In other words more profits for insurance companies!
You cannot change a social system through breaking windows.
Windows will be repaired (growth for glassiers as well!) and life will continue as normal. Capitalism is not a physical object you can break, it is society. It will only be changed when the majority of people want to change it and aim to put an alternative in place. This can come about when in the process of stuggling against an aspect of capitalism large numbers of people develop new ways of seeing the world, of relating to each other, become aware of their collective strength and of myriad realities and different possibilities. Such situations are the historic roots of revolutionary ideas. Thus everything which contributes to the building mass active opposition to capitalism (or firstly to it's effects or particular aspects) contributes to the downfall of capitalism and it's replacement by a free society. Mass Direct Action does this, because it impowers people (and gives an example to others). Direct Action here defined as something which actually DOES something, not a protest be it with placards or with window smashing. For instance the shutting down of the summit in Seattle was Mass Direct Action, it involved many people and it did something.
People going out in the middle of the night and breaking windows is not, does not, and achieves nothing.
Furthermore such actions do not inspire others to do similar as these actions only enter the public mind via the corporate media, and as such a corporate media interperation is given to them.
Please put your energies and passion into something more usefull.

breaking windows is fun for kids, getting lumbered with a criminal record, for life, for such a petty crime is dumb.

instead of breaking their windows check out what they are upto, a lot of these guys you see driving up in exotic flashy cars, in top spots like Mayfair are crooks .
its you wouldn't believe how many of them are completely at it, not just drugs, recycling/ laundering dirty money.

It's very intersting to note how organized crime fits into the Globalisation machinery. look at Ashcroft , Berlusconi
they are both crooks who operate right at top level.

anyway it's your choice ....

Sure - it's a complete waste of time and energy smashing things - all it does is heighten crapitalist regard for property and drives the middle class away from protest - even if their consiences dictate, they won't be party to anything that damages their (quite often hard fought for) or anyone elses property - they just don't see the connection.

Far better to boycott all goods made under corporate control, take a leaf from Ya Basta!/Wombles and really get down to understanding how the world works - then changing it. Get into the boardrooms - make a stink that the media can't ignore - but don't wreck anything physical - the real war is not on that plane - it's on the plane of delicately poised economics that have bankers so terrified they are beginning to act like barbarians in the way they demand protection.

We ARE winning but cunning and subtlety will be far more useful in maintaining the pressure than any old thrown brick...

Look at Jeffrey Archer, Neil Hamilton, Portillo, Brown, Carrington, Prescott, Short, Blair, Meacher, Thatcher, Ian Duncan Smith, Hague and on and on. They are creeps, crooks, con-men, racists, liars or perverts, these are the qualifications required to be a member of the House of Commons/Lords/Windsor.

But they are just the front men, we are governed by evil, greedy, inhumane people in a criminal system. But we keep this system in place, and contribute to it's perpetuation, we put these men/women in power!

Therefore we can overthrow it, by withdrawing our support and complicity. Don't bank, buy diamonds, wear Nike, eat McDonalds, or use any of their products, the majority of which we don't NEED!

Just the response I expected from the uk (unless ur all cops)...this post at indymedia.org 'never stop'was welcomed and met by a great response.No fucking wonder here in the uk all exploitative and murderous businesses are allowed to get away with murder.Who's prepared to act here?It's all good and fine to attend a couple of protests a year then call it job done,but I'm talking of an action on a daily/weekly basis,it works,we've had fur shops and butchers closed down never to return due to 'window smashing',we've seen the results,you obviously have'nt.
Come on soldiers,the fucking war is on right now in your home towns!!!!

Hey 'snoop' , that's great saying 'smashing windows is fun for kids'what a great excuse to do nothing!Repetitavely smashing windows belonging to abusers of all natures does actually work,their insurance companies just won't touch them after the 7th or 8th time,they are FORCED to close shop and they rarely return.
This debate all depends on 'how serious about stopping exploitation by any means neccessary are you'?This tactic is a proven way of ridding your town/city of the death peddler shop fronts you're supposed to be 'protesting'about.
Anarchy/peace/freedom - 'by any means neccessary'.

I was going to make the point that if you continually smash a business's windows then the insurance won't touch them but it's already been made. The insurance company certainly wouldn't make a profit because they'd have to be ditching out money all the time or either that or charging such a high premium that the business in question wouldn't be able pay or wouldn't consider it worth paying. (That does work out mathematically, that *is* what would happen) And if you smash their windows regularly enough so that it's predictable, then the business won't want to get insurance anyway because if the insurance company did insure them it would be at such a high premium that the business would be better off just buying new windows.

The idea of insurance is to replace a small risk of a great loss that they couldn't afford with a 100% certainty of a smaller loss. There's never any point in insuring against a certainy, one would only ever want to insure against a risk.

If you make smashed windows a certainty and not a risk then insurance won't be an issue. Bankruptcy probably will.


So from the point of view of destroying a business then it's an alright tactic. It would be, in my opinion, a form of war. But then wars have been fought for worse reasons than the overthrow of capitalism.

But having said that you have to way up the disadvantages. Smashing windows is a hateful thing to do. And we all know that hate breeds hate.

Also, there are a growing number of people sympathetic to the antiglobalisation agenda or at least to certain aspects of it. Smashing windows tends to alienate the vast majority of them. Is the movement better off without these people or not?

Also, is it worth getting a criminal record?


A more constructive approach is to change people's minds rather than to break things.

Think about it, if everyone was persuaded then there would be no need for violence. If everyone outside what all you Marxists term the "ruling class"... if everyone outside of that small but powerful section of society were persuaded then we could all just mutiny against capitalism. It would be like convincing everyone in an army apart from the generals, to stop fighting some war. The people who have power will no longer have that power if all the people stop doing what they're told to do.

Perhaps rather than a revolution of blood or a revolution of smashed glass, we should be aiming for a revolution in consciousness. It's not as macho and hard and masculine but are we here to try and be hard or are we here to change the world?


There are certain advantages of the smash everything in sight school of thought. But personally I'm not convinced that those advantages outweight the disadvantages.

I don't have a moral problem with smashing stuff. It's nothing compared with the violence of capitalism itself - violence that is taken for granted and even considered respectable by the pliant unquestioning brainwashed masses.
However, I'm not sure that tactically its going to work.

Unless we want to impose some sort of totalitarian regime then to have this revolution, we need to get the people on our side.

And smashing stuff ain't gonna do that.

And yeah I am a cop;-) (no really)

...points taken , each to their own , the thought virus has been spread. over and out ;)

wats wrong wif havin a criminal record, offences are spent after 5 years. everyones got one, but 'if you can get away wif crime, why do the time', to quote the multinationals motto.

The question is do we want to hurt individual companies, either by boycoting their products or smashing their windows, or do we want to change society. Yes if you break the window of a shop on a regular basis that shop will close down. Will this action change the views of the ordinary people in your town, will it empower them in any way? There is nothing wrong with either breaking stuff or boycotting, both can be useful tactics in certain circumstances, when you have large numbers of people on your side and in conjunction with a whole range of other tactics. However going out in the middle of the night and smashing windows as an isolated act of a few individuals is pointless. Are you going to smash every window of every store or bank until they all go out of business and capitalism collapes. What will replace it?
This is useful only if you are opposed to certain companies, if you are opposed to the enitre way in which society is organised you will need different methods.

Comrades....

Please smash as many fucking windows as possible.

Smash, smash, smash!!

Death to windows!! More money for Glaziers!!

Smash, smash, smash!!


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Communique #1
09.09.01
Glaziers Against Globalisation Kommando
(Hackney Downs Division)
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