuses on the occidental, Christian, Western culture. It is consciousness, responding to and production and consumption of the idea that the worldly and the contributing to the preservation of a false commodities. In this manufactured world, spiritual, the mundane and the beyond, order of facts.” An adequate theory will “what we experience is not real and what the profane and the sacred are not also grasp the importance of relation, is real is not what we experience”.[20] While wholly separate from each other, as we empathy, and emergent properties even experience, in other words, in a flow of are used to thinking; but that these when these are largely absent from the feelings, glimpses, intuitions, associations, seeming opposites are actually very world today. In Michael Lambek's terms, and sensations, invites us to enter a world closely connected in this world and that the “basic question [is] whether [a] theory that transcends current actualities, this therefore everything in this world without corresponds to the world as it is, [whether greater world is classified as unreal and any exception is seen as sacred in its it has] 'veracity' (Descartes' [ed. – see replaced by a substitute, cognitive world nature and its character. This idea that Veganism: Why Not] certum; or defined in terms of material, biochemical, each and every thing and creature in this 'correctness'); or whether it provides an and economic categories that are learned world is spiritual and sacred may well ideal and has 'verity' (Vico's verum) but unfelt. Today, this partial view of reality prove to be the salient point of this text[...] against which the facts must be measured is not just a learned understanding, for a society which has always neatly and perhaps found wanting.” We need to however: increasingly, it is becoming the separated the temporal and the spiritual be clear about which version of truth we built structure of the world itself, so that the and in this way has tried to justify man's are working within; and whether the future sort of world we have evolved to expect, [sic] claim that all the non­sacred world is world we envision is an extension of hope for, and participate in is a latent at his disposal.” current realities, or a transformation of world, hidden from us by a crude and these realities. degraded actuality. The task facing the The notion that, say, a Douglas Fir, far from environmentalist of the future, then, being merely the ‘raw material’ for garden If we are to keep alive the long­term aim of may be less one of conserving a world furniture, is part of a system that is both a healthy world, we need to recognize that that is under threat, and increasingly natural and sacred is so at odds with our the term 'fictional' need not always mean one of actualizing a world that exists lifestyle, our education, and our inflated 'unreal', but can also refer to what is not largely as a hope, a memory, and an material 'needs' that to express it is to risk currently actualized. Great fiction can intuition. As the novelist J. G. Ballard ridicule. As I argued above, such notions illustrate truths about life that are not asserts, the “balance between fiction and can only be allowed to exist within always expressible through science; for reality has changed significantly in the past consciousness on condition that they are science often captures the bare decades. Increasingly, their roles are relegated to a psychological bantustan of skeletons of once living creatures, reversed. We live in a world ruled by ethnic, spiritual, and environmental shorn of everything that is inessential fictions of every kind – mass awareness that is excluded from the main to the particular model adopted – the merchandising, advertising, politics current of our thought. While the text of the living flesh, the hopes and fears and conducted as a branch of advertising, the 'Seattle speech' was not written by Seattle, beliefs, the connections and relations. pre­empting of any original response to it nevertheless, as Kaiser argues, In this vein, the novelist Toni Morrison experience by the television screen[...] It is possesses a kind of validity; and it can be argues that since we haven't yet found a now less and less necessary for the writer understood as the product of an way to preserve subjectivity, it will to invent the fictional content of his novel. awareness that is also a hope, one that necessarily be the first casualty of The fiction is already there. The writer's resonates widely because it represents the historical recording. Morrison therefore task is to invent the reality.” shadow of the technological understanding refers to her writing as “a kind of literary of the world. This archaeology: on the basis of some awareness can in information and a little bit of guesswork present times not survive you journey to a site to see what remains within mainstream were left behind and to reconstruct the politics, and is not world that these remains imply. What viewed as 'real'; so it is makes it fiction is the nature of the necessary that it lead a imaginative act: my reliance on the dissociated existence as image[...] on the remains[...] in addition to 'fiction' or 'fantasy'. But it recollection, to yield up a kind of truth.” should be recognized that in important ways, Such 'fiction', which attempts to reconstruct these dissociated realms a meaningful world from a few residual are more real than what fragments, is no less 'true' than more currently passes for conservative writing which refuses to go reality. beyond the fragments themselves. If we live – as we increasingly do – in a world of Subjectivity, then, is not just a froth on the As the destruction of ecological fragments, then we cannot take surface of reality, to be skimmed off and the natural world proceeds, it becomes this as the 'true' world: rather, we need to thrown away. It can also be a guide to what increasingly necessary to find ways of imaginatively reconstruct the possibility of is missing both from our own lives and expressing not only what is, but also a more whole, healthy world. As Morrison from the contexts we inhabit. Perry's what could be: a healthy world, and those remarks, “[the crucial distinction] is not the version of the Seattle 'speech' was, as he larger resonant structures that will be an difference between fact and fiction, but the himself was at pains to point out, largely a essential part of such a world. To the distinction between fact and truth”. This is work of fiction; but the roots of this fiction extent that theory is consistent only with a form of truth unrecognizable by those come from an awareness that extends well current, diminished forms of reality, it will ostensibly 'objective' sciences that deny beyond present forms of consciousness be incapable of providing a basis for a subjectivity any validity. 115. A reliance on 'facts', then, cannot be seen audience, as David Johns has argued, we as an adequate default position: as will need to use forms of communication 1. Perry himself never claimed that the 'speech' Bernard Williams has pointed out, such a that are “explicitly emotive and personally was anything other than a work of fiction. See reliance “is itself an offence against grounded. […] Although philosophy seeks Rudolf Kaiser, "Chief Seattle's Speech(es): truthfulness”. David James Duncan makes to answer the same questions as myth – American Origins and European Reception". a complementary point: “fiction­making questions of meaning – philosophy does 2. Scientific disciplines do, of course, vary in and lying are two different things. To write not even remotely approach the influence their ability to express sensed qualities of the War and Peace required imaginative effort. of the more potent modern forms of natural world. Some, such as physics, express a To embezzle money from a bank does, modern myth: novels and film. It would do comparatively narrow range of properties, albeit too. [This] does not make [Leo] Tolstoy a well to learn from them.” with great power and accuracy; whereas others, bank robber. War and Peace is an such as conservation biology or ethnobotany, Furthermore, if humanity and the non­ imaginative invention but also, from are sensitive to a much wider range of qualities. human world are to survive in a more­than­ While recognizing this degree of variation, I use beginning to end, a truth­telling and a gift­ biological sense, we will need to accept the general term 'science' in this paper to avoid giving. We know before reading a that we are continuous with our cultural lengthy qualifications and caveats. sentence that Tolstoy "made it all up", but and ecological contexts; and consequently, this making is as altruistic and disciplined 3. David M. Levin, The Body's Recollection of that authenticity is difficult to achieve in a as the engineering of a cathedral. It uses Being. world in which these contexts are mastery of language, spectacular acts of degraded. We would do well explicitly to 4. See David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: empathy, and meticulous insight into a web recognize our own colonization by Perception and Language in a More­than­ of individuals and a world to present a industrialism, admitting that the battle Human World, for a more extended treatment of man's vast, haunted love for his Russian between ecological structures and these ideas. people. And we as readers get to recreate industrialism is being fought within this love in ourselves. We get to reenter the 5. ed. – “'Science is founded on the idea that the ourselves as well as in the world results of its methods – which are very specific cathedral.” outside. Just as the 'weeds' and 'vermin' mathematical and experimental methods – are A disciplined subjectivity can enable us to that we have tried to annihilate may equivalent to what we mean by truth. The 'reenter the cathedral' of the wild world and belatedly be recognized as forms of mythology holds that science describes physical reality, that science is truth. And if science is to nurture it; for just as Descartes' diversity necessary for the regeneration of truth, then all other forms of truth – all the wild world, so censored modes of subjectivity of doubt has been largely philosophical truth, all ethical truth, all emotional, realized in a mechanical and unfelt world experience, together with the devalued spiritual, relational, experiential truths – are [ed. – see Symbiogenetic Desire], so a forms of communication through which devalued. They're regarded as something else more complete subjectivity of empathy and they can be expressed, may conserve besides truth. Scientists may agree, for example, relation can, eventually, be realized in a aspects of reality that may one day that there is something called artistic truth, but healthier one. As Ingold remarks, “we become actual. The sort of truth conveyed they – and I'm talking not so much about specific should resist the temptation to assume that by such forms, like that embodied in the scientists (although this is often true) as I am about what the scientific worldview does to all of since stories are stories [they are] unreal or Seattle 'speech' or in Grey Owl's writings, differs from that of the physical sciences; us – don't think artistic truth has anything to do untrue, for this is to suppose that the only with the material reality that the scientist and this should be recognized as a reality, or true truth, is one in which [we investigates. […] Science is based on exclusion. can] have no part in at all. [Telling a story] strength as well as a weakness. There is a […] If you can convince people that science has is not like unfurling a tapestry to cover up curious and paradoxical authenticity in a monopoly on truth, you may be able to get the world, it is rather a way of guiding the accepting the present impossibility of either them to believe also that the knowledge attention of listeners or readers into it”. It is individual or ecological health; and in this generated through science is independent of not my intention to suggest either that acceptance we abandon our narcissistic politics, history, social influences, cultural bias, and so on' [Stanley Aronowitz]. And in the science should be rejected or that fiction individual aspirations for consistency, wholeness, and an 'ecological' lifestyle, bargain, you can get them to doubt their own necessarily communicates truths; only that experience” (Welcome to the Machine). we need an understanding that as well as instead aligning our imperfect lives with the including science, also goes beyond it. An dream, the vision, and the hope of a 6. This unease is reflected in striking increases environmental movement, and a society, healthier future world [ed. – see 'The in anxiety and depression in Europe and the that limits its understanding to what is Matter of Knowing Who We Are']. In USA over the past half­century or so. Despite scientifically defensible impairs its ability to working to bring about such a world, we greater material affluence, studies have typically found increases of several hundred percent in defend the natural world and is rediscover our own authenticity. the prevalence of these disorders, so that symptomatic of a crippled subjectivity. “We tell a story that the world is a machine that can be programmed to serve our purposes. We tell a story that humans are the measure of all things, that we can justify enclosing other creatures in factory farms or animal- Media such testing labs, clearcutting the great forests and poisoning the seas, killing off other forms of life to feed our hunger and as film and desire. We tell a story that we can mold the world to the needs of the self, rather than molding the self to the needs of the fiction are not world. These stories failed us long ago, and it is increasingly common now to hear the claim that we need “new stories” necessarily to replace them. These new stories, it is said, will be stories of belonging again. They will be stories of returning to the just the earth, of understanding our true place in the great maelstrom of the universe, not as gods now but as family members. [...] fanciful New stories – or old stories in new form – will not be purely individual endeavors. They will not arise from research, diversions of from thinking, from analysis, from planning. They will not be utopian, globalist, all-encompassing, neat and satisfying. If childhood, or we are to develop different ways of relating ourselves to the earth or to some new spiritual methodology that connects us distractions from the back again to our natural heritage, this isn’t going to come from our rational minds. It may not come from us at all. The harsh realities mythologist Martin Shaw speaks of stories as being “an echo location from the Earth.” The old folktales and foundation of adulthood. myths, he says, were not purely the creations of human minds. Rather, those minds acted like aerials, telling a story If that a place, or the spirit of a place, wanted to be told. Such new stories, again, are the oldest stories of all: they environmental are a retelling of the eternal story, from before we felled the tree. And they are not the product of thinking. ethics is to They are the product of listening.” – The Axis & the Sycamore reach a wider 116. towards the end of the last century levels of old brownfields, rewilding farmlands, old example – state forces suppressed popular anti­ anxiety among 'normal' children were higher quarries, around abandoned houses and capitalist, anti­state and anti­dictatorship than levels recorded among child psychiatric buildings, and you’ll see the plants and creatures protests, but encouraged and collaborated with patients in the 1950's. who are courageously facing up to the utter pogroms against the Chinese population of devastation and who are working hard to Indonesia. These pogroms served as a way to 7. ed. – Regarding the morality claims here, recreate health and resiliency even in the most channel social discontent in a way which was aside from their pacifism which has been for us damaged places. Learning to appreciate the harmless for the state and capitalism. This kind adequately discredited elsewhere (see Return work being done by plants with deep taproots of pogrom may be uncommon in Indonesia, but Fire vol.1 pg16), added to acts of war and/or like chicory, burdock, and curly dock, for the channelling of frustrations onto ethnic groups domination (not to mention starvation scenarios) instance, not only inspires us to fight for health in deployed socially as intermediaries is very there are a variety of other ways to look at the hard situations, but gives us practical ideas common – not only are the Chinese frequently phenomenon of cannibalism. For example, Jared about how this can be done. These are the roots exploited in this way throughout Southeast Asia, Diamond recounts a guy he was working with in of a new practice.” but colonial regimes frequently used ethnic Papua New Guinea preparing to return to his minorities (the Tutsi, the Tamils) or migrant mountain village after the death of a relative, 15. ed. – “The form which ethnic integration communities (such as South Asians in East whose funeral rites included consumption of takes in western societies is the community Africa) in the same way, and one could even certain of their body parts by those close to them leader phenomenon, also known as interpret European anti­Semitism along these as a mark of respect and continuation of life. multiculturalism. Basically, this phenomenon lines. In addition, ethnic politics based on operates by creating a stratum of privileged pogroms and constant conflict is a normal part of 8. As Margaret Thatcher famously observed. individuals within each disenfranchised or capitalist management in certain parts of Nigeria excluded group, whose purpose is to socially 9. R. Bruce Hull and David P. Robertson, "The (eg. Kaduna), Indonesia (eg. Ambon) and India manage the group, to channel its frustrations into language of nature matters: We need a more (eg. Gujarat). There are also similarities with the a positive attachment to an ethnic category, and public ecology". situation in Sydney, where a racist pogrom – to defuse these frustrations by means of the tolerated, encouraged, and incited by state 10. John L. Harper, "The heuristic value of negotiation of this group's constructed identity agents – followed two years of mass unrest ecological restoration". within the system. The history of this strategy against the state. The boundary between rigid can be traced back to the British Empire, which ethnic identities and loose affiliations in revolt 11. ed. – This cynical argumentation is visible in, often used local leaders (religious figures, chiefs, against oppressors is a slim one [ed. – see 'The for instance, 'ecological compensation' schemes kings, etc.) in this kind of way – a strategy which Invention of the Tribe' below], and one which like that proposed in the area currently defended was absolutely crucial to the management of a the socially excluded cross over on a regular by the Z.A.D. occupation in Brittany (see Return wide­ranging empire given the small number of basis; the emotional and psychological reactions Fire vol.1 pg81) where the construction settlers and administrators. It was also used in generated by social and economic marginality company claims they will 're­create' an nineteenth­century Italy, where it took the and exclusion seem to be equally open to either 'equivalent' wetland habitat hundreds of miles peculiar form known as trasformismo – the kind of articulation. This fluidity is something the away to 'mitigate' loss for endangered species; beheading of social movements through the state exploits in order to prevent the kinds of occupiers responded by repeatedly preventing parliamentary or administrative incorporation of revolts which really threaten its power. A similar the collaborationist ecologists from coming to do movement leaders or figureheads. It reached observation could be made regarding events in their surveys and attacking their police escorts. something akin to its modem form in the Soviet Britain and France in November 2005. In France, Union and Yugoslavia, which were the world's the absence of multiculturalist integration left 12. Tim Ingold, The Perception of the first multicultural states. Each "nationality" was open the possibility of revolts which crossed Environment. permitted its own local party structure, boundaries of ethnicity and religion, and which representative institutions, and so on – but its 13. Wendy Rose, "The great pretenders: Further were directed primarily against the state. The representatives, much like today's community reflections on whiteshamanism". result was a massive urban insurrection leaders, were appointed from within the party­ organised on a network basis against the poor, 14. ed. – While we see this as an absolutely state apparatus, usually by the central directed primarily at crackdown culture and the necessary path to tread, it is also one that is leadership, as a means of integrating the various repressive apparatuses of the state and massively complicated by the place we are "national" areas. It reached its current form as a capitalism. There was also unrest in Lozells, starting from within Western society (see Return response to social crises in countries such as Birmingham, at around the same time – an area Fire vol.39). We'd concur with comrades of America, Britain, Canada, and Australia – as a which hosted a large anti­state uprising in the Knowing the Land is Resistance: “We need to strategy for defusing the increasingly militant mid­1980s. In this case, however, the discontent critique and fight dominator science [ed. – see struggles of black people, migrant populations, – while clearly sparked by exclusion, poverty, 'The Pond'] to create space for us to trust our and indigenous peoples. Though often and social alienation – was channelled in own experiences again, while reclaiming from it counterposed to the monocultural models of directions which were largely harmless to the the tools we might need. We also need to ethnic­majority populism, it is in fact structurally state. Instead of taking the form of an uprising prevent the space created in this way from being similar, relying on a similar model of social against the police, the revolt took the form of hastily filled by a supposed spirituality that integration through ethnic categories. A similar communal fighting between young men of Asian projects our assumptions about the land back strategy has been used to contain prison revolt. and African origin, on the basis of firm onto it, recreates our own alienation from it by When the black consciousness movement first identifications with specific ethnic categories. trapping us in our own egos and imaginings, and reached prisons, the resulting assertiveness of This is the harvest the state has reaped for its supports new claims of unaccountable black prisoners was welcomed by the entire strategy of multiculturalist integration – the use knowledge. It might sound like we’re being really prison population, as something that altered the of ethnically targeted state patronage to solidify hard on spirituality, but it’s because we consider balance of power between prisoners and screws group identities, and the use of populism to it to be too important a project to move hastily. and that won important gains for prisoners. To channel concerns arising from social exclusion There is a huge grief involved in recognizing that undermine this solidarity, screws started playing and economic precarity into ethnic categories” we truly are alienated from the land, that there is favourites – giving benefits to black prisoners (Andy Robinson). no easy way out, that we really are so ignorant. only, to create resentment from other prisoners, We need to truly feel that and cultivate humility or rewarding other groups for being compliant. In 16. See, for example, his "Civilised sexual in the sorts of knowledge we claim access to. this way, one can see the origins of the ethnic morality and modern nervous illness". Our experience is that observing the wild closely prison gangs which have since come into and honestly leads inevitably to action in its existence. These gangs can be seen as at least 17. ed. – The Ojibwa (or Ojibwe, or Chippewa) defense and to clashes with power – the more partly a result of divide­and­rule strategies which are indigenous to 'North America', mostly living these clashes are collective and sustained, the used ethnicity to undermine resistance. When in the territory claimed by Canada but also the more we build a community that orients its network social forms have outflanked control United States. values in line with the health of the wild. Such a apparatuses, ethnicity can be used by states and community is the soil from which any spiritual other dominant groups in order to re­establish 18. Donald B. Smith, From the Land of Shadow: practice might (re)grow. In particular, we’ve control. The effects of this become very clear in The Making of Grey Owl. found close observations of healing wildlands to contexts where the state uses pogroms to be full of profound truths about how to live in this defuse anti­state unrest. The Indonesian 19. ed. – “Western education predisposes us to world. Take a walk down the traintracks, through financial crisis of 1997 offers an especially clear think of knowledge in terms of factual 117. information, information that can be structured cultural practices. [B]y privileging a environmental concerns, and between the left and passed on through books, lectures and perspective that sees ‘the environment’ as and right walls, lies the realm of reasonable programmed courses. Knowledge is something natural resources to be exploited or protected politics. Beyond those confines lies that can be acquired and accumulated, rather over a model that conceives its constituents as irrationality, where politics is no longer like stocks and bonds. By contrast, within the nonhuman agents whose relations with humans possible. And precisely what lies beyond any Indigenous world the act of coming to know are better conveyed in terms of kinship, a rational politics is what these governments something involves a personal transformation. cultural distribution conflict is created. In other (like many others) refuse to engage with: the The knower and the known are indissolubly words, in these cases two different culturally possibility that what is at stake in the conflicts linked and changed in a fundamental way. specific ways of understanding the does not it within the nature/culture and Coming to know Indigenous [ways of knowing] environment clash with each other. Of course, left/right categories. Certainly anthropology can never be reduced to a catalogue of facts or whichever cultural perspective gains the upper and other social sciences have picked up what a data base in a supercomputer; for it is a hand will determine the access to, use of and lies beyond reasonable politics and, showing dynamical and living process, an aspect of the relation to ‘the thing’ at stake. that it has its own rationality as ‘culture’, have ever­changing, ever­renewing processes of contributed to bringing it back into the arena of nature” (Blackfoot Physics). [A]n ontological conflict (i.e. a conflict about reasonable politics – but always subject to what is there) is treated as an epistemological being judged according to dominant 20. Robert D. Romanyshyn, Psychological Life: conflict (i.e. a conflict about how different conceptions of what counts as a reasonable From Science to Metaphor. cultural perspectives see, know or struggle for demand to have cultural differences respected. what ontology has already established is there). Thus, crucial to an understanding of the limits [W]e must remain attentive to the power of culture to intervene in the conflicts that 'ON REASONABLE relations between different knowledges. Once concern us is gaining a grasp of how the we follow this line of reasoning it becomes ‘reasonable’ gets defined in reasonable politics. GROUNDS' pressing to shift focus from culture to the epistemic formation of which the very concept […] The Peruvian president, Alan Garcia, tried On 5 June 2009, a deadly confrontation took of culture is a part. Why? Because besides two kinds of responses to the conflict in the place in the Peruvian Amazon between police being used by analysts and commentators to Amazon mentioned previously. Before the forces and a group of protestors mostly explain and know the conflicts, this concept violent clashes took place, he tried to dismiss composed of indigenous Awaj’un people who is also used as a weapon wielded in the indigenous demands as irrationality trumping had taken control of a highway to protest conflicts. For example, indigenous peoples progress. In declarations to the press he said, President Alan Garcia’s decrees facilitating the appeal to notions of cultural rights to confront “These people are not first-class citizens. What concession of their territories to oil, timber and processes that will affect their capacity to can 400,000 natives say to twenty-eight million hydroelectric corporations. Leni, a young sustain their ‘life projects.’ In response, states, Peruvians, ‘You don’t have any right to come Awaj’un leader, explained what motivated corporations and environmentalists dismiss round here’? No way, that would be a grave his participation in the protests: “We speak of those claims on the basis that respect for the error, and those who think that way want to our brothers who quench our thirst, who bathe culture of indigenous peoples should not lead us into irrationality and a backward, us, those who protect our needs – [this brother] obstruct the rational ‘management’ (whatever primitive state.” After the violent clashes, is what we call the river. We do not use the this might mean) of what in the last instance is public opinion at large turned against the river for our sewage; a brother cannot stab just nature. At bottom what is being argued is government. Thus, seeing that his appeals to another brother. We do not stab our brothers.” that not all cultures or ways of knowing ‘reasonableness’ did not work to sway the […] One is warranted in saying that in these ‘nature’ (the world out there) have the same ‘twenty-eight million Peruvians’ in his favour cases the indigenous peoples are defending not standing in rational politics, the arena where and against the natives, Garcia tried another simply access to and control over resources; decisions affecting a territory and its argument: foreign left-leaning governments they are defending complex webs of relations population are debated. (Venezuela and Bolivia) were behind the between humans and nonhumans, relations protest. […] Besides demonstrating the self- that, for them, are better expressed in the [S]ome environmental conflicts both unsettle interested readings that governments can make language of kinship than in the language of what is commonly construed as reasonable of popular protests, the responses are property. politics (i.e. a politics where the parties agree illustrative with regard to what is considered about what is at stake) and make evident the reasonable politics in Latin America. Facing […] Attending to the limitations of an limitations of the concept of culture, the tool indigenous demands for the right to decide approach that takes for granted that ‘natural with which the social sciences try to over the conditions of their own lives, the resources’ are what is at stake in so-called apprehend and make reasonable what in right-leaning Peruvian government first sets a environmental conflicts, Arturo Escobar has principle appears as lying beyond limit on what indigenous peoples can stressed the need to consider the power reasonable politics. […] In sum, between the reasonably aspire to as citizens of a differentials between various knowledges and roof of reasonable cultural demands and the multicultural society: their ‘cultural floor of reasonable differences’ (e.g. their conception of natural resources as relatives) cannot override the progress and greater good of the nation. Seeing that the characterisation of the indigenous demands as irrational does not really work, the government then turns to another explanation: the mobilisation is not irrational but ideologically motivated. In other words, the mobilisation is about natural resources that leftist political forces want to use and control for their own purposes.

[…] Dismissing indigenous peoples’ claims about what motivates their mobilisation and Left: “NO REDD [ed. – see Return Fire vol.3 pg8]: FORESTS AREN'T COMMODITIES!”, protest after protests with the argument that the Mexican State agreed to sell 'carbon credits' to the U.S.A from REDD schemes in the Lacandon such claims are unreasonable Jungle (rich with minerals and conflict between hydro-power, palm oil plantations for biofuels, road-building and the various indigenous lifeways; the government of Chiapas plans relocation of (either because they are based on the communities to 'Sustainable Rural Cities[!]') to 'offset' Californian emissions. Right: More mistaken beliefs or because they doublespeak: 'Environmental Police' formed to aid this dispossession and privatise biodiversity. hide the real motivations) carries 118. the implicit assertion of an epistemologically indigenous rights (to be consulted, to have their superior standing. The dismissals are saying territories respected, to be compensated and so 'The Invention of the either ‘You are confusing how things really are on), thereby creating a whole new set of with what your culture tells you about them’, or instruments and avenues that indigenous Tribe' ‘For ulterior motives you are trying to confuse peoples can use to defend their worlds. But us about how things really are’; and in either these rights are all crafted to the dominant [ed. – The next review is translated from the case they are also saying ‘We do know how parameters of reasonability. Can you imagine a French­language anti­civilisation journal La things really are and must act in consequence.’ politician or a corporation stopping a profitable Mauvaise Herbe, Volume 12 no.1] Where does this ‘epistemological confidence’ mega-development project because the natives come from? Bruno Latour’s characterisation of say a spirit or ancestor does not want it? At the two great divides shaping the ‘modern best, the natives might mobilise their various constitution’ might give us some hints: “The rights and, if the political conditions are Internal Great Divide [between Nature and favourable, build alliances with other Culture] accounts for the External Great concerned groups until they are able to have Divide [between Us and Them]: we [moderns] politicians and corporations stop the project, are the only ones who differentiate absolutely but on reasonable grounds! between Nature and Culture whereas in our eyes all the others – whether they are Chinese The reasonableness of the demands will depend or Amerindians, Azande or Barouya – cannot on the degree to which they are aligned with really separate what is knowledge from what ‘reality out there’. In other words, the test is society, what is sign from what is thing, what question that will be posed to these demands comes from Nature as it is from what their will be whether they are grounded on ‘reality’ cultures require.” or not. And who is to determine this alignment? Universal science? No surprise then about the In short, ‘moderns’ have more than a culture, army of expert consultants that indigenous more than a perspective: they have knowledge. peoples have to enroll to back up their claims And the confidence that they have more than a and demands. Thus, one of the problems with perspective is premised precisely on using the concept of culture to intervene in recognising the difference between what is and analyse certain (so-called) nature (or reality out there) and what is culture environmental conflicts is that some (the subjective representation of reality). participants in the conflicts seem to be more Recognising such difference has allowed cultural than others, that is to say, they do moderns to develop the proper procedure for not have real knowledge, they have cultural knowing reality as it is: universal science[1]. beliefs. “The history of people who have a history Here we go back to the justifications that the [T]hose who have universal science, run with is, we are told, the history of class struggle.is, we are told, the history of class struggle. various agents of modernity (governments, the advantage. The epistemic privilege of The history of people without a history is, corporations, environmentalists) advance to universal science might not be obvious and we might say with at least as much truth, override the claims of indigenous peoples: apparent in all cases where different ‘claims to the history of their struggle against the we cannot stop progress and the greater good in know’ collide, precisely because of the role that state.” Pierre Clastres, the name of respecting picturesque, perhaps multicultural tolerance plays nowadays in lovable and romantic but ultimately unrealistic relation to indigenous peoples. Thus some La société contre l’État, 1974. cultural beliefs. The forests are lumber, genetic cultural difference is tolerated inside the The Art of Not Being Governed: An pools, oil and water; mountains are rocks and ‘house’ of reasonable politics. However, it is Anarchist History of Upland Southeast valuable minerals; these are all things that can precisely the term ‘tolerance’ that gives the be turned into commodities for the growth of game away: in this context to tolerate means to Asia, James C. Scott, Yale University the economy. Certainly, environmentalists will suspend the application of the most rational Press, 2009 – 442 pages jump in and say, ‘Well, the science of ecology understanding of reality in deference to those tells us that these are delicate ecosystems that who do not know best. But as we can see time Whole societies without a State have cannot be destroyed without consequences.’ and again in many of the cases where ‘claims existed until recently in Zomia, the vast ‘No problem,’ is the response, ‘let the to know’ collide, tolerance can only go so far mountainous region of south­east Asia ecologists make environmental impact before universal science is brought to bear to which is far from the urban centres and assessments and figure out exactly how much demarcate the limits beyond which disciplining significant economic activity. and in which ways we can pull resources out of force is required to meet unreason – ‘unreason’ the earth without completely destroying it. or ‘irrationality’ being just different words used This zone is also situated between eight Perhaps we can even preserve some hotspots to deny ontological differences. […] But we nation­states, where several cosmologies of biodiversity for the benefit and aesthetic can take the idea that some participants are and religious traditions co­exist and where enjoyment of humanity.’ Now, at this point the more cultural than others in another direction: conversation does not involve indigenous it might indicate that for some participants the the inhabitants have a chameleon identity, in other words one of multiple identities. peoples any longer; now it is a conversation world cannot be encompassed by the among members of the tribe of the moderns concept of culture, or nature for that This a zone which States only managed to who are using their only reasonable protocol to matter. determine how to treat nature: they use penetrate in the mid 20th century and then universal science. Nonhuman relatives? only with the aid of modern technology. Spirits? Ancestors? Those are not within the 1. By universal science I refer to an assemblage of This type of zone has also existed purview of science, they are not real, they are knowledge practices that, associating themselves elsewhere in the world; in the Alps, the with but distorting the very specific nature of the human fabrications and therefore fall within the Appalachians, the Atlas mountains etc. [2] truths produced by the experimental sciences, claims domain of culture . to know reality ‘as it is’. This assemblage has come Other kinds of geographical zones have to constitute a veritable regime of knowledge also managed to remain outside the reach What is left for those who have culture but not ingrained in modern governmentality. knowledge? Well, they can claim in the of States: seas, archipelagos, marshlands, political arena their right to keep their 2. Interestingly, the further environmentalists’ claims coastal mangroves, forests, arid steppes, identities, their cultures and their beliefs, but move from the assumption of ecosystems as anything deserts etc [ed. – 'smooth' space, a term in more than a very complex organic machine ruled by contest; see Return Fire vol.4 pg56]. can never expect that they will be taken laws that are knowable and therefore manageable, seriously and at face value when they speak the more they start to join the ranks of ‘cultural’ about what the moderns call nature. It is true claims, that is, claims based on morals, beliefs or In this book, the author argues that hill that evolving national and international whatever but not on the hard facts that science is people are best understood as frameworks increasingly recognise a variety of supposed to deal with. communities of runaways and fugitives 119. who, in the course of 2,000 years, have profitable, forcing peasants to contribute to physical mobility. Sedentary agriculture fled the oppression of State projects in the the wealth of the empire and into brought with it property rights, the valleys – slavery, taxes, forced labour, commercial exchanges, in the name of patriarchal family enterprise, and epidemics and war. Tales of escape run “development” and of “economic progress”. encouraged big families. Cereal culture is through countless legends of the hills. In practice, this amounts to making their inherently expansionist [ed. – see the These people's physical dispersion across activities ratable, taxable and liable to companion piece to Return Fire vol.3; a rugged terrain, their mobility, their seizure. Colonisation] and generates a surplus of subsistence practice, their family structure, population and the colonisation of their chameleon ethnic identity and their This enormous ungoverned periphery neighbouring land, while being liable to devotion to millenarian leaders[1] have (Zomia) long constituted a threat for famine and epidemic. However, as they enabled them to avoid being incorporated all the States present in the various had a constant need to keep the into States and have prevented the State valleys. It sheltered fugitive and population together for work and war, from emerging amongst them. He also mobile populations organised on a States had to use generalised slavery to argues that the culture of certain foods, the subsistence basis – gathering, survive as ideological entities. social structure made up of small hunting, peripatetic [nomadic] autonomous groups and the patterns of As a general rule, the social structure in growing, fishing, small­scale physical mobility were political choices. the hills was much more flexible and livestock farming – which were egalitarian than in the hierarchical and But since 1945 the capacity of the State to fundamentally resistant to formalised societies of the valleys. The deploy distance­eliminating technology – appropriation by the State. But the higher the altitude, the less hierarchical railways, roads that stay open all year, biggest threat for the States was the and more egalitarian the structure. The telephones, telegraphs, aircraft and IT – constant temptation and alternative inhabitants of the hills paid neither taxes has completely overturned the strategic that it represented for their own nor tithes. It isn't surprising that they still balance of power between the autonomous host separatist movements, struggles for populations of slaves; that of a life peoples and the nation­states. indigenous rights, millenarian rebellions beyond the reach of the State. Everywhere, States have invaded the and armed opposition to the States. This “tribal zones” to extract natural resources A massive majority of the population of the resistance can be seen both as a cultural and ensure the security and productivity of first States was not free. Many dreamed of rejection of the patterns of the inhabitants their periphery. Everywhere, they have escaping from taxes, feudal labour and a of the plains and as a zone of sanctuary. ended up colonising the mountains and condition of servitude. In pre­modern Many inhabitants fled to the hills to escape importing the slave­subject­citizen model. conditions, the concentration of the State projects in the valleys. The population, the presence of domestic nomadism of the hills is also a strategy of Hills, Valleys & States animals and their heavy nutritional survival and the multiple rebellions of Zomia illustrates the extreme divide dependence on a single variety of grain these regions pushed many to seek refuge between inhabitants of valleys and those of brought damaging consequences for the in even more remote regions. This the mountains, between those on the lower wellbeing of humans and harvests alike, historical pattern of flight is therefore a and higher reaches of the rivers. The making famine and epidemic stance of opposition if not resistance. populating of the hills goes hand in hand commonplace. People also fled with the State­forming process in the State Space conscription, invasion and pillage, all very valleys, with the colonisation of the land, As elsewhere, cereals (such as rice) frequent in State­run spaces. the creation of borders and the grabbing of constitute the foundation of State projects. resources (slaves and raw materials). The non­civilised chose their place, their From the perspective of a tax collector, subsistence practice and their social cereals have a considerable advantage Living without state structures was the structure in order to maintain their over root crops. Cereals grow above the norm in human history. When the State autonomy. They were not “left” to one ground and ripen at around the same time. appears, living conditions change for semi­ side by civilisation, but should rather be Harvests can therefore be calculated in sedentary horticulturists, pushing many of advance. They have the effect of anchoring them into fleeing taxes and war. seen as adaptations designed to escape both from capture by the State and from populations in a territory and raising their visibility. The arrival of the formation agriculture as of a State. In The State depends on its capacity to the principal other words, gather crops within a reasonable distance. means of these are The further that the place to be controlled subsistence, political lay from its centre, the further the power of and of State adaptations of the State dwindled. Watercourses were the society, came State­less pre­modern exception to its limits. Before with new people to a modern technology, it was difficult for strategies for world which States with navigable watercourses to “bringing together the consists of numerous concentrate and project their power and population”, such as the States. cultural influence. Flat lands thus enabled establishment of State control and appropriation (State The history of the civilised permanent villages, thus space), while undulating land is intrinsically is the history of the State replacing open resistant to State control (non­State space). common property and of sedentary with closed private agriculture. Cereal­ Hills and marshes were sparsely populated property. growing on fixed fields and their populations practised forms of is the foundation of its power. mixed agriculture (peripatetic growing of Across the world, Peripatetic agriculture, slash­and­ mountain rice and root vegetables, the phenomenon burn, was much more widespread in the gathering, fishing and hunting) which were [2] of enclosure hills and hard to assess and even harder to aimed to make the permitted crop appropriate. Before modern technology, peasantry and the periphery diversity and Zomia the state was a seasonal phenomenon in 120. the hills; in the rainy season, from May to Monoculture encourages social and barbarian invasions but to keep overtaxed October, the rain rendered the roads cultural uniformity on many levels: in peasants from escaping to live with the impassable, making year­round military the family structure, in the value of child barbarians. It's in the light of occupation impossible. The inhabitants of labour, in diet, in architectural styles, in administrative control, and not of the hills also knew when to expect the agricultural rituals and in market culture in itself, that we should arrival of the armies and the tax exchanges. A society shaped by understand the invention of ethnic collectors. These people had only to monoculture is easier to watch over, categories at the borders. An ethnic wait for the rainy season, when the evaluate and tax than a society shaped by group is no more than a social status, a supply routes were broken (or more agricultural diversity. Empires have tried to way of telling whether and how those in readily sabotaged) and for the garrison eradicate peripatetic agriculture, because question are administered by the State. A to be facing famine or in retreat. The its produce was not accessible for State barbarian region is thus a political place coercive presence of the State in these appropriation. In modern times, two other facing up against the State; it is a social zones was episodic, or practically non­ reasons have pushed States to eradicate position. The civilised are completely existent. peripatetic growing: political security and incorporated into the State and have the control of resources. Peripatetic fields adopted the customs, the habits and the Concentration of Workforce and forests are therefore burned, razed language of the dominant group. Going off and eventually replaced by mines. States to live with the barbarians was less the & Cereals thus minimise the chances of survival for exception than the norm; if you left the Political and military supremacy calls for a the inhabitants of the hills outside State State space you were in a political space concentration of the workforce within spaces. that was free and autonomous. reaching distance. The concentration of the workforce is only possible with Civilisation & the Ungovernable sedentary agriculture. And such agro­ Keeping the State Out of Reach: The narrative of civilisation is one of ecological concentration is only possible Populating the Hills development, progress and modernisation. with the irrigated growing of rice (or other Mountain people can be seen as refugees To be civilised is synonymous with being cereals). This constitutes the most efficient displaced by war and choosing to stay out governed: living in a permanent village, means of concentrating workforce and of the direct control of State authorities. cultivating fixed fields, recognising the foodstuff. The two other means of These authorities tried to control the social hierarchy and practising one of the achieving this are the taking of slaves and periphery by grabbing the fruits of their principal salvation­based religions [ed. – pillage. labour, taxing their resources and by see Return Fire vol.4 pg40]. In the eyes recruiting soldiers, servants, concubines Peripatetic agriculture offers a greater of the civilised, the level of civilisation can and slaves. The history of their flight is return for less effort and produces a be read by means of altitude: those living recalled annually by the mountain folk with considerable surplus for the families which on the peaks are the most backward; those various rituals and their traditions are practise it. This type of growing disperses living halfway down are slightly more culturally encoded within a strong tradition people across a territory, forming a cultured and those who live on the plains of familial and economic autonomy. The constraint to the State's need to and grow rice are the most advanced, valleys can revert to the characteristics of concentrate the population and making it albeit still inferior to those living in the the social life of the hills following a difficult and costly to collect the food. heart of the State. collapse of empire. Empires fear these Unlike monoculture, mixed and dispersed latent forces on their borders and have agriculture ensures nutritional balance and The more you adopt the dominant culture, constantly launched campaigns of offers greater resilience to diseases and the higher you raise yourself culturally. assimilation or extermination, particularly pests than does monoculture. Moreover, Even if you live on a mountain, you are after popular insurrections. farm animals transmit numerous illnesses always “higher” in town and “lower” to humans. Overall, monoculture provides outside. This has nothing to do with The principal reason for flight was war; a diet that is nutritionally inferior to a mixed altitude, but with cultural elevation. When when entire armies go on the pillage, diet. However, rice alone could not support entire peoples lead, out of choice, a semi­ destroying everything in their path, a denser population, but did mean the nomadic lifestyle, they are seen as a threat capturing slaves and raping, the population was more readily mobilised and stigmatised. Social policies and inhabitants of the valleys are pushed out when required for feudal labour or war. government aid measures are put into towards zones beyond the reach of the place to bring these “uncouth and State. Banditry and revolt were widespread The growth of population by means of war backward” people back into the fold of practices, but the typical response was to and slave­raids is considered to be at the civilisation. All those finding refuge among escape into a remote zone where the origin of social hierarchy and the the rebels are associated with a primitive coercive force of the State was the least centralisation of the first States. Kingdoms condition, with anarchy. felt, while the elites moved towards the expanded their workforce base by forcing centre. Those withdrawing towards the prisoners of war to settle in their territory The Great Wall of China in the north and mountains saw there a significant natural and by kidnapping slaves. Soldiers burned the Miao walls in the south­west were built advantage. They could, at any moment, the fields and homes of the captives to not to prevent block the various stop them from returning there. They razed accesses and, forests, turning them into fields and when necessary, drained the marshes. The majority of withdraw even royal decrees were against runaway deeper into the serfs, forbidding them from leaving, mountains. from moving home or from ceasing to Mountains favour grow cereals. Many subjects were even defensive warfare tattooed to indicate their status and their in general and master. In pre­modern systems, only provide physical coercion can guarantee property countless sites and the accumulation of wealth. where small groups can hold 121. off a much bigger force. They can also Fire vol.4 pg40] so as to deport them the person they were addressing. Many destroy bridges, prepare ambushes or towards the needs of the centre. Seeing as names were implicitly relational – the booby­traps, bring trees down across most of the town­dwellers originally came people from up high, the people of the roads, cut phone and telegraph lines, etc. from the hills, do they really share an western ridge – making sense only as ethnic identity? an element in the relational whole. Escape the State. Others names used were those given by The Karen people and many other Prevent the State. foreigners, as was the case with the Miao. minorities seem to be ethnically Those who try to escape the State can use Most of the hill­dwellers had a repertoire of chameleon, capable of passing from one several strategies: fleeing into inaccessible identities which they could use according identity to another without problems. Living zones, scattering and dividing into smaller to context. A person's ethnic identity would close to a diversity of cultures, ethnic groups and adopting subsistence be in a sense the repertoire of their chameleons learn the performances techniques which are invisible and low­ possible performances and the contexts in required by each of the cultural paradigms. profile. In other words, when a society or which they were displayed. Ethnicity is not For example, the Lua/Lawa, who are part of a society chooses to flee from a given, but a choice. animists, who practise peripatetic incorporation and appropriation, it moves agriculture and speak a Mon­Khmer Across the world, colonial forces have towards simpler, smaller and more language at home, are skilled in the Thai identified and codified customs and dispersed social entities. These remote language when they move into the valleys. traditions with the aim of using them as the regions are thus a choice and part of a Ethnicity is thus a self­made project; those basis for indirect power via the nomination strategy enabling people to stay out of who adopt a specific identity become of chiefs. This technique involves not only reach of the State. members of the identity in question. new fixed identities, but assumes a mainly Peripatetic agriculture is a way of escaping Ethnicities in the hills are not rigid, but are hierarchical and universal order. Egalitarian and chameleon peoples without the grip of the State. All the deployed in the aim of incorporating representatives of the States of south­east neighbouring populations. The area has chiefs or permanent political order beyond the hamlet or the family line have no place Asia have discouraged or condemned been populated for 2,000 years by wave peripatetic agriculture, because it is a after wave of people fleeing State centres, in this order of things. fiscally barren form: diversified, dispersed, invasions, slavers' raids, epidemics and There was a lack of institutional levers by difficult to watch over, to tax and to feudal demands. There they joined which they could be governed. These confiscate. Peripatetic agriculture offers localised populations in hilly and relatively institutions were introduced by force. For relative freedom and autonomy. By isolated areas. They accentuated the example, in their dealings with the Kachin, growing root vegetables, hunting and phenomenon of complex dialects, customs Lahu, PaO, Padaung and Kayah, the fishing, nobody needs to work for a wage. and identities. British handed institutional power and The identities found in the hills represent a privileges to a few local chiefs so as to Tribes and States are mutually position against the States of the valleys. control them better. constituted entities. There is no They have been put into the service of sequence of evolution; tribes do not In any case, once it has been invented autonomy and the absence of State. The precede States. They are social form the tribe takes on a life of its own. An anti­State identity is perhaps the most defined by their relation to the State. And entity created as a political structure in common foundation of mountain identities when there is a hierarchy in a tribe, it is order to govern has turned into an up until the 20th century, when a life often a theatrical performance by a group expression of political protest and self­ outside the State was still possible. to adapt to its relationship with the State. affirmation. It has become The position of the hill­dwellers is that of States the recognised means of equality, autonomy and mobility. Amongst assimilated all stating a claim regarding the Kachin gumlao, there is a tradition of the persons one's autonomy, natural assassinating, deposing or abandoning that they resources [sic] or the more autocratic chiefs. They have a long captured, but earth. Confronted by history of applying egalitarian social the culture peoples without a State, relationships by deposing or killing chiefs under a State the State only recognises with over­large ambitions for governing. barely altered claims based on ethnic The Lisu, Lahu, Karen, Kayah and Kachin as a result identities and tribal are known for their tradition of anti­chief because the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs cops clear rights. rebellion. dependence protestors (see Return Fire vol.4 pg16) in rights. 2017 as during '70s indigenous insurgency on just one It's the standard mode of But it is flight, rather than rebellion, which kind of cereal crop ended up dominating making claims to States and answers the was the foundation of freedom in the hills: the work routines of a majority of the same needs as a trade union or many more egalitarian communities were people. The homogenising effects of an association in contemporary society. The founded by fugitives than by agricultural system and a class structure more you look at the reality behind the revolutionaries. were often punctuated by revolts, concept of the tribe, the more it seems to reproducing the previous social order be the creation of the white man [sic] to The Invention of Ethnic & Tribal under a new administration. The only describe indigenous people, to be able to Identities structural alternative was flight towards the negotiate with them, administer them, Ethnic identity is defined by the mode of communal properties in the hills. encourage them to think in the same way. subsistence and the belonging or non­ The invention of the tribe must be Porous, Plural & Fluid Identities belonging to a State; it is a social position understood as a political project.[3] regards the State. It is a sort of cultural Most of the hill peoples of south­east Asia phenomenon. States are made up of didn't have what we regard as proper The vagueness of social forms in the hills, prisoners and slaves and slavery is ethnic identities. They identified the historical and genealogical flexibility primarily an urban phenomenon. The themselves often by the name of a place – and the baroque complexity of languages slave­raids at the periphery were aimed the people of this or that valley or and populations, all form part of the against the hunter­gatherer and catchment basin – or by a lineage or family constitutive characteristics of hill horticulturist animists [ed. – see Return group. Their identity varied according to societies. 122. dispossessed. Ethnicity is thus crucial as the primary ' THE COLONIAL CENSUS ' recuperative device used by the powerful in the world 1. ed. – Leading via recuperative device used by the powerful in the world apocalypse visions. system to contain the insurrection of the global poor. In relation to indigenous societies, Rohrlich- […] The distinction between affinity networks and Leavitt noted that “gatherer-hunters are generally non- 2. ed. – see Return ethnic-based movements is clearer in the case of Fire vol.4 pg51 territorial and bilocal; reject group aggression and Manipur. In 2004, a mass social movement against competition; share their resources freely; value emergency powers shook the Indian occupation. This 3. The creation of egalitarianism and personal autonomy in the context of movement was not based on ethnic categories, but rather, the Cossacks as a group cooperation; and are indulgent and loving with operated across the lines of the various social groups. self­conscious children.” Where distinct groups exist, they often relate One of its most notable features was the adoption of a ethnicity is in a networked way – the gift networks [ed. – see particularly fragmented, centreless, localised form of organisation in 'Rejoin the Circle'] of the Trobriand Islands and the instructive in which social groups, classes, villages, and so on, were extended kinship networks of the Lakota being two grasping this able to organise their own autonomous activities. This examples. One characteristic of such societies is the phenomenon. proliferation of direct action overwhelmed the state non-exclusive nature of attachments and affinities, Those who became machine. One report states that '[t]he'[t]he entireentire stretchstretch ofof thethe and hence the absence of an overarching identity. Cossacks were road, from Karong to Hiyangthang was dotted with such fugitives and serfs Even in the strongest kinds of segmentary lineage barricades, and attempts by the police to clear the road who fled western systems that come closest to fixed group identity, the were frustrated due to the sheer number of agitators'. Russia in the 16th existence of extra-familial affinities operates as a With villagers in each area organising autonomously, the century for the restriction on ingroup-outgroup patterns, ensuring some state was overwhelmed by action. Parallels with steppes of the River degree of social openness. Don so as to effective anti-capitalist and ecological direct action in the escape social […] In most of the world, modern ethnicity is a colonial west are very obvious here. control. They had invention. It apparently derives from some combination In contrast, ethnic politics in Manipur takes the form of nothing in common of nationalism – a phenomenon dating back three with each other, the operation of a number of hierarchical armed centuries at most, arising among Europeans and settler- apart from their opposition groups. Each of these groups is attached to servitude and their colonists, and basically constructing spooks of sameness one or another ethnicity, and their methods take the form flight. They were linked to the rise of industrial technology – with theories of persecution and exclusion of others. Each is fighting geographically of biological superiority derived from discourses of for some kind of state in the world system – greater fragmented into 22 aristocratic class privilege. Colonial administrators and privileges in the distribution of patronage, an groups. They their pet anthropologists and social scientists went to independent state under the control of a specific group, became a people great lengths to categorise people into groups based on or the institutionalisation of one or another set of because of the new ethnicity – the basic function of the colonial census as a privileges (such as language criteria) establishing the environmental device of subject-construction, as well as to construct supremacy of a particular ethnicity. While Meitei groups conditions and and promote discourses differentiating the various seek an independent state of Manipur, Naga and Kuki subsistence groups and associating them with some eternal essence. routines. They groups fight for separate homelands, and in contrast to In some cases (such as Vietnam), colonisers actually established the popular autonomy expressed by the social themselves went to the lengths of inventing an entire written script movements, the armed opposition groups operate in an alongside Tatars, in order to construct the colonised population as an extremely hierarchical way, imposing "moral codes" Circassians and ethnicity. (such as traditional dress and alcohol prohibition) by Kalmyks. They lived […] Capitalists are only able to profitably exploit means of violence and punishment. by a communal land societies in which a capitalist infrastructure has not yet system, were societies in which a capitalist infrastructure has not yet […] A similar distinction can be made between the kind egalitarian and had been constructed, by working with and through existing of messianic Judaism embraced by authors such as total freedom of social relations; often, this means finding ways to Walter Benjamin and Martin Buber, and the type movement. Cossack incorporate networks. And it is here that ethnic and espoused by statist Zionists as the basis for constructing society was thus a patronage networks become useful. an ethnically exclusionary state. European racists found mirror image of the Jews threatening precisely because of their non- The distinction between ethnic/patronage and servitude and inscription in the state system and their resultant outsider hierarchy of tsarist horizontal/affinity networks is subtle, because the status. It was from this position – as bearers of hybridity Russia. The three external organisational forms are often quite similar. The and as people "out of place" – that the most important big revolts which difference is that, whereas the latter involves horizontal radical developments of Jewish thought have arisen. In threatened the links and structural openness, the former introduces a contrast, with the exception of a small neo-Nazi fringe, empire started in hierarchical element which is potentially system- the normalisation of Jewish identity through the creation Cossack lands. integrative or leaves the network open to integration. After the failure of of a state-based ethnicity has effectively defused anti- the Bulavin In the case of ethnic networks, this hierarchical aspect is Semitism among European nationalists and statists. Rebellion (1707­8), an identity category, a strong discourse of Us and Them Rather, there is now a kind of fellow-feeling with Israel the Cossacks were defining the network and its resources as the exclusive as a western-allied power contributing to world-system forced to provide the integration in an unstable region. This rapid tsarist army with property of an authoritative social group. In patronage networks, this identity-basis is used in combination with turnaround from hostility to commonality can be cavalry units in explained in terms of the system-integrative functions exchange for the a hierarchical situation – an asymmetrical control over of ethnicity. Contrary to appearances, what European preservation of their resources – to integrate the network around relative autonomy. And after privilege, under the control of an elite within the group statists hated about Jews was not anything specific to the defeat of who hold positions of power and use them to the this particular group, but rather, the fact that a particular Pugachev's advantage of the group (and to the disadvantage of group (any particular group – one could also refer to the Rebellion (1773­74), outsiders). It is my contention that patronage Roma here) could not be inscribed in the dominant their local networks based on ethnic, religious, and sectarian system. The moment this exceptional status was democratic affiliations are the primary form of system- eliminated by means of integration into the dominant assemblies were integration in the global periphery, and that these system of representations, a discourse of antagonism was replaced by a replaced by a discourse of similarity and Cossack networks occupy such a role because of their proximity aristocracy. to the affinity-network form which arises among the equivalence.

123. Strong female characters like Ottilie already causing all manner of dissent.” Q Müntzer and Ursula Jost do not offset this. Though the content of the book is not by Luther Blissett [1] particularly radical, they breathe radical life Like Balestrini’s The Unseen, into it by presenting it in heretical sermons reviewed in the previous and putting it into the hands of the right issue of Rolling Thunder, Q people. They use the book to spread details the horrors and revolt, draw out their enemies, and give defeats that frequently are themselves space to avoid and escape the engendered as much by Inquisition. This book, of course, is a our own actions as by metaphor for Q itself. Mirroring its those of our enemies; in ambiguity and cunning, Q is written in the view of these, it offers simple style of an action novel and proposals as to how we can published by corporate publishing giant advance our projects of revolt Harcourt, yet it contains an undeniable today. There are two main glimmer of radicalism that makes it perfect It is 1519, the opening of a century of strategic proposals put forward. The first is for us to use for our own ends. religious upheaval, peasant revolt, heresy, an individual and subjective proposal: we [2] and Inquisition. A student in Wittenburg should throw ourselves into the struggles “I smile. No plan can take everything into meets radical theologian Thomas Müntzer, of our time consciously and strategically, account. Other people will raise their just two years after Martin Luther nailed his so that even in defeat we still have a heads, others will desert. Time will go on 95 Theses to the door of the cathedral trajectory or life project to see through spreading victory and defeat among those there and began the Protestant The second proposal regards who pursue the struggle... We deserve the [3] to the end. Reformation. In the same year a how we might use the novel itself. warmth of baths. May the days be aimless. mysterious papal agent sets in motion a Do not advance the action according to a project of espionage and disruption against “The mirror reflects the years all at once, plan.” Luther and those who took Luther’s but there’s still a quickness in the eyes. challenge to the Catholic Church even Something that must have flashed on the 1. Luther Blissett is a “collective identity” used further. So begins the story told in Q. barricades of Münster, or among the here as a nom de plume by four Italian authors, peasant armies of Thuringia. Something “It is my destiny to survive, always, to go who’ve since continued writing under the name that wasn’t lost along the journey, because Wu Ming. For details about the exploits of those on living in defeat, taking it a little at a time the journey couldn’t kill it. Madness? No, who took on the name Luther Blissett and now […] This is a game that demands to be […] This is a game that demands to be but as Perna put it: the desire to see how Wu Ming, try lutherblissett.net and played to the end; if that is the case, then things will end. ” wumingfoundation.com. so be it. ” Agency is a difficult thing. It can fall into 2. Of the numerous historical accounts of this The student, who adopts many names as your lap when you least expect it and period of revolt and radicalism, Norman Cohn’s The Pursuit of the Millennium, Friedrich Engels’ he traverses Europe, goes on to participate evade the most fanatical who desire it. The in the upheavals and narrowly escape the The Peasant Wars, and George Huntston protagonist of Q is thrown into a historical Williams’ The Radical Reformation offer good inquisitions and massacres of the 16th situation beyond his choosing and control, starting places – though Cohn and Engels Century. Like Emmett Grogan in his but within that space he finds opportunities especially view these events through exaggerated autobiography Ringolevio, to act. His choices, however, lead to authoritarian lenses of their own. one can almost read this character as the horrors just as often as to liberating trans­historical ghost of revolt, surviving experiences; every night he is haunted by 3. Having read a little on the metaphysical controversies of that era, your grumpy editor impossibly from one conflagration to the ghosts of his slain comrades. It is not another.[4] Alongside his story appear the fears that Q does not adequately explore the until the end of the novel that he is able religious beliefs of the rebels it depicts. From a letters and diary entries of his lifelong foe, to reflect on his past and choose his philosophical perspective, this is a missed the papal spy Qoelet, who participates in battles and actions consciously, opportunity, though it would take a very different all this as well, albeit fighting for the other carrying on his life project even into old book to take this on; from a historical side. Together they provide a fictional age to “see how things will end” in a way of perspective, one could charge that this amounts firsthand account of over three decades of his choosing. The stories of the Münster to a refusal to engage with the radicals of that day on their own terms. [ed. – Indeed, one of our European history. commune and Jan Van Batenburg offer a main take­aways from this profound novel was a sobering warning to radicals who fixate on critical look at how much Western radical In addition to retelling the radical violence and destruction as ends in events surrounding the Reformation, Q tradition clings to the Christian heritage and themselves [ed. – see 'The Matter of worldview depicted in that era... but that's a topic functions as a critical allegory of the Knowing Who We Are']. We can reject for another day.] Of course, Q was intentionally social movements of the 20th century. the degeneration of revolt to a matter of written as an action novel, which limits its The book should be read with this in mind, philosophical and historical potential but perhaps [5] mere military force without dismissing our though the metaphor can be thin at times, desire for a new world or rejecting the opens up other possibilities. and a critique of machismo and sexism is need for force to make that desire reality. also lacking.[6] One could interpret 4. Editing this review late at night in the passages such as Chapter 54, which convergence center for the protests at this year’s “In the fog of diffuse dissent you can really Democratic National Convention, I can imagine consists almost entirely of male characters cover some ground.” the protagonist stumbling in unnoticed, white­ conversing while being fellated by women haired and wizened, to witness the foolishness described only by the size of their breasts, In the final section of Q, the protagonist of the latest generation. as biting caricatures of the worst sexism and his comrades begin distributing a book reproduced by supposed radicals; but called “The Benefits of Christ Crucified”: “a 5. Discussion of the protagonist’s relationship to these make for unpleasant reading all the cunning little book, designed to stir up various wealthy merchants, and what this means in the context of both the metaphor and story same, and the absence of the women’s endless hornets’ nests, because it’s itself, is beyond the scope of this review. liberation movement from the allegory ambiguous in its content and expressed in speaks to a sexism that runs deeper than a a language anyone can understand. A 6. The authors are reported to have taken steps merely narrative weakness in the story. masterpiece of dissimulation, and it’s to remedy this in their more recent work. 124. THE DARK MONTHS ARE COMING

The dark months are coming and I come and work in these giant grey await them eagerly. windowless behemoths for a wage that doesn’t stretch, doesn’t even cover the I cannot wait to hide in the darkness, basics. to become invisible, to become myself. The dark is comforting, like The dogs pull for they know the way, a mother, holding me in its are eager to swap the concrete embrace. It nourishes my for grass and soil. These soul, heals it, and makes it woods are theirs too, and they whole again. know they can be free, if only for a while. We turn a corner It is at this time that I feel and, snuggled between more the pull of nature, of the grey buildings, is a narrow great outdoors the most. I gravel track. We follow it, love all seasons, but past yards of piled tyres and these darker months are rusting machinery. mine. On each side, the trees, I can hear my woods call to me, sparse at first, grow can feel it. It is an urge that must not, no, cannot be ignored, and so I pull on my thicker and denser, the path boots and whistle for the dogs, and of all jokes. When you tell people where steeper, until you finally reach the together, witch and hounds, we set off. you live they struggle to hide their distaste top, a big wide meadow. The tall and hold onto their bags a little tighter, as grass is yellowing and soon it will The sky is a tumult of grey, boisterous though my living there makes me a die back, but for now the dogs clouds, heavy with the promise of rain. I criminal. can smell the ozone. I love this place, disappear in it. They reemerge, where I live the most on days like these, I suppose it does, to some. running and nipping one another, always have. I don’t know why, except that playful things, enjoying the maybe because it seems to match this I love these people. They are mine. Weed simple pleasures of being free, council estate. dealers, single mothers, struggling families, terrible teens already disillusioned with the wind in their faces and “The concrete jungle,” people call the with life: the estate is a veritable melting the grass beneath their feet. street on which I live… when they are pot of life’s downtrodden. I trust these being nice. It, and its residents are the butt people. These people will argue with you, I sometimes think we could learn a thing or fight with you, but I trust them. two from dogs. How to be free. How to be content with our own naturalness. We look out for one “During this time of year, every day is shorter than another. These are I follow them slowly, lost in the beauty of the last; darkness claims an ever increasing portion of my people, but I am this place. It’s not a secret, but it feels like our existence. The trajectory can be discouraging; we may not theirs. They it is today. There is no one, other than come to feel estranged from the sun. The winter solstice is the know it and so do I. myself and the dogs here, on this grey and point when that changes; when darkness yields to light and the I am a part of their gloomy day. Finally, I can breathe. days gradually grow longer. [O]ur projections and forecasts world, and not of it. are always uncertain. To suggest otherwise is to reduce reality The churning of the industrial state, to a simple machine – perhaps civilization’s favorite metaphor I am witch. ‘productivity’, can still be heard if you listen for it, but it’s easy to block it out, ignore it. – where each event follows the next as a matter of course, The sounds of nature take over. where the ending is predetermined and wholly predictable, I turn my back on the where we have access to the whole of its operations. But if estate, if only for a while, and head Kestrels circle overhead, hovering every so reality must be likened to a machine it is of the black box often, uncannily still in the air. variety where we have nothing but observed inputs and across the playing field and onto the outputs and very little beyond speculation as to its internal industrial estate. It’s Rabbits hurry to find cover, but the dogs churning. We may at times be able to predict the output but, in never quiet here, not are oblivious to them; they are still too far ways both better and worse, are regularly mistaken and even in the dead of away, and there are too many scents that surprised. Given the number of doomsday scenarios and night. The factories delight their noses between them and the apocalyptic visions currently in circulation, the fact that we are never shut, not even rabbits. I sometimes think that dogs have often mistaken should be understood as a source of hope and for one full day a got it right. Look how happy they are to be encouragement. There are more variables at play than we can year. God forbid outside, to be free; to just enjoy the fresh possibly be aware of and so our nightmare visions may not anyone should have air in your face. come to pass. To give up hope and abandon resistance is to any time off. We kill treat humanity as an all-knowing deity rather than as an animal ourselves for this The track leads into the woods, a narrow opening between crowded trees. It’s not a operating with limited knowledge and finite senses. [ed. – see Memory big woods, but it’s mine, and not the [...] I have faith that the sun will return...” as a Weapon; 'An Enemy of the straight rows of man­planted pine common – The Faith of a Green Anarchist Desire to Create'], to in so many areas.

125. We slip off the track, disappear into the Here I can just be. I feel the power of the I call the dogs, and they know, but relish trees and it’s like a different world. Hushed, earth beneath me, can feel the spirits of every moment of their freedom, and come but alive. The moss covered trunks of land and tree and animal. I wonder if running past me and back out onto the hawthorn and birch and oak rise from the more people knew this, could feel this, tracks, back through the meadow and onto ground, and I let my hands linger across would they do more to protect it? the gravel track. Back into the world of them as I move past them, deeper into the man and commerce and impositions. Back woods. We are connected to this land, to this to the forty hours of mindless work a week earth. for wages that do not stretch. Devils Woods this place is known as. I don’t know if that’s the official name, but as Find your spot and protect it. I am of this land, I am of these woods, I am kids we would come here, and Devils of the rivers and the oceans and the sky The threat of fracking [ed. – see Return Woods it was then, and is now. They’ve and the stars. We all are. Never forget it. It Fire vol.4 pg14] creeps ever closer to my tried to reclaim this wildness, it is now run is our strength, this knowledge, this truth. by a trust. The work they do is good to be town. We can’t look to the local authorities to protect us, because even when they try, fair, without them these trees would no Rediscover your own wildness and you Big Government slaps them down[1]. So doubt have been torn down, replaced by will rediscover yourself. more of the housing or industrial estates much for democracy. that ever seem to creep closer. I won’t let it happen here, or anywhere in 1. ed. – See Return Fire vol.4 pg18. As well as But they also want you to stay on the my town, and to stop it will take action on the Lancaster drilling sites this is in reference to, track, and tracks are not for me. all fronts, magical and mundane. I will fight. Fighting is second nature to me. I last month Third Energy were scheduled to being high­volume fracking North Yorkshire “on The dogs dart here and there. They love it relish it. But I must do more, as must or after 26th October”; the first time in the U.K. beneath the trees and I let them run. They we all. It is all of our responsibility, don’t since exploration at Preese Hall led to small will not stray, ever the faithful friends. we all rely on Mother Nature [sic]? earthquakes in April and May 2011. As we prepare to print, in a landmark case the I’m nearly there now, my clearing. Others I close my eyes and breathe deeply, take in petrochemical giant Ineos has secured long­term have been here, they leave the remains of the smell of the soil, the scent of the sweeping U.K. court injunctions against those campfires, rubbish too. I pick up the woods. I can feel my strength returning, the opposing fracking, leaving them liable to be rubbish, and can feel the thanks of this healing of my soul, and know that it is time jailed, fined, or have their assets seized for land. Then I sit down and just be. No to go, even as I wish I could stay for hours. acting in defence of (amongst other things) meditation or ritual today, though it almost Time to go and put on my many masks, go drinkable water, clean air and the very stability of the land beneath our feet. kind of is. back into the world of man [sic].

NATURE DEVOURS PROGRESS & EXCEEDS IT

The midday sun skins alive the specters that couldn’t hide in ground. Blood calls the sobbing flowers back, and the flowers kill time. Their bones turn into violins and grate on the ears of better than a pistol. They kill the pistol. adventurous men lost in the forest, imitating a Roman emperor’s decadent court. Where genesis has not yet said its final word, where earth only separates from water to generate fire in the air, earth and water, but Tongues of fire, flashes of breasts, reflections of blue pass through especially where earth and water, terrorized by celestial fire, make the half-light full of vampires. One can walk. The ground has the love night and day, in equatorial America, the rifle drives away the air of a brain that would like to appear as a sponge. Silence weighs bird that it doesn’t kill, and the snake crushes the rifle like a rabbit. on the ears like a gold nugget on the hand, but the gold is softer than an orange. And yet, the man is from that side. He has opened a The forest has fallen back before the axe and dynamite, but corridor in the green, and all along this corridor he has stretched a between two railway crossings, it has thrown itself on the telegraph wire. But the forest quickly grows tired of embracing tracks, addressing the train’s engineer with flirtatious gestures and this cord that gives nothing back but a human voice, and the tantalizing glances. Once, twice, he will resist the temptation that plants, thousands of plants, more enthusiastic and insatiable than will follow him all along the route, from a verdant railroad tie to a the others, have rushed to smother this voice under their kiss; then signal hidden by a swarm of bees, but one day he will hear the call silence falls back over the forest like a rescuing parachute. of the enchantress who has the look of a beloved woman. He will stop the engine for an embrace that he desires in passing, but the There, more than anyplace else, death is merely a embrace will be endlessly prolonged in accordance with the temporary way of being of life, which disguises one perpetually renewed desire of the seductress. Though mute, the siren still knows how to draw her victims irretrievably into the side of its prism so that the light is concentrated more abyss of no return. brilliantly on its other faces. Thus, the slow absorption begins: piston rod after piston rod, lever The skulls of the ruminants offer cover, among the great trees after lever, the locomotive goes back into the forest’s bed, and from threatened by thousands of creeper vines, to the nests of birds that voluptuousness to voluptuousness, it moistens, quivers, moans like reflect the sun on their wings, the leaves on their throats. And fleck a lioness in heat. It blackens orchids, its boilers give shelter to of blue sky throb on corpses that metamorphose into a mound of crocodiles’ playthings that blossomed the day before while legions butterflies. of tiny birds live in the whistle, giving it a chimerical and temporary life, since quite quickly the forest’s flame will swallow Life fights with all its might, in all its time, marked by swarms of it up like an oyster, after having licked its prey for so long. mosquitoes on the water’s face. Life loves and kills, caresses what it adores with a murderous hand. Seeds sprout like trip- In the distance, slow skyscrapers of trees will erect themselves to hammers, implacably nailing the ants that devoured them, and to express a challenge impossible to gather. which they may owe their terrible power of germination, to the

126. sources if not already cited: (anonymous if unlisted)

'Tools of the Technology' English-language – from 'Between War & Retail anarchist news & Meltdown' information exchange 'A Smart New World of Slaves' – from 'Between Karoshi & Surplus' Act For Freedom Now! (Greece & global) actforfree.nostate.net 'The Exharchia Commune Rises & Defends Itself' Anarchist Library (multi-lingual, open- – by Paul Z. Simons a.k.a. El Errante source catalogue of print-ready texts) 'Combative Solidarity' thea narchistlibr ary.org – from 'Come Out to the Streets of ““Long live Fire', by Open Assembly Against the Long live Anarchy, Secession, Subsistence Police Occupation (rejoining rebellion with the land) anarchysecessionsubsistence.blogspot.ca 'Symbiogenetic Desire' – by Bellamy Fitzpatrick

Anarchy Radio (streaming and 'The Pond' – from 'Ecology and Man: A downloadable hour of global news and Viewpoint', by Paul Shepard thethe weedsweeds anti-civilisation analysis, every Tuesday) johnzerzan.net/radio 'A Green Anarchist Critique of Science' – by AutumnLeavesCascade

Avalanche (web presence of 'The Matter of Knowing Who We Are' international correspondence publication – from 'Social War, Anti­Social about and from sites of social tension; Tension', by Distri Josep Gardenyes and the each edition available multi-lingual) and the 'Anarchist Relations in Practice' – from avalanche.noblogs.org 'Coordinating a Gift Economy', by PG, Fifth Estate #395 Attaque (France, multi-lingual) attaque.noblogs.org 'Pirates vs. Corsairs!' – by J. Vinagre Bordered by Silence (France) 'An Enemy of the Desire to Create' wildernesswilderness borderedbysilence.noblogs.org – from 'The Revolution of Everyday Chronik (Germany, multi-lingual) Life', by Rauol Vaneigem chronik.blackblogs.org 'The Origins of Victimisation' – by Alfredo Cospito, in Croce Nera Contra Info (global, multi-lingual) Anarchica #2 ”” contrainfo.espiv.net yet.yet. 'Fraud, Fantasy & Fiction in Environmental Montreal Counter-Information Writing' (Canada, bi-lingual) – by David W. Kidner mtlcounter-info.org/en 'On Reasonable Grounds' – from 'Notes Towards a Political Non-Fides (France & global, multi- Ontology of ‘Environmental’ Conflicts', lingual) non-fides.fr by Mario Blaser

Oplopanax Publishing (a cache of 'The Colonial Census' handsome and engaging printable zines) – from 'Ethnic Politics as Integration', oplopanaxpublishing.wordpress.com by Andy Robinson 'Q' – from Rolling Thunder #6 Resonance Audio Distro (various readings as MP3s plus source files) 'The Dark Months are Coming' resonanceaudiodistro.wordpress.com – by Emma Kathryn The Brilliant Podcast (deeply 'Nature Devours Progress & Exceeds It' – from Machete #1 thoughtful questioning on key topics for radicals) thebrilliant.org back cover – Emile Armand Uncivilized Animals (writings on –– ecology, technology and society from an InversnaidInversnaid anti-industrial perspective) uncivilizedanimals.wordpress.com Untorelli Press (an archive and PDFs of this or previous publisher of radical pamphlets against volumes of Return Fire and capitalism, patriarchy, the state and related publications: civilisation) untorellipress.noblogs.org actforfree. nostate.net Warrior Up (sabotage techniques) / ?tag=return-fire warriorup.noblogs.org 127.