When most people hear the term ‘direct action’, they think of burning SUVs and lab animals being liberated in the middle of the night. These tactics of property destruction have been used extremely effectively by networks like Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, but they do not exhaust the possibilities of direct action. Today ‘property’ is immaterial as much as -- or more than -- material, as groups like Critical Arts Ensemble have argued. Hacktivism has therefore become an increasingly widespread and important mode of direct action to destroy and impede the flow of constituted powers.
There is also a great deal of direct action work going on that is oriented to
redirecting flows of power rather than destroying or impeding them. Food
Not Bombs is perhaps the quintessential tactic here. What could be more
‘direct’ than taking food destined to rot and bringing it to people
destined to go hungry? Direct action casework, a tactic employed by groups like
the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, is another
excellent example of how direct action can be used for ‘postive’
ends.
Most importantly -- and most unexpectedly, given the way direct action is commonly
imagined -- many groups and networks around the world are working on ways to
create viable alternatives to the system of states and corporations within/alongside/against
that system, but without attempting to either seize or influence state or corporate
power. From our point of view, direct action to construct alternatives is among
the most interesting modes of radical social change today.
Destruction
of Existing Forms
Impeding Existing Forms