Pistoleros! The Chronicles of Farquhar McHarg

The Chronicles of Farquhar McHarg – Pistoleros!: 1: 1:1918 (Paperback)

by Farquhar McHarg (Author), Christie Stuart (Editor), Helios Gomez (Illustrator), Paul Sharkey (Translator)

Pistoleros! Is the story of twentieth century anarchism as witnessed by McHarg, a Glaswegian anarchist sailor who became embroiled in Spanish revolutionary politics at the end of the First World War. Curiously echoing the editor Christie’s (author of ‘Granny Made Me an Anarchist’ and ‘Floodgates of Anarchy’) own life fifty years later, the youthful and naïve McHarg jumps ship in Barcelona and enlists with the CNT (the anarchist national workers union) in their struggle against the bosses proto-fascist murder squads and para-military catholic groups (which provided training for the likes of Franco in murder and suppression techniques).

Pistoleros! is written in the style of a genre thriller with all of the accompanying intrigues; double dealing spy networks, evil foreign agents, love and betrayal all framed within the romantic backdrop of post WW1 Barcelona  – and in this way it’s is a gripping read, yet these characters and events are real, the colourful backdrop the grim reality of poverty versus the opulence and wealth of the Barcelona bourgeoisie.

Anarchists are often caricatured as firebrands and disorganised individualists and universally accused of being better at ‘analysing the problem’ rather than providing practical solutions. Pistoleros! shows that the history of Anarchism has been that of pragmatism; Anarchists were always on the frontline of providing real-world solutions through organised labour in effective opposition to the exploitation and corruption of the ruling classes – when the traditional left were constantly mired in internal power politics and global machinations.

Links:

http://www.christiebooks.com/

Mischief Theory and Practise. Pt 3: ‘work’

Wage Slavery

“All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.” – Aristotle

From birth to death, work dominates every second of our lives ;  ‘The working week’,  ‘nine-to-five’, weekends,  lunch hours, commutes and careers have completely supplanted the natural rhythms of the sun and the stars.

Since labour became industrialised workers themselves have become machine-like; we are now cogs, specialising in one task repeated until the worker is exhausted or broken(the final promotion; a cog heaven overseen by a benign bearded boss). As a cog we are lead to believe we are promoting our own interest when in fact we are only keep the machine running for the benefit of the machines owners; the shareholders, banks et al.

Work defines our personalities and validates our existence yet most of the work we do is at best useless and meaningless (let’s face it, if you stopped right now, would it make any real difference?) or at worst harmful to ourselves and others. Our labour is wasted; endlessly focussed at creating surplus for the profit of others rather than efficiently solving problems of global and urgent importance. Even when we have achieved ‘enough’ we are misled and oblivious to the fact.

Work distorts our behaviour and forces us into aggressive competitions with our fellow humans, promoting an individualistic culture of backstabbing, greed and egotism rather than of cooperation and mutualism. Work deforms our relationships  and separates us from our children – placing their upbringing into the hands of others (which in reality is nothing but a preparation for their ‘working lives’) .

The unanimity that work is beneficial, mandatory even,  is reinforced by cultural, political (all  political parties are primarily concerned with the promotion and control of labour; it’s ownership, organisation and value.) and religious proclamation: the inverse of work is defined only as sloth – a mortal sin in the christian canon.

Worst of all, work betrays the possibility of human potential by presenting us with a cul-de-sac of limited ambition; we’re continually kept on the treadmill by the promise of  pay rises, twenty day holidays and retirement. A constant reiteration, if it was ever necessary, of our lack of control over our own destinies.

Workplace Sabotage

“…All of a sudden, things started to break in the office. First it was minor things such as broke door handles, holes kicked in bathroom walls, spit on all the corporation’s plaques and logos. Then it became more destructive, $5,000 conference room tables began falling apart and very expensive color copiers shorted out by water. I don’t know how to go about catching this person or even if it is more than one person…”

A recently de-classified US document from the ‘Office of Strategic Services’ outlines tactics for subversion and sabotage of commercial organisations. Eerily predicting contemporary office practice, this sixty year old document contains still relevant and useful behavioural instruction  for disruption of the means of production:

General Interference with Organizations and Production

Organizations and Conferences:

(1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible– never less than five.
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.

(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
(7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

Managers and Supervisors
(1) Demand written orders.
(2) “Misunderstand” orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.
(3) Do everything possible to delay the delivery of orders. Even though parts of an order may be ready beforehand, don’t deliver it until it is completely ready.
(4) Don’t order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.
(5) Order high-quality materials which are hard to get. If you don’t get them argue about it. Warn that inferior materials will mean inferior work.
(6) In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines.
(7) Insist on perfect work in relatively un important products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw. Approve other defective parts whose flaws are not visible to the naked eye.
(8) Make mistakes in routing so that parts and materials will be sent to the wrong place in the plant.
(9) When training new workers, give in complete or misleading instructions.
(10) To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.
(11) Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.
(12) Multiply paper work in plausible ways. Start duplicate files.
(13) Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.
(14) Apply all regulations to the last letter.

Office Workers
(1) Make mistakes in quantities of material when you are copying orders. Confuse similar names. Use wrong addresses.
(2) Prolong correspondence with government bureaus.
(3) Misfile essential documents.
(4) In making carbon copies, make one too few, so that an extra copying job will have to be done.
(5) Tell important callers the boss is busy or talking on another telephone.
(6) Hold up mail until the next collection.
(7) Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope.

Employees
(1) Work slowly. Think out ways to in crease the number of movements necessary on your job: use a light hammer instead of a heavy one, try to make a small wrench do when a big one is necessary, use little force where considerable force is needed, and so on.
(2) Contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can: when changing the material on which you are working, as you would on a lathe or punch, take needless time to do it. If you are cutting, shaping or doing other measured work, measure dimensions twice as often as you need to. When you go to the lavatory, spend a longer time there than is necessary. Forget tools so that you will have to go back after them.
(3) Even if you understand the language, pretend not to understand instructions in a foreign tongue.
(4) Pretend that instructions are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once. Or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the foreman with unnecessary questions.
(5) Do your work poorly and blame it on bad tools, machinery, or equipment. Complain that these things are preventing you from doing your job right.
(6) Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker.
(7) Snarl up administration in every possible way. Fill out forms illegibly so that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms.
(8) If possible, join or help organize a group for presenting employee problems to the management. See that the procedures adopted are as inconvenient as possible for the management, involving the presence of a large number of employees at each presentation, entailing more than one meeting for each grievance, bringing up problems which are largely imaginary, and so on.
(9) Misroute materials.
(10) Mix good parts with unusable scrap and rejected parts.

General Devices for Lowering Morale and Creating Confusion
(a) Give lengthy and incomprehensible explanations when questioned.
(c) Act stupid.
(d) Be as irritable and quarrelsome as possible without getting yourself into trouble.
(e) Misunderstand all sorts of regulations concerning such matters as rationing, transportation, traffic regulations.
(i) Cry and sob hysterically at every occasion, especially when confronted by government clerks.

excerpt from:

‘SIMPLE SABOTAGE FIELD MANUAL’
Office of Strategic Services
Washington, D. C.
17 January 1944

Links:

Part One “Jamming”

Part Two “Deconstruction”

Part Three “Work”

———

Sabotage in the American Workplace: Anecdotes of Dissatisfaction, Mischief and Revenge

work sabotage history of the ‘wobblies’

Anti wage slavery http://www.whywork.org/

The crisis of work : http://www.antenna.nl/~waterman/gorz.html

Anarchist Bookfair: London, Saturday 24th October 2009

“As capitalism collapses around us in the market of ideas the anarchist pound is bouyant  and the 28th London Anarchist Bookfair is back at Queen Mary College in London’s East End…”

for more details: http://www.anarchistbookfair.org/

Mischief Theory and Practise Part Two: ‘Deconstruction’

“Encouraging Destructiveness
It should be pointed out to the saboteur where the circumstances are suitable, that he is acting in self-defense against the enemy, or retaliating against the enemy for other acts of destruction. A reasonable amount of humor in the presentation of suggestions for simple sabotage will relax tensions of fear.”

‘SIMPLE SABOTAGE FIELD MANUAL’
Office of Strategic Services
Washington, D. C.
17 January 1944

Existing within the urban environment necessitates an escalating war of resistance over un-requested invasive messages – the high science of communication or the blunt hammer of advertising: billboards, subway lcd screens, street advertising, point of sale, free papers, guerilla marketing, the subliminal, the liminal and the blatantly overt. ‘Everything that is made can be unmade’ – in this spirit we explore the tactical opportunities to degrade, disrupt and ultimately reclaim our space.

This video illustrates how advertising on the side of a NYC public phone box can be easily removed (or replaced with more interesting material) using readily available tools; a small cordless drill, a set of tamper-proof security bits and a healthy dose of bravado. The same tactics can be employed internationally against other types of apparatus; security cameras, police equipment, street advertising and commercial targets which all rely on ‘tamper proof’ construction to maintain integrity in a public space ( ‘tamper proof’ in reality means ’slightly harder to undo’). Tamper proof bolts can easily be removed if you have the correct non-standard bits, available here and elsewhere. As the video suggests, for extra mischievous effect, replace the bolts with a dab of superglue.

Image:’Tamper-Proof’ security bit head set (USA).

Traffic  Hacking

The vulnerability of road traffic has long been a powerful tool for those planning maximum urban disruption. In London, the ecological cyclist group ‘critical mass’ challenge the tyranny of the internal combustion engine and bring the city of London to a regular standstill through  mass cycle rallies. During the ‘Stop The City’ anti-capitalist protests of the mid 1980s traffic light cables were cut with bolt cutters during the night and bridges blocked by immobilised buses slowing down the arrival of the riot cops…

Back in the days of the ambulance station we were able to manually remotely control the traffic light signals on the Old Kent Rd – originally to allow the ambulances clear access to the street – a novel feature that gave hours of pleasure disrupting traffic on London’s main southern artery and allowing us to hold off police raids for a precious few minutes. Now you can accomplish the same effects by using a ‘MIRT’ – Moble InfraRed Transmitter Mirt “ a dashboard mounted device that gives an infrared strobe burst at 10-14hz designed to allow emergency vehicles to pass through Infra-red controlled lights:

image: BEECos MIRT

“A breakthrough technology in traffic light pre-emption. For the first time, a traffic light preemption emitter that is compact, mobile, and practical. “MIRT” can be securely positioned on the dash or inside windshield and moved from vehicle to vehicle with no installation required. Just plug it in and go! Its infrared technology emits no visible light, making it discrete and eliminating any distraction to the driver.”

Image: DIrtY MIRT LED Array

…or for around $20 you can build your own ‘DIrtY MIRT’ from a selection of parts available at Maplins. Comprehensive DIY instructions are here. An even cheaper, less subtle but proven method involves pointing flashing LED cycle lamps at the MIRT receiver or simply rapidly flashing car headlights while approaching the junction at high speed…

“Again, please do not use or abuse this. These Pre-Emptive systems were designed to save lives, not to get you to work earlier. Imagine if you and an ambulance were to approach the same intersection at the same time from perpendicular directions…”

Other traffic control systems are often vulnerable to mischievous intent. Famously those jokers at ihacked.com show how easily electronic traffic messaging displays can be edited ending up as national news across the states – just a shame the message wasn’t more targeted.

Shopping with barcodes

The ubiquitous barcode provides a physical link between objects and digital systems. They are used indiscriminately and insecurely for multiple purposes; entry systems,  delivery tracking, pricing, ticketing, boarding passes and so-on often with little connection or checking between systems;  a perfect target for those with mischievous intent. Barcodes can be simply copied (using a digital camera) and reproduced or read using a barcode scanner, edited and reproduced. barcode mayhem is a perfect way of disrupting the systems of your favourite supermarket (Tesco for example…) simply copy and print out low priced codes and replace them on multiple products or create a DIY BOGOF (‘buy one, get one free’) and help yourself safely to the single malt – if you do get caught, feign innocence and blame it on the system further introducing doubt and expense. FX from Phenoelit in this video tells you everything you need to know about barcode exploitation with some handy real-world examples:

or download the pdf here

Links:

Part One “Jamming”

Part Two “Deconstruction”

Part Three “Work”

——-

Mirts: http://www.themirt.com/

ihacked.com various hardware hacking prokects

NYC public ad campaign ‘New and Old Ad Takeovers’

Anti Advertising Agency

Barcode disruption

the complete works of Shakespeare encoded as barcodes

Mischief: theory and practice. Part One; Jamming

“Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision”

Salvador Dali

Mischief: ‘playfulness that is intended to tease, mock, or create trouble’ is an effective disruptive tactic. Use freely as a technique to reclaim your surroundings, neutralise the constant assault of the banal and eliminate unwanted messages from broadcasters, advertisers and corporations. In short mischief is an ongoing method of attrition, the low resolution cousin of direct action.

Mischief introduces doubt into a world of certainty, a playful way of introducing unexpected surrealism to the commonplace; a creative therapeutic act that confirms life and maintains sanity, civil disobedience in miniature, granular sabotage.

A Mischief Toolbox

Jamming

RX9000 Cell phone jammer

Phones in general are unpleasant devices and seem to generate a twitter like craving to be constantly ‘in touch’ . Induce phone withdrawal symptoms with this handy (but expensive and highly illegal) portable device. The RX9000 “Still a top performer in a class of its own and highly recommended” is a handheld mobile/cell phone jammer, which will disrupt any mobile phone signal from all global system within a 30metre radius. Perfect for public transport, office etc.

Personal cellphone jammer

This cheaper version is available here on Amazon.com – of all places. “Cellock-brand time-proven build quality and reliability – Creates enough interference to block all cell phone signals around you (GSM 930Mhz~960Mhz/CDMA 870Mhz~880Mhz/DCS 1805Mhz~1920Mhz) – Fully metal construction – creates a solid and techie feel – Creates a 0.5M ~ 15M (about 2 to 40 feet) radius of cell phone signal black out area – Built-in 1500mAh battery lasts 3 to 4 hours, also works and charges on AC and Car 12V power with including adaptors – Light (6oz) weight, fits-in-a-pocket size”

The TV; a notorious instrument of mass control, why not turn it off? The TV-B-Gone “Make every day a “TV-free” day!” will turn of pretty much every TV from a range of up to 150 ft. Great for annoying the family but especially useful in turning of advertising displays, street LCDs and so-on

TV jammer circuit board

Go one step further and help your neighbours de-programme by jamming their signal! Here is a guide to building your own TV Jammer or even better, here’s an ascii art circuit diagram:

Art Materials:

TTL Hex Inverter 7404 I.C.

14-pin Wire Wrap DIP I.C. Socket

Trimmer Capacitor, 3.5-20 picofarad

3′ of flexible wire (half of a lamp cord is fine)

2-3″ of stiff wire (with insulation)

9-volt battery

9-volt battery clip

Mercury tilt-switch

“As I recall, so long ago, when it seemed okay to play with radiation spewed upon us by ten thousand TV & radio transmitters, this device got a little warm — since it was made to work on 5 volts, and could burn out after several weeks of continuous operation.  But the I.C. only cost 50 cents, so no big deal.  You had to tune the capacitor (with your thumb nail) for each target-channel, and actual operating range was only about 30-40 feet — but that was spectacular enough.”

Similar techniques can be used to jam radio frequencies and WIFI signals. Here is a link to an ultra low cost DIY FM signal jammer that swamps out FM radios  with a 100Mhz signal; “…So yeah a crystal hooked up to a piece of wire will silence a radio for a surprisingly good distance, and through thick walls. The interesting thing is that although it is supposed to be a crystal accurate to 100.000etc Mhz it blanked out the entire FM band! Btw this is illegal to do so don’t do it. I didn’t.“

…or this device from Wave Bubble, a self-tuning, wide-bandwidth portable RF jammer disguised as a pack of fags will enforce radio silence within a 20 metre radius

Similarly WIFI and Bluetooth signals and wireless security cameras can also be blocked or disrupted. Among many products available online, The WBj01 is yet another portable small black box with an aerial that “…helps you cut off wifi bluetooth connections in defined working area and avoid leak out security data” within a 5metre range. Or consider the ‘High powered 4 watt video camera jammer’ a “professional high powered video camera jammer. It produces a powerful 4 watts of jamming power to disable just about all video cameras up to a distance of 70 metres and covers all frequencies between 900Mhz – 2.5Ghz. This device will jam the signal for any wireless video camera, wireless lans and bluetooth”

Coming soon: Part Two; Deconstruction

____________

Links

Part Two “Deconstruction”

Part Three “Work”

———

Cell phone jammers: http://www.globalgadgetuk.com/rx9000.htm

http://www.cacophony.org/

hackers catalogue: http://www.hackerscatalog.com/Products/PlanPackage/CellularGPSJammers/Index.html

TV-B-Gone http://www.ladyada.net/make/tvbgone/

video jammers: http://www.spymodex.com/video.htm

Riot diary. g20 pictures and videos, 1-4-2009

This is a video i took after gaining access to the RBS Building (Royal Bank Of Scotland – notorious for incompetence, hubris and corruption) with twenty or so other individuals. The offices were quickly set alight and i made my escape up the fire escape persued by a number of portly riot cops, who, encumbered by shields, batons, armour, helmets and excessive body fat took several minutes to make the ascent. The short fideo clip shows the banking district of the City Of London occupied by massed anarchist hordes.

where’s the riot?

In advance of  tomorrows events: a ‘print-out and keep’ map of all the happenings c/0 Indymedia:

see you’s there…

“Summer of rage” round one: G20 Meltdown

“Anyone who was working in the City in 1999 will remember how awful those riots were. There were riot police banked outside my office and all the tube stations closed so I had to walk for miles through what was effectively a war zone. It was absolutely terrifying and I’m afraid I can’t believe there is anything more behind it than a desire to cause as much damage and mayhem as possible. The mindset is no better than that of football hooligans, if not worse. I for one will be taking April 1st as a day’s holiday rather than risk putting myself through anything like that again.”

London Evening Standard march 2009

 

how to be invisible

I’ve always been of the opinion that people over concerned with surveillance and data security are displaying the first stages of clinical paranoia. It’s well known, for those that care to look, that the UK police and military have in their possession technology which enables them to track individuals movements visually and electronically (think of google maps ++), trace your behaviour (spending, travelling, health, political persuasion), listen in to conversations and so-on – our only real defence against this intrusion has been the plod/MOD’s incompetence at cross referencing and interpreting the mass of data they’ve so carefully collated.

Britain is one of the world’s most surveyed society; It is estimated (2002 figures) that the United Kingdom is watched by over 4.2 million CCTV cameras. This equates to one camera for every fourteen people; each UK subject is recorded on average by up to three hundred cameras a day. Surveillance has become part of our lives; we’ve become used to accepting surveillance as a shield against crime and terrorism, sacrificing our privacy for the apparent greater good. However a recent trend is the movement of commercial organisation into the field of surveillance and “dataveillance” – using similar unregulated techniques and technologies global corporations are starting to watch you. Is it time to get paranoid?

“Live Series 2″ & the London Ambulance Station

Live series 2 cassette package

 

To Londoners, The old Kent rd  has been for many years a byword for poverty; the cheapest, dismal brown coloured property on the monopoly board and in reality a grimy thoroughfare providing the boundary of two of the most neglected regions of London, Peckham and Bermondsey. Once the heartland of a solid white working class population the area was bombed close to complete destruction during the war and then rapidly rebuilt with monolithic high-rise housing estates which by the 1980s had begun to be abandoned and crumble.

In the cold winter of 1984 we – bourbonese qualk and crew – occupied the Ambulance station, an empty five story castle-like building on the Old Kent Road. Our ambition was to create a radical ‘cultural-political centre’ (though we would never have used that term) and a general base for our activities – performance space, recording studio and office for the Recloose organisation label –  in the middle of this piece of un-picturesque South East London. After lengthy renovation (removing 1 meter deep layers of dead pigeons, replacing piping, windows and tiles on the vertiginous roof) The top two stories were converted into artists studios, the middle storey our living quarters. The first floor was taken up as meeting space for anarchist groups, a free cafe and offices for the local squatters organisation, ‘S.N.O.W’ (who housed more people in 1985 than the local council). The ground floor was changed into a large performance space and bar as well as a recording studio, sculpture studios and print workshops.