Pipelines & Exploitation of the Earth

To Settlers, by Settlers: A Callout for Rail Disruptions in Solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en

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Jan 142020

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info

It’s important to know that settlers have written this. We don’t have the lived experience of any Indigenous person, including the Wet’suwet’en. We do write from a place of heart and affinity within this struggle – personal, political, and/or relational. In that we feel responsibility to act against the systems and corporations that harm the people and land within it. We acknowledge our settler responsibility and complicity in this, and look for opportunities and strategies that align politically as a way to enact solidarity. This does not mean we speak for them, or should be closed to critiques.

First, let’s address that for various reasons there has sometimes been a lack of clarity around what is being asked for by folks out west.

We want to gently remind friends reading this that some individuals have been restricted in providing any kind of direction or encouragement – or even speaking against the project. The gag is set by court orders which wield the threat of financial ruin and the loss of a ten year land-based healing project for an entire community. We remind ourselves that the people we may put into “leadership” positions may not want to be experiencing the pedestalization and fetishization of expectant settlers wanting firm answers – at great risk – on behalf of many.

Within and outside of this struggle, settlers are consistently directed to take responsibility for their fellow settlers and the ongoing processes and harms of colonization. As settlers hearing that, we are compelled to act in defiance of – and take an offensive position against – the state and industries that are willing to kill for profit, and pretend to be doing so in our interests.

We also want to acknowledge the lingering hopeless feeling that some of us felt when, after a decade of affirming a hard line, chiefs allowed for the Unist’ot’en gate to be opened. We know you know that compliance under threat of violence is not consent, but consideration exists even beyond that, like the RCMP delivering veiled and not-so-veiled threats to Chiefs at their homes in the middle of the nights. We encourage curiosity about whether hopelessness and disappointment went both ways here; to what extent did the low numbers of supporters who couldn’t or wouldn’t make it out after a decade of promise have impacts on positional outcome and aftermath? The writers of this personally take action when we feel at our strongest – rested, fed, grounded, encouraged, and supported. So what is our complicity – as settlers or allies or supporters who weren’t there or weren’t taking action from afar – in that gate opening?

Despite all of this the Wet’suwet’en never stopped asking for support and solidarity actions, and never stopped occupying their territories. And earlier today, the Wet’suwet’en and their supporters have again taken a physical stand to protect the Yintah, their way of life, and living for generations to come. They defend their very existence against the imperialist violence and colonialism of the Canadian state on behalf of private entities, and reject Canada and CGL’s authority and jurisdiction over their unceded lands.

We stand with them and are prepared to enact solidarity.

Further, we aim to inspire you to act friends & comrades!

Anarchists, comrades, radicals and likeminded folks in so-called Ontario have a longstanding history of solidarity actions with, for, and inspired by indigenous blockades and land projects. The enactments of support have been beautiful and courageous moments that have built lasting networks and relationships.

Dream big and help make it happen again!

The last year on the territory has seen large swaths of trees clear cut, wildlife displaced, a man camp established, artefacts and trap lines moved and destroyed, and the installment of an RCMP staffed “industry protection office” on unceded lands. The year also unveiled to all that the RCMP is prepared to kill Indigenous peoples to carry out the will of corporations.

Further, in a move that deliberately continues a legacy of genocide against all Indigenous peoples, justice Marguerite Church recently approved an interlocutory injunction against the Wet’suwet’en making it illegal for them under colonial law to defend their own lands against industry or Canada, as an invading Nation. Her decision states that “Indigenous law has no effectual place in Canadian law.” The injunction will allow for the destruction of Gidimt’en camp, cabins throughout the territory, and presents risk to the healing lodge.

Unsurprising and absolute imperialist bullshit.

Do you need more reasons? We didn’t think so.

Which leaves us with what we do.

As geographically distant allies the logical conclusion is that we will likely never get explicit, widespread permission or an “official” thumbs up (and we should certainly strive to understand our inclination to ask or want for those things), but with a few considerations we can get a fair sense of what’s needed, and wanted.

1) The intensity of the current situation. Today, Wet’suwet’en hereditary leadership have gathered to take a final stand and remove industry from their territory as a way to prevent further destruction of the land and water, ensuring their safety and livelihoods. Legal challenges have failed, and this is perhaps “it” – the final possibility of protecting their Yintah.

2) With this development will come new, increased and incensed calls for solidarity actions.

3) Actions that have received support or excitement previously include large militant disruptions such as highway and port blockades, occupations and attempted shutdowns of pipeline facilities, and the closure of a Shell terminal. No actions have yet been denounced.

4) Previous requests have included guidance to respect the agreements and responsibilities of the territory you are on, to respect the land, water, and life of it, and to honour and centre Indigenous messaging.

There is no shortage of existing opportunities, but thinking back to what we’ve seen work in this area, what is relevant, and what is strategic and what can embrace many tones and tactics, we think of rail disruptions.

Rail traffic creates excellent opportunity for state and economic disruption; infrastructure is so sprawling it’s relatively indefensible – particularly outside of cities. Geographical features create thousands of natural bottlenecks across Turtle Island which lend themselves as targets for maximum effectiveness using a broad range of methods. Historically even short disruptions – by actions or rail strikes – have had large economic impacts. After just two days of a recent rail strike the Federal government started drafting emergency legislation out of concern for the economy. In 2012, a 9 day disruption dropped the local GDP by 6.8%.

Imagine allies disrupting and damaging rail infrastructure and bottlenecks in Northern BC between Kitimat-Chetwynd-Houston-Stewart; it would orphan pipe stockpiles in ports, preventing their delivery to construction areas.

There is no need to chase the frontline; we can fight where we stand.

Rail sabotage works as both a tactic and a strategy, and so we’re calling for ongoing rail disruptions in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en people who are currently defending their unceded territory from industry and police invasion.

Our suggestions include using copper wire to trip signal blocks, and the destruction of signal boxes and rail tracks – but even large public NVCD groups stopping essential rail lines is better than no action at all. Read on for details, safety tips, and links.

As always, we encourage folks to think about your heart, as well as the longevity of these actions and overall struggle; a gentle reminder that you are being careful with yourselves, fingerprints and DNA – for everyone’s safety – and that repression often follows action.

Prints

Fingerprints can be removed from hard surfaces with isopropyl alcohol. Wipe each item thoroughly in case something gets accidentally left behind or discovered. Store in a brand new, clean bag and only remove if wearing gloves.

DNA

DNA can be transferred in a number of ways. Ensure you’re being diligent; don’t touch your face and cough you’re your hands while wearing gloves. Keep your hair brushed (to remove loose hair) and tied back. Don’t smoke or spit anywhere near your target area. Don’t leave anything behind. Be careful not to injure yourself. Properly dispose of masks, hats, gear, or clothing (bleach, heat, or burn). Rainy days can be messy but good; they can help wash away, displace and contaminate fibre and DNA evidence. Bleach can destroy DNA by keeping it from being replicated in a lab for analysis. Heat and fire also destroy DNA well.

If you’re not sure, be sure.

Copper Wire Method
– DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS ON SUBWAY TRANSIT LINES; they carry electricity.
– You can use this method when engaging in group NVCD to immediately send a signal to stop all train traffic.

The steel rails of tracks act as part of a track circuit for something called “automatic block signalling” (ABS). A very low voltage is sent through the rails to track sensors to create a loop in sets of geographic blocks. When a train moves along them, the train axle disrupts or shortens the circuit and sensors pick that up to indicate the block is occupied, automatically closing traffic in that area to other trains.

By using a high gage (thick!) copper wire and wrapping it around and then across the rails one can replicate the tripping of the circuit sensors. Note: you don’t need to locate and connect the actual block sensors.

TIPS: the copper needs to be touching areas on both rails that are NOT rusty/oxidized and still conducting. HIGH gage copper wire is necessary. Have a lookout for trains and security patrols. Have a plan before you start wrapping. You may need a small tool to clear some crushed rock under the rail before wrapping the wire. Find a good spot, dig out both rails, and wrap one rail first. Remember as soon as you trip the circuit by connecting the wire to both rails the ABS will be tripped indicating something is up. Get out as soon as you can. Burying the cable with crushed rock, snow or dirt will make it harder to find/spot within the block.

Destroying Signal Boxes

Signal boxes are part of rail circuits. If you walk railways, you’ve probably seen them as large grey shed like structures, or small grey boxes affixed to poles. These boxes are the receptors and interpreters of ABS circuit signals. The casings are metal and typically secured closed somehow, and the small boxes on posts have cables that emerge, trail to the ground and run to the tracks. Since these wires have electrical components we would advise against simply cutting them unless you have a fair handle on electricity. Another method to damage wires and electrical circuits is hot fire. This means more than just dousing the cords in a fuel and walking away – it means building and ensuring a hotter, longer lasting fire. On good way to extend the burn of fibre tinder (cotton fabric or cotton balls are favourites with us) is to add petroleum jelly and work it in. You’ll be able to just light that, which acts as a wick. To increase the heat of a fire you can add rubber from bicycle inner tubes or tires. Getting a small established fire like this going either in the circuit box/house or where the cord enters the ground should take care of the circuits and do a fine job delaying rail traffic by activating the ABS system in a longer-lasting way.

Notes: Practise building this kind of fire to see what’s possible. Burning rubber creates toxic fumes. This is arson – which authorities will investigate more seriously than the copper wire method. Be careful: find a good spot, have lookouts and an entry/exit plan that doesn’t expose you to people, ensure you’re being careful with fingerprints & DNA, properly dispose of any equipment used, have EXCELLENT security culture & practises with your crew.

Destroying Steel Rails

How do you destroy steel rails that hold a lot of tonnage every day? The same way they put them together: thermite.

Thermite is a fuel/oxidizer ratio that can be adjusted to burn hot enough to destroy car engine blocks. It’s not particularly dangerous to mix BUT it does burn very hot, and very brightly so take precautions. This method requires very little on-site time: just place, light and walk away. It also provided maximum physical property damage as the rail or signal box will need complete replacement.

The simplest fuel to use is aluminum powder. This can be collected from older etch-a-sketches or manufactured with (real) aluminum foil in a coffee grinder. The finer the flakes/powder the faster the burn.

The simplest oxidizer to use with aluminum powder is iron oxide – red iron rust. Again, you can collect this and turn it into a fine powder, or easily manufacture it by soaking ‘0000 grain’ steel wool in bleach. Let it sit for a day to create a paste, which can then be dried and used.

You will also need an ignition wick. It takes a hot burn to ignite metal fuel so a lighter won’t work, and a firework fuse likely won’t either. Use either a common fireworks sparkler, or a homemade wick of match heads rolled into aluminum foil. Sparklers may present some risk of early ignition if the sparks coming off them hit the thermite before anticipated.

Thermite Powder

Mix a ratio of 3 parts iron oxide to 2 parts aluminum powder. Cut or puncture a small wick hole on the side of a container (i.e. tin can). Insert your wick a couple inches so that there will be contact with the mixture in the can, and then fill the container with powder. Place and light where needed.

TIPS: unless the powder mix is fine and compacted, the burn will be less efficient and produce less heat!

Hard/Cake Thermite

3 parts iron oxide, 2 parts aluminum powder, 2 parts plaster of paris. Mix the powders together, mix with plaster of paris. Pour into mold (can, etc.), insert wick into cake a couple inches on an angle. Let dry and remove from mould.

Mouldable Thermite

8 parts aluminum powder, 3 parts iron oxide, 4 parts clay. Mix the powders well then add to clay. Insert wick a couple inches. Place where needed and light.

Notes: Because this method damages the rail itself it presents a risk of derailment. To avoid this risk you may want to trip the ABS circuit by applying copper wire across the rails as well (method one). Again, this is a method police are likely to investigate thoroughly. Make sure all items you’re leaving behind are free of fingerprints and DNA. Have lookouts and careful off-camera approaches. Dispose of or destroy clothing and boots. Thermite burns hot and bright – do not stare after ignition. Very fine aluminum powder is reactive to oxygen and can ignite easily. If water (rain, snow, puddles) is added to burning thermite it will cause an explosion that sends molten iron flying outwards. DO NOT try to extinguish burning thermite with water.

Tkaronto Solidarity Actions with Wet’suwet’en

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Jan 102020

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info

On the one-year anniversary of Canada’s armed invasion of Wet’suwet’en territories, and in response to a call for solidarity with Wet’suwet’en people currently facing threat of another attack, a number of actions were taken in Tkaronto.

This report does not intend to claim responsibility for any of the actions and may not have covered everything. We merely hope to summarize actions we are aware of and state clearly that supporters here have their eyes on Wet’suwet’en and are ready to act.

Posters were plastered around a Toronto neighbourhood calling out the hypocrisy of the kkkanadian “reconciliation” narrative and directing attention towards national leaders who are poised to again invade unceded Wet’suwet’en lands.

A message was left at the door of Minister of Indigenous-Crown Relations Carolyn Bennett’s Toronto office.

Activists occupied the offices of AIMco and RBC, two major beneficiaries of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

Finally, hundreds gathered and took to the streets in Toronto’s financial district to stand in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en peoples and to tell CGL and its backers to stay the fuck off Wet’suwet’en land.

May these be the first of many more actions. Every opportunity and every weakness of the state should be seized upon. Every skill, tactic and talent we possess should be used to fight this horrific colonial project as hard as we can.

Love and solidarity to Wet’suwet’en land defenders and fuck capitalism and colonialism across Turtle Island.

Hamilton: Simultaneous Rail Sabotage at Bottlenecks in Solidarity with Wet’suwet’en Land Defenders

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Jan 092020

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info

A decade ago in a move that has inspired many, Wet’suwet’en people reoccupied their unceded territories as a way to begun healing and ensuring the land is protected in the ways she needs to sustain Wet’suwet’en people’s lives, practices, and continued existence in their traditional territories.

A year ago the RCMP violently invaded those territories to provide access for industry.

One week ago, the canadian state criminalized Anuk’ nu’at’en – Wet’suwet’en hereditary law – by granting an injunction which criminalizes Indigenous people and their allies should they protect the Yintah from the destructive forces of industry.

We honour these anniversaries with a giant fuck you to the state.

Early this morning settlers responded to calls of action coming from multiple Wet’suwet’en house groups after they bravely evicted industry from their unceded territories, as well as a call to action for settlers by settlers.

As one small way of pushing back against the colonial violence being enacted by our government we simultaneously disrupted three natural CN and CP railway bottlenecks at strategic locations with the intention and impact of shutting down all rail traffic going in and out of so-called Hamilton. We did this by using copper wires and jumper cables attached to fishplate wires as a way to interfere with the block circuits – see a video here (opens with TOR). The method is safe, easy, relatively low risk, and widely replicable.

CN rail has been and will continue to ship out pipe to storage yards in preparation of construction and have vast, isolated stretches of infrastructure. The first installations of rail had deep, lasting impacts on the colonization of Turtle Island and targeting it today directly effects so-called canada’s economy.

While these actions will only serve as a temporary disruption, we hope it sends a strong message: Respecting Indigenous sovereignty – anywhere on Turtle Island – is not optional. We will not be passive.

We hope others throughout Turtle Island – especially settlers – will join us in ensuring this is only the beginning, and make the Coastal GasLink pipeline untenable to both industry and the state in every way they can.

Dream Big: a Call to Action for the Wet’suwet’en

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Jan 052020

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info

Where have you gone?

Last January there were so many of you. Of us!

In the streets. Shutting down bridges, ports, highways, railways, centres of capital, fuel terminals, and even storming TC Energy facilities. We were rushing office buildings, hanging banners, harassing politicians, police, courts and more. Informing, engaging, inciting. Undoubtedly meeting late into the nights, kept awake by our dreams. Strategizing. We were angry, passionate, strong, and determined. It was beautiful! Inspiring – hopeful!

What happened?

We’re not done – this is still happening! Force is not consent. The RCMP – the same commanders who argued for lethal oversight – are still in Wet’suwet’en territories harassing people. They’ve had the audacity to set up a temporary detachment in a place they don’t belong, aren’t welcome, and have no jurisdiction over.

Man camp 9A is already operating beyond Unist’ot’en and CGL is hoping to build another, bigger one nearby this spring. Some 100 industry people are currently living at 9A, and more get shuttled in daily with trucks, while others are brought by helicopters that pollute the area with particulates and noise.

CGL and subcontractors are actively destroying the land every day by clearcutting the pipeline right of way and blowing holes through mountains with explosives. The activity has stressed wildlife, pushing them into new areas and onto roads which now have increased human traffic.

None of it should be happening.

This land is unceded Indigenous land.

For anyone who’s been there, the yintah is easy to want to defend and easy to be inspired by.

You drink straight from glacial headwaters of the Skeena-Bulkley system, which are the breeding grounds for 30% of the salmon. Pines tower over you in the sky, collecting and shedding snow into the silence of winter days with soft wooshes as giant ravens tree hop. In August, glacial mountains remain snow-capped, the Wedzin Kwah runs ice cold and turquoise, and blooming magenta fireweed paints the land as bald eagles race the length of the river.

It’s very picturesque – and all of it is a necessity to maintain as-is for the Wet’suwet’en to survive and thrive there. Right now, in these very moments, we all have a chance to help make that a possibility. And people are asking for our help; they never stopped. We did.

Why?

If you stopped because you weren’t sure what camp to support – support them all.

If you’re confused about what’s being asked for;

They need boots on the ground, especially long term boots (there is funding for Indigenous people to travel out there)
Action in line with the natural laws and ally agreements in place for territories on which you would be acting (this is different from permission).
The camps also have individual wish lists on their sites.

If you’re confused about where to start, start here:

Cracks in the Pavement: an informational site that provides tips and tricks for action prep, actions, and security.
https://seedingresistance.noblogs.org/
Another End of the World is Possible: an in depth guide that provides information of examples of resistance against extractive infrastructure.
Weak Points of Canada’s Resource Extraction: a site that talks about natural infrastructure bottlenecks and opportunities
https://mtlcounterinfo.org/weak-points-of-canadas-resource-exploitation-economy/

The alternative to simply not trying (different than ability) is complicity. Many of us enjoy our lives and the privileges within them be it travel, advancing careers, going to class, or leisure time.

This is not a guilt-inducing argument for you to “give it all up for the rev” – it’s an argument for you to prioritize and treat this struggle as you do the other things in your life; jobs, careers, classes, socialization, adventures, and travel. It’s an argument to take this seriously because it is serious and we need to take ourselves seriously; this is people’s actual lives and cultures at risk. This is Indigenous sovereignty and healing. In those this struggle is anti-colonial. And it is also anti-capitalist and anti-state where there’s room for many people taking many actions.

Consider this a call to action.

Consider it a timely encouragement to start building networks and momentum capable of adaptation, risk-taking, and energy capture.

Get together with your crews and start talking:

What are the things that allow you each to take risk? How can you build them and put them in place? How can we incorporate more energy and capacity in our actions without compromising security? What security practises and cultures do we want to make sure are in place as we proceed? What has worked well – here or elsewhere? If elsewhere, can it appropriately translate here?

What is the state? What is it comprised of – physically and symbolically? What are the weak points –they exist! What are the other components and players in this struggle? If capital is driving the project, how do we inhibit either capital itself, or profit?

Sleep tight friends, and dream big. Another end is possible.

All Eyes on Wet’suwet’en: International Call for Week of Solidarity!

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Jan 052020

From Unist’ot’en Camp

TUES JAN 7, 2020 (anniversary of RCMP-CGL raid) until SUN JAN 12, 2020

We call for solidarity actions from Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities who uphold Indigenous sovereignty and recognize the urgency of stopping resource extraction projects that threaten the lives of future generations.

Unceded and sovereign Wet’suwet’en land is under attack. On December 31, 2019, BC Supreme Court Justice Marguerite Church granted an injunction against members of the Wet’suwet’en nation who have been stewarding and protecting our traditional territories from the destruction of multiple pipelines, including Coastal GasLink’s (CGL) liquified natural gas (LNG) pipeline. Hereditary Chiefs of all five Wet’suwet’en clans have rejected Church’s decision, which criminalizes Anuk ‘nu’at’en (Wet’suwet’en law), and have issued and enforced an eviction of CGL’s workers from the territory. The last CGL contractor was escorted out by Wet’suwet’en Chiefs on Saturday, January 4, 2020.

We watched communities across Canada and worldwide rise up with us in January 2019 when the RCMP violently raided our territories and criminalized us for upholding our responsibilities towards our land. Our strength to act today comes from the knowledge that our allies across Canada and around the world will again rise up with us, as they did for Oka, Gustafsen Lake, and Elsipogtog, shutting down rail lines, ports, and industrial infrastructure and pressuring elected government officials to abide by UNDRIP. The state needs to stop violently supporting those members of the 1% who are stealing our resources and condemning our children to a world rendered uninhabitable by climate change.

Light your sacred fires and come to our aid as the RCMP prepares again to enact colonial violence against Wet’suwet’en people.

We ask that all actions taken in solidarity are conducted peacefully and according to the laws of the Indigenous nation(s) of that land.

For more information:

Wet’suwet’en Supporter Toolkit

Donate to Unist’ot’en

Donate to Gidimt’en

January 17th – Day of Action to Stop Line 3

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Jan 042020

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

From the headwaters of the Mississippi River, a call reverberates across Turtle Island: Stop Line 3!

The Dakota and Anishinaabeg people have lived, died, and cared for the waters in what’s now “Minnesota” since long before the founding of the United States. Enbridge Inc. proposes to place a tar sands pipeline across the lands and waters of indigenous people in northern Minnesota—a project called ‘Line 3’. This pipeline proposes to cross 211 waterbodies, some of the richest wild rice beds in the world, and violate the treaty rights of Anishinaabeg negotiated in 1837, 1854, and 1855. The Minnesota segment of Line 3 is the final holdout of a pipeline planned to send 1M barrels per day of oil sands from Alberta to the western edge of Lake Superior. Line 3 represents a 10% increase in tar sands production.

As the state of Minnesota weighs the final water crossing permits needed to build Line 3, we invite you to join us for a day of joyful, exuberant, and playful public engagement with the possibilities for life without oil. Indigenous, settler, migrant—we all agree: a world of extraction is not the world we want!

When we take action to support the Dakota and Anishinaabeg preserve their homelands and culture, together we open possibilities for reinventing our lives beyond colonialism and capitalism. You don’t have to be part of an organization, a government, or some other structured system to want something else. We want ethical ways of relating to each other and to the earth. This is the only home we have. From January 17th – January 19th we call all beings who want something different to gather and display this desire using the hashtag #StopLine3. From banner drops to rallies to roving street parties to demonstrations to teach-ins, anything that helps spread our joy and defiance is welcome.

The possiblities for another world exist now.

Website: https://lifewithoutline3.home.blog/
Instagram: @WaterIsLifeJ17

Extinguishing Rebellion

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Oct 242019

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Extinction Rebellion (XR) is an international environmental movement that calls itself non-violent and as extreme as the situation. It appeared on the Montreal scene around a year ago. On October 8, 2019, a handful of their activists realized a coup d’éclat, forcing the closure of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge for more than an hour in the middle of morning rush hour. Their actions show a willingness to put themselves physically in play that has become an unavoidable necessity in ecological struggle. In this sense, their courage and determination can only be reassuring. However, criticisms have also converged from somewhat all over in regards to their ideology and practices, raising issues that are important to address.

In Paris, where XR activists, among other things, erased anti-police tags during the ocucpation of a shopping mall, an open letter notes a dismissiveness toward police violence, a dogmatic non-violence that is insidiously violent, and the exclusion of the popular classes from the action framework. They are critiqued also for lacking a strategic reading of the situation and of power relationships.

A critique of the British branch of XR observes their profound misunderstanding of the functioning and impacts of judicial repression of activists.

Almost everyone makes fun of their desire to be arrested by the police, though it is not a joke, but the result of a bizarre and dangerous interpretation of social movement history. Not to mention it favors the construction of a white, middle-class movement, regardless of efforts to give the organization an intersectional facade.

Even faced with these partisans of a particularly intransigent pacifism, it’s stunning to realize how difficult it can be to distinguish between a real XR initiative and a hoax:

PLEASE.
DEAR READER.
DO NOT DO THIS.

“At this point, should you wish to take further action, red handed people are invited to continue the procession to a nearby police station to turn themselves in. “https://t.co/O6LdO5Jy3T pic.twitter.com/rO7mPAPXJf

— Anarchist ?Federation ❤? (@AnarchistFed) October 17, 2019

Others have engaged with the justifications that XR provides for non-violence. Let’s take a closer look at this. The group cites an academic study by Erica Chenoweth titled Why Civil Resistance Works to affirm that non-violent movements have succeeded twice as often as movements that used violence, between 1900 and 2006, in the context of conflicts between state and non-state forces. In such a complex world, we’d like if such neat statistics could guide us in choosing means of action. There are just a couple minor problems.

Number one: the study defines a “violent movement” as one in which more than 1000 armed combatants die on the battlefield. Thus excluding urban riots, as well as armed groups from the Red Army Faction to the Zapatistas. And indeed, struggles that lead to over 1000 battle deaths tend to be characterized by the substantial militarization of an intractable conflict, making it difficult for the non-state side to attain the goals that motivated it to mobilize at the start. The force of an insurrection is social, not military.

Secondly, for the purposes of the study, “non-violent movements” include those that are primarily, though not entirely non-violent. Note that no one is proposing a climate movement that would be primarily violent: instead it’s a question of making space for a diversity of tactics, where various modes of action are valued and ideally reinforce one another. That is to say a movement that a statistician could indeed classify as primarily non-violent, but where people in black bloc are on the front lines confronting the police, while nocturnal crews sabotage infrastructure without getting caught, allowing them to attack again and again. Nowhere in the study does non-violence translate to an obligation to turn oneself into police after breaking the law.

We might also ask questions about:

the tendency for power to name as “violent” all resistance that actually disrupts the normal course of affairs, regardless of the concrete acts involved;
the fact that it’s often violence from police forces that provokes a “violent” response from a social movement, in other words violence is often imposed on a movement when it poses a real threat to the powers in place;
the definition of victory vis-à-vis our multiple medium- and long-term goals, as well as the capacity for power to offer concessions at the price of pacification and recuperation: when the future of life on earth is at stake, is compromise possible?

In any case, using Why Civil Resistance Works to ground the claim that we need to sit down in the street making peace signs at the cops is an insult to activists’ intelligence. XR’s leaders should not try to make us believe they are guided by social science if they are in fact merely enacting a morality aligned with the police state or a desire to serve as legitimate intermediaries vis-à-vis power. XR tells governments to “tell the truth”, but when it’s a question of resistance strategies, they are not interested in an honest reflection on the choices before us.

Yet, we only need to look at any of the many places where rebels have succeeded in making power back down in recent months, whether in Hong Kong, Ecuador, Chili, or the gilets jaunes in France, or to understand the history of Indigenous land defense struggles in “Canada”, to come to a simple realization: a capacity for self-defense is essential if we are going to force capital and the state to really cede ground.

We don’t wish to overly repeat critiques of XR that have already been expressed well elsewhere. And XR presents its local instances as autonomous, so we would like to give their structures in Quebec the benefit of the doubt and not judge them too much based on the group’s actions in other countries, even if these often seem like the logical outcomes of the group’s founding ideology, to which chapters subscribe.

We’re also aware that any mass political organization contains lines of tension, so this intervention certainly does not target the entire group as individuals. On the contrary, we have no doubt that many of these activists will be amazing comrades and accomplices, from whom we will learn a lot, over coming years of the development of a diversified and determined struggle against the world that is destroying the planet.

In watching XR’s beginnings in Montreal, however, we have a couple concerns regarding the local organization.

In an interview on TVA Nouvelles after the shutdown of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge, a spokesperson of XR Montreal defends the activists who climbed on the bridge against the accusation of extremism by specifying that “they’re people like you and I, who were 100% non-violent, they didn’t resist the police, they discussed reasonably.” We have questions about what is meant by “like you and I” and which people or classes of people would fall outside this designation. We must also think about the effects of this type of discourse on those who are not 100% non-violent, who resist the police, who don’t see an advantage to discussing reasonably. Logically, these people would be the “extremists”, and they would deserve the harsher treatment in the media and in the courts that this term entails.

This discourse feeds the creation of a division between good and bad protesters, which tends to increase repression experienced by those who are already taking the biggest risks, who seek a total rupture with the devastating order of capital and the state. In addition, it sabotages the creation of links between groups and individuals that would strengthen the struggle.

We’ve also seen awareness-raising efforts and a handful of sit-in style actions, the last one occurring the afternoon of October 8th after the bridge blockade in the morning. The gathering of 250 people was unable to attain the action’s target after the SPVM’s riot police lines didn’t budge faced with shouts of “we’re non-violent, please let us through!”, followed by the chant “Police, go softly, we’re doing this for your children”. The deadening scene spoke for itself as to the limits of a “civil” disobedience that is in fact fully captured within a servility extinguishing any real perspective of rebellion.

We would be delighted if events to come contradicted us, but we believe we’re seeing the same dynamics that have elicited legitimate criticisms of XR elsewhere in the world emerging in their discourse and means of action in Montreal. It’s not about rejecting any pathway that diverges from our own, but about naming strategic and tactical failures for what they are, refusing an absence of solidarity with rebels that don’t adopt total pacifism, and creating the conditions for a real collective intelligence in struggle. In the hour of climate emergency, we don’t have time for illusions.

Climate Strike: The Time Is Ours!

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Oct 202019

From Les temps fous

The morning of September 27th, the streets of Montreal and Quebec City were taken by storm by a historic human tide. Hundreds of thousands, young and old, hit the street in response to the international call for a Global Climate Strike. This call for a planetary strike arrived in Quebec in the spring, when student associations and teachers’ unions began voting to walk out on September 27. In the summer, cégep administrations, threatened by the prospect of illegal strikes by teachers, decided to make the day of September 27 an “institutional day” and arrange the calendar accordingly. Institutional days, as a mechanism for capturing and absorbing strikes, gradually spread throughout the entire Quebec education system, from elementary schools to universities. If, at first, one could be satisfied that more than 600,000 people would be “freed” by the authorities to participate in the demonstration of September 27, doubts arise with respect to the future of the movement and its autonomy. The strike as a voluntary and collective interruption of daily routine has been diverted by school administrations, which used institutional days to ensure that they would maintain control of the agenda and temporality of the struggle.

On September 17, the administration of the CSDM (francophone secondary school board) sent a letter to parents informing them that a pedagogical day would be moved to allow students to participate in the demonstration of the 27th. Beyond the calendar change, the letter was an opportunity for the CSDM to openly threaten students who would seek to strike beyond September 27:

2. Advise your child that in no case may he prevent other students from attending class, since the scolarisation of students is a fundamental right that must be respected;

3. Remind your child that he must show evidence of civility and not participate in blocking access to school in any way whatsoever, with respect to anyone, because this may constitute mischief under the meaning of the law.

All while arranging the calendar to permit protesting on September 27, the CSDM in this way seeks to ensure that the Friday strikes affecting many schools last spring don’t reproduce themselves. It reminds us that institutional days decided from above enable the intermediary powers that are school boards, cegeps, and universities to delegitimize strike days decided from below.

At the university level, the situation at Polytechnique lucidly revealed the fears of power regarding the movement’s development. Despite an electronic vote by students more than 78% in favor of class cancellations, the Polytechnique administration refused to accept the “request” for a levée de cours. Polytechnique director-general Philippe A. Tanguy – former engineer with the French oil company Total – justified this refusal by saying:

“Polytechnique supports this cause, but we are also aware that, unfortunately, this global day of action will not be sufficient to resolve the climate issue; there will be others, and we will not be able to cancel classes for all of these days”.

His justification effectively shows the limits of asking authorities to cancel classes. Despite the adoption of institutional days in many institutions, we cannot forget that a strike never awaited approval by bosses and other authorities to be carried out, and that it’s perfectly normal that it disrupts the institution’s calendar and daily routine, and more largely, society.

The major union federations also played a key role in the disappearance of the strike from public discourse. While various unions began adopting strike mandates for the climate outside of the Labour Code’s legal framework, the union federations explicitly intervened in the movement by demanding that protest organizers stop calling for workers to strike. In place of the collective “Planet on Strike”, formed by workers at the grassroots level, the collective “The Planet Comes to Work” substituted itself, coordinated by union federation leaders. Whereas Planet on Strike aimed to shake up the legality of strikes in Quebec by assuming at the same time the necessity and illegality of the strike, The Planet Comes to Work sought to mobilize workplaces while eliminating all mention of striking from posters, flyers and communications. During the press conference on September 27, Serge Cadieux, spokesperson of The Planet Comes to Work and secretary-general of the FTQ, reminded us of the federations’ lack of political courage by refusing to mention the ten or so unions that had chosen to strike and reaffirming the federations’ submission to the Labour Code. Beyond their lack of political courage to reappropriate the strike outside its legal framework, Serge Cadieux reminded us of the depoliticization of contemporary syndicalism: he affirmed that “there is no opposition between the economy and ecology” and that unions were working with “the world of management” and “the world of finance” in order to confront the climate crisis.

The proximity between the union federations and political and economic power is not new, although one might have thought that in the current context of climate crisis the federations would see the necessity of a rupture with the capitalist system. Far from it! In any case we have no illusions about the union federations’ role in the climate strike movement which has been and will be one of pacification and recuperation.

Through their support of the movement, administrators, politicians and bosses strive to drain environmental questions of all their political character. A flattened “struggle” emerges, without conflict, in which there are no guilty or responsible parties. We all agree on the importance of the environment and we march together to underline it, as if fossil fuel development, the appropriation and destruction of land, or the destruction of rivers and oceans were natural processes escaping our control. Desjardins, National Bank, and CIBC take measures allowing their employees to miss work to protest, MEC closes its stores, alongside a long list of companies ranging from a legal firm to an advertising agency. Joining protesters in the streets, heads of state, ministers and CEOs appear as citizens like the others, who’ll promise to stop buying plastic straws, for their children’s future. They deny the political character of the environmental movement, as if the future of the planet depended more on the good will of each individual than on the decisions they make. By flattening and pacifying what should be a struggle, they try to contain environmental issues within the straitjacket of individual consumption, wherein everyone must do their part, and the 500,000 demonstrators do not realize the collective force that could be produced by their encounter.

Green capitalism’s recuperation of environmental struggles has refined itself now over several decades. It’s probably because these struggles have the capacity to put a colonial and capitalist world into question that they’ve been neutralized so effectively. But for once, the discourse of recuperation sounds oddly false. The generation that grew up surrounded by the same lies, that tell it to study, recycle, work, eat local, and impoverish itself for an increasingly uncertain future, refuses to continue playing the game. Throughout recent months, we’ve seen strike votes passing with huge majorities in unexpected cégeps, illegal strike mandates in local unions, and high school students organizing strikes and weekly demonstrations over many months.

Behind the “strike for the planet” lie questions that largely exceed the stakes within which labor strikes are legally contained. The strike for the planet is not a “pressure tactic” in hopes of getting better working conditions or blocking a tuition hike. Politicians are asked to “do more”, but the rare efforts to define what that could mean fall flat. No demand appears able to contain the extent of the stakes raised by the movement. It’s the very condition of the worker or student subject that could be thrown into question by this strike: why continue studying, working, and investing in your RRSP while the world crumbles beneath our feet? The strike for the planet has the capacity to see itself for what it is, a political strike capable of interrupting the temporality of this death-machine world, a temporality where the growth of capital and colonization is interwoven with the acceleration of ecological catastrophe. In the hour of climate emergency, it is no longer a question of pleading with authority for liberation, but rather of Striking in the most political sense, that is to say destituting our everyday life by collectively retaking each moment of our existences. We can no longer follow the rhythm of a protest movement fenced in by the state. We must strike, interrupt, and radically transform our relation to the world and to time.

More than 3000 People in Chicoutimi Against the Destructive GNL Québec Project

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Oct 092019

From the Collectif Emma Goldman

On September 27th, we were more than 3000 students, retirees, children, and workers marching in the streets of downtown Chicoutimi to denounce government inaction on the environment and the destructive GNL Québec project (Énergie Saguenay). The latter consists of the construction of a natural gas liquifaction complex in Grande-Anse and a 750km-long gas pipeline (gazoduc). In parallel, in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, 3000 people took part in the demonstration in Alma and hundreds of individuals marched in Saint-Félicien as well as in the Saint-Coeur-de-Marie neighborhood of Alma. In Quebec City, 25,000 people took the streets and in Montreal, a historic mobilization brought together almost half a million people.

Feeling the pressure, the premier of Quebec François Legault thought it wise to reach out to the youth, while his vice-premier made calls for calm, waving strawmen. The environment sinister speaks of a “green” third link, a bridge-tunnel, for Quebec City and of his government’s favorable opinion of the gas pipeline and liquifaction plant project. In this file, the business-friendly government of François Legault takes up the promoter’s half-truths and willful omissions. He states that hypothetically (with nothing guaranteeing that coal plants would close in China, as Énergie Saguenay claims) the project will reduce greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere in the world… But like the promoters, François Legault neglects to mention that the project will produce greenhouse gases here and elsewhere in Canada. It is necessary to also take into account the fatal risk posed by the completion of this project to the threatened beluga population.

“How dare you?” – Greta Thunberg

Obviously, some opportunist politicians were present at the different demonstrations. In Chicoutimi, Bloc Québécois candidate Mario Simard and municipal councillor Simon-Olivier Côté were smooth talkers, skating around questions related to the GNL project. “I see no contradiction between going to a march and being for or against big projects. I’m not in favor of or opposed to any project. What I have, is that we ensure that environmental norms and evaluations are respected.” (link) said the councillor from district 8 and ‘king‘ of the parking lots of downtown Chicoutimi.

In 1970, this kind of comment might have been preferable to the comments of the former Liberal Party of Canada candidate, now a Conservative candidate, and Saguenay city councillor, Marc Pettersen. But we are no longer here. There is a climate emergency.

“If we do not change direction by 2020, we risk[…] disastrous consequences for the people and natural systems that support us,” said Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General. Our times require, for the good of the greatest number of people, that our society abandon fossil fuels and begin a necessary economic degrowth. Our economy should be based on the satisfaction of real individual and collective needs, oriented towards sustainability and according to existing resources.

Members and friends of the anarchist Emma Goldman Collective took advantage of the occasion to distribute dozens of copies of the journal Cause Commune Express no 31 (link).

Banners Dropped in Alma

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Oct 072019

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Alma, September 26th, 2019. Two banners were dropped this morning in downtown Alma near the offices of Economic Development Canada. They read: “Industrial development is killing us! We don’t want a job, we want a life!”. The government body that recently gave out $2 million in funding to the metallurgy sector was symbolically targeted. The action, signed by the living waters committee, takes place in the context of the climate strike movement and aims to denounce industrial and extractive projects in the region.

The anonymous committee denounces the Gazoduc (gas pipeline) project which would cross the regions of Abitibi, Mauricie, and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, the GNL Québec natural gas liquifaction terminal in Saguenay, the Lac-à-Paul mine, and the deep-water port of Ariane Phosphate in Ste-Rose-du-Nord, as well as BlackRock Metals’ mine and rail transport between Chibougamau and Saguenay. According to one of the action’s instigators, “these projects are a nuisance to the environment and to all the populations of the region. The argument of well-paying jobs is worthless. The price to pay is the destruction of marine life, breathtaking landscapes, fragile ecosystems, and vulnerable species. We need to stop the extraction of ‘natural resources’ as soon as possible and understand that we’re in a relation of interdependence with the ecosystems surrounding us. We need to stop relations of domination over our environment now.”

The committee makes a call for action, in a diversity of tactics, to put an end to the environmental massacre as quickly as possible! “We must mobilize immediately against every new industrial development and invest the time, energy, and money necessary to develop sustainable local initiatives that don’t come at a cost to other species of flora and fauna.”

In conclusion, the living waters committee announces that other targeted actions are in preparation.

– The Harlequin Duck

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