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256 wrote (edited )

Reply to comment by ArmyOfOne in A village to be evicted for coal – the defense of Luetzerath in Germany by monday

There was concrete, steel bars, spikes, bricks, stones, trees et cetera. I guess you're right, but the next step would've been 18th century European forts-style fortifications and this isn't possible with fluctuating population sizes of 75 to 1500 people, without electricity, in winter and constant tool problems, everlasting plenaries about violence definitions and a authority infrastructure creep.

Also, this place was never a fort, it grew somewhat into a settlement, village or city. It's culture wasn't only defined by pickaxes, shovels and crowbars, but also by books, murals, guitars, sleeping bags, radish, insects, climbing, straw and rats.

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ArmyOfOne wrote (edited )

For the posterity, in the wildcat strikes I got involved into some people managed to have heavy concrete road stops to block machinery, like those big cubes. In the absence of machinery for doing this, with the help of a few people you can as well dig up trenches deep enough that no heavy machinery can pass through. But since trenches are a lot of work to dig they can only be done at strategic places.

The means most effective the state uses to evict occupations are actually by infiltration and disruption of the groups involved. And this is pretty hard to block.

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256 wrote

https://taz.de/picture/6032839/948/Luetzerath-1-2.jpeg

https://berliner-zeitung.imgix.net/2023/01/05/d543efb8-b056-4c20-a448-7d4e78b58bd8.jpeg

https://aisrtl-a.akamaihd.net/vms/63bfdce67218453ee30554a3/964x0/image.jpg

The police/RWE was creeping on with their infrastructure for years, this operation began in early December. I don't know how deep trenches need to be to stop machinery that literally is building one giant trench.

Disruption, Infiltration

See militancy debate.

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ArmyOfOne wrote (edited )

I mean, you're right that such a setting is pretty hard to barricade effectively, especially when anyone without a uniform could go in/out as "supporter" and "visitor".

Like the other commenter said, they could have built up a high palisade all around, tho not sure most occupiers were into this type of stuff...

The goal with occupying the place was for stopping the diggers nonviolently. Which could have worked if the occupation would have lasted longer. So unless there's a re-occupation of sorts, or the German government suddenly backpedals, the outcome of this battle is sadly yet another activist failure.

With a level of awareness having been raised. But...

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