berlin activists start campaing to destroy surveilancecamera's ahead of police summit

[Clarion]

I'm not interested in building some left wing sect or being a union bureaucrat. Many years ago I sold a newspaper, loyally attended every protest waving a placard and blowing my union whistle but I realised how futile all that was. I still show out to the big rallies out of solidarity but I'm not under the illusion that this kind of work tends to achieve anything.

My political work (which isn't my paid occupation) takes place firmly within the labour movement and the community, not with small groups miles outside of it. Direct action, self-proclaimed revolutionary sects, individual terrorism and guerillaism are all alienated from the working class and so can't be truly revolutionary as they don't advance the self-organisation and self-liberation of the working class.

Poking holes in what I do (and so far all your guesses as to what it is I actually do have been wrong) will not make your own tactics less ineffective.

[thriller]

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with deterring scabs at picket lines and more than there is with defending ourselves against police attacks on those lines.

Sorry, but I think you contradicted yourself. Destroying police surveillance cameras is a pre-emptive way of defending ourselves during strikes. Could the police use the cameras to pick out top organizers and detain them? You betcha. But you think it's wrong because some anarchist took the time to do it first?

@Ravachol I would say I care. I come here for debates with other leftists, even those who greatly disagree with me. It's stimulating for me to have to re-evaluate my position and explain myself more soundly. I think it can help us learn how to explain ourselves to non-leftists.

[Clarion]

Action by striking workers on the picket and action by a handful of self-appointed revolutionaries who presume to act on their behalf is the difference.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Petty vandalism isn't a revolutionary act. It's an infantile act of individualism.

What is this expected to achieve?

Smashing the tools of the State used for domination and oppression is an achievement in itself, is it not?

[Clarion]

What does it achieve other than self-gratification?

[Art Vandelay]

What does it achieve other than self-gratification?

A tangible detriment to the polices ability to identify activists.

[Clarion]

. . . and we cycle through this argument again.

I doubt we're going to agree by arguing the same points a second time.

[Art Vandelay]

Even if you don't care about those who you deem 'student activists' (without knowing whether or not that is true), its a tangible detriment to the polices ability to identify the militant workers who will confront the pigs during the upcoming law enforcement conference.

[Decolonize The Left]

. . . and we cycle through this argument again.

I doubt we're going to agree by arguing the same points a second time.

That's probably true. However I have read the whole thread, and since I wasn't a part of the earlier discussion I would like to pick up a few things.

In the first place, I support the actions demonstrated in the OP. So we disagree on the premise of the thread. You claim:

I'm not disputing the role played by those cameras, I'm just taking issue with the strategy of a few self-appointed revolutionaries taking it upon themselves to smash them.

Understood. So if I understand you correctly, you are saying that individual acts of revolt do not encourage non-revolutionary-minded working-class people to consider the prospects of leftism. In short, you'd say the acts of the individuals in the OP do not promote leftism in any meaningful sense, and in many ways detract from the overall goal of leftism which is working class solidarity. Am I correct?

Well I understand that argument. It's most commonly used against 'propaganda of the deed' types and in that context it is rather adequate. But unfortunately here it does not hold water.
The reason is because the individuals in the OP video aren't trying to actively sway large swaths of the working class to leftism. In fact, they are engaging in a very precise action with a precise target and a precise purpose: they are destroying the surveillance equipment of the state in preparation for an upcoming event where there will most likely be leftists engaged in open protest. In other words, it's strategically beneficial to destroy the cameras. Surely you see the strategy involved - no? So if you sit for a minute with just that fact, you'll see why it's a good idea to destroy the cameras.

In this instance, the goal isn't to mobilize the working class.
The goal is to attempt to protect those members of the working class who will be confronting the repressive apparatus of the state in a short time.

Diversity of tactics, my friend.

[thriller]

Action by striking workers on the picket and action by a handful of self-appointed revolutionaries who presume to act on their behalf is the difference.

This what I don't understand. If striking workers destroyed the cameras then the police would be able to charge all involved with destruction of property, vandalism, and inciting a riot and be able to effectively portray the strikers as enemies to the public which might lessen public support for the strike. But because you disagree with anarchists this situation is an advancement of the working class. I think you may be confusing class with politics. Disagree all you want with anarchism, this tactic can only help organize the working class simply by helping them evade the State more (even if it is on a small scale).

[Ele'ill]

What does it achieve other than self-gratification?

Praxis

(they removed and destroyed cameras used by the state to track militants both workers and non (ahead of a summit)(and even if they did it for the fun good for them(also, not every action by individuals has to advance some monolithic mass movement for it to better the lives of the individuals or others))

[Ravachol]

Action by striking workers on the picket and action by a handful of self-appointed revolutionaries who presume to act on their behalf is the difference.

So what's that been achieving lately? (Since we're apparently following the stupid line of mutually exclusive activity).

Also, I couldn't give two fucks about 'alienating the working class'. Fuck man, the working class alienates the working class most of the time. You act like its some kind of rock solid homogeneous body of masculine oiled men with big hammers and flat caps standing outside factory gates chewing tobacco and muttering 'those damn petit-bourgeois students and their alienating camera-smashing, I sure love me some CCTV! Don't you, comrade stakhnov?'. Strikes alienate the working class, marches alienate the working class, waving a placard and sending a letter to the daily mail alienate the working class and guess what, Capital alienates as well. Besides, most proles probably cheer on a CCTV camera being smashed or at the very least don't give two fucks (unless they're hella conservative old farty union hacks).

But whatever I guess this just doesn't 'build the community support' and doesn't 'strengthen the labor movement' and other such tried and true roads to communism.

[Ele'ill]

Well, many "radicals" particularly of this kind are students and others who aren't directly invested in the labour process.

there are a lot of students who are pretty pissed off at being a part of a labour process that leaves them nothing and costs a fortune

This is action by a few individuals to satisfy some revolutionist reflex. It isn't mass action and it doesn't serve to facilitate such action. It's completely alienated from organised class politics

not to be monitored by cops and intelligence, the state, and it did not take a boring mass mobilization to perform while actually having a specific purpose

Speak for yourself. Many Communists are among the most highly respected members of the labour movement, even those with fairly dodgy politics. You'll find that people are much more receptive to your ideas if you don't act like a angsty teenager.

But what you've just illustrated here is that mass organizing like that is kind of a neurosis of empire where quasi radical 'labour movement' knobs get to the top of what's basically the business model of organizing, to organize watery reforms while leading a lot of people down a road that is militantly non-revolutionary and completely dead end.

Then they will fail as they will never destroy every camera in Berlin.

lol but they probably destroyed most of the cameras in key areas where the summit will be held

[Niebuhr]

Funnily enough, speaking of the Summit itself, it will take place at ther BCC at the corners of the Alexanderstr. & Karl-Marx-Allee (formerly Stalinallee), where a great deal of the 1953 uprising against the East German government took place, and which Brecht commemorated in his poem Die Lösung, which features the famous lines, roughly translated, "If the people cannot redouble their efforts and win the confidences of the Government, Has It any choice but to dissolve the electorate and appoint a new one?"

On the subject of surveillance: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...es-uk-airspace

[LiveOnYourFeet]

Can anyone fill me in on what happens at the end of the video? Is it the guy in orange who was on the train with them that starts chasing them? Or is it some type of law enforcement waiting for them to get off?

Good work, however.

The guy in the orange would've stopped them on the train itself if he really wanted to, he wouldn't have waited for them to start running. Honestly he didn't look like he cared. Odds are it was a metro officer who was notified that they were on the train and waited at the station for the train to arrive, and that's probably why they pulled the "run like a bat out of hell" technique when the train stopped.

[Ele'ill]

here we go more camera disabling

http://pugetsoundanarchists.org/cont...t-sound-region

In the opening weeks of February, 2013, we have removed and destroyed 17 security cameras throughout the Puget Sound region. This act is concrete sabotage against the system of surveillance and control. It is also a message of solidarity and a wish of strength to the Seattle Grand Jury Resisters, those currently incarcerated and those not. Finally, this act announces our participation in the game of CAMOVER, called for by comrades in Germany. Barefoot Bandit Brigade, Puget Sound, USA