I fear that I have become what George Orwell called a thought-criminal in his prophetic novel 1984, but what might today be more accurately called a thought-terrorist. The totalitarianism mapped out in Orwell’s work is like a blueprint for today’s authoritarian regimes: from the control of the media to the class distinctions to the perpetual war, Orwell saw it coming. Most recently, 1984’s love scenes in the English countryside have gained new meaning with London now thick with surveillance cameras, some even mounted on trees in rural areas just like the ones the lovers in 1984 were trying to avoid.

To me, as a thought-terrorist, however, the most important aspect of Orwellianism is that the bombs are dropping and it doesn’t really matter who is dropping them: in global totalitarianism the bombs drop systemically, whether it’s a US missile or a suicide bomber, an anarchist pipe bomb or a landlord’s arson, a disillusioned citizen or agents-provocateurs in the service of the state. It doesn’t matter who is blowing things up, bombs blowing up is an integral part of our system of things now.

Today we are at war with Eurasia and allied with East Asia, tomorrow we will be at war with East Asia and allied with Eurasia, and the bombs will continue to fall. This violence inherent in our system is why I am a pacifist-terrorist, but there is an irrationalilty to refusing violence as self defense, and an irrational stance doesn’t impose well on others defending their livelihoods. Upon hearing that thought-terrorists blew up a US Forces recruitment office in New York’s Times Square, for example, I am guilty of feeling no animosity towards these allegedly Canadian bombers. These days thought terrorism like this are enough to have me dragged away and tortured without charge or legal representation.

Feeling remorse for the buildings damaged by Buddhist monks is also beyond me. China and Burma used this rare footage of monks kicking buildings or throwing rocks to discredit these predominantly peaceful movements, but the real message in the anti-inflation/anti-olympics/anti-authoritarian uprisings in Asia is that these citizens have been able to restrain themselves so well in the face of such incredible brutality. If these monks grew more militant it may not serve their cause, but play into the interests they are resisting. Popular global opinion, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t hold it against them if they did arm themselves. There is still this popular idea that social change is only possible through an armed struggle. I don’t buy into armed rebellion, but, as I said, my reasoning may not be rational, so I can’t really blame those who do subscribe to destruction of property.

A local example is the case of the Squamish 5 in the 1980s, a gang of youth who blew up a factory in Ontario that was manufacturing missile guidance systems made from technologies developed at SFU and sold to global US arms dealerships like Boeing in Seattle. The group was apprehended after having torched Red Hot Video outlets all over the Lower Mainland and plotting to hold up an armoured car. In the case against them, political literature found at their homes was used as evidence of their guilt. This crew went to great pains to prevent any loss of life in their actions, but some people were apparently hurt. It could be argued that the Squamish 5 actually set back social action in Canada, but does anybody, apart from the insurance companies, really cry over the burnt down porno stores or arms dealerships?

In the 1990s the Animal Liberation Front gained momentum breaking into labs to free the animals being experimented on. At one point a truck full of lobsters on the way to market was fire bombed, killing all the lobsters. The ALF is still a major direct action group across Canada and the world, having successfully lobbied companies to cease doing business with labs that experiment with animals, and remaining active in the fight against Newfoundland’s seal hunt.

At a conference at Spartacus Books by a group of ALF members that fled to Vancouver from Montreal, I had a chance to hear some ALF founders speak after watching videos of their actions. Demonstrators smash windows, infiltrate companies to video tape the atrocities committed against animals, and even stage demonstrations and occupations outside of people’s personal homes. This occupation of people’s homes, to a pacifist terrorist, is border-line-violent because there could be children in the home seriously traumatized by loud crowds calling for the lynching of their parents.

The ALF reps surprised me by ridiculing Gandhi as having dealt with corporate evils by way of letter campaigns. I cited Gandhi’s pacifist solution to WWII: a massive suicide of all the Jews in Berlin as soon as they realized the impending holocaust, public opinion then turning against the Nazis thereby avoiding WWII without violent dominations (Orwell didn’t agree, but couldn’t blame Gandhi from thinking this way). The ALF people responded that Gandhi’s methods maintained that human nature is basically good, but the people ALF is fighting have no good in them, and so pacifism doesn’t work.

National Post columnist Raymond de Souza, the Catholic priest (God knows who he really works for), wrote a column about Martin Luther King on the 40th anniversary of King’s assassination in which de Souza said that King’s earlier work was good, but his later work against US militarism and his defense of the destruction of property were going too far. It’s hard to ignore the implication of this article, that MLK’s assassination was warranted. Maybe there are some people without good in them.

Lately there has been growing worry that bombs or other weapons will soon start falling on Canada. February 1st saw PM Stephen Harper sign Canadian sovereignty over to the US in the event of a nuclear, chemical or biological weapons attack, allowing US forces to respond to emergencies through immediate occupation of Canadian land. Anti-war activists in Canada increasingly mention that Canada hasn’t seen a terrorist attack since the war of 1812. A terrorist attack on Canada, then, is increasingly in the interests of the corporate global empire in that Pearl Harbour-sort-of-way that has been so in vogue lately. The bombs will come here, and it won’t matter who’s dropping them, they just drop, that is just the way it is.

Militant thought-terrorists I’ve met, adherents to armed struggle, differ from pacifist thought-terrorism in a profound way: they see the history of the world as a boot stomping on a citizen’s head forever, a continual repression of unknown martyred victims fading off into obscurity. Passive thought-terrorism sees struggle differently, as a necessary procession to get us to this point, today, each one of the fallen freedom fighters in history depending on our actions today to validate their sacrifices. It may not be a rational political stance, but I’m sticking to it: there are more effective forms of resistance than the violent methods Big Brother feeds the world.