Hello everyone and welcome to the first discussion thread. This week's text was Fire At Midnight Destruction At Dawn: Sabotage and Social War by Kasimere Bran (links to downloads found here). Edit: Some discussion will take place on the riot reading group chatroom which can be accessed here, but there will also be discussions in this thread.

This text focused on sabotage, a method of subverting the capitalist power structure through direct destruction of property on an individual or group scale. The text argues that due to its versatility and simplicity, sabotage can quickly and truly damage capital and the state. While other forms of protest such as boycott tend not to have a large impact, sabotage produces results for direct political and social goals, and is even advocated without any attachment to a particular movement aside from anti-capitalism and anti-statism.

Questions:

Will sabotage simply alienate liberals and socdems, we all know how much they hate burning trashcans.

Which story did you find most impactful and why?

Missing from the text is any mention of street art (graffiti), do you consider this an act of sabotage and is it effective?

The text neglects a potentially large field of operation, namely the internet. Do hackers create the same unrest that could lead to revolution? Do you think hacking is safer or more dangerous than physical world projects? Do they need a physical world counterpart to be fully impactful?

Are unfocused acts of sabotage accelerationist in nature?

Feel free to address any of these questions, ask your own, or just give your opinion on the piece. Hope you all enjoyed it