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'Eco-Anarchists' Targeting Nuclear and Nanotech Workers
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."
The wikipedia article on eco-anarchism is actually pretty good methinks, and gives a good explanation of eco/green-anarchism. I can also recommend This entry on anarchopedia (who knew there even was such a thing), is also pretty enlightening regarding these groups' ideologies.
Eco-anarchists have been terrorists for decades. Spiking trees, ever seen what a chainsaw chain can do when it hits one? People can be and have been killed by them.
Tree spiking is a despicable and dangerous tactic, but it hasn't killed any one (yet). The only injury from tree spiking was a mill worker named George Alexander back in 1987. He was seriously hurt but not killed.
I'm against tree spiking too, but let's protest with facts instead of emotional-charged exaggerations.
These are luddite terrorists not anarchists. You can be an anarchist and not hate scientists. Their anti-science position has nothing to do with anarchism in the political sense of the word.
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.
Eco-anarchists have been terrorists for decades. Spiking trees, ever seen what a chainsaw chain can do when it hits one? People can be and have been killed by them.
Having hit various chunks of metal in trees including a piece of 1/2 in steel pipe that had been hammered into a tree 30 ft up years before, presumably to hang a clothes line from, I'm well aware that hitting something means having to do a bunch of filing to get the chain sharp again. A hassle but with so much wood coming from populated areas you have to expect nails, wire, bullets (harmless but common) and even chunks of pipe in timber. It's one of the reasons that a chainsaw operator should be trained how to hold a saw, if it kicks, you don't want to lose control.
Shits about the saw hitting something and the kid getting hurt but the logging industry is a dangerous industry. People get killed, sometimes in weird ways where there is no blame and often through complacency. When I first started working in the bush, WCB had all kinds of real examples of injuries that happened, often through stupidity. Things like being rushed and not shielding the saws in the mill and sending some poor kid under a machine without proper shields or when the machine was running.
Sadly by 2000 the government was in cutback mode and things like safety training and inspections were too expensive so people get injured and die but at least someone makes a profit and the government can balance its budget while cutting taxes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
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 can be found; CBC should have a fairly authoritative story on it, maybe here.