'Eco-Anarchists' Targeting Nuclear and Nanotech Workers 426
scibri writes, quoting Nature: "A loose coalition of eco-anarchist groups is increasingly launching violent attacks on scientists. A group calling itself the Olga Cell of the Informal Anarchist Federation International Revolutionary Front has claimed responsibility for the non-fatal shooting of a nuclear-engineering executive on 7 May in Genoa. The same group sent a letter bomb to a Swiss pro-nuclear lobby group in 2011; attempted to bomb IBM's nanotechnology laboratory in Switzerland in 2010; and has ties with a group responsible for at least four bomb attacks on nanotechnology facilities in Mexico. Another branch of the group attacked railway signals in Bristol, UK, last week in an attempt to disrupt employees of nearby defense technology firms (no word on whether anyone noticed the difference between an anarchist attack and a normal Wednesday on the UK's railways). A report by Swiss intelligence says such loosely affiliated groups are increasingly working together."
Eco-anarchist will be the new terrorist. (Score:1, Insightful)
I can't wait for Captain-Anti-Planet. Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, Profit!
Re:Do they realise... (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess since they are anarchists, when they are caught we can just forget all the usual mumbo jumbo about rights and privileges shoot them on the spot?
Re:Do they realise... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, youngling. The Dark Side is quicker and easier, but it is not more powerful.
A trend in recent 'labels' lately? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me that finds the 'label' Eco-Anarchist' to be as blatant of an oxymoron as 'politically correct', 'Patriot Act', and 'military intelligence'?
I guess 'weasel wording' is the new trend....:-(
Eco-Anarchist......Hmmm...anarchy to the ecosystem?!?!?...does not make sense in the context of their stated goals.
Re:self-deception was never my strong suit (Score:5, Insightful)
What I want to know is how people deal with the cognitive dissonance of their (presumed) conviction that they're doing good, in the context of the methods that they're employing?
Same way those who support murdering doctors who perform abortions rationalize away "thou shalt not kill."
Re:Do they realise... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, because unless you investigate you can't know if you've caught an anarchist or some poor bastard who just happens to be having a bad hair day.
Also, if you find legal rights to be "mumbo jumbo" to be ignored when given an excuse, why do you want to shoot anarchists, especially anarchist terrorists? Aren't you people kinda kindred spirits?
Re:strategy of tension (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:strategy of tension (Score:5, Insightful)
And no, I do not support the ideals of those cowardly murderers (or attempted murderers) in any way shape or form.
Re:Paranoid style in Swiss Politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Paranoia is also a result of difficult economic times. If everything's hunky-dory, there's a lot less space for paranoia to thrive in. But with the 2008 financial crisis, the major threat of a European break-up on the horizon and a Chinese juggernaut that just isn't showing many signs of slowing down, and it's kinda understandable that a lot of politics is based on an us-vs-them, apocalyptic them. Not good, not right, but certainly understandable.
Re:strategy of tension (Score:2, Insightful)
Anarchy doesn't really mean the elimination of rules or social order. It means direct democracy and the elimination of vertical hierarchy.
Re:Do they realise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe an undercover private cop trying to cause trouble.
It's not like it has never happened. When people died in the Haymarket Riot, it was blamed on "anarchists" and turned out to be plainclothes thug cops on a corporate payroll who had set off the bombs, not the union activists who were blamed. That was the first "May Day". Not many people know that the celebration of May 1st as International Workers' Day or "May Day" started right here in Chicago, not far from where I'm typing this.
In the '60s and '70s, there was something called "COINTELPRO" that the FBI used to try to ""expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the activities of any left-leaning group. Their operations always seemed to target a "handful" of dangerous "anarchists" affiliated with dangerous groups like NAACP or the Christian Leadership Conference. That dangerous anarchist Dr Martin Luther King was a target of COINTELPRO.
Not long ago, here in Chicago, during the protests around the NATO meeting, another "handful" of "anarchists" were arrested for "planning" to make molotov cocktails. Three of the 9 arrested disappeared while they were being held for arraignment. Would you be surprised to find out that they were the ones who had the bright idea to make molotov cocktails? It was pretty uncanny if you happened to be on-hand for any of these protests, as I was. Thousands of peaceful protesters, nurses in the case of the protest I attended, and all of a sudden half a dozen, maybe 10 guys dressed in black, faces covered, show up and try to lead the group to break windows or attack a police line. Note, they only did this when there happened to be an overwhelming force of police on hand. These black-clad guys would rush to the front of the group and throw themselves at police or throw some garbage cans or barricades, and then, along with the police, they would turn to look at the crowd to see who was with them. The protestors would look at one another, look at these black-clad guys, and then just move on, not rising to the bait. Then the black-clad guys would disappear only to show up later in the march or at some other encounter between protestors and a large force of well-armored police. The efforts to incite would fail and the black-clads would seemingly disappear again, sometimes apparently through a police blockade. It was the strangest behavior I had ever seen at a large protest.
I've become way suspicious of these highly-publicized busts of a "handful of anarchists". A law enforcement regime that will assassinate an American citizen or wiretap without a warrant or plant a GPS on an Arab-American engineering student with no criminal record is not above a "false-flag" operation, and now that there's virtually limitless corporate money to fund these efforts, and corporate leaders who are sufficiently removed from the rules of social behavior to which most people adhere, I could easily see private police groups and paramilitaries involved in this stuff. Hell, you've got so-called right-wing "journalists" funded by right-wing corporations trying to commit voter fraud in order to prove that there is voter fraud so there can be purges of voters' lists for no reason other than Hispanic surname or student status.
I don't mind being called "paranoid" about these things. I am well aware that I sound paranoid. I honestly hope I'm just being paranoid.
Eco-Terrorist not Eco-Anarchist (Score:4, Insightful)
/soapbox/ when you send mail bombs and make assassination attempts you're a fucking terrorist. this whole pussy-footing around the label is horse shit. Calling a terrorist an 'anarchist' because you don't want to use the word terrorist is as horse-shit as saying only white people can be a racist and is right up there with calling an illegal alien an undocumented immigrant. Whats next? Calling drug dealers unlicensed pharmacists? Piss or get off the pot.. they're fucking terrorists. Anarchists reject organized authority and prefer mass chaos. An 'Eco-Anarchist' would be someone who would want to screw up the planet, not assassinate people to 'save' it from the big bad corporation or science. Calling them anything other than terrorists is a complete disservice to anarchists. I know a few anarchists and theyre hardly sending letter bombs and trying to assassinate people. They simply think that if we got rid of all the laws on the books people would step up and whip the shit out of their neighbors that get out of line and the problems would solve themselves. These eco-assholes are just terrorists of opportunity /endSoapbox/
Re:strategy of tension (Score:4, Insightful)
These so called "anarchists" recognize no rights, and as such have debased themselves to the level of wild animals. I can't put into words the depth of my contempt for such "people".
Re:self-deception was never my strong suit (Score:5, Insightful)
"Same way those who support murdering doctors who perform abortions rationalize away "thou shalt not kill."
It's "thou shalt not MURDER", which distinction turns the discussion into a mere matter of personal opinion instead of an absolute rule.
http://people.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Shokel/001102_ThouShaltNotMurder.html [ucalgary.ca]
The Bible was not originally written in English and all Englsh translations should be take with a grain of salt.
Re:Do they realise... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure the GP wasn't calling rights "mumbo jumbo", but rather pointing to the irony of anarchists enjoying the rights that they fight to eradicate.
Re:Do they realise... (Score:5, Insightful)
That bombs and guns are a product of science? Or is that part of their message - to destroy science with science? Fucking assholes.
The larger question is why they are targeting high tech, rather than mass tech...
These chaps are presumably anarchists, quite possibly with a primitivist or environmental radical vein. Why, then, are they focusing on assorted minor R&D projects that may, at some point in the future, assist The Man's technocratic hegemony over his fellow man and/or nature, rather than hitting the targets that contribute in an overwhelming way, right now?
"Nanotech"(a horribly fluid term that could arguably cover anything from the developments in advanced controlled-ratio copper/tin recrystalization technology that ushered in the bronze age, to the sci-fi grey goo) is certainly an area of ongoing research; but it's a small facet of advanced materials work. "Nuclear" is arguably rather more important, since it shows signs of being the big player if fossil fuels are constrained; but it is, as yet, a comparatively niche source of energy worldwide.
If you want to hit technocratic industrial capitalism where it hurts, why are you hitting fossil fuels? Sure, shooting Dr. Somebody who works on 'p-type selectively nanopatterned selenium bandgap films' in his unguarded office is easy; but its impact is pretty much confined to a 1% difference in efficiency of film-type photovoltaic materials a decade from now. A series of, say, catastrophic refinery fires, cutting 10 or 20 percent off any major industrialized nation's supply of petrochemicals... Now, that would show people what 'inelastic supply chain' really means...
That's what I don't understand about the anti-tech radicals. I don't agree with them, in either case; but I've never understood why they insist on picking at teeny little outgrowths at the very edge of science and technology R&D,,, So long as energy and feedstock chemicals are cheap, post-industrial-revolution society will outproduce your merry little band of revolutionaries so hard it will make your head spin. The only thing you'll change is (slightly) the amount spent on rentacops and the authorities attempting to shut you down.
The only way you would have even a hope of stopping technology in its tracks would be to hit its energy and vital-resource supply. The high tech frankenfood/nanobot/evil nuclear stuff is basically a sideshow compared to the mountains of coal, the rivers of oil, and the boring old steel and cement that keep the lights on and generate a surplus on which to run all the other activities.
Re:Why homosexualism but not incest? (Score:3, Insightful)
Incest has genetic risks. It actually has a downside. Although in at least some places you can have an incestuous marriage if you don't have kids.
Polygamy and polyandry also lead to societal disruptions. Polygamous Mormons make a habit of ditching the excess boys on the streets of nearby cities. Poly* marriages that don't involve religious and other craziness probably should be allowed. When you guys can figure out homosexual marriage you can start working on that one.
Re:Do they realise... (Score:1, Insightful)
Americans have a long history of terrorism, so no empathy when one of them gets shot either. Right?
Re:Why homosexualism but not incest? (Score:4, Insightful)
Polygamous Mormons make a habit of ditching the excess boys on the streets of nearby cities.
I'm afraid that Mormons haven't been polygamist since the late 1800s (when the US outlawed the practice.) I'm thinking you are referring to the splinter group that split off from the larger Church back then and refused to obey the law. They are collectively known as the FLDS Church and do not use the name Mormon.
Re:Do they realise... (Score:5, Insightful)
but I've never understood why they insist on picking at teeny little outgrowths at the very edge of science and technology
Because they're angry spoilt brats and bullies, who enjoy picking on easy targets.
Re:Do they realise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which makes it even more important that their rights are completely respected to the letter.
If they carry out an attack that is so outrageous that society demands that the rights they're fighting to eradicate are eradicated, then they've succeeded.
Re:Do they realise... (Score:2, Insightful)
If they carry out an attack that is so outrageous that society demands that the rights they're fighting to eradicate are eradicated, then they've succeeded.
Kind of like when al-Qaeda & OBL attack the USA because "they hate our freedom" and we reduce our freedom and spend billions on security theater.
AC to preserve mods.
Re:Do they realise... (Score:2, Insightful)
^ This ^
Historically, the state of anarchy has not evolved into a my-little-pony state of global hapiness. Historically the successor of anarchy has been feudalism.
Just take a look into the classical examples (fall of Roman Empire) or modern ones ("failed states" replaced by warlords... just call them "count" or "baron" instead of warlord and you'll have something very similar to the middle Age Europe, with AK47 instead of swords).
Re:Why homosexualism but not incest? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. That is a too simple view of evolution and genetics. Something being common does not necessary show that something is beneficial for survival. Look at e.g.: Sickle-cell disease(SCD). Very common in Sub-Saharan Africa, but not helpful for survival. SCD happens in individuals with two copies of the gene, while one copy of the gene makes individuals more resistant to malaria. Genes can often have multiple effects, some beneficial, some not.
So it is possible that homosexuality is beneficial for survival but it could also be just a side effect of something that is actually beneficial.
There are lots of species of which a significant number are homosexual.
This is also problematic reasoning. There are also significant numbers of species(ants,...) where most individuals are infertile. But that sure does not mean that mass infertility would be beneficial for humans, too. Whether something is beneficial or not most often also depends on other traits and the environment of species.