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Earth Science Politics Technology

'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."
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'Eco-Anarchists' Targeting Nuclear and Nanotech Workers

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  • by multiben ( 1916126 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @05:59PM (#40137861)
    That bombs and guns are a product of science? Or is that part of their message - to destroy science with science? Fucking assholes.
    • by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @06:04PM (#40137881)

      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?

      • by rbrander ( 73222 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @06:14PM (#40137937) Homepage

        No, youngling. The Dark Side is quicker and easier, but it is not more powerful.

      • Hmm, actually now that you mention it, that does seem like an idea worthy of consideration.

        I can see you have thought this through a bit, can you elaborate on your idea a bit so we can have a healthy debate on the pros and cons of your idea?

      • by ultranova ( 717540 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @06:27PM (#40138009)

        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?

        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?

        • by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @07:07PM (#40138223) Journal

          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.

          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.

          • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @12:04AM (#40139467)

            There is video footage of the "masked black-clad men" you describe from a summit meeting in Montebello Quebec:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S1nHvvkzvA

            They were later admitted to have been police, but nothing was done about it.

          • by Maow ( 620678 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @01:43AM (#40139763) Journal

            There's a well documented case of undercover police acting as agents provocateurs in Quebec City.

            Their boots gave them away - as well as their behaviour. The other protesters noticed the boots were exactly the same as the police line the provocateurs were trying to provoke.

            Some links [duckduckgo.com] can be found; CBC should have a fairly authoritative story on it, maybe here [www.cbc.ca].

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by couchslug ( 175151 )

          The Anarchist movement has a LONG (WELL over a century) history of terrorism, so no empathy here.

        • by artor3 ( 1344997 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @07:31PM (#40138347)

          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.

          • ^^ This ^^^
          • by ghostdoc ( 1235612 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @09:06PM (#40138771)

            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.

        • Good like fighting against adherents of sustainable ideology. Thank God, anarchy is not one of those.

      • 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?

        Unfortunately they have 'eco' in their class description. Therefore normal rules of science politics. And no, you can't shoot 'em...

    • by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @07:33PM (#40138357) Journal

      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.

  • strategy of tension (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28, 2012 @06:07PM (#40137897)

    At this point I wouldn't be that sure that they are actually anarchists, Italian state has a long and well established history of blowing up their own citizens and blaming the anarchists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_tension#Piazza_Fontana_bombing). Anarchist generally dropped 'individual terror' somewhere in the early 20th century as it failed to bring any actual change or a revolution, so even anarchist or anarchist terrorist groups do everything to ensure there will be no casualties of their attacks. Greek groups like CCF, US and UK's ALF and ELF never killed or aimed to harm anybody AFAIK.

    Italy on the other hand has this terrorist group always popping up around serious political issues, called nearly the same as the Anarchist Federation of Italy (IAF)... While most anarchist groups would do everything they can to distinguish themselves from other groups (think "Life of Brian"). Just saying.

    • by DurendalMac ( 736637 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @06:38PM (#40138043)
      A lot of people who call themselves "Anarchists" these days really aren't. Some still subscribe to the idea of no government and believe that it would work out for the best, but too many with that name are just assholes who want to break things.
      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ShieldW0lf ( 601553 )

        Anarchy doesn't really mean the elimination of rules or social order. It means direct democracy and the elimination of vertical hierarchy.

        • by tmosley ( 996283 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @07:11PM (#40138241)
          Real anarchism at its core is about the recognition of the basic rights, ie the right to self ownership of one's own body, and the descendent right to property. All other rights spring from those two rights.

          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".
          • by ShieldW0lf ( 601553 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @09:26PM (#40138861) Journal

            Real anarchism at its core is about the recognition of the basic rights, ie the right to self ownership of one's own body, and the descendent right to property. All other rights spring from those two rights.

            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".

            I would suggest you read "The Conquest of Bread" for a different perspective on what anarchy means. It's available on Project Gutenberg for free

            http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23428 [gutenberg.org]

        • by artor3 ( 1344997 )

          No, that's not at all what anarchy means. If you vote, through direct democracy, for a speed limit on a highway, and an anarchist gets pulled over for speeding on that highway, they're not going to accept the majority rule. They're going to scream and shout about how unjust it all, and possibly murder the cop who tries to give them the ticket.

          • by ShieldW0lf ( 601553 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @09:16PM (#40138817) Journal

            When the anarchists took over in Europe, they continued to work the factories and maintain public services. They just administered their affairs through elections instead of property. It proved more efficient than its predecessors, but then the fascists kicked their ass because they didn't have the capacity to flow into a vertical heirarchy and gain the might that structure grants, then flow back into a flattened power structure once the threat was gone.

            I spend a lot of time thinking about that flow, and how tyranny and destruction follow when it's interrupted, and how we might design political-economic structures to accomodate it better....

        • by tomhath ( 637240 )

          Anarchy doesn't really mean the elimination of rules or social order

          The elimination of rules and social order is precisely the definition of anarchy. Everyone takes care of him or herself, with no government or authority over them.

      • These people in the Anarchist Federation International Revolutionary Front are just delusional idiots.
        -- At least compared to the International Revolutionary Front of Anarchist Federations who really hate all these imperialist scientists (excluding those concerned with drainage, medicine, roads, housing, education, viniculture).

    • by meerling ( 1487879 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @06:40PM (#40138059)
      There is a general tendency for media world wide to call any group that isn't backed by some government or known major religion to be called anarchists when they engage in terrorist type activities. Of course those same media people in the USA also like to call almost anything they disagree with politically terrorism, so basically the media people are full of more excrement than your local sewage processing facility.
      And no, I do not support the ideals of those cowardly murderers (or attempted murderers) in any way shape or form.
    • by elucido ( 870205 )

      At this point I wouldn't be that sure that they are actually anarchists, Italian state has a long and well established history of blowing up their own citizens and blaming the anarchists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_tension#Piazza_Fontana_bombing). Anarchist generally dropped 'individual terror' somewhere in the early 20th century as it failed to bring any actual change or a revolution, so even anarchist or anarchist terrorist groups do everything to ensure there will be no casualties of their attacks. Greek groups like CCF, US and UK's ALF and ELF never killed or aimed to harm anybody AFAIK.

      Italy on the other hand has this terrorist group always popping up around serious political issues, called nearly the same as the Anarchist Federation of Italy (IAF)... While most anarchist groups would do everything they can to distinguish themselves from other groups (think "Life of Brian"). Just saying.

      This is also what I suspect. It doesn't make much sense for libertarians (anarchists) to be anti-technology. There are of course exceptions but for the most part anarchists are pro technology and use the internet. Even the FBI knows enough to think so.

  • I would bet that the group is filled with not terribly tech-savvy people which means they're definitely going to get caught very quickly.
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In fact, it is probably made up of graduate students in the humanities.
  • by rbrander ( 73222 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @06:12PM (#40137919) Homepage

    The author of "The Paranoid Style of American Politics" spends a few pages at the start of the essay stressing that he just means paranoid Style, not clinical paranoia, and that it is hardly limited to America, but has cropped up all over the world.

    Well, it sure seems to be alive and well in Switzerland and Mexico, to name two places that have suffered these attacks. The rhetoric in the Mexican note, about nanotech, from the "ITS" ("Individuals Tending to Savagery", at least they're honest) rings with your standard conspiracy-theory stuff about it ending the world. The anti-nuclear rhetoric in the other is similar towards nuclear armageddon, with the deaths from the "European Fukushima" just around the corner. (Amazing how France has avoided them for 40 years of 77% nuke power generation).

    From the original "paranoid style" essay:

    "The paranoid spokesman, sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms — he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization . . . he does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish." ...that pretty neatly explains how they can go around blowing up engineers and professors. Since the "paranoid style" essay has become popular again lately because it also jogs memories of some Tea Party fears about Obama taking away all guns or rounding up Christians into camps or whatever, it's worth noting that this is where that kind of thinking eventually takes you if pursued to a logical conclusion. The author also stresses that the "paranoid style" is not a left or right thing, but found on both sides.

    • by NeutronCowboy ( 896098 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @06:41PM (#40138071)

      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.

  • by spazdor ( 902907 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @06:13PM (#40137923)

    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? Isn't there ever a moment of "Holy shit, my quest to make the world a better, more natural place is now manifest in me doing things like shooting nuns and throwing acid in infants' faces. I think I'd better go back to my hometown and spend a few weeks crying hysterically in the shower."

    • by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @06:19PM (#40137969)

      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."

      • by couchslug ( 175151 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @07:16PM (#40138273)

        "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.

        • by rthille ( 8526 )

          The bible is an amalgamation of a bunch of "wisdom" of pre-scientific, bronze-age herders, and should be taken with oceans of salt, regardless of the translation.

        • The Bible was not originally written in English and all Englsh translations should be take with a grain of salt.

          Translation in an absolute sense is of course not possible, especially between two languages as different as English and Classical Hebrew. People often naively assume that two separate words in Hebrew will isomorphically map to two distinct English words, eg, HRG to kill and RTsCh to murder. It isn't that easy.

          It's "thou shalt not MURDER"

          Not necessarily, no. Had you bothered actually to rea

      • The word used in the Hebrew translates much closer to murder than kill. That's also obvious from context because the next few chapters in the text include various death penalties, including a death penalty for murder. But never mind that, the thing is those who are murdering doctors who perform abortion are actually being logically consistent, in that they are trying to stop what they see as mass-murder, and killing a few to save many is a rational course of action. The really inconsistent anti-abortion peo
        • by Velex ( 120469 )

          I guess, any more, I can't help but to find these attempts to interpret a meaningless 3,000 year old text not much different from trying to reconstruct some Vulcan matron's philosophical works and the meaning of life from a few disparate episodes of varies Trek series.

          Cheers.

      • by tbird81 ( 946205 )

        It's a bunch of cells. It's not murder!

    • by rts008 ( 812749 )

      self-deception was never my strong suit

      I think therein lies the answer to your question.

      Most people are comfortable with self-deception, in fact, they will embrace it tightly.
      It helps them happily maintain their biased, prejudiced, and ignorant attitudes and beliefs....all the better to fit in with their preferred social groups.

      This is how marketing works so well.....

      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?

      If that was a rhetorical question posed as a set-up for expressing your dismay, ignore my comment. :-)

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by anagama ( 611277 )

      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? Isn't there ever a moment of "Holy shit, my quest to make the world a better, more natural place is now manifest in me doing things like shooting nuns and throwing acid in infants' faces.

      No.

      Evidence: Drone Attacks. Afghanistan (the first 6-8 weeks were justified, but for the ensuing decade, we just killed a lot of innocent people

    • by ultranova ( 717540 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @06:51PM (#40138113)

      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?

      Some of the correspondence of the Nazis has been published, and some of it touches on this. If memory serves, it went something like "doing the right thing is hard, murdering people is hard, therefore murdering people must be the right thing to do." Yes, seriously.

      Isn't there ever a moment of "Holy shit, my quest to make the world a better, more natural place is now manifest in me doing things like shooting nuns and throwing acid in infants' faces. I think I'd better go back to my hometown and spend a few weeks crying hysterically in the shower."

      Admitting that you have a problem takes guts. It's hard enough when the worst you've done is puke into a gutter; imagine what it would take to admit that throwing acid on someone's face was actually a horrible thing, not a courageous act of religious or ideological commitment. Add the fact that hatred and violence are addictive, and it should hardly be surprising that people who've given in to them avoid admitting this to the last - and if they do admit it, they make up some bullshit story about being unable to change, as opposed to simply unwilling, thus turning themselves into the real victims, at least in their own minds. Which then justifies further degenerate acts in the name of vengeance.

      Wouldn't you rather enjoy the high of self-rightenousness and adrenaline than face the hangover?

    • by gox ( 1595435 )

      I can't say I'm really with them (quite the opposite actually), but it seems to me that their world view is as metaphysically sound as any other candidate that seems to be implicitly assumed around here. There is violence everywhere, everyday, most of which we at least indirectly contribute to. Are the excuses we have in place water-tight? I don't believe so.

      So they have a cause, we may deem it against us, but I don't see any reason to assume that they are stupid.

  • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Monday May 28, 2012 @06:13PM (#40137929)
    It's a great co-incidence that they decided to name it Olga like my ex-wife. Fitting name, really. Wonder if they will fail just as badly.
  • by rts008 ( 812749 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @06:17PM (#40137951) Journal

    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.

    • Actually, it is much more internally consistent than a lot of other labels. After all, ecology is basic the story of anarchy and the systems that emerge from it. As a result, eco-anarchism should be fairly compelling, strictly from an ideological consistency perspective.

      • by rts008 ( 812749 )

        Well, since you shined the light on it from that direction, my protest seems to appear smaller!

        But I will still argue that the 'Eco-Anarchists' are imposing their own order on the system, thus decreasing the level of anarchy on the system.
        Yeah, it's weak, but I'm hardheaded! :-)

        Really, that's an interesting comment you made. Thanks...that kind of thing helps keep the mind open and flexible.

        * For those about to reply to me with a WHOOOSH!, keep reading:

        It does not matter if you were serious, sarcastic, or t

    • by Ch_Omega ( 532549 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @06:34PM (#40138033) Journal
      The wikipedia article on eco-anarchism [wikipedia.org] is actually pretty good methinks, and gives a good explanation of eco/green-anarchism. I can also recommend This entry [anarchopedia.org] on anarchopedia (who knew there even was such a thing), is also pretty enlightening regarding these groups' ideologies.
      • Several of you have helpfully provided info and links to educate me on what 'Eco-Anarchists' were about.

        I truly thank all of you for your desire and willingness to 'give a helping hand' to another.
        That's the main thing that attracted me to /. originally, and has kept me here.

        *the other shoe drops*
        Most of this info I was aware of.
        I was merely, and only, pointing out the trend in labeling getting more oxymoronic lately. At least that's how I see it.

        Kudos for an informative and potentially helpful comment, ni

      • It's terrorism, plain and simple. When a group of people think that burning down a forest is the best way to protest a new lodge at the Vail resort in Colorado.. or paint baby seals in Alaska red so their furs become worthless (and so is their only defense; a good camouflage) or causes some sort of damage to the very thing they are supposed to be protecting makes no sense to me. It's terrorism to me because they are not on my side, even if I agree that a clean earth is a healthy earth. I think that the t

  • Here's some of the ramblings from this anarchist group. Almost reads like the speech the bad guy gives in some C-level movie. I think next time I have to give a speech to my employees I'm going to start off with "human beings are made of flesh and dreams" and see if anyone laughs.

    "Human beings are made of flesh and dreams. Our dream is that of a humanity free from every form of slavery, that grows in harmony with nature. A dream that we make live in the moment in which we fight to realize it. Our dream has

    • That reads like something from Norman Gates. http://www.poisonedminds.com/ [poisonedminds.com]
    • by rts008 ( 812749 )

      "Human beings are made of flesh and dreams. Our dream is that of a humanity free from every form of slavery, that grows in harmony with nature.[...]"

      Obviously, they slept/texted through biology class.
      Harmony with nature? HAHAHAHAHA![1]
      Kill or be killed. Survival of the fittest. Earthquakes. Floods. Hurricanes. Tornadoes. Tsunami. Competition among/against species for survival....etc.
      Mankind has fought 'nature' for survival for eons.
      Nature is not empathic, sympathetic, nor caring...it just IS.

      "[...] A new anarchy is rising from the ruins of this anarch-ism, thousands and thousands of cells that speak among each other through thousands and thousands of actions".

      BTW, would they consider auto-immune diseases, cancer, etc. to be anarchy by your own body?

      They are ignorant nutjobs, the lot of them, IMO.

      [1] I do think we ha

      • by maugle ( 1369813 )

        "Human beings are made of flesh and dreams. Our dream is that of a humanity free from every form of slavery, that grows in harmony with nature.[...]"

        Obviously, they slept/texted through biology class.
        Harmony with nature? HAHAHAHAHA!
        Kill or be killed. Survival of the fittest. Earthquakes. Floods. Hurricanes. Tornadoes. Tsunami. Competition among/against species for survival....etc.
        Mankind has fought 'nature' for survival for eons.
        Nature is not empathic, sympathetic, nor caring...it just IS.

        Seriously. Take some of those nuts and drop 'em in the middle of the rainforest, see how well they "grow in harmony with nature".

        ...also, I'm pretty sure the "free from every form of slavery" bit just translates to "I am incapable of holding down a job".

  • It'll probably just make me a target for making fun of them, but... IAFIRF? Really? And as long as we're picking, isn't "Informal" superfluous? What would a "Formal" Anarchist federation look like, anyway?

    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      And as long as we're picking, isn't "Informal" superfluous? What would a "Formal" Anarchist federation look like, anyway?

      The members spend most of their time bombing their own headquarters

  • It is sad that we have so many people thinking they have profound understanding of things they actually know nothing about. It is actually slightly true that all things have a negative aspect but in the case of nano tech and nuclear power they can both do far more good than any harm likely to flow from them. A simple example if we had no nuclear power plants we would have far more coal power plants. The use of coal murders people in large numbers. Take a look at W. Virginia's official sites abo
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddites [wikipedia.org]

    The more we progress, the more we still get stupid ass people who are stuck in the mud of the past.

    Yes, I'm talking about the movie and music industries, but it applies to these weirdo's also.

  • by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @07:08PM (#40138227)

    /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/

    • Well, that's the label they gave themselves.

      There is some discussion up about the (non) meaning of the term "eco-anarchist". The name looks like somebody that would fight the Front of Liberation of Judeia (or anything like that) from Monty Python's Life of Brian. My guess is that it reflects quite well in the integrants of the group.

  • The Eco- Anarchists are a bunch of pussy cowards. They refuse to target the hard targets like the people that club baby seals, oil companies, mines, etc.. I.E. people that are armed and have explosives.

    They are nothing but a bunch of pussy thugs trying to harass people that are easy to harass.

  • In fact you don't want even one scientist ganging up against you. You know, the kind that gets into the dark side.

  • Scientists? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by br00tus ( 528477 ) on Monday May 28, 2012 @09:12PM (#40138783)

    The blurb starts with "A loose coalition of eco-anarchist groups is increasingly launching violent attacks on scientists." But then one of the links is to Raytheon. By and large Raytheon does not have scientists working for it studying black holes and the like. It has engineers, and those engineers are designing missiles, to be used in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and so forth. I see mention that eco-anarchists are launching violent attacks when they shut down train tracks, not much mention that engineers at Raytheon are involved in violent attacks all over the world.

    Also the "nuclear engineering" executive mentioned in the blurb was working at Finmeccanica, another merchant in the death trade. He's an executive at another company in the death trade. Not a scientist, not even an engineer. Yet Nature headlines the article "Anarchists attack science".

    There has been bombing, executions and sabotages against Iran's nuclear program. A nuclear power program which at one time the US establishment whole-heartedly endorsed [wikipedia.org]. Why the hue and cry about an attack on a nuclear executive in Italy, which is an "attack on science", but not a word about this. Isn't shooting nuclear scientists in Iran an "attack on science"? Where are the articles on Slashdot, Nature and so forth bemoaning this?

    It's just simple propaganda. An executive making money on explosives killing people is himself attacked. So the lie must come into play, it is an attack on science. Disrupting Raytheon's blood profits by shutting down railroads for a day are a violent attack on scientists.

    From a moral standpoint, I have no problem with what these bombers and gunmen are doing. At best it would be justified, at worst it is simply eye-for-an-eye, tit-for-tat - one band of killers attacking another band of killers. I feel more secure that people are out there attacking Raytheon, Finmeccanica etc. executives than not. So mark that down, NSA listeners who are now monitoring domestically [wikipedia.org] due to the Patriot Act.

    While I feel it's certainly morally justified, or at least equivalent, from a tactical and strategic standpoint I don't see this as a necessary thing for the average American to do. There's plenty of legitimate and legal work that can be done - organization, education and the like, which is ultimately more effective. Even at Reagan's height HE [wikipedia.org] was the one who had to go underground to fund Contras, not the domestic opposition to him. With elections, the first amendment, right to assemble and so forth still intact, I can't see much tactical or strategic reason for an American to do this sort of thing in the US. In Italy, with its history ( P2 [wikipedia.org], Gladio [wikipedia.org], elections fixed by foreign powers [wikipedia.org]) it may make more sense, I don't know the situation on the ground there as well. The people who lit bombs in the 1960s like Bill Ayers, Diana Oughton etc. were generally children of the wealthy, working class activists like the Black Panthers and other organizations were not at that level of militancy, they felt free breakfast programs and organization and education was the important thing.

Be sociable. Speak to the person next to you in the unemployment line tomorrow.

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