Action
To choose to be an anarchist is to choose to create one’s life in a certain direction. It is the development of a projectuality toward freedom, self-determination, the expansion of possibilities. Such a projectuality develops itself in action, but not the action of the activist, the politician, but action that flows from one’s life and back into it. What distinguishes the anarchist revolutionary from a political activist is “ the way in which the person, the comrade who carries out these actions, succeeds in making them an expressive moment of their lives, a specific characterization, meaningfulness, quality of life, joy, desire, beauty.” What is absent from the actions of those who start and end with their own life, their own individuality, their own projectuality is calculation, the quantitative point of view, because it is a quality of life toward which the anarchist projects, a fullness of life opposed to the flattening this society imposes. If our solidarity with certain actions is critical, it is because we can see calculation creeping in. If we reject all cooperation with the media, it is because this power structure forces those who choose to participate in its activity to measure their words, draining them of substance, of energy of the force that refuses all compromise. Our actions create our lives and relations; for a life without measure, we must act without measure.
By Alfredo M. Bonanno
From Insurrection, September 1989
If anarchists have one constant characteristic it is that of not letting themselves be discouraged by the adversities of class struggle or to be enticed by the promises of power.
It will always be difficult, often impossible,
to find an anarchist comrade who has given into power. This might happen as a result of
torture or physical pain, never by long spells of repression or loss of
heart. There is something in
anarchists that prevents them from becoming discouraged, something that makes
them optimistic even in the worst moments of their history. It makes them look forward to possible
future outlets in the struggle, not backwards to past mistakes.
An anarchist’s revolutionary work is never
exclusively aimed at mass mobilization, otherwise the use of certain methods
would become subject to the conditions present within the latter in a given
time. The active anarchist
minority is not a mere slave to numbers but acts on reality using its own ideas
and actions. There is obviously a
relationship between these ideas and growth in organization, but the one does
not come about as a direct result of the other.
The relationship with the mass cannot be
structured as something that must endure the passage of time, i.e. be based on
growth to infinity and resistance against the attack of the exploiters. It must have a more reduced specific
dimension, one that is decidedly that of attack and not a rearguard
relationship.
The organizational structures we can offer are
limited in time and space. They
are simple associative forms to be reached in the short term. In other words, their aim is not that
of organizing and defending the whole of the exploited class in one vast
organization to take them through the struggle from beginning to end. They
should not be weighed down by ideology but contain basic elements that can be
shared by all: self-management of the struggle, permanent conflictuality,
attack on the class enemy.
At least two factors point to this road for the
relationship between anarchist minority and mass: the class sectoralism
produced by capital, and the spreading feeling of impotence that the individual
gets from certain forms of collective struggle.
There exists a strong desire to struggle against
exploitation, and there are still spaces where this struggle can be expressed
concretely. Models of action are
being worked out in practice, and there is still a lot to be done in this
direction.
Small actions are always criticized for being
insignificant and ridiculous against such an immense structure as that of
capitalist power. But it would be
a mistake to attempt to remedy this by opposing them with a relationship based
on quantity rather than extending these small actions, which are easy for
others to repeat. The clash is
significant precisely because of the enemy’s great complexity which it modifies
constantly in order to maintain consensus. This consensus depends on a fine network of social relations
on all levels. The smallest
disturbance damages it far beyond the limits of action itself. It damages its
image, its program, the mechanisms that produce social peace and the unstable
equilibrium of politics.
Each tiny action that comes from even a small
number of comrades, is in fact a great act of subversion. It goes far beyond the often
microscopic dimensions of what took place, becoming not so much a symbol as a
point of reference.
This is the sense in which we have often spoken
of insurrection. We can start
building our struggle in such a way that conditions of revolt can emerge and
latent conflict can develop and be brought to the fore. In this way a contact is established
between the anarchist minority and the specific situation where the struggle
can be developed.
We know that many comrades do not share these
ideas. Some accuse us of being
analytically out of date, others of not seeing that circumscribed struggle only
serves the aims of power, arguing that, especially now in the electronic era,
it is no longer possible to talk of revolt.
But we are stubborn. We believe it is still possible to rebel today, even in the
computer era.
It is still possible to penetrate the monster
with a pinprick. But we must move
away from the stereotypical images of the great and mass struggles, and the
concept of the infinite growth of a movement that is to dominate and control
everything. We must develop a more
precise and detailed way of thinking.
We must consider reality for what it is, not what we imagine it to
be. When faced with a situation we
must have a clear idea of the reality that surrounds us, the class clash that
such a reality reflects, and provide ourselves with the necessary means in
order to act on it.
As anarchists we have models of intervention and
ideas that are of great importance and revolutionary significance, but they do
not speak for themselves. They are
not immediately comprehensible, so we must put them into action, it is not
enough to simply explain them.
The very effort of providing ourselves with the
means required for the struggle should help to clarify our ideas, both for
ourselves and for those who come into contact with us. A reduced idea of these means, one that
limits itself to simply counter-information, dissent and declarations of
principle, is clearly inadequate.
We must go beyond that and work in three directions: contact with the
mass (with clarity and circumscribed to the precise requirements of the
struggle); action with the revolutionary movement (in the subjective sense
already mentioned); construction of the specific organization (functional to
both work with the mass and to action within the revolutionary movement).
And we need to work very hard in this direction.
We print the most recent ELF communiqués
below in solidarity with the elves of the night. There has been an upsurge of ELF activity in the past two
years. These actions have been a blow to the companies targeted, raising the
insurance premiums of capitalist scum!! The ELF is not a group; anyone can
choose to claim an action with that name.
Those who claim ELF actions may not know others who do the same. But why does anyone use the ELF name at
all? When an action is claimed by the ELF a rebellious action is reduced from
multiple and dynamic motivations to a single cause. This reduction is partially
achieved by the person who signs ELF, in doing so she reduces an action
(potentially) against capital in general to an action against particularly
environmentally offensive companies: the name Earth Liberation Front states its
focus as explicitly on the environment. The ELF by definition specializes its
rebellion. Or the action is
reduced by the media, to an action perpetrated by the most monstrous of
eco-terrorists: an action becomes an image. Of course the media will do this
regardless in any case of sabotage, but the ELF has a specific image and a
media spokesperson that unintentionally contributes to its perpetuation. So the
use of the name ELF has become part of the media circus. Their spokesperson has surely explain
ELF actions from his own point of view, but not surprisingly, the media insists
on the images which are most useful to its aims. ELF actions are an example of sabotage accomplished with
easily accessible materials and means, yet these actions have caused
considerable damage! This shows us that we could so the same.
For
us the individual that rebels, the individual that revolts against this world
that is too petty to contain his dreams, is not interested in limiting his own
potentiality, but if possible, would extend it to infinity. Thirsty for
freedom, greedy for experience, he who revolts is in constant search for new
affinities, for new instruments to experiment with, with which to assault the
existent and subvert it from its very foundation. This is because the
insurrectional struggle should find stimulus and energy in our capacity to
always fill its arsenal with new arms, outside and against any reductive
specialization. The gun experts are like the book experts, or squatting
experts, or any others; they are boring because they always talk and only about
themselves and about their favorite means. And this is why we don't give
privilege to any instrument over others, we love and support innumerable
actions, use the most disparate means, that daily occur against domination and
its structures. Because revolt is like poetry: and should be done by everyone,
not by only one person, he who is the most expert.
And therefore this clash...
loses any liberatory significance, any breath of life, when all of its upsurge
is reduced to the promotion of a program and an acronym that is bought in the
market of politics....To he who has no commodities to sell, of what use are lit
up signs?
-Canenero
Recent ELF
Communiques:
Greetings from the Earth Liberation Front.
We are claiming responsibility for the second
attack upon C S McRossan's machinery. In the early morning hours of Sun. Oct 3
(’99), the ELF entered the construction site on highway 55 in Minneapolis
where the company is working. Machines that were found with accessible holes
had sand poured into the oil, the draining of them. Three machines had hoses
and wires cut before the elves escaped into the night. This follows an attack
earlier in the week on Mon Sept 27 when a visit was paid to CS McRossan's
offices in Maple Grove, where we slashed conveyor belts and damaged machinery.
We see highway 55 as symbolic of the larger system that is strangling us of our
air and water. The NAFTA superhighway and the roads into the forests are all a
symptom of the sick capitalist system that puts profits before people or
ecosysytems. As long as the trees continue to fall, so will the profits made of
this project. This is just the beginning of a new level of battling against
highway 55 and car culture. We urge the elves of MN and the world to unite
against the profit hauling infrastructures around the globe. Target machines,
offices, and equipment used to build roads. We are everywhere and we are
watching. We will be back.
Boise Cascade has been very naughty. After ravaging the forests of the
Pacific Northwest, Boise Cascade now looks toward the virgin forests of
Chile. Early Christmas morning
(‘99), elves left coal in Boise Cascade’s stocking. Four buckets of diesel and gas with
kitchen timer delay destroyed their regional headquarters in Monmouth, Oregon. Let this be a lesson to all
multinational corporations who don’t respect their ecosystems. The elves
are watching.
In the early
hours of February, 9 the Earth Liberation Front paid a visit to Green Hall at
the University of Minnesota in St. Paul, MN. The target was transgenetic oat research crops. The research was being done by
University professors David Sommers and Howard Rines. All the oats found in the greenhouse were destroyed,
messages were spray painted, and the locks were glued on the way out. Oat research is simply one of the
projects that the University is taking part in, in partnership with gross
corporations that are adding to the destruction of the Earth. Let this action be a warning to the
University of Minnesota and the entire biotech industry, that if you continue
to destroy the biodiversity on the Earth your profits will continue to fall.
The elves are always watching. Stop genetic engineering or we will.
For Freedom and Wilderness,
Earth Liberation Front