Extinction Rebellion should be taken off since they’re purposefully getting people arrested by cops
I’d like to add The Green Anticapitalist Front as an alternative bc yeah I can’t in good conscience advise anyone to join XR, made this list a while ago
“XR are using civil disobedience to make a spectacle its drawing lots of public attention to the issue”
Public attention has been attentively on the climate crisis for several years before Extinction Rebellion existed, but the vast majority of us are utterly powerless to do anything about it as individuals. That is why, if we are to take the climate and ecological crises seriously, we need to be looking at how we can collectively work to restructure society based around decentralisation, co-operation, and ecological sustainability. When trying to come up with such a solution, there are two enormous obstacles that arise: Capitalism (in the form of corporations and their owners), and the State (in the form of governments, the police and the military). Public attention and belief alone is no match for the direct and structural violence of capitalism and the state, so any climate “rebellion” is going to have to directly confront those forces with its own, uncompromising violence.
If you’re naïve enough to think that any capitalist or state will not meet a climate protest movement that in any way threatens their wealth and power with brutal violence and repression, read about Operation Backfire and the Green Scare. Despite being responsible for exactly 0 deaths, in 2001 the Earth Liberation Front was branded the “number one domestic terror threat” in the USA following an increasingly successful campaign of economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment.
You see, what makes an action radical isn’t how much it endangers the activist, it’s how strong the effect of it is on the ruling class. So
far XR have done absolutely nothing in the way of building alternative
social and industrial structures to capitalism, nor have they had any
effect on the economy or corporate profits. The reason for this is quite
simply that the leadership don’t want to, and the membership don’t get a
say. The only outcome of the protests that the leaders of XR want is
for mass arrests and mass publicity, so that they can use the public
outrage they’ve generated to free up government investment in their
“green industrial revolution” and make a mint, whilst continuing to
exploit the earth’s resources and exacerbate the ecological crisis.
There’s been a lot of talk about eco-fascism recently, and how to
identify it and prevent it growing within XR and similar movements. But
there’s not been a lot of critical thinking as to whether the movement
was eco-fascist by design since its inception. An undemocratic movement,
whose leaders make appeals to popular support and run “people’s
assemblies” in name alone, who refuse to provide legal assistance to
members whilst encouraging and recording civil disobedience, who urge their
members to take action and reveal their identities - likely to result in
jail time, in some cases potentially for years, downplaying prison and
the experience of being arrested - whose leaders are made up of
representatives of massive multinational corporations and the non profit
industrial complex? I think there’s something extremely fascist about
such a movement; it seems entirely designed to catapult its
leaders into wealth or power on the backs of mass arrests of their members.
This is why anarchists need to talk to people who are getting involved with the movement. The fact that the left abandoned the yellow vest movement from the start is why eco-fascists were able to co-opt it in many places with little to no resistance, and the same is going to happen to XR if no one steps in. I’ve spoken to people becoming involved with XR and seen them recruit, and at least where I live, most people getting involved are people who are new to activism. They don’t have the tools or experience to distinguish a good movement from a bad one, or to understand why organizing with cops and landlords is a problem.
They’re not people certain anarchists are used to organizing with, which means that they don’t meet anarchists’ expectations of what a politically active individual should know or do, and some people really don’t know how to handle that. But the solution isn’t to just avoid any and all interaction with them, it’s to talk to them before someone else does. These are generally well-meaning but politically clueless people who are easily influenced and can be turned into a powerful force to help eco-fascists and “activists” trying to boost themselves up if they aren’t warned.
Of course, you need to be careful, because there are cops, both open and undercover, within the movement; that’s why you have to be careful about what you say, and you probably shouldn’t say you’re an anarchist. But using some limited interaction with XR newbies to explain the issues with the movement and offer alternatives, which newbies probably won’t otherwise be exposed to, is a way you can nudge them in the right direction and away from the open arms of eco-fascists and green capitalists seeking self gain. At least warn them about eco-fascism, if nothing else.
Because if you don’t talk to them, someone else will.
I made a proposal along those exact lines a while back that I spent a lot of work on suggesting actions along those lines, for those who are interested it’s here
Make sure they’ve sent your deposit to a government holding scheme too, you should get a reference number directly from the scheme (like Safe Deposits Scotland for example) NOT from your landlord, within a month of paying the deposit. If you don’t receive any such reference number or suspect your landlord is holding onto your deposit themself, contact a tenants union. If you suspect they’re lying about the condition of the property when you moved in or out, make sure to take time-stamped photos and send them directly to whatever holding scheme has your deposit as well as to your local tenants union. For Scotland you can contact Living Rent, in England and Wales the tenants union is ACORN.
All that said, there’s an easier trick that’s become sort of custom around here which is simply to never ever pay your last month or two’s rent (you need to be in at least 3 months arrears in Scotland for grounds to evict) and take that as the deposit.
If there is any damage to the unit when you move in, DOCUMENT IT. Take photos and make sure they’re dated.
If something breaks while you live in the unit, and you can’t fix it easily yourself, REPORT IT. Make the landlord deal with it.
Document what the unit looks like when you move out, before the final inspection–because landlords can and will try to fake damage. Have proof of what damage was yours, if any, and what damage was not.
Landlords will try to fuck you out of every penny you have, including in ways that are horribly illegal. Don’t let them.
A landlord MAY NOT keep your deposit over ‘normal wear and tear’. They may ONLY collect on something that is YOUR FAULT. They cannot charge for carpet wearing down or needing a new coat of paint after a few years, or the furnace needing a replacement because it’s old. They can charge you for punching a hole in the wall that you never fix, or spilling paint on the carpet requiring a specialized cleaning or replacement. And they may ONLY keep what covers the repairs (If insufficient, then and only then may they keep the whole deposit, as in your deposit did not cover the damage you caused).
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS AS A TENANT. You landlord MUST return your deposit unless it was damage you directly caused, and ONLY the amount needed to fix the damage, and not one penny more.
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“To be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, in the right way – that is not easy.”
— Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (via philosophybits)
I’ve been reading Martin Kitchen’s book ‘fascism’, who has an interesting theory about the rise of fascism. The theory is incredibly complex and those that love dense theory should probably read it themselves, but I’ve put together a little adaptation of my own (that Kitchen would probably criticize on many points):
1. First you got your early fascist fringe groups, founded mostly by frustrated middle class men. Since the violent language of fascism is considered impolite in middle class circles, the first public supporters are frustrated working class men. At this stage there are sometimes attempts at a fascist coup.
2. With increasing power, the basic language of fascism is gradually normalized. Within this period, fascists spread the idea that there is a threat (jews, immigrants, muslims, etc) that could destroy all you love. Sometimes part of the tone is anti-capitalist but in that case the target is not the whole middle and upper class but a segment of it (’the jewish capitalist’, ‘the cultural-marxist elite’) so the middle class supporters can feel safe knowing that they will not be a target. Being a fascist is not yet socially acceptable in middle class communities at this point.
3. If there is an economic crisis or great economic uncertainty, the working class shifts to the left. But the middle class starts to consider fascism an acceptable option. Democratic politicians seem to fail to protect them against financial loss, scary foreigners and the growing of the left, so one strong leader who is going to restore traditional values and punish the rebellious sounds attractive. Most fascist supporters are lower-middle class who have property and could realistically lose that property and become poor. Being a fascist becomes socially acceptable in middle class communities.
4. Once a part of the middle class openly accepts fascism, there is often a very quick development where the economic upper class (rich capitalists) start embracing fascism as well and pumping their money into its election campaign. The media also joins in at this point. If fascism ever had an anti-capitalist tone as part of it’s anti-establishment image, it now drops this tone. With a small but weaponized segment of frustrated working class men, a large middle class voter base, media support and MONEY, it becomes almost impossible to stop the fascists rise to power.
5. Once voted into power (either alone or in a coalition), fascism suppresses left-wing movements and dismantles democratic systems. Disagreement within the fascist group itself is removed during this road to dictatorship.
6. At some point, the dictatorship reaches a point of no return. It is so powerful and controls such a large amount of unquestioningly obedient violence and intelligence agencies that only massive armed struggle can destroy it.
So in short:
Middle class founders with working class fight club
Normalization of fascism
Economic crisis, middle class openly support fascism
Capital and media support fascism, it becomes very difficult to stop
Voted into power, removes political enemies & moves toward dictatorship
Strongly established dictatorship can only be removed by force
Kitchen argues that this process can only take place in a late capitalist state with high levels of economic uncertainty, where the political left is large enough to scare the middle class but not strong enough to resist fascism.
I would add that a conservative right-wing that responds to crisis by expanding state force and dismantling human and civil rights does a big part of making the road from being voted into power to full dictatorship easier.
I’d argue that a lot of European states are currently at 3 or 4 with a lot of the road to dictatorship being paved by the established right-wing, while some states already have fascists in their coalition (step 5) and the US has a significant number of fascists in positions of political power (also step 5). How much of the system has been dismantled towards dictatorship varies.
Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that these processes are not always strictly linear and there are always competing fascist movements. Often a brutish loud fascist movement will be the first to normalize fascist language while a more polished, educated and polite fascist movement will be the one to win the support of the middle class and achieve power.
I would expand point 5 to be about three steps, but its still alarmingly close to what we have seen
Yeah, or more. Establishing dictatorship tends to involve (without a strict order of events)
- suppressing political enemies
- suppressing people who could challenge the road to dictatorship from within your own movement
- supressing communication that disagrees with you (controling the media, setting up elaborate surveillance agencies, etc)
- getting unrestrained control of the political decision making process
- getting unrestrained control of the legal process (judges etc)
- ensuring unquestioning obedience of the forces of violence (cops, soldiers, etc)
Generally with a lot of little steps, each time testing obedience. Another terrible policy is announced. Do the cops follow orders? Who resists? Who publically disapprovs? Obedience is mapped and a next step is taken, and another.
