by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 1, 2013 | Lobbying, Mining & Drilling, Property & Material Destruction, Strategy & Analysis
Mining is one of the most viscerally destructive and horrific ways in which the dominant culture—industrial civilization—enacts its violence on the living world. As entirely and unequivocally destructive as this society is, few other industrial activities are as horrifically confronting as mining. Whole landscapes are cleared of life as communities—most often indigenous or poor—are forced from their homes. Mountains level to piles of barren rubble which leach countless poisons, scouring life from whole watersheds. Pits of unimaginable size are carved from the bones of the earth, leaving moonscapes in their wake.
Besides the immediate damage to the land at the site of operations, the destruction extends through the uses its products are put to. In this way, mining is crucial to the continued function of industrial civilization, supplying many of the raw materials that form the material fabric of industrial society. Steel, aluminum, copper, coal, tar sands bitumen, cement; the materials extracted through mining are central components of industrial civilization in an immediate and physical way. They are the building blocks of this society.
Fortunately, as is the way of things, where there is atrocity and brutalization, there is resistance. There has been a lot of militant anti-mining action happening recently; in the last few months alone there have been several inspiring incidents of people taking direct militant action against mining projects and infrastructure.
In February, several dozen masked militants raided the Hellas gold mine in Halkidiki, Greece. They firebombed machinery, vehicles, and offices at the site. The attack followed several years of legal challenges and public demonstrations—none of which succeeded in stopping the mine, which will destroy forests, poison groundwater, and release air pollutants including lead, mercury and arsenic.
When local residents tried to stop the mine through the courts the government ruled against them, claiming that the mine would create jobs. As the Deputy Minister of Energy and Environment Asimakis Papageorgiou said, “We can no longer accept this [area] being left unexploited or barely exploited.”
Statements like these on the part of those in power, while not necessarily surprising, help to make clear the reality we face; the dominant culture requires the rending of the living world into dead commodities. It can’t be persuaded to change, no matter how compassionate and compelling the appeals we make. It can only be forced to change.
More recently, the Powharnal coal mine in Scotland was attacked at the beginning of April. An anonymous communique was released via Indymedia Scotland:
At some point over the past weekend multiple items of plant machinery at an extension to the Powharnal open cast coal site in East Ayrshire were put beyond working use. High value targets including a prime mover and bulldozer were also targeted to cause maximum disruption to workings at the mine.
Scottish Coal is falling and not only do we intend to make sure that they go down – but that they stay down too.
This action presents yet another hopeful example of militant action targeting extractive projects. This was not a symbolic act of property destruction, but rather one aimed at materially disrupting and stopping destructive activity. More so, the actionist(s) specifically targeted key equipment and infrastructure at the site to maximize the impact of their actions, making good use of effective systems disruption.
A third example comes from Peru, where in mid-April several hundred protestors stormed the Minas Conga gold & copper mine, occupying the site for a short while and burning equipment. Besides the immediate damage done by the arson, the action forced the operating company, Minera Yanacocha, to evacuate personnel and equipment, further disrupting their operations.
This latest protest in April is the latest in a continuous and diverse tapestry of resistance to the Minas Conga mine. Such direct and militant protests and actions last year forced Yanacocha to put most of the mining project on hold, and the strong unyielding opposition has Newmont Mining Corporation (which owns Yanacocha) considering pulling out of the project altogether. This is yet another example of how effective militant action can be in stopping mining and other extractive projects.
Of course there are plenty of aboveground and nonviolent efforts being made to oppose mining projects happening as well, and this isn’t meant to detract from or dismiss their efforts. But the dominant culture needs access to the raw materials that feed the global economy, and in the end it will secure those resources by force, refusing to hear “no!”
Again, this isn’t to say that nonviolent efforts are by any means doomed to failure each and every time we employ them. It is to acknowledge that the entire existence and operation of industrial civilization requires continued access to “raw materials” (otherwise known as natural living communities), and that the courts, regulatory systems, and laws have all been designed to preserve that arrangement. We may win occasional victories here and there, but like a casino, they—the House, the capitalists, the miners, the extractors, etc.— will always come out ahead in the end.
When aboveground & legal efforts to stop mining and other extraction projects fail, as they so often and reliably do, those determined to protect the lands and communities that are their homes turn to other means.
Attacking and destroying the mining infrastructures themselves—the physical machines that are the immediate and direct weapons used to tear up biomes—forces a halt to extraction with an unmatched directness and immediacy. Beyond mining itself, the strategic efficacy of targeting infrastructure—as the foundational supports of any system—has been proven time and again by militaries and resistance movements around the world.
Of course, attacks targeting mines alone will likely never be enough to stop such harmful and destructive processes altogether. That can only happen by dismantling industrial civilization itself. And like anti-mining resistance, bringing down civilization will require underground action— the targeting of key nodes of critical industrial systems through coordinated sabotage.
That will require building a serious and capable resistance movement, one that is unafraid to name the situation before us—the stakes, the urgency, and the strategic reality—and to confront power. It means building a movement that can navigate around the traps and misdirection historically used to disrupt and disable movements. It means building a movement that is willing and able to defend the living Earth by any means necessary. Toward this end, members of DGR will be traveling the Northeast U.S. & Southeast Canada this summer for the Resistance Rewritten Tour, to talk about what that movement will mean and look like.
As civilization continues its incessant death march around the world— tearing apart and destroying ever more of the living world, ever more human and extra-human communities— resistance against it must of necessity become more militant. With so much at stake, those resisters in Greece, Scotland, Peru and elsewhere using militant attacks on industrial infrastructure to defend their lands and communities deserve our undying support. Those of us who value life and justice should not condemn them, but celebrate them— for theirs is precisely the type of action that will be required to stop the murder of the living world.
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 | Apr 17, 2013 | Strategy & Analysis
By now we should all be familiar with what’s at stake. The horrific statistics—200 species driven extinct daily, every child born with hundreds of toxic chemicals already in their bodies, every living system on the planet in decline—haunt us as we go about our work in a world that refuses to hear, listen, or act on them. After decades of traditional organizing and activist work, we’re beginning to come to terms with the need for a dramatic shift in strategy and tactics, and indeed in how we conceptualize the task before us.
It is not enough any longer (if it ever was) to build a reformist social movement, one more faction among many attempting to fix the failings within our society. With industrial civilization literally tearing apart the biosphere and skinning the planet alive, we can afford no other goal than to build a resistance movement capable of—and determined to succeed in—bringing down industrial civilization, by any means necessary.
We know this will require decisive underground action to be successful, and starting all but from scratch, this begins with promoting the need for militant resistance; trying to garner acceptance and normalization of the fact that without militant resistance—including sabotage and direct attacks on key nodes of industrial infrastructure—there is little, if any, hope that earth will survive much longer.
However, the pervasive ideology of the dominant culture leaves most of its members unwilling to even consider dialogue on the topic of militant resistance, much less adopting it as a strategy. One manifestation of this is the all-too-widely held belief that nonviolent resistance is more always more effective than violent resistance.
The most common explanation provided to justify this idea is that violent movements alienate potential supporters, while nonviolent movements are more likely to mobilize “the masses” around a cause, and that without mass participation and support, there can be no social or political change.
For example, several years ago two university professors conducted a statistical comparison of violent and nonviolent social movements in the 20th century, with the goal of determining the relative effectiveness of violent and nonviolent strategies. The survey was limited to anti-occupation & anti-colonial movements, as well as those that sought regime change or the end of an oppressive government. In 2011, the findings were published in a book called Why Civil Resistance Works. The authors concluded that, based on their data, nonviolent movements are statistically twice as effective as violent ones, and they explained this as being due to the propensity of nonviolent movements to elicit greater participation from the general population.
An underlying premise—unstated by those who espouse this line of reasoning—is that without popular support and engagement, movements cannot achieve their aims. While it is certainly the case that mass movements can be effective in creating social change, that is by no means always the case. The simple (and perhaps unfortunate) truth is that some causes will never enjoy popular support, regardless of what strategies or tactics they use. In a deeply, fundamentally misogynistic and racist culture, a culture that has as its foundation the slow dismemberment of the living world, the support and enthusiasm of the majority is by no means a signifier that a cause is a worthwhile one. And a lack of that popular support doesn’t mean a cause or movement isn’t righteous.
We would do well to remember that the majority of Germans didn’t support any resistance against the Nazis, and even a decade after the war ended and the atrocities of the Nazi genocide were well known, most Germans still opposed even the idea of a theoretical resistance to Nazi rule.
Similarly, a movement to dismantle civilization will never enjoy the support or participation of a mass movement. Far too many people are completely dependent upon it, or too attached to the material privilege and prosperity it affords them for their allegiance, or simply unable to question the only way of life they ever known, or all of the above. The truth is that any effort to stop civilization will always be a minority, not only without popular support, but likely directly opposed by the majority of the dominant culture. This is a sobering fact that, while perhaps difficult to come to terms with, we need to accept and build our strategy around. Rather than starting from the abstract position of “nonviolence works” and building a strategy for our movement from there, we should start with the material realities of our situation—the time, resources, and numbers of participants available to us.
This is why framing the whole discussion within a ‘violent/nonviolent’ dichotomy is problematic. When we reduce the complexities of entire movements and strategies down to the simple categories of ‘violent’ and ‘nonviolent,’ we relegate all discussion about strategy to theoretical and conceptual realms, glossing almost entirely over the nuances and dynamics of particular struggles. And it’s these details that determine what strategies will be effective. If we want to decide on an effective strategy, we need to first examine closely and critically our situation, and determine from there what will be most effective.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we won’t ever have the numbers of participants required for strategies of popular nonviolence. It doesn’t matter how effective nonviolent strategies and movements may be in other situations; we’re not in those situations and without the necessary numbers, nonviolent strategies hold no promise for us. We need to halt industrial civilization in its tracks, and that position isn’t one that can muster a mass movement.
Which brings us back to the need for decisive underground action. Unlike nonviolent strategy, which is dependent upon mobilize huge numbers of participants, a strategy of militant attacks on key nodes of industrial infrastructures—a strategy of decisive ecological warfare—doesn’t require mass participation or support. Coordinated and repeated attacks against systemic weak points or bottle necks can cause systems disruption and cascading systems failure, resulting in the collapse of industrial activity and civilization—which must be our goal if we profess any love for life on this planet.
Given that industrial infrastructure is the foundational pillar of support for the function and existence of industrial civilization, and that these infrastructure networks are sprawling, fragile, and poorly protected; coordinated sabotage presents the best strategy and hope for a movement to bring down civilization.
Recognizing the need for underground action and the key role it must play if we’re to be successful as a movement doesn’t mean disavowing all nonviolent action. We need bio-diverse movements and cultures of resistance, and for some objectives nonviolent strategies are appropriate and smart and should be pursued. But we also need to recognize the limitations of various strategies, and especially the limitations of our own situation.
To reiterate, we will only ever be a small movement; we’ll never enjoy the support and participation required by mass nonviolent campaigns. The unfortunate truth is that most folks won’t ever willingly challenge the basis of their own way of life, much less organize to confront power and dismantle that way of life.
We also don’t have much time: according to conservative estimates, we have five years to stop the development and construction of fossil fuel infrastructure before being locked into catastrophic runaway climate change.
Those limitations—the lack of numbers and the short time available, combined with the fragility and vulnerability of the physical infrastructures of planetary murder—are what should point us away from mass nonviolence and towards a strategy of strategic sabotage. Coming to terms with and acting upon that reality isn’t always easy, but the sooner we’re able to let go of our misinformed and misguided dreams of a mass movement, the sooner we can start the real work of building a serious resistance movement.
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 | Apr 7, 2013 | Strategy & Analysis
By Joshua Headley / Deep Green Resistance New York
Talking about collapse can prove to be quite alienating. Most people quickly denounce those of us who start these dialogues as “alarmists” in an attempt to nullify all arguments and keep us safe from all evil and depressing thoughts.
An obvious reason to dismiss talk of collapse is that there are far too many examples of groups who come along and yell about the end of the world only for their “insight” to turn out rather dubious. But I don’t choose to speak out about collapse for the sake of “the end of the world” or to preach my morals – I bring it up because there are real, tangible limits to a globalized industrial civilization and this intrinsically implies there will be a peak and subsequent fall. This is inevitable and we cannot escape it no matter how long we choose to not talk about it.
No one can say absolutely when collapse will occur but we can say with a degree of certainty, based on current levels of complexity, diminishing marginal returns, and the latest climate science, that we are much more likely to experience collapse in the near-term rather than in the far and distant future. This is not meant to scare anyone into submission, religious folly, or isolating despair – it is simply meant to allow us to start seriously discussing our situation, its implications, and how to move forward.
How can we manage to proceed through this process in any meaningful capacity if we keep ignoring and denying its possibility?
The studies of complex societies and their subsequent collapses have fascinated archeologists and scientists for centuries – understanding the past can help illuminate our future. Industrial civilization has never been exempt from these studies. As another form of a complex society, questions concerning its peak and collapse have been around for quite some time.
In 1972, an environmental study known as The Limits to Growth used computer projections to try to determine when this peak might occur based on population growth, remaining non-renewable resources, food per capita, services per capita, industrial output per capita, and global pollution. Its projections estimated that by the year 2030, population would begin to decline following a collapse. This study was revisited last year by Australian physicist Graham Turner in which he placed the observable trends from 1970-2000 over the computer model projections and – (not so) shockingly – he determined that we are right on course. [1]
It’s worth spelling this out: our current situation is even more “alarming” – current emissions of carbon dioxide alone have us locked into a 3-6C global temperature increase within the next 30 years. [2] In half that time (or less), it is probable that we will reach global tipping points that will set off catastrophic runaway global warming, threatening nearly all biological life on this planet. [3]
To a certain extent, even though we continue to ignore and deny these facts in our day-to-day lives, we all feel that the worst is yet to come. Is it any wonder why “apocalypse” is incredibly popular within our consumer culture? We have blockbusters depicting burgeoning populations of walking zombies, machines conquering humans, vampires sucking the life out of every living being on the planet, and just about every possible “end of the world” scenario imaginable permeating our consciousness.
Despite all of this, we never force ourselves to think critically about the situation we are in, and a large part of that is because we live in a culture that rapidly produces legitimizing propaganda and misinformation at every turn. Too often when we do realize the state of decay we’re in, we force ourselves to consume and enjoy the spectacles to drown out our own despair.
Collapse as an apocalyptic nightmare is certainly one way of viewing the situation – it does have dire consequences that we cannot avoid – but the only results that can come out of that perspective are rampant anxiety, fear, and immobilization. We do not have the time to sulk and isolate ourselves from our problems any longer; we have to start seriously discussing what lies ahead. Make no mistake: this will not be easy. The task at hand is terribly daunting and it requires immense courage. A great first step is learning to understand collapse as merely a process and not solely a “doom and gloom” scenario of utter destruction.
Joseph Tainter wrote one of the most impressive and thorough analyses of this topic in his 1988 book, The Collapse of Complex Societies. He defines these terms as such:
Complex societies are problem-solving organizations, in which more parts, different kinds of parts, more social differentiation, more inequality, and more kinds of centralization and control emerge as circumstances require. Growth of complexity has involved a change from small, internally homogeneous, minimally differentiated groups characterized by equal access to resources, shifting, ephemeral leadership, and unstable political formations, to large, heterogeneous, internally differentiated, class structured, controlled societies in which the resources that sustain life are not equally available to all. This latter kind of society, with which we today are most familiar, is an anomaly of history, and where present requires constant legitimization and reinforcement.
The process of collapse… is a matter of rapid, substantial decline in an established level of complexity. A society that has collapsed is suddenly smaller, less differentiated and heterogeneous, and characterized by fewer specialized parts; it displays less social differentiation; and it is able to exercise less control over the behavior of its members. It is able at the same time to command smaller surpluses, to offer fewer benefits and inducements to membership; and it is less capable of providing subsistence and defensive security for a regional population. It may decompose to some of the constituent building blocks (e.g., states, ethnic groups, villages) out of which it was created.
The loss of complexity, like its emergence, is a continuous variable. Collapse may involve a drop between the major levels of complexity envisioned by many anthropologists (e.g., state to chiefdom), or it may equally well involve a drop within a level (larger to smaller, or Transitional to Typical or Inchoate states). Collapse offers an interesting perspective for the typological approach. It is a process of major, rapid change from one structurally stable level to another. This is the type of change that evolutionary typologies imply, but in the reverse direction. [4]
“Complexity” does not refer to a specific society and its ability to do “complex” things (i.e. medicine, technology, art, and music) nor the degree with which it is considered to be an “advanced” society. To objectively study collapse as a process it is necessary to understand “complexity” solely in terms of increasing levels of sociopolitical organization – a continuum from small, self-sufficient autonomous communities to large, hierarchically organized interdependent states.
This process of collapse occurs because complexity (at every level) is subject to diminishing marginal returns. Put simply, this point is reached when the amount returned for any given investment begins to decrease. This is not the same thing as stating that complexity (at every level) is not beneficial for a given social group or that its yields always decline – complexity is usually pursued for the exact reason that it is beneficial in some capacity. The point here, as Tainter suggests, is that societies very often
reach a level where continued investment in complexity yields a declining marginal return. At that point the society is investing heavily in an evolutionary course that is becoming less and less productive, where at increased cost it is able to do little more than maintain the status quo. [5]
Eventually, further complexity becomes too costly and impossible to pursue, and the society is increasingly vulnerable to collapse. Certainly, when we apply this analysis to the global industrial civilization we find ourselves in today, there is much to be concerned about and it is no surprise why many of us are so fearful.
This way of living (characterized by the heavy use of fossil fuels, massive urbanization, and the expansion and domination of nearly all of the earth’s land and people) cannot be sustained indefinitely, no matter the energy source. As growth continues, greater levels of complexity will be required to support the population and we will reach a point when the costs become too excessive.
We can already see this occurring in global energy production today, as we are no longer able to access cheap, efficient, or productive energy sources. We are increasingly reliant upon some of the most expensive (economically and ecologically) energy intensive extraction and production projects the world has ever seen – oil production from tar sands, deepwater drilling, hydraulic fracturing, mountain top removal, rapid and expansive clear-cutting of forests, industrial agriculture and fishing, etc. These are the productive processes of maintaining the “status quo” of industrial civilization
We will ultimately (via economic, ecological, or social collapse) be forced to live more simply and that change will mean the loss of almost all of the support structures and services that most of the 7 billion people in this world currently depend on.
Remaining populations must become locally self-sufficient to a degree not seen for several generations. Groups that had formerly been economic and political partners now become strangers, even threatening competitors. The world as seen from any locality perceptibly shrinks, and over the horizon lies the unknown. [6]
Another reason we tend to be so fearful of this drastic and rapid change is that we are significantly separated from the majority of the human experience. Industrial civilization itself can barely claim 200 years out of the several million that recognizable humans are known to have lived, and yet its expansion and domination within that time has left us completely alien to our own natural history.
When we perceive that all we have ever known is hanging in the balance and vulnerable to collapse, it becomes overbearingly frightening for most of us. But it doesn’t have to be perceived this way – what would we truly be losing in this situation? What benefits are we even getting from participating in industrial civilization today? It turns out that, if we understand that we have passed the point of diminishing returns, the benefits of this society are actually decreasing – and rapidly.
A quick glance at the current condition of the global population confirms this rather easily. Less and less people are finding work; fewer people have access to education, healthcare, water, food, shelter, clothes, etc.; states all around the world are “cutting back” and implementing some of the harshest austerity measures in recent memory; rates of incarceration are increasing at the same time that police all over the word are becoming heavily militarized; security-states are growing in size and scope; and political upheavals are occurring rapidly, even in surprising places under the most repressive regimes.
Conquest abroad and repression at home are fundamental aspects of a society’s ability to legitimize and reinforce the level of complexity in which it functions. But as it becomes more vulnerable to collapse (due to decreasing marginal returns), these societies are pushed ever more into militarism in order to maintain the “status quo,” control the population, and protect the ruling power of the elite classes.
It is actually within our best interest (socially, politically, economically, and ecologically) to put an end to industrial civilization. Because collapse is just a change in the levels of complexity – from a highly complex society that becomes infeasible to a simpler society organized at the lowest level sustainable – there is much to be gained. As Tainter reminds us:
Complex societies, it must be emphasized again, are recent in human history. Collapse then is not a fall to some primordial chaos, but a return to the normal human condition of lower complexity. The notion that collapse is uniformly a catastrophe is contradicted, moreover, by the present theory. To the extent that collapse is due to declining marginal returns on investment in complexity, it is an economizing process. It occurs when it becomes necessary to restore the marginal return on organizational investment to a more favorable level. To a population that is receiving little return on the cost of supporting complexity, the loss of that complexity brings economic, and perhaps administrative, gains. [7]
Is there, then, hope for our future?
To even begin addressing this question, it’s important that we understand what it is that we are even asking. What is hope? A definition I find useful is one provided by Derrick Jensen – “hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless.” [8] To hope for a desired result is to step away from your own ability to participate and actually create that result.
It is not enough to hope that those in power will stop the march of industrial civilization in a time frame that actually matters in terms of having a living and thriving planet and biosphere. In fact, the latest propaganda on the future of the United States’ natural gas production indicates the exact opposite of addressing the severity of the problem. [9] It is not enough to hope that the majority of the population will become consciously aware and join the struggle – people are most likely to latch onto (and defend to their own death) their way of life, even as it becomes increasingly obvious that it is in the midst of collapse. It is not enough (and is incredibly naïve) to hope that the future will be bright and beautiful and devoid of any hard consequences.
Complexity has allowed us to overshoot the earth’s carrying capacity on a massive scale and this brings with it consequences we cannot avoid. This level of global population is only possible because of industrial agriculture and global trade, which will both cease to function completely as industrial civilization begins to collapse. It will become economically infeasible to provide food and resources to the bulk of the population as marginal returns continue to decrease and costs skyrocket. The world’s urban poor are the greatest at risk as they are the most dependent on complex global trade networks for their basic survival. But there are things that we can do to materially improve our lives today and in the future – and we don’t need excessive amounts of hope or false securities to get there.
If our ultimate goal is to have not only a living planet – but a thriving planet that increases in diversity and life, year after year – then we need to stop industrial civilization before it destroys what little we have left of the world’s biomes and biosphere. Our resistance to this culture must continue to escalate in tandem with the severity of the problem. Our strategy not only has to be broad and more militant in order to be effective, it also has to be more reliant upon alternative structures and the re-building of just and sustainable communities.
After collapse, there will be little left behind to rebuild a civilization out of, or even enough intact land bases for most of us to return to a lower level of agrarian life. What makes our circumstances different from many of the great empires that have fallen before, is that most of our population does not have a village or smaller unit of organization to return to after industrial society. What is absolutely necessary in our cultures of resistance, then, is that we learn other ways of existing so that we become as independent of civilization for survival as possible.
As we will be forced to live in simpler societies, it’s important to remember we will lose many of things that define complex societies – such as hierarchical oppression, inequality, and centralization. We will have to be self-sufficient in order to survive and this will give room for more egalitarian, autonomous groups characterized by equal access to resources and mutual aid. A less complex society provides the space for richer and fuller lives. We have much to gain in this process. However, this will not be created for us and it is not enough to just hope that it happens – we have to mobilize to create it for ourselves and we have to be fully committed to our work no matter what adversities we may face.
BREAKDOWN is a biweekly column by Joshua Headley, a writer and activist in New York City, exploring the intricacies of collapse and the inadequacy of prevalent ideologies, strategies, and solutions to the problems of industrial civilization.
[1] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Looking-Back-on-the-Limits-of-Growth.html
[2] http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/world-on-course-for-catastrophic-6deg-rise-reveal-scientists-1822396.html
[3] http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0225-hance-permafrost-tip.html
[4] Tainter, Joseph; The Collapse of Complex Societies, pg. 37-38
[5] Tainter, Joseph; The Collapse of Complex Societies, pg. 117
[6] Tainter, Joseph; The Collapse of Complex Societies, pg. 20
[7] Tainter, Joseph; The Collapse of Complex Societies, pg. 198
[8] http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/170/
[9] http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/publications/weo-2012/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 4, 2013 | Direct Action, Strategy & Analysis
As radicals, we believe that another world—a world without patriarchy, white supremacism, capitalism, colonialism, or ecocide—is possible. But in the face of the reality in which we live our day to day lives, it can become difficult to remember not only the possibility of successful resistance to power, but also its rich and proud history, of which we are a part. This is all the more true when we recognize that a potent resistance movement will have to include militant, underground resistance. Being aware of our place within that legacy and re-telling the stories of past movements serves to fan the flames of our own will to resist, and are crucial pieces in building a culture of resistance.
But beyond simply reminding us of the potential for struggle against brutality, turning a sharp and studious eye towards that history can lend us invaluable strategic insights as well. Through a thorough examination of past movements, we can learn to recognize pitfalls and traps to be avoided, as well as strategies and tactics that can be applied to our own situation.
War of the Flea, written by Robert Taber is one such examination. Originally published in 1965, the book takes a detailed and critical look at the conditions and strategy of guerrilla war. Rather than focusing on the particulars of one specific conflict, Taber draws his conclusions from an analysis of the patterns that repeat across a variety of such struggles: Cuba, Greece, Cyprus, Israel & Palestine, Malaysia, both of the Vietnamese wars for independence, the Irish struggle for independence, and more. A closely interwoven narrative of specific real-world examples and abstract theory & strategy, War of the Flea presents an easily accessible yet very informative mapping of guerrilla anti-colonial and liberation wars.
Taber’s insights hold great value for resisters today, with much we can learn from past movements and their strategies, successes and failures. He outlines the guerrilla struggle as being primarily a political engagement, rather than one of military force. The goal of the guerrilla or insurgent group is not to militarily defeat those in power, but to create a ‘climate of collapse’ in which it becomes impossible to maintain the status quo, and that house of cards comes tumbling down around former rulers.
The resonance of this with the strategy of attacking infrastructure to aid in the collapse of civilization should be obvious. And that similarity between the core strategy behind the asymmetric guerrilla conflicts Taber studies and a resistance movement to bring down civilization extends further to the general strategy.
Perhaps the ultimate achievement of War of the Flea is the detailed grounding it brings to the strategy behind these struggles. As Taber notes, protracted popular warfare consistently follows a three-stage strategy. In the first stage—the strategic defensive—the guerrilla force focuses on building capacity while avoiding any sort of serious confrontation with the overwhelming force of the opponent. Then the struggle moves into a phase of strategic stalemate, wherein neither side has the force or resources necessary for a decisive victory. Finally, as the guerrilla group builds the necessary strength—and the opponent group suffers a slow eroding of its power base (thanks to the ‘climate of collapse’), the conflict moves in the strategic offensive stage, where the guerrilla force takes the initiative and brings down the government or opponent group.
That this can be applied to our own situation should be readily apparent, even if it is a more figurative than literal equivalent. The core of Taber’s analysis of a staged strategy, focusing first on survival and asymmetric action and scaling up to more coordinated and decisive action as resisters take the initiative, can and should be applied to our own radical movements today. While out-and-out armed battles of any sort are both unlikely and unwise, the principles that have made the ‘war of the flea’ successful over and over around the world hold much promise for us, if we’re ready to learn from them and develop our own strategy for waging—and winning—a decisive ecological war.
That said, the book is not without its shortcomings, the most obvious being that it was written almost fifty years ago, and much has changed since Taber’s time, and the time of the movements and struggles he cites. Those in power have found new ways to both divert or channel dissent back into supporting the status quo, and to disrupt or neutralize those who stand against them. While this is by no means Taber’s own fault, it should be taken into consideration when putting his work in context.
The more important limitation of applying Taber’s analysis to our own times stems from the fact that our struggles, for all they share in common with those Taber surveys, may have a fundamental difference.
A movement to dismantle civilization is unlikely to be waged as a guerrilla operation. Protracted popular war requires popular support—something a movement to dismantle civilization will likely never have, at least in the Global North. Without the sustained loyalty and material support of the general population, the guerrilla model of struggle will never be a realistic option. Additionally, while the guerrillas in all the conflicts Taber cites fought for greater self-determination, they were not fighting against the basis of their own society and subsistence, as a resistance movement against civilization within the privileged world would be.
Yet while War of the Flea may not be a straightforward blueprint for a resistance movement against civilization, there are still critical points we can take away from it.
Perhaps the most apparent of these is that our movement—a movement to dismantle civilization—will likely never be a guerrilla military struggle, so we shouldn’t act like it is one. There’s a tendency within radical circles to glorify or romanticize guerrilla conflicts (and militant resistance in general). Combined with the machismo that continues to characterize the culture of the Left, we’re left with much romantic masculine posturing about pitched battles with the police and those in power, which both destroys the movement and distracts us from more productive work.
One of the most valuable parts of the book comes as Taber posits several criteria necessary for successful insurgency; general pre-requisites to be met before people will take up arms. These include political, social and economic instability; a compelling moral and ideological political objective (or “cause”); the proven impossibility of acceptable compromise with the opponent; and finally, established revolutionary political organization(s) capable of providing leadership towards the accepted goal. While Taber draws these points from his study of guerrilla resistance movements, these “ingredients” stand on their own as shaping conditions for effective struggle through other means as well, and can doubtlessly be applied to our own situation.
Of additional note is the breadth of struggles cited and overviewed in the book. If nothing, this alone makes War of the Flea worth reading. Taber’s analysis goes well beyond the romantic and rhetorical, examining the strategies, successes and failures of an impressive variety of 20th Century insurgencies; from the IRA in Ireland to EOKA in Cyprus, the Viet Cong in Vietnam to the Communists in Greece, from Mao Tse-tung to Che Guevara. It is, without a doubt, a serious study of armed resistance movements and their dynamics.
While no study of past movements will do the work of the present, work such as War of the Flea provide us with important insights, allowing us to learn from the mistakes of those who’ve come before us, and lend us the strategic knowledge that is crucial to success. They also remind us of our place within a long and proud history of people who’ve fought against the odds and the numbers—and won. If we are to have any hope of dismantling civilization, we’ll need to learn everything we can from them.
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 | Apr 1, 2013 | Movement Building & Support, Strategy & Analysis
By Ben Barker / Deep Green Resistance Wisconsin
Do you believe in a better world? Do you believe in one without the torture of poverty and slavery; without hierarchies based on dominance; without a dying planet? If you do believe in this world, what are you willing to do to help bring it about?
I know many who yearn for justice, but far fewer with any kind of plan for achieving it. There’s no lack of morality in this equation, just of strategy and, perhaps, courage.
Every movement for social change has understood that when a system of law is corrupt, we must turn instead to the laws of the universe: human rights, the living land, justice. These movements are always deemed radical—and that’s because they are. Hope and prayers do not alone work to change the world. We’re going to have to fight for it.
All your heroes of the past knew this. Those who won civil rights knew it. Those who won women’s suffrage knew it. Those who abolished slavery knew it. Those who freed India from colonial rule knew it.
Martin Luther King, Jr. clearly understood this. He said, “Freedom is never given to anybody, for the oppressor has you in domination because he plans to keep you there, and he never voluntarily gives it up. And that is where the strong resistance comes. We’ve got to keep on keeping on, in order to gain freedom. It is not done voluntarily, but it is done through the pressure that comes about from people who are oppressed. Privileged classes never give up their privileges without strong resistance.”
All movements striking at the roots of social problems were—and still are—radical by default.
There’s no shortage of issues that need tackling today. Pick your favorite atrocity: dying oceans, species extinction, deforestation, climate chaos, pollution, violence against women, militarism, white supremacy, poverty, colonialism, homophobia, slavery, government corruption. The hard reality is that the world and all that makes life worth living is under attack—and we’re losing the battle. Everything keeps getting worse and our standards for success keep getting lowered. Never has there been a more critical time for those who want a better world to rise and make it happen. So what’s stopping us?
Of course there are vast and powerful entities wholly invested in and mercilessly guarding the way things are. This is an old story; we’re Margaret Mead’s small group of thoughtful, committed citizens taking on a giant. But in reality, we’re not even there yet. No, we’re still struggling to find unity amongst ourselves, to gather the people necessary to begin making any change at all.
It’s long past time to be forthright about what divides us as activists. Most all of us want to see the same outcome—a living planet, flourishing human communities—but we stumble on how to get there. Sure, some things we just won’t agree on, and that’s perfectly fine. But with the stakes so high, are we willing to forfeit all possibility of effectiveness because we can’t find a way to get along?
Let’s talk about our differences so we can better find our common ground. Writer Lierre Keith has investigated the history of social movements and emerged with much of the work done for us. She suggests there are two major currents amongst activists: liberals and radicals. This is not a dichotomy: like reform and revolution, both liberals and radicals have been necessary and complimentary to each other. The key is balance and respect for various approaches to the same problems.
The first difference between radicals and liberals is how we view individuals. Radicals see society as made of groups or classes; individual people share common clause based on shared circumstances and goals. Liberals, on the other hand, see individuals as just that; each person is distinct from another. The “working class”, for example, was a radical concept which liberals have largely removed from their discourse.
Next is how social change happens. Liberals lend their energy to ideals and attitudes, certain that change will come one heart and mind at a time. Institutions are the targets of radicals, though, with old corrupt ones sought to be dismantled and replaced with just, sustainable, new ones. If Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement would have focused solely on convincing whites that blacks aren’t inferior, they would have been taking the liberal route. If they would have focused solely on defeating racist laws, they would have been taking the radical route. History suggests that it was both that got the job done.
A final difference centers on justice and what we think it looks like. Radicals tend to measure justice by long-term material conditions—a lack of oppression and destruction in everyday life, now and forever. Morality is predetermined for the liberals, with the law or broader society acting as judge. Any win in the realm of free speech, for example, might look like a step in the right direction to the liberal perspective, whereas radicals might be more concerned with eliminating hate speech (and groups), whether or not it is legally permissible.
Despite the distinctions, effective activism hinges on understanding power and how it works. Wherever we may fall on the spectrum, we must keep our eyes on power: who has it, how it’s being used, and how it can be transferred from the hands of the powerful to the hands of the powerless. There is no way to talk about social change without talking about power.
Again, all throughout history liberals and radicals have employed complimentary strategies to make tangible differences in the world. We may feel uncomfortable working with each other, but it’s either that or an increasingly ruined world. The ethical choice should be clear.
What liberals need to understand is that any efforts challenging systems of power are and will be seen as radical. There’s just no way around it and forging distance from radical counterparts is not only useless, but a betrayal of freedom-fighters before us. We need to remember that Rosa Parks’ hero was Malcolm X. We need to remember that Gandhi was successful because he was easier to negotiate with than Bhagat Singh’s militants. Neutrality is complicity and it’s time to take sides: one hand is the small group of capitalist monsters profiting off of misery and on the other is anyone willing to resist injustice.
Recently, I had a conversation with a member of the Democratic Party which highlights how far from solidarity many liberals have strayed. Upon meeting, he asked what I did. “I’m a writer,” I said. About what, he wondered? “Radical social change,” I told him. And the next fifteen minutes, up until the point I politely left, saw him adamantly discouraging me from using such a confrontational and extremist term as “radical.” My claims that this desperate time calls for radical responses fell on deaf ears, because how desperate can anything be with a Democrat in the White House? In hindsight, I wish I would’ve reminded him just how radical the movements have been that are now allowing for black, female, and homosexual candidates from his Party to get in office.
What radicals need to understand is that what is most militant is not always what is right, both in terms of strategy and morality. And sometimes it is. Power only changes by force, but force can take many different forms. Suffragists lobbied and campaigned for women to get the vote, but when that wasn’t working, they added sabotage to their arsenal. Simultaneously used, their tactics proved part of an ultimately successful strategy. Both approaches were radical because they applied force, but they were employed in very specific times and contexts. Strategy allows us to choose between tactics with a lens of pragmatism rather than by whim of emotion. Whatever actions are taken, they must be well thought out and conducted with discipline.
Too many radicals today fall into the trap of black-and-white thinking. They see bad institutions and therefore all institutions are bad. They see useless reforms and therefore all reforms are useless. They see poor leadership, and therefore no leadership is better.
Radical or liberal, we really need it all. We need the community organizers, the gardeners, the healers, the warriors, and the artists. Most of all, we need to each other’s work as necessary pieces of the larger struggle.
Regardless of our route, activists need to always remember the world we’re working towards. Solutions will come only after we honestly name the problems. This means we cannot look away from the severity of the situation, even if it doesn’t make us feel good. Social change is about social change and not about any individual’s emotional state. Suffering is real and it beckons us to fashion adequate responses.
Changing the world means naming the one we’re presently stuck with. It’s time to say this out loud: the problems we face are systemic, not random; they are symptoms of a social and economic arrangement of power. I call that arrangement industrial capitalism. You may call it what you like. What’s important is that we all understand that there is no future in the way things are.
Liberals, radicals, and anyone working towards a more just and sustainable world cannot continue to spend so much time condemning each other’s approaches. There’s a name for this destructive tendency: horizontal hostility. And unless we want to in-fight to the end of the world, it has to stop.
Success will be the forging of a culture of resistance strong and vibrant enough to take apart this society and build a new one. This means vast networks of communities of people supporting each other’s efforts towards a common goal. It means the artists support the warriors who support the healers who support the gardeners who support the community organizers who support the warriors. Not all in a culture of resistance need agree on everything; we just need to pledge that we won’t turn on our own in the heat of the struggle.
For every year, every day, and every moment we don’t act strategically and decisively, another person of color is terrorized by white police officers, another woman is violated by men, another indigenous culture is stamped out, another species is added to the extinction list, the health of human community and the entire planet accelerates in decline.
Those with fire and love in their hearts, those who live by moral obligation, know that the time to act is now. So the question becomes: will you join us in finally and totally changing this world. Is your privilege and comfort more important than justice, or will you join us? Are your ideals more important than the hard truth, or will you join us?
If you want a better world, what are you waiting for? Find your allies, work out your differences, and get down to business.
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 | Mar 20, 2013 | Lobbying, Obstruction & Occupation, Property & Material Destruction, Protests & Symbolic Acts, Strategy & Analysis
The Keystone XL Pipeline is without question the largest environmental issue we in North America face today. It’s not the largest in the sense that it is the most destructive, or the largest in terms of size. But it has been a definitive struggle for the movement; it has brought together a wide variety of groups, from mainstream liberals to radicals and indigenous peoples to fight against a single issue continuously for several years. It has forged alliances between tree-sitting direct actionists and small rural landowners, and mobilized people from across the country to join the battles in Washington and Texas, as well as at the local offices of companies involved in building the pipeline in their own communities. It has also posed serious questions to us as a movement about how we will effectively fight those who profit from the destruction of the living world.
But it’s time for a reality check.
While TransCanada continues laying pipe in Texas and Oklahoma, the Federal government is deliberating over the permit application for the Northern Leg of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which will run from Alberta, Canada to Steele City, Nebraska. Despite the overwhelming (and inexplicable) sense of hope that pervades the movement, there’s little reason to be optimistic that TransCanada’s permits will be denied. So far, the Feds have neither done nor said anything that could lead any sane or rational person to believe the project will be rejected. On March 1st, the State Department released its draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, which concluded that the pipeline does not pose an unacceptable threat to human health or the environment.
Yet as we have heard only too many times already, climate scientists—including former NASA climate science chief James Hansen—have repeatedly said that the Keystone XL pipeline would be “game over” for the planet, as it would provide an outlet for the extremely dirty oil coming from the tar sands.
Obviously, the pipeline needs to be stopped. We can’t allow it to be built and to operate.
Fortunately, opposition to the pipeline is widespread, and thousands of people have been trying to stop it. A series of rallies in DC, spearheaded by 350.org, have mobilized thousands of people calling on Obama’s Administration to reject the pipeline, and inspired solidarity rallies across the country and protests at TransCanada offices.
Yet appealing to those in power isn’t working. When the leaders of some of the largest Big Green organizations (including 350.org and the Sierra Club) were being arrested outside the White House in an effort to appeal to Obama to reject the pipeline, the President was golfing with an oil executive in Florida.
Those in power are going to approve the pipeline. Asking them to change is failed strategy; at the end of the day, pipelines—like clear-cutting, strip mining, ocean trawling, hydraulic fracturing, and so many other destructive industrial activities—are legal. Those in charge of an economic system based on ecological destruction and endless growth will always favor the needs and wants of that system over the needs and wants of all those—human and non-human—harmed by their activities.
Meanwhile, more and more folks have started turning to nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience to fight the pipeline. In North Texas, the Tar Sands Blockade has done everything it can to slow construction of the Southern Leg of the pipeline. Activists with TSB have erected tree sits in the pipeline’s path, locked themselves to equipment and vehicles, stormed TransCanada offices, gone on hunger strikes, organized protests and demonstrations along the route of the pipeline, and even locked themselves inside the pipeline. But unfortunately, it simply hasn’t been enough.
But despite their efforts, the pipeline continues to be built. There’s no denying that the sustained civil disobedience has delayed the project and forced TransCanada to fight hard for every mile of pipe laid in the ground; but they have the resources to ensure to overcome even the most strategic nonviolent direct action. When the Tar Sands Blockade erected a tree-sit in the path of construction, TransCanada altered its route and built around the protestors.
The reality is that TransCanada has the resources to outlast the delays and overcome direct action. They’ve already gone to great lengths to stop those who stand it their way; they hired off-duty police officers as a private security force and brought $50,000 lawsuits against the organizers of the Blockade. Make no mistake, TransCanada will go to whatever lengths it deems necessary to make sure the pipeline is built; they will threaten, sue, arrest, pepper spray, taser, torture, and force it through blockades and lockdowns. We don’t have the thousands (or tens of thousands) of people it would take to permanently stop the pipeline through civil disobedience; we’re fighting a losing battle.
Given all of this, it’s time to step back and take stock of the situation. It is clear that Obama and his administration are going to approve the pipeline, and there isn’t anything we can do to change that. It is also clear that civil disobedience has not been successful in stopping construction. So what options are left?
As James Hansen said, the Keystone XL pipeline will be “game over” for the planet. Stop a moment, and think about that.
Game over. Let that sink in.
Given what’s at stake (and what’s at stake is horrific), we need to draw the line. The Keystone XL Pipeline cannot be allowed to be built and operate. The tar sands cannot be allowed to be developed or extracted. They must be stopped. By any means necessary. When we’ve tried it all—everything from petitioning the powerful to civil disobedience –and at the end of the day, the pipeline is still being built, we need to recognize the need for escalation, including sabotage and property destruction.
That’s a proposition that makes a lot of folks uncomfortable. And that’s okay.
But when we’re left with the choice of either killing the pipeline or being killed by the pipeline, can we afford to rule out any tactics? When everything we’ve tried so far has failed, is there any choice left except more militant forms of direct action?
This isn’t a suggestion that anyone undertake any form of action they’re not comfortable with; we should all fight like hell, using whatever means we choose to use. But if some choose other means, such as sabotage or property destruction, we should not condemn or oppose them.
When the alternative is “game over” for the planet, anyone who chooses militant action to stop the pipeline is morally justified in doing so.
And yet, far from being extremist and unconventional, sabotage and underground resistance are threads common and integral to the cloth of movements for justice and sustainability. This is a rich history, and we should be proud to carry forth its legacy.
Even in regards solely to pipeline resistance, there is a definite precedent of movements using sabotage to fight otherwise unwinnable battles. In the Niger Delta, communities have been fighting oil extraction and systemic injustice, and wielding direct attacks on pipelines as a powerfully effective weapon. Following repeated failures of negotiations and nonviolent protest, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) began militant attacks on pipelines, pumping stations, offshore oil rigs, and other infrastructure in 2006. Their use of militant tactics has been devastatingly effective: they’ve decreased the oil output of the entire country of Nigeria by 40%.
On the other side of the world in British Columbia, a series of pipelines were sabotaged by the mysterious “Encana Bomber,” who repeatedly bombed pipelines and other natural gas infrastructure belonging to Encana, an oil & natural gas corporation. Local residents had tried to use the courts and regulatory infrastructures to protect themselves and their lands, but were trampled over by both Encana and the government agencies charged with regulating the corporation. Fed up with systemic injustice and environmental degradation, someone (or someones; the attackers remain anonymous and uncaught) decided to use any means necessary to fight back. Between October of 2008 and July of 2009, there were six attacks, and despite bullying and intimidation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, no one has been caught or arrested for the actions, and community members have openly expressed support for the sabotage. The attacks stopped in July 2009, when a letter from the bomber(s) gave Encana five years to “shut down and remove all the oil and gas facilities” in the area.
In both of these cases, those opposed to extractive projects (specifically including pipelines) tried to affect change through the established and legal channels: through government agencies and regulatory bodies, through negotiations, through lawsuits and court action. But when those tactics proved ineffective, they neither gave up nor continued with a failed strategy; they escalated. They knew they had to choose between taking militant action (and accepting the risk that entails) and destructive injustice. They chose to defend themselves, their communities, and the land, even if that meant taking more drastic action.
It’s time we did the same.
And while we so often consider even discussion of sabotage as a potential tactic as beyond the pale, militancy has played a critical role in past movements for justice—ones we are eager to support. The Boston Tea Party is upheld and oft-cited as a proud moment of American history, yet it was an instance of individuals destroying property; would we condemn the Boston Tea Partiers as “terrorists”? Nelson Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize and was elected president of South Africa after being freed from 27 years of imprisonment, yet he was in jail for sabotage and militant resistance; do we denounce him as well?
The Keystone XL pipeline must be stopped, and neither appeals to the government, lawsuits, nor civil disobedience have been able to stop the deathly march of the pipeline. If we’re not willing to even consider sabotage and property destruction—or support anyone who employs those tactics—when it’s that or “game over” for the planet, then we’re morally defunct beings, only hollow shells resembling those who hold any shred of love in their hearts. Do we really believe that the property of corporations is more important and sacred than the bodily integrity of real living people or the entire earth?
If not, then it’s time for a collective shift in the dialogue and culture of the environmental movement. We need to start talking openly about the possibility—and role—of militant action in the fight to stop the skinning of Earth alive. Make no mistake; this isn’t an exhortation to senseless violence or a call to walk away from other means of struggle. It’s a (truly) modest proposal that with literally the whole planet at stake, we put all the tools on the table. If we’re honest with ourselves about the situation we’re in, we don’t have any other choice.
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
