Crimethinc Quotes

“Domination is a relationship, not a condition; it depends on the participation of both parties. Hierarchical power is not just the gun in the policeman's hand; it is just as much the obedience of the ones who act as if it is always pointed at them. It is not just the government and the executives and the armed forces; it extends through society from top to bottom, an interlocking web of control and compliance. Sometimes all it takes to be complicit in the oppression of millions is to die of natural causes.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“We don't need unity in theory, we need solidarity in practice.”
― Curious George Brigade, Anarchy in the Age of Dinosaurs

“Never confuse efficiency with effectiveness.”
― Curious George Brigade, Anarchy in the Age of Dinosaurs

“We reject the blame game and accusations so common in efficient groups. With each person accepting full responsibility for their actions, no on can have any more of the blame than anyone else. Let's all be accountable to ourselves, so we can grow and learn from our mistakes and be buoyed by our successes.”
― Curious George Brigade, Anarchy in the Age of Dinosaurs

“Only those prepared to go too far will learn how far they can go.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“Only by concealing our identities can we shed the masks we have to wear at school, at work, even at home - everywhere there is surveillance, policing, punishment - masks that are increasingly indistinguishable from ourselves.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“What is common becomes sense, but what is sensible doesn't always become common.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“The authorities don't grant concessions out of the kindness of their hearts; they simply concede the reality of what their subjects are strong enough to compel from them. If you want political leverage, don't beg for it, don't seek it through their channels - take power outside them.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“Tomorrow will use you the way you use today.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“Victory will not go to those who can inflict the most suffering, but to those who can survive the most.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“If you are a warrior, the nature and scale of your enemies will determine the nature and scale of your actions. In this sense, it is even more important to choose your enemies more wisely than your friends.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“When desertion is not an option, sabotage is a must.”
― Curious George Brigade

“Accident - A statistical inevitability. Some nuclear power plants are built on fault lines, but ever mine, dam, oil rig, and waste dump is founded upon a tacit acceptance of the worst-case scenario. One a long enough timeline, everything that can go wrong will, however small the likelihood is from one day to the next. The responsible parties may wring their hands about the Fukushima meltdown - and the Gult of Mexico oil spill, and the Exxon Valdez, and Hurricane Katrina, and Chernobyl, and Haiti - but accident is no accident.”
― CrimethInc.

“In the United States, people don't revolt in order to obtain freedom, but continue denying it to others.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“Everything subtracted from the present is added to the future with interest.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“Gun Control: A measure to ensure that guns always point in one direction.”
― CrimethInc.

“Right and wrong are superstitions; your desires, however, are real. Those who cannot achieve their desires, or who despair of doing so, often compensate by constructing imaginary frameworks. For example, if you wish to live in a world in which no one exploits animals, it is moralism to judge those who eat meat immoral instead of setting about disabling the animal exploitation industry. People retreat into moralism as a sort of consolation prize, for it is easier to rule in the realm of good and evil, fictitious as it may be, than to come to terms with our limited leverage upon this world and yet persist in endeavoring to change it.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“One of the most inefficient utopias I have ever seen was that of a humble Zapatista village in the mountains of Southeastern Mexico. I kid you not, the entire village sits down and takes days to make a single decision! Everyone gets a chance to hear and be heard, and some questions take eons of time, but everyone is patient and respectful. Things actually get done. It's as if time was suddenly transformed from the tickling of a Newtonian clock to something that revolved around ordinary folks.”
― Curious George Brigade, Anarchy in the Age of Dinosaurs

“Feeling that one has some leverage upon something, even by proxy or association, makes one a great deal more interested in it.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“One does not suffer nearly so much from one's inadequacies as from one's unused abilities.”
― CrimethInc.

“Media is an assemblage of tools with which to expand an audience's conception of what "the world" is to such and extent that their own lives and capabilities seem utterly insignificant; a means of psychological warfare by which people are overloaded with information and desensitized to their own and others' suffering; the sum of all means by which human beings reduce the infinite complexity of reality to a dead-end maze of abstractions.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“There is no returning to the masses - once your forays into theory have borne you far enough away from them that you can perceive them and the benefits of being among them. the only return is through the process of disillusionment; one must cease to care about motivating the masses to be reunited with them. Likewise, there is no converting them - no matter how many people you come to join you at your outpost, from up close they will never look as impressive as the distant crowd.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“The desire to “do more in less time” is not a neutral force in our culture; it is the handmaiden of miserable experts, specialists, and leaders. Not everyone has rushed to become efficient. Something else exists on the periphery: an inefficient utopia, a culture of consensus, collectives, and do-it-yourself ethics. A place where time is not bought, sold, or leased and no clock is the final arbiter of our worth. For many people in North America, the problem is not just poverty but lack of time to do the things that are actually meaningful. This is not a symptom of personal failures but the consequence of a time-obsessed society. Today, desire for efficiency springs from the scarcity model, which is the foundation of capitalism. Time is seen as a limited resource when we get caught up in meaningless jobs, mass-produced entertainment, and – the common complaint of activists – tedious meanings.”
― Curious George Brigade

“At first, one only recognizes particular instances to be worth of critique; critique appears synonymous with rejection, implying deficiency in the object. Over time, one discovers that everything warrants critique. This can produce cynicism: nothing is above reproach, nothing is pure, therefore nothing has value. But followed through to its logical conclusion, this insight inspires a profound optimism: if everything can be critiqued, then no matter how bleak things are, there is always a way to improve them. Those who comprehend this can pass beyond the binary of approval and disapproval to identify the conflicting currents within any subject of inquiry. There are sides to take inside every position, as well as between them.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“Historically, the 'deadline' was the line around a prison beyond which prisoners were eligible for shooting. In keeping with shifts in the exercise of control, what one was delineated spatially over life is now enforced temporarily over labor.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“After simmering years of censorship and repression, the masses finally throng the streets. The chants echoing off the walls to build to a roar from all directions, stoking the courage of the crowds as they march on the center of the capital. Activists inside each column maintain contact with each other via text messages; communications centers receive reports and broadcast them around the city; affinity groups plot the movements of the police via digital mapping. A rebel army of bloggers uploads video footage for all the world to see as the two hosts close for battle. Suddenly, at the moment of truth, the lines go dead. The insurgents look up from the blank screens of their cell phones to see the sun reflecting off the shields of the advancing riot police, who are still guided by close circuits of fully networked technology. The rebels will have to navigate by dead reckoning against a hyper-informed adversary.

All this already happened, years ago, when President Mubarak shut down the communications grid during the Egyptian uprising of 2011. A generation hence, when the same scene recurs, we can imagine the middle-class protesters - the cybourgeoisie - will simply slump forward, blind and deaf and wracked by seizures as the microchips in their cerebra run haywire, and it will be up to the homeless and destitute to guide them to safety.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“Whom one is speaking to - or which aspect of their character - fundamentally determines the meaning and consequences of an exhortation. 'Indulge Your Desires' comes across very differently on a billboard advertising SUVs than it does spray-painted across the broken windows of an SUV dealer. It follows that what you say is not nearly as important as how and when you say it.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“The rejection of mass organizations as the be-all, end-all of organizing is vital for the creation and rediscovery of possibilities for empowerment and effective anarchistic work.”
― Curious George Brigade, Anarchy in the Age of Dinosaurs

“Economy: As an adjective, cheap; As a noun, that which compels us to render ourselves as such.”
― CrimethInc., Contradictionary

“Unlike Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, who set out consciously to establish one-party dictatorships and to extend their rule beyond their nation's original borders, inverted totalitarianism comes into being, not by design, but by inattention to the consequences of actions or especially of inactions. Or, more precisely, inattention to their cumulative consequences.
The lobbyist who seeks to influence a legislator by campaign contributions or other inducements does not seek to weaken the authority and prestige of representative institutions and thereby contribute to inverted totalitarianism. The legislator who votes in favor of a resolution giving the president virtually unlimited discretion in deciding when to wage war does not intend to weaken the powers of the legislature to the point where it lacks the will to check the president in matters of war, peace making, and foreign policy. The federal regulator who, despite thousands of letters of protest, approves a regulation allowing large media conglomerates to extend further their control over local markets may not intend to eliminate the possibility of outlets that give a voice to dissenting, political, economic, and ecological views. The employer who "busts" unions does not seek to weaken the structure of civil society and the power of its associations and nongovernmental organizations to counter the state and corporate capital. The occasional citizen who, muttering about corrupt politicians, retreats into political hibernation and emerges blindingly to cast a vote does not mean to make himself an easy object of manipulation or to confirm the elite's view of democracy as a useful illusion.”
― Sheldon Wolin