Green Mountain Anarchist Collective

The chains of authoritarianism and capitalism can only be shattered when they are broken at many links. Vermont is our home, and it serves as the one link that we can access, but it is only one. Any victory here would only be partial. Deliverance to the Promised Land will only come when many more than us rise up against that which holds the multitude in bondage.

The Green Mountain Anarchist Collective (GMAC) was politically active between the years 2000 and 2009 and constituted the Vermont affiliate of Northeast Federation of Anarcho-Communists. The collective sought to reorder Vermont (and beyond) according to libertarian-socialist principles governed by an empowered Town Meeting system of direct democracy.

Founded by David Van Deusen, Xavier Massot, Johnny Midnight, and Natasha Voline, this first generation of the collective came together shortly after the Battle of Seattle and was greatly influenced by the Situationists, Vermont's militant anti-colonial history, and libertarian-socialism. At its inception, GMAC strove to further a popular resistance to capitalism through the building of a more organized and more effective militant apparatus within the left: for the Green Mountain Anarchist Collective this meant organizing, expanding, and making tactical adjustments to the Black Bloc.

The collective took part in a number of Black Bloc actions including those in opposition to the proposed FTAA treaty (Quebec City, 2001), and against fascist organizing attempts in New England (Lewiston Maine, 2003). Individual members of GMAC, prior to the collective taking form, marched in numerous other Black Blocs. From these experiences GMAC observed that the lack of internal organization within the Bloc prevented it from reaching its potential as a vehicle for popular combat (and thus its potential as a vehicle for radicalizing class consciousness). Seeking to address these perceived short comings GMAC penned the pamphlet A Communique On Tactics, which was widely distributed and debated within the anarchist community. The pamphlet, among other things, advocated for the temporary election of tactical officers within the Bloc. These officers would be democratically empowered to make swift decisions on behalf of the whole when engaged in conflict with the state. While GMAC argued that this adaptation was necessary in order to increase mobility (the life blood of a minimally equipped street fighting force), other aspects of the anarchist community criticized these prescriptions as authoritarian in nature and therefore contradictory to the principles of anarchism. GMAC countered that their proposals were in line with those witnessed during the Spanish Civil War via the CNT and FAI. Of those groups that supported the basic tenants of GMAC's views were the Barricada Collective (Boston-MA), and Columbus Anti-Racist Action (Ohio). Aspects of GMAC's proposed tactical reforms were field tested with some success at the Festival De La Pueblo 5 May action in Boston in 2002, and the siege of the Lewiston Armory (in opposition to a failed neo-Nazi organizing meeting), Maine, 2003.

...
Wikipedia