Pipelines & Exploitation of the Earth

Strengthening the Front Lines

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Sep 182019

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Respectful greetings.

Construction work is ongoing to strengthen the various Wet’suwet’en front lines. Meanwhile Coastal GasLink continues to push ahead with its fracked gas pipeline. The following are various opportunities for people with construction and other skills to stand with the Wet’suwet’en:

Unist’ot’en Healing Lodge and other Village structures

During the last week of October and early November there will be a concerted push to complete the Healing Lodge. This beautiful and functional building has become the key embodiment of the Wet’suwt’en fight for sovereignty and against industrial destruction. The Healing Lodge is about 95% complete – it would be a great achievement to be able to declare this project finished this fall. Over the last several months good progress has also been made on other Village structures including a root cellar, tool shed and green house. These projects also require some additional work.

All levels and varieties of skills (construction and other) are needed.If you can join us during this time, please:
1. Reply to this email, and
2. Go to https://unistoten.camp/come-to-camp/camp-registration/ to apply to attend the Unist’ot’en Village

Of course, volunteers are needed at all times at the Unist’ot’en Village, so please apply to come whatever your availability is.

Other Wet’suwet’en Clans also need construction help.

Likhts’amisyu

There will be a Sovereign Likhts’amisyu Action Camp from September 25th to October 4th. This is its first-ever action camp on traditional territory recently reclaimed from the Canadian state. The Likhts’amisyu is building a community on the site of an ancient village. The focus is on creating a Climate Change Research Centre – a complement to the healing focus of the Unist’ot’en Village.

The Action Camp will be multi-faceted with many activities besides construction going on. And, as with all the front lines, allies are needed at all times – not just during the Action Camp. For more information and to apply to attend, go to https://likhtsamisyu.com

Gidimt’en

The Gidimt’en Clan has established a substantial presence on its Territory. Work is ongoing to strengthen this place – which was the location of the largest recent confrontation in the Wet’suwet’en stand to protect its land. As you will recall, it was here in January of this year that the militarised RCMP arrested and brutalised 14 members and allies of the Gidimt’en Clan. Work is ongoing to strengthen this assertion of Gidimt’en sovereignty.

For more information and to apply to come to Gidimt’en Territory, go to
https://www.yintahaccess.com/

———————————————————————————————————————————————–

Coastal GasLink, and its allies in government and the RCMP, tramples on Indigenous sovereignty, ignores the environmental consequences of its actions and thinks only of dollars to be made. But, the Wet’suwet’en Nation has defended its lands for thousands of years. Never defeated in battle, never signed a treaty, never negotiated away its land, the Wet’suwet’en live by their longstanding principles.

With good will and determination, this fight can be won.

Stand with the Wet’suwet’en! Stand with those protecting our ability to live on this Earth!

“Heal the Land; Heal the People”

New Wet’suwet’en Village on Unceded Land! Support Requested

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Aug 122019

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Many of us in the environmental movement share a dream of a free society, in which people live together, caring for the land they inhabit. We imagine such a community as an autonomous zone, existing independently of the colonial, capitalist system we oppose.

I am pleased to report that I now write these words from exactly such a place. I now find myself by the shore of Parrott Lake, on a territory belonging to the Sun House of the Likhts’amisyu Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. The exact place where we now camp was a Wet’suwet’en village site for many generations. In subsequent waves of colonial violence, the Wet’suwet’en were driven from this ancestral home. Now they have reclaimed it and are building a new village, which is be a place of cultural revitalization, of learning, of healing, and of stewardship of the land.

Some context is required here. The Likhts’amisyu is one of the five clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. For the last ten years, the Wet’suwet’en have been resisting an array of pipelines through which industry intends to ship diluted bitumen and fracked gas to the Northwest Coast for export. The focal point of these efforts has been the Unist’ot’en Camp, a long-standing territorial re-occupation which was built directly in the path of the proposed pipeline corridor. Years of resistance have caused multiple multi-billion-dollar projects to be delayed and/or cancelled. Things came to a head this winter, when the Coastal GasLink pipeline corporation obtained an injunction against the camp. In response, a blockade was established on a neighbouring territory by members of another Wet’suwet’en clan, the Gidimt’en. This was done as an act of solidarity with the Unistot’en, and was announced in the Wet’suwet’en feast hall, with the support of all five clans.

For three weeks, the Gidimt’en Access Checkpoint, as the new camp was called, blocked pipeline workers and police from entering the territory. Then, on January 7th, 2019, militarized federal police raided the Gidimt’en camp, arresting 14 people and setting off a Canada-wide wave of protests. Two days later, the RCMP breached the gate of the Unist’ot’en Camp, and pipeline workers entered the territory, where they began destroying a vast swath of forest to make way for the pipeline right-of-way, as well as a large man camp to house pipeline workers.

It is important that people realize that this fight is far from over. Although preliminary work has begun on the pipeline, and the LNG export terminal in the coastal city of Kitimat, no pipe has yet been laid. The events of December and January should be regarded as one phase in a struggle that has been going on for a decade.

A new phase of struggle has begun, and the Likhts’amisyu village represents a continuation and an expansion of Wet’suwet’en resistance. Part of the strategy is to stymie CGL by blocking them at multiple points. Whereas at the beginning of December, there was one camp resisting ongoing colonialism on Wet’suwet’en territory, there are now three – the Unist’ot’en, the Gidimt’en, and the Likhts’amisyu.

In the wake of the events of the winter, the Likhts’amisyu decided that the time was right to assert their sovereignty, and in May of this year, they began the process of building a new village. They received a donation of a significant number of logs, which they used to begin building log cabins. This was fortunate, as all of this construction has been done on a shoestring budget, with community members paying out of their pockets for many expenses. As things currently stand, one log cabin is built and awaits the addition of a roof, a second is being built, and the foundation for a third has been laid. The roofs will have to wait until some more funds come in. The plan is to have all three cabins constructed before the snow comes this Fall. In addition to this, a kitchen / mess hall has also been mostly built, and will be completed within the week.

The reclamation of this exact location is something that members of the Likhts’amisyu Clan had dreamed of for years. This is a traditional village site, likely inhabited by the Wet’suwet’en for centuries, if not millenia. It is located some 40 kilometres South of the logging town of Houston, by the shores of a beautiful mountain lake now called Parrott Lake. Close to the lake, there are alpine meadows rich in berry patches, likely evidence of Wet’suwet’en burning practices. A historic cremation site is located nearby. Many of the folks here speak of the strength of the connection they feel to this place, and of childhood memories of good times here. Everyone agrees: it feels right to be here. One woman spoke of incredibly vivid dreams in which her great-grandmother insisted that she understand how important it was that she bring her family out here.

This place was home to a traditional village up until the turn of the 20th century, when it was burned down as part of a government plan to force all indigenous people onto reserve. Although this marked the end of the village, in the following decades there was at least one Likhts’amisyu cabin here.

Back in 1995, Likhts’amisyu chief Dtsa’hayl built a cabin here, which was burned down five years later by a foresty worker. Apparently this was accidental, but the Wet’suwet’en received no compensation. In recent years, the site has been called the Parrott Lake Recreation Site, and has been managed by B.C. Parks and Recreation, which is the branch of the Ministry of Forests that maintains camp sites. As of now, B.C. Parks and Recreation has taken a very respectful approach to the Wet’suwet’en re-occupation, and there have been talks about managing the site in some kind of partnership. This may be due in part to the very friendly, non-confrontational tact taken by the camp leaders here. The vibe here is open and welcoming. When locals do come out to camp, to swim or to go boating, they are greeted in a friendly way, and will often be invited for tea, coffee, or to share food.

On a less positive note, there have been threatening comments made on Facebook against the Likhts’amisyu village. The Likhts’amisyu village is kept occupied 24/7, due to the fear of local people burning down the cabins and out-buildings. Sadly, there is a long history of Wet’suwet’en homes being destroyed maliciously by settlers. It will be important to have support throughout the Fall and Winter in order to maintain a constant presence here.

In terms of bringing Wet’suwet’en community members together, the Likhts’amisyu camp has already met with great success. Often, especially on weekends, the camp has the feeling of a family reunion – people sharing food, telling stories and reminiscing by the fire, while kids and dogs run and play. There are paddle-boards and kayaks here, and the water is perfect. Every evening, from where we sit by the fire, we see the sun paint the sky magnificent colours as it sets over the lake. Clan members have commented on how the village is bringing their families closer together.

All this to say, there is more to the Likhts’amisyu village than opposition to the pipeline. To clan members, it represents a deep yearning for a return to their ancestral way of life. There is a hope that perhaps the day has come when they can at last return home.

There are also plans for a climate change research centre here. The leaders of the Likhts’amisyu Camp are in talks with a respected NGO and the University of Northern British Columbia to collaborate on this project. They are also planning litigation against CGL, and the governments of Canada and B.C.

Both the climate change research centre and the lawsuit reflect the view that the Likhts’amisyu have in regards to the fight against the CGL pipeline – that the struggle to protect their territory is a long-term, intergenerational one, and that it is important in this day and age to fight intelligently, using all tools at their disposal. Chief Dtsa’hayl speaks about the need to seize the initiative in the fight against CGL. The hope is that the lawsuit, in combination with the hard data gained through on-the-ground research, will enable the clan to put the pipeline companies on the defensive.

Although the Likhts’amisyu village is an indigenous-led camp, its leaders envision the participation of non-natives as equal community members. They plan to invite people to homestead here, irrespective of race. If a settler wants to live out here, and help build this community, they may be welcomed to do so. If this sounds like a dream come true for you, you are encouraged to come visit the camp.

Help with the construction activities would very much be appreciated, but we also encourage people to come just to visit. We feel that people who do so will feel a personal connection to this place, and will want to support what is happening here.

In short, what is happening here is new and different, exciting and inspiring. Thus far, there has not been as much support from environmental activists as one would hope. The vast majority of work has been done by Wet’suwet’en community members. This is partly due to the fact that the activities of the Likhts’amisyu are not yet widely known-about. To address this, we are specifically requesting that folks with media production skills, such as photography, videography, video-editing, and podcasting, support us by using their skills to help boost the profile of the Likhts’amisyu Camp.

Lastly, funds are needed. As previously mentioned, we are limited in what we are able to do by monetary constraints. We are building a second log cabin before putting a roof on the first because we need funds for building supplies to complete said roof. Any support would be appreciated – we would greatly appreciate it if supporters would consider hosting fund-raising events or make funding requests on our behalf.

If you feel inspired to do such a thing, if you would like to volunteer to produce media in support of this project, or if you could simply just like to visit, please do no hesitate to get in touch.

We also encourage folks who can to donate to the Sovereign Likhts’amisyu GoFundMe page, a link to which can be found below.

Here are some useful links:

1. The Go Fund Me page is at: https://www.gofundme.com/manage/likhtsamisyu2019
2. The promotional video is at: https://vimeo.com/332477793
3. The Likhtsamisyu website is at: www.likhtsamisyu.com
4. The Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/likhtsamisyu/
5. The main email for people to reach the chiefs is: likhtsamisyu@gmail.com
6. The main email for people to reach the support team is: likhtsamisyu@riseup.net
7. To subscribe to the Likhts’amisyu listserv, please write likhtsamisyu@riseup.net introducing yourself and saying why and how you would like to support current organizing efforts.

We also ask that people share the above links through their social media accounts and amongst their friends and comrades. Thank you very much!

Call Out for Action, List of Contractors for CGL

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Jun 032019

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

A warm greeting to our companions, It seems our meetings get warmer every
year.

We write to you as our planet reaches record breaking degradation and heads of industry make further plans still.

We write to you as the canadian government engages in low-intensity warfare on Wet’suwet’en communities from the raid on Gidumt’en, the invasion of Unist’ot’en, surveillance, police checkpoints, armed patrols, to the perpetuation of murdered and missing indigenous women. Slow genocide without a name.

Without regard for the court decision on the injunction and occupation of Wet’suwet’en land, we must support the reestablishment and reoccupation by Wet’suwet’en on the territory. For neither colonial court ruling, nor white man’s promises, can grant or guarantee indigenous people our sovereignty, and our dignity.

These are either self manifested or lost.

Good news companions, we have the means for rebellion but not the calling. A secret risk assessment by the (G.O.C.) according to a FOIA request, explains that Unist’ot’en has earned itself the title of “Ideological and Physical focal point of aboriginal resistance”. What better catalyst than a solidarity day of action with Unist’ot’en and Gidumt’en resistance?

But, you are far away companions…

So we ask you to:

Fight where you stand.
Recognize which corporations are engaged. Included is a list of key industry contractors currently operating after the invasion by the RCMP.
Spread word to your unions, networks, media, family and friends. Get creative.
Rebel, attack, and don’t get captured, for we must see past the peaks of our triumphs and the valleys of our defeats. This is a multi-generational struggle.
Explain to your children that what we sow we will not see the harvest. They must carry on the fighting if and when we get the privilege of death → having lived.

Let rebellion never end! (as war never does) Let it begin June 15 TH, 2019.

We hope it’s loud, but we’ll take quiet.
We hope it’s direct, but we’ll take symbolic.
But we’re tired of hoping and we need commitment.

REBEL!

Rebellion like a butterfly who flies over a sea with no island. The flutter of her wings is often the origin of the greatest hurricanes.

FOR INDIGENOUS SOVEREIGNTY…
FOR THE LOVE OF OUR EARTH…
FOR THE LOVE OF OUR CHILDREN…

SHUT DOWN CANADA

Sovereign Likhts’amisyu Spring Construction Has Begun!

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May 042019

From Sovereign Likhts’amisyu

Dear Friends, Allies, Comrades, and Supporters,

We are pleased to announce that preliminary work has begun on the Likhts’amisyu Spring Construction Camp.

This project is an initiative being led by two hereditary chiefs of the Likhts’amisyu Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. For the past ten years, the Wet’suwet’en have been fiercely resisting pipeline development on their territories. Things came to a head back in January, when the RCMP raided a resistance camp on the territory of the Gidimt’en, another Wet’suwet’en clan.

Although Spring has come to Wet’suwet’en territory, the future site of the Sovereign Likhts’amisyu camp is up in the mountains, and the snow there has yet to melt. Therefore, we must be patient and lay all the groundwork that we can while we wait for Mother Nature to do her thing. In the meantime, however, we are keeping ourselves busy, and are pre-fabricating a log cabin off-site.

We are also very much keen to recruit more helpers! Although the dates of the Likhts’amisyu Spring Construction camp were scheduled for the dates of April 28th to May 18th, the reality is that we will be requiring assistance throughout the Spring, Summer, and Fall seasons. We are planning to build a log cabin, a kitchen / mess hall, a wood shed, and a root cellar. Please consider making a trip out to Wet’suwet’en territory in the coming months to help with this grassroots, indigenous-led effort to defend Mother Earth from the threat of industrial devastation posed by the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

We are planning to move our construction crew out onto the territory on May 13th. We encourage people to come on that date, prepared to stay and to work. If you are planning on coming, or even if you’re just considering it, please do not hesitate to get in touch by emailing us at likhtsamisyu@riseup.net

Also, although we have been somewhat successful in our fund-raising efforts, we are still a long way away from our goal. We have priced out over $40 000 worth of construction materials, without including a budget for food or transportation costs. To date, we have raised only about $8000. Thankfully, this is enough for us to get started, however, it means that we must continue to fund-raise as we go. We have created a GoFundMe page, and we would highly appreciate it if folks would donate and/or share the campaign on their social media accounts.

Here are some useful links:

For an Earth Night (every night): 40 cars have tires slashed in the Montreal area

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Apr 232019

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Earth Day, 2019: floods spread across southern Quebec, federal police protect fossil fuel companies against indigenous land defenders from coast to coast of so-called Canada, climate refugees are held at gunpoint by right-wing gangs in Arizona, 150 species go extinct on an average day, while people in different parts of the world brace for record-setting forest fires, hurricanes, and typhoons. And a handful of environmental nonprofits and their paid activists bankrolled by elite philanthropists beholden to big corporations expect us to believe that we’ll convince governments to enact the change needed to save the planet if only we march in orderly circles enough times with enough people, handing ourselves over to the police if we temporarily disturb anyone’s daily routine.

We take the climate strikers’ proposition seriously: by refusing to go to class, without asking for permission, if only for one afternoon per week for now, they show the necessity of acting directly to interrupt the normal reproduction of this society that is killing the earth. We, too, think we need to leave the path of legality, as well as the path of civil disobedience, the one that leads from sit-ins for the cameras to nights in jail and interminable court dates, which make it quite a bit harder to stay in the struggle.

So instead of participating in Earth Day festivities, on the night of April 22, we slashed tires of 40 cars in different Montreal neighborhoods. We don’t claim to have done anything significant in itself towards defending a livable future. Nor do we wish to put personal consumer choices such as car ownership at the center of a strategy for fighting ecological devastation. We chose this small gesture to offer a glimmer of the quality of disruption that this economy and society require if future generations and our own are going to have a chance at a dignified life on this planet.

We chose neighborhoods occupied by the rich, mostly luxury cars in the driveways of million-dollar homes. We targeted those who profit off the unfathomable level of destruction incurred on the earth by capital and colonization, and who will be the most sheltered from the impacts of the climate catastrophe that is just beginning, if they have their way. The wealthy can afford to move when their houses are flooded year after year. The rich will have the largest economic buffers as the state tries to individualize responsibility for the climate crisis, and carbon taxes and other last-ditch efforts at maintaining this society place the burden on the poor.

Earth Day, 2020: climate riots in every major city. Practically no one can get to work in the morning, if their factory or tech startup hasn’t yet been decommissioned and looted by former pacifists. Indigenous land defenders and allies have fought off incursions by oil companies and are enlarging pockets of autonomy from the Canadian state. Networks of solidarity and attack considerably impede border enforcement. Carbon emissions have begun falling drastically due to the sheer drop in worldwide industrial activity brought about by the revolt. The effects of a changed climate will be felt for centuries still; people die in floods and hurricanes, in conflicts with reactionary forces and the state, and some of old age, with the knowledge that they fought, and that others will keep fighting.

We can dream (and slash tires).

Décivilize: the Endgame

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Apr 192019

From Décivilize

Welcome back!

This marks the reboot of the eco-anarcho blog Antidev! Now under the improved, catchier name DÉCIVILIZE. You may use the old or the new name as you wish! For those who don’t know what the fuck was that blog… what is a blog… or what’s was this blog’s purpose… well it is still accessible at https://antidev.wordpress.com, or have fun reading the wall of text below.

As for this blog, we promise it to be a little different, yet continuing upon the same effort of bringing to light (even if that’s relative) the critiques, thoughts, projects, actions and sensibilities of the anarchistic eco-rebellion, especially the one that rises against the Leviathan of techno-industrial, consumerist social mess, in a diversity of forms and from a multitude of contexts, in both French and English, and perhaps more! This time around we’ll be looking for contributors willing to translate -to and fro- some texts/articles/reports to Chinese, Korean as well as native/indigenous languages, in an effort to “disown” green anarchy as a Euro/settler paradigm, and make it known to more than just “White” Westerners… try to make it better spread globally, outside of the toxic NGO politics.

So this is how this shit all started…

Proepilogue

This past effort, the Antidev blog was launched out of a will to communicate something, but more deeply out of a few underlying hypotheses that eventually were somewhat proven true…

Over these three years I confronted myself to the world «outside», turning myself inside out, shelving that internet «presence», far away from that bunker of self-seclusion, back to the world closer to those few reading and following this blog, and also and especially to the rest who had near-zero chances of having ever read from it. Sometimes making a fool of myself… going through a few hardships and personal drama… «feeling society» at its worst… even doing institutional entryism…

So, what I have found out there (…or in there?)… was of course a vast web of self-deception, or delusion, and a lot people being distracted by wasteful shit on a thousand plateaus of rather bad social theater, other vaudevillian comedy or even more often some depressing waste of time and energy. In other words, society. Set on a quest to understand their incredible carelessness, their unassumed absurdity, their mindless sociality, I had a taste of their politics, only to realize that it was just, capitalist politics… no worse, no better; just not as good as their external pretenses spectacularize. For sure, I am most likely not a better person than they are, if there is any value, save a meaning, to each other’s goodness. Their world, and my world, is driven by the virtual facades and their politics. How can it be escaped?

The world we produce can only be attacked, subverted, and/or destroyed. But, how to sling at the Leviathan? This may be the most important question of our age. Also a very tough one.

A blog can still be used for a few things, including firing pot shots at society in its thousands of reified shapes and forms, and situations. A blog surely does little more than entertaining you for a moment, as you pause in the midst of your daily barrage of alienation. A blog is not a living thing. «I» am not even a living being, even if the one writing this could potentially be alive (but then again, could I consider this as life?). The blogosphere isn’t as important as it used to be, but like other older structures of the internet, it will remain useful especially for those seeking to escape the big data traps of corporate social media, but not significantly more so than a street post, wall or panel to vandalize.

A big issue with the past blog was how it attempted to be «connect with the world» (or was reflecting its author(s) attempt at doing so) by being a kind of social media, or at best an estuary -or a beach head- to the wider social media. This has been solved by the vast invasion of corporate social media of the past few years, that made such efforts irrelevant anyways. So, good evils. Also some positionning… some fronting that emerged from this blog was pretentious, and sometimes misguided, lacking careful background considerations of who/what it was backing, siding with agendas or interests that only followed their own short-sighted views. Taking sides with the wrong political agencies can easily be an outcome in the smoke and mirrors of the internet, so it may be more cautious to post more intelligently, even if this could mean posting less often, or avoid the social media reaction trap in regards to «world events», more local politics, identity politics, and else.

It may be a benefit of the near-defeat of the «blogosphere» by corporate social media, that it is no longer relevant of attempting to be an interlocutor in the virtual agora of the «masses», engaging in prefab debates or the depersonalized «big issues» of State politics, now that this tribune is pretty much enclosed within the walls of big business. If only for sanity’s sake. Did it matter anyway? Aren’t these masses, aggregates, products of big business, and their State, groomed and programmed by it, after all? How to be autonomous while at the same time getting attention, in a preset discourse with a spectacular mass made of likely forged personas and positions?

The world is a slightly different place since April 2011. The newer generation, like every generation, sold themselves to the social machine until the new normal became existent back again, after this brief and inarticulate moment of social rupture in 2012, and «history», once again, negated its own existence, enforced its immuability, as the world of before reasserted itself to the present, and keeps planting its seeds for future global domination.

But then why keep publishing, when everyone’s getting their daily fill of crap through social media? Do people, in their daily social trance, still «deserve» it?

A few do! Since a few are interested on this radical otherness, that may not have been translated, expressed properly, to do it proper justice after this first attempt, during this past five years period. As a few are showing, in words but more importantly in practice, this refusal, this rejection this big «No» directed at the world, the Existent, even if the latter keeps being enforced, being reproduced, no matter what, even by those «friends» around us, or this less identifiable sanctified «people» we’re all supposed to be part of. People want a «life»! How can we blame them for it? It’s not their fault… they just ain’t asking significant enough questions.

Also because, for its creator(s), it is fun and creative! As a kind of art project. But unlike the contemporary productive/lucrative activity we call Art, it can be one that also serves a collective purpose of agitation, subversion, solidarity, counter-info, education, maybe even liberation.

How to turn your life into a bomb, against the world that destroys you anyways

Let’s be clear that it is always a small decided minority that changes «things»; those interested in experimenting, pandering with devices and mechanisms around, to practice the dangerous magic of «changing reality», and yes, my interest is still into this. It may even start with a few explosive individuals.

But a few fundamental questions equally deserve being asked, about the who and the why these changes have to be set in motion, and at what cost – questions I think are unavoidable to any autonomous insurgent. Most often, the struggle is so self-evident that it doesn’t bear such philosophical questioning at the inception; yet equally, things tend to not be exactly what they seem, and some aspects always evade our limited, one-sided perspectives.

Anarchist insurgents are not supposed to be a bunch of mindless jihadists or mass-shooters driven by some over-simplified, all-encompassing cause -or spooks- especially given how society makes it so easy -even prescribed- to be self-sacrificing over bullshit purposes. Well that’s what work is about, anyways, right? If a few decide to stand up for the lives that get destroyed in the natural world, that’s because there is no other choice. Because these lives do not have the means to defend themselves, even comprehend what’s happening to them. This is why we choose to stand for them. These lives are unlike the compromised lives of humans. They are inherently innocents; it is beyond question. Activists serving agendas… politicians acting upon agendas negotiated with bigger groups, organizations; they of course are serving their own, beneath the spectacular antagonists. They are responsible for their own madness, and gain their own capital as they progress, when they do.

Anarchist praxis emerges from and towards the realization of anarchy, not of made-up ideals recycled from others. It is facing the unknown, answering by asking questions.

«Realization» is in both senses of the word; not just as an idea coming to reality, but as a reality coming to mind, to awareness. Awareness that, inherently, anarchy is already there, and omnipresent; that society, translated in the physical world, means nothing short than a continuous onslaught to break it, transform it, in the goal of ordering it, according to its own dominant institutions, make-beliefs, ideals. Of course there could be a «better society», but it’s not there. It is another projected ideal, that eco-socialism. You likely won’t be living into it in your lifetime, if it ever comes to reality. More importantly, like any other projected ideal, it isn’t to be fulfilled in the first place, but to be enforced as abstraction upon the real world.

Used to be cool & trendy back in Medieval times… so why not today!?

There is little left to create, but plenty of relationships to destroy, horizons to liberate.

I understand that the natural world is a world of anarchy, of freedom. An endless multiplicity of life forms, and their ways of dealing with problems, sustaining, enjoying and coping. There’s violence and there’s peace, love/hate, pleasure/pain… an apparent happiness and sometimes misery… mutual aid just like rivalry… sharing and robbing, there is even some level of oppression and alienation, and all the things between these binaries, but none of these are instituted values like property, or the family, as far as we know.

The mistake in all naturalist thinking is not to be taking example from nature, but rather to be, self-servingly, projecting aspects of our own culture upon what we perceive as the natural world (the idea that killing or domination is natural, because «look at them lions»), and use it back to justify human behavior. In a way, it is an «injection attack». Or an entire blackmailing, of both the natural and the human world. But «nature» is not nature. It is a stained mirror.

What matters -in our own view- is the tension of our (repressed) savagery; the one society fights so hard to erase by disciplining and organizing us. But what this savagery IS… that’s more complicated than what stereotypes might tell us. Is this really irrationality, mindless impulses, or unrestrained sexual onslaught, or chaotic violence? The question of «living like savages» as humans is pretty coarse, and delving in archaic imperial chauvinism, that’s next to racism.

Yet there is the more certain, subversive reality of a life that doesn’t need those fabrications to be and even sustain. That we can live upon the land and feed from its resources, individually, without needing, inherently, to purchase land… as this is fabricated «need» was always nothing else than enforced through a web of interlocking relations, that started with colonialism at their foundation, and are still perpetuating it, through nationalism, the clan, private property, and agriculture. Thought forms and cultural shapes that are the forces of this self-fulfilling prophecy of civilization. They are civilization due to their civilizing; this is what civilization inherently is, a process of transforming and imposing imperiously, which results at the bottom line with… more crap, more waste and more delusions.

Fuck maoists, as the rest of the authoritarian Left, like forever…

Domination is no longer embodied on a global scale solely by the Western Christian-Capitalist civilization. The gods have changed faces, their devices are new currencies. Another thing we’ve seen over the past few years is the sudden rise of China as a counterweight to the Western world. If we ever succeed at curbing capitalist development on Turtle Island, how will that relate to the insane techno-industrial, the economic development in China, and its wider technocratic onslaught? The Communist Party, successful where the Soviet bloc has failed, will keep asserting itself as a civilizing force, for as long as Western capitalists seek to dominate the world, and not only within its national boundaries, but as a global hegemony as well, driven by a kind of late-stage socio-capitalism. It is noteworthy to consider that Chinese interests are also intertwined with the extractive industry, its related tech industry, and obviously, as we all know, the mass commodity markets. Canada, like Europe, has served as an economic buffer zone for these markets, and the investments in infrastructure, real-estate, as well as the deeper energy and mining industries.

The proposed goal here would not to be fighting «them Chinese influence in our cuntry» as xenophobes would, but instead to be (re)building linguistic bridges with those, among the Chinese world (and by extension through the wider East-Asian world), who seek to oppose the techno-totalitarian world that expands upon their lives, upon natural life, and/or assert a life that exists outside of it. Opposition to authority, or the will to be free from its spooks, isn’t only a recent invention of the industrial Western world. Even if «anarchism» may not be a globally well-spread paradigm, the underlying sentiment, intent and rationale from which it emerged in the West is what really matters, and we believe these may exist all over the globe.

This is not yet as much another depersonalized attempt at “changing the world”, as it is an effort of bringing to awareness the realities of personal rebellion, up against the oppression and devastation that are redundant all over the planet, from your specific local context to that of someone in Guangzhou, or in the Amazon forest, as well as our more important converging will to refuse it, and assert life up against civilization’s death machine.

The continuous push to civilize is all over the place, and intimately connected to the authoritarian nature of States, and their managing organs. To be sabotaging the first is to be undermining the latter. This used to be, and still is, the fundamental thesis behind this mediation effort.

撤文明!
撤权力!

More coming, soon…

Unist’ot’en Camp Gearing Up for Spring Construction Camp

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Apr 042019

From the Unist’ot’en Camp

UPDATES FROM THE FRONTLINES

HEAL THE PEOPLE – DEFEND THE LAND

6TH ANNUAL SPRING CONSTRUCTION CAMP

Volunteers Needed for Cabin Building Projects in May!

Spring camp runs from May 6 to 31

With spring coming early to the north, plans are underway for new projects across WET’SUWET’EN TERRITORY, including cabin construction for WET’SUWET’EN PEOPLE. Following the invasion of our territories by RCMP and industry, we are continuing to reoccupy our lands – helping our people reconnect with, reclaim, and protect our homelands

We need people with CARPENTRY, COOKING, AND CAMPING SKILLS, or a good attitude and a willingness to learn. “Many hands make quick work!”

The UNIST’OT’EN CAMP is not a blockade, a protest, or a demonstration – it is a permanent, non-violent occupation of UNIST’OT’EN TERRITORY, established to protect our homelands from illegal industrial encroachments and to preserve a space for our community to heal from the violence of colonization. This year, UNIST’OT’EN volunteers will be working with other WET’SUWET’EN clans to support WET’SUWET’EN sovereignty.

We prefer volunteers who are able to spend two weeks or more supporting us, but welcome any contribution of time and effort.

Please be prepared to work under the leadership and protocols of the Indigenous stewards of the YINTAH. Supporters are asked to register here in advance: http://unistoten.camp/come-to-camp/camp-registration/

Our spring camp will run from MAY 6 TO MAY 31. Supporters are needed prior to and following the work camp as well, so if your schedule conflicts with our work camp dates, please apply regardless.

If you are not able to make it in person, consider sending a financial contribution to help cover our operational costs.

DONATE TO UNIST’OT’EN CAMP

To maintain safety and security we prefer volunteers to either have previous experience at the Unist’ot’en Camp or be able to provide references from one or more persons who have been to the Camp or are known within the movement.

If you meet that criteria and are physically fit for the hard work of supporting the camp and checkpoints, prepared to commit at least one week or more and are prepared to work under the leadership and protocols of the Indigenous stewards of the Yintah then register HERE.

… AND ONE MORE SPECIAL REQUEST TO SUPPORTERS IN THE LOWER MAINLAND AREA OF BC:

Please reply to this email if you can possibly billet volunteers passing through the Vancouver area and needing a place to stay – usually for just one night – in order to connect with their ride to Camp.

The Bunkhouse was built in the summer of 2014 followed by the Healing Centre constructed in stages over the next 3 years.

THE PROTECTION OF INDIGENOUS SOVEREIGNTY AND MOTHER EARTH MUST BE FOUGHT BOTH ON THE LAND AND IN THE COLONIAL COURTS. WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT TO SUCCEED IN BOTH. PLEASE CONTRIBUTE GENEROUSLY, WHATEVER YOU CAN AFFORD.

DONATE TO UNIST’OT’EN LEGAL FUND

DONATE TO GIDIMT’EN ACCESS POINT

STAY UP-TO-DATE WITH LATEST DEVELOPMENTS AS THEY HAPPEN

It began with the UNIST’OT’EN CAMP in 2010. Then as the RCMP prepared to assault the Healing Centre checkpoint at the Wedzin Kwah bridge the GIDUMT’EN CLAN stepped up with their own Access Point at KM 44 of the Morice River Forest Service Road. Now other WET’SUWET’EN clans have joined the effort to protect the entire territory of the Nation. Things are moving quickly on both sides of this pivotal confrontation between present-day colonialism and still vibrant Indigenous sovereignty so we urge you to bookmark these links to stay informed and be prepared to respond on a “real-time basis”:

Unist’ot’en Camp
Wet’suwet’en Access point on Gidimt’en territory
Sovereign Likhts’amisyu and Namoks
Tsayu Land Defenders
Unist’ot’en Website
Gidimt’en Website

ADDITIONAL IMPORTANT UPDATES FOR SUPPORTERS

If you are planning a fundraising event or campaign make sure to read
the newly released fundraising protocols.:

Unist’ot’en

Gidimt’en

SIGN THE PLEDGE

Join hundreds of organizations and 13,843 individuals in signing the pledge to support UNIST’OT’EN and the WET’SUWET’EN:
https://goo.gl/forms/GE5bfm5ITDTyNPy12

#UNISTOTEN #WETSUWETENSTRONG #WEDZINKWA #NOPIPELINES #NOTRESPASS

Call to Disrupt the Nature Champions Summit

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Apr 012019

From Printemps tout le temps [Facebook page]

April 24th and 25th, Montreal will host a “Nature Champions Summit” bringing together “major philanthropists, business leaders, non-governmental organizations, United Nations agencies, Indigenous leaders and environment ministers from around the world”.

While the planet burns, the poorest populations suffer the violent consequences of ecological disasters, and animal species rapidly disappear, politicians hope to gather peacefully for one more congress. We don’t need yet another summit organized by the Canadian state, known for its extractivist economy, and which just bought a pipeline for 4.5 billion dollars, telling us that a “new partnership” between a handful of ministers and major capitalists will save us from the climate crisis. These “Nature Champions” are responsible for the catastrophe in progress. There is no way we can let them continue to administer disaster with their hollow promises.

April 24 and 25, 2019, let’s disrupt their summit! Let’s multiply actions and demonstrations to show that the “Nature Championship” will be won by those who defend the water, the land, and all that lives on it, not by those that exploit them.

Open Letter to Climate Strikers

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Mar 152019

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info

Preface: We wrote this text to distribute at a climate strike demo on Friday, March 15th. It’s a work in progress, but we wanted to share it ahead of time in case it inspires others to steal some or all of these words for cities elsewhere. Change it to fit your context.

First of all, thank you. Thank you for giving a shit. For deciding that there are futures worth fighting for, even when the future being imposed on us looks increasingly bleak. The good news is that you are here, with your body, along with so many others around the world. Today we have a chance to acknowledge that we are connected to each other and to the living and non-living beings on this planet, in ways that are far more complex and beautiful than any #hashtag could express.

Every few days, another horror story, or another prediction, reminds us that we’re facing an existential threat. Experts no longer study how to prevent climate change, instead they discuss how we might mitigate its effects. We already know that everything is going to change. The question for 2019, for this generation, is: change towards what?

The vultures are already circling.

Corporations ask, “How can we profit?” Whether it’s tapping new oil reserves under the melting glaciers or marketing a ‘green’ product to make us feel comforted, their goal is always profit.

Governments ask, “How do we stay in control?” Whether it’s expanding surveillance programs, or encouraging ‘democratic dialogue’ so long as nothing gets out of hand, their goal is always to consolidate power. The most advanced governments today will do this in the name of combatting climate change. Here in Canada, the government isn’t quite so sophisticated, and still pushes for massive expansions of fossil fuel infrastructure and mining projects, forcing them on indigenous people at the barrel of a gun if they can’t be bought.

Politicians, including some aspiring ones who call themselves ‘activists,’ ask how the growing fear and discontent might be exploited for personal gain. History clearly demonstrates that if we allow these people to lead our movements, they will pull the plug at precisely the moment that we become a real threat to the existing order. Those in power rely on funneling our rage towards dead ends. Let’s get organized, but not behind politicians trying to sell us the latest Hope™.

We don’t know exactly what a ‘better world’ could look like. But like you, we feel that we have to try. We don’t want to just feel like we’re on “the right side of history,” a narcissistic trap. We want to be effective, within an ethical framework that values freedom, autonomy and solidarity. Let’s start taking seriously the idea we might actually have an impact. To that end, we propose a joyful, strategic, and fierce resistance that might include these ingredients:

Transformation, not reform. Capitalism is killing the planet. It is a system based on endless growth, and only serves the rich and powerful. No lifestyle change or government reform is going to touch that. It’s gotta go. Those in power will not simply be persuaded to change their ways and give up the wealth and power they have accumulated through centuries of patriarchy, colonial plunder, and mass exploitation.

The police stand in our way. Maybe you already hold your breath when a cop drives by. If not, remember that even the friendliest cops have to follow orders or get fired. Police are the violent defenders of this rotten system. To even make a dent, many people will have to break a lot of laws, and not just in the “arrest me for the cameras” kind of way.

Let’s build lives worth living. We’re cynical, but we are not hopeless. When we refuse to resign and instead build lives worth living now, we see glimpses of a different future, and start to feel compelled to defend ourselves. We want collective lives rife with empathy, creativity, and openness.

Thank you, again, for showing up. This is the beginning of a long road, or maybe a tightrope. Let’s walk it together, trying to avoid the traps that lay ahead.

– some anarchists

Banner Drop in Solidarity with Unist’ot’en

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Mar 152019

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

14th of March, 2019
Tiohtiá:ke, so-called Montréal

This morning at 7:34 AM at the intersection of Papineau and St-Grégoire streets, a banner with the writtings “Solidarity with Unist’ot’en” was erected on a viaduc.

This action is a symbolic gesture in relationship to the 15th of march, on this day two importants protests are to be held, the student protest in defense of climate and the protest against police brutality.

It is important to remember that day in and day out, native peoples find themselves everyday on the frontlines defending against environmental colonialism defended by the police and state institutions.

On the 7th of January of this year, RCMP agents dismantled by force the access point Gidumt’en of the unsuceeded territory of the Wet’suwet’en nation, where is located the Unist’ot’en camp. The native peoples protecting the access point were brutally removed from their territory by the armed forces of the RCMP in order to allow the start of the construction work of the pipeline (Costal GasLink project) of the TransCanada company.

The Unist’ot’en camp, established on the Wet’suwet’en territory since 2009, is an important living environment, that holds a healing center by reconnection to the environment. One of the camps roles is to assure a presence on the territory in order to protect it from the many high-environmental-risk projects that are planned without the consent of the first-nation peoples. Up until now, the presence of the camp has lead to the abandonnement of many pipeline projects.

This banner drop is also a denouncing the hypocrisy of the Trudeau government. The prime minister feigns reconciliation with the first nations, while remaining silent when faced with the recent events in Unist’ot’en. Moreover, his support for the numerous environmentally damaging projects demonstrate an opportunistic immobilism that defies all logic in the current environmental crisis.

“The invasion of the Wet’suwet’en territory by TransCanada is but one example among many that proves the proximity between climate violence, police brutality and native struggles. This banner is a reminder of the convergence between theses struggles as well as a message of solidarity with the peoples who are currently fighting in Wet’suwet’en territories” cries a participant of this action.

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