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'Eco-Anarchists' Targeting Nuclear and Nanotech Workers

Posted by Unknown on from the ignorance-is-freedom dept.

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."

13 of 426 comments (clear)

  1. Do they realise... by multiben · · Score: 5, Funny

    That bombs and guns are a product of science? Or is that part of their message - to destroy science with science? Fucking assholes.

    1. Re:Do they realise... by sycodon · · 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?

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    2. Re:Do they realise... by r1348 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Leave your sister alone, you perv.

    3. Re:Do they realise... by ultranova · · 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?

      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?

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    4. Re:Do they realise... by PopeRatzo · · 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.

      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.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    5. Re:Do they realise... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · 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.

    6. Re:Do they realise... by ghostdoc · · 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.

      --
      Business/App ideas are like arseholes: everyone's got one, they're mostly shit, but very rarely they contain a diamond
    7. Re:Do they realise... by Chas · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Sorry, that may be what you, as an idealist, think of it.

      But destroying "the state" isn't necessarily a desirable thing.

      Anarchy is not a form of government, nor is it a self-perpetuating.

      It's merely an interim state until a large enough coalition forms to impose their will on others and forms a new state.

      Usually the entire process of teardown, chaos, and reformation involves lots and lots of people suffering and dying while people try to "get it right".

      So please, take your bullshit rhetoric elsewhere.

      --


      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
  2. Anarchist community by Anonymous+Cowpat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes, we tried to organise a small anarchist community a few years ago... but people wouldn't follow the rules.

    (Thank you, I'll be here all week)

    --
    FGD 135
  3. Re:strategy of tension by meerling · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:Paranoid style in Swiss Politics by NeutronCowboy · · 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.

    --
    Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
  5. Re:self-deception was never my strong suit by couchslug · · 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

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

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  6. Montebello - there is video of this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.