Moral Hazards - A 2024 Redux

Full manifesto of EcoTerrorists "Volcano Group", who attacked energy infrastructure near Tesla's plant in Germany yesterday.

In May 2023, we penned a Substack post titled “Moral Hazards”. In the piece, we highlighted the new movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning How to Fight in a World On Fire, based on the book by Swedish Professor of Human Ecology and devout Eco-Marxist Andreas Malm. The Hollywood drama had just been released as an independent film the previous month, timed for Earth Day 2023.

The movie tells the story of a small ragtag group of angry environmental activists from across the country, all offended by a variety of activities caused by oil and gas development and refining, from California to North Dakota to Texas. They gather in west Texas to plot and carry out an act of EcoTerrorism against a pipeline.

In the piece, we also highlighted actual recent U.S. Department of Justice convictions of right-wing activists who were plotting to attack and disable electric substations with firearms. There have been several firearms attacks against substations in America over the last few years.

In that piece, we warned of the dangers posed by political fanatics who might target energy infrastructure to advance their ideologies. We wrote:

It would be unwise to underestimate the potential consequences that violence by disaffected, angry, nihilistic radicals on both sides of the political debate could have on western civilization if they turn their “moral” outrage on energy infrastructure. We can see such a degradation of order quickly descending into a downward economic and civilizational spiral none of us would recognize and only the perpetrators would choose. The mentality of “burning it all down,” whether the object of one’s outrage is fossil fuels/climate change or centrally-planned Statism, is a less-than zero sum game and high-speed road to hell for everyone.

We asked the question about such ideologies and actions, “is it ignorance or is it malevolence?”

Yesterday, an EcoLeftist faction calling itself “Volcano Group Shutting Down Tesla” set fire to a high voltage power line tower near the Tesla plant in Gruenheide, Germany outside Berlin. The resulting fire cut power to the Tesla plant as well as thousands of homes, impacting ~60,000 people. Power was restored for most residents within a day, but the plant remained offline.

“Volcano Group” posted an online manifesto in German. We quickly translated and scrutinized the document to see what we could glean.

We take political activists like “Volcano Group” at their word, and we take their words at face value. Accordingly, we can confidently say that while ignorance could be a factor in this attack, it was clearly motivated by malevolence.

Completely ignorant people are not able to articulate heat content of the tires they used as fuel, the melting point of steel, and consider how heat would effect physical properties of the support tower, such as metal stiffness, tensile strength and elasticity, buckling effects, twisting or deflection of the power line tower as part of their calculated act of terrorism. All of these are referenced in the manifesto.

As with our May 2023 Substack post Moral Hazards, we contemplated the possibilities that posting their manifesto might risk creating a Streisand Effect moment for Volcano Group, drawing attention to their EcoTerrorist attack, and spurring copycat attacks in Europe or America. But we believe this marks a new phase in domestic terrorism in advanced nations, and the more people understand the threats posed by this type of ideology the better.

A U.S. News & World Report story on the attack yesterday noted that in 2019, Berlin authorities listed “Vulkangruppen, or volcano groups, as left-wing extremist organizations. Unknown individuals have been committing arson attacks in Berlin under the name Vulkangruppen since 2011.”

Another reason we chose to post the full manifesto is that we expect traditional media to avoid doing so. Given the fact that Volcano Group is clearly associated with left-wing political radicals, we have little faith that traditional media publications, particularly those in Europe where the attack occurred, will give this story, much less the full manifesto, much air.

Based on our read of the manifesto, and the attack they perpetrated on energy infrastructure yesterday in Germany, we are comfortable describing Volcano Group as an EcoTerrorism wing of Antifa in Europe. We may have more to say about Volcano Group and this event in a future piece as new information unfolds in the story.

With that framing, we present Volcano Group’s complete manifesto related to its attack on the high voltage lines near the Tesla plant in Germany yesterday.

Volcano Group Manifesto Eco-Terrorism attack - March 5, 2024 Tesla plant near Berlin, Germany (Translation via Google Translate)

Shut down the Tesla volcano group! : Stop on power supply

We sabotaged Tesla today. Because Tesla in Grünau eats up earth, resources, people, labor and spits out 6,000 SUVs, killing machines and monster trucks per week. Our gift for March 8th is to shut down Tesla.

Because the complete destruction of the Gigafactory and with it the sawing off of “technofascists” like Elend Musk are a step on the path to liberation from patriarchy.

The Gigafactory has become known for its extreme conditions of exploitation. The factory contaminates the groundwater and uses huge amounts of the already scarce drinking water resource for its products. Without any scruples, the state of Brandenburg-Berlin is being cut off for Tesla. The critics in the waterworks, the residents, the eco-activists are silenced. Numbers are embellished. Laws bent. deceived people. A large part of the population around Grünheide rejects the Gigafactory because of water theft and gentrification. The protest and resistance are still unbroken. And it grows, because there are more than one reason. In addition to the dirty battery factory, Tesla now wants to expand its factory site by another 100 hectares, including for a freight station. An expansion of the storage and logistics areas directly at the factory (including the possibility of intensive rail logistics) should help stabilize supply chains and production. This is currently being affected because deliveries from the forced labor camps in China cannot take the direct route through the Red Sea. The Brandenburg Ministry of Economics is eating out of Tesla's hands, despite many reasons for refusing any approval. The only important thing is that Brandenburg is a thriving business location.

Tesla is a symbol of “green capitalism” and a totalitarian technological attack on society. The myth of green growth is just a dirty ideological magic trick to close ranks against criticism domestically. One suggests a way out of the climate catastrophe. But “green capitalism” stands for colonialism, land grabbing and an exacerbation of the climate crisis! The lithium batteries come from toxic mines in Chile and devour other rare metals, causing misery and destruction for the people in the mining areas. The battery factory in Grünheide near Berlin requires the rare raw material lithium, which is also mined in Bolivia, for example. To enforce lithium mining in Bolivia, Musk puts his cards on the table: “We will stage a coup if we want,” commenting on the indigenous resistance to mining. Mineral resources are being ripped from the earth under brutal conditions. The “green deal” is just the expansion of economic growth without limits. In Portugal, too, the rural population is resisting the forced mining of lithium.

Just as the earth is used and violated every day, Tesla does the same with people. And lets forced laborers all over the world, such as Uyghur people in China, work for themselves (like VW), which the racist Chinese regime serves the company for its production. Even in Grünheide, the working conditions are considered catastrophic. Just recently, a works council member at IG Metall in Grünheide was dismissed. Despite a yellow works council installed by Tesla, the conditions in the factory are leaked to the outside world. In order to improve accident statistics, people are taken to the hospital by taxi instead of an emergency call and ambulance. Internal opponents will be terminated and if they defend themselves legally, they will be forced into a legal settlement. The compensation then serves as a muzzle, for example by threatening contractual penalties to stifle public discussion of racist dismissal. The sacked person has to keep his mouth shut for the money - that's the calculation.

The totalitarian technological attack then looks like this. A Tesla vehicle is a surveillance device in public spaces. It is equipped with high-resolution cameras from Samsung all around. Samsung is a company that is a leader in weapons technology, among other things. According to the manufacturer, the cameras record up to 250 meters. In “guard mode” they film everything around the vehicle and guarantee that the driver is monitored even while driving. The driver is already a free, integral part of the Telsa universe and a guinea pig. The artificial intelligence will register every movement and every mistake of the driver and monetize it in order to train the autonomous driving software with the data.

Tesla is militarizing the streets. His moving tanks are weapons of war. The car as a weapon. The street the battlefield. Tesla has now released 856 hp instead of 9mm: “If you get into a fight with other cars, you will win,” says Elend Musk. A Tesla is a status symbol, statement and propaganda at the same time: for contempt for humanity, limitless destruction through “progress” and an imperial, patriarchal way of life.

Anyone who buys an SUV is most likely a supporter of an imperial way of life who wants to benefit from the madness until the bitter end. A scrapped Tesla shouldn't be missing from every activist's secret poetry album. No Tesla in the world should be safe from our flaming rage. Every Tesla that burns sabotages the imperial way of life and effectively destroys the ever-tightening network of seamless, smart surveillance of every expression of human life.

Armies use Tesla's Starlink satellite system in their wars. Like in Ukraine. Russia's army also accesses Starlink satellite terminals from third countries to carry out attacks. Israel also uses the Starlink satellite system for murder in Gaza. Tesla's Starlink infrastructure is a military actor. Rolled up like a pearl necklace made of garbage, they plow through the sky to make the surveillance total.

Let's talk about a man who will turn to dust even if he would rather be immortal: Elend Musk.

For men like him, the swear word that could accurately describe their arrogance, contempt for humanity and anti-social greed for power and recognition has not yet been invented.

He makes no secret of his chauvinism. His propaganda platform X is the means to an end. Here he gathers supporters of an imperial way of life. This is where the anti-Semites, anti-feminists, authoritarians, chauvinists, fascists and supporters of hatred against “foreigners” make sure. Here they organize themselves with their elitist view of the world and as masters. Here the Aryans of the AfD meet their peers.

When Elend Musk cheers the anti-feminist and neoliberal president of Argentina on X, it's because men are forming an alliance. There is no shyness in this regard, they have decided to stand on the side of deadly masculinism and leave a trail of blood behind them, like a man-eating monster.

Elend Musk is the new type of neoliberal and patriarchal, neo-colonial predatory capitalist of this century who uses different means than the exploiters before him in the last century. It is an invasive zeitgeist that uses the self-manufactured economic crises of exploitation to attack the next destruction. He is only following in the prepared brown footsteps of other patriarchal pioneers. The “car manufacturer” Henry Ford was already an admirer of the Nazis with their “Volkswagen” and their efficient organization of industry. The factory in Wolfsburg was operated on the backs of forced laborers. Every German should be able to get a Volkswagen so that they can either drive a car or a tank on the new highway. Ford, inspired by the efficiency of German work organization, transferred the ideas to his empire in the USA. The attack on the workers and the economization of exploitation also became known as “Fordism”.

This included work organization and assembly line work – mass production with simultaneous mass consumption of cars. The model, also known as Taylorism, was also a class struggle from above. Elend Musk combines the invasive technological possibilities of our time with his mysogynistic worldview, patriarchal extremism and the totalitarian attitude typical of his caste. As a “car manufacturer” he stands as a revenant in historical tradition. In keeping with the times, he acts as a “technofascist”.

Instead of scrapping the car on the rubbish heap of history and expanding free public transport, only the drive technology is replaced, from the combustion engine to the electric motor, in order to save individual transport. The imperial way of life is economically more lucrative.

The positions of power allow patriarchal “visionaries” like Elend Musk to experiment in the most horrific sense with the most “advanced” forms of exploitation and with the available “human” resource. To conquer new realms and advance without being asked and to penetrate the earth. In space, in the skies, in public spaces, in our heads - the rapist leaves nothing untouched. The neurotechnology company Neuralink aims to connect human brains with machines. Animals are used to test how streams of thought can be read. Just like SpaceX and Tesla, Neuralink also aims for a long-term perspective in which people have different values. In which some are entitled to a better life within the ecological catastrophe that is already present.

Even if you're not on The positions of power allow a permanent encroachment, an invasive relationship towards all life that can only be stopped through decisive resistance. The “technological progress” of the epochs offers them, the “techno-fascists”, a tool of possibilities with which the exploitation and indescribable destruction of the planet is still increased.

Because of their power, this type can sometimes act like a head of state without having been elected. Who has the necessary means of production and the resource “people” to make political decisions. This type can buy heads of state or bring parties to power, even if their name is Hitler. This type is the mastermind behind the supposed decision-makers of governments. He can impose conditions on the states or reduce heads of state to supplicants. The patriarchal system spits out tons of people like that, they strive for the top because that corresponds to the patriarchal model. They coup when things don't go as planned. They are interchangeable. Only their power gives them these opportunities - without power they are just pompous, ridiculous egomaniacs. They have been driving millions of people to death for centuries; they are destroying nature as if it belonged to them. If we don't destroy the system that creates such egomaniacs, new ones of their kind will appear. So it's not (just) about misery Musk - but about an imperial way of life - that these men are forcing on us. It's about a showdown between the imperial way of life versus freedom for all people.

This type of person and their economic concept represents a minority on this planet who consider this imperial way of life to be the only correct one. What is new is that the tipping points that show us the finite nature of this destructive way of life have often been passed. Other tipping points are approaching at breathtaking speed. Year after year, month after month, day after day.

(If all else fails, Elend Musk and a handful of slaves and others like him would flee the consequences of his imperial life form and insult Mars with his presence. But our strong extraplanetary allies are already waiting for him; solar storms would crash his rocket, like that They've done this before with 30% of their satellites in space. So we'll win.)

Many people still consider this way of life and the supposed wealth associated with it to be natural and desirable. Mistaken and misguided, many people confuse possessions and material wealth with freedom and happiness. Ignorance, manipulation and fear shape generations of many people. We are reduced to work and consumption and degraded to an imperial way of life. This material wealth at the expense of other people is an indictment of “civilization”. This way of life does not make those who benefit from it happy either. The alternatives are made invisible or destroyed as they emerge. Approaches that could benefit humanity without generating money or power are delegitimized. Indigenous life forms that relate to nature and its protection have been and are being wiped out. Emancipatory approaches that go to the roots have been drowned in blood in all eras. Or revolutionary movements are corrupted, infiltrated, and their “leaders” are bought in order to secure rule and the progress of destruction for further decades.

On the eve of March 8th, we lit a beacon against capital, patriarchy, colonialism and Tesla. We counter the ongoing rape of the earth with sabotage. The ideology of limitless economic growth and a belief in progress based on destruction have come to an end. In order for Europe to become a “first-class investment location with a strong industrial ecosystem,” all obstacles are being rolled out of the way for giants like Tesla. But something is slipping. We, a broad and colorful resistance, roll them back down. We are the piles of rubble and grains of sand in the gears of a machine that is inexorably stomping forward. We are disruptive factors in the engine room. We are the desperate and outcasts. We are middle-class people in Germany or migrants on the run. We, that can be a lot of people in the forest and in the tree houses and on the streets, that can be covert sabotage groups like ours. These can also be people in the Gigafactory who take revenge on their master's machines for his working conditions. We can be caught, beaten, humiliated, raped or murdered - but we are right. Only violence can keep us down. But we get up again. And others will come after us.

Share the explanation. Translate and send them to other people in the global struggle.

Our goal with our sabotage is to cause the largest possible blackout of the Gigafactory. We have ruled out endangering our lives and those of other people. The shutdown of production in the automotive industry is the beginning of the end of a world of destruction. Our bonfire of liberation was aimed at powering Tesla. We wanted to hit the overhead line of a high-voltage pylon in the connection to the underground cables at the waterproof cable sleeves and short-circuit the six 110 kV cables in it. To do this, we opened the shaft to the cable sleeves, which was half under water. We still flambéed power lines that were sticking out and, in combination with water, perhaps created a short circuit. Damage to cable joints is often time-consuming and expensive to repair. At the same time, we started the fire big and high with lots of car tires to weaken the steel structure and cause the mast to become unstable.

A steel mast only melts at around 1300 -1500 degrees. Since we were working with a heat generation of around 900 degrees, it was a matter of changing the mechanical properties of the mast. As a steel structure under load, a rapid, large fire from 500 degrees upwards can cause loss of strength and alter the metal's stiffness, tensile strength and elasticity. This can lead to buckling effects, twisting or deflection. That was our intention.

We feel connected to all the people who are struggling around the world and who our words reach.

We feel connected to all the people who won't let Tesla turn them off. If we want to win against giants like Tesla, we need many forms of resistance. Ours is one among many. Unpredictable and diverse, only together can we force the Brandenburg Ministry of Economics to respect the will of the population. Economics Minister Jörg Steinbach (SPD) sees the voting result of the residents of Grünheide (71% against the expansion of the Tesla factory site) as just an important vote. Above all, he sees the vote as a “cure opportunity,” which means that Tesla has not succeeded in convincing people and that the company still has to do its homework in order to divide, buy, cajole and persuade the population. He doesn't accept the people's no and calls on Tesla to soften their no by May.

Everyone is free to enjoy our campaign openly or secretly. Anyone who feels compelled to distance themselves should ask themselves why? And who is interested in it?

Together we will bring Tesla to its knees. Switch off for Tesla.

Greetings to everyone on the run, in the underground in prisons and in the resistance!

Love and strength to all Antif@s!

Shut down the Tesla.

- Volcano Group!