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The Internet has often been compared to the Wild West: a largely unregulated space rich in opportunities, in which people may experiment with new relations. Most commentators miss the full implications of this metaphor. The Wild West was the final frontier of colonization, where the last zones of ungoverned territory were mapped, stripped of resources, and integrated into state control. Many who fled to the Wild West in search of freedom only accelerated this process of colonization. Similarly, those who champion the Internet as the new frontier of freedom may inadvertently hasten the enclosure of the last aspects of human life that remain outside the economy.

The Net is indubitably the front lines of the battle against enclosure, and it is essential to fight on the territory it presents. But should the object of that fight be to establish a democratic digital utopia? Understanding the original meaning of “computer” as a human being reduced to an algorithmic device, we set out to trace the relationship between capitalism and digitization and to imagine a digital resistance to computing itself.

Deserting the Digital Utopia: Computers Against Computing

This is the final installment in our “After the Crest” series exploring how to navigate the waning phase of social movements. It is a personal reflection on anarchist participation in the 2012 student strike in Montréal and the disruptions that accompanied it. The product of much collective discussion, this article explores the opportunities anarchists missed during the high point of the conflict by limiting themselves to the framework of the strike, and the risks they incurred by attempting to maintain it once it had entered a reformist endgame.

After the Crest, part IV: Montréal – Peaks and Precipices

For a narrative account of many of the events discussed in this text, read While the Iron Is Hot: Student Strike and Social Revolt in Montréal, Spring 2012.

We’re eager to hear from comrades around the world about your own experiences and conclusions regarding how to relate to the waning phase of movements, whether for inclusion in the forthcoming “After the Crest” podcast episode or elsewhere. Contact us via rollingthunder@crimethinc.com.

This is the third part in our “After the Crest” series, studying how we can make the most of the waning phase of upheavals. This installment analyzes the rhythms of struggle in Barcelona over the past several years, discussing the complex relationship between anarchists and larger social movements as popular struggles escalated and then subsided. It concludes with practical input on how anarchists can take advantage of a period of ebbing momentum.

For best results, read this text in combination with our earlier features on Barcelona: “Fire Extinguishers and Fire Starters,” describing the plaza occupation movement of spring 2011, and “The Rose of Fire Has Returned,”, focusing on the general strike of March 2012. Together, the three pieces trace the trajectory of an upheaval from its inspiring but ideologically murky inception through the high point of confrontation and into the aftermath.

After the Crest, part III: Barcelona Anarchists at Low Tide

This is the second part in our “After the Crest” series, studying what we can learn from the waning phase of social movements. In this installment, participants in Occupy Oakland trace its trajectory from origins to conclusion, exploring why it reached certain limits and what it will take for future movements to surpass them.

After the Crest, part II: The Rise and Fall of the Oakland Commune

Over the past six years, cities around the world have seen peaks of anti-capitalist struggle: Athens, London, Barcelona, Cairo, Oakland, Montréal, Istanbul. A decade ago, anarchists would converge from around the world to participate in a single summit protest. Now many have participated in months-long upheavals in their own cities, and more surely loom ahead.

But what do we do after the crest? If a single upheaval won’t bring down capitalism, we have to ask what’s important about these high points: what we hope to get out of them, how they figure in our long-term vision, and how to make the most of the period that follows them. This is especially pressing today, when we can be sure that there are more upheavals on the way.

To this end, we’ve organized a dialogue with anarchists in some of the cities that have seen climaxes of conflict, including Oakland, Barcelona, and Montréal. Over the next several days, we will present the results of some of those discussions here, as a series of reflections on the opportunities and risks that arise during the declining phase of a movement.

After the Crest, part I: What to Do while the Dust Is Settling

Read the “After the Crest” Questionnaire

This week, we will publish a four-part series analyzing what happens in the waning phase of movements, and how to recognize the opportunities and risks they pose. We have been working on this for months in dialogue with comrades around the world. We encourage our friends to continue this dialogue via formal or informal discussions, in hopes that we might be better prepared for the next crescendo of social struggle.

Announcement for the discussion in Toronto after the jump.

June 2013 saw the biggest wave of protest in Brazil’s recent history. Last month, we published a report from participants in this struggle, which began with demonstrations against a transit fare hike and quickly escalated into countrywide clashes. This is our second installment on the uprising, authored by another group, who offer a more critical perspective on the events.

Read the feature.

In June 2013, immediately on the heels of the uprising in Turkey, Brazil erupted in nationwide turmoil. Beginning with protests against a public transit fare increase, this upheaval brought hundreds of thousands to the streets in open fighting with the police. The fare increase was soundly defeated, in one of the few victories of the past several years of global revolts. But the movement was a victim of its own success, as middle-class nationalists and pacifists joined in, clashing with other protesters and muddying the issues.

Although anarchists played a decisive role in these events, very little material about the upheaval has appeared in English from Brazilian anarchists. To correct this, we have solicited our comrades’ perspectives from inside the riots. This is the first of two collectively authored texts analyzing the conditions that produced the uprising and the lessons we can draw from it. We will publish the second shortly.

Read the feature.

As corporations attempt to enter a new era of even dirtier fossil fuel production, indigenous communities are standing up to take direct action to protect Mother Earth. Some are pursuing legal challenges against violated treaties; others are creating internet-driven mass movements like Idle No More, or reclaiming their roots by going back to the land to assert traditional law. Among the latter are the Unist’ot’en, the People of the Headwater, whose lands encompass a wide swath of Northern British Columbia.

When companies like Enbridge and Apache announced plans to build a massive pipeline corridor through these lands, it provoked outrage from the Wet’suwet’en people whose traditional territory lies directly in its proposed path. Of the five Wet’suwet’en clans, the Unist’ot’en were the first to declare themselves opposed to all pipelines being proposed to cross their traditional territories. Now the Likhts’amisyu, Tsayu, and Git’dum’den clans have followed suit and momentum is growing.

This article tells the story from the perspective of the Unist’ot’en and their allies at the Unist’ot’en Camp through the winter of 2012-3; it has been collectively produced by both indigenous and settler voices. It recounts the development of a common front including the Unist’ot’en and anarchists and other proponents of grassroots resistance, describes the pipeline projects they are intent on thwarting, and explores the complex relationships that have arisen in the course of this struggle.

Read the full feature here.

A group of people who have been directly harmed by informant provocateurs have put together this checklist, drawing on personal experiences as well as those of other activists and information from informant provocateurs who have gone public. We hope you can learn from the damage that has already been done, so these people can be stopped before they are able to harm you.

Read on after the jump.