[Antisocial] Leaderless Resistance (fwd)

J.A. Terranson measl at mfn.org
Tue Jun 28 17:32:34 PDT 2005


I figured this crosspost would make interesting reading for the folks
here.  Enjoy.

-- 
Yours,

J.A. Terranson
sysadmin at mfn.org
0xBD4A95BF


"Never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public
plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to
the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always
be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by
predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty."

Joseph Pulitzer
1907 Speech

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 11:53:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: someguy at mfn.org
Reply-To: Antisocial <antisocial at mfn.org>
To: antisocial at mfn.org
Subject: [Antisocial] Leaderless Resistance

Interesting read.... Unfortunately this may come in handy very soon given
the way things are heading here.

http://reactor-core.org/leaderless-resistance.html

LEADERLESS RESISTANCE
by Louis Beam
published in The Seditionist #12, February 1992
written in 1983

The concept of Leaderless Resistance was proposed by Col. Ulius Louis
Amoss, who was the founder of International Service of Information
Incorporated, located in Baltimore, Maryland. Col. Amoss died more than
fifteen years ago, but during his life was a tireless opponent of
communism, as well as a skilled Intelligence Officer. Col. Amoss first
wrote of Leaderless Resistance on April 17, 1962. His theories of
organization were primarily directed against the threat of eventual
Communist take-over in the United States. The present writer, with the
benefit of having lived many years beyond Col. Amoss, has taken his
theories and expounded upon them. Col. Amoss feared the Communists. This
author fears the federal government. Communism now represents a threat to
no one in the United States, while federal tyranny represents a threat to
everyone . The writer has joyfully lived long enough to see the dying
breaths of communism, but may, unhappily, remain long enough to see the
last grasps of freedom in America.

In the hope that, somehow, America can still produce the brave sons and
daughters necessary to fight off ever increasing persecution and
oppression, this essay is offered. Frankly, it is too close to call at
this point. Those who love liberty, and believe in freedom enough to fight
for it are rare today, but within the bosom of every once great nation,
there remains secreted, the pearls of former greatness. They are there. I
have looked into their sparking eyes; sharing a brief moment in time with
them as I passed through this life. Relished their friendship, endured
their pain, and they mine. We are a band of brothers, native to the soil
gaining strength one from another as we have rushed head long into a
battle that all the weaker, timid men, say we can not win. Perhaps...but
then again, perhaps we can. It's not over till the last freedom fighter is
buried or imprisoned, or the same happens to those who would destroy their
freedom.

Barring any cataclysmic events, the struggle will yet go on for years. The
passage of time will make it clear to even the more slow among us that the
government is the foremost threat to the life, and liberty of the folk.
The government will no doubt make today's oppressiveness look like grade
school work compared to what they have planned in the future. Meanwhile,
there are those of us who continue to hope that somehow the few can do
what the many have not. We are cognizant that before things get better
they will certainly get worse as government shows a willingness to use
ever more severe police state measures against dissidents. This changing
situation makes it clear that those who oppose state repression must be
prepared to alter, adapt, and modify their behavior, strategy, and tactics
as circumstances warrant. Failure to consider new methods and implement
them as necessary will make the government's efforts at suppression
uncomplicated. It is the duty of every patriot to make the tyrant's life
miserable. When one fails to do so he not only fails himself, but his
people.

With this in mind, current methods of resistance to tyranny employed by
those who love our race, culture, and heritage must pass a litmus test of
soundness. Methods must be objectively measured as to their effectiveness,
as well as to whether they make the government's intention of repression
more possible or more difficult. Those not working to aid our objectives
must be discarded or the government benefits from our failure to do so.

As honest men who have banded together into groups or associations of a
political or religious nature are falsely labeled "domestic terrorists" or
"cultists" and suppressed, it will become necessary to consider other
methods of organization  or as the case may very well call for:
non-organization. One should keep in mind that it is not in the
government's interest to eliminate all groups. Some few must remain in
order to perpetuate the smoke and mirrors vision for the masses that
America is a "free democratic country" where dissent is allowed. Most
organizations, however, that possess the potential for effective
resistance will not be allowed to continue. Anyone who is so naive as to
believe the most powerful government on earth will not crush any who pose
a real threat to that power, should not be active, but rather, at home
studying political history.

The question as to who is to be left alone and who is not, will be
answered by how groups and individuals deal with several factors such as:
avoidance of conspiracy plots, rejection of feeble minded malcontents,
insistence upon quality of the participants, avoidance of all contact with
the front men for the federals  the news media  and, finally, camouflage
(which can be defined as the ability to blend in the public's eye the more
committed groups of resistance with mainstream "kosher" associations that
are generally seen as harmless.) Primarily though, whether any
organization is allowed to continue in the future will be a matter of how
big a threat a group represents. Not a threat in terms of armed might or
political ability, for there is none of either for the present, but
rather, threat in terms of potentiality. It is potential the federals fear
most. Whether that potential exists in an individual or group is
incidental. The federals measure potential threat in terms of what might
happen given a situation conducive to action on the part of a restive
organization or individual. Accurate intelligence gathering allows them to
assess the potential. Showing one's hand before the bets are made, is a
sure way to loose.

The movement for freedom is rapidly approaching the point where for many
people, the option of belonging to a group will be nonexistent. For
others, group membership will be a viable option for only the immediate
future. Eventually, and perhaps much sooner than most believe possible,
the price paid for membership will exceed any perceived benefit. But for
now, some of the groups that do exist often serve a useful purpose either
for the newcomer who can be indoctrinated into the ideology of the
struggle, or for generating positive propaganda to reach potential freedom
fighters. It is sure that, for the most part, this struggle is rapidly
becoming a matter of individual action, each of its participants making a
private decision in the quietness of his heart to resist: to resist by any
means necessary. It is hard to know what others will do, for no man truly
knows another man's heart. It is enough to know what one himself will do.
A great teacher once said "know thyself." Few men really do, but let each
of us, promise ourselves, not to go quietly to the fate our would-be
masters have planned.

The concept of Leaderless Resistance is nothing less than a fundamental
departure in theories of organization. The orthodox scheme of organization
is diagrammatically represented by the pyramid, with the mass at the
bottom and the leader at the top. This fundamental of organization is to
be seen not only in armies, which are of course, the best illustration of
the pyramid structure, with the mass of soldiery, the privates, at the
bottom responsible to corporals who are in turn responsible to sergeants,
and so on up the entire chain of command to the generals at the top. But
the same structure is seen in corporations, ladies' garden clubs and in
our political system itself. This orthodox "pyramid" scheme of
organization is to be seen basically in all existing political, social and
religious structures in the world today from the Federal government to the
Roman Catholic Church. The Constitution of the United States, in the
wisdom of the Founders, tried to sublimate the essential dictatorial
nature of pyramidal organization by dividing authority into three:
executive, legislative and judicial. But the pyramid remains essentially
untouched.

This scheme of organization, the pyramid, is however, not only useless,
but extremely dangerous for the participants when it is utilized in a
resistance movement against state tyranny. Especially is this so in
technologically advanced societies where electronic surveillance can often
penetrate the structure revealing its chain of command. Experience has
revealed over and over again that anti-state, political organizations
utilizing this method of command and control are easy prey for government
infiltration, entrapment, and destruction of the personnel involved. This
has been seen repeatedly in the United States where pro-government
infiltrators or agent provocateurs weasel their way into patriotic groups
and destroy them from within.

In the pyramid type of organization, an infiltrator can destroy anything
which is beneath his level of infiltration and often those above him as
well. If the traitor has infiltrated at the top, then the entire
organization from the top down is compromised and may be traduced at will.

An alternative to the pyramid type of organization is the cell system. In
the past, many political groups (both right and left) have used the cell
system to further their objectives. Two examples will suffice. During the
American Revolution "committees of correspondence" were formed throughout
the Thirteen colonies.

Their purpose was to subvert the government and thereby aid the cause of
independence. The "Sons of Liberty", who made a name for themselves
dumping government taxed tea into the harbor at Boston, were the action
arm of the committees of correspondence. Each committee was a secret cell
that operated totally independently of the other cells. Information on the
government was passed from committee to committee, from colony to colony,
and then acted upon on a local basis. Yet even in these bygone days of
poor communication, of weeks to months for a letter to be delivered, the
committees without any central direction whatsoever, were remarkable
similar in tactics employed to resist government tyranny. It was, as the
first American patriots knew, totally unnecessary for anyone to give an
order for anything. Information was made available to each committee, and
each committee acted as it saw fit. A recent example of the cell system
taken from the left wing of politics are the Communists. The Communist, in
order to get around the obvious problems involved in pyramidal
organization, developed to an art the cell system. They had numerous
independent cells which operated completely isolated from one another and
particularly with no knowledge of each other, but were orchestrated
together by a central headquarters. For instance, during World War II, in
Washington, it is known that there were at least six secret Communist
cells operating at high levels in the United States government (plus all
the open Communists who were protected and promoted by President
Roosevelt), however, only one of the cells was rooted out and destroyed.
How many more actually were operating no one can say for sure.

The Communist cells which operated in the U.S until late 1991 under Soviet
control could have at their command a leader, who held a social position
which appeared to be very lowly. He could be, for example, a busboy in a
restaurant, but in reality a colonel or a general in the Soviet Secret
Service, the KGB. Under him could be a number of cells and a person active
in one cell would almost never have knowledge of individuals who are
active in another cell. The value of this is that while any one cell can
be infiltrated, exposed or destroyed, such action will have no effect on
the other cells; in fact, the members of the other cells will be
supporting that cell which is under attack and ordinarily would lend very
strong support to it in many ways. This is at least part of the reason, no
doubt, that whenever in the past Communists were attacked in this country,
support for them sprang up in many unexpected places.

The efficient and effective operation of a cell system after the Communist
model, is of course, dependent upon central direction, which means
impressive organization, funding from the top, and outside support, all of
which the Communists had. Obviously, American patriots have none of these
things at the top or anywhere else, and so an effective cell organization
based upon the Soviet system of operation is impossible.

Two things become clear from the above discussion. First, that the pyramid
type of organization can be penetrated quite easily and it thus is not a
sound method of organization in situations where the government has the
resources and desire to penetrate the structure; which is the situation in
this country. Secondly, that the normal qualifications for the cell
structure based upon the Red model does not exist in the U.S. for
patriots. This understood, the question arises "What method is left for
those resisting state tyranny?" The answer comes from Col. Amoss who
proposed the "Phantom Cell" mode of organization. Which he described as
Leaderless Resistance. A system of organization that is based upon the
cell organization, but does not have any central control or direction,
that is in fact almost identical to the methods used by the Committees of
Correspondence during the American Revolution. Utilizing the Leaderless
Resistance concept, all individuals and groups operate independently of
each other, and never report to a central headquarters or single leader
for direction or instruction, as would those who belong to a typical
pyramid organization.

At first glance, such a type of organization seems unrealistic, primarily
because there appears to be no organization. The natural question thus
arises as to how are the "Phantom cells" and individuals to cooperate with
each other when there is no intercommunication or central direction? The
answer to this question is that participants in a program of Leaderless
Resistance through phantom cell or individual action must know exactly
what they are doing, and how to do it. It becomes the responsibility of
the individual to acquire the necessary skills and information as to what
is to be done. This is by no means as impractical as it appears, because
it is certainly true that in any movement, all persons involved have the
same general outlook, are acquainted with the same philosophy, and
generally react to given situations in similar ways. The pervious history
of the committees of correspondence during the American Revolution show
this to be true.

Since the entire purpose of Leaderless Resistance is to defeat state
tyranny (at least insofar as this essay is concerned), all members of
phantom cells or individuals will tend to react to objective events in the
same way through usual tactics of resistance. Organs of information
distribution such as newspapers, leaflets, computers, etc., which are
widely available to all, keep each person informed of events, allowing for
a planned response that will take many variations. No one need issue an
order to anyone. Those idealist truly committed to the cause of freedom
will act when they feel the time is ripe, or will take their cue from
others who precede them. While it is true that much could be said against
this type of structure as a method of resistance, it must be kept in mind
that Leaderless Resistance is a child of necessity. The alternatives to it
have been show to be unworkable or impractical. Leaderless Resistance has
worked before in the American Revolution, and if the truly committed put
it to use for themselves, it will work now.

It goes almost without saying that Leaderless Resistance leads to very
small or even one man cells of resistance. Those who join organizations to
play "let's pretend" or who are "groupies" will quickly be weeded out.
While for those who are serious about their opposition to federal
despotism, this is exactly what is desired.

>From the point of view of tyrants and would be potentates in the federal
bureaucracy and police agencies, nothing is more desirable than that those
who oppose them be UNIFIED in their command structure, and that every
person who opposes them belong to a pyramid type group. Such groups and
organizations are an easy kill. Especially in light of the fact that the
Justice (sic) Department promised in 1987 that there would never be
another group that opposed them that they did not have at least one
informer in. These federal "friends of government" are intelligence
agents. They gather information that can be used at the whim of a federal
D.A. to prosecute. The line of battle has been drawn. Patriots are
required therefore, to make a conscious decision to either aid the
government in its illegal spying, by continuing with old methods of
organization and resistance, or to make the enemie's job more difficult by
implementing effective countermeasures.

Now there will, no doubt, be mentally handicapped people out there who,
while standing at a podium with an American flag draped in the background,
and a lone eagle soaring in the sky above, will state emphatically in
their best sounding red, white, and blue voice, "So what if the government
is spying? We are not violating any laws." Such crippled thinking by any
serious person is the best example that there is a need for special
education classes. The person making such a statement is totally out of
contact with political reality in this country, and unfit for leadership
of any thing more than a dog sleigh in the Alaskan wilderness. The old
"Born on the fourth of July" mentality that has influenced so much of the
American patriot's thinking in the past will not save him from the
government in the future. "Reeducation" for non-thinkers of this type will
take place in the federal prison system where there are no flags or
eagles, but abundance of men who were "not violating any law."

Most groups who "unify" their disparate associates into a single structure
have short political lives. Therefore, those movement leaders constantly
calling for unity of organization rather than the desirable unity of
purpose, usually fall into one of three categories.

They may not be sound political tacticians, but rather, just committed men
who feel unity would help their cause, while not realizing that the
government would greatly benefit from such efforts. The Federal objective,
to imprison or destroy all who oppose them, is made easier in pyramid
organizations. Or perhaps, they do not fully understand the struggle they
are involved in and that the government they oppose has declared a state
of war against those fighting for faith, folk, freedom and constitutional
liberty. Those in power will use any means to rid themselves of
opposition. The third class calling for unity and let us hope this is the
minority of the three, are men more desirous of the supposed power that a
large organization would bestow, than of actually achieving their stated
purpose.

Conversely, the last thing Federal snoops would have, if they had any
choice in the matter, is a thousand different small phantom cells opposing
them. It is easy to see why. Such a situation is an intelligence nightmare
for a government intent upon knowing everything they possibly can about
those who oppose them. The Federals, able to amass overwhelming strength
of numbers, manpower, resources, intelligence gathering, and capability at
any given time, need only a focal point to direct their anger. A single
penetration of a pyramid type of organization can lead to the destruction
of the whole. Whereas, Leaderless Resistance presents no single
opportunity for the Federals to destroy a significant portion of the
Resistance.

With the announcement by the Department of Justice (sic) that 300 FBI
agents formerly assigned to watching Soviet spies in the US (domestic
counter intelligence) are now to be used to "combat crime", the federal
government is preparing the way for a major assault upon those persons
opposed to their policies. Many anti-government groups dedicated to the
preservation of the America of our forefathers can expect shortly to feel
the brunt of a new federal assault upon liberty.

It is clear, therefore, that it is time to rethink traditional strategy
and tactics when it comes to opposing a modern police state. America is
quickly moving into a long dark night of police state tyranny, where the
rights now accepted by most as being inalienable will disappear. Let the
coming night be filled with a thousand points of resistance. Like the fog
which forms when conditions are right and disappears when they are not, so
must the resistance to tyranny be.

This document is provided for reference purposes only. Statements in this
document do not reflect the opinions of Reactor Core staff or Jonathan
Walther. If you find ought to disagree with, that is as it ought be. Train
your mind to test every thought, ideology, train of reasoning, and claim
to truth. There is no justice when even a single voice goes unheard. (1
Thessalonians 5:21, 1 John 4:1-3, John 14:26, John 16:26, Revelation
12:10, Proverbs 14:15, Proverbs 18:13)

-- 
"In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost
every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from
authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but
have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions
about them were not worth a brass farthing."

--Mark Twain

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