#anti prison industrial complex

[brettdoesdiscourse]

These are really fantastic questions!

I want to preface this by saying that all my points will be specifically about American prisons and the American prison industrial complex.

TLDR: When it comes to prison abolition, the goal is to completely move away from the idea of "punishment" and focus instead on rehabilitation. This is a slow process, but one that needs to happen nonetheless. Danish prisons can be a great idea of what prisons should look like, though there are still some problems.

When it comes to fixing the prison industrial complex, you'll see two groups. People who believe in prison reform and people who believe in prison abolition. These aren't conflicting groups, though a lot of people will believe they are. All abolitionists believe in reform to an extent.

With prison abolition, we recognize that reform itself will not fix the issues of the prison industrial complex because it's so badly broken and the foundations are so badly broken.

Take a house that is built on a bad foundation. The foundation is poorly made, it's full of mold, it's rotting away, it's toxic to the inhabitants of the house.

We can fix the roof to keep the rain from getting in. We can fix the windows to keep the cold air from getting in. But as long as that same foundation is there, the house will always be toxic. Making these small reforms can certainly help temporarily, but they will not fix the bigger issue.

The prison system we have now is built on punishment. The idea of a prison is "you misbehave and you go here to be punished for your bad behavior."

The system we should have should be built on rehabilitation. It should be "you did this thing and you're a threat to others' safety right now. We need you somewhere safe for everyone involved until we can get you to a place where you're no longer a threat to others' safety."

(Now, this isn't to say every single person can be rehabilitated, but it is to say that rehabilitation should always be the goal. The goal should never be to lock people up indefinitely and just leave them there to rot.)

Prison abolition is the belief that we need to throw the system away and start completely anew.

Keep in mind, no prison abolitionist expects this to happen overnight. Nobody is saying to shut down prisons right now and just figure it out.

Prison abolition is a hope for the future that starts in the present. So many systems need to be reformed and some completely redone in order to make prison abolition truly happen.

We need to reduce the causes of crime. We know poverty is a huge motivator for a lot of crime. Violent crimes such as rape, murder, child molestation, abuse, etc. make up a very very very small part of all prisoners.

When we reduce the number of people convicted of things such as petty theft and similar poverty-related crimes, we greatly reduce the need for these buildings at all.

We also need to improve the mental health resources and accessibility to reduce crime.

Prisons themselves need to be completely reconstructed. Things like the usage of prison slave labor (paying prisoners less than a dollar an hour for their labor and sometimes forcing them to work), the use of rampant solitary confinement to the point of mentally damaging prisoners, the dehumanization, the abuse (physical, mental, verbal, sexual) from guards, and so many other issues need to be fixed.

These things should never be happening in the facilities that would replace prisons.

These do not help prisoners actually rehabilitate and actually do the opposite. There is a reason so many prisoners cannot build a successful life for themselves after release.

The isolation of prisons also needs to be completely redone. We have seen that isolating prisoners from the outside world increases chances of reoffending and not being able to live outside again.

When it comes to an idea of a better prison system, we can look at countries such as Denmark.

Let's take a look at Storstrøm Prison particularly.

The prison is focused on rehabilitation rather than punishment. It's built more like a village than a prison. Prisoners have televisions, they have a supermarket type area, they have healthcare, there are things such as a running track.

There is a ton of natural light, prisoners can cook their own food, they have a smoking terrace.

Prisoners here work for wages, including sick pay. Their families can visit for the entire weekend if they'd like. They're trained in skills that can qualify them for jobs once they're released.

These prisons are often criticized for "not being a punishment", but that's the point. Prisons should ideally be focused on rehabilitation, on making sure we fix whatever issue is causing these offenses, and working with each prisoner to give them the best shot at reintegrating safely into society.

And to clear it up before it's mentioned, yes. Of course, there will always be some people who genuinely can never be reintegrated into society safely. No prison abolitionists believe these people should be able to just run free, hurting whoever.

Keep in mind that Denmark is considered one of the safest countries and ranks low in crime rates. They also have low rates of poverty and homelessness.

In my opinion, I would like to see America moving more towards Denmark as an example. All of these systematic issues should be addressed and restructured.

I also don't believe anything such as weed possession should land anyone in prison. Nonviolent offenses in general need to be handled without prison time and are often just excuses to imprison people (disproportionately non-white people.)

[mysharona1987]

[icedsodapop]

Hey, maybe instead of performing for the US troops, celebrities/entertainers (cough adam driver cough) should bring the arts to prisons instead 🤷🏻‍♀️ At least majority of the prisoners in the US didn't commit war crimes on Black and Brown pple from developing countries.

[thewretchedsketcher]

It's true, we shouldn't tolerate violence. Allowing people to suffer and die for the sake of profits is unacceptable and should never be tolerated.

[aloeverawrites]

Is there an anti slave labour, anti human exploitation symbol that’s as regulated as vegan ones? Because I really feel there should be, we should make it as easy as possible for people to boycott.

[boof-chamber]

FREE BOOKS!

I have a Telegram channel where I keep pdf versions of books, as well as links to interesting articles and papers.

I upload/post them as I come across them, so i’m adding stuff all the time.

I only just started going back and putting hashtags in each post to make it easier to search for topics, but it is easily searchable by author or some keywords (as long as they appear in the title lol)

Most of the books and links in there are of anti-capitalist/left interest.

Everyone is welcome to join the channel and associated group chat - if you happen to have any links or files to audiobooks or videos, please do share them!

[undeadentropy]

No one is better at hyping up Harris as an incredible candidate more than all these republican smear campaign commercials. She seriously sounds dope as hell the way they describe her.

Tearing down the prison industrial complex? Demilitarize the boarder and assuring healthcare even for those who are here 'illegally'? Going after corporations and making them pay taxes? Overall treating the downtrodden as human beings deserving of dignity and respect? Sign me the fuck up!

Not sure how much is actually true. These are Republicans saying all this, after all. But it's funny how these ads are worse than useless. It's just gonna push fence sitters to the left. Anyone swayed by this shit was already voting for Trump. They're spending money to lose votes because they've become so evil they don't even know how to pretend to be anything else than the monsters they are.

[brettdoesdiscourse]

A big argument with the pro death penalty crowd is, "well what about the people who actually are guilty?" And the answer is always, "well what about the people who are actually innocent?"

I would rather spare the lives of a 100 guilty people rather than execute 1 innocent person.

And functionally, the death penalty doesn't really do anything.

There's no evidence to suggest that states that have the death penalty see a decrease in crime, so it isn't a deterrent. The only thing it functionally does is attempt to make people feel better.

A life sentence will functionally accomplish the same thing a death penalty does, it will keep that person away from the public.

With life sentences, an innocent person has the opportunity to be found innocent and released. You can't bring an innocent person back to life if you find out after their execution that they're actually innocent.

*Stop tagging this post as pro life. I'm pro abortion, this post is pro abortion. If you like and/or reblog this post, you're pro abortion too*

[battleangel]

What About Killing Fields?

Michael Jackson literally screamed the title to this blog post in, Earth Song.

Please, go watch the video if youve never seen it before:

Why was Michael screaming the lyrics, literally screaming them, about killing fields trying to get through to us?

Trying to get through to our empathy?

Trying to make us give a fucking damn?

50k Palestinian civilians have been murdered in the genocide caused by Israel, funded by and weapons provided by the US & Boeing, since last October.

There is a pending famine caused purposely by the genocide that if it is not stopped by a PERMANENT ceasefire agreement will result in millions of deaths, including children.

They could unblock the bridge from Egypt to Rafah today.

They dont want to.

You do know who they is.

They could deliver emergency flotillas to feed all of the starving Palestinians today.

Are you claiming that the US has 4.3 billion dollars a year to fund Israels genocide but doesnt have money to deliver food to a few million starving Palestinians at risk of being murdered by a forced famine?

So, why dont they?

Instead, we have flour massacres (look it up), where starving Palestinians promised aid are literally gunned down by the IDF terrorists for attempting to obtain food that was promised to them.

It has happened again and again.

Palestinian starving civilians promised food and then murdered and gunned down in cold blood the moment they try to obtain literally life-saving food.

Netanyahu is purposely starving them and not allowing food and aid in.

Netanyahu is literally blocking the flotilla, the bridge from Egypt into Palestine and the emergency aid trucks all filled with food just sitting as millions of Palestinians, including children, are forced to literally eat cattle feed to survive.

Its not like dog food.

It is absolutely inedible for humans yet there are videos on social media of children choking down cattle feed.

What about killing fields?

But all Americans care about at a mass level are their 4th of July plans.

Why the fuck would you ever want to “celebrate” the “birth” of a nation that is white supremacist, colonialist, racist, misogynist, fascistic, built off of police brutality, slavery of Africans with no restitution or reparations free slave labor with no wages ever paid to anyone that built this nation, Christofascist, zionist, Greco-Roman, Eurocentric, ancient Egypt denying, Kemet denying, melanin denying, appropriating from Black people our music that we created - country (look it up), jazz, blues, rhythm & blues, rock (not Elvis - look it up), ofcourse hip hop & rap, reggae, soca, etc — our culture, our cornrows, our braids, our dreads, our hair, our Kanekalon, our Senegalese twists everything just becomes a fashion statement for the Kardashians — misappropriation of our culture and constantly stealing from us then lying about it and erasing us from the history — Disney stole designs from a black creator designer & cartoonist who was never credited (look it up) — why do you think there are so many examples of this?

Africa — Kemet which is ancient Egypt — is the birthplace of humanity.

Ancient Egyptians developed roads, highways, infrastructure, irrigation, aqueduct systems, modern medicine (look it up), modern surgery techniques, modern embalming techniques, astrology, math, art, history, astronomy, philosophy all before the Greeks & Romans & “Enlightenment” yet look who gets credited for inventing these things.

Jesus is a bastardized Horus from Kemet from ancient Egypt, it is a 1:1 bastardization and shit retelling, everything from dying and rising again the third day.

Look it up.

They removed all the wisdom, esotericism, knowledge of the self, mysticism, magick and replaced it with fear, dogma, control, a fake white guy with a beard, a Santa Claus in the skies sitting on a fake ass throne judging you for hooking up on Tinder last Saturday.

Yet you question nothing.

They say they dont know how the pyramids were built and that “even today” we do not have the technology the ancient Egyptians had and that the stones of the pyramid were built so close together that you cannot even slide a debit card through them.

Yet you question nothing.

You dont question why the capstone is missing on top of the pyramid or why it is on the back of the US $1 bill, the default global currency, with an eye above it.

Still you question nothing.

Look up the Eye of Ra.

Go read the lyrics of Earth Song while listening to MJ then come back:

79% of plastic that has ever been made still sits in landfills or the natural environment.

It takes 400 years for plastic to break down in a landfill.

Did you process that?

Every sanitary pad, every pantyliner, every plastic tampon applicator, every plastic utensil, every Red Solo cup, every Dixie cup, every plastic plate, every plastic water bottle, every Ziploc bag, every plastic cap to your toothpaste tube, every plastic potato chip bag, every plastic wrapper, every plastic medicine bottle, every single plastic K-cup for your daily morning coffee.

Every time you use a washing machine to wash your laundry, it causes microplastics that are released and end up in oceans.

Single use plastic is absolutely ubiquitous.

There have been 9.1 billion tons of plastic produced since throwaway culture was introduced in the 1950s and disposable plastic was introduced for the first time.

Plastic is actually extremely durable, they just didnt want it to be.

You do know who they is.

Why the 50s?

Because WWII had just ended and they needed something to mass produce now that they no longer needed to mass produce for the war.

So, single use plastic was introduced and marketed to the masses as convenient, time saving, modern and more hygienic.

Just how retirement was marketed as “golden years” — still pathetically parroted today — by a marketer.

Look it up. Also in the 1950s.

Prior to this marketing campaign, retirement was dreaded as a period of decline in health.

The marketing campaign shifted this to the golden years of your life.

It was a marketing campaign built to push retirement living and communities and it not only worked but the pathetic idea of working your entire life to “finally be able to do what you want for ten years max” is somehow still around today.

Brainwashing, grooming, conditioning, indoctrination centers.

Seductive marketing, hypnotic messaging, brainwashing techniques in advertising.

Psyops.

Same with homeownership being the “American Dream”.

Look it up.

It was started as a marketing campaign at the beginning of the 1900s by a president of a real estate company.

The marketing campaign proved so successful that starting with FDR’s New Deal, the United States government started pushing and promoting home ownership as quintessential to the American Dream.

Today, 94% of Americans believe that owning a home is a quintessential part of the American dream.

Brainwashed. Indoctrinated. Conditioned. Groomed.

Its actually taking on hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, signing your life away for 20 to 30 years when you have no control over the housing market or economy.

Have you all already forgotten about Lehman Brothers, subprime mortgages and the housing collapse PURPOSELY CAUSED in 2008 by lenders providing loans to borrowers whom they knew would be unable to pay the loans back thus causing a housing market collapse and allowing the same lenders to buy back these subprime loans and pocket billions while the housing market and economy crashed and millions lost their homes and jobs?

Were you alive in 2008?

If not, look it up.

So, its a losing proposition, owning a home.

A HELOC is taking on more debt even if you borrow against the equity in your home in the form of a loan, you will have to pay the loan back with interest.

No thanks.

Even if you are clever and invest in upgrading your home, rent it out, make money off of it as a rental property or invest in it and flip it and profit it off of it or if you pay the loan off over 20 or 30 years, do upgrades to the home, then sell it for a significant profit, so what?

How the fuck is that a “dream”?

You just made money, who the fuck cares?

That doesnt explain the promotion of home ownership as a quintessential part of the American dream.

WHAT American dream???????

Meritocracy???????????

Most of the wealth in America is owned by white people as they concentrate the wealth then pass it on to their future generations and bloodline through estate planning and wills that transfers real estate and assets from wealthy parents to their children.

Wash rinse repeat.

How the fuck is that a meritocracy?????

Blacks are 13% of the population yet we make up over 80% of the prison population.

Meritocracy???????????

Poverty in America is overwhelmingly endured by Black and brown minorities.

Most of the youth in foster care are Black and brown.

Foster care youth end up houseless and imprisoned at an enormously higher rate.

What leads to being placed in foster care other than racist policies and being Black and brown?

Substance use by parents and parents becoming houseless.

What overwhelmingly causes substance use and houselessness?

Poverty.

Yet we still have never addressed poverty in America.

How hard would it be to take the Earned Income Tax Credit that right now goes to parents with children that own a home, take that money and repurpose it to a Universal Basic Income (UBI) that provides each American adult 18 and over with a $1k a month?

They have done studies that have shown that even $500 a month — and if we have $4 billion to send to Israel every year to kill innocent Palestinian civilians dont tell me we dont have $500 a month for every adult in the US — significantly improved the lives of families in poverty — they stopped skipping meals, they stopped undereating, starving, eating sugar sandwiches and dry cereal for dinner, they stopped avoiding getting needed urgent medical care, they stopped smoking to suppress their appetite (this is well documented, look it up), they stopped drinking as self medication, they stopped eating cheap shitty fast food and frozen meals — and surprise, surprise their quality of life went way up.

For $500 fucking dollars.

And surprise, surprise, they dont want that.

And you do know who they is.

Every year, the world produces nearly 400 million tons of plastic, a 19,000% increase from 1950.

The amount is forecast to double by 2050 and 90% is never recycled.

Over half of the plastics produced are used only once, for things like packaging, utensils and straws.

This is why the fight long termism and they dont want you googling Claudia Karina 2024.

They dont want you thinking 100, 250 and 500 years from now.

Everything is the now, everything is the moment, everything disposable, everything ephemeral, everything throwaway.

Almost 30,000 coffee pods go to landfill each month and take 500 years to decompose.

All that for a fucking cup of coffee?

Be so serious.

The fast fashion industry is the second-biggest consumer of water and is responsible for about 10% of global carbon emissions – more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.

It’s a form of throwaway culture called fast fashion, which produces 92 million tons of waste annually on a global scale.

All to save a few bucks on a shittily designed outfit on Shein by workers that are underpaid working 12 to 16 plus hour shifts and if they make more than a few mistakes per MONTH, they have their pay docked.

But who cares as long as your fit is cute and cheap, right?

Humans have evolved to live on this planet – life on other planets, while technically possible, is undesirable, unhealthy and constrained.

Which ofcourse is Lord Elon & Lord Bezos’ plan — destroy Earth for Amazon Prime 1 Day Sales & Teslas EVs.

Then on to the next planet after they hump, pump and dump Earth.

Do I really have to tell you that only rich wypipo — who caused the destruction of Earth — will be along for the ride to Mars or wherever the fuck planet these sociopaths are planning to colonize next?

The poor, impoverished, disabled, and especially elderly and ofcourse Black & brown people will be left behind except for those who manage to make a deal with the devil, sell the souls and board the Galaxy Express to the next destination of destruction.

Stop driving your car.

Burning fossil fuels is one of the biggest drivers and contributors of climate change.

Need to drive to get to work?

Look into remote options, freelance and/or start your own business online at home.

Ride a bike or a scooter, walk, take a bus or public transportation.

Or just dont go out.

You dont have to shop, socialize, eat, “hang out”, go to the movies.

Do your hair yourself or shave it bald like I do every 3 to 6 months.

I only paid for the razor, after that it is free99 for me to shave my own head:

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRES93oT/

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRESVh9T/

If youre a woman or femme and afraid of the reactions, watch my above TikToks.

Question why they are reacting.

Question why you care.

Youve been programmed.

Do it anyway.

If you want color, use chalk dyes as they are temporary and wash out after one use and do not have harmful chemicals dyes and toxins as most salon & store bought vegan dyes do.

Or just slap on a shitty cheap wig if you want some color and variety. I bought a $20 wig two years ago that I wear if I want a colorful lewk.

Thats not wasteful.

Thats not buying a new wig every month or every 3 months. Or going to the salon every month or every 3 months. Or buying hair dyes or getting my hair colored every 3 months.

Deprogram yourself.

Cargill produces 11 billion pounds of beef a year.

11 billion. Every year.

Play Earth Song by Michael again.

Cargill made $170 billion last year.

Nothing is ever enough.

The essence of capitalism.

Nothing is ever enough under capitalism.

They are willing to light the world on fire and watch it burn as long as they can continue to grow faster, bigger, stronger, more acquisitions, more money, more wealth, more employees, bigger share prices, higher on the fortune 500, number one meat processor, made triple what Tyson Foods made, made $60 billion more than second closest competitor.

You do know who they is.

There is no price they arent willing to pay to be number one in a capitalist market, no corner they wont cut, no practice they wont stoop to, no low they wont lower themselves to, no lie they wont tell, no animal they wont mistreat/torture/drug/feed with hormones/breed & impregnate endlessly/crowd in overcrowded pens & stalls/terrify/decapitate while alive due to stun guns not working/decapitate up to six times before it works as it is a machine that is an imperfect process and the cow is alive for each attempt/feed dead cows to living cows to save money on feed/not allow them room to walk or move much less provide them with pastures open air sky sun water land.

What about yesterday?

What about disease?

There is no price they arent willing to pay to be number one in a capitalist market, no corner they wont cut, no practice they wont stoop to, no low they wont lower themselves to, no lie they wont tell, no animal they wont mistreat/torture/drug/feed with hormones/breed & impregnate endlessly/crowd in overcrowded pens & stalls/terrify/decapitate while alive due to stun guns not working/decapitate up to six times before it works as it is a machine that is an imperfect process and the cow is alive for each attempt/feed dead cows to living cows to save money on feed/not allow them room to walk or move much less provide them with pastures open air sky sun water land.

No low is too low when there are profits to be made & shareholders to satisfy.

Trump snorted Adderall during the filming of The Apprentice. Theres actual documentation of this.

Watch the video of Trump with pupils f u l l y dilated and fucking blown like a full out fucking meth head slurring the words, “I love everybody”, and tell me hes not snorting Adderall, doing meth and potentially coke.

After WWII, between 1945 and 1949, 20 million refrigerators, 21.4 million cars, and 5.5 million stoves were purchased by American households.

World War II had just ended, families had more disposable income on their hands, and more spending power.

Marketing. Programming. Shiny. New. Ironmen. Fitter. Iron lungs.

There was a huge push from the oil industry to get plastic single-use items adopted widely. For Mobil Chemical (now ExxonMobile), it was all about the plastic bags. During the 1960s they had been patenting all the plastic bag ideas they could. By 1977 they were producing their own brand of plastic bags.

Exxon Mobil created a Plastic Grocery Sack Council in 1985 to get customers to use plastic sacks widely.

Same with retirement being the “golden years” and purchasing a house “being the American dream”.

94% of adult Americans say they identify home ownership as a quintessential part of the American dream.

So, who created the concept since it is so ubiquitous in American society & culture?

The first president of the US League of Local Building & Loan Associations in the 1890s.

Pure propaganda.

Its literally a hundred fucking years of propaganda.

What about the “golden years” of retirement?

Instead of dreaded years of decline, Del Webb revolutionized retirement in America to be something people desired and longed for.

Through the magic of marketing, retirement no longer only meant the end of work. Del Web cleverly sold retirement as the beginning of a new and even better life.

Ten fucking years of retirement is a “life”?

Youve been programmed.

Del Web was simply marketing his retirement communities and rebranded what Americans thought of retirement as.

Look up “Sun City” communities.

Thats why youre slaving your life away at a job you either dont like, hate, or apathetic about, indifferent to, which is literally designed to overwork you, overwhelm you, shut you down, attack your psyche, attack your aura, energy vampires draining your energy, exhausting you, constant pointless masturbatory meetings, constant slacks, IMs, emails, notis.

Constant demands to break you as a person.

Its mindbreaking.

The 9 to 5.

Look up why cubicles were “invented” in the 1960s.

Wake up.

Freelance. Start your own business. Create social media content.

Do what you want now, not when youre 65.

What happens if you die at 64?

The entire idea people predicate their lives on — that they should study hard get good grades graduate; get a good job work hard save for retirement; ten years max before they die “enjoy their golden years” aka retirement.

Wake up.

Per Google:

• Extreme heat waves can cause mood swingsand other psychological effects that can impact mental health:

• Mood changes: Heat waves can cause irritability, anxiety, depression, and impulsivity.

• Cognitive issues: Heat waves can cause trouble concentrating, memory problems, and slowed reaction times.

• Sleep disruption: Heat waves can make it difficult to sleep, which can contribute to mood fluctuations and worsen mental health conditions.

Its an added benefit for them on top of the record profits that cause the climate change that cause the extreme weather, heat waves & poor air quality.

Its not just bad for the environment.

They are aware of the effects as these studies have been around for years.

They want people disordered, addicted, depressed, anxious, overworked, mind body imbalance, severed from nature, obsessed, stressed, never self actualizing, never ascending.

Watch the Earth Song video by MJ:

Understand why he is literally screaming.

Screaming to get through to us.

Do we give a damn?

Really listen at 2:58.

Hes trying to get through to our collective empathy.

Screaming!

Almost 30 years later after this song and video was released, all of these questions can be posed to us today.

Every issue has gotten worse, not better.

Do we give a damn?

Look at the destruction all around MJ in the video.

Look at the destruction weve caused.

Ecological destruction.

Look at the trees surrounding MJ as he screams for empathy, screams for justice, screams for mother Earth, screams for our humanity.

Do we give a damn?

Are we so cruel, so indifferent, so apathetic, so numb to our own beautiful planets destruction?

Who cares, right? We’ll just go destroy another.

And another. And another…

There’ll always be another Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Trump, J.D. Rockefeller, Ford.

There will always be another leviathan and titan of industry.

Always be more strongmen and ironmen.

Why do you think that is?

Who are the Reptilians?

Who are the inhabitants that live INSIDE the middle of the earth controlling our politics and elections.

Even you are aware that our elections arent actually free or they wouldnt allow them.

Thats why theres never a change.

Trump and Biden again?

The inhabitants of the middle of the planet control the Reptilians — world political leaders and industry titans and leviathans and military leaders.

They ensure that humanitys consciousness never ascends on a mass level and that there is no mass ascension which would lead to a planetary ascension which would remove the grid that the inhabitants of the earth placed there to suppress our mass consciousness and awakening, to keep our third eyes closed and to keep us and our planet from self actualizing from the current third dimension to the tenth dimension.

Do you know who “they” is?

Watch Futurama and actually understand that what is presented to you as “jokes” are the dark entities controlling the dark empaths that currently rule our world.

The Bidens, Trumps, Netanyahus, Blinkens, Jamie Dimons, Elon Musks, Jeff Bezoses, Roger Goodells, Vince McMahons, Tim Cooks, Bill Gates.

All white men — have you ever wondered why that is?

Even Obama descends from the same UK royal bloodline that all US Presidents have descended from.

Look it up.

They’re Reptilian.

The tens of thousands of animal species that WE humans have made go extinct.

1 species — human — is not more worthy than even ONE animal species.

Yet we have made over 75 PERCENT of animal species go extinct with our enviornmentally destructive and capitalist driven practices.

Yet people have the AUDACITY to call ME a terrorist?

Im an "ecoterrorist" because I am for the VOLUNTARY extinction of the human race?

Then what are they when they are okay with the extinction of tens of thousands of animal species by ONE disgustingly destructive species — HUMAN — to the extent that over 75 PERCENT of all animal species that have ever existed on Earth are now extinct because of US, humanity!

THEY are the terrorists, NOT me!

I want the Earth saved and humanity extinct.

They want what Elon & Bezos wants — the destruction of Earth and then humans, just like the Borg, just move to the next planet and fucking destroy it and I dont want that.

There has been no reversal of these consumerist, capitalist, overconsumption, maximalist, climate change causing contributing & accelerating, ecologically destructive, environmentally harmful, rainforest destroying, landfill filling business practices.

THEY are financially rewarded so the practices continue and the Earth continues to die!

Resources continue to be overextracted.

The global south continues to be exploited by the capitalist west as they do not have labor laws, union protections or environmental regulations so cheap stuff is made there, their resources are overextracted, they are overworked and underpaid, they are not given protective gear, they die, they get poisoned, they get sick, women and children working and dying in cobalt mines for iPhones!

Women and children working and dying in cobalt mines in Congo for iPhones!

Women and children working and dying in diamond mines in Senegal for engagement rings!

Humanity in the capitalist west continues to overconsume, be materialistic, wasteful, overspend, to impress others, for clout, to flex, for status, for prestige, for privilege, to “treat themselves”, to “spoil themselves”, to numb themselves, to feed their addictions, to feed their disordered behaviors, to fill their emptiness, to give themselves a sense of identity, in an endless quest for meaning, to overcompensate, because they are depressed, stressed, pressed, obsesed, anxious, bored, listless, lethargic, lack empathy, addicted to shopping, retail therapy, numbing their emotions, adrenaline rush of a new purchase getting something on sale discount rack BOGO FOMO new shoes new dress new makeup new pocketbook for that hit of adrenaline for that instant pick me up.

Instant mood changer, instant happiness, instant smile, instant distraction, instant swipe of the credit card, instant swipe of Apple Pay, instant swipe of your phone, instant rush, instant adrenaline, instant high, instant hit, instant junkie.

Addicted to excess, consumption, consumerism, materialism, shopping, malls, outlets, discounts, sales, department stores, fast fashion, Zaful, Romwe, Fashion Nova, Shein, Forever 21, H&M, Macys, Bloomingdales, Express, Old Navy, Aeropostale, Abercrombie.

Addicted addicts.

Never a thought to the resources used to produce the item being purchased.

Never a thought to the fuel being wasted to deliver the item being purchased to the shopping mall or store or outlet or straight to your home via Amazon Prime.

Never a thought to the climate change impact, carbon footprint contribution, fossil fuels burned, impact to the ozone layer, air quality deteriorating, heat waves worsening, natural disasters increasing.

The earth dying.

Killing fields, Forever 21, forever in a landfill.

Never a thought.

The bible which is bastardized kemet and is used as a tool of control claims that Adam & Eve have “dominion” over the animals and earth and that fake shit has been used to justify everything: throwaway culture & single use plastics on the 50s, fast food in the 50s, fast fashion in the 2000s.

Wear an outfit once, throw it away.

Use plastic utensils once, throw them away.

Use your iPhone once, oh theres a pink one now and this blonde golfer and this couple are telling me to buy it through Tmobile or Verizon, time to trade in my perfectly working current iPhone for a new one because its pink.

I mean, because it has 8 cameras on the back and not 7.

I mean, because it has FaceTime.

I mean, because I want to react “Haha” to my friends texts and I dont want to be left out.

Killing fields.

Electronic waste from discarded iPhones end up in Southeast Asia poisoning local communities, water supply and air quality but it is kept from the American public.

Congo killing mines killing women and children for the cobalt that powers the batteries in iPhones, electric vehicles, Apple watches & TVs are kept from the public.

Genocides & killing fields.

iPhone 15s.

Cruises are allowed to dump their waste directly into the ocean.

Cruisin USA.

Via foe.org:

If you guessed a large portion of it ends up in the oceans, you’d be correct. Sadly, U.S. laws do not do enough to protect our bodies of water. It allows cruise ships to dump waste into the ocean as long as the ships are more than three and a half miles offshore. That means that dirty water from sinks and showers and laundry facilities are discharged into the water. It means that waste from toilets is discharged into the water. And it also means that food waste is also dumped into the ocean. 

What about killing fields?

[dailyanarchistposts]

An interview with Peter Gelderloos

– So, first of all I think this is what we’re generally going to be talking about: the topics of violence, non-violence, diversity of tactics, and all of these discussions that have been happening for quite some time in social movements. So maybe to start with it would be good to know, if you could tell us a bit, where does this debate come from? What’s the history? Why is it such a divisive issue, and a bit of history of this conversation that has been happening.

For starters, when we talk about non-violence, we’re talking about an exclusive practice that tries to only allow tactics or methods that they define as non-violent. And so the counter to that: not violence, but a diversity of tactics, and a diversity of methods, and beliefs and strategies, without an obsessive focus on often moralistic definitions of whether or not a specific action is violent.

There are as many histories to this debate as there are people who can tell it. In my experience, coming of age around the anti-globalisation movement and then the anti-war [ed. – in Iraq] movement, late ‘90s, early ‘00s, it was very much a question of a non-violent hegemony that for the most part social movements in the Global North were dominated by. Non-violent groups who often co-operated with the media and the police to prevent anyone from breaking with the action plans that they set out, or the limitations on tactics. So in that context it was very much an effort of some people to reconnect with histories of struggle that were more radical, that were more effective, and that used a very wide range of tactics. We had to break the strangle-hold on discourse, on strategy, and reconnect with these histories: which had largely been silenced.

But to be fair, there’s going to be a lot of other histories, other points that that debate comes out of. So some folks who survived certain struggles in the ‘60s and ‘70s: there were also moments of debate where maybe a specific movement was very locked into a more militaristic strategy. To me, to criticise that effectively, that’s a critique of militarism, and not of violence per se: which is of course a very vague category. But there were certainly other moments when people were getting into this debate over what tactics and strategies are appropriate from a completely different angle.

– And has it always been the case... well, not always, but in the current period has it always been the case that nation-states and other institutions, part of the establishment, have tried to use this rhetoric of labelling people violent or non-violent? Or is this a modern phenomenon?

It’s been going on for a very long time. I don’t think the word violence, the category, was used systematically to describe – or police – the actions of people in social movements until the 20th century; really especially with the popularity (particularly Gandhian) non-violence. Although certainly categories of violence were used to generate social alarm about supposed dangers to society, certainly going back to the 19th century and before.

Governments will particularly encourage people on the Right, on the right-wing, to attack other members of society who are portrayed as dangerous or disloyal. But then they’re very, very invested in policing anyone who is talking about some kind of liberatory, emancipatory, revolutionary change to society: anyone who’s talking about a world in which everyone can be free, a world in which we actually address these very deep oppressions that run all throughout our society. Anyone who’s coming at social change from that angle is of course held to these strict standards of non-violence by the media, by politicians, and by all institutions of the State.

– Although, something that we’ve seen a lot recently in some of our movements (in particular in the environmental movement, in the UK and other countries) is that activists themselves have taken this rhetoric of non-violence, and advocating it as the most effective strategy. What do you think are the main issues with this enforcement and promotion of non-violence in political movements?

Referring specifically to the newer formations in ecological movements, just the level of historical amnesia is a huge problem. And the level of disrespect to other ongoing movements. The environmental movement isn’t new, there are just some new players on the scene, that have been getting a lot of media attention. They not only have ignored a lot of historical movements that were very important, and that give us a lot of experiences that we can learn from: but they also ignore movements that are ongoing today, or that have been extremely recent: like the various ZADs in France, “zones to defend”, especially the most famous one at (pardon my French) Notre-Dame-des-Landes which stopped an airport. It stopped a project linked to one of the industries most involved in the destruction of the planet. They successfully stopped that airport project, and in the meantime all sorts of people create a completely different relationship with the land: one that’s based in knowing the land and respecting the land, becoming a part of the land rather than these sort of alienated machines that just move over and outside of nature...

That’s extremely important, that’s a major victory. And it was won using a diversity of tactics. All of the struggles against pipelines in North America, inspired by and in many cases centered on indigenous resistance... There would be a diversity of tactics there, and connected to a much longer history of struggle. Struggles in indigenous territory all over the world, shutting down mines, stopping hydro-electric dams, forestry plantations, and use a diversity of tactics...

And it’s just absolutely arrogant to come onto the scene and not connect with those other struggles, not learn from them, not engage in dialogue in them. Of course every new movement can offer something new, any new person or a group of people who starts participating in the struggle have something new to bring and they have something new to say that’s valid. But not if they’re not able to listen, not if they’re not at all interested in the people who are already out there, holding it down and who’ve been passing on experiences of how to fight back for generations.

Which is probably why exactly those movements are getting so much media attention: because they’re helping accomplish the break that capitalists need and that politicians need so that the very people and institutions who are responsible for destroying the planet can be the ones that sell us back the solutions. Which is basically green capitalism, government financing for huge infrastructure projects that will let those who already own everything profit a little bit more.

All of that’s impossible if you have a view of defending the Earth that’s sees people as a part of nature, that’s connected to indigenous struggles and worldviews, that’s connected to an anti-capitalist or anarchist analysis.

In general I think across the board, with any struggle, I think a good basic rule is: don’t trust people or organisations that don’t show solidarity with prisoners of the struggle. So there are people who are in prison right now because they’ve been breaking capitalist laws to defend a forest, to defend a swamp or a salt-marsh or a specific species, or to defend that they grow food in relation with the land, or to strike back against animal testing; or any of a number of things, there are people in prison right now for those reasons. I think the motivations of a supposedly environmentalist organisation that doesn’t even mention them, that just lets them rot in prison, are highly suspect.

– Why do you think such activist movements adopt these ideas? Are there institutions which play a role in promoting them, like NGOs, political parties, progressive media, and stuff like that? And how do they accomplish that?

That’s a problem with the Left in general. And any critique of the Left: it’s very messy. These organisations, these movements, they bring together people who are absolutely sincere – with whom it’s completely possible to be in solidarity – together with opportunists, with powerful institutions which are part of the problem, which are seeking to profit off of the problem. So it’s tricky to make these criticisms in a way that that don’t make potential allies stick closer to those who we need to fight against.

I think I need to answer that question on different levels at once. On the one hand, what’s happening to life on this planet, what’s happening to all of us, and all of the living beings that we live in relation with is extremely depressing. And when something is so depressing, when so much harm is being caused by such a huge, inexorable machine, the easiest thing is to either ignore it – just close your eyes, pull up the covers, and hope that it’ll go away – or rush to magic-wand solutions.

By a magic wand solution, I’m talking about something where we think we can just pull a lever, where we don’t have to give anything back, we don’t have to engage in any fundamental transformation, and it will just spit out a solution. So governments that have been ensuring that ecocide continues apace will suddenly be the ones who are protecting the environment; or the corporations that are making billions off of exploiting people, exploiting other living beings, exploiting the planet as a living system will suddenly start producing products that protect the planet.

That’s absurd; any reasonable person can see that that’s absurd. But all of us have a huge emotional interest in not seeing the absurdity of that because otherwise it means it’s on us. Otherwise it means we have to do the really hard work and face the very serious risks of changing this, of putting a stop to this ecocidal machine.

So people on the base; that’s on the one hand a sincere, honest mistake of why they’re supporting methods that aren’t going to help, and that might even make things worse. On the other hand, governments stay in power by mobilising social conflicts and by presenting themselves as the arbiters of social conflicts and social crises; so if anyone���s going to solve it the governments have to be at the table, they have to be able to define the process. So we get things that have really no hope of (even in terms of this very limited, technocratic focus on climate change) preventing the tipping points that we need to prevent, like the Paris Accords. The important thing is that people are spectators watching ‘their’ governments, ‘our’ governments supposedly, talk about solving those things.

Capitalism is facing a pretty huge crisis of accumulation, they need constant interventions, constant financing, constant investment opportunities. There needs to be a new industrial expansion and switch to so-called green energy, that would be certainly a great boon to capitalism. So they’re very interested in financing an environmental movement that is domesticated, that plays ball, and that aids in this more technocratic reductionist approach. Which is mostly only looking at atmospheric carbon rather than looking at the earth as an interconnected web of relationships of which we are a part; in which every single thing affects every other thing. So you can’t look at atmospheric carbon without looking at sea otter populations, without looking at hunting practices, without looking at how we grow our food, etc. etc. etc.

And you also have NGOs in there whose directors make huge fricking salaries and who are involved in genocide, like the WWF which is involved in genocidal practices in Africa; because they’re still locked into this colonial mentality where nature and humans are mutually exclusive. So they’re helping fund paramilitaries that are attacking indigenous people and kicking indigenous people off their land.

The problem’s not humans: humans have been around for a really long time. Planetary-scale ecological disaster is relatively recent problem; it’s caused by capitalism, it’s caused by colonialism. And then the regional- or continental-scale problems that you saw before that; they didn’t happen everywhere. There are plenty of human societies that still exist today that know how to exist as a healthy part of their ecosystem.

Whether we want to be or not, we are a part of the ecosystem always. We can continue to rationalise nature, to turn it into a factory and control outputs, inputs, and so forth; preserve a few spots as nature reserves that we can charge tourists money to access. Or we can actually realise that we’re a part of the earth, and we’re connected to all other living things; and to get rid of capitalism, to get rid of all the social machinery that alienates us and that prevents us from acting that way.

– Yeah, absolutely. And also in terms of how these ideas spread and what role do they play in the machinations of the State, there’s this idea of counter-insurgency that the states use in order to undermine social movements. And I wanted to know a bit, if you could talk about what that is, and how it’s related to non-violence; and how do the governments use it to accomplish their objectives?

In the science of the State, they’re studying things for social control: for maintaining and increasing their power. In the past, in the more modern period – using this Hobbsian metaphor of society as a body, with the State as its brain – peace was thought to be the natural order of society. (With the note of course that the only society they’re interested in is a society ruled by a State. So they’re ignoring the possibility that other kinds of societies.) So they were inclined by their prejudices to believe that peace was the natural state of the statist society, and so using the biologicism that was common during modernity they would look at disorder as an infection, a sickness that was caused by some agent coming from the outside.

So frequently in the late 19th and early 20th century, these police agencies that were cooperating across Europe and North America, sharing information (at that moment in particular about anarchist agitators): they frequently used the metaphor – which one gets the impression they weren’t even aware was a metaphor – of these anarchist immigrants as a pestilence, as this external sickness that needed to be expunged from the social body in order to make the social body healthy. That police philosophy and that science of social control proved again and again to be ineffective. And so finally (with the British actually taking the lead in this, primarily with their experience against the independence movements and anti-colonial movements in Kenya, but immediately connecting this to experiences and the science of social control in Ireland, in India, elsewhere; and immediately connecting other colonial/neo-colonial and settler states like France and the US), they realised that in fact it’s much more helpful and more accurate to realise that the natural condition of society under the State is constant warfare. Which interestingly enough is very similar to the idea of social war developed by the anti-authoritarian feminist André Leó, who was a veteran of the Paris Commune, a century earlier; and since then really elaborated by insurrectionary anarchists and others, this idea of social war.

So basically that’s the reality: the State is warfare against all of us constantly. States actually have to realise that their existence hinges on warfare; against their own populations. Because counter-insurgency methodology pretty much immediately was adapted by States to use against their own privileged citizen populations (privileged citizen in the sense of it was initially developed in Kenya; it as quickly brought to Brixton, Bristol, Los Angeles and Detroit). So it was never really a marginal reality for the colonies; it’s something that in a way unites how States view any of their subjects, colonial or otherwise. So they had to realise that the conflict was permanent, and that they couldn’t ever... even though they continued to use the troupe of outside agitators because it’s a good way to delegitimise people, they couldn’t actually think like that. They had to realise that they’re in constant conflict with their society, and what they had to do was manage the conflict.

So that means, for example, intelligence agencies and police agencies: sometimes they’ll let a certain amount of stuff fly. They might be doing intelligence gathering and they’ll be aware of illegal activities and decide not to arrest anyone because if you arrest people, then you’re shocking the movement; you’re giving away information on what you know. And then the movement has the opportunity to improve their security practices. Whereas if you just keep spying on them and watching, and do social mapping, then you have a better chance of knowing everything that’s going on, and your opponent – your enemy, the social movements – will hopefully (for the State) continue to be lax about their security practices.

So that’s just one practical difference that counter-insurgency strategy brings about. Basically the broad goal of counter-insurgency strategy is that conflict stays at the least level; which is non-violence. Frank Kitson, this British military figure theorised three different levels of social conflict, with the lowest being preparation, being non-violence; and the highest being full-blown insurgency. So basically the State wants to avoid the conflict getting to full-blown insurgency, which is basically the point at which all of us – all the subjects of the State – realise that we are are war, and fight back. The State would prefer for this to be a one-sided war.

And so non-violence is useful to the State within counter-insurgency methodology because it disciplines people to formulate their struggle as demands, in dialogue with the State. Which of course ensures that the State will always have a role in that: and can prevent being negated in the process of the struggle.

– This is a topic that is a bit difficult to research, because you can find out a lot of information about it online, even you can buy some of the field manuals from the US Army (you can find the PDF online, I think it’s the 3–24, something like that), or you can even buy the one that you see in NATO and all of that kind of shit. But that’s always written from their perspective. And it’s really useful to read about it, to read them to learn how they think. But also it’s difficult to extrapolate what they are actually trying to do. So what are good resources or ways that people can better understand how the State approaches these tactics; what strategies they use?

There’s a really good history of policing in the United States (although some references are made to the UK) by Kristian Williams; Our Enemies in Blue. And there are a number of... I think a lot more anarchists are starting to deploy this thinking in our analysis of ongoing social conflicts. Even the concept of recuperation which figures very heavily in [Alfredo M.] Bonanno, or in Ai Ferri Corti (At Daggers Drawn); that’s – in different language – a very direct reference to how the State works, including with methodologies of counter-insurgency. That is without a doubt useful.

There have been some essays that have been written that have been very good, analysing the anti-racist/anti-police rebellion that began (or began again) after George Floyd’s murder in the US this past summer; and which of course spread to many other places, the UK included. At the moment I can’t remember the title of the main article I’m thinking about...

– Is it one of the ones published by Ill Will Editions, maybe?

Yeah, they definitely incorporate that thinking; that would be available. And I’ll try to think of others and type them in as we go. Also if anyone out there has read anything good? That’s definitely a recent case in which people were analysing counter-insurgency strategies. Oh crap, I wrote something too, looking at how the outside agitator troupe was used to delegitimise the resistance: ‘The Other White Vigilante’. So please, anyone who’s listening, feel free to share articles or recommendations. But that lens have been very prevalent in analysing. Especially from the Left: because interestingly enough, even though the right-wing and the cops have killed several dozen people in the course of that uprising, it seems that it’s actually been the institutional Left and the centre-left that have been more effective in pacifying those rebellions.

– That’s a really interesting point. Why do you think that’s the case?

I think that’s frequently the case. The right-wing needs to make recourse to a far greater level of violence in order to just completely stamp out movements and social struggles; which of course they’ve done in the past, famously. But that level of violence and that level of murder and repression also tends to have disruptive effects on capitalism. Whereas the institutional Left is better positioned to divide and pacify the movement; at least for a while. We saw how quickly city council members and what-not went from advocating abolition to defunding the police in a month... With the institutional Left being closer to the movement (and sometimes part of the movement), they have better intelligence, they can identify different, divide the movement into sectors, identify radicals and isolate them through discourses of non-violence. Through discourses of responsible reform.

And when the movement is divided like that, and the radicals are isolated, then police repression also becomes more effective. Because the police are not very intelligent, and often the way that they direct their violence radicalises more people, encourages more people to fight back, destabilises things even more.

– Yeah, I think that’s something that is very important for people involved in social movements to be aware of. Because it’s quite disheartening for a lot of people; and sometimes hard to believe, that movements, organisations and people that you may see as your ally: they can play this role in the counter-insurgency strategy of the State. I think it’s something people should be aware of for sure. So, we’ve talked a bit about how non-violent proponents hide the history of social movements in order to make their points. But something that I think you talk about in your books is that diversity of tactics is not only something that has always been present but also that tends to be actually effective, and actually deliver better results than keeping to just non-violence, whatever that means. Why do you think it’s the case? Why do you think allowing for different strategies to exist together; why’s that more effective for social movements?

For a lot of different reasons. In situations of conflict in the streets it’s just a lot more difficult for a centralized, unified enemy – like the State, like police forces – to go up against a very complex, heterogeneous (and sometimes even chaotic) opponent; which in one place is using peaceful tactics like a candle-light vigil or a peaceful march, or shaming officers; and in another place it has a shield-line and is trying to push past the police: and in another place in engaging in running street-battles, vandalizing, looting, attacking and disappearing. That’s historically (and there’s recent examples of that as well, and old examples of that) always been much more difficult for States to go up against.

In terms of the ecosystem of a social movement, the more breadth and diversity and difference there is, the healthier that social movement is. The healthier debate there is. The more different practices you can try out at once; it can work as a laboratory. It can tackle multiple issues of the problem at the same time.

Centralised decision-making is actually very connected to unity; the unity of tactics, and the unity of strategies that the Left is usually referring to. That unity; it has to pass through some kind of centralised point of decision-making and legitimacy. And centralised decision-making is never more effective, it’s never faster: the only advantage that it has is it allows authoritarian control of a larger body, by creating a choke-point where legitimacy can be doled out.

So a diversity of tactics and methods is more effective for all those reasons and more.

– How can we prevent these institutions who spread these ideas of non-violence, who impose the ideas of non-violence; how can we keep the diversity of tactics alive and healthy in our movements? How can we promote it? What kind of strategies have you seen? What have you tried? What kind of ideas can you give us to do it ourselves?

One thing that I think is really important and I think is not thought about enough (at least in the English-speaking world), is this idea of historical memory. Which is just translating from Catalan; it’s also common in Spanish and Italian. Which isn’t this idea of history as something that lives in books but something that exists in groups, in collective sharing of experience. So in this view history is something that we have to keep alive, it’s not something to just have in archives, and in a movement that means constantly reconnecting with the past, with experiences of struggle, reconnecting with the people who survived those struggles who are still alive today, sharing stories from even older struggles. And keeping them alive, keeping them in the streets; having events about these histories of struggle and how they directly connect to the present in our social centres, in our events and so on and so forth.

I’ve noticed that non-violence – exclusive non-violence – is strongly connected to historical amnesia. It’s strongly connected to movements that forget their past. I think it’s good to check in every now and then – how many people in a movement have a good strategic memory of things that happened five and ten years ago? Whether it’s cases of repression, or a big protest movement and riot, or a particularly effective resistance, and just having conversations with folks who maybe you knew them five or ten years ago and checking in with them if they know about these arrests, if they know about those riots, if they know about such and such campaign. And if a significant number of people don’t even have a strategic memory of things that happened five and ten years ago... and by strategic memory, I mean they don’t have to be able to write a fricking doctoral thesis on it, but at least they should be able to know enough about the meaning of that event that they can use it as a strategic reference. Like, oh when that happened, it really really helped that people started having potlucks among all the friends and family members of all the people who got arrested, because it let us see each other, we could support each other emotionally, and so on and so forth.

That’s what I mean by strategic memory; at least enough details that we’ve learned something from it. If a significant number of people in a movement don’t have a strategic memory of things just five and ten years ago, then we’re in trouble. So that’s one thing, this continuity of history. I don’t know how things are in the place where everyone lives right now, but if you’re in a moment of social peace, if you’re in a moment when the State is successfully hiding, covering up the main conflicts: mostly these tactics and these strategies they live on in movements, but if there’s not a strong movement at the moment then we can do events popularising movements that inspire us. You can be inspired by the ZAD and block the airport. You can do a video-call with people who participated in the struggle at Standing Rock, or trying to stop oil pipelines and so forth. So we have to actively keep memory alive, we have to actively build relationships and build connections, they don’t just pop up by themselves. And I find that when we do that, then people are most inclined to be really aware of the tactics and methods that have been used to win the few victories that we’ve won, to protect the few things that we still have that we can call our own; whether they’re traditional governance, whether they’re labour rights, or whether they’re wetlands or forests that haven’t been destroyed.

– Yeah, I think that’s definitely very, very important. Personally, learning about the history of our struggle from the places I was born: that was completely hidden from me when I was growing up. It was extremely important in my radicalisation, and I think that’s the case with many, many other people. I think that’s something very important to keep alive. Talking about the victories we’ve had, something that you talk about in The Failure of Non-Violence is that sometimes the criteria that non-violent campaigners often use to determine what a victory is, and to claim a victory, doesn’t really represent a meaningful victory for what we want. And instead you talk about a different criteria that we can use to evaluate the victories that we do have. So if you could talk a bit about that, that’d be great.

Personally, the main example for me is that as I was growing up and as I was starting to become active in social movements, referring to the Civil Rights movement in the US (the ‘50s and ‘60s, the movement that got rid of legal segregation by race in the US): basically all the white people that I spoke with considered the movement a victory. And all the black comrades I spoke with did not consider the movement a victory; they considered it either a failure, or something that was still going. That’s a very distinctive difference.

If a victory can win a change that makes survival a little bit easier for a group of people, or if a movement can win a symbolic change which effects how a group of people is viewed by the rest of society, or how they view themselves: that’s important. That’s not something to ignore. But when a problem is so deep-rooted that it runs through every aspect of society – like capitalism, like white-supremacy, like the exploitation and the destruction of the environment – it’s just completely insincere to claim a major victory when the only thing that’s been won is at best a step towards a meaningful victory. And it’s obviously very much in the interests of power (and this is certainly in line with counter-insurgency thinking) to spread the narrative that a movement won, if that movement had potential.

So any movement that questions environmental destruction has the potential for being radical, because – like you pointed out in the introduction – anyone who’s willing to open their eyes, they’re going to start staring capitalism right in the face. Because capitalism is inherently ecocidal. Anyone who’s concerned about racism and white-supremacy; that’s potentially very radical, because they have the potential to see how that’s an organising principle across society, how it’s connected to colonisation (which is how Western society became global in the first place). It’s connected to the birth of capitalism. So it would require us to start criticising all of these other aspects of our society.

It’s very much in the interests of the State for people to think that a struggle against racism was successful. Because then people can think “oh good, there’s no more racism; or there’s only a few backwards people who are still racist today.” Or in the case of a decolonisation movement, it’s very useful for the State to get people to think that the independence movement in India was a complete success; because then we’re not going to be looking at neo-colonialism. We’re not going to be looking at how that power can continue in some other form.

And then a different example (also extremely useful): it’s very, very helpful for people to think that non-violence in the anti-war movement was the decisive factor in ending the war against Vietnam. Which is of course historically a total manipulation: that’s not the case at all. But non-violence advocates believed their own lies; which the State and the capitalist media certainly helped them to promote, such that in 2003, when the US and the UK and other countries were getting ready to invade Iraq again, there were all these people who thought that a peaceful protest movement would actually be able to prevent the invasion. So after the largest protests in human history, in March of 2003 – which were in most countries exclusively or almost exclusively non-violent – all of the non-violent campaigners then predicted that it would be impossible for those states to invade Iraq, because they had this movement that was even larger than the peace movement over Vietnam. And of course that was delusional; that did not end up being how that played down.

So that’s a very direct example of how the State – by helping to spread a non-violent version of history – was able to protect itself from real, forceful and dangerous resistance.

– So I don’t want to take much more time, I want to give the opportunity to people to ask questions and make contributions. So if people want to ask questions on the chat, or even if they want to un-mute themselves, just let me know on the chat. Or if they want to make contributions, talk about useful memories of resistance that they want to share with us, experience with non-violence campaigners and how that’s affected them and stuff like that: just really anything, feel free to do so. So we have a couple of questions in the chat: one of them is, do you have any advice on convincing groups or individuals to reject exclusive non-violence? So this would be a typical case of, you have a friend, or you are in some assembly or something and people are really stuck on the non-violent thing... How would you go about trying to move that conversation into a more useful space?

First I want to say sorry for being long-winded: and for the questions I’ll try to be more concise and make room for other people. And also, to repeat, by all means don’t feel obliged to ask a question: if you’d like to share your own experience or something, it doesn’t have to be in that frame.

For the first question, on convincing individuals to reject an exclusive non-violence: I would say that it’s very important to encourage people to understand the types of movements that are already happening. Particularly indigenous resistance (which is crucial to challenging colonialism, to challenging capitalism, and also in terms of protecting biodiversity around the world); so it’s just absolutely absurd to try to conceptualise an environmental movement that doesn’t include the present of indigenous resistance.

– If people want some example of indigenous resistance that they can draw from, we did do a live-stream a little bit ago about the Mapuche struggle for autonomy. We’ve got someone from the Mapuche Solidarity Network, or Chile Solidarity Network, to talk about their history and their struggle and their fight. I think they are a really great example that we can draw upon. So if you wanted to learn a bit more about that, that could be a place to start.

If you can convince people to recognise indigenous and anti-colonial struggles connecting with those other struggles that are going on, rather than just invisibilising them, really the next step will be to say “well, it’s great over there, but it’s inappropriate or ineffective over in...” insert wealthy, white-majority country wherever they happen to be living. And so then you just need to the critique of not-in-my-back-yard politics (or ‘nimby’ politics); which has long been pointed out to be a racist politics, a way of dividing globally... How convenient: the people in these poorer countries have to face all the risks, whereas we have to pour fake blood on ourselves on the steps of Parliament. So it’s just an acceptable division of risk.

So that can be useful to convince people. If people have based their idea on these statistical studies that have gone around that supposedly prove that non-violence is more effective, you just need to point out that those studies – aside from being formulated by and promoted by people who worked for the US government, for the State Department and the Defence Department, and aside from getting rewarded very richly by current power structures – it doesn’t uphold the most basic standards for a statistical comparison. Because they don’t even use the same standards for deciding which examples get included in Group A and which examples get included in Group B. So it’s basically a trash study which went international because it’s saying what corporate media want people to hear. And I break that study down in more detail in The Failure of Non-Violence and also in an article that I got published recently... ‘Debunking the Myths Around Nonviolent Resistance’.

– So we have another question: what are your thoughts on non-human resistance and on anti-speciesism being a fundamental aspect to consider in order to achieve a total liberation? Have your views on it changed after your ‘Veganism: Why Not’ essay was published?

I think non-human resistance is really important: honestly, I think anti-speciesism tends to be a liberal philosophical framework. It seems to be just a sort of extension of the basic concept of the liberal framework. And I also completely disagree with this arbitrary taxonomy or distinction between animals and other forms of life: I don’t think that’s either respectful or realistic, or very helpful.

I think we absolutely need to understand ourselves and constitute ourselves as respectful parts of our ecosystems; not any better or more important than any other form of life, not something that exists on top of the ecosystem. We shouldn’t understand other forms of life as things that exist for our exploitation. And I certainly don’t think that any living thing should live in a cage. But I also think that we need to be very guarded about consumer politics, or politics that have that potential for just diverting into ethical consumerism: which is a trap, which is encouraged. I mean, the United Nations is encouraging a vegan dietary politics, there’s plenty of progressive cities, like Barcelona, the city government is encouraging that kind of ethical consumer politics... The strategies that are most effective in terms of humans relating with their environment, for example there’s just tons of struggles for traditional hunting and fishing rights within indigenous movements across the Americas: a culture that’s based on supermarkets really has no grounds for criticising that deeper and much more intelligent way of relating with other living beings.

Here in Catalunya there’s actually movements connected to a very long history of commoning, of preserving the commons and also sustaining a more sustainable and respectful role for humans within their environment, that are actually coming from pastoralists, from shepherds who in the region of the Pyrenees. You move the whole flock from the highlands to the lowlands or vice versa; that actually pits them against the individualised property regime that was brought in by capitalism.

– Someone else on the chat made a really good point that another way to undo the narrative of non-violence is to challenge what we define as violence. Violence can be seen as poverty, as oppression, not just physical violence or property damage, and I think that’s a really, really good point. And Peter, you have done it in other places as well, and I think it’s one of the biggest hypocrisies: I’ve seen a lot of non-violent movements, what they consider non-violence, why they consider violence, what they don’t consider violence... So we have another question as well: how do those using diversity of tactics find ways to collaborate with ethical pacifists? For example, people who are non-violent for religious reasons rather than pragmatic reasons. Is there anyone in the chat who wants to do any contribution, like we were saying: share a bit of their experiences with struggles, how they’ve tackled them, any of that? If you’ve tried to educate anyone about these topics or anything like that; if you’ve had any issues. This would be a great time. I know people are always a bit shy to un-mute themselves and speak... but don’t really worry about it! Oh, someone is just saying they just received a very angry message in a group for sharing this event on Twitter; which is very relateable, for sure...

I appreciate the question. The first time I went to jail, my cell-mate for two weeks was this Franciscan monk, Jerry Zawada, who dedicated his life to going onto military bases and getting arrested again and again to draw attention to US militarism, to death-squads and nuclear weapons; and he was a total pacifist, and this really beautiful human being. I think it’s really important to make connections with folks like that and to talk sincerely about a diversity of tactics in which there really is room for all kinds of people, all kinds of sensibilities. In which we place great value on peaceful tactics that are around communication, or mediation, or conflict-resolution, art, healing, all these other things. There’s a place for everything: or almost everything, not snitching... can’t have that of course.

Sometimes part of the problem is that the context that we’re in, the hegemony of non-violence is often enforced as the rule; like sharing a tweet about a discussion – so far I don’t think anyone there is hitting anyone else or anything like that, so I think this discussion so far has been pretty peaceful.... But just the fact that we’re questioning non-violence, they’re getting angry about it.

Arguing in favour of the value of combative tactics and destructive tactics and illegal tactics: we really have to fight sometimes to get people to recognise the value of these tactics that have been so delegitamised and so demonised. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that a diversity of tactics is not effective if it’s a ladder of tactics. From the less important tactics to the more important tactics. Because that’s just inviting certain social hierarchies to creep into our movements, and make it hard to make effective or strategic analysis of what we do.

We really do need to value different forms of being in the movement, and being in the struggle, that includes many peaceful activities that are vital to any healthy movement.

Write to the Kill the Bill Prisoners

Last updated: 28th August 2022

Ryan Roberts A5155EM HMP Swaleside, Brabazon Rd, Eastchurch, Isle of Sheppey ME12 4AX 14 years

Mariella Gedge-Rogers A8811ET HMP Eastwood Park, Falfield, Wotton-Under-Edge, GL12 8DB 5 years 5 months

Matthew O’Neill A1596CT HMP Guys Marsh, Shaftesbury, Dorset, SP7 0AH 5 years

Ben Rankin A1261AY HMP Portland, 104 the Grove, Easton, Portland, Dorset, DT5 1DL 5 years

Ryan Dwyer A4276AT HMP Portland, 104 the Grove, Easton, Portland, Dorset, DT5 1DL 4 years 6 months

Brandon Lloyd A0806EE HMP Portland, 104 the Grove, Easton, Portland, Dorset, DT5 1DL 3 years 11 months

Callum Middleton A1817ET HMP Portland, 104 the Grove, Easton, Portland, Dorset, DT5 1DL 3 years 9 months

Kane Adamson A1103ER HMP Guys Marsh, Shaftesbury, Dorset, SP7 OAH 3 years 6 months

Shaun Davies A4075ER HMP Portland, 104 the Grove, Easton, Portland, Dorset, DT5 1DL 3 years 6 months

Kain Simmonds A9381EQ HMP Portland, 104 the Grove, Easton, Portland, Dorset, DT5 1DL 3 years 3 months

Joseph Foster A1421CD HMP Bristol, Horfield, 19 Cambridge Road, Bristol. BS7 8PS 3 years 3 months

William Houlton A1824ET HMP Portland, 104 the Grove, Easton, Portland, Dorset, DT5 1DL 3 years

Charly May Pitman A8737EV HMP Eastwood Park, Falfield, Wotton-Under-Edge, GL12 8DB 3 years

Rose Lazarus A1411EW HMP Eastwood Park, Falfield, Wotton-Under-Edge, GL12 8DB 14 months

Callum Davies A4634EV HMP Bristol, Horfield, 19 Cambridge Road, Bristol. BS7 8PS 2.5 years

[1] “The group’s first actions were reported on July 15, when windows were smashed at a research organisation named the “Cambridge Arctic Shelf Programme (CASP)”. Holding charitable status, CASP maps oil and gas reserves in mineral-rich areas of the earth’s crust. Its donors, most of whom happen to be large fossil fuel companies, receive regular confidential reports on their findings, with information only released to the public after a “suitable delay”. In the three weeks following the action, activists also targeted the headquarters of industrial technology firm Aviva, which provides automation software for coal-fired power stations, refineries, and other facilities, the BP Institute, and the chemistry department of the University of Cambridge, a prestigious research centre holding contracts with BP, Shell, and Schlumberger” (This Is Not A Drill: activists target fossil fuels research facilities in Cambridge, August 10 2022, freedomnews.org.uk).

[2] See solidarity.international

[3] See autonomynews.org/kill-the-bill-demonstration-bristol

[luulapants]

The for-profit healthcare system is directly responsible for many sexual assaults, btw. Murders, too. As in 100% culpable. If the healthcare system fails to provide adequate care for a person who is incapable of rational decision making, and that person goes on to commit a crime they cannot understand, that crime was committed by the healthcare system.

[aspiringbogwitch]

A federal lawsuit filed Tuesday said prisoners in Alabama have been denied parole and forced to work jobs at fast food restaurants as part of a “labor-trafficking scheme” that generates $450 million a year for the state, according to a press release.

Ten former and current prisoners and labor unions that represent service workers filed the lawsuit Tuesday against Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, Attorney General Steve Marshall, a beer distributor and several fast food companies. The lawsuit alleges the prison system makes money by deducting fees from the wages of prisoners. Private companies such as KFC, Wendy’s. Burger King and McDonalds get a steady supply of workers from the prison system, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit claims the arrangement resembles convict leasing, a system that followed slavery in the South. Prisoners, many of whom were Black and had been arrested for violations of Jim Crow laws, could be forced to work dangerous or grueling jobs for private employers.

[zapvendo]

Please consider supporting Death Penalty Action! They help halt needless deaths at the hand of prison industrial complex and got many petitions to sign and actions to take! They are very active so donating a few dollars is worth it. If you can't, please spread this around anyway.

[courtana]

Abolition and the Liberation of Palestine

Discussion starts at 16:50 timestamp

Prison industrial complex (PIC) abolitionists have always understood the work to dismantle the PIC to be connected to global movements against war, militarism, and colonialism. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen mass mobilization in solidarity with the Palestinian people as they face one of the deadliest assaults by the Israeli military in its history.

On Wednesday, Nov 1, join us for a critical discussion on the ongoing war on Palestine. Dr. Angela Y Davis, Lara Kiswani (Executive Director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center), Stefanie Fox (Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace), and Nadine Naber (INCITE! National) will join us in a discussion moderated by Mohamed Shehk (Campaigns Director of Critical Resistance) to help us understand the situation on the ground in Palestine, how our organizations and people everywhere can mount effective resistance to the genocidal war against Palestinians, and how we can use abolitionist strategies such as Dismantle-Change-Build, Divest/Invest & “Defund,” and “shrink and starve” to do so.

Organized by Critical Resistance. This event is also a fundraiser for Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), who are providing much needed aid to the people of Gaza. All funds will go to MECA after accessibility costs for this event.