The World War II-era "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" is full of steps that office workers can take to resist leadership.
Over the last week, the guide has surged to become the 5th-most-accessed book on Project Gutenberg, an open source repository of free and public domain ebooks. It is also the fifth most popular ebook on the site over the last 30 days, having been accessed nearly 60,000 times over the last month (just behind Romeo and Juliet).
“Insist on doing everything through ‘channels.’ Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.”
“Make ‘speeches.’ Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your ‘points’ by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate ‘patriotic’ comments.”
“Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.”
“Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.”
“‘Misunderstand’ orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.”
“In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines.”
“To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.”
“Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.”
“Multiply paperwork in plausible ways.”
“Make mistakes in quantities of material when you are copying orders. Confuse similar names. Use wrong addresses.”
“Work slowly. Think out ways to increase the number of movements necessary on your job”
“Pretend that instructions are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once. Or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the foreman with unnecessary questions.”
“Snarl up administration in every possible way. Fill out forms illegibly so that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms.”
But ... but we're already doing every single one of them 🥺
“To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.”
“Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.”
“Multiply paperwork in plausible ways.”
Holy shit, my workplace must be trying to sabotage fascism...
I get how all parts of this are effective to sabotage an economy and hurt the ambitions of those at the top. But, as a regular person working within the system, I choose not to discriminate against or complain about other individual workers just trying to get through their day.
That seems counter productive. The best way to resist the oligarchs can’t be to fuck with the other poor people we’re trying to help.
Hey now I didn’t suggest not working against the system and the fascists. I pointed out that targeting the morale and well-being of individuals close to you might not be the best use of one’s energy, assuming underlying motivation is to make the world better for yourself and others.
And you can sabotage the work without being hostile towards an individual. That individual is somebody you should be getting on your side.
Youd be much better off trying to unionize your coworkers, that would be far more damaging to the fascist ubercapitalists, and much more beneficial for the workers morale.
Short term pain for long term freedom is needed. If people had your point of view during the American civil war, you'd be the Confederate states of the US.
Every day people are the ones enabling and holding up fascism, not the uniforms, not the leadership, just people like you and your loved ones. Without you fascists have no power. Pressuring those around you, sabotaging their work if it's helpful to the fascists, socially isolating those that refuse to help are the effective steps to take. If you don't take them, you're as bad as any fash with a gun or suit.
Almost half of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck. A strike means they can't feed or house their kids. Corporations have Americans by the balls and they know it.
Did you feed your kids out of dumpsters? And if so, were any of them autistic kids who would only be willing to eat things they approve of and starve otherwise? I hope not.
But I'm guessing your suggestion is either force-feed them or let them starve.
Also, do you know one of the reasons they take your kids away from you and put them in abusive foster care? Because you're homeless.
Basically your whole idea is advocating child abuse.
Amazing how many people here think you should put the welfare of others over your own children.
Its clear you've never dumpster dived before. Its usually wrapped in food grade containers. Completely sanitary. And good stuff, like super fancy expensive pastries.
And food not bombs works with restaurants and groceries to get the food before they even put it in a dumpster, just before its thrown out.
Seriously, please find your local chapter of Food Not Bombs and volunteer. You would learn a lot. Feeding people is not an issue in the US.
My guy, food not bombs explicitly is a mutal aid network and they're specifically discrediting your attempt to discredit them because they have eaten out of dumpsters. But sure, it's everybody else that's wildly out of touch in this conversation.
You're discrediting them for something you hadn't even brought up yet? Those goalposts are on wheels as long as they hold up your self righteous justification to be snarky on the Internet huh?
I brought it up and they ignored it. Did you even bother reading the discussion?
Their idea about letting people's kids be homeless and starve until they're taken away from their parents and put in foster care for the sake of a general strike is fucking disgusting. And you're defending them.
Ah yes, just walk in and take the MRI machine. They are notoriously portable.
I suppose they can just take the entire OR back to their sterile environment they keep at home too.
Also, chemotherapy drugs are compound medications, meaning they must be correctly mixed on a per-patient basis, which you can only determine by running a bunch of tests that can only be done in a hospital.
And either you're extremely ignorant or you know all of this and don't give a shit if sick people die as long as people are striking. And I think it's pretty clear it's the latter.
So for how much longer would you consider it acceptable for the current system to cause more suffering and death before drastic actions for change are acceptable?
It seems you care more about those who would be hypothetically be harmed than those who are being harmed right now.
I don't think that those who advocate for mutual aid networks and a general strike are either ignorant or uncaring of the harm that it could cause. I think they believe that the harm caused would be less than the harm already being inflicted by the current system. That said, I think it's a big ask for people to put themselves and their families at great risk, even if it's for a good purpose.
Allowing people to die of cancer and other illnesses that require a hospital causes suffering and death. Why does that not matter to you?
Are you really under the impression that mutual age can compound chemotherapy drugs or construct an MRI machine? Or even an X-ray machine?
You two don't give a shit about kids and don't give a shit about people who are sick. I mean you think cancer patients would only "hypothetically" suffer and die if there were no one to give them chemo. Which is literally not how anything works.
I asked them and they didn't answer, so how about you tell me: what is the maximum number of dead innocent sick people and children would you would accept here? I bet you won't answer either
People dying of treatable conditions does bother me, it's one of the main reasons I'm disgusted with the state of healthcare in the US.
As many as 44,789 people in the US die each year from lack of health insurance.
I'm under no illusions when it comes to the limitations of mutual aid, it's not a replacement for a functioning society. It's far more a foundation of a strong labour movement and sense of community.
The hypothetical being talked about here is a general strike. I know full well that not having access to healthcare kills people. I'd also like to specify that I'm not advocating for a general strike, I was speculating on the justifivuof those who are.
And to answer your your final point I'd like to refer back to the 44,789 people who die every year from a lack of health insurance in the US. Now attempting to bring about radical changes would most certainly cause more deaths than that, but you asked for a number. So if I could change things for the better without killing more people than those who are currently dying under the current system then I would consider that acceptable. So there's your number, 44,789 people dying per year to achieve the goal of universal healthcare in the US. I however live in a country that already has universal health care, so I thankfully wouldn't have to make such a grim decision. It's easy to engage in such calculations without having to have the emotional burden of potentially condemning thousands to suffer and die.
Wow. You're such a humanitarian. "It's okay if just as many people die as they always do if change happens eventually" is just disgusting and I have no idea why you think otherwise.
Because saying that proves your claim that people dying of treatable conditions does not bother you.