Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening an enemy, oppressor or employer through subversion, obstruction, disruption, and/or destruction.

Origin

Sabotage is a term of French origin coined during the railway strike of 1910, when workers destroyed the wooden shoes, or sabots, that held rails in place, thus impeding the morning commute. An alternate definition pretends the word to be older by almost a century, the times of Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture manufacturing and transportation had a profound effect on the It is said that powered looms could be damaged by angry or disgruntled workers throwing their wooden shoes or clogs (known in French as sabots, hence the term Sabotage) into the machinery, effectively clogging the machinery. A loom is a Machine or device for Weaving thread or Yarn into Textiles Looms can range from very small hand-held frames to large free-standing The word clog, as applied to footwear has these meanings A type of Shoe or sandal made predominantly out of wood The word clog, as applied to footwear has these meanings A type of Shoe or sandal made predominantly out of wood This is often referenced as one of the first inklings of the Luddite Movement. The Luddites were a Social movement of British Textile artisans in the early Nineteenth century who protested&mdashoften by destroying mechanized However, this etymology is highly suspect and no wooden shoe sabotage is known to have been reported from the time of the word's origin. [1] Others contend that the word comes from the slang name for people living in rural areas who wore wooden shoes after city dwellers had begun wearing leather shoes; when employers wanted strikebreakers they would import 'sabots'/rural workers to replace the strikers. Not used to machine-driven labor the 'sabots' worked poorly and slowly. The strikers would be called back to work (with demands won) and, could win demands on the job by working like their country cousins - the sabots. Thus 'sabotage'.

Sabotage in war

In war, the word is used to describe the activity of an individual or group not associated with the military of the parties at war (such as a foreign agent or an indigenous supporter), in particular when actions result in the destruction or damaging of a productive or vital facility, such as equipment, factories, dams, public services, storage plants or logistic routes. War is an international relations Dispute, characterized by organized Violence between National Military units A military is an Organization authorized by its Nation to use force usually including use of Weapons in defending its Country (or by attacking A factory (previously manufactory) or manufacturing plant is an industrial Building where workers manufacture goods A dam is a barrier that divides waters. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water while other structures such as Floodgates, Levees Public services is a term usually used to mean services provided by Government to its Citizens, either directly (through the Public sector) or Logistics is the management of the flow of Goods, Information and other resources including Energy and people between the point of origin and the point Prime examples of such sabotage are the events of Black Tom and the Kingsland Explosion. Black Tom currently redirects here For the Marvel Comics character see Black Tom Cassidy. The Kingsland Explosion was an incident that took place during World War I at a munitions factory in New Jersey. Unlike acts of terrorism, acts of sabotage do not always have a primary objective of inflicting casualties. Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion Saboteurs are usually classified as enemies, and like spies may be liable to prosecution and criminal penalties instead of detention as a prisoner of war. The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the Common law Adversarial system, or the civil law Detention generally refers to a State or Government holding a person in a particular area (generally called a Detention centre) either for Interrogation It is common for a government in power during war or supporters of the war policy to use the term loosely against opponents of the war. Similarly, German Nationalists spoke of a stab in the back having cost them the loss of World War I. The stab-in-the-back legend ( German:, literally "Dagger stab legend" refers to a social Myth theory popular in Germany in the period after World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Also see [2].

The cold war included a subtle form of sabotage. Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the One well documented case is the Soviets Trans-Siberian Pipeline Incident, triggered by the Farewell Dossier. The Farewell Dossier was a collection of documents containing intelligence gathered and handed over to NATO by the KGB Defector Colonel Vladimir Vetrov

Subtle sabotage has also been employeed for other reasons, including attempting to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear capabilities. ^[1]

Sabotage as part of a crime

Some criminals have engaged in acts of sabotage for reasons of extortion. In the sociological field, crime is the breach of a rule or Law for which some governing authority or force may ultimately prescribe a Punishment Extortion, outwresting, or exaction is a criminal offense, which occurs when a person Unlawfully obtains either money property or services For example, Klaus-Peter Sabotta sabotaged German railway lines in the late 1990s in an attempt to extort DM10 million from the German railway operator Deutsche Bahn. Klaus-Peter Sabotta was an Extortionist who Sabotaged German Railways in December 1998 only six months after the Eschede disaster. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. "Railroad" and "Railway" both redirect here For other uses see Railroad (disambiguation. Deutsche Bahn AG ( DB AG, DBAG or DB) is the German national Railway company He is now serving a sentence of life imprisonment. Life imprisonment or life incarceration is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime often for most

Workplace sabotage

When disgruntled workers damage or destroy equipment or interfere with the smooth running of a workplace, it is called workplace sabotage. This can be as part of an organized group activity, or the action of one or a few workers in response to personal grievances. Luddites and Radical labor unions such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) have advocated sabotage as a means of self-defense and direct action against unfair working conditions. The Luddites were a Social movement of British Textile artisans in the early Nineteenth century who protested&mdashoften by destroying mechanized A trade union or labour union is an organization of workers who have banded together to achieve common goals in key areas such as wages hours and working conditions forming The Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union currently headquartered in Cincinnati Ohio, USA The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW is a union of wage workers which was formed in Chicago in 1905 as a response to disappointment by militant unionists with Direct action is political action which happens outside normal political channels via indirect actions such as electing representatives.

The IWW was shaped in part by the industrial unionism philosophy of Big Bill Haywood, and in 1910 Haywood was exposed to sabotage while touring Europe:

The experience that had the most lasting impact on Haywood was witnessing a general strike on the French railroads. Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union—regardless of skill or trade—thus William Dudley Haywood (February 4 1869&ndashMay 18 1928 better known as Big Bill Haywood, was a prominent figure in the American labor movement. Tired of waiting for parliament to act on their demands, railroad workers walked off their jobs all across the country. The French government responded by drafting the strikers into the army and then ordering them back to work. Undaunted, the workers carried their strike to the job. Suddenly, they could not seem to do anything right. Perishables sat for weeks, sidetracked and forgotten. Freight bound for Paris was misdirected to Lyon or Marseille instead.

Ralph Chaplin created the image of a black cat in a fighting stance, the IWW's symbol of sabotage. Ralph Hosea Chaplin (1887&mdash1961 became a labor Activist, when at the age of seven he saw a worker shot dead during the Pullman strike in Chicago A black cat is a Felid whose fur is uniformly black It is not a particular breed of cat and may be mixed or of a specific breed The Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union currently headquartered in Cincinnati Ohio, USA

This tactic — the French called it "sabotage" — won the strikers their demands and impressed Bill Haywood. ^[2]

^[3]

For the IWW, sabotage came to mean any withdrawal of efficiency — including the slowdown, the strike, or creative bungling of job assignments. ^[4]

Sabotage in defense of the environment

Certain groups turn to destruction of property in order to immediately stop environmental destruction or to make visible arguments against forms of modern technology considered as detrimental to the earth and its inhabitants. The FBI and other law enforcement agencies use the term eco-terrorist when applied to damage of property. Eco-terrorism, also called ecoterrorism or green terrorism, is Terrorism committed in support of ecological, environmental, or Proponents argue that since property can not feel terror, damage to property is more accurately described as sabotage. Opponents, by contrast, point out that property owners and operators can indeed feel terror. The image of the monkeywrench thrown into the moving parts of a machine to stop it from working was popularized by Edward Abbey in the novel The Monkeywrench Gang and has been adopted by eco-activists to describe destruction of earth damaging machinery. Edward Paul Abbey ( January 29, 1927 - March 14, 1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental The Monkey Wrench Gang is a Novel written by American Author Edward Abbey (1927&ndash1989 published in 1975

Political sabotage

The term political sabotage is sometimes used to define the acts of one political camp to disrupt, harass or damage the reputation of a political opponent, usually during an electoral campaign.

Notes

References

• Emile Pouget, Le sabotage; notes et postface de Grégoire Chamayou et Mathieu Triclot, 1913; Mille et une nuit, 2004; English translation, Sabotage, paperback, 112 pp. , University Press of the Pacific, 2001, ISBN 0-89875-459-3.
• Pasquinelli, Matteo. "The Ideology of Free Culture and the Grammar of Sabotage", Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2008.

See also

• Cichociemni
• Colin Gubbins
• Direct action
• Edmund Charaszkiewicz
• Espionage
• Fifth column
• guerrilla warfare
• Kedyw
• Monkeywrenching
• Norwegian heavy water sabotage
• partisan
• Special Operations Executive
• Terrorism
• Tom Mooney

External links, resources, and references

• SABOTAGE MC the Lyricist
• News, accounts and articles on workplace sabotage and organising - Sabotage, employee theft, strikes, etc. Cichociemni ( Polish for Silent dark ones) were a secret unit of the Polish Army in exile created to maintain contact with occupied Poland during World Major General Sir Colin McVean Gubbins KCMG, DSO, MC (1896-1976 was the prime mover of the SOE ( Special Operations Executive) in Direct action is political action which happens outside normal political channels via indirect actions such as electing representatives. Edmund Kalikst Eugeniusz Charaszkiewicz (pronounced xaraʃ'kieviʧ Punitz (Poniec October 14, 1895 &mdash December 22, 1975 A fifth column is a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group to which it is expected to be loyal such as a Nation. Guerrilla warfare is the unconventional warfare and combat with which a small group of combatants use mobile tactics (ambushes raids etc Kedyw (acronym for Kierownictwo Dywersji, Polish Directorate of Sabotage and Diversion; probably also a play on the Turkish " Khedive Monkeywrenching is Economic warfare by Sabotage, or Ecotage, with the intent to slow down or halt activities which the monkeywrencher perceives The Norwegian heavy water sabotage was a series of actions taken by Norwegian saboteurs during World War II to prevent the German nuclear energy project from acquiring A partisan is a member of an Irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation The Special Operations Executive ( SOE) (sometimes referred to as "the Baker Street Irregulars " after Sherlock Holmes ' fictional group of helpers Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion Thomas Tom or Tommy Mooney may refer to Thomas Mooney (1882-1942 American labor leader in San Francisco Thomas Mooney (footballer
• SABOTAGE The New Musical Thriller
• Central Intelligence Agency sabotage manual
• Ozymandias Sabotage Handbook
• Online text of the third edition of Ecodefense
• Brian Martin, Sabotage, Nonviolence versus Capitalism [PDF]
• Article on malicious railroad sabotage
• Elizabeth Gurley Flinn, Sabotage, the conscious withdrawal of the workers' industrial efficiency