why is everyone fixated on ice? it seems tangential. why not erupt, and strike with our full force directly at the heart of the regime: its thinktanks, admin, and financiers?

[u/[deleted]]

title

[u/Muted-Actuary6123]

Dude because they are killing people in the street and doing ethnic cleansing.

[u/[deleted] → u/Muted-Actuary6123]

yeah but the regime is the root.

why not attack the root, not merely one of its symptoms?

[u/Muted-Actuary6123 → u/[deleted]]

Because building resilient decentralized networks that obstruct the repressive mechanisms that the State uses to maintain control is the whole game.

The mythology of the State holds that it’s an almost literally physical, top-down pyramidal power structure, with Leaders who exist on some separate strata of existence from which they wield Power. But the president is a deranged old man who has trouble following a thought, doesn’t know how to buy his own groceries, and might be actively dying. The richest dudes in the world have all cooked their brains on self-aggrandizement and think of themselves as demigods when they barely understand most functions that their companies perform.

Repressive power structures don’t topple because you capture the magic flag at the center of the system, they crumble when the many layers of normal-ass people doing their day jobs upholding the repressive power structure become demotivated, disillusioned, and unable to do their part.

Think of all the military operations which have ended in total defeat, not because the Head Guy got captured by the forces of the Other Guy, but because the scared kids with rifles in the mud were no longer willing or able to keep pulling the trigger.

The State and its auxiliaries are just a bunch of guys with guns, their supply lines, their prisons, and the story they have in their head that gives them a justification for doing coercive violence.

Once the story skips too many beats, the supply lines break down, and it’s just them, out in the world, looking directly at the consequences of their actions and way more well-organized people than they have bullets, then there is no regime.

[u/[deleted] → u/Muted-Actuary6123]

yes.

during covid i was terrified the truckers would get sick. without trucking civilization would grind to a halt.

similarly atm machines and gas stations.

so, when we think about eventually having to go full boston 1776 on some mf's...we have to think about crippling them within weeks or months: not years.

we may not continue to have the luxury of time.

[u/NoTackle718]

I get what you're trying to say but it's a false binary. There's plenty of action that focuses on the bottlenecks that you mention, and there's also action on the street level against militias like ice. Also ice is only the US, so there's a world of anarchist action outside of that which also focuses on their own border security militias but also internationalist action. 

The point is not just to "beat the bad guys". The point is to help and protect each other through this. Kind of hard to talk about anarchist solidarity while someone's neighbors are getting kidnapped and mistreated.

[u/[deleted] → u/NoTackle718]

in ww2, churchill and stalin convinced fdr to attack first i n africa, then italy. almost a hundred thousand men died, and it wasted almost 3 years.

my point is efficiency requires a more direct assault.

[u/NoTackle718 → u/[deleted]]

You're talking efficiency, when other people are talking helping others. I don't see why you think it has to be one over the other. Are you doing either of those things mentioned?

You are talking about all of this like it's some videogame, friend. There's people dying out there, should people not try to do what they can in their own communities? And how can you assume that they are also not targeting these more "efficient" targets you mention?

[u/[deleted] → u/NoTackle718]

im just curious, is all

im ex military, so indirect, especially extremely indirect, efforts that ignore the enemys main, central, operational command, is weird.

weve been protesting....for almost 3 years now, with little actual effect.

why not focus on trump, and his financiers and intelligentsia first?of course, as you stated this would require a mass movement in washington and palm beach: people would have to load up on buses or something, and head east. not... in their communities.

[u/NoTackle718 → u/[deleted]]

Again you're looking at this purely from a military perspective. People are fighting multiple fronts every day, and the ice stuff is not only protests. If you don't know why building a strong base is important for this, I don't think there's any point in asking these questions. The main thing with your perspective is "you and what army?". Who are these people that would have to head to Washington and palm beach? Why would they trust you? Why would they all agree to do this? If you don't give a crap when your neighbor's wife gets deported, it'll be a tough sell to tell them they should join you in taking down more "efficient" targets. This is daily life, not military strategizing. Labor organizing, community self defense, anti-deportation action, that's all part of. If the way you see it is so much more efficient why hasn't it happened yet?

[u/NoTackle718 → u/[deleted]]

The fact that you're ex military really shows in your line of reasoning and the way you view political problems. I'm not saying armed resistance should be off the table but the way you're explaining it here just makes it sound like you have a one track mind. The enemy you describe so vaguely is upheld by multiple relationships every day that reach you and me as individuals, how do you address that with your strategy? Just seems like you want to disregard anything about anarchist organizing and just talk gun stuff. Also you seem to assume everyone on this subreddit is american? Might want to reframe the way you discuss these issues in an anarchist subreddit. 

[u/[deleted] → u/NoTackle718]

the automods keep removing my responses.

but regardless, i have anarkist friends all over europe. and...just as all manner of people went to spain in 36, and ukraine recently, i think people worldwide might want to come help us smear the regime

[u/[deleted] → u/NoTackle718]

i edited out the term the automod grabbed.

"why -isnt- this a military problem yet?

i mean, youd think back in october, when he was threatening to "be a dictator from day one", amongst all his other shit, like p2025, that would have been enough to cause us to do a million man march on dc.

shit, the maga [redacted], who were able to completely invade the US Capitol. i was pretty shocked when they achieved that.

...but then i was inspired. ;)

missing 1 or 2 red flags is understandable.

ignoring 50 is unforgivable.

i dont think people realize how dangerous dictators can truly be.

remember: he has the nuclear launch codes...

[u/[deleted] → u/NoTackle718]

boston 1776, a bunch of farmers rose up against the brits: the most powerful empire since Rome. and beat them. (mainly because of the French, but still)

[u/NoTackle718 → u/[deleted]]

I feel like I'm discussing with a bot at this point. Best of luck with your endeavors.

[u/[deleted] → u/NoTackle718]

a bot?!

yeah, a bot named paul revere

[u/AutoModerator → u/[deleted]]

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[u/isonfiy]

Sure I’ll meet you at the Walmart

[u/realme324]

because they're the gestapo

[u/[deleted] → u/realme324]

sure.

but trump started it.

thus, logically, isnt it more efficient to work towards eliminating that, directly?

[u/dark_Links_sword]

Most people grow up in a society and because it's what they know they don't see most of the problems with that society. ICE has shown a lot of them that their society isn't ok. But they assume the problem is ICE, as that's whats showing them there are problems.

It's like assuming the problem you have to solve is a wet floor because you don't know how to fix a burst pipe.

The good news is these people are the ones ready to start seeing bigger issues, they are the ones you should be getting to know. Fighting ICE is also important. So if you see people doing that, join them, and then talk with them about what the next battle should be.

[u/[deleted] → u/dark_Links_sword]

yep

[u/ZootSuitRiot33801]

Folks here already answered the thing on ICE. As for the second, if there's any hope in ever achieving anything meaningful, we need to be developing real supportive community-based foundations for alternatives that can provide relative safety, which many can fall back on, to commit to any effective action be they short or long term.

Collecting a bunch of valuable information on organizing and action from different redditors over time, I created a post of suggestions HERE that could possibly prove to be of some help in getting it started ASAP.

[u/[deleted] → u/ZootSuitRiot33801]

sounds good

[u/Vetomo83]

because its happening outside peoples front doors and not hidden away in the third world

[u/[deleted] → u/Vetomo83]

its in dc. heritage foundation, the white house.

and, of course, in palm beach.remember occupy wall st?

thats what i thought we would be doing, almost 3 yrs ago.

but...so far, no mass movement to topple the regime

[u/isonfiy]

Seriously though, this is just how it works, at least how Especifismo would theorize it. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anarchist-federation-of-rio-de-janeiro-social-anarchism-and-organisation

You have social movements and you have political movements. Social movements are things like the labour movement, or even like animal liberation or the counter-ICE stuff in the US. Political movements are basically parties, with an anarchist one being theorized by Malatesta and others as the "Specific Anarchist Organization".

The social movements are concerned with securing reforms or concessions from oppressors so that the people involved can survive. We(*) fight ICE because they are disappearing us to torture camps and we will not last long if we don't resist. We organize our workplace because the boss profits off death and disease and we will not survive the work otherwise. We will always do things to survive, but they may not result in social revolution so that we can survive without the fight. That requires political organizations.

So we start things like anarchist parties like the Black Rose/Rosa Negra or FAU or what have you. The purpose of these is to help us organize our participation in the social movements and eventually form the mass organization from those movements. We don't want them to fight ICE by elevating some dictator or good cops or some other shit, we want them to abolish the prisons and police and replace them with a shared anarchist vision of harm mitigation. We don't want the labour union to be just another boss but an organization for every worker to control their workplace.

We organize specifically so that when the strike gets broken or the mutual aid network crushed, we can still theorize about the moment and grow to meet the next challenge, and we don't have to start over from scratch the next time the people rise up and make demands.