Neo-luddism
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Neo-luddism is a modern movement of opposition to technology, both in particular and in general. Neo-luddites claim that technology is a force that, among other things, 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.
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Labels
The movement is also described as luddism, neo-amish, neo-primitivist, among other terms. Like "neo-luddite" itself, these labels are usually applied by their detractors. Those who are called neo-luddites tend to call themselves greens, conservatives, or other labels, but with an anti-technology focus. This causes friction with pro-tech greens and others, who sometimes cite the negative environmental consequences of neo-luddites' goals to challenge their right to call themselves "green".
Affiliated Groups
- 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[2] and encrypted[3] email communications for various ad hoc sabotage groups or campaigns.
- The Ruckus Society operates several boot camps for anti-globalist activists, protest organizers, and saboteurs, developed and run with funding[4] laundered[5] through The Tides Center[6] but originating from trusts controlled by Theresa Heinz-Kerry[7], an issue which surfaced during her husband's 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"[8] 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.
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, 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".
Violence
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.
Successful neo-luddite attacks include the burning of a ski lodge at Vail, Colorado[9], valued at $12 million; a $50 million five story apartment building in San Diego[10][11], luxury homes on New York's Long Island[12], destruction of genetically modified organisms[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] 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)[22]. While Northern California Earth First! signed an official non-violence pledge and ban on tree spiking, EF chapters in the rest of 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 seen as successes or failures of the movement 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[23] and half-hearted disavowal by mainstream members of the movement.
Notable Political Successes
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 attempting to overturn 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.
GMO
A number of countries, as well as the EU, have adopted the Precautionary Principle as law, statute, or regulation, especially with respect to Genetically Modified Organisms.
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. In the private sphere, the Discovery Institute pushes the anti-Darwinian theory of Intelligent Design while also opposing stem cell research and human cloning in any form, whether therapeutic or reproductive. In the public sphere of government, Presidential Bio-ethics Commisssion members Leon Kass and writer Francis Fukuyama are both generally bioluddites who specifically want to end stem cell research, human therapeutic or reproductive cloning, cryonic suspension, and in vitro fertilization technologies. Both have labelled the philosophy of transhumanism as, "the world's most dangerous idea," despite the fact that there is no history of transhumanist-inspired violence, while tactics such as Monkeywrenching have been employed to promote neo-luddite causes.
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).
Opposition
Opposition to this movement consists largely of those who believe in the development of technology to solve humanity's problems. This includes both private citizens, mainly transhumanists, as well as most corporations and other organizations responsible for technological development of any kind. This opposition has sometimes been hindered by a focus on specific issues, and on occasion by a belief that the benefits of certain new technologies are obvious when in fact many people do not understand the technology in question.
One of their opponents' main concerns is whether the things that neo-luddites claim to want to save are in fact worth saving. One form of this objection is to note their defense of traditional cultures without qualification, and then note elements of certain traditional cultures that society has come to find abhorrent, such as cannibalism and slavery. Another form is to note some problem that most people would like to minimize or eliminate - such as cancer (which most people agree can eventually be cured), or the sometimes crippling effects of advanced age (which most people think of as inevitable - but see Geriatrics) - and argue that the main effect of neo-luddism would be to delay or prevent solutions to these problems.