Named Groups And Combative Anarchism

It’s important to me that the critiques of named groups reviving in the states context is not limited to questions of anonymity and anti-repression. The “pitfalls of named groups isolating and cutting themselves off through this label” was briefly mentioned, but the container of a named group, however informal/decentralized/a ghostly-aberration, is worth exploring more.

“Projecting out into a named formation is an attempt to cut through and above the many other unknowable, individual, and anonymous actors by virtue of name alone, not by unique action, nor innovative targeting, ideology, the only special thing about these named groups is their self-righteousness. Instead of choosing to act with impact and propaganda of the deed, the charge of a named revolutionary group cuts off and isolates itself as unique under a defined banner and separate from all other acts. Why choose to fall in line with a banner and reproduce yourself as a mirage, a cookie cutter copy of the ghostly aberation of a formation?” — A Humble Conversation On Why You Shouldn’t Create A Named Guerrilla Cell Formation/Banner/Acronym And Why You Should Resist Being A Part Of One

Named groups have thus far presented themselves as a proposal of a method of struggle towards specific aspects of authority and domination to join in alongside, a container to pour explosive energy into.

For example, the ELF(like the ALF) created a set of guidelines:

Any direct action taken to halt ecological destruction whilst keeping to the following guidelines could, if claimed as such, be considered an ELF action.

• To inflict maximum economic damage on those profiting from the destruction and exploitation of the natural environment.

• To reveal and educate the public about the atrocities committed against the earth and all species that populate it.

• To take all necessary precautions against harming any animal — human and nonhuman.

For the CCF/FAI attacks have largely been limited to struggles against the state, for Jane’s Revenge crisis pregnancy centers, for M5M (inspired by the storming of a police construction and staging outpost for cop city on March 5^th) the stated aims are to “seek to disrupt the logistics of those who destroy the earth and dignified life on it” and encourages “a revolutionary guerilla movement”.

These proposals, by nature of being a proposal, encourage sectioning off certain tactics of struggle. The shape and definition of activity influenced by being named and the proposal limits imagination.

Alternatively, struggling while undefinable, nameless, can act as an invitation to struggle itself, in whatever manner anyone desires or is capable of, against authoritarianism and domination itself, for anarchy, to be joined in by comrades with arms, bricks, gasoline, explosives, blockades, street demonstrations, experimentation in reproducibility, experiments of method, targets, and tactics of attack, spreading critiques and disdain of authority and domination, a culture of combative anarchy.

I believe a culture of combative anarchism is necessary if we truly want nothing less than the ruins of this dystopia and a war against the forces of authority.

Anarchy necessitates an undoing, ruins, crumbling this dystopian nightmare.

My critiques are charged with living “history”, the present “state of emergency”, and the rejection of progress. “History” tells of genocides, of slavery, of the construction of policing, prisons, borders, medicine, industry, technology, climate destruction, white supremacy, domination, authority, governance. In the present I see it all manifested as living due to the “progress”, the dystopia only built upon, refined, never done away with. The future of green energy, industry, technology, prison society, policing, authoritarianism unknown, all notions of progress can only be a construction upon the existing mountain of garbage piling up.

“The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm.” — Walter Benjamin

The forces of counterinsurgency need the illusion of “peace” and the function of “progress” to continue the placation of neoliberal democratic political victories. The silence is necessary for the smooth functioning neo-liberal permanent end-times of democracy and the uninspiring dread of the constant state of emergency.

“Nothing has corrupted the German working class so much as the notion that it was moving, with the current. It regarded technological developments as the fall of the stream with which it thought it was moving. From there it was but a step to the illusion that the factory work which was supposed to tend toward technological progress constituted a political achievement.” — Walter Benjamin