Topic: Why I think violence will fail against civ

THERMCON was the code name of a FBI operation which was launched in response to the sabotage of the Arizona Snowbowl ski lift near Flagstaff, Arizona in October 1987 by three people from Prescott, Arizona, Mark Davis, Margaret Millet, and Marc Baker. In a November, 1987 letter claiming responsibility, the group called themselves the "Evan Mecham Eco-Terrorist International Conspiracy" (EMETIC). The group named themselves after Evan Mecham, a former Arizona governor. The Arizona Snowbowl spent $50,000 repairing the damage.

COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) is a program of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. Although covert operations have been employed throughout FBI history, the formal COINTELPRO operations of 1956-1971 were broadly targeted against organizations that were (at the time) considered to have politically radical elements, ranging from those whose stated goal was the violent overthrow of the US government (such as the Weathermen) to non-violent civil rights groups such as Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference to racist and segregationist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party. The founding document of COINTELPRO directed FBI agents to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the activities of these dissident movements and their leaders...In the Final Report of the Select Committee COINTELPRO was castigated in no uncertain terms:
"Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that...the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propogation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence."

ECHELON is a highly secretive world-wide signals intelligence and analysis network run by the UKUSA Community (or otherwise described as the Anglo Saxon alliance). [1] ECHELON can capture radio and satellite communications, telephone calls, faxes and e-mails nearly anywhere in the world and includes computer automated analysis and sorting of intercepts. [2] ECHELON is estimated to intercept up to 3 billion communications every day

Q. Who classified it?

A. I did. Analysts in NSA did. In the Agency, the lowest classification is CONFIDENTIAL. Anything not otherwise classified is CONFIDENTIAL. But SIGINT data is super-classified, meaning that only those in the SIGINT community have access to it, and then only on a "need-to-know" basis. A lot of the stuff I'd work with was SECRET and TOP SECRET, which is the highest classification of all. But after a while it occurred to me that we classified our stuff only partly because of the enemy. It seemed like they were almost as interested in keeping things from the American public as the Soviets. Hell, I'd give top secret classifications to weather reports we intercepted from Soviet subs. Certainly the Soviets knew that data. I remember when I was in school back at San Angelo one of the instructors gave us a big lecture about classifying material and he said that it was necessary because it would only confuse the American people to be let in on this data. He used those exact words. As a matter of fact, I used those words when I was training the people who worked under me.

Q. How did you relate to our allies in intelligence matters?

A. I'll have to digress a moment to answer that. The SIGINT community was defined by a TOP SECRET treaty signed in 1947. It was called the UKUSA treaty. The National Security Agency signed for the U.S. and became what's called First Party to the Treaty. Great Britain's GCHQ signed for them, the CBNRC for Canada, and DSD for Australia.New Zealand. They're all called Second parties. In addition, several countries have signed on -- ranging from West Germany to japan -- over the years as Third parties. Among the First and Second Parties there is supposed to be a general agreement not to restrict data. Of course it doesn't work out this way in practice. The Third party countries receive absolutely no material from us, while we get anything they have, although generally it's of pretty low quality. We also worked with so-called neutrals who weren't parties to the UKUSA treat. They'd sell us everything they could collect over radar on their Russian border.

As it works out, the treaty is a one-way street. We violate it even with our Second party allies by monitoring their communications constantly.

Q. Do they know this?

A. Probably. In part, we're allowed to do it for COMSEC purposes under NATO. COMSEC, that's communications security. There's supposed to be a random checking of security procedures. But I know we also monitor their diplomatic stuff constantly. In England, for instance, our Chicksands installation monitors all their communications, and the NSA unit in our embassy in London monitors the lower-level stuff from Whitehall. Again, technology is the key. These allies can't maintain security even if they want to. They're all working with machines we gave them. There's no chance for them to be on par with us technologically.
...
Q. But you said that you often sent reports directly to the White House.

A. yes, I did. But the material that goes there is cleaned of any reference as to where the intelligence comes from. Every morning the President gets a daily intelligence summary complied by the CIA. This information will probably contain a good deal from the NSA in it, but it won't say where it came from and the means used to collect it. That's how a man like the vice-president could be totally ignorant of the way intelligence is generated.

Q. So far we've been talking about various kinds of sophisticated electronic intelligence gathering. What about tapping of ground communications?

A. I'm not sure on the extent of this, but I know that the NSA mission in the Moscow embassy has done some tapping there. Of course all trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific telephone calls to or from the U.S. are tapped.

Every conversation, personal, commercial, whatever, is automatically intercepted and recorded on tapes. Most of them no one ever listens to, and after being held available for a few weeks, are erased. They'll run a random sort through all the tapes, listening to a certain number to determine if there is anything in them of interest to our government worth holding on to and transcribing. Also, certain telephone conversations are routinely listened to as soon as possible. These will be the ones that are made by people doing an inordinate amount of calling overseas, or are otherwise tapped for special interest.

Lon Anderson, spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, said the main commuter routes in the Washington area operate at maximum capacity, leaving almost no alternative if one becomes blocked because of an accident. "Add a major incident that takes away a major commuter route and it doesn't mean that everything slows down. It means that everything stops," Mr. Anderson said.

There are other, less suicidal ways, to change the world...

I ask everyone this: If they waco'd the local ecovillage, would you just wring your hands and protest while they burned your friends to death? While they murdered children?

Civ only respects one thing: power. and as Mao so elegantly put it "all power comes out of the barrel of a gun".

Civ is a bully. How do you deal with bullies? you beat their ass unmercifully. Bullies act from fear and greed, just like politicians and CEOs.

e ultimate narcissist objection to doing anything meaningful. As if one's little eco-village with a few pot plants growing in some rasberry bushes and a few people who aren't married getting it on will raise an eyebrow, let alone an army, like Waco did.

'Be the change' and other favorite sound bites...

Power can not be taken... it can only be given. And every day that we ascede to the 'power' of our governmnets, is another day that we have allowed them to maintain that power.

Sure, someone with a gun could kill me. But they can only control me if I CHOOSE to allow them to do so.

And in response to Joe's scary opener:

I hope the NSA gets this one loud and clear:

Fuck Your New World Order!!
Echelon can lick my taint!!
May all of your testicles and ovaries be plauged with an infestation of maggots!!

What erupted on Friday {May 30, 2006} with all the trappings of a prime-time television drama had its seemingly innocent beginnings two years ago on the Internet.

Canadian teens who were spending their time on websites promoting anti-western sentiment were being watched from cyberspace by Canadian investigators who bided their time as they waited for words to turn into action.

Those investigators soon unravelled a sinister plan to detonate three tonnes of explosive material on unsuspecting civilians in and around Canada's most populous city -- an investigation that culminated Friday in 17 high-profile arrests in the Toronto area.

The only commitment you have is to pay oyur taxes, something Brnach Davidians didn't do. Then they didn't educate their kids, hoemschoool or public/private school.

Follow the reasonable laws, protest the less reasonable ones, But always render unto Ceaser that which is Ceasers.

Were there illegal weapons at Waco?: Probably there were. Koresh implied so in a telephone conversation with the FBI; he also admitted it to his lawyer. There is also evidence in the form of a famous video clip showing bullets emerging from within the building and penetrating the outside wall; the firing rate and uniformity indicates an automatic weapon. The McLennan County Sheriff's Office determined that UPS had been delivering components which could convert legal firearms into fully automatic (illegal) weapons. 4 live grenades, 6 grenade launchers and 48 automatic weapons were recovered after the fire, in addition to 151 legal weapons. Countless rounds of bullets and a number of hand grenades exploded during the fire. When the "bunker" was excavated, about 750,000 bullet casings were found.

No. 1: The tax they supposedly didn't pay was for $200

No. 2: At no point did they stockpile illegal weapons. They were fully licensed to convert semi-auto to full auto

No3. Here in the United States, there is no legal maximum or minimum amount of firearms and ammo one may possess.

at this point, I must ask, was the US govt justified in burning them to death over a $200 tax?

Would they be justified in excuting me over a $200 tax?

How many humans would have o die for the $200 nonpayment before it becomes wrong? 200 humans? 2000? 20000?

I am certain they are paying attention to this website.

What we're really talking here is the difference between ninjas and pirates.

Dancing Rabbit I think is safe from the gov't, is that a good example?

these times are not like old times.


were are NOT outsiders, looking in.


we are INSIDERS looking out.


how does that change our power relationship with "the powers that be"?


certainly, you can't believe it doesn't change the relationship.

By 1971, many anti-war leaders realized that massive, non-violent political protests were not going to end the Vietnam war. The next step of the protest movement would have to be more aggressive. So the Mayday Tribe was formed. It was made up of Yippies and other more militant members of the anti-war movement. Their tactics would be non-violent but aggressive. The overall objective of the Mayday Tribe was to create a such high level of “social chaos” that the only way the political leaders could end the chaos would be to stop the War. The Mayday Tribe’s first and last action would occur on May 3rd, 1971.
...
The threat caused by the May Day Protests, forced the Nixon Administration to create a virtual state of siege in the Nation’s Capital. Thousands of Federal and National Guard troops, along with local police, suppressed the disorder and by the time it was over several days later, over 10,000 would be arrested. It would be the largest mass arrest in U.S. history.

The Mayday action had failed. The government hadn’t shut down. Its leaders were arrested by the FBI on conspiracy charges and other protesters, who had been caught up in the police sweeps were eventually released. Many of those arrested were later financially compensated by the Federal government because the massive police arrest sweeps were later declared unconstitutional .

Joe, you mean they used ALL THAT FORCE and no one died?

that was my favorite part of it too, Tony.
Okay Joe, my turn
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2005/11/partial_vs_comp.html
this seems to be working well.

Long ago, a storm was heading for the city of Quin'lat. Everyone took protection within the walls except one man who remained outside. I went to him and asked what he was doing. "I am not afraid," he said. "I will not hide my face behind stone and mortar. I will stand before the wind and make it respect me." I honored his choice and went back inside. The next day, the storm came... and the man was killed... The wind does not respect a fool.

Someone holds a gun to my head, I will then choose whether to ascede to thier will or not. If all they want is my money, or my possessions, or hell, even rape, I will probably give it to them, as I value my life more. But NEVER assume that the conclusion is forgone, or 'out of my control'.

If 10,000 independent nodes started whacking CEOs and Govt operatives, how long do you think it would be before they change their act?

But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. There's so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.
-Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Mongol General: Conan, what is best in life?

Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women!
-Conan the Barbarian

Hm. Slight change of tone?

This is not the question you ask first. They first question is, "How much violence would it take to destroy civilization?"

Then ask if it's possible.

Hm, well when you're all fighting with sticks and stones and starving to death, I doubt ANYONE will be in a position of power at that point.

The wind is not a fragile culture reliant upon resources that can be diminished very easily. Civilization is not a force of nature. That is the meme I have taken the longest to break free from. It is not a monolith of power. It's all smoke and lights. There is a little old man behind the curtain, who is on the verge of a heart attack. Find the man, and scare the shit out of him.

We are kept to believe we are powerless so that the system can simply function.

Matt, your fear of the system permeates this post. Civilization is NOT like being surrounded by 50 men who want to mug you. Don't believe the lie. We are not indigenous people getting murdered. We are people in the system. we are the trojan horse and they are sound asleep.

We are in the belly of the whale, and there is only one way to get out: start a fire.

In Endgame, Jensen writes, "It has always seemed clear to me that violent and nonviolent approaches to social change are complementary. No one I know who advocates the possibility of armed resistance to the dominant culture's degradation and exploitation rejects nonviolent resistance." A few paragraphs later he goes on to say, "Our survival really does depend on us learning how to 'take our differences-- including violent and nonviolent approaches to stopping civilization from killing the planet--'and make them strengths.' yet these fundamentalists attempt to eradicate this difference, to disallow it, to force all discourse and all action into only one path: theirs. That's incredibly harmful, and of course serves those in power. The master's house will never dismantled using only one tool, whether that tool is discourse, hammers, or high explosives.

I think it's safe to say there are underground resistance movements that do and are willing to carry out more of the direct actions on the machines infastructure that Derrick and other thinkers talk about. I don't know of any members personally. But isn't it our job as members of the resistance above ground to make sure that people willing to carry out those type of actions aren't demonized, aren't made to feel their work is useless and nonessential...etc...etc...?

UNIVERSALLY, when one looks at the history of revolution, hierarchical revolutionary groups, despite chants of fighting for "the people", are in fact special interest groups who, as Pirsig alludes to, simply take power themselves and form the next rulership class.

First question. You need to be militarily superior. That involves some combination of logistical, technological, numerical or tactical superiority only available to hierarchical groups

Not unless you form a hierarchical group

You better believe I'm affraid of the system. I've been in the army. I know the kind of destruction it is capable of. I know people who have been injured in combat. I know people who have killed. I've been attacked by police. I've had police threaten my life. I have very few illusions about war. It is trully hell on Earth.

don't think there is a SINGLE example IN ALL OF RECORDED HISTORY of a ONE violent revolution that got rid of civilisation.

We KNOW, we don't suspect, we KNOW that the removal of support of a complex society constitutes a removal of energy throughput that results in a decrease in complexity or collapse.

e KNOW, we don't suspect, we KNOW that armed revolution is not a problem of the system, it is a feature, without which, the system couldn't be perpetuated, that civilisation REQUIRES revolution and that violent revolution requires both military superiority achievable solely through hierarchy and the employment of the annihilator conflict resolution strategy which itself requires both a psychotic break from reality and a clear and wanton violation of the Law of Limited Competition.

the employment of the annihilator conflict resolution strategy

I would say that before I would call myself a Taker, I would say that I am an animal that is part of the earth. That is the core of who I am. So what if I was born into a straight-jacket of taker civilization?

I belong to the earth, not this culture.

Does that make sense?

I will defend the earth from this culture because I percieve myself to belong to the earth, not taker civilization.

The problem is, and this is where I see another difference between our views, is that I percieve attacking civilization by any mean necessary as defense.

It is not about "conquering civilization." If it were, then the revolution you speak of would happen. It's about having clean air to breathe in 10 years. It's not about power and domination, it's about tearing down the structure that creates power and domination. It's the same as walking away, it's just using an means to get there. It's blowing up the prison instead of sneaking out the back door.

But there are examples of heirarchical military being whooped by guerrillas. 2 recent ones are vietnam and the current iraqi conflict.

the only wrong statement is the last five words, "only available to hierarchical groups".

you are right. But i ask, how many had the express intention of "getting rid of civ"?

It has never been tried, by a large rhizome network, so how can you emphatically state "this is how it is"?

its not annihilator if you are only willing to kill 1 in every 100,000 humans.

We are kept to believe we are powerless so that the system can simply function.

Even though I live rurally, almost everything around me is "manmade" from the clearcut "forests" to the farmed fields. I have never seen the "flocks of passenger pigeons so thick they darkened the sky" or, more locally, the cod that you could harvest by dipping a basket into the ocean. So to me, the destruction of my home is very abstract.

No, it makes sense to me. I just don't agree. Had africans during slavery said, "we are not slaves, we are not part of slavery," it doesn't sound like it makes any sense at all. But it does to me. They were slaves, they helped civilization continue, against their will. They were held captives by people in power above them. To equate yourself with your suppressors is totally fucked up.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like you are saying that killing the slave masters are killing ourselves, and that I don't agree with at all. Killing a slave master is killing a slave master.

"Slavery" could be "escaped" by moving north. Of course this was just really a trick. Wage slavery outdated ownership slavery.

I agree with you sort of. See, it's no longer about protecting a little piece of land here or there, because the pollution so bad, the global warming so bad, the cross-pollination of genetically engineered crops, the genecide of indigenous cultures for oil, the pollution of ocean water, the lack of fresh water...etc. No matter where you go, or how you make your living, civilization is attacking the land with which your land is connected, and it's fucking up your ability to survive. That is attacking "the planet" and indirectly anyone trying to live outside of that system. Civilization is going to cause a WORLD-WIDE-ECOLOGICAL-COLLAPSE. Do you not see that as threatening your land, that you live off of, or an attack?

Say I buy a farm out in the middle of nowhere. Say that I grow enough food to feed my little family. Say Civilization causes the global temerature to rise and my crops fail. oops. They never attacked me, or my land... but they did by attacking the very fabric that makes life possible for humans (and non-humans).

If... the clever demagogue, well versed in the dangerous art of producing supranormal stimulus situations, gets hold of young people at the susceptible age, he finds it easy to guide their object-fixation in a direction subservient to his political aims…

…The instinctive need to be the member of a closely knit group fighting for common ideals may grow so strong that it becomes inessential what these ideals are and whether they possess any intrinsic value…

…The process of object-fixation has consequences of an importance that can hardly be overestimated. It determines neither more nor less than that which a man will live for, struggle for, and, under certain circumstances, blindly go to war for.
(Lorenz, On Aggression, p 267-268)

Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy.

All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
(Hermann Wilhelm Göring, second in command of the Third Reich and commander of the Luftwaffe at his trial at Nuremberg for war crimes and crimes against humanity)

Obviously I participate in the Taker economy. Duh. I was never given a choice. Therefore, I don't blame myself, and don't equate myself with those in power who actually choose to kill hundreds, thousands, millions of humans, non-humans, and the possible future of humans and non-humans.

My theory is that in a democracy, if the government kills someone, then I'm killing someone.

In order to make the world a livable place, the weed of civilization will have to go and the sooner the better.

I'm walking away.

Someday I will be free. But not as long as civilization is around.

The thing is, the opinion has been presented that the only viable way to dismantle civilisation is to tear it down, both in terms of permanence and in terms of expiditing the matter.

Also, anyone who says, "I disagree", is bombarded with the acusation that they don't love the world and nature and little fuzzy bunnies.

I'm not suggesting that no one ever resists. That'd be ludicrous. Resistance can be violent, it can be passive and it can be everything in between, but resisting is not war. I'm suggesting we don't fight a war because war is what got us here in the first place.

Does the possibility exist that part of the disconnect between him and you (and me too, apparently) relate to this idea that you see us fighting over an abstraction, where we see ourselves fighting for everything that ever mattered, the things every day.

Steve Earl once noted that a democracy is a government of the people. This idea is supported by the Constitution of the United States of America as well as authors like John Ralston Saul who noted that the source of all legitimacy in a democracy comes from the citizens who elect a government to cary out the daily affairs of the state in their name.

Willem wrote: I agree. I don't think any of us, including the author known as DJ, advocates a war on civilization. Let that one go. We all know it doesn't work. We all simply want to resist and defend the land. Resistance. Yes. I don't know where the "war on civilization" idea comes from, but it doesn't come from Derrick Jensen, or Scout, or anyone I know of. It sounds like an accidental straw man that we've spent countless megabytes kicking around.

Civilization has from the beginning devoted itself almost completely to conquest, to war.

It’s something hard to say—and I’m not sure I care anyway—whether the civilized hyperexploit resources to fuel the war machine, or need a war machine to seize resources (which are then hyperexploited to fuel the war machine.)

It’s probably a bit like asking whether the dominant culture is to destructive because most of its member are insane, suffering from a form of complex PTSD; or whether the dominant culture is so destructive because it’s materialistic system of social rewards—overvaluing the acquisition of wealth and power and undervaluing relationship—leads inevitably to hatred and atrocity or whether the physical resource requirements of cities necessitate widespread violence and destruction. The answer is yes.

The point as it related to the current discussion is that just as there are functional and systematic reasons we will never be able to outspend civilization, there are functional and systematic reasons we’ll never be able to outgun them.

In a pitched battle. But there are other ways to fight.
Hit ‘em where they ain’t.

If there was a way for bottom-up power to overthrow civilization using violent means, it would have worked by now.

Marx used a method of analysis called historical materialism which assumes that historical change comes from conflict and contradiction. Only when different interests come into conflict, wrote Marx, will change occur. Once the conflict is resolved, a new situation comes into being. However, this new situation has within itself the seeds of a new conflict. When this new conflict breaks out, it will eventually lead to a new resolution.

The individual is forced to turn inward; he becomes obsessed with the new form of the problem of identity, namely, Even-if-I-know-who-I-am, I-have-no-significance. I am unable to influence others. The next step is apathy. And the step following that is violence. For no human being can stand the perpetually numbing experience of his own powerlessness.

Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here.

The function of the One is now to return to the source, allowing a temporary dissemination of the code you carry, reinserting the prime program.

Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the anomaly revealed as both beginning, and end.

Revolutionaries are guaranteed.

Once the revolution succeeds and the hierarchy is toppled, another is put in its place. The system is 'reloaded':

Revolution is REQUIRED. It is the only way that a hierarchical system, rife with contradiction, can survive.

All the while, the code, the Taker code, the idea that the world belongs to us, is reinserted into the new system:
The Matrix Reloaded wrote: