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href="https://anarchistnews.org/comment/48801">anarchistnews.org</a>
<h1 class="reader-title">The Angle Grinder of Revolution:
Against the Commuter and its World</h1>
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<p>A new essay and zine published anonymously by Filler
PGH.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>The commuter</em> is the modality through which
every other identity is shaped and borne within this
techno-industrial prison. The negation of <em>the
commuter</em> is the negation of civilization and
the <em>bare life</em> it has enforced; the negation
of <em>the commuter</em> is the affirmation of
wildness, of freedom, of possibility.</p>
<p><strong>We therefore affirm again, our hearts full
with insurgent ferocity: <em>every commuter is a
target.</em></strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>
<strong>The Angle Grinder of Revolution: <em>Against
the Commuter and its World</em></strong></p>
<p>"There is a specter haunting the Earth; it haunts the
minds of movement managers, formalists, leftists, and
those who otherwise find themselves aligned with —
entrenched within, even — the existent. It waits for no
orders from self-appointed leaders and pays no mind to
the hand-wringing of moralists. In an indomitable fury
against the current totality, it seizes the
opportunities that stand before it. Shrouded by the
night, each u-lock is cut away from the bicycles secured
by their grasp; beneath every automobile chassis, quick
work is made to liberate the rare earth minerals trapped
within the prison of catalytic converters.</p>
<p>There is a specter haunting the Earth, and it is the
angle grinder of revolution — the glimmer of
revolutionary horizons and the setting sun of the old
regime. Without a glimmer of remorse and with an
unflinching resolve, it speaks: <em>Every commuter is a
target.</em></p>
<p>From the university student peddling between gentrified
neighborhoods, part-time jobs and classes, to the lowly
prole whittling away the waking hours of their life in
grid-lock traffic, every <em>commuter</em> creates the
present nightmare. In every form it takes, <em>the
commuter</em> is the primary, operative role within
our present industrial civilization. Other social
categories naturally cannot be ignored — the
bourgeoisie, the proletariat and the precariat among
them — but they are secondary to <em>the commuter</em>,
for in order for all other identities defined by
socio-economic position and relation to production to be
realized, the individual must initiate <em>the commute</em>
— the very activity that defines <em>the commuter.</em></p>
<p>As they travel along this miserable Leviathan’s many
economic arteries, colloquially known as “roads,” this
disgusting way of life is animated and reproduced with
the slow lurch of bare life headed towards annihilation
pushed along evermore. For those of us who seek a
different life than the hollow rituals of <em>the
commuter</em>, there is a clear approach to cease the
functioning of this miserable machine. With only a bit
of courage, the angle grinder’s spite cuts away the
regime of non-life. <em>The commuter</em> takes a
multitude of forms, but within the context of the
imperial core we write from, two forms constitute a
significant plurality of <em>commuter-identities</em>
above all others: <em>the motorist</em> and <em>the
cyclist.</em> While there are nuances in the
subversive methods against each respective <em>commuter-identity,</em>
both are readily sabotaged by the angle-grinder.</p>
<p><em>The cyclist</em> can be immobilized indefinitely
once the false security provided by their precious
u-lock falls away, the facade pierced with a single cut.
From there, the repulsive contraption can be whisked
away into the night. The cyclist who projects some
false, pathetic propriety over this miserable commodity
is left empty-handed. Without the material basis for the
abstraction they’ve dissolved themself into — trading
the fullness of life in exchange for the poverty of <em>commuter-identity</em>
— they are left only with themself, naked and bare,
alone in the night. Struck by the convulsive rage of the
angle grinder’s insurrection, they are left no choice
but to ponder, on foot, their uniqueness, their place in
the world and the industrialized nightmare that plagues
it. Certainly this constitutes robbery, but within that
robbery there is an <em>invitation,</em> an opening for
something else: a glimpse into a world beyond <em>the
commute.</em></p>
<p><em>The motorist</em> and the multi-ton death trap they
adore is a somewhat different prospect. Instead of
targeting the locking mechanism that ensures <em>the
motorist‘s</em> false propriety over their <em>commodity-identity’s</em>
material basis, the target is instead the very
functioning of this mechanized monstrosity. Beneath the
chassis of the vehicle, an essential component is
seated, exposed and readily accessible: the catalytic
converter. Without it, the vehicle is useless. A skilled
operator can identify, target, and extract the catalytic
converter in a mere matter of minutes, disappearing
again well before anyone would have noticed. In all
likelihood, the sabotage would only be noticed during
the following morning. <em>The motorist,</em> intending
to step into their role as <em>commuter</em> via <em>the
commute</em> as the necessary pre-condition to realize
all other roles, would find the usual choke of an engine
turn-over missing, instead replaced by a tremendous,
startling roar. In the vacancy created by the catalytic
converter’s absence, wild nature howls and the euphoric
laughter of the fallen wild’s spirit fills the early
morning air. <em>The motorist</em> is denied the ritual
of <em>the commuter‘s</em> realization. All other
identities that flow from <em>the commuter</em> are
denied, too, aborted before coming to term in <em>the
commuter‘s</em> absence. Like <em>the cyclist</em>
before, in the robbery of <em>the motorist,</em> the
gift of possibility is endowed: a life beyond economic
exchange, an escape from the poverty of <em>bare life</em>
into the freedom of self-creation.</p>
<p>Finally, with every subversion of <em>commuter-identity</em>
— each stolen bike, every scrapped catalytic converter —
a unique material reward is found.</p>
<p>The illegalists of generations past were able to fund
their subversion with bank robberies and the burglary of
bourgeois households; in our present condition of
technological hyper-surveillance, these methods have
become overwhelmingly more risky. Naturally, cybercrime
remains a possible avenue in the face of this reality,
but the foreclosure of this horizon, too, is well under
way as repressive techniques catch up to subversive
ones. In turn, subversive techniques are pushed further
and further into the domain of technical specialization
and the tools that follow, creating a terrain of
engagement that is ever more difficult to penetrate.
What we offer here, however, is a subversive technique
that demands very little technical skill and is
available to anyone that can obtain a commonplace tool:
the battery-powered angle grinder.</p>
<p>Whether brought into possession through the
legitimizing shroud of commodity exchange, the denial of
such through shoplifting, or brought into temporary
possession through a tool-lending library, very few
circumstances would truly prohibit access. Once in hand,
every bike and every catalytic converter that follows
sustains our war against society with a trip to that
ever-present ally to the criminal class, the scrapyard:
<em>cash in hand today.</em></p>
<p>We can anticipate the critics of our method, those who
speak with corpses in their mouths in defense of the
current miserable state of affairs. They will claim we
are too extreme, that our approach is too
indiscriminate, that it is alienating, ineffectual, and
criminal. To them, we have nothing to say; in their
moralistic anxieties, they have made their alignment
clear. They have become lost within their respective <em>commuter-identities</em>
and as such, wish to defend <em>the commuter</em> and
the world it demands. Thus, they have positioned
themselves as our enemies, despite whatever other
supposed subversive affinities they declare. <em>The
commuter</em> is the modality through which every
other identity is shaped and borne within this
techno-industrial prison. The negation of <em>the
commuter</em> is the negation of civilization and the
<em>bare life</em> it has enforced; the negation of <em>the
commuter</em> is the affirmation of wildness, of
freedom, of possibility.</p>
<p><strong>We therefore affirm again, our hearts full with
insurgent ferocity: <em>every commuter is a target.</em></strong></p>
<p>Every <em>commuter</em> will move through every day
anxiously wondering when their time will come, peering
through the blinds to check if today was their bicycle
or their car’s last; every night will be spent restless
and sleepless, wondering who might be lurking in their
backyard or under their car, stealing away the material
basis of their <em>commuter-identity,</em> delivering
it to some faraway scrapyard. There can be no compromise
with <em>commuter society</em>; for the possibilities
of life to unfold before us in the realization of total
liberation, every aspect of this world must be met with
total negation, beginning with <em>the commuter.</em>"</p>
<p><a
href="https://fillerpgh.wordpress.com/2022/10/29/zine-the-angle-grinder-of-revolution-against-the-commuter-and-its-world/">Imposed
PDF</a></p>
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