Who are the ITS?

Submitted by Khawaga on November 5, 2017

Didn't want to derail the London Bookfair thread so asking here. In relation to news about the LA Bookfair, the group ITS were mentioned. Who are they and what's the issue with them? I tried to google them, but given those three letters, it comes up with all kinds of results that aren't even remotely close to anything political.

Entdinglichung

6 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Entdinglichung on November 5, 2017

Individualidades Tendiendo a lo Salvaje, eco-fascists

https://libcom.org/library/toward-savagery-recent-developments-eco-extremist-thought-mexico-abe-cabrera

https://itsgoingdown.org/its-attacks-anarchists/

Khawaga

6 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Khawaga on November 5, 2017

Ah, thanks. I have heard of these folks, but didn't make the connection. So basically the heirs of the Unabomber?

Craftwork

6 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Craftwork on November 5, 2017

Entdinglichung

Individualidades Tendiendo a lo Salvaje, eco-fascists

https://libcom.org/library/toward-savagery-recent-developments-eco-extremist-thought-mexico-abe-cabrera

https://itsgoingdown.org/its-attacks-anarchists/

Why do people keep throwing around the word 'fascist' at any group they dislike?

In what sense do they resemble the fascism of Mussolini or Nazism? Fascism is a statist, nationalist, and (ultimately) pro-civ ideology - none of these labels apply to eco-extremists.

ITS 2 are an eco-extremist group, a remnant of Reaccion Salvaje (a network of eco-extremist groups across Mexico, which included the original ITS). Ultimately, the people involved started-out as members of ALF and ELF in Mexico.

Of course, you can deplore their violent methods, but the idea that out of all the groups in Mexico, ITS are somehow different or uniquely-murderous is laughable. Hell, Mexican cops, in cahoots with local politicians and cartel, had 43 students murdered a couple of years ago.

Their ideology is more like they see themselves as fighting a war against civilisation, a kind of modern-day version of the old Chichimeca war. their ideology is essentially all about continuity with pre/anti-colonial savagery of the indigenous warriors.

Mike Harman

6 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Mike Harman on November 6, 2017

craftwork

Why do people keep throwing around the word 'fascist' at any group they dislike?

Is it any group they dislike, or groups carrying out terrorist attacks on anarchists and crowded public spaces that wan to exterminate the vast majority of humanity? Could that maybe be a bit more specific than 'any group they dislike'?

There's a statement from insurrectionary and eco-extremist groups in Mexico firmly distancing themselves from ITS, https://325.nostate.net/2017/08/03/its-or-the-rhetoric-of-decay-joint-statement-of-insurrectional-groups-in-mexican-territory/ - they use the term 'eco-fascist' to describe ITS as well. The people writing that statement had come out in support of ITS a few years before despite disagreements with them at the time (against denunciation by 'anarcho-legalists') so they've clearly decided ITS has gone past being 'any group they dislike' into something worse.

Craftwork

6 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Craftwork on November 6, 2017

Mike Harman

craftwork

Why do people keep throwing around the word 'fascist' at any group they dislike?

Is it any group they dislike, or groups carrying out terrorist attacks on anarchists and crowded public spaces that wan to exterminate the vast majority of humanity? Could that maybe be a bit more specific than 'any group they dislike'?

There's a statement from insurrectionary and eco-extremist groups in Mexico firmly distancing themselves from ITS, https://325.nostate.net/2017/08/03/its-or-the-rhetoric-of-decay-joint-statement-of-insurrectional-groups-in-mexican-territory/ - they use the term 'eco-fascist' to describe ITS as well. The people writing that statement had come out in support of ITS a few years before despite disagreements with them at the time (against denunciation by 'anarcho-legalists') so they've clearly decided ITS has gone past being 'any group they dislike' into something worse.

Yes, I've read all the hysterical denunciations, and responses.

What terrorist attacks on anarchists?

In general, we ought to bear in mind that they claim to have carried out more stuff in their communiques than they've actually committed. Their only really notable action was the assassination of the nanotech professor.

Whatever our opinions on them, to pinpoint this eco-extremist cell as somehow unique or deadly, amidst all the violence in Mexico, is absurd.

Mike Harman

6 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Mike Harman on November 6, 2017

Craftwork

[

Yes, I've read all the hysterical denunciations, and responses.

What terrorist attacks on anarchists?

If you've read them all, then you'd have read this one and not need to ask me, or you know, use
a search engine for a couple of minutes like I did: https://itsgoingdown.org/its-attacks-anarchists/

craftwork

In general, we ought to bear in mind that they claim to have carried out more stuff in their communiques than they've actually committed.

And?
craftwork

Whatever our opinions on them, to pinpoint this eco-extremist cell as somehow unique or deadly, amidst all the violence in Mexico, is absurd.

No-one said they were 'unique', there was a description of them as eco-fascist, which you jumped on.

Kultur-Aufstand

6 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Kultur-Aufstand on November 6, 2017

Personally I have been wondering if there is indeed any proof that "ITS" even exists, in the form of a legitimate cell of primitivist misanthropic murderers, and has done what they have claimed responsibility for?

I have not been following the situation that long but as far as I can tell no one has been publicly identified as belonging to them or ever having belonged to them before.

comrade_emma

5 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by comrade_emma on April 21, 2018

deleted

Kultur-Aufstand

6 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Kultur-Aufstand on November 8, 2017

I have the impression that in the US the green anarchist movement was mostly centered around Cascadia/PNW area, with groups like Earth First!, the Earth Liberation Front, and Deep Green Resistance, whereas in Latin America, especially South and Central America but also Mexico, the green movement has mostly centered on struggles involving indigenous populations against mining, logging, and other extractive industries. It's happened in nearly every Latin American country, though I'm not sure how many people involved in those struggles are ideologically 'primitivist' or are motivated by that sort of thing.

As an aside, the It's Going Down article linked above gives me the impression that this might be an operation designed to throw a monkey wrench - no pun intended - into anarchist scenes, in Mexico and perhaps abroad, with false propaganda and possibly with real bombs. I doubt such an 'organization' would seriously be able to organize and/or recruit if it is literally a cell of murderers - that send out death threats in their spare time - and whose main ideology is that they hate humanity.

Craftwork

6 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Craftwork on November 12, 2017

Mike Harman

Craftwork

[

Yes, I've read all the hysterical denunciations, and responses.

What terrorist attacks on anarchists?

If you've read them all, then you'd have read this one and not need to ask me, or you know, use
a search engine for a couple of minutes like I did: https://itsgoingdown.org/its-attacks-anarchists/

Yeah, I have, just can't remember all the Anarchist News and IGD stuff I read.

What I think is particularly stupid is the way in which this leftist Scott Campbell is fuelling a witch-hunt against the journal Atassa and A.Cabrera. You now have "anarchists" threatening people involved with them, and what for? Over a journal whose readership is in the double-digits. Here's an example:

We're now at a situation where Little Black Cart have to defend themselves from assault or destruction of their materials because of this guilt by association nonsense e.g. at the Seattle Anarchist Bookfair, where a provocation/attempted attack by several "anarchists", who started tearing-up stuff, was successfully beaten-back by LBC tablers.

Juan Conatz

6 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Juan Conatz on November 13, 2017

Can’t really feel sorry for Anarchist News/Little Black Cart folks here. Aren’t their politics essentially the Unabomber’s? Seems like if you put that kinda energy out there politically it has a chance to consume you.