Is breaking the law necessary in the wake of the climate crisis? (3)

Civil Resistance. So what should be done — if we are in fact blissfully walking straight into an inferno. Write to your MP? Throw money at climate lobbying? Write a strongly worded letter to the Prime Minister? Now you may write better than Shakespeare sampling the finest methamphetamine, but I don’t think it’ll quite cut it. After 40 years of strongly worded letters, righteous petitions and honourable lobbyist, fuck all has been done. Perhaps you still take up the position, yes but there have been improvements, changes have been made, real ground has been won. My usual (poetic) response is that if you’re on a square meter raft and some fucker is chipping away at the side, you’re still going to eventually drown even if they concede to chip at a slower pace. The action required to prevent this planet from drowning is far from here.

So what is the most effective way to bring about climate action? I shall focus on three forms of resistance: peaceful protesting, nonviolent direct action (NVDA) and violent direct action (VDA). It is important to note that the boundary between these strategies is not fixed and terms such as violence are complex and when taken at face value it often inflames imprecision (so a close analysis will be applied). Predicting social science is also clearly speculative so no concrete projections can be made, however an examination of the past can give us an idea of what may be effective in the future.

To best define the three forms of disobedience, an adapted analogy from David Graeber can be used. Peaceful protesting is like marching around a desert with a cardboard sign saying you want a well to be dug. Nonviolent direct action is digging the well and drinking from it. An SUV drives up and fills the well with cement, so the violent direct act would be blowing up the cement and rebuilding the well (whilst maybe blowing up the SUV as well). So, peaceful protests pressure change through the legal conventional processes; voicing discontent to the government and expecting reciprocation due to the consequences of a disgruntled electorate. Direct action use tactics outside the domain of legal institutional channels, which confronts the reigning establishment. It often involves embodying the change that is wanted (blocking oil refineries because you want greater climate action or living up a tree because you don’t want it to be cut down). The line here is not always clear though, for example blocking a motorway is a form of direct action but it doesn’t necessarily embody the change that is wanted (the activists may not want motorways to be dismantled, but may be using press coverage to spread awareness about a particular issue, like Insulate Britain). Violent action can be defined as strategies which harm people or property (the traditional definition of violence, and one that shall be thoroughly dissected).

I think the consensus amongst most people is overall support for peaceful protesting, disapproval or outright enmity for nonviolent direct action, and abhorrent fear of violent direct action. The distaste for NVDA is often based on the opinion that breaking the law may incite the opposite effect, in causing greater repressive consequences and that breaking the law may piss off the public in the wrong way. The panic induced by VDA comes from prophecies of lawlessness and the woes of anarchy. Both these perspectives will be broken down to see if historical events substantiate such claims.

It would be convenient if peaceful protests were serious mechanisms of change; they are a joy to take part in and safe with minimal consequences. However, their legality correlates with their ineffectiveness: it doesn’t threaten systems of power, therefore both the consequences of attending a protest and the consequences they incite are minimal. The reason for their ineffectiveness can be quite easily broken down: it requires a massive amount of protestors to get serious news coverage (as they aren’t disruptive and so they don’t stir media attention). Also the only power protestors can exercise is of electoral consequence. This is still fairly tenuous as it would require masses of people to pose any real threat to the governing power. On top of that government terms in the UK are 5 years, this provides a lot of time to ‘win’ the public back through different schemes (perhaps by employing Cambridge Analytica). I don’t believe that peaceful protests are utterly redundant, they do have a role in bringing people together and spreading the word about a cause. However, in isolation they are highly unlikely to provoke any real change. Every movement that attained any real devolution of power involved nonviolent direct action married with either the threat or employment of violent direct action. Large institutions of power are going to do what large institutions of power have always done; retain power.

People remember the civil rights movement but not the black panthers, the suffragettes but not the suffragettes who planted bombs, Gandhi but not the Indian mutiny. The suffragettes are an instructive case study to examine. After decades of pressuring the government through conventional / legal avenues to give women the vote, they achieved nothing. They then started a campaign of militant action: the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was formed. They blew up abandoned buildings, set fire to hotels, churches, post offices and theatres all over the country. Well-dressed women were sent down streets to smash hundreds of shop windows. This militant faction of the suffragettes claimed responsibility for 337 attacks. No life was lost. The WSPU began their attacks in 1912, women were granted the vote in 1918. I am not claiming that it was solely the acts of violent action that brought about this change, but that each stage of strategy played a role: peaceful protests to then NVDA and eventually VDA provoked such change. From the majority of people I’ve talked to, the only tactic which is largely condoned is peaceful protesting yet that seems to be based on a fairly selective memory of the history of social changes. What seems to be more astute, is that all these strategies have played a role in bringing about social changes: this is important to consider, especially if it is ignored by the common consensus.

NVDA and VDA strategies during the civil rights movement also deserve some recognition. The fight for black rights exercised a variety of strategies from peaceful protests, to NVDA like the Montgomery bus boycott, to VDA like the Black Panthers. As the violence seemed to ramp up, or at least the threat of violence, demands began to be met. Martin Luther King warned from his cell that if demands wouldn’t soon be met, other ‘menacing forces would arise [from] millions of Negroes, out of frustration and despair.’ This can be seen with the Birmingham Offensive of 1963 which then saw the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which was a centrepiece of progressive legislation. Herbert H. Haines recalled that ‘nonviolent direct action struck at the heart of powerful political interests because it could so easily turn to violence’. The Freedom Riders are illustrative in the use of ardent direct action. In May 1961, 13 white and black students rode from Washington to Alabama in rejection of the segregation law on transportation. They were attacked, the bus was bombed, some were brutally beaten. Photographs of the Greyhound bus and the bloodied riders flooded the headlines of newspapers throughout the country, immediately after the attack, another group of 40 other students jumped on a bus to follow suit. Riots and protests arose round the country and in by September 1961 the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in interstate transit terminals.

Essentially it appears that the consensual understanding of civil resistance claiming that peaceful protests (and perhaps NVDA) have solely laid the ground work for social changes is fundamentally short-sighted and of mythic proportions. Now one recurrent issue which seems to arise amongst the literature of civil disobedience is cherry picking examples to suit one’s argument. I have tried strongly to avoid this, the reason the following case studies have been chosen is to question the reigning consensual perspective on civil resistance which doesn’t appear to be accurate.

If we examine peaceful protests in isolation they appear fairly fruitless. The largest protest this country has ever seen occurred in 2003, opposing the invasion of Iraq. Upwards of 750,000 were thought to have attended. The protests were peaceful, singular in their aim and utterly ineffective; the UK joined the coalition to invade Iraq. In 2011 500,000 marched in London to protest the policy of austerity, the march was peaceful, the march was ineffective. The movement achieved zero changes in government policy and zero reductions to austerity measures. To bring about decisive social change all avenues must be applied; protests bring awareness to the issue, direct action brings urgency to the issue.

Should one take systemic measures — can institutional methods work? By this I mean voting or petitions or integrating oneself in the system: the idea that if you don’t like something (like the police institution) the best way to change it is to become part of it and influence it from the inside. Certainly, all effective avenues should be exploited however a systemic approach appears least effectual. Of the 10 most signed petitions, none have been implemented. When it comes to voting and institutional integration, one must decide if they believe that this system is genuinely representative and accountable. I personally don’t think we live in a democracy (in its literal meaning of the people ruling) and highly doubt that the pillars of corruption can be sifted out by a single agent. However, this is a big issue and one that requires a lot of thought (one that I shall develop in a later essay).

Addressing the qualm that it pisses off the public in the wrong way; I haven’t been able to find any effective movement that didn’t make use of disruptive and ‘annoying’ measures. The Suffragettes were violent, the civil rights movement radical, the Stonewall uprising aggressive. The climate movement has been fundamentally tame in comparison, the reason for this is most likely because the consequences of a spiralling climate are not immediate or direct. Unlike other social movements we aren’t experiencing the direct oppression or suffering we are merely ensuring that others will (future generations and people living in the majority world). So consistent pressure with the use of ‘annoying’ strategies has incited progress (the extent of this is will be examined). This is because disruption gets a lot of media coverage which spreads word about the issue, whilst also employing the threat of unrest which is undesirable for the governing elite. Furthermore disruptive measures (as with the case of the LGBT movement and civil rights movement) can provoke the police to act violently; when this occurred in the US with images of police officers brutally assaulting black children, the public sided with the movement. Martin Luther King was the most hated man in America, now he is celebrated yearly. Perhaps one day Insulate Britain will be revered just as the Freedom Fighters are. 54% of Britons oppose Extinction Rebellion’s disruptive tactics, but we must recall XR were not the first to block roads, in 1965 thousands of people blocked 54 miles of highway over five days. This eventually forced president Johnson to sign the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed voter literacy tests and other practices designed to disenfranchise people of colour. I doubt many people would condemn this act. Perhaps the disruptive and annoying nature of climate activism should be reconsidered. Disruption does 2 things, it spreads the word through the media and creates social and economic obstruction. This may be partly why 57% UK adults know about XR, 75% of people in the UK are concerned about the climate crisis, and why the met police has spent £37m on XR protests in the last year. I have heard many complaints especially from rather lively old men shouting a couple inches from my face, but haven’t heard of many fruitful alternatives.

Maybe the extent of action should also be reconsidered, if this is truly a crisis and it is unlikely that technological-saviorism will come to the rescue, we may need to act more decisively. It has been 40 years of idle protests and 40 years of inaction. Comparing the climate movement to recent historical social campaigns should also be put to question. Genuine climate action threatens the pillars of our economic system due to the foundations of consumption and growth which may have to be disbanded. Social causes like the civil rights movement didn’t require systemic change, just modification: it impacted the nature of production (to some extent) by dispersing wealth from the hands of the white man, but it didn’t change the principles of wealth accumulation. The climate crisis may question such a thing. This is akin to the abolition of slavery or the dismantling of feudalism which saw global economic systems transform. Both revolutionary changes saw mass global violence, not passive protests. Would slavery have ended without the slaves fighting back? The 1804 Haitian revolution ensued through slave revolts which overthrew and then became the government — an utterly violent act and one most people probably pardon as morally justifiable. A consistent pattern developed; serious revolts would erupt which incited system change (like the French Revolutions) and when other dynasties saw such upheaval they devolved power willingly so as to retain their position, avoiding the discomfort of being strung up by some dirty peasant. After the Haiti revolution Britain had an epiphany in 1807 and outlawed the trans Atlantic traffic. In 1834 slavery was made illegal in the British colonies, 2 years after the largest rebellion in Jamaican history (60,000 Jamaican slaves revolted). Blocking roads didn’t quite cut it. Now, I am not advocating an armed revolution, I am not at all equipped to make such a claim. It merely appears that our understanding of civil resistance appears selective and this should be immediately rectified when facing the climate crisis.

Extinction Rebellion (XR) has recently begun their 3.5 campaign where they are attempting to mobilise 3.5% of the population in order to bring about system change. It seems fairly naive to believe that a passive 3.5% can dismantle the productive pillars of our society, whilst the institutions of power roll over and submit like an overdosed lion. This is founded off the XR bible (built by the principles gospelised by Ghandi); ‘Why Civil Resistance Works’ by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephen which proclaims the superior success of nonviolent resistance campaigns over they violent counterparts. They present the evolution of civil resistance as a firm science and one that is easily mapped; 323 violent and nonviolent resistance campaigns are analysed between 1900 and 2006. With the overall conclusion that nonviolent actions were nearly twice as likely to achieve full or partial success than violent action. Reasoned by the stronger popularity NVDA kindles which encourages greater public support and smoother democratic transitions. A case study which Chenoweth and Stephan draw upon is the Iranian revolution where the monarchy was ousted through mass mobilisation and civil disobedience. Earlier attempts to depose the Shah through assassination and violent insurgencies failed, until the mass protests, strikes and stayaways yielded effective results. This argument seemed initially quite convincing; the appraisal of civil resistance as a hard science with firm boundaries and solid success. However, we ought to look a little closer to see if such claims are truly watertight.

Peter Gelderloos provides a combative perspective to the XR bible and brings to question what ‘violence’ actually means. Can we define violence merely as harming people or property, wouldn’t we then be in a state of perpetual violence? Is paying your taxes violent? Is driving an SUV violent? Flying on a plane to Majorca for a little summer retreat? Throwing a brick at a police officer? Buying factory-farmed chicken? I think people in the UK might agree that deforesting massive amounts of the Amazon rainforest could be quite a violent act, yet do we reserve the same scrutiny for ourselves; for driving luxury SUVs (which has undoubtedly reaped far greater environmental harm). What about if we participate in a system of structural violence like the UK state and its capitalist markets, are we liable to the suffering it inflicts? From corrupt corporations like Barclays and HSBC eliciting drug and cartel money laundering, to financing the military crusade of Israel, to permitting the gross human rights abuses in the chain of consumption, to the persistent destruction of our earth. So nonviolence doesn’t appear to uphold any notion of real peace or harmony it seems like it more accurately embodies violence in its visibility. For example, if someone attends frequent peaceful protests to voice their discontent of the system they participate in, yet the system continues to perpetuate gross structures of oppression is that person liable? If they partake in society, pay their taxes, and maybe even sign a petition here and there. If the system doesn’t change does that make them partly responsible? It’s a question people should consider. I personally believe that if you are complicit in a system of structural violence you are partly responsible for the damage it reeks; a person consistently protesting without effectual results is still complicit, as the system perseveres. Ghandi’s mantra appears a bit less pure in this context.

A quick note on Ghandi’s pacifism: Gandhi offered up to the British as many Indians as he could dispose of: in 1918, certain groups were trying to end the massacre, at which point Gandhi decided that more Indians had to be chucked into the war. Summed up by an elegant quote from Ghandi, ‘if I became your recruiting agent-in-chief, I might rain men on you.’ A better rephrase of Ghandi’s mantra: Ghandi never condoned violence against the British but it did include violence with them. The accepted understanding of violence should really be rethought. There are reasons for XR’s blinkered adherence to non violence which shouldn’t be ignored — that of palatability. They can hold meetings in churches, gain significant public acclaim, muster up lots of donations, that which a more radical group couldn’t attain.

The story constructed by Chenoweth of the deposition of the Shah also appears fairly imprecise. Andreas Malm notes how the most detailed account of Iranian revolution, Misagh Parsa’s Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, reports a cascade of popular violence — government buildings were burnt down, hundreds of buildings and banks set on fire, managers of US oil companies were shot or had their cars set alight. ‘All of this surged higher and higher in tandem with a general strike crippling production and mass demonstrations — several millions on the march by December — paralysing the streets.’ So the superiority of nonviolence appears slightly unjustified, what seems more coherent in fomenting change is the cohesive application of a diversity of strategies.

What about the role of the executioner — the forces that carry out the will of the state. It’s not often you see the police being responsible for violence, or the systems of ‘defence’, or even landlords pushing tenants out, or welfare systems disintegrating. The term violence seems to be a vehicle for state complicity and conformity. A riot, a strike, an occupation is often presented as violent by mass media whereas the more bureaucratic (less visible) vehicles of violence are quietly pushed under the rug, or merely marked as unfortunate. Gelderloos claims, ‘nonviolence as a concept sides with the enforcers of normality and the rulers of the status quo.’ So the metric Chenoweth uses to measure ‘success’ does not seem so absolute: the civil rights movement didn’t stamp out racial discrimination or structural prejudice. These systems reformulated; the criminal system, wage system, credit system all have kept the black population of America in a state of perpetual poverty. Or in recent years with the ‘success’ of the Colour revolutions under the Soviet Union, Gelderloos claims that authoritarian leadership was just exchanged with a ruling elite that governed through corruption, police brutality and forcible exclusion. Less of societal transformation, more a shake up in who wields the powers of oppression and rephrasing the previous institutions of authority. Peterloos then suggests that, ‘government violence is not the result of violent revolutions, but the product of government itself.’ Any system that leaves the state intact will fail to end the structures of oppression that reside. ‘A nonviolent movement that replaces one government with another — and this is the greatest victory a nonviolent movement has ever achieved in the history of the world — ends up betraying itself, allowing Power to change its masks without addressing the fundamental problems of society.’ These are some of the principles espoused by anarchism, a scary word for some undoubtedly, with conclusions that many will determine radical. But these are ideas that adhere to fairly rational premises. It wasn’t long ago that a world without slavery or a nation without a monarch was deemed utterly heretical and outlandish. That without these systems in place, all social stability would collapse in on itself into a world of grotesque chaos (a message often mandated by institutions of power, a message still iterated today). Again I am not saying we require revolution, I don’t know enough to say such a thing; it just seems apparent that our understanding of civil disobedience has been skewed.

Peterloos discusses the issue of the state through a system of recuperation where power isn’t really dispersed it just becomes perpetually perversed:

“Recuperation is when workers’ movements around the world form political parties that enter into government. Poor neighbourhoods of colour can’t get rid of the police who occupy their streets, harass them, and occasionally shoot them down, but they might get the city to pay some NGO to give the cops cultural sensitivity trainings. [Essentially] nonviolent resistance is less likely to help people develop an antagonistic consciousness of the State. It gives the guardians of law and order more opportunities to put on a friendly face. Peaceful protests help governments mask their abuses by giving them the opportunity to bring popular rage into the terrain of civic debate, a terrain they fully control. [The system persists if the majority of people submit to it, only if the majority] do not see the system as a whole as their enemy; they will accept domination at the hands of the police as long as it happens in more subtle ways; they will be content with the destruction of the planet as long as it happens a little more slowly.”

So nonviolence perhaps can be better defined as convenience and prioritisation: one can revoke certain notions of violence but submit in complicity to other forms, which are assumed less important and usually less visible. One issue that presents itself for me is that if violence is the most effective or only means of inciting change, surely it could be harnessed by destructive forces. The issue with violent insurgencies seems to be that they are fundamentally undemocratic, a minority brings them about, so this minority could create a worse scenario. Potentially this could be resolved through infrastructural violence, rather than revolutionary tactics.

The empirical successes of nonviolent action overall appears fairly dubious, what of revolutionary success then? Gelderloos notes that unlike the champions of nonviolence ‘we have never claimed victory’. He points to specific battles won and small steps in the right direction. These failed to be secured without the worldwide dismantling of the state — liberation in one area will inevitably be captured. Perhaps this is too great a task, too great a feat? Or perhaps that is the defect of being integrated into a political paradigm — when you are part of it, the notion of escape or disassemblement seems hopeless. Perhaps this was the same perspective taken amongst despondent scholars in the fury of feudalism and the wake of the slave trade. System sterility is infectious: the idea that our corrupt system cannot be changed, perhaps smitten by some disgruntled God. This would be a valuable truth for the large institutions in power, per chance a message they’d promote. Some may brand the actuality of an ideology such as anarchism as idealistic and it assuredly is, but fantastical ideals have been the engine of social transformation. And I don’t mean to say that anarchism is the saving grace of humanity, it may not be the end goal, but it offers a different direction for us to make mistakes and grow.

To the small steps in the right direction, the Zapatistas provide an instructive example. In 1994 the Zapatistas, an indigenous army in Chiapas, Mexico rose up against NAFTA and the neoliberal agenda. Specifically, to defend their rights and land against the state and big landowners. They were an armed movement. They have liberated a number of villages whilst holding assemblies and encuentros. This system of self-organisation autonomous from the state has persisted for 26 years now. A key principle of the Zapatista project, which ensures that governing institutions serve the people, is mandar obedeciendo, which means to lead by obeying. It ensures that political leaders do not make decisions on behalf of their community as its representatives, but rather act as the community’s delegates, with decisions made in local assemblies. It is not perfect, there are criticisms of established hierarchies, however it does show that alternatives are possible.

In 1990 Mohawk warriors took up arms to prevent a development project on their land. The Oka Crisis located near Montreal, Quebec: it began with an armed police assault on a blockade at Kanesatake which saw one police officer shot dead. After this, 4,500 police were mobilised with tanks and air support. In solidarity from indigenous people throughout the country protests, occupations and blockades sprung up. The 77 day standoff served an example of indigenous sovereignty, and the ability of armed force to defend territory and the exploitation of indigenous communities against the most powerful government on the planet. The infrastructural expansion was defeated.

Andreas Malm presents a very cohesive picture of civil disobedience. He notes how a pipeline built in 2020 would still be in operation until 2060 (from the viewpoint of the investor). Coal-fired power plants often run for even longer (sixty years or more), the world’s largest exporter of coal, Australia, continues to open mines. From a paper produced by Oil Change International, emissions from already-running power plants would be enough to take the world to 1.5°C (not counting extraction, transportation, deforestation). Including proposed plants, the carbon budget to stay under 2°C would nearly be exhausted. More radical action has been vacant in the climate movement, Malm notes some of the avenues which will likely soon be explored and arguably should be explored. Pipelines are easy to sabotage, an explosive device on a critical section of the pipeline puts it out of operation for weeks. An example of this can be shown with the US occupation of Iraq where the Iraqi resistance executed 200 attacks on pipelines — this generated an inhospitable investment climate. Another example during the Egyptian Revolution, there were nearly a dozen sabotage attacks on the pipeline to supply Israel with gas. After which Israel cancelled the agreement. A further example in Yemen when the Houthi rebels in 2019 launched drone attacks on pipelines in Aramco’s refineries (Saudi Arabia). Storage tanks were punctured, pipelines sabotaged and as a result Saudi Arabia’s oil production fell by 50%. The use of strategic infrastructural violence can be very effective: causes investment into fossil fuels to rocket in price and so, investment plummets. It also attracts massive media attention, potentially spurring on others to take action. ‘Sabotage can be done softly, even gingerly’.

Malm additionally notes that a group of American and British psychologists have argued that the lavish consumption of fossil fuels should be considered a crime. There are various reasons for the criminality of excessive consumption: First, it is massively carbon intensive (if SUV drivers were a nation they’d rank 7th for CO2 emissions, the world’s wealthiest 10% were responsible for around half of global emissions in 2015, according to a 2020 report from Oxfam). Secondly, luxury emissions ‘represent the ideological spear of business-as-usual, actively championing the most unsustainable kinds of consumption’. Third there is an ethical connotation that this money could be used to help the victims of the emergency rather than fueling the crisis. In 2017 Malm notes that 44 individuals inherited a total sum of $189bn, compared to the 4 largest global climate action funds which approved projects amounting to $2.8bn. So 44 individuals ‘cashed out sixty-eight times more unearned wealth than what the world’s victims of climate catastrophe were allocated’. Lastly, if things like super yachts aren’t dealt with it has a massive impact on morale; why should someone stop eating meat or actively protest when you see a 400ft yacht pass by unfazed. As claimed by Malm, ‘it might take attacks on luxury-emitting devices to break the spell cast in the sphere of consumption’.

Another reason to act directly, is to avert the misdirection throttled by governing bodies; Macron’s carbon tax impacted the bottom 10% of the population 5 times more than the top. It was effectively a regressive tax on subsistence, whilst lavish symbols of consumption were released from all restraints. This goes back to the integrity of direct action; it allows someone to embody the change they wish to see and not rely on the unaccountable institutions power to skew their demands. Infrastructural violence is often critiqued because it moves the fight to a terrain favoured by the state, who is far superior in military capability. This is a principle argument amongst strategic pacifists, but it doesn’t seem too rigorous. The state also has superior capabilities in nearly every field, including media propaganda, affluence, political legitimacy. It shall never be a fair fight against the ruling institution. And as explored above, I have yet to find a movement that divested any real power to the people without the threat or emergence of social unrest.

Overall the role of violent resistance should not be disregarded, just NVDA or peaceful protests aren’t shunned from history. A plurality of tactics has been the consistent approach in facilitating change. I do not have the power to claim that: you must break the law in the wake of the climate crisis, perhaps it is a silly question to ask. But it is a realm of thought people aren’t considering, and I believe, it is high time we do. And it’s getting a little late in the day, there have been 40 years of sit-ins, protests, school strikes and fuck all has happened. Should we start considering the radical when the damage has been dealt?

So if you’re a vegetarian, or better yet a vegan that’s great. Or if you abstain from fast fashion, and you don’t fly on planes; all necessary sacrifices. But this won’t stop our world from plummeting into a climatic disaster. Direct action not only has the power to incite genuine change but it also allows you to embody your own beliefs, whether that’s obstructing oil extraction or living up a tree, you actively create the world you want. It is a rather special thing, I think it is the embodiment of the term; moral integrity. So although the well might get cemented over it may inspire 50 more wells to be dug, or 50 oil sites to be occupied.

I also want to make it clear, that I don’t want to get arrested, I am not a person possessing any real bravery or just a loony trying to punch up a copper. I’m writing this for myself, purely to see if there’s any sound reasoning to justify complacency. I haven’t been able to go over all dimensions of the question, however, the research that I have collated appears to present a reaffirming message; this is our fight, the fight is now, the fight is real, and if we don’t act we’re fucked.

References:

Peter Gelderloos: The Failure of Nonviolence

Andreas Malm: How to Blow Up a Pipeline

David Graeber: Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology