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 23, 2012 | Lobbying, Mining & Drilling, Toxification
By Robin Oisín Llewellyn / Mongabay
On hot days the broken stone and dried up silt from the San Sebastian mine in Eastern El Salvador bake in the sun. The slew of refuse is freckled with rock stained bright blue with cyanide, open to the elements that on rainier days will wash it downhill into the Rio San Sebastian below.
The openings of passages into the mine dot the mountainside, and further downhill a bright orange stream with a chemical stench flows into another. The American Commerce Group ceased operating here in 1999 but sought to return when the price of gold began its current escalation. After a Centre for Investigation of Investment and Commerce study found the local river to be 100,000 times more acidic than the area’s uncontaminated water, and cyanide levels to be ten times above safe levels, Commerce Group’s environmental permit was revoked. The company is subsequently suing the Salvadoran government for $100 million through the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
Rising concern over the environmental impact of mining led both presidential candidates in the 2009 elections in El Salvador to pledge to suspend mining operations, a promise kept by current president Mauricio Funes. To prevent further legal cases, which are already draining millions from the country’s coffers, the Salvadoran legislature is considering a special law suspending administrative procedures related to the exploration and exploitation of metallic mining concessions.
Salvadoran environmentalists, in turn, are urging their government to go beyond the suspension of mining projects, and instead ban metallic mining altogether. Thousands of demonstrators marched through the capital this month to urge parliament to sign a law that would enshrine a “human right to water,” which they said would make it impossible to grant mining permits.
In a presentation outside the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly last week, El Salvador’s Human Rights Ombudsman Oscar Umberto Luna gave his support to a complete ban. Luna said that El Salvador’s environmental, climatic, institutional, social and economic conditions meant that it would not be viable for the “metallic mining industry to pursue its extractive activities without risk to the health and living conditions of the Salvadoran People and the resources on which they rely.”
The Ombudsman further urged that “the different state institutions must prioritize the human rights of the population, and keep in mind that true development pursues the improved overall quality of living of the population, not just economic profit.”
A law against mining would transform the country’s legislative framework towards foreign investment. Canadian group Pacific Rim is demanding $77 million to recoup its investments at its El Dorado concession in the northern province of Cabañas, claiming that the government violated the country’s 1999 investment law by denying it a license to extract gold and silver. The investment law allows disputes between foreign investors and the state to be taken outside of the country and decided by the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
“Cyanide is not a vitamin”
Gatherings are being held around the country by anti-mining campaigners, raising awareness of the intertwined history of mining and water sources in the Central American gold belt. One meeting in the northern Salvadoran town of Ilobasco drew figures from a range of organizations united together in the National Roundtable against Mining.Ilobasco is in the agricultural countryside of Cabañas province, and the number of straw Stetsons dotting the sea of heads made the question asked from the podium almost rhetorical: “What do most of you do for a living?”
The audience responded en masse: “Farming!”
The speaker—Karen Vasquez of El Salvador’s Water Forum—echoed them before arguing that the access to land and water for tenant farmers would be made more difficult if the country failed to pass the proposed General Law on Water.The bill asserts that water is a “common good, finite, vulnerable, and essential for human life and ecosystems,” and prioritizes the human consumption of water over industrial uses. It has been sent by President Mauricio Funes to the Legislative Assembly for their approval, where it will be debated this month. The assembly is controlled by the President’s opponents, the right-wing ARENA party.
When Pacific Rim drilled to find gold beneath Cabañas, water sources used by local farmers dried up as subterranean water courses were diverted. Angel Ibarra of the Salvadoran Ecological Union sees such dangers reoccurring.
“Pacific Rim are talking about pursuing subterranean mining, so they’ll have to pump out the subterranean water and dehydrate the area, which would dry up the surface water and the wells,” he told the meeting in Ilobasco.
The proposed mine would, by its own projections, consume 3.2 million liters of water a year, and utilize cyanide to leach the gold from the rock.
“Cyanide is not a vitamin,” Ibarra says, responding to a member of the audience who told the podium that a chemist from the El Dorado mine visited their community to allay concerns over the compound. “Metallic mining causes cyanide and arsenic to be released into the area’s water, and causes acid mine drainage. There’s no such thing as green mining from a scientific or ecological perspective. It’s just propaganda.”
Acid mine drainage is caused by water generating acidity from the metal sulfides in disturbed rock formations. The sulphuric acid in turn releases toxic compounds and heavy metals, which are then washed into surface water.Ibarra points to the long term health damage that these elements can cause when released into the area’s water sources.
“The most serious problems begin when the mining stops, after the 6-10 years that the mine would function for,” he explains. “It’s afterwards that the kidney failures and the chronic illnesses begin. There are examples from other countries where this pollution has gone on for hundreds of years; we need a definitive ban on mining.”
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 16, 2012 | Obstruction & Occupation
By Candice Bernd / TruthOut
More than 50 blockaders tried to re-enter the site of what has become a historic standoff Monday, to expand and support the ongoing Tar Sands Blockade tree village in east Texas.
Several managed to break through police lines to attempt to re-supply activists who have been occupying trees in the pathway of the Keystone XL pipeline since September 24. The rest of the blockaders rallied nearby, blocked by police and TransCanada’s hired security, who have formed a human barrier around the pipeline easement.
Two blockaders have locked themselves to construction equipment, and six blockaders have been arrested so far today.
Blockaders have been trying to negotiate with security hired by TransCanada to get food and water to activists occupying the trees in the path of the Keystone XL pipeline, to no avail. Now they are taking a stand together to get supplies to the activists occupying the tree-sit so they may maintain their standoff.
The activists were gathered at the location in Winnsboro after spending the weekend at a direct-action camp hosted by Tar Sands Blockade. Activists traveled from across the country and were trained in climbing, media relations, organizing and body blockade techniques.
“Coming out here had been one of the more inspiring things that I have done in years now,” says Toby Potter, a member of the environmental organization, Earth First!
Potter helped lead workshops over the weekend for camp participants in lockdowns and body blockades. “It gives me a lot of hope, seeing all this resistance from the area … and from around the country, and knowing that there’s [sic] other fights against tar sands at the same time.”
Potter helped camp participants erect a 30-foot wooden tripod used by activists who sit at the top of it during a blockade action. Many of the weekend’s campers participated in Monday’s blockade in Winnsboro to defend the tree village.
TransCanada filed a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) last week, naming 19 individual defendants, three organizations, and another six unidentified tree-sitters. The broad civil action seeks an injunction, declaratory relief and damages.
Most of the defendants have been arrested in previous Tar Sands Blockade actions. Ron Seifert, the Blockade’s media spokesman, was also named, although he has not yet been arrested in connection with the ongoing protest. Actor Daryl Hannah, who was arrested while defending Area Landowner Eleanor Fairchild’s home, is not named in the SLAPP suit. Fairchild, however, is named in the suit.
Another activist, going by the name Kevin Redding due to security concerns, recently escaped arrest at a secondary tree-sit the Blockade launched last week at West End Nature Preserve outside Mt. Vernon, Texas, where TransCanada had announced plans to cut trees.
“I’ve lived in Texas my whole life, and when I heard about TransCanada putting the pipeline through, I didn’t like the idea of any part of Texas having a tar sands pipeline going through it,” Redding told Truthout. “I’ve been here for a long time, and I don’t plan on going anywhere.”
Redding said local police tried to intimidate him, as he sat in a tree, with threats that he would be charged with terrorism. When company representatives said they would under-bore through the preserve, rather than cut trees in the ecologically sensitive area, the activist left the site, unobserved.
Monday’s action comes on the heels of an ongoing police crackdown not only on the tree-sitters, but also on journalists trying to tell their story. Two New York Times reporters were detained Oct. 10 while covering the tree-sit. They were released after identifying themselves as media.
Read more from TruthOut: http://truth-out.org/news/item/12121-fresh-recruits-more-arrests-begin-week-four-in-texas-tar-sands-blockade
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 15, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Indigenous Autonomy, Protests & Symbolic Acts
By Terri Hansen / Intercontinental Cry
A fleet of boats piloted by Native and non-Native fishers gathered today in the waters off Xwe’chi’eXen (Cherry Point, Wash.) to stand with the Lummi Nation in opposition to the proposed Gateway Pacific coal terminal at Xwe’chi’eXen.
“We have to say ‘no’ to the coal terminal project,” said Cliff Cultee, Chairman of the Lummi Nation. “It is our Xw’ xalh Xechnging (sacred duty) to preserve and protect all of Xwe’chi’eXen.”
A ceremony of thankfulness, remembrance and unity was held on the beach during the event. Lummi Indians maintain the largest Native fishing fleet in the United States, and Lummi fishers have worked in the Cherry Point fishery for thousands of years.
If constructed, the terminal would be the largest coal terminal on the West Coast of North America. It would significantly degrade an already fragile and vulnerable crab, herring and salmon fishery, dealing a devastating blow to the economy of the fisher community.
“This is not about jobs versus the environment,” said Jewell James of the Lummi Nation’s Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office. “It is about what type of jobs are best for the people and the environment.”
Another gathering of Lummi Indians and non-Indian residents from the local and regional community was held at Xwe’chi’eXen on Sept. 21 to call for the protection and preservation of Xwe’chi’eXen, which is the location of a 3,500 year old village site, and a landscape that is eligible for registry on the National Register of Historic Places.
A Lummi Nation Business Council Resolution declared Lummi “will continue to safeguard our ancestral and historical areas” and the ability of its members to “exercise treaty, inherent and inherited rights.”
The Lummi Nation is participating in a broad intertribal coalition to defeat the project and to ensure that the natural and cultural legacy of Xwe’chi’eXen is protected in perpetuity.
From Intercontinental Cry: http://intercontinentalcry.org/native-and-non-native-fishers-join-lummi-nation-in-opposing-proposed-coal-terminal-at-cherry-point/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 10, 2012 | Lobbying, Toxification
By Jeff Gray / The Globe and Mail
Chevron Corp. has lost a bid to have the U.S. Supreme Court consider its call for a worldwide ban on attempts to collect on a controversial $19-billion (U.S.) environmental judgment levelled against the company in Ecuador.
The decision comes with lawyers in Canada poised to battle in a Toronto courtroom next month over an attempt by the Ecuadorean plaintiffs to seize Chevron’s considerable Canadian assets to cover at least part of the massive judgment – a judgment the oil giant dismisses as fraudulent.
In the latest twist in a tangled legal saga, Chevron was trying to revive a preliminary injunction issued last year by a federal judge in New York. That injunction was later overturned on appeal. It purported to block the plaintiffs and their lawyers from trying to enforce the 2011 Ecuadorean court ruling not just in the U.S., but anywhere outside of Ecuador.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Tuesday to hear the case. It issued no reasons, as is customary, leaving the appeal court decision that quashed the injunction in place.
The news comes as lawyers for the plaintiffs – a group of villagers in the Amazon rainforest – have stepped up their campaign to force the oil company to pay for environmental damage from oil pollution in the Lago Agrio area of Ecudaor.
Chevron, based in San Ramon, Calif., has said it has virtually no assets remaining in Ecuador, and the plaintiffs have vowed to chase the company’s assets elsewhere. Their first stop, earlier this year, was Canada.
In May, they announced they had retained prominent Toronto lawyer Alan Lenczner, of Lenczner Slaght Royce Smith Griffin LLP, to try to have the judgment recognized by the Ontario Superior Court and force Chevron to fork over its Canadian assets, which include oil sands holdings. The plaintiffs have also filed a similar collection effort in Brazil.
In sprawling litigation in the United States, both sides have accused each of fraud and bribery in connection with the Ecuadorean ruling, allegations they both deny.
Chevron said Tuesday in an e-mailed statement that the company was disappointed with the decision but “will continue to defend against the plaintiffs’ lawyers’ attempts to enforce the fraudulent Ecuadorean judgment, and to further expose their misconduct in our pending [litigation] in New York and other proceedings.”
The plaintiffs’ say the ruling is the latest in a series of defeats for Chevron in U.S. courts.
“Chevron’s latest loss before the Supreme Court is an example of the company’s increasingly futile battle to avoid paying its legal obligations in Ecuador,” Aaron Marr Page, a lawyer for the Ecuadoreans, was quoted as saying in an e-mailed statement.
Read more from The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/the-law-page/chevron-loses-bid-to-have-ecuador-case-heard-by-us-supreme-court/article4599707/
