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Glen Park BART attacked: We didn't do it for the lulz.
On the evening of September 8th, 2011 we sabotaged the fare machines, turnstyles and facade of the Glen Park BART station in South San Francisco. Just as we have been inspired by comparable actions of anarchists world wide, we hope to act as a catalyst to incite similar actions against the state and it's apparatuses of control.
On the evening of September 8th, 2011 we sabotaged the fare machines, turnstyles and facade of the Glen Park BART station in South San Francisco. Just as we have been inspired by comparable actions of anarchists world wide, we hope to act as a catalyst to incite similar actions against the state and it's apparatuses of control.
Our spray cans dispensed slogans and our hammers shattered screens and ticket readers. We look to each other to find meaning and reject the limiting discourse of rights and free speech as a vehicle for our rage. We communicate this now to denounce the authority of a society that violently represses us every time we step out of line.
All police are the enemy. We articulate this when we choose to honor the lives of Oscar Grant, Charles Hill and Kenneth Harding by fighting for our own lives. This same passion for freedom can be observed from Seattle to Greece to Chile. As anarchists we understand that the social control of transit fares exists in harmony with the deadly enforcement of the physical, emotional, and social desolation of our everyday lives. We aim to interrupt this concert at every feasible opportunity.
The police and the media will spin this event as petty vandalism. Some will condemn us and suggest that violence against property promotes state repression, but we have lost our fear. We do not seek approval from any authority and for this reason we abandon the tired structure of demand.We look to explore our capacity to exemplify our collective abilities and to encourage others to resist in ever more autonomous and uncontrollabe ways. Freedom to those arrested at today's Powell Street action. See you at the barricades.
PS: mad props to the wildcat longshoremen of washington. keep it wild
Our spray cans dispensed slogans and our hammers shattered screens and ticket readers. We look to each other to find meaning and reject the limiting discourse of rights and free speech as a vehicle for our rage. We communicate this now to denounce the authority of a society that violently represses us every time we step out of line.
All police are the enemy. We articulate this when we choose to honor the lives of Oscar Grant, Charles Hill and Kenneth Harding by fighting for our own lives. This same passion for freedom can be observed from Seattle to Greece to Chile. As anarchists we understand that the social control of transit fares exists in harmony with the deadly enforcement of the physical, emotional, and social desolation of our everyday lives. We aim to interrupt this concert at every feasible opportunity.
The police and the media will spin this event as petty vandalism. Some will condemn us and suggest that violence against property promotes state repression, but we have lost our fear. We do not seek approval from any authority and for this reason we abandon the tired structure of demand.We look to explore our capacity to exemplify our collective abilities and to encourage others to resist in ever more autonomous and uncontrollabe ways. Freedom to those arrested at today's Powell Street action. See you at the barricades.
PS: mad props to the wildcat longshoremen of washington. keep it wild
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could we be a little more effective please? property destruction has been going on in the U.S. for a better part of a decade and a half with little positive benefits as a result (and a lot of comrads in jail). Is it time to rethink actions?
From the critical art ensemble:
"If an authoritarian agency believes itself to
be under attack, or under the threat of attack (deferred
virtual catastrophe), and it is in the public
limelight because of this, it will lash out in a less
than predictable way. It may act in a manner that
is injurious to itself, but it is just as likely that it
will act in a way that could endanger unsuspecting
elements of the public sphere. Introducing the public
into the formula forces the threatened agency
to face one major consequence: In order to keep up
with the speed of the infosphere, it must act quickly.
Hesitation, even to allow time for reasonable analysis
and reflection, is not an option. In the current
marketplace of public relations, success and failure
have imploded, and all actions, when represented
24 Electronic Civil Disobedience, Simulation, and the Public Sphere
well, reside in the sphere of hyperreal success and
victory. The only useful distinction to be made is
between action and inaction. Inaction is the sign
of weakness and ineptitude. Caught in this highvelocity
vector, a threatened agency will take action
that will be explosive (not implosive). Scapegoats
will be designated, and action detrimental to
these individuals or populations will follow (the
perfect macrocosm of this sequence of events is U.S.
foreign policy and the actions taken on its behalf).
In other words, once this sequence of destruction
was initiated by threat (whether virtual or actual),
the often uncontrolled forces that would be released
could not be contained or redirected by the resistant
force. This inability to contain the explosion
links this model (in effect only) to terrorism. Not
that the activists are initiating terrorist practice,
since no one dies in hyperreality, but the effect of
this practice can have the same consequence as
terrorism, in that state and corporate power vectors
will haphazardly return fire with weapons that
have destructive material (and even mortal) consequences.
What is odd is that such action would not be taken
out of a concern for infrastructure, but for the
semiotic regime and the entity’s public image in
hyperreality. However, when the public is taken
out of this formula, the sequence changes dramatically.
The agency under pressure would not have
to act quickly. It could have time to investigate
and therefore be able to deliver a more surgical
strike, because the sign of weakness (the public
perception of inaction) would not be damaging
its intended public representation. In this worstcase
scenario for the activists, the response would
be far more directed, and hence the consequences
Electronic Civil Disobedience, Simulation, and the Public Sphere 25
would tend to fall on those who actually took the
risk of initiating the action. If the agency were
unaware that it was under subversion and an implosion
occurred, the public would not be notified
or feel the direct consequences (although indirect
ones such as unemployment are probable).
In either case, there would be no violent explosive
spinoff of shrapnel that could land anywhere
in the landscape of resistance. In other words, containment
would be actualized. What is of additional
interest is that the agency under pressure
would subsidize containment activity. No agency
wants to publicize that it is in financial trouble,
that its security has been breached, etc., and hence
it would contain itself. However, if the public is
introduced into the formula, then the likelihood
of containment evaporates and the consequences
become less than civil. For this reason CAE continues
to believe that all useful models of ECD
(or for that matter, nearly all political as opposed
to consciousness raising and pedagogical actions***)
within the current political conditions
have in common covert action and an abhorrence
of mass media as a theater of action.
...
First and
most obvious, this form of resistance would be covert.
Second, reliable insider intelligence would
need to be acquired. This is the most problematic
area in this kind of tactical maneuvering, although
it is not impossible to find solutions. For
simulationist tactics of resistance to be successfully
employed, methods and means of research, intelligence
gathering, and informant recruitment have
to be developed. (CAE is willing to bet that the
next breakthrough paper on resistance will address
this very problem of amateur intelligence generation.)
Until that occurs, subjective-subversive action
will be pretty ineffectual. At present, those
not involved in a fully developed covert approach
can only act tactically in regard to the strategic principles
of an institution rather than to specific situations
and relationships. Obviously enough, a tactical
response to a strategic initiative makes no
sense. In all probability such action will not have
the desired effect, and will only alert the agency
being hit to prepare for potential external pressures.
We must also remember that simulationist infowar
is only a destructive tactic—it is a way to cause
institutional implosion, and has very little producElectronic
Civil Disobedience, Simulation, and the Public Sphere 23
tive value in terms of policy reconstruction. To continue
with the example of racism, agencies that
have institutionalized racist policies (and that includes
pretty much every institution in the
pancapitalist regime) will not be changed by an
infowar of institutional attrition. The semiotic regime
of racist policies will continue untouched in
other institutions that are interrelated through the
shared privilege acquired by maintaining such policies.
CAE still insists that productively challenging
institutions will not occur through nihilistic gestures,
but instead through forcing changes in the
semiotic regime on an institutional basis while leaving
the material infrastructure intact for
reinscription."
From the critical art ensemble:
"If an authoritarian agency believes itself to
be under attack, or under the threat of attack (deferred
virtual catastrophe), and it is in the public
limelight because of this, it will lash out in a less
than predictable way. It may act in a manner that
is injurious to itself, but it is just as likely that it
will act in a way that could endanger unsuspecting
elements of the public sphere. Introducing the public
into the formula forces the threatened agency
to face one major consequence: In order to keep up
with the speed of the infosphere, it must act quickly.
Hesitation, even to allow time for reasonable analysis
and reflection, is not an option. In the current
marketplace of public relations, success and failure
have imploded, and all actions, when represented
24 Electronic Civil Disobedience, Simulation, and the Public Sphere
well, reside in the sphere of hyperreal success and
victory. The only useful distinction to be made is
between action and inaction. Inaction is the sign
of weakness and ineptitude. Caught in this highvelocity
vector, a threatened agency will take action
that will be explosive (not implosive). Scapegoats
will be designated, and action detrimental to
these individuals or populations will follow (the
perfect macrocosm of this sequence of events is U.S.
foreign policy and the actions taken on its behalf).
In other words, once this sequence of destruction
was initiated by threat (whether virtual or actual),
the often uncontrolled forces that would be released
could not be contained or redirected by the resistant
force. This inability to contain the explosion
links this model (in effect only) to terrorism. Not
that the activists are initiating terrorist practice,
since no one dies in hyperreality, but the effect of
this practice can have the same consequence as
terrorism, in that state and corporate power vectors
will haphazardly return fire with weapons that
have destructive material (and even mortal) consequences.
What is odd is that such action would not be taken
out of a concern for infrastructure, but for the
semiotic regime and the entity’s public image in
hyperreality. However, when the public is taken
out of this formula, the sequence changes dramatically.
The agency under pressure would not have
to act quickly. It could have time to investigate
and therefore be able to deliver a more surgical
strike, because the sign of weakness (the public
perception of inaction) would not be damaging
its intended public representation. In this worstcase
scenario for the activists, the response would
be far more directed, and hence the consequences
Electronic Civil Disobedience, Simulation, and the Public Sphere 25
would tend to fall on those who actually took the
risk of initiating the action. If the agency were
unaware that it was under subversion and an implosion
occurred, the public would not be notified
or feel the direct consequences (although indirect
ones such as unemployment are probable).
In either case, there would be no violent explosive
spinoff of shrapnel that could land anywhere
in the landscape of resistance. In other words, containment
would be actualized. What is of additional
interest is that the agency under pressure
would subsidize containment activity. No agency
wants to publicize that it is in financial trouble,
that its security has been breached, etc., and hence
it would contain itself. However, if the public is
introduced into the formula, then the likelihood
of containment evaporates and the consequences
become less than civil. For this reason CAE continues
to believe that all useful models of ECD
(or for that matter, nearly all political as opposed
to consciousness raising and pedagogical actions***)
within the current political conditions
have in common covert action and an abhorrence
of mass media as a theater of action.
...
First and
most obvious, this form of resistance would be covert.
Second, reliable insider intelligence would
need to be acquired. This is the most problematic
area in this kind of tactical maneuvering, although
it is not impossible to find solutions. For
simulationist tactics of resistance to be successfully
employed, methods and means of research, intelligence
gathering, and informant recruitment have
to be developed. (CAE is willing to bet that the
next breakthrough paper on resistance will address
this very problem of amateur intelligence generation.)
Until that occurs, subjective-subversive action
will be pretty ineffectual. At present, those
not involved in a fully developed covert approach
can only act tactically in regard to the strategic principles
of an institution rather than to specific situations
and relationships. Obviously enough, a tactical
response to a strategic initiative makes no
sense. In all probability such action will not have
the desired effect, and will only alert the agency
being hit to prepare for potential external pressures.
We must also remember that simulationist infowar
is only a destructive tactic—it is a way to cause
institutional implosion, and has very little producElectronic
Civil Disobedience, Simulation, and the Public Sphere 23
tive value in terms of policy reconstruction. To continue
with the example of racism, agencies that
have institutionalized racist policies (and that includes
pretty much every institution in the
pancapitalist regime) will not be changed by an
infowar of institutional attrition. The semiotic regime
of racist policies will continue untouched in
other institutions that are interrelated through the
shared privilege acquired by maintaining such policies.
CAE still insists that productively challenging
institutions will not occur through nihilistic gestures,
but instead through forcing changes in the
semiotic regime on an institutional basis while leaving
the material infrastructure intact for
reinscription."
Glen Park BART is in San Francisco, not South San Francisco. Are you even from SF, SBAA?
way to nitpick. are you a nitpicker?
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- BART police are investigating an attack by vandals at the Glen Park station in San Francisco.
A group of about 10 to 20 vandals damaged turnstiles and spray-painted graffiti at the Glen Park station Thursday night. They swung hammers and destroyed the Clipper Card readers at the station's entrance. Some of the devices are still not working Friday morning. Someone scrawled the name of Charles Hill on the ground. He's the man who was shot to death by BART police in July.
BART's Powell Street station is open Friday morning following Thursday evening's protest that shut it down at the height of the commute. Police arrested more than two dozen protestors on the platform. The group called 'No Justice, No BART' was trying to force BART into allowing passengers to ride the trains for free. They wanted to make the station so congested, that officials would have no choice but to open the emergency gates.
A group of about 10 to 20 vandals damaged turnstiles and spray-painted graffiti at the Glen Park station Thursday night. They swung hammers and destroyed the Clipper Card readers at the station's entrance. Some of the devices are still not working Friday morning. Someone scrawled the name of Charles Hill on the ground. He's the man who was shot to death by BART police in July.
BART's Powell Street station is open Friday morning following Thursday evening's protest that shut it down at the height of the commute. Police arrested more than two dozen protestors on the platform. The group called 'No Justice, No BART' was trying to force BART into allowing passengers to ride the trains for free. They wanted to make the station so congested, that officials would have no choice but to open the emergency gates.
For more information:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=n...
Noticed that the ABC7 report just HAD to say "commuters aren't happy". That's their tagline in all corporate media reporting on BART issues. Good for you, keep up the action. Would those (probably fewer than the corporate media would have you believe) unhappy commuters REALLY want to ride with taser-happy, trigger-happy armed BART cops if they thought about it? Can you say POLICE STATE?
is even more proper than ''police state''. 800 billlion for wars ,we'd say thats a ''military dictatorship''.
i really can't stand you protesters. I have an important life with an important career that is very upwardly mobile. I like to get home so I can work out at 24 hour fitness or go to the mall and spend all of the money I make. if you would just write your congressperson or someone like that i'm sure that everything would be handled. can't you just work in the system - like me. look where i am. i can even buy a new car and take a vacation and buy new suits. i have a life.
i hope i don't have to be inconvenienced any more.if i am, i might cry to the chronicle or kcbs. i'm sure they will pick it up but i won't be home to watch it along with other reality tv shows that i like. i assume the BART police know what they are doing. They're the police, right?
it's ashamed some people are not upwardly mobile like me and get into places where the BART police take care of them. i just don't want anything to inconvenience me and my important life. if they or you worked as hard as I do you would feel the same way. i feel like BART police are there to protect people like me. Kind of like the soldiers protected the wagons trains from the Indians. isn't this a great country. I voted for Obama so i'm pretty progressive too. ya know what i mean.
i hope i don't have to be inconvenienced any more.if i am, i might cry to the chronicle or kcbs. i'm sure they will pick it up but i won't be home to watch it along with other reality tv shows that i like. i assume the BART police know what they are doing. They're the police, right?
it's ashamed some people are not upwardly mobile like me and get into places where the BART police take care of them. i just don't want anything to inconvenience me and my important life. if they or you worked as hard as I do you would feel the same way. i feel like BART police are there to protect people like me. Kind of like the soldiers protected the wagons trains from the Indians. isn't this a great country. I voted for Obama so i'm pretty progressive too. ya know what i mean.
“BART officials believe there is a direct correlation between the act of vandalism and the Thursday protest,” Salaver said. “There were individuals spotted at the Powell Street protest wearing similar clothing” as the vandals.
For more information:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011...
Here are some nazis in russia wearing black hoodies. I bet nazis did it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfKNhtOR_gQ
Germany (the antifa or anarchists over there are really irritated by the decision of the far-right to drop the skinhead look and copy their sweatshirts and certain other style aspects... as they are definitely racist and nationalist. They do irritating things like flying palestinian flags primarily because of antijewish sentiment rather than real palestinian solidarity)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhRilXc2dzk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2yWF7aKS4I&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfKNhtOR_gQ
Germany (the antifa or anarchists over there are really irritated by the decision of the far-right to drop the skinhead look and copy their sweatshirts and certain other style aspects... as they are definitely racist and nationalist. They do irritating things like flying palestinian flags primarily because of antijewish sentiment rather than real palestinian solidarity)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhRilXc2dzk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2yWF7aKS4I&feature=related
Your efforts may well be completely unintelligible to people outside of your very small set of personal associates -- and they might be even more unintelligible if they managed to read the statement you've posted here. "...physical, emotional and social desolation..." What, you busted up the Man's property because you can't get a date? Oops! Sorry, there I go again -- I apologize for that little laspe into sarcasm.
Some of what you are doing is good. However efforts like the ones described below would be a lot better and have the potential to go a lot further:
"...Since the early 1990's, actions in the San Francisco Bay Area around mass transit, described here, http://www.infoshop.org/myep/love2.html
the initial impetus behind this, http://www.infoshop.org/myep/muni_social_strikeout.html http://www.infoshop.org/myep/muni_farestrike.html
efforts to disseminate this among US military personnel, http://www.infoshop.org/myep/love3.html
and the anti-gentrification Mission Yuppie Eradication Project http://www.infoshop.org/myep/myep_criticism.html
have been part of an ongoing effort to establish a new kind of anti-state/anti-market, autonomous class struggle praxis among mainstream working people in the contemporary United States.
1. These efforts take place "on the terrain of everyday life" of the wage-earning class, where we confront what market relations do to our lives, and where the market system's antagonism to human needs gives rise to the possibility of an organized, conscious, mass collective response. These efforts have not been directed towards the left-liberal protest ghetto, or toward academic, anarchist or self-styled Marxist subcultures.
2. Mass collective class struggle includes the fight against the boss in the workplace, but is not limited to the workplace.
3. The methods used to help create a new politics of working class resistance to capital and it's political apparatus have to be qualitatively different from the politics of the left. In all its statist, populist and directly democratic flavors the left is simply the left-wing of capital.
4. Authentic enemies of capitalism in the 21st century cannot use strategies, tactics or communication methods used by pro-wage labor leftists in the 20th century.
5. The armed forces are themselves vulnerable to social forces at work in the larger society that spawns them. Revolt in civilian society bleeds through the apparent hermetic separation of the military from mainstream civilian life into the ranks of enlisted people. The relationship between officers and enlisted people mirrors the relationship between bosses and employees, and similar dynamics of class conflict emerge in the military and civilian versions of the workplace.
6. With the virtual disappearance of the conventional left, and the accelerating decline of the United States as a world power, the way is now open for the creation of a new type of autonomous working class oppositional praxis. We can borrow from the best insights of authentic revolutionary working class tendencies in the past. We can use these insights as a point of departure, but not as an end-point. Anarcho-syndicalism and council communism were both useful in their day. That day has passed. Everything has to be recreated fom scratch.
Efforts like the ones around mass transit described in the articles above have a much greater future subversive potential than the Mission District anti-gentrification efforts of the late 1990's. They have the potential to directly involve a larger number of working people over an entire urban area, and under the right circumstances these actions can also have a "bleed-through" effect, spreading resistance in other areas of contemporary life.
What's being examined here is mostly a method of communication. These methods can be a template for similar anti-state/anti-capitalist proletarian actions elsewhere, including but not limited to fights around housing, social space and against austerity measures targeting employees and passengers of mass transit systems..."
Some of what you are doing is good. However efforts like the ones described below would be a lot better and have the potential to go a lot further:
"...Since the early 1990's, actions in the San Francisco Bay Area around mass transit, described here, http://www.infoshop.org/myep/love2.html
the initial impetus behind this, http://www.infoshop.org/myep/muni_social_strikeout.html http://www.infoshop.org/myep/muni_farestrike.html
efforts to disseminate this among US military personnel, http://www.infoshop.org/myep/love3.html
and the anti-gentrification Mission Yuppie Eradication Project http://www.infoshop.org/myep/myep_criticism.html
have been part of an ongoing effort to establish a new kind of anti-state/anti-market, autonomous class struggle praxis among mainstream working people in the contemporary United States.
1. These efforts take place "on the terrain of everyday life" of the wage-earning class, where we confront what market relations do to our lives, and where the market system's antagonism to human needs gives rise to the possibility of an organized, conscious, mass collective response. These efforts have not been directed towards the left-liberal protest ghetto, or toward academic, anarchist or self-styled Marxist subcultures.
2. Mass collective class struggle includes the fight against the boss in the workplace, but is not limited to the workplace.
3. The methods used to help create a new politics of working class resistance to capital and it's political apparatus have to be qualitatively different from the politics of the left. In all its statist, populist and directly democratic flavors the left is simply the left-wing of capital.
4. Authentic enemies of capitalism in the 21st century cannot use strategies, tactics or communication methods used by pro-wage labor leftists in the 20th century.
5. The armed forces are themselves vulnerable to social forces at work in the larger society that spawns them. Revolt in civilian society bleeds through the apparent hermetic separation of the military from mainstream civilian life into the ranks of enlisted people. The relationship between officers and enlisted people mirrors the relationship between bosses and employees, and similar dynamics of class conflict emerge in the military and civilian versions of the workplace.
6. With the virtual disappearance of the conventional left, and the accelerating decline of the United States as a world power, the way is now open for the creation of a new type of autonomous working class oppositional praxis. We can borrow from the best insights of authentic revolutionary working class tendencies in the past. We can use these insights as a point of departure, but not as an end-point. Anarcho-syndicalism and council communism were both useful in their day. That day has passed. Everything has to be recreated fom scratch.
Efforts like the ones around mass transit described in the articles above have a much greater future subversive potential than the Mission District anti-gentrification efforts of the late 1990's. They have the potential to directly involve a larger number of working people over an entire urban area, and under the right circumstances these actions can also have a "bleed-through" effect, spreading resistance in other areas of contemporary life.
What's being examined here is mostly a method of communication. These methods can be a template for similar anti-state/anti-capitalist proletarian actions elsewhere, including but not limited to fights around housing, social space and against austerity measures targeting employees and passengers of mass transit systems..."
While I am not condemning you, I also warn you to not fall into the trap of individualistic thinking. You are accountable not only to yourselves but also your communities. This isn't about your action, which I have no qualms about... this is about your "I don't fucking care about what anyone thinks" attitude in your last paragraph. Well, that's very problematic, and comes from a huge place of privilege to "not care" about how what you do necessarily affects your communities, and others' communities as well. Next time you publish about an action, think a little bit about how what you say is making or breaking solidarity ties. It is great that you all are explicitly uncompromising and unco-optable....but just remember that this isn't just a struggle for our SELVES, but for everyone.
So the Bay Area Rapid Transit tactical cops are the Cavalry "protecting the wagon train from the Indians", huh? More media-inspired false dichotomy bullshit: Cops=good, protectors=bad.
How else are people going to respond to their fellow passengers being shot at by Bay Area Rapid Transit cops than to be outraged?!! B.A.R.T. cops have committed acts of homicide against passengers dating back to 1992. How familiar are you with the name Jerrod Hall? B.A.R.T. cops [ tactical OR regular ] never made me feel safe, regardless of their numbers in the subway stations. Ever. If there's anything that's an inconvenience, it's having to fear for your own life everytime you step into a B.A.R.T. station, because of armed B.A.R.T. cops. No matter what race, skin-colour OR class/tax bracket you're in.
And remember, indybay viewers, "upwardly-mobile" are what Yuppies call themselves.
How else are people going to respond to their fellow passengers being shot at by Bay Area Rapid Transit cops than to be outraged?!! B.A.R.T. cops have committed acts of homicide against passengers dating back to 1992. How familiar are you with the name Jerrod Hall? B.A.R.T. cops [ tactical OR regular ] never made me feel safe, regardless of their numbers in the subway stations. Ever. If there's anything that's an inconvenience, it's having to fear for your own life everytime you step into a B.A.R.T. station, because of armed B.A.R.T. cops. No matter what race, skin-colour OR class/tax bracket you're in.
And remember, indybay viewers, "upwardly-mobile" are what Yuppies call themselves.
That comment was humorous sarcasm, for those who didn't get it at first sight.
Like the recent "BART loves business casual day" post.
Like the recent "BART loves business casual day" post.
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