On Killing the System

Recent, widely circulated reports originating in the German corporate media state that ‘left wing’ violence is on the rise, with a particular anti-capitalist, anarchic trait: burning posh cars and incendiary devices at corporate targets. German State advisers are saying that the rise in 'terrorist’ incidents is a possible sign that a Red Armed Faction style urban guerrilla movement is gaining momentum.

The state advisers also express concern that the anarchic groups especially pose a major threat as they are more secretive and autonomous, organising in tight cells that are not linked to others except by ideology and solidarity.

As a movement, we have long known two things: 1) we can organise in small, trustworthy affinity groups to act in the dead of the night or during mass street confrontations, i.e. demo’s, black block, summit smashing and 2) there is indeed a rise in actions and feeling amongst many of us that things are 'hotting’ up.

The reasons for the global situation 'hotting up’ are also well understood, at least by us in the movements. The corporate greed mongers, war-makers, and corporate backed parliaments, congresses and media, are rampaging across the world, daily increasing the toll on the planet, nature and all the communities of the entire earth.

Globalised capitalism is, and has been for many years, totally and utterly out of control. It has never been an attractive system, obviously, yet these days it has ran rampant, even partly collapsing in various industries as well as causing massive crises for the poor, workers, students and unemployed workers of the Americas, Europe and the far east and Africa: on top of numerous wars for oil exploitation, 'nation building’ and modern NATO-backed imperialism.

Suffice to say, the system is crumbling, cracking at the edges and melting down from within. Perhaps the system strives, or even thrives, on the up and down nature of global finance markets, high unemployment and war. Infact, it is also obvious that it does need these things for to make profit. There is not much profit in peace and stability, as we well know.

Therefore what is needed, in my opinion, is a further increase in insurrectionary and revolutionary action. More occupations, yes, more bike rides through busy traffic, yes, more squatted social centres, yes, and more free schools, yes...

But also more fire bombs, incendiary devices, attacks on banks, police, politicians and corporations are needed as well, to further destabilise the system. We can fight back. We must fight back. We will not continue to be beaten, gassed, infiltrated, spied on, imprisoned and tortured without fighting back. Indeed, now we will continue to take the fight to the system and arm and train ourselves accordingly.

We know that there is a war between ‘us and them’, the slaves versus their masters, we have known this long before Seattle ‘99, or Genova ‘01 or Athens ‘08. We have known this perhaps since the dawning of agriculture, thousands of years ago. But what is important to us today, is that we intensify our actions and continue to wage war against the very system that has bred and brutally, psychopathically sustained the current global nightmare.

I am not a believer in garnering or harnessing public opinion. I am not a politician...I see myself as a revolutionary, an insurrector...A rebel. I therefore do not worship the ‘public’. In a number of ways, I am of it, begrudgingly, I work, I pay for stuff, I use public transport, etc. But I fight for the enslaved planet and its liberation from the grip of the capitalistic system. I yearn for a time when I don’t need to work, to use fossil fuel machines or pay bills or drink poisoned water (or, for that matter, use computers and the internet to advance the ideas of revolution!). I would therefore also fight the state and system if it were controlled by communists or statists of any kind and authoritarians of any nature or ideal. I do not seek or wish to fight for reform or slight change or to be a 'bit better off’.

Only absolute change will do. A total collapse is the only way to bring about lasting, beneficial change. Having said that, surviving the post-collapse world will also be a struggle, so we need to plan for those occasions when it will be necessary to feed, clothe and provide protection and shelter to our communities and neighbours. It has been achieved before, in varying degrees, within the last one hundred years (Christiania in Denmark, Barcelona during the Spanish civil war, or the Zapatistas in Chiapas for example), although those communities haven’t lasted long, or face daily repression or continued wrangling, due to the fact the enemy is strong and hateful of our attempted self-sufficiency and until we fight them off for good, they will always be stronger.

It is my belief that many in the ‘public’ (including many of my own family and circle of mates and associates) are happy with the way it is. Indeed, revolutionaries are the minority. Even people that view themselves as 'liberal’, 'radical’ or (cringe) 'left-wing’ are still a minority. So it is, in my opinion, useless for anarchic revolutionaries to attempt to harness or attract the public to sympathise with our battle. Time may be running out, so the battle must be fought, regardless of whether the public understand/like/support us or not. It does not mean that we don’t need to publish pamphlets explaining anarchism and anti-authoritarianism and the fundamental principles, or run skill sharing and knowledge sharing workshops or show solidarity with numerous global and/or local causes. We have always done that and we should continue to do so. It means we simply cannot wait until the masses say, 'ok, now you can riot. Now you can attack banks, police, destroy CCTV and assassinate politicians and chief executive officers’.

People will discover for themselves what is right and what is wrong and it is their prerogative, just as it was ours, to figure out just what the fuck is going on in the world today and identify those that control everything, from corporate media, to military, to big business, etc, and for them to figure out, quite frankly, which side are they on? The side of eventual freedom or the side of certain slavery?

In saying that, neither is the 'public’ a far off, exotic populace. It is our communities, our neigbours, our friends and family. And I hear many people around me clearly dismayed at anarchist actions, (usually, it has to be said, as a result of mainstream misinformation, propaganda and outright lies), yet those same people also cry out for change of the global order, the cessation of wars and rampant capitalism and it’s hand in hand oppression. So it seems alot of people want change but don’t want the life changing, traumatic realities that insurrection and revolution bring. It is this evident cultural quandary that is manipulated and used by the system and it’s tentacles to keep us at bay. They allow peaceful demonstrations and peaceful groups (just about!), knowing full well they’ll often lead to no change whatsoever. They are happy to let us walk from a-to-b in the snow, sun or rain, believing it was a good day because we blocked a road for a few hours and handed out leaflets to passers by who showed interest, so long as nothing actually changes the staus-quo. They are happy to give you a vote every four years, knowing full well imperialist wars for oil and region control will still be fought regardless of whether the dude or dudess you voted for chanted it down in parliament or congress.

And therefore, relatively speaking, most western, northern hemisphere populations are comfortable, albeit still suffering the economic and cultural constraints and indignities the system has bred. Alas, as we know, their supposed comfort rides on the very back of capitalist globalisations ill-deeds. And in the west, northern hemisphere there are still poor, ill and oppressed people. Some of them are just plain old brainwashed. Yet the majority are happy to struggle to work and find cash to pay rent and mortgages and to have the internet and computers, even if the mining of components of such technologies are destroying sensitive and irreplaceable eco-systems. They are happy to have cars, planes and other technologies that quite literally pollute our lungs and sustain environmental damage, not least as the industry sucks oil from the ground and governments wage wars to keep the oil in ready supply. People are happy to have television, drugs and alcohol, even when these distractions and toxins are used to keep us drowsy and unaware, or depressed and lethargic. People are happy to shop at conglomerate stores, even when the local businesses are dying out and local shop keepers, their workers and their families are ruined. They are also happy to watch as Tesco’s, Sainsburies and other transnational corporations open yet another fucking high street shop, destroying local links and community jobs and resources forever. The system’s controllers, the elites and their machinations of control, know this all to well and have created a system where by it is almost impossible to live without the technologies that millions of us take for granted (including petrol-fuelled public transport, road systems as well as recreation and leisure pursuits). How many of you out there, people you know or live next to, could actually live without television, cars and planes, the internet and mobile phones? Ask people you know, “can you go without?” Lots of people will say no, they cannot go without. In many cases it is because they simply and blatantly do not know HOW to go without. Yet some of these same people will express a desire to change the world for the better. Therein lies one of the major problems with the 'public opinion’ and it is the reason I will never try to harness public opinion in relation to supporting the acts of insurrection I believe we need more of: bombings, shootings and attacking of global elitist interests, as well as government buildings and other state tentacles, the police, the military and the transport system.

Ergo, there will be no lasting change if it is left to the ‘public’.

And then we have the issues of vanguards.

Ok, we don’t want post-insurrectionary/post-revolutionary, vanguardist groups doing what they think best in the liberated people’s interests, as they can turn fascistic and dictatorial. Fair enough, no vanguards, particularly as groups like that, such as the Bolsheviks or July 26 Movement, can mutate and grow to be as equally oppressive as the systems they overthrew, however ‘strong and sustainable’ the states they gave birth to appear to be to their supporters or onlookers and critics. It is therefore not my wish to be part of a movement or grander struggle that replaces one state or control system with another.

But we still need, in my opinion, to fight now, to wage war against the system in such a way as to bring mass insurrections around the globe, sparking off as much of a revolution as we can muster, and then, and only then, can we start to truly build the positive communities we dream of from the remains. We must arm and train ourselves for these occasions, much like our comrades in Germany, Greece and Italy are now doing.

Forwards with war and to possible freedom, backwards to slavery and definite misery.

Solidarity to all strugglers of the world!