Retirement/planet: same fight, same lack of strategy

⚠️ This text comes from the Strategy section of the blog (where many other items are available), in order to bring about a constructive debate on ongoing struggles: ATR is however a legal and non-violent movement, and our aim is only to question the objectives and strategies put in place in social and ecological struggles in order to gain efficiency. We do not encourage violent or illegal activities.

Against the crazy evolution of industrial capitalism, we must organize ourselves effectively to resume the offensive.

1.1) A tactical problem: our symbolic walks do not target weak spots

If someone hits you, you can't defend yourself by knocking on their fists: you won't hurt them that way. To win the fight, You have to touch it where it hurts. This means reaching, behind your fists, the sensitive and vulnerable parts of the opponent's body.

Imagine if a lumber company bulldozer pulled up trees next to your house. It is the bulldozer blade that pushes the ground and lays the trees on the ground. But it would be a waste of time to hit them with sledgehammers. Would you devote a long and arduous day to hacking the blade with a sledgehammer that you would surely succeed in damaging it enough to make it unusable. But compared to the rest of the machine, the blade is relatively cheap and easy to replace. In short, it is nothing but the fists with which this bulldozer hits the ground. To defeat the machine, you have to reach its vital parts by looking for them behind your fists. In our context, this assumes that we cannot be content with ephemeral occupations of city centers through union protests : the vital parts of the system, the nodes of its economic and energy flows, are elsewhere (see the back).

 
1.2) A strategy problem: we act as if we were going to win easily

Social movements usually pursue a strategy of war of usury. What is a war of usury? It is a slow and prolonged struggle, aimed at weakening the enemy until it collapses itself. In our context, this results in a defensive reaction to the attacks of industrial capitalism : we are opposed to one destructive project at a time. This strategy is failing. Our occasional victories against this or that reform do not really weaken the institutions that develop industrial exploitation; at best, we're only slowing down the rate at which it's getting stronger.

To start winning our war of usury, we would not only need to block any new destructive laws, which we are far from succeeding; but we would also have to force the withdrawal of many other harmful reforms that have already passed in recent years. And in reality, even if we succeeded, a very optimistic hypothesis, our strategy would remain a failure. Indeed, the war of wear and tear only works if one defeats the adversary while limiting one's own losses. But there is nothing acceptable about the current increase in CO2 emissions, or in the decrease in biodiversity. Disaster is imminent. Even if we had the resources to wage a war of usury, which we don't, we certainly don't have the time. The war of usury is an absurd strategy in our position: we need to change our focus to gain strategic effectiveness.

1.3) A lens problem: the air conditioning is useless in a burning building

We are fed up with turnarounds and compromises. We know that we We don't want to work any longer for a system that is destroying the planet and human relationships. Certainly today we are working, but because everything in this system has been privatized. To the point thatYou have to pay to drink water, eat an apple, or have a place to sleep. But we know that solidarity between generations can exist in other ways than in the technological economy. Let's think back to the models of families and villages where elders cared for young people by the fire. We therefore refuse to suggest that there would be an acceptable compromise on this reform, or that we could even be content with its withdrawal at a time when all the social veneer of the system is crumbling. : no improvement can be sustainable in this suffocating environment. The only way out is the stopping of industrial infrastructures and a radical change in social organization.

So, in addition to protesting, in order to finally start getting real victories, our new movement, Anti-Tech Resistance, invites you to turn the page.

2,1) Rethinking our collective organization around more ambitious goals

Against current organizations, well established in the system, sharing its vision and the majority of its goals, we need organizational renewal. With Anti-Tech Resistance, our proposal is to organize ourselves strategically to shut down industrial infrastructures (which would by extension mean an end to modern paid work, and therefore of the pension reform that pretends to make people work longer in these infrastructures). In order to achieve this objective, We are now proposing the organization of communities and rear bases that are less dependent on the industrial system (for this purpose, we can find inspiration in the memory of the workers' gardens who helped the people to support crises or to hold strikes). For that, rather than begging the ruling technocrats, It is therefore a question of collectively training, helping each other and sharing resources, places and skills to recover together the autonomy that the system has deprived us of by locking us up on its screens/in its factories.

2.2) Move from a defensive strategy to an offensive strategy

The war against the planet, against the majority of human beings and against future generations, is based on fossil fuels. To go beyond a strategy of usury, we need to think about systems, flows, nodes, and especially bottlenecks. We need to understand how oil, coal, and gas are extracted, transported, processed, distributed, and burned. We have to understand where the system is weak and where we can intervene for maximum impact. Industrial systems withstand the loss of one or two components without suffering additional damage and quickly solve the problems caused. But these systems are designed for efficiency (producing a lot and quickly), not resilience (resisting shocks). When a sufficient number of critical parts fail simultaneously, the failures affect the system, like a series of dominoes, and cause more and more components to stop working. The impacts are increasing exponentially, the longest disruptions persist. Under the right circumstances, a cascading failure can bring the whole system to a standstill. Besides, we will be able to support this strategic path with recent examples of victorious social struggles : truck strikes, refineries blockade... It is when you attack your weak points that the system gives way.

2.3) Adapting our tactics to better target selection

Unlike the current situation, where activists select meeting locations based on symbolic considerations, the cascading failure strategy requires a precise choice of targets.

Exactly (!) , the CARVER matrix, a tool developed several decades ago by people who know a lot about strategy, allows a better selection of targets:

• Criticality : How important is the element for the system?
• Accessibility : Is it easy to reach the item?
• Recoverability : How quickly and easily can the system resume its functionality after damaging the element?
• Vulnerability : Is it easy to damage the element with the available tactics and weapons?
• Effect : What are the unwanted side effects that can be caused?
• Recognizability : Is it easy to identify the target under adverse conditions, such as a dark and rainy night?

Most of the protesters, legal and illegal, have so far chosen accessible and vulnerable targets. But they are not critical or difficult to replace. Activists, eager to be effective, should think according to the criteria of the CARVER matrix in order to trigger a cascade of failure. So they would understand that it is better to block the energy network than to demonstrate in the city center. They would understand that some weak spots are not necessarily where you think they are. Finally, they would understand that it is possible to change the course of history.