by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 24, 2012 | Property & Material Destruction, Strategy & Analysis
The industrial machine dismantling the planet is incredibly vast, made as it is of the activity of hundreds of millions—billions—of people. Chainsaws and feller-bunchers topple forests, dams and canals drain wetlands and kill rivers, excavators tear apart mountains, dragnets scrape the ocean(s) sterile, the prairies plowed and paved over, and everything everywhere poisoned as we erase the genetic code of nature.
As civilization pushes the planet towards complete biotic collapse—speeding at the murderous pace of two hundred species a day—resistance becomes a mandate. Having seen the depressing failure of traditional & legal courses of action at slowing, never mind stopping, this death march, we are left with militant underground resistance as our only real hope for success.
While such resistance has been gaining speed worldwide in recent decades, much of the underground action taken thus far in defense of earth (at least in industrialized countries) has not been aimed or designed to cripple or stop industrial civilization. Actions have largely been defensive and reactive, with strikes against targets that—while primary causes of ecocide—aren’t critical to the larger function of industrialism or civilization.
While the courage of anyone who puts themselves on the line, risking their life and freedom in defense life, is undeniable and praiseworthy, we need more than piecemeal resistance: we need to prevent the function of industrial civilization. We don’t need to strike at the most obvious targets; we need to disable the critical support systems, to crumble the foundation of industrial civilization.
Because for all its awful horror, and despite its gargantuan sprawl, it is incredibly fragile. It is dependent on several very brittle systems (specifically electricity and oil) to sustain itself on even a daily level. These systems underlie all other industrial activity, at one level or another, and without their undisrupted operation, nothing else could function.
By disrupting these systems, that machine of industrial civilization can be brought to a screeching (and with preservation, irreversible) halt. By striking at critical nodes within the systems that sustain and enable industrial civilization, a serious militant resistance movement could seriously disrupt these systems. With some coordination, it could collapse them entirely, leveling the foundation of the oppressive & murderous social structure itself.
This process of strategically selecting and attacking targets and coordinating strikes to sabotage entire global systems is known as ‘systems disruption’. The idea is to leverage the structure and dynamics of the system against itself; identifying and attacking structural weak points, nodes that are critical to functionality, specific bottlenecks in the industrial process without which the larger system cannot function. Striking at these points yields the maximum impact of any attack on a system, and by coordinating attacks to strike at multiple, interconnected and interdependent nodes, a small force can disrupt or disable entire industrial superstructures, such as a national electric grid or international oil extraction/transportation/refining/distribution system.
Done correctly, this process is similar to that of explosive demolition, wherein massive, multi-story buildings are brought tumbling down in several seconds by carefully placed explosives. The idea is not to blow the building to dust, which would not only require countless explosives, but would also endanger everything around it. Instead, by analyzing the construction and structure of the building, workers identify specific locations at which to place explosives, and carefully time the blasts to collapse the structure in on itself.
Continuing the metaphor, by strategically selecting appropriate nodes in the system, success can be achieved with the minimal resources necessary. Consider the amount of explosives necessary to blast apart a building entirely versus the amount needed to destroy key foundational supports. The same is true of dismantling the superstructure of civilization as compared to disabling the key support systems that prop it up: refined liquid fossil fuels for transportation and electricity to power industrial activity. By allowing a small force with limited resources to topple disproportionately large and complex systems through precise attacks, systems disruption is a perfect offensive doctrine for asymmetric forces, and must be part of any smart anti-civilization underground resistance.
Also, in the same way that a proper building demolition collapses the structure in on itself without damaging anything around it, by attacking properly selected nodes, an underground resistance could collapse civilization in on itself, minimizing damage done to the planet (and oppressed humans). Rather than a protracted bloody struggle of attrition (whose success would be dubious), coordinated and decisive systems disruption would effectively pull the plug.
The doctrine of systems disruption has been used around the world in countless conflicts for the very simple (and very compelling) reason that it is incredibly effective.
In the Niger Delta, militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta used effective systems disruption to cripple the oil industry. By coordinating strikes against specific pipelines, pumping stations, and oil platforms, the resisters in the Delta shut down 40 percent of oil output, and in one series of attacks, this margin was increased to 80 percent of production.
Using the same doctrine, resistance forces in Iraq limited oil production by 70 percent. By carefully selecting vulnerable and vitally important nodes within the oil infrastructure system, a small force has been able to disable a national oil production system.
It’s time earth defense movements adopted similar convictions of strategic rigor. The electrical and oil systems are not only crucial to the hourly function of civilization; they are incredibly vulnerable to systems disruption. Both of these systems are designed for efficiency, a design constraint that yields configurations that are ripe for coordinated disruption.
For example, one report estimated that a loss of only 10-20 electrical substations could shut down 60 percent of power distribution, potentially for weeks.
These systems are very inflexible, and if struck with the right force in the right place, they would cease to function entirely. Often, these systemic fulcrums aren’t the places or nodes we might expect. In general, these bottlenecks—whose disruption or disabling yields the maximum impact on the rest of the system—fall into one or more of several categories: they are highly connected or cluster-connection nodes; they are high-load nodes, meaning they experience a lot of traffic, relative to other nodes in the system; or are sources of systemic flow, such as a power plant.
In systems as complex as those that sustain industrial civilization, there won’t be a single keystone piece of infrastructure the disabling of which would collapse the whole system. Rather, there will be a number of such bottlenecks. Striking any of them would be beneficial, but coordinating decisive attacks against multiple such nodes will have an exponential effect, and can cause cascading failures within the system.
These sort of strategic attacks—those that coordinate strikes against weak points and manipulate system dynamics to turn small attacks into large events, disrupting and disabling key industrial systems—are what give those standing against planetary murder the best chance of success. All smart strategic planning starts from the basis of what people, resources, and time is available, and then formulates a strategy within those constraints.
As a movement, radical earth-defense doesn’t have the resources or the numbers of people necessary to engage in open battles with those in power, nor the time to wait for civilization to collapse on its own. By operating along principles of asymmetric struggle, and using coordinated attacks against bottlenecks, an underground resistance could destroy civilization’s ability to function. In no uncertain terms, a relatively small number of people, placing the charges in just the right spots, could bring down civilization, just like a ten-story office building.
Time is Short: Reports, Reflections & Analysis on Underground Resistance is a biweekly bulletin dedicated to promoting and normalizing underground resistance, as well as dissecting and studying its forms and implementation, including essays and articles about underground resistance, surveys of current and historical resistance movements, militant theory and praxis, strategic analysis, and more. We welcome you to contact us with comments, questions, or other ideas at undergroundpromotion@deepgreenresistance.org
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 17, 2012 | Strategy & Analysis
The modern environmental movement began some 40 years ago, and by virtually every metric, the state of the planet has spiraled horrifically into catastrophe since then.
Air, the world over, is more polluted and congested with poisons than ever before. Water available to ecosystems and people is reduced every year as more and more is stolen for industry and corporate agriculture, and what is left over is increasing toxified; 80% of rivers in the U.S. no longer support life. On this continent, 98% of native forests have been felled forever, the insanity of their murder driven more by an over-abundance of timber mills and public subsidies than actual consumer demand. Climate change proceeds ever faster apace, and this summer, 97% of Greenland’s surface ice melted in seven days, and the entirety of North America was ravaged by extreme weather. Industrial fishing has devastated our oceans, and now 90% of large fish are extinct. Every day 200 species are extirpated forever.
The death machine of industrial civilization speeds ever apace, accelerating daily as it dismantles the living systems of earth. If it is to be stopped, we cannot afford any qualms about using any and all means available to halt it in its bloody tracks. Time is short, and militant, underground resistance is required if we are to decisively stop the powerful from exploiting the marginalized and destroying the planet. Attacks on the physical infrastructure of this corrupt arrangement of power—the oil, electric, and industrial infrastructure that prop it up and keep it functioning—are the surest route to a livable, desirable future.
But such serious and determined resistance doesn’t appear in a vacuum; it grows from an uncompromising culture of resistance, a culture that not only embraces the need to fight back, but that makes resistance its mandate.
Deep Green Resistance is working to build that culture of resistance, and as one small part of that, we’re introducing Time is Short: Reports, Reflections & Analysis on Underground Resistance, a weekly column dedicated to promoting and normalizing underground resistance, as well as dissecting and studying its forms and implementation. Be on the lookout for essays and articles about underground resistance, surveys of current and historical resistance movements, militant theory and praxis, strategic analysis, and more.
Underground and militant organizations and tactics have been a major part of nearly all social movements for the undeniably compelling reason that they are effective. And with everything worth loving at stake, that must be our metric. As an aboveground organization, we must dare to speak out in support of such resistance, dare to call for radical underground resistance, and dare to defend and openly celebrate it whenever it does take place.
Talking openly about such radical action, dissecting and studying the organization, tactics and strategies of past movements, we hope to help create an encouraging dialogue of learning, growth, and—of course—resistance.
In these times, in light of the ongoing omnicide inflicted by the dominant culture against life, it becomes a duty to unflinchingly embrace, advocate, defend and celebrate underground resistance. Another 200 species disappeared from the world forever today, and they were our kin. They will continue vanishing until we muster the collective courage to move beyond our fears and hesitations (however legitimate they may be), to decisively stop their murders; to dismantle the industrial system that is killing everything by any means necessary.
Time is Short: Reports, Reflections & Analysis on Underground Resistance is a biweekly bulletin dedicated to promoting and normalizing underground resistance, as well as dissecting and studying its forms and implementation, including essays and articles about underground resistance, surveys of current and historical resistance movements, militant theory and praxis, strategic analysis, and more. We welcome you to contact us with comments, questions, or other ideas at undergroundpromotion@deepgreenresistance.org
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 1, 2012 | Alienation & Mental Health, Culture of Resistance
By Ben Barker / Deep Green Resistance Wisconsin
Children learn early on to trust their parents. Adults are, without a moment’s hesitation, relied upon to take care of problems and make everything okay. When problems do arise, children may not even be aware of the unease, shielded as they are by the eternal wisdom of their elders, who surely will guide any troubles to a course of comfort and deliver the world, once again, to balance.
This is a story ubiquitous and seemingly obvious enough to make saying it aloud almost strange. Trust in the adults around you is, to the child, as normal as air and water, as self-evident as life itself. More unspoken is that the care delivered from parent to child requires, by definition, long-term thinking: a vision of the world in which this child will grow and a plan for how the parent can positively shape the outcome. Why would a child second-guess this, when all of life’s necessities seem to be taken care of?
It’s time to take another guess. Not because parents shouldn’t take care of children in these ways and not because parents aren’t capable of it; my friends who are parents exemplify that this is not the case (and, I should add, would probably stop returning my phone calls if I tried to claim otherwise). Rather, it is because, whether child or adult, we can no longer unwittingly rely on caretakers to think long-term for us or teach us how to think that way ourselves.
Ours is a culture defined by short-term and impulsive thinking for immediate (perceived) gains, regardless of the (obvious) long-term costs. Tragically, too many children will grow to find the adults in their lives under this same thrall, acting not from wisdom, care, or foresight, but from greed, selfishness, and hatred.
This is the story of the dominant culture. Just substitute citizens of empire for the child and those who run the empire for the parental figure. Greed, selfishness, and hatred are not traits inherent in human beings, but are as a matter of course learned from this culture of capitalism, patriarchy, and industrial civilization. We are not children anymore, but subservient just the same when we choose to ignore the glaring and painful reality before us in favor of that soothing fairy tale.
It doesn’t get more irresponsible than the decisions made by this culture’s decision-makers. From the oppression of human beings to the wholesale destruction of the natural world, the choices that have lead—and continue to lead—to atrocities are made by the same kind of adults raising children under the fairy tale spell that everything is going to be all right.
Everything is not all right and it’s not going to be all right as long as we blindly trust those in power to make choices of good will, to make choices with our collective futures in mind. Presently, the world is being ripped to pieces: rivers are full of poison; whole mountains are exploded; supremacy is used to justify the vast subjugation of human populations. The first step to halting these disasters is to take an honest look at who is causing them.
The clarity of naming a perpetrator opens the door on the many routes available to those who wish to stop them. But, as long as we cling to the myths about being unconditionally cared for by those who make decisions on our behalves—parents, teachers, bosses, politicians, CEOs—we are cut off from seeing the possible reality that it is these same people who are enacting or colluding with the perpetration. Not only do the powerful neglect our safety, but they jeopardize our future. It doesn’t matter how old you are; the almost-holy trust placed in parents by children is no different than that most people place in the system and those who run it. This is to say it’s never too late to admit to the thrall enslaving your perceptions—and it’s never too late to snap out of it.
That most people will not admit to an infantilizing dependency on being controlled does not change that, time and time again, they submit their wills to the whims of the powerful. In this culture of It’s Just The Way Things Are; blown up mountains, broken rivers, and suffering human beings do not even faze a depressingly large number of people. This is not because of an inability to love, but because of a thick denial of the truth that what politicians and corporations promise are simply lies (unless, of course, they are promising to maintain the American Way Of Life, in which case they are telling bloody and devastating truths).
How much betrayal does it take for someone to lose trust? How much destruction can the dominant culture administer against the world before a mass movement rises to end it? I would have hoped that a near-dead planet—the eradication of most large fish in the oceans, most prairies, most old-growth forests, most indigenous humans—would do it, but apparently not. As we see.
And, why? Faith in so-called superiors to think long-term is an addiction as sure as abusive relationships can be, as sure as alcoholism is. We think these people or these substances will guide us to salvation, but in our refusal to see the glaring and irredeemable violence that makes up their very nature, they steal from under us the ground we stand on, the foundation of our humanity and the possibility for a better life. The abuser steals self-respect, the alcohol steals personality, and the culture steals a living planet.
If our parents, our elders, and our leaders are not guaranteed to take responsibility for what may happen in times to come, then it falls on the rest of us. Elders are vital to any community, but if they only teach poison and passivity, we—the world, we—are better off without them.
Now is the time for us to look at the planet as it truly is and ask what it needs from us. It’s time to ask what the world will look like in five, ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred years, and what we can do to affect this. With global warming reaching a tipping point of irreversibility, with 200 species of life vanishing from the Earth every new day, it should be clear what kind of endpoint the current trajectory—the path either endorsed or unsuccessfully challenged by our parents—is leading to.
Liars will tell us to look away, but we must not. It will take unspeakable courage, but it is now or never to think for ourselves and, most importantly, to think for the future. After all, someone has to.
Beautiful Justice is a monthly column by Ben Barker, a writer and community organizer from West Bend, Wisconsin. Ben is a member of Deep Green Resistance and is currently writing a book about toxic qualities of radical subcultures and the need to build a vibrant culture of resistance.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 3, 2012 | Movement Building & Support
By Ben Barker / Deep Green Resistance Wisconsin
“There have been others also just as true and devoted to the cause…with such women consecrating their lives—failure is impossible!”—Susan B. Anthony
As an activist and organizer, I concern myself with the work of getting people together to change the world. A necessary part of this is striving to see activists bringing all of their respective gifts and forms of commitment to the table. With strong ties between strong hearts, the path to lasting social change is begun and sustained.
My time as an activist has shown me that connecting to and keeping relationship with allies is an invaluable aspect of movement-building. For some years, I have tried to organize in my local community. Here lives a diverse array of strong-hearted activists with gifts that, while amazingly unique, serve to mutually support each others’ efforts. There are herbalists, musicians, writers, environmentalists, socialists, feminists, gardeners, and political organizers, all of whom work towards a more sane and just society. The hope I’ve placed in the power of all of them coming together does pay off, though it is no small task to help guide the momentum into fruition.
A more immediately gratifying example of this has been my experience in working with the international social justice and environmental movement called Deep Green Resistance (DGR). For the year and a half that I’ve been involved with DGR, I have witnessed discipline, strategy, and character on the part of it’s members that is deeply impressive. Further, I’m honored to work on the organization’s staff, and as part of this interviewing many potential recruits. It has not been lost on me that, while most who want to join share the same basic goal of liberating the earth from industrial civilization, each brings wildly unique gifts to put to use along the way.
The background of activists within Deep Green Resistance varies as well. As the organization states, “DGR is made up of writers, community organizers, janitors, parents, grocery clerks, musicians, feminists, teachers, farmers, dishwashers, artists, caregivers, laborers, and students.” I often work with members on projects, and I am aware and in awe of the beautiful and dynamic lives each lead, of which their work in the movement is but one part.
Sometimes, I worry about losing connection with these allies. My knowledge of the incredible possibilities of what we can make happen by working together carries with it also the truth that we could once again be separated and isolated from one another. Indeed, between working jobs to pay rent, raising children, and tending to personal hobbies, it can prove hard for some to find time for involvement in the activities of DGR.
So, I try to hold on tight. I ask, is it our communication tools that need adjusting? Are people being treated well? What should be done to retain them and engage them? Clearly, these questions can be overwhelming for one person to grapple with and rarely do answers do emerge simply because they are summoned.
This yearning to keep intact the community is present every single day and enough so that I eventually began formulating a response that is at least partially adequate. I tell myself: People come for the fight, but stay for the culture. The task of organizers then becomes creating a healthy culture of resistance for the fighters to live within.
Those who seek out Deep Green Resistance are usually not lacking in a will to fight, as one might guess by the movement’s name. The explicit goal of DGR is to “deprive the rich of their ability to steal from the poor and the powerful of their ability to destroy the planet.” This is not the place for those with feeble politics or wills. But, while DGR seems to offer a place for the warrior inside us, we must ask also if it is welcoming to loving human beings. Friendship is a cornerstone to any healthy community, and it will take these bonds, these strong ties, to do this intensive work alongside each other.
In the end, I cannot force anyone to stay in the movement, or to use their gifts in a particular way. I wouldn’t want to, anyways. They will stay if they want; if the community is healthy and has the potential to really effect change, they likely will stay. So, I ask you, my comrades, what is it that makes this culture of love and rage, this tightly-knit community that can fight back against the dominant culture and win. How can we encourage this and turn it into reality? Throughout every day of doing this work, I will also ask myself these questions. As long as it takes.
From Kid Cutbank: http://kidcutbank.blogspot.com/2012/08/as-long-as-it-takes-strong-ties-strong.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 16, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Listening to the Land, Toxification
By Ben Barker / Deep Green Resistance Wisconsin
The Milwaukee River runs through the place where I live. Really, it is the place where I live, or at least part of it. This place would not be what it is without the river.
On a warm, sunny day the river will call to me in a bodily way to come into the water, or at least to feel it with my hands or feet. I’m sure this relationship between river and human, river and bird, river and insect, is older and more sacred than I can imagine.
When the river calls to me in this way, I want so badly to get in. I want to spend all of the warm and sunny days heeding this call, and the other days watching from the river’s side, listening and learning.
What breaks my heart is that I will not enter this river and let its waters caress my body, at least not today or any time soon, because its waters are full of poison.
Less than ten years ago, my friends and I would swim in the river on every warm and sunny day. Then, a number of them started experiencing rashes on their skin or felt sick from accidentally letting some of the river water into their mouth. We stopped swimming in the river. The poison dumped or seeped into the river continues to build, and the river continues to be killed, while we essentially stand aside and mourn.
I’m tired of mourning and I’m tired of hearing that this destruction is natural, inevitable, “just the way things are.”
What made clear in my own life that this river was changing for the worse, that it was being killed, was when I no longer wanted to let its waters touch my body. While obviously bad in itself, there’s a larger picture here that must be looked at.
There are living beings—including the river itself—whose lives depend on this river. When the river dies, so to do the fish, bugs, birds, and other animals who drink and eat from the river, who call the river home. Thus, each year that there are more and more pollutants from agricultural run-off in the river, there are less and less songbirds and frogs.
Prior to the arrival of Europeans on this continent, human beings lived here who loved the Milwaukee River. They were indigenous peoples called the Menominee, Potawatomi, and Fox, among other tribes. The lives of these human beings were firmly intertwined with the life of the river. These human beings ate and drank from the river, prayed to the river, and listened to the river’s wisdom.
Those sustainable human cultures were victims—and continue to be victims—of large-scale murder—genocide—at the hands of white settlers. The same people who committed these atrocities against the indigenous humans are now killing the river. Both the river and the human beings who love it—and know how to live sustainability with it—are targets of the dominant culture, industrial civilization. In order to control, exploit, and pollute the river, the humans who depend on it for sustenance must also be displaced or eradicated. We can see how this happened here at home in the case of the Milwaukee River, but we must see further that this has happened everywhere and is the story of civilization.
Currently, every stream in the United States is contaminated with carcinogens. 99% of native prairies have been destroyed. 99% of old growth forests are gone. 90% of the large fish in the oceans are gone. It’s estimated that unless there is a dramatic shift in course, global warming will become irreversible in around 5 years, eventually rendering all life on this planet doomed.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The destruction can be stopped and we must stop it. Clearly, the river, the land, indigenous humans, and so much more life, are the victims of an abusive system. Like all perpetrators, the way to stop them is to aim at the root of the problem and remove or block their ability to abuse. Basically, the goal is to return the circumstances to the way they were before the abuse started, with the victims free and safe. The abuse of civilization has been a campaign of 10,000 years, so obviously there is much to be done to stop it. But, what choice do we have other than to start now and try?
Who or what do you love? Surely you love something or you wouldn’t be here. What would you do to defend your beloved?
I love the Milwaukee River. I want to see this river come back to life, year after year regaining health. I want to see no more poison seeping into the river, no more dams suffocating it, no more destruction of any kind. I want to see all of that destruction reversed and those who would commit abuse stopped and held accountable for their crimes against life.
I love the Milwaukee River and I love life. I will do whatever is necessary to defend the living, before the planet is killed entirely. Will you join me?
From Kid Cutbank: http://kidcutbank.blogspot.com/2012/05/story-of-river.html
