I am shocked by how little eco-terrorism I hear about. Are people doing it? It seems like the only way at this point
this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
29 points (85.4% liked)
Communism
9 readers
1 users here now
Discussion Community for fellow Marxist-Leninists and other Marxists.
Rules for /c/communism
Rules that visitors must follow to participate. May be used as reasons to report or ban.
- No non-marxists
This subreddit is here to facilitate discussion between marxists.
There are other communities aimed at helping along new communists. This community isn't here to convert naysayers to marxism.
If you are a member of the police, armed forces, or any other part of the repressive state apparatus of capitalist nations, you will be banned.
- No oppressive language
Do not attempt to justify your use of oppressive language.
Doing this will almost assuredly result in a ban. Accept the criticism in a principled manner, edit your post or comment accordingly, and move on, learning from your mistake.
We believe that speech, like everything else, has a class character, and that some speech can be oppressive. This is why speech that is patriarchal, white supremacist, cissupremacist, homophobic, ableist, or otherwise oppressive is banned.
TERF is not a slur.
- No low quality or off-topic posts
Posts that are low-effort or otherwise irrelevant will be removed.
This is not a place to engage in meta-drama or discuss random reactionaries on lemmy or anywhere else.
This includes memes and circlejerking.
This includes most images, such as random books or memorabilia you found.
We ask that amerikan posters refrain from posting about US bourgeois politics. The rest of the world really doesn’t care that much.
- No basic questions about marxism
Posts asking entry-level questions will be removed.
Questions like “What is Maoism?” or “Why do Stalinists believe what they do?” will be removed, as they are not the focus on this forum.
- No sectarianism
Marxists of all tendencies are welcome here.
Refrain from sectarianism, defined here as unprincipled criticism. Posts trash-talking a certain tendency or marxist figure will be removed. Circlejerking, throwing insults around, and other pettiness is unacceptable.
If criticisms must be made, make them in a principled manner, applying Marxist analysis.
The goal of this subreddit is the accretion of theory and knowledge and the promotion of quality discussion and criticism.
Check out ProleWiki for a communist wikipedia.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
The word "terrorism" is clumsy imo.
From a Marxist perspective, what the mainstream politicians call terrorism is called adventurism , ie, random acts of violence against random people. That's the worst method of change ever it doesn't work you can never get mass support like that.
But when we talk "eco terrorism" we don't literally mean suicide bombing on random people, it's more in the form of radical direct action including violent tactics in opposition to pacifist direct action right?
But if you're gonna use "terror" I mean, you're already on the path of Marxist revolution ("we'll make no excuses for the terror") as revolutionary violence consists in terrorising the reactionaries. The cool thing when you have a dictatorship of the proletariat is that your "terror" doesn't have to randomly kill people in cruel ways, you can dismantle reactionary networks using intelligence and rely on imprisonment rather than murder.
So I'd argue that the meaningful terminology is the following: either pacifist direct action, or radical direct action (more anarchist leaning) or revolutionary action (more Marxist leaning)
The Bush-era Green Scare did a lot to defang the environmentalist movement. There are still some great resources that they made, like A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching, and some good lessons learned, such as the above-ground/underground group dichotomy.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but afaik mainstream climate activism boils down to pointing at the iceberg and saying "there's an iceberg ahead" without any plan on how to avoid death. It is usually very toothless and unthreatening to the ruling classes, which is I think is why they're allowed to exist and even platformed through greenwashing. I don't see what success they've actually had that we could stand to gain from mimicry.
Their best analyses boil down to understanding quite a bit of the physical science of it, but they hardly get anything actually going in practice. Ozone layer was their last big win, but it was just because it was rather cheap for the corporations to fix that one.
Instead I think the way is to do what communists already do the best, which is to study the history of it (climate change) and better explain the hidden class aspect of it. If stories like the BP creating "carbon footprint" to shift the blame on consumers or Obama approving the Keystone XL pipeline on native land (and the subsequent attack on protests) stop becoming loose facts on somebody's head and become part of a large narrative of the ruling class complete disregard for climate change, regardless of whose campaign they sponsor. You can already see lost libs in the thread parroting PR firm victim blaming talking points.
And if the interest is the USA, indigenous people are both usually the most interested in combating climate change and the ecological catastrophe, and also the first victims of the repression (and it's usually not televised). The Red Deal is an alright read if you want to get the perspective of some of them who have been fighting this fight for a while. They also have a podcast, which is alright too.
TLDR: you can't properly fight climate change without class consciousness and understanding the history of settler disregard for the environment. This is why lib movements tend to fail at anything but making them feel good about themselves, IMO.
-
Don't make it left or right. It doesn't matter how right you are, a lot of people are going to have other ideas.
-
Focus on immediate benefits of mitigation, and don't make it just about climate. E.g. ending car dependent design benefits drivers due to less traffic and less bad or impaired drivers.
-
Use their own rhetoric. E.g. right wingers claim to be about small government. Cars involve a lot of government interaction with licensing, registration, taxes for roads, getting stopped by LEOs. Other transportation methods require less government.