Elite under Fire

DOWN WITH ANY ELITE

THE ELITE UNDER FIRE
Attacks on high-placed persons
by Joost van Steenis

I do not agree with all attacks on the private life of high placed persons I have found in the media.
But occasionally direct attacks on the elite occur and sometimes they have some effect. Mostly more effect than traditional leftist actions. See also my First Letter of an Autonomous Thinker: " Leftist actions are not effective".
Actions against elitepersons are necessary to merge the eliteworld and massworld into one humane world in which all people have the same status.
Other actions against high placed persons can be found in my book The Power of the Autonomous Human.
In my books The Scarists and About Violence and Democracy I elaborate why it is necessary to look for other ways to get a fundamentally change.
From the few actions mentioned below the conclusion can be drawn that masspeople hardly intrude into the private living sphere of the elite even when the elite often intrudes the private living space of masspeople.

CHANGING THE MIND OF LEADERS	Amsterdam September 26 2002
After the murder of populist politician Pim Fortuyn on May 6 2002 many threatening actions were directed at political leaders. This had indeed some influence on the mind and the behaviour of these leading people. The full article can be found here.
CLOSE THE FUR SHOPS	Amsterdam April 8 2001
By this ongoing direct action pressure is exerted on some shop owners who supply the elite with articles only the elite can afford. The action takes place in front of shops as well in the vicinity of the private living space of shop owners and started at the end of last year. It cannot be expected that the attacked individuals will comply to the demands after one or two activities. Read the full article here.
THE ARGENTINE CRISIS	Amsterdam December 20 2001
Some citizens in Argentine know where some of the culprits of the financial crisis live that deeply interferes with their life. Demonstrations took place in front of the house of the Minister of Economy Domingo Cavallo who asked for special police protection. The car of president Fernando de la Rúa was attacked with stones and eggs when he tried to escape demonstrators. It was a pity the demonstrators did not start some years earlier to attack high placed people who are responsible for the crisis. Maybe then it had been possible to avoid the present hardship.
CAMPING IN THE GARDEN	Amsterdam September 5 2001
Cor Boonstra was CEO of Philips before he joined the Board of Ahold. He possesses approximately 25 million dollars. He is still greedy. Last year he sold about two million dollars of shares in Ahold while he knew from a Board meeting that the share price should make a dive. When the bad figures were published the price went indeed down by more than seven percent. Boonstra excused himself by saying that “he just forgot that he was on the Board of Ahold”. Some shareholders are displeased by the illegal behaviour of this eliteperson and call on everyone to “forget” where they live and then to take a tent to camp in the private garden of Boonstra. It is a pity that the action will only be held once. Therefore the action will not “give a signal to Boonstra and his colleagues that they must also abide by the law”, as declared by the man who took the initiative. But it is clear that fellow shareholders understand that elitepeople only listen when you approach them in their private quarters. Later the court declared that Boonstra was not guilty.
TELEPHONE	Amsterdam July 27 2001
During a conflict with the direction of the Dutch Railways (NS), employees distributed pamphlets in which passengers were asked to call or e-mail NS director, Mr Huisinga. "Huisinga himself has to be put on trial", they said. They published the private telephone number and the private e-mail address of their highest boss. A NS-spokeswoman declared that only an insignificant number of people had indeed phoned the director.
PROTECT THE ANIMALS	London July 4 2001
Private banks as HSBC and Citibank stopped all money lending to biotechnological firm Huntingdon Life Sciences because of many actions of animal rights groups that claim Huntingdon misuses animals in tests for the cosmetics industry. The firm declares it only uses animals in tests for medicines against Aids, Alzheimer, cancer and Parkinson. The factory buildings of the firm have been changed into a medieval fortress to keep activists from entering the premises. In February the director of Huntingdon was attacked in his private house and beaten up by baseball bats. Action groups deny any involvement. But they did organise actions around banks that had financial connections with Huntingdon. A New York banker was also attacked in his private home. Lord Sainsbury, the British Science Minister, announced that the government should now help Huntingdon with money. Animal rights activists declared they did not have any plans to carry out actions against the Bank of England.
LUNCH BREAK	Ontario June 13 2001
Supporters of Amy Goodman who wanted the return of her "Democracy Now!" column on the radio entered a ballroom where the organisation that was responsible for the interruption of the column was having a lunch. Flyers were distributed and from the podium in a short speech was asked that top director Ken Ford should resign. In this way the Pacifica Campaign has brought the problem to the doorstep of guilty leaders (but an interruption of a private lunch will have more effect).
PIE-THROWING	The World June 2001
In January Prime Minister Tony Blair faced a barrage of rotten fruit. He is not the only leader who is targeted by direct action. The Biotic Baking Brigade propagates throwing of pies. In 1998 a first pie was thrown at the economist Milton Freedman and later Clinton, Gates and many others were touched. It is only a pity that you cannot throw again and again a pie at the same person. Other actions are needed to increase the pressure on a leader. But it certainly makes clear that individuals take decisions and not institutions.
COFFIN	Hong Kong April 7 2001
The Hong Kong tycoon Lui Che-woo, chairman of K.Way International Holdings Ltd. was not amused when a home-made 'coffin' bearing his name was delivered to his hotel in the tourist belt Tsim Sha Tsui in a stolen van. It happened in the early hours of the day when Hong Kong marked the Qing Ming festival in which the Chinese remember their dead by visiting and cleaning their graves.
STEALING FROM THE RICH	New York March 27 2001
Abraham Abdallah from Detroit was arrested on March 7 because he tried to cheat America's rich and famous out of $ 22 million. Those affected included Paul Allen from Microsoft, film director Steven Spielberg, CNN founder Ted Turner, the financiers George Soros and Warren Buffet, media mogul Oprah Winfrey and Disney director Michael Eisner. Abdallah broke into the account of 217 people who were listed by Forbes magazine as being among the wealthiest people of America. He used Internet and credit reporting agencies to obtain confidential information about his victim's accounts by pretending he was an unidentified Chief Executive Officer of a Manhattan-based corporation. He now faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a fine of $1 million.
THE INDIAN RICH	Bangalore January 9 2001
The conflict in Kashmir looks to expand from a struggle between the Indian army and the Muslim mujahedeen who are supported by the Pakistan army. The Indian police offered protection to Azim Premji, one of the richest men in the world and owner of the Indian software giant Wipro following threats of one of the militant groups, the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
PHOTOGRAPH	Amsterdam November 20 2000
The elected though authoritarian members of the town council of the district Old South of Amsterdam do not want to listen to the inhabitants. So the citizens started to look for other means to get heard. A leaflet was distributed in which everyone was asked to call the councillors by phone - at home and in the evening. The newspaper tells us "that this had some effect because politicians had become more careful because they were afraid someone will smash their windows". When one of the councillors left the town hall, two men in a car made a photograph. "I found it extremely intimidating", she said, "What are they going to do with that photograph?"
CRIMINAL GATES	New York October 13 2000.
An unknown hacker intruded into the website of the American newspaper The Orange County Register. In a message about the arrest of a computer criminal he changed the name of the suspect in Bill Gates. This is not the kind of publicity Bill wants. By the way, I explain in my Third Letter of an Autonomous Thinker why I agree with the hacker that Bill Gates is indeed a computer criminal.
PRIVATE HOUSE	Amsterdam September 18 2000.
Eighty people demonstrated against the participation of the multinational ING bank in the globalisation conference in Prague. The demonstration took place in front of the private home of Godfried van der Lugt. It was only a pity that Van der Lugt, who was not at home, had already resigned in May as CEO of ING. The demonstrators under which members of the Squatters Movement, the People without Cars and the Green Front threw pamphlets and small stones in the direction of the private house of Van der Lugt. They also disturbed the Concertgebouwbuurt (an expensive living quarter in Amsterdam) by the loud noise of many whistles. I think some residents of this quarter will despise the fact that a man as Van der Lugt lives so near.
BUTYRIC ACID	The Netherlands June 15 2000
A spokesman for the Dutch Animal Liberation Front explained some of the action ideas of the organisation. 1. Free animals that are imprisoned. 2. Never attack the police. 3. Never cause bodily harm to persons. 4. It is permitted to attack private possessions of the jailers, such as their caravans, their cars or their houses. An example of the last action is the use of butyric acid. It is made from natural products as potatoes and gives a lasting penetrating and disagreeable smell. In 1998 and 1999 the Front carried out a total of 35 actions in connection with the treatment of animals. None of the activists was arrested.
CAR ROUTES	Amsterdam October 20 1999
The Autonomous Centre has published on internet the names and the private addresses of some civil servants who are harassing illegal immigrants in Amsterdam. Included was also the car route the controllers took as they went home. Several civil servants were followed to their houses by members of the Centrum in order to let these people feel how illegals experience never-ending controls. The municipality has decided that in the near future these civil servants will work in secret.
TELEPHONE THREAT	The Netherlands October 17 1998
After being threatened on the telephone, a councillor of the small Dutch town of Haelen resigned from the municipal council. It is possible that the threats had to do with an industrial development project.

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