Property Destruction Turns Up the Heat

Property Destruction Turns up the Heat

Riot 2010 & Smash ICE
By Custodeus

Earth First! Journal, Mabon 2008, Vol. 28, No. 6

Earth First! has finally come to a loose consensus on capitalism as the root cause of our ecological crisis. As opposed to the mainstream’s reactionary embracement of green lifestyles, the focus on ending capitalism’s grasp on the world gives cohesion to the radical environmental bloc. The first serious campaign created directly toward this strategy has been Root Force, which calls for targeting capitalism’s vulnerable infrastructure at key industrial projects. However, other tactics are also being launched against capitalism that expose additional points of vulnerability.

A recent trend of midnight window smashing and sabotage at urban institutions of capitalism has utilized a less scientific and more widespread approach. Companies such as Bank of America and Chevron have been targeted, for practices ranging from financing mountaintop removal and Navajo relocation to profiting from the Iraq war. Because a company like Wells Fargo invests profitably in so many devastating projects, most people in the US are literally surrounded by property of this bank, and have many opportunities to strike it.

Our struggles are not limited to demanding that any one company must change the type of project it makes money from. A fundamental change in the ability of money to trample people and the environment is necessary. What makes a culture of direct action so effective and threatening is that if people recognize the possibility of fundamental change, we are in a position to make it. The attempt to brand the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) a terrorist network has failed to prevent many people from sympathizing with ecologically motivated property damage. In their very first communiqué, the ELF notably mentioned the countless acts of sabotage that predated it and gave birth to its modus operandi. The ELF is only one manifestation of the ability of unruly populations to take direct action to stop ecological destruction. Resistance movements can quickly lead to further stages of social transformation when their actions are understood and taken up by others.

Both the “No 2010” and “Smash ICE” movements express solidarity with exploited populations that are particularly affected by resource extraction and environmental degradation. The 2010 Winter Olympics are the most significant of three events happening in Canada that year, including meetings of the Group of Eight (G8) and the realization of the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). It has been made clear through land occupations, blockades and countless actions that Canada is using the Olympics as an excuse for the theft, exploitation and pollution of the First Nations’ land. Increasingly common attacks against the Royal Bank of Canada and similar Olympics boosters expose a connection between the current devastation being experienced and those responsible. As more actions happen, momentum builds toward what many hope will be a riot throughout Vancouver in 2010, if not sooner.

The Smash ICE campaign began in resistance to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention Center in downtown Tacoma, Washington. Immigrants from a five-state area are held inside without rights, sometimes for more than three years. Smash ICE’s message has compared residing in Tacoma to living down the street from a concentration camp. They have demanded that action be taken, and have drawn the connection between ICE and Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo is a major financial member of the Geo Group, which runs the ICE detention centers in Tacoma and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as a vast assortment of other gulag infrastructure. Numerous Wells Fargo branches along the West Coast have recently been hit with broken windows and paint attacks decrying ICE.

It has been articulated in the Earth First! Journal how ecological devastation caused by US corporations in Latin America contributes to a cheap labor pool within US. Controlling that population through mechanisms such as detention centers is part of maintaining the system of environmental exploitation. An important step toward stopping this cycle is spreading awareness that capitalist infrastructure of all types exploits and poisons our world. We can practice solidarity with community members affected by anti-immigration laws by fighting against border security and immigrant detention.

Recent popular uprisings against the exploitation of land and people have turned against the urban infrastructure that belongs to the ruling class. In Oaxaca, in 2006, colonialist property that signifies the exploitation of the indigenous culture was attacked. In Argentina, in 2001, attacks were directed against banks and corporations that had first disenfranchised the rural areas and then bankrupted the urban working class. In the last few years, in the Banlieue slums of Paris, disenfranchised youth have acknowledged their worthless position in capitalist society by burning cars—a practice that has caught on like wildfire. Using quick methods to burn the cars (such as lighting off flammable materials in the back seat or beneath the tires), the youths have been difficult to apprehend or dissuade.

We need to act with the tactics that are available to us, while at the same time realizing the possibilities that our actions will create. We should think as if we are already in a state of insurrection, because, in fact, we are. An important question for Earth First! is, “How can these campaigns be spread in new directions, and how can momentum be increased?” One option is to use moments of repression as opportunities to go on the offensive.

Repression is the state’s offensive strategy for preventing revolution, so that the status quo of private property and collective exploitation can be maintained. Thus, resistance movements are often repressed so that their effects will be stopped. While repression was clearly boosted after September 11, 2001, the true movement in the US toward comprehensive restriction of movement and communication seems to be approaching only now. The goal of a militarized society is thinly veiled behind actions like preparing for closed borders, constructing massive imprisonment and detention infrastructure, and constantly policing neighborhoods. In addition, the powers-that-be are consistently stretching their ideologically defined word (or ideologueme) for outsiders, “terrorist,” to encompass any perceived threat to their goals.

This has been the case in Canada, where an ex-military intelligence agent recently wrote an article arguing that autonomous actions across Canada against the 2010 Olympics constitute a terrorist threat to national security. A subsequent communiqué stated that windows were smashed at a bank sponsoring the Olympics in honor of Mr. Quiggin—the article’s expert­. In the US, a House bill wants to create a new university for identifying social movements that could have the potential for violence and study methods for altering their development. This, included with Eric McDavid’s case and similar efforts, demonstrates the pursuit of the holy grail of repression—making thought crime punishable

Becoming offensive before their endless quest goes any further is essential for all of us. The ELF and the social movements mentioned above are great examples of this. An even more immediate example is the August 6 burning of a cop car in Vancouver while the police were carrying out their routine harassment of the destitute and homeless (see page 14). Actions such as these demonstrate that repression is only creating more “outlaws,” and that active resistance moves us into a world of our own making.

The campaign against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is just one example of simple actions being used to strike those responsible for horrors happening to our planet. The following quotations are from communiqués posted to the Internet following the actions.

May 27: Anarchists took responsibility for stealing and destroying six surveillance cameras from University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). Commenting on the rapid spread of surveillance throughout society, they added, “This action is dedicated to those affected by the recent immigration raids in Watsonville, California, a town just south of Santa Cruz. Fuck ICE! Spread the rebellion against social control!”

June 4: The Wells Fargo on 39th Avenue and Powell Boulevard in Portland, Oregon, was attacked. “A window pane was smashed in with a rock. All banks serve the interests of the capitalist class, furthering exploitation of “resources” and indigenous people around the world. We are fighting for the destruction of this society and for our own liberation from this world of banks, cops, prisons, poisoned water and air, and rapidly shrinking wild spaces.”

June 10: In Tacoma, Washington, “Wells Fargo was attacked from two sides and had many of their windows smashed. The message, ‘stop prisons,’ was spray-painted on one side of the building.”

June 14: The Bank of America and Wells Fargo ATMs at UCSC were smashed out. “Bank of America funds Peabody Coal, which is blasting the tops off mountains in Appalachia and strip-mining indigenous land in Arizona.”

July 21: A Wells Fargo Financial Office in Olympia, Washington, was attacked in solidarity with ICE detainees. “Last night we attacked your storefront and spray-painted a letter of hatred on your wall as an assault on your participation in the prison-industrial complex.”

July 21: All four ATMs at the Wells Fargo on River Street in Santa Cruz were smashed. “Refusal and non-participation is a good place to start, but it is necessary to actively destroy the system.”

The following list reflects only a few of the most recent actions in opposition to the 2010 Olympics on Coast Salish Territory (Vancouver, British Colombia). However, countless blockades, arsons, protests and other forms of resistance have occurred against projects that are justified by the Olympics and its sponsors. The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is one Olympic sponsor that has had its windows smashed on at least 11 different occasions in less than a year in the Canadian states of British Colombia and Ontario.

May 31: Three McDonald’s in Victoria, British Colombia, had their toilets plugged with cement.

June 24: Fire and explosions at a west Toronto Chevrolet dealership damaged at least 13 cars. The engine compartments of each car were burning when firefighters arrived. General Motors is a major Olympic sponsor.

Mid-July: Powerlines being constructed outside of Vancouver were found to contain “deep cuts.” The sabotage occurred amid protests over Vancouver’s infrastructure invading Tsawwassen territory.

July 21: An RBC on Broadway in Vancouver was attacked. Four ATMs were smashed out.

July 22: A truck belonging to Peter Kiewit and Sons was lit on fire (see page 15).

July 23: Ten windows were smashed out at the RBC on First Avenue and Commercial Drive in Vancouver, “because it is a bank.”