The M5M/Jane’s Revenge/CCF/ALF/ Weather Underground/SLA/BLA/FAI/IAF/NWLF/ M19CO(May19th Communist Organization)/UFF/FARC/Shining Path/AD/IRA /CCC/INLA/ George Jackson Brigade or any of the similar configurations may be interesting, and could be useful for reflection, but we should abandon labeling as being so caged with our ideas and inspirations as individuals.
I’ll begin this by saying that I respect and admire the actions of many groups(and the people in them/were a part of them) who I am about to criticize.
Simply, never stop fighting. <3
What banner can contain us? What grouping can represent any one of us? Why would we attempt to project out beyond the other anonymous actors and individuals to give nonexistent formations titles and names as a permanence instead of a temporary formation for name only? These labels help repressive forces formulate profiles and coalesce their repressive forces against a shadow/a mirage. These formations are not able to contribute to a larger conversation of experimentation, and do not contribute themselves as part of a larger conversation that could allow struggle and solidarity to be expressed in innovative, individual, or unique ways.
I don’t bring in the topic of how these formations or groups faced state repression to blame people for state repression, but to offer a critical lens to the coalescence of banners and formations in the name of attempting to resist repression.
The Jane’s Revenge moniker has led to a lack of imagination in how to react to the attacks on bodily autonomy that met a dead-end. In another example of intensified charges, some people are now facing federal charges alleging so little as spray paint on a brick wall associating them with the popularity of a terrorist organization, and one person in an alleged molotov.
The label of DTF/DTAF has been continuously associated with the charge of Domestic Terrorism as of recent.
In Greece anarchist comrades convicted for a bank robbery were accused during their trials of being part of CCF (they are not and were not part of CCF) in order to bring against them intensified charges. CCF members regularly faced intensified charges and intensely repressive forces.
The repressive campaigns against the ELF should bring to mind the negative aspects of a banner. The repressive apparatus of the state coalesced their entire forces behind finding a network of individuals behind the attacks (sadly they succeeded due to the snitch Jacob Ferguson, among others). The attacks never grew beyond attacks on specific industries, did not contribute to a larger conversation of experimentation, and could not contribute themselves as part of a larger picture of shared struggle against authority and domination or against civilization.
The ALF does not care generally for the aim of larger structures of authority and domination specifically, which is an issue, but I can not be too critical of people who genuinely simply want to free animals, close fur farms/vivisection labs/slaughterhouses/other places of animal abuse and murder. I do however draw the line in my reasoning with the ethos of “do no harm.”
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? The choice of a communique or not, the choice of how much it says, what it says and why, and all the other attributes associated with action already leave a potential forensic profile, the spectacle of the mirage only creates more
Is the making of this ghostly mirage into reality our desire?
With Love In My Heart,
I just know it’s going to be great
– some anarchist