Neo-Luddism

Neo-luddism is a modern movement of opposition to technology, both in particular and in general, as a force that continues to dehumanise and alienate people, destroy traditional cultures, societies, and family structure, pollute languages, reduce the need for person-to-person contact, and alter the very definition of what it means to be human.

The movement is also described as luddism, neo-amish, neo-primitivist, among other terms.

Like the Luddites of the early 19th century in the United Kingdom, the neo-luddite movement includes a significant number of people who advocate the use of violence to achieve neo-luddite ends, including Theodore Kaczynski (the Unabomber) in the United States, the Earth Liberation Front, the Animal Liberation Front, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and Earth First, who have engaged in campaigns of eco-sabotage and monkeywrenching since the 1980s, and who are now the focus of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's domestic terrorism office.

Network Structure

In particular, there have been significant ties and support between dedicated neo-luddite groups and radical leftist groups operating in a loose network confederation of overlapping, sympathetic, and mutually beneficiary ties.

• Foundation On Economic Trends, founded by Jeremy Rifkin, it is a powerful D.C. and international lobbying organization promoting the Precautionary Principle to what many consider to be a rather extreme degree.

• The Anarchist Organization, a socialist/anarchist group, operates in Canadian cities providing shelter outside the US to terrorist fugitives as well as providing training[1] and anonymous website hosting and encrypted[2] email communications for various ad hoc sabotage groups or campaigns.

• The Ruckus Society operates several boot camps for anti-globalist activists, protest organizers, and neo-luddite saboteurs, developed and run with funding laundered[3] through The Tides Center[4] but originating from trusts controlled by Theresa Heinz-Kerry[5], an issue which surfaced during her husbands failed 2004 presidential campaign.

• Infoshop.org is one of a number of propaganda fronts which simultaneously promote luddism and deny that it is any sort of organized movement, much like how Sinn Fein denied for decades any connection to the IRA. Infoshop is considered by EarthFirst! Journal to be "the best gateway to anarchism on the web"...

• The IWW, an affiliate of TAO operates left-wing bookstores and reading rooms in many cities across the US that are a front for an Underground Railroad called "Project Underground"[6] which survives from the Vietnam era that is used to help clandestinely move fugitives and contraband around the country, as a manpower transportation and logistics system to support insurgency attack operations at any location in the US.

• The Workers World Party is a stalinist group that has operated a campaign of entryism to infiltrate many other left wing, moderate, and opposition groups in the last 20 years to instigate and escalate the political 'dialectic' conflict both in the overt media as well as conflict between special interest political groups, all as a means to distabilize the United States in preparation for eventual proletariat revolution. The WWP has taken over Ramsey Clark's International Action Center, ANSWER for International Peace, the main group organizing anti-globalization and anti-war protests, and lobbying in Washington D.C. with Jeremy Rifkin for greater government regulation of genetic engineering and other industries. In this, WWP is using luddism to push its goal of gradual nationalization of American industry through regulation.

The Use of Ad Hoc Fronts

In order to prevent the above named organizations from being labelled 'terrorist organizations' by the FBI, the movement has adopted a decentralized structure in which different groups provide different functions for the overall non-organization, while teams or cells engaging in operational attacks using violence or other forms of sabotage are conducted under either the ELF/ALF label or made-up ad hoc group names, like the "Portland Night Golfers".

Successes

Violence

Successful neo-luddite attacks include the burning of a ski lodge at Vail, Colorado[7], valued at $12 million; a $50 million five story apartment building in San Diego[8], an apartment building in New York City, destruction of genetically modified organisms[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] in a number of locations, attacks on prominent researchers and technology executives beyond the highly publicized serial bombings of the Unabomber. The ELF/ALF, which often act together, are accused of, suspected of, or have claimed responsibility for over 600 attacks, causing nearly $100 million in damages, that they claim have purposely avoided killing human beings, to date.

This claimed aversion to human fatalities and injuries grew out of lumber mill injuries caused by metal spikes in trees that were alleged by Louisiana Pacific to have been planted by Earth First!, as well as the injury of EF members Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney in what the FBI contended was their own car bomb (these members won a $4.4. million lawsuit against the FBI stemming from its charges against them)[18]. While Northern California Earth First! signed an official non-violence pledge and ban on tree spiking, EF chapters in the restof the US have not followed suit. When Earth First! membership collectively disavowed further violence, some members disagreed and founded ELF as a result.

Whether these acts are actually seen as successes is in some dispute, particularly as such violence has earned these groups the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Domestic Terrorism Branch and widespread embarrassment and half-hearted disavowal by mainstream members of the movement.

Politics: Stem Cells

On August 09, 2001, a few months after taking office, U.S. President George W. Bush enacted a ban on the expenditure of public funds on stem cell research on embryonic stem cells other than those from cell lines developed by the date of his declaration. While the U.S. Congress is currently debating overturning this ban, it remains in effect. This policy was proposed by Leon Kass and Francis Fukuyama in their work on Bush's Bio-Ethics Commission.

Politics: GMO

A number of countries, as well as the EU have adopted the Precautionary Principle as law, statute, or regulation with respect particularly to Genetically Modified Organisms used in farming.

Right-wing Neo-Luddism

Outside of anti-abortion activities, members of the right wing acting in opposition to technology are primarily at the level of lobbyist, advisor, think tank, or political pundit. Presidential Bio-ethics Commisssion members Leon Kass and writer Francis Fukuyama are both generally bioluddites who specifically want to end both stem cell research, human therapeutic or reproductive cloning, cryonic suspension as well as in vitro fertilization technologies. Both have labelled the philosophy of transhumanism as, "the worlds most dangerous idea," despite the fact that no transhumanist has ever attacked or sabotaged anyone or anything, while so far, leftist neo-luddites do so as a matter of right[19].

Right-wing neo-luddites tend to distance themselves from left-wing neo-luddites and tend to focus on different issues (stem cells and cloning vs. GMO/nanotechnology/industrial automation).

Prominent neo-luddites

• Prince Charles Windsor, Duke of Wales - advocates against and funds groups to oppose use of GMO in farming.
• Howard "Twilly" Cannon - Co-founder, the Ruckus Society and Earth First!, former skipper, Greenpeace's "Rainbow Warrior"
• Theodore Kaczynski - Author of the Unabomber Manifesto, Kaczynski mailed home-made bombs to a number of airline executives and university faculty and staff. He was arrested at his Montana cabin and pled guilty.
• Edward Abbey - Author of the 1975 novel, "The Monkey Wrench Gang", his work coined the term "monkeywrenching" as acts of sabotage for political purposes. His work is regarded as an inspiration to neo-luddite terrorists.
• Paul R. Ehrlich - neo Malthusian, Author of The Population Bomb co-author with Capra and Meadows at MIT producing population bomb theories for the Club of Rome.
• Fritjof Capra - Author of The Turning Point[20] along with Ehrlich and Meadows, a 1970s neo-malthusian book projecting worldwide famine, disease, and environmental catastrophy following their projected population explosion in the early 21st century.
• Ken Kesey - Founder/leader of The Merry Pranksters, involved in the Ruckus Society.
• Jerry Mander - Key organizer of the Ruckus Society
• Donella Meadows - A member of the Ehrlich/Capra group that promoted neo-Malthusian propaganda and demands for 'sustainable' development. Formerly a member of the Dartmouth College faculty, she founded the Sustainability Institute before her death in 2003.
• Jeremy Rifkin - Founder of the Foundation on Economic Trends he is the primary luddite lobbyist in Washington, the primary spreader of propaganda for genetic engineering phobias and demands for regulation and elimination of the technology.
• Mike Roselle
• Kirkpatrick Sale - author
• Howie Wolk
• Bill Joy - Noted Sun Microsystems programmer, author of "Why the future doesn't need us" with much media exposure warning against biotech, cryonic suspension, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence.
• Bill McKibben
• Leon Kass - member of President George W. Bush's Presidential Commission on Bio-Ethics, prominent opponent of stem cell research, in-vitro fertilization, morning after pills, same-sex marriage, cryonic suspension, nanotechnology (non-military), genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence.
• Francis Fukuyama - Author of "The End of History", and "The Worlds Most Dangerous Idea", Fukuyama is famously wrong for predicting the end of history with the fall of the U.S.S.R
• Leslie James Pickering - Radical ecoterrorist and front man for the Earth Liberation Front. The ELF exhorts its supporters "to inflict economic damage on those profiting from the destruction and exploitation of the natural environment," and ELF members use arson and other violent means to hamper corporations and individuals they believe are "harming" or "raping" the environment. The ELF boasts that since 1997, its cells "have carried out dozens of actions resulting in close to $100 million in damages. .. Violence is a necessary element of an oppressive struggle," says Pickering. "We can lobby and petition and hold signs until the cows come home, and it's not going to make a difference whatsoever. We need to get out there and fight our wars, the same way they fight their wars [i.e., violently]." Pickering has assisted in the production of a series of videotapes that the ELF uses as a recruiting tool. The tapes teach viewers how to make fire bombs and how to organize ELF cells across the country. "Development arsons are definitely signs of ELF activity," Pickering has proudly stated. "With the spread of ELF activity so wide, in different areas, you have to keep your eyes open." Pickering assumed the position of spokesperson for ELF in 2001. The ELF now keeps its leadership anonymous, and it is unknown whether or not Pickering still leads the group.
• Craig Rosebraugh - Media representative of the Earth Liberation Front[21]. “ELF’s main focus is to take the profit motive away from these corporations by causing economic loss,” says Craig Rosebraugh, the group’s above-ground media representative, who claims he is not himself a member of ELF. “They need to take into consideration what impact they’re having on the planet.” It is not known whether Mr. Rosebraugh claims any compensation from ELF on his IRS returns for his media work on ELF's behalf. If he represents the group on a volunteer basis, this would tend to indicate membership under tax law. In his books, "Burning Rage of a Dying Planet", and "The Logic of Political Violence: Lessons in Reform and Revolution", he advocates political violence, while his own group, Arissa is dedicated to it.