It All Goes or It All Stays The Same

What day is it
It is September 2024. The genocide waged by Israel, the United States, and their allies against the Palestinian people has continued unabated for nearly a full calendar year. Official counts of the dead approximate 40,000 murdered so far, yet more comprehensive estimations expand that figure by an order of magnitude. Hundreds of thousands murdered so far (or soon to be) as the US election cycle supplants images of children being blown to pieces with sound bites of politicians promising to continue supplying the bombs that will blow more children to pieces.

Genocidal violence continues to rage in Sudan and the Congo, exacerbated by states and corporations looking to exploit the horror to extract resources and further their productive capabilities in service of racial capitalism. Living beings make good lubricant for the death machines, especially when those beings are Black and the violence waged against them is less amenable to the spectacle with which many self-described radicals drape themselves, often mistaking participation in that spectacle for revolutionary action.

For those existing within the context of the US, genocide is far from the distant force many seem to wish it to be. The slower, more normalized horror of police executions continue at cruel, consistent pace. This July police executed Sonya Massey in her home. The same month they executed Nyah Mway on a suburban lawn. Two weeks ago, they executed Justin Robinson in his car. There have only been ten days so far this year during which police did not kill. As I write this, reports are coming out of NYC of officers shooting three people in an attempt to arrest someone for hopping a turnstile. If someone ever asks you how much a life costs, apparently the answer is $2.90.

The unbadged (but also the badged) police take inspiration from their British kin in stoking anti-immigrant, anti-Black violence. Specifically, the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio has been the target of increased nationalistic mobilizations to the point where pogroms feel all but assured if those mobilizations are not countered with far more force than the majority of the “anti-fascist” left has been able (or willing) to materialize.

Covid-19 continues to spread unmitigated as mask bans (motivated largely by anti-Black animus and a desire to more easily target solidarity demonstrations with the Palestinian people) become more commonplace. The most vulnerable often catch the virus three, four, five times in a given calendar year. We are still largely in the dark as to how bad the long-term complications of contracting this virus so often will be, but all research points to some pretty bleak conclusions.

Pipelines continue to be built through indigenous land. Climate disaster builds as mass displacement becomes more and more commonplace. Hundreds die in attempts to cross deserts and rivers in hope of making it across the ever more militarized border. Medical, student loan, and credit card debt continue to build and suffocate and further beat us into submission. Rent is due every month and every month it’s late. Homeless encampments are swept, the prisons are filled, our neighbors are disappeared. I could fill pages and books and libraries detailing all of the horror the existent world forces upon the most marginalized on a daily basis and still it would not be enough to accurately encapsulate the prevalence of the death machines.

In the face of all of this horror, all of this brutality, there is only one thing ringing in my head:

It all goes, or it all stays the same.

The Horror is a Totality
It is difficult to get a full view of a monster from up close. The connection between the claws and teeth and hooves and tail are obscured by the sheer immensity of the thing. All we can observe are the discrete violences waged by the various pieces that make up the monster. But the monster is so much more than a series of discreet phenomena.

For the last 12 months, many of us in the US have been scrambling to find a meaningful way to fight against the ongoing genocide being conducted by Israel against the Palestinian people. Worthwhile targets have been identified, actions have been taken, mass mobilizations have materialized (and then dissipated, and then materialized, and then dissipated), and yet the bombs keep getting made, the weapons keep getting shipped, and the horror continues. No matter how much we believe ourselves to be doing (acknowledging the much that has been, and is being, done) if our goal is to help bring an end to this genocide, and fight in solidarity with the struggle for Palestinian liberation, we are failing.

This failure stems from a hundred different failings in both the current moment and in moments long since passed. I will not attempt a full accounting of this failure; I do not possess the necessary omnipotence to do that on my own. However, I wish to highlight one such area from which I feel this failure emanates. I feel that, for many, there exists a deep limitation in the ability to understand the fight against this particular genocide as the fight against genocide writ large; as the fight against the totality of the world that produces and reproduces this horror.

Manifestations of genocide do not emerge out of thin air. They are not random acts of violence breaking out of an otherwise peaceful steady state. Genocide is the logical conclusion of a world built upon the relations of (settler)colonialism, racial capitalism, anti-Blackness, xenophobia and an ever-growing list of axes of oppression and marginalization. In a world of such relations, genocidal violence is not an exceptional act, but rather an entirely banal necessity for those seeking to expand their colonial claims, reinforce their racial superiority, and more thoroughly enshrine the sanctity of their ethnostate-borders (or create that ethnostate in the first place). There are no “terror states” differentiated from “non-terror states”. There are only states currently executing the logical conclusion of their project, and those who have already/not yet reached those conclusions.

Particular manifestations of genocide may be more or less acute. Mass death may occur more quickly, the weaponry used may be more sophisticated, the violence may be more spectacular (in the sense of being more easily subsumed into the spectacle) in some manifestations than in others, but no manifestation is exceptional. Each manifestation is built upon a set of relations shared by the world entire, a world now dominated by the global force of racial capitalism. I believe that if we are to have any hope of meaningfully interfering with the ongoing genocide in Palestine (or Sudan, or the Congo, or anywhere else) we must be able to come to blows with this entire world.

To Destroy the World Entire
For those of us who exist in the context of the US, the only real way we may stand in solidarity with any distant struggle for liberation (Palestinian or otherwise) is to actualize the end of the United States. There is no end to the genocide in Palestine that does not necessitate the end of Israel. There is no end to Israel that does not necessitate the end of the United States. And there is no end to the United States (in any way that is more meaningful than a simple changing of the guard) that does not necessitate the end of the regime of racial capitalism. Given that racial capitalism is the system that governs the world entire, that means, for those of us interested in the end of the United States, the existent world must, too, be our enemy.

This may feel too broad to be useful. You may say that to view our antagonist so broadly makes us incapable of recognizing the acute violences that need immediate addressing and puts us in a position of frozen indecision. My response is that all the oppressive violences of this world are acute and call for immediate resistance, we are spoiled for choice in this regard. But more to the point, I believe that every death machine (the police, the prisons, borders, weapons manufacturers, oil refineries, coal plants, large businesses, small businesses, insurance companies, credit card companies, and so many more) is a pillar upholding the world of relations which give rise to genocide and every pillar bears weight. Therefore, every pillar we are able to undermine makes the totality of the horror that is the existent world that much weaker. The more foundational the pillar we are able to undermine, the deeper its destabilizing effects.

In the US, this is seen most explicitly in the case of uprising against anti-Black police violence. The most significant destabilizing moment of the last many decades in this country remains the George Floyd Uprising in the summer of 2020. For examples in the context of Europe (as in need of imminent destruction as the US), one could point to the Nahel Merzouk uprising against racialized police violence in France last summer as well as the rebellion in Kanaky this year against French colonialism and the extractive relationship inherent to racial capitalism.

During these moments of acute destabilization of specific foundational oppressive pillar(s) (anti-Blackness and/or colonialism), all other pillars weakened as a result. Prisons rioted with deeper ferocity, police struggled to maintain their order within their jurisdictions, looting and mass demonstrations disrupted commerce and the flow of capital. Perhaps most importantly, state resources (weapons) that would have otherwise been consolidated in specific locations to be used in specific moments against specific populations, could not be consolidated. Supplies were stretched too thin.

Neither the George Floyd nor the Nahel Merzouk uprisings pushed far enough for their destabilizing effects to actualize the collapse of their respective antagonists. But in those moments, I saw more opportunity for genuine paths towards a life worth living than I had ever seen before or since. When any one of the pillars of the death machines come under threat, they all come under threat. It is through the destabilizing of these pillars of violence, wherever we are, that we open opportunities for near and distant struggle to push further which in turn allow our struggles to push further still.

There exists inspiration for how such destabilization may occur from moments of organic rupture stemming from acute instances of localized unbearable violence as well as outside of such moments through acute disruptive projects and/or actions, but destabilization and rupture of the current iteration of the death machines isn’t enough. If we truly want to end the existent world, a world in which genocide is a guaranteed phenomenon, we must actually desire to live differently. We must be willing to disrupt and alter daily life.

The Unproduction of Daily Life

The relations that define this world are not inherent to existence, but neither are they inherently destined to change. The relations of colonialism, anti-Blackness, policing, imprisonment, genocide, borders, etc. are produced and reproduced continually by the daily actions of individuals. Every worker who does not refuse their work participates in the reproduction of racial capitalism. Every person who bears witness to police violence but who chooses not to act against it participates in the reproduction of policing. Those who produce the bricks that will be used in every border wall participate in the reproduction of borders and their violence.

In the case of the ongoing genocide in Palestine, the fact that daily life in the US continues on unchanged is precisely why there has been no stopping the US government from shipping near endless supplies of weapons to Israel in order to carry out its genocidal ambitions. We still go to work, we still go to school, we still buy things, we still sell things, and everything goes on and on to the tune of children screaming into the nothingness of the internet for their dead parents.

There are millions of mundane examples of how each of us participates in the reproduction of these death machines through our willingness to participate in the daily functions of racial capitalism (going to work, buying groceries, paying our various rents and debts) and through our willingness to ignore the daily reality of state violence in our vicinity (police, prisons, borders, etc.). We reinforce the various pillars, the various death machines, through our willingness to keep things going on as they always have gone on.

Even in the absence of an official representative of a given death machine, individuals take it upon themselves to explicitly reproduce those machines. Self-deputized “good citizens” defend the sanctity of a Walmart by interfering with shoplifters (reproduction of policing and the commodity relation). After a riot, citizen detectives will scour the internet looking for evidence of “outside agitators” and send militants to jail while claiming to “support the movement” (reproduction of policing, imprisonment, etc.). And when the moment comes to kill for this world of relations (especially for the relation of anti-Blackness), there will always be a citizen ready to do his part.

It’s been over a year since Daniel Penny strangled Jordan Neely to death on a subway car in NYC because Jordan’s expression of his needs and his demands that they be met, while being Black, discomforted Daniel. Every person on that car murdered Neely through their unwillingness to act against the reproduction of anti-Black policing occurring with no badged cops present. Official badges and uniforms are not needed for policing to be reproduced. The specific buildings we call prisons are not needed for imprisonment, incarceration, and institutionalization to be reproduced. Unless there is an actual desire for things to be different (beyond the framework of reformism or change in leadership) the death machines will always be reproduced.

If we actually wish to end policing, we need to embody that desire as an extension of our being. We must develop an instinctual willingness, both as individuals and as broader culture, to resist policing in our vicinity. The moment a cop (badged or otherwise) begins to harass someone, there must be a willingness to intervene. Filming is not intervention, observing violence and feeling bad about it is not resistance. Their must be a constant, and deliberate willingness to physically embody the desire to end policing whenever we pass a traffic stop, a surveillance camera, a precinct, etc. I will not elaborate in greater detail here, but take seriously the task of identifying what such an embodiment would mean as part of your daily life and consider how you desire to end the other death machines of this world must be similarly embodied. I ask you, what does a life of embodied desire to destroy racial capitalism, borders, imprisonment, look like.

If our desire is to truly be rid of the existent world of genocidal violence it is not enough to only attack specific manifestations of the death machines in specific moments. It requires more than specific acts of sabotage or militancy (though it certainly requires those as well). We must undermine the reproduction of those machines writ large. That necessitates a desire and a willingness to actualize a different way of living. It necessitates a willingness to break with the existent relations that govern our world. That requires coming to blows with the totality of daily life as it is currently lived. It requires social war.

Social War vs Guerilla War
Before I end, I want to briefly touch on a discussion that could take up (and likely has elsewhere) pages upon pages on its own, but I will try to keep my comments on it as concise as I can. Since the current phase of Israel’s genocidal project against the Palestinians began, I have witnessed a lot of uncritical calls for radicals in the US to adopt more “guerilla warfare” tactics. I do not necessarily disagree though I tend to be cautious and critical of ways of moving that bend towards vanguardist politics (as well as how many radicals in the US have a tendency to fetishize distant struggle). If they are to avoid slipping into a soft vanguardist political project, and if they are to be meaningful beyond specific actions against specific targets, I feel that guerilla warfare must be couched within a broader, explicitly participatory, project of social war.

By social war I refer to the generalizing of antagonisms against the social relations that govern the existent world through the proliferation of action undermining those relations both above ground and clandestinely. By “explicitly participatory” I refer to cultivating a culture of resistance that seeks to aid all of us in articulating what we are against and how we wish to live. This generalization of antagonism to the death machines is vital if the project is to both destroy their current iteration as well as undermine their overall reproduction. Without this generalization, guerilla warfare can easily give way to reformist projects of state-capture/capitulation rather than the total destruction of the existent.

If we wish to exist in a world free from the death machines, then we must be willing to actually live differently, within relations explicitly cultivated to foster the ways of living we desire. To effectively resist the world of death machines requires individuals to resist within the context of their daily lives. You can defeat an army with guerilla war but you can’t defeat militaries. You can destroy a precinct but you can’t end police. You can burn a bank but you can’t end the capitalist mode of production. The ending of the reproduction of these broader systems can only come from the development of a culture of resistance to those systems entire.

I believe it is beyond crucial that we are able to continually re-evaluate how our actions and ways-of-moving break with or unintentionally reinforce the relations and systems we claim to be opposing. Social war, as I understand it, is that continual re-evaluation made concrete through action. No group or individual speaks for social war. It cannot be co-opted to serve a reformist/statist agenda because social war exists as negation of the existent, so long as there are those who desire more or better than what they are told to accept.

It All Goes or It All Stays the Same
I mentioned before that every pillar of the totality of the existent world bears weight, therefore there are ways to destabilize the totality of the existent through the undermining of those pillars however and whenever we can. However, it is also true that each pillar holds the ability to resurrect the others. There is no end to anti-Blackness so long as racial capitalism remains. There is no end to imprisonment so long as policing remains. There is no end to colonialism so long as the state-form remains. Each death machine supports the totality, but also every other death machine. There is no singling out an individual death machine for destruction while the others remain intact. If we are serious about wanting a world without genocide, we must actualize the end of the world entire and settle for nothing less than that.

This expansion in framework of what we are up against cannot come at the cost of inaction against the acute manifestations of the death machines. Instead, it must be the thread that allows us to weave seemingly disparate actions against the overwhelming number of acute manifestations into an understanding of resistance against the totality. We must thread the attack on weapons manufacturers to the burning of cop city construction sites, to the sabotage of Tesla gigafactories to the disabling of police infrastructure as all part of resistance to the totality of the existent world. There is an immensity to the task at hand, but there are a million ways to resist.

The stakes of the present moment are dire and all moments to come even more so. Find the courage within yourself, find the courage within others. Fight against the death machines however and whenever you can. Fight for a life worth living. Fight because it is a beautiful thing to demand better than what you are told to accept. ■

Iggy
An anarchist in the Southeast region of the so-called United States, inspired by the insurrectional current as embodied by Alfredo Bonanno and Jean Weir, the work of Fredy Perlman, and all those who fight for nothing less than the end of this world of anti-Blackness, colonization, and genocide.