Month: June 2014

Deep Green Resistance East Coast Roadshow videos

We reported a while back on the summer 2012 East Coast Roadshow. We recorded the presentation at the final stop in Washington, D.C. View the videos below (English subtitles available), or browse all our Deep Green Resistance youtube videos or Deep Green Resistance member appearances.

Sam Leah

Sam Leah gives a crash course in what civilization is, how it works, and why it can’t continue.

Rachel

Rachel analyzes environmental activism to date, including an explanation of liberal vs radical approaches.

Xander Knox

Xander Knox looks briefly at what we can learn from past resistance movements. Unfortunately, the recording cuts off before he describes the resulting DGR strategy of Decisive Ecological Warfare.

Horizontal Hostility Conference – Max Wilbert

Members of Deep Green Resistance Canary Islands are creating a web conference on horizontal hostility, consisting of interviews with multiple speakers. “The aim of the conference is to raise consciousness about the mechanics of oppression
and how its complex but predictable ways operate to keep us all neatly “in our place”, divide us & effectively stop us achieving social, political, environmental & economic change as quickly as we need to.”

The first interview is of Max Wilbert, by Stella Strega. Wilbert describes some of the horizontal hostility he’s experienced and witnessed, mostly around the strong stance Deep Green Resistance has taken in defense of women’s right to their own space. He laments the loss to social justice and environmental movements when activists are incapable of organizing across political differences to work together on issues of mutual concern. This wedge is especially tragic when activists turn a legitimate passion for justice against each other in attacks on insufficient “purity.”

Wilbert also compares classic government COINTELPRO repression of social movements to contemporary Internet smear tactics recently laid out by JTRIG, a secret unit of the NSA. JTRIG is devoted to sowing distrust and suppressing social movements by manipulating online discourse, through, for example, publishing lies anonymously to discredit targeted people and groups.

Learn more about horizontal hostility and how we can defend against it by watching the video or playing the audio-only version of the interview below, or reading Max Wilbert’s The Modern COINTELPRO and How To Fight It.

Download mp3

Browse all Deep Green Resistance member appearances.

Music videos by The Filthy Politicians

The Filthy Politicians write smart, hard-hitting lyrics eloquently arguing against consumerism, misogyny, colonialism, abuse of the environment, and civilization in general. DGR Great Basin member Max Wilbert wrote a review of The Filthy Politicians album “Modern Man.” View their music videos below (warning: some graphic photos in “Party in the USA” and in “The Un Free Trade”) or download their music from Soundcloud and Bandcamp:

Addict

Miley Cyrus Remix: Party in the USA

Smoke

The Un Free Trade

The Business (As Usual)

Feminist Current – smart analysis of feminist issues

Meghan Murphy at Feminist Current writes a steady column of insightful and incisive articles from a strong feminist perspective, and regularly interviews women and men on a broad range of feminist issues. She lives in Canada, so some of her focus is specific to that country, but most of it is relevant to all of North America and the rest of the world. Smart and often funny, her analysis from current events to issues fought by feminists for decades is always worth the read. She also does a good job of moderating comments, so the space is useful and safe for women and feminist allies to have productive discussions.

Last summer, Murphy interviewed DGR’s Rachel and Lexy Garza in the podcast Deep Green Resistance Under Attack, and has provided outstanding coverage in general of the backlash to radical feminism by Men’s Rights Activists, trans/queer activists, and other misogynist attackers of women. You can see all the available Feminist Current podcasts or read the most recent Feminist Current articles. We highly recommend taking some time to peruse the site and its contents!

Deep Green Resistance Radio #1

Listen to the first episode in the new Deep Green Resistance Radio show, featuring Jennifer Murnan and Kourtney Mitchell, published on April 1, 2014.

This episode includes news of Mohawk protesters blockading rail lines in eastern Ontario, an interview with William Falk of DGR San Diego on police sexual violence against women, Rachel on the roots of patriarchy and resistance to male violence, a summary of recent DGR activity around the world, discussion of the Jericho Movement, and some news about the release of former Black Panther Party leader Marshall “Eddie” Conway from prison after 44 years.

Download mp3

For more information on issues covered in this episode, see:

Browse all Deep Green Resistance member appearances.

Sam Leah on Resistance Radio

Sam Leah serves on the DGR Steering Committee and is a founding member of Warrior Sisters Society, a women-run Eugene OR nonprofit providing free self defense training to women. Derrick Jensen interviewed Leah for the June 1st episode of Resistance Radio.

Leah explains the realities for women of living in a rape culture, and how self defense training has been shown to empower women and dramatically decrease the rates of assaults by men. She describes the work being done by Warrior Sisters Society, the inspiration it takes from the Gulabi Gang in India, and the positive results already experienced by participants.

Warrior Sisters Society provides a strong example of how women can collectively take matters into their own hands and resist patriarchy and rape culture, and this interview gives important insight into the direct action philosophy that led to its formation. Play the embedded audio below or listen to the interview on the DGR Youtube channel.

Download mp3

Browse all of Derrick Jensen’s Resistance Radio interviews.

Radfems Respond

Several Deep Green Resistance members participated in Radfems Respond the weekend of May 24th 2014, in Portland, OR. The event was facilitated by Samantha Berg, with the goal of providing safe space for discussion:

Hey social justice activists!

Are internet flamewars bumming you out?

Do interactions on social media sometimes make you feel like you’ve entered a fighting pit?

We’re tired of the lightless heat, too. That’s why Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) has arranged for a public dialogue on two of the most controversial issues facing modern feminism, abolishing prostitution and ending gender.

On Saturday May 24 we will honor Memorial Day weekend with a political ceasefire and call for the opening of peace talks. In the spirit of honest, respectful engagement, you are invited to come ask radical feminists any questions on these subjects you may have wanted to ask but were too intimidated by rancorous internet interactions.

Please join us at Multnomah Central Library in Portland for what will be a thought-provoking day for everyone who wants clarification on what radical feminists really think about prostitution and gender.

The panelists shared important information, concepts, and experiences around radical feminism, well worth watching and reading. You can see videos of three of the presenters, and read transcripts from two of those three:

Lierre Keith



Keith speaks on the difference between liberals and radicals.

Rachel



Watch the video above, or read Rachel’s “This Is What I Said At Radfems Respond for her analysis of a radical conception of gender and her experience expressing these politically challenging ideas.

Heath Atom Russell

Read Russell’s “Radfems Respond, WoLF, and MRAs” to learn of her personal experience transitioning to be a transman, then detransitioning, and the backlash she received from the queer community for developing a critique of gender

Other Panelists

Kathleen Barry and Dawn Schiller also spoke, but were not recorded.

Backlash

Samantha Berg’s “The City of Roses Shall No Longer Tolerate Feminism” gives an excellent overview of the threats and backlash from local queer activists, angry that radical feminists were gathering to speak.

Strategic Resistance – DGR book excerpt

Excerpted from Chapter 6, “A Taxonomy of Action”, of the book
Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save The Planet.

The strategies and tactics we choose must be part of a grander strategy.
This is not the same as movement-building; taking down civilization
does not require a majority or a single coherent movement. A grand
strategy is necessarily diverse and decentralized, and will include many
kinds of actionists. If those in power seek Full-Spectrum Dominance,
then we need Full-Spectrum Resistance.

Effective action often requires a high degree of risk or personal sac­rifice, so the absence of a plausible grand strategy discourages many
genuinely radical people from acting. Why should I take risks with my
own safety for symbolic or useless acts? One purpose of this book is to
identify plausible strategies for winning.

If we want to win, we must learn the lessons of history. Let’s take a closer look at what has made past resistance movements effective. Are there general criteria to judge effectiveness? Can we tell whether tac­tics or strategies from historical examples will work for us? Is there a general model—a kind of catalog or taxonomy of action—from which resistance groups can pick and choose?

The answer to each of these questions is yes.

Read the rest of Strategic Resistance on the DGR website.

Beehive Collective: The True Cost of Coal

The Beehive Collective draws amazingly intricate and detailed graphics showing stories of Biotechnology threats, globalization in the Americas, and “The True Cost of Coal”. You could spend hours studying the poster and its interwoven tale of the effects of coal on mountains, valleys, wildlife, and human communities. Enjoy this and the many other posters at the Beehive Collective website!

Saba Malik on Resistance Radio

Saba Malik is on the board of Fertile Ground Environmental Institute, a non-profit dedicated to political and environmental education, and on the advisory board of Deep Green Resistance. She is a mother of two and has been a feminist and anti-racist activist for most of her adult life. Derrick Jensen interviewed her for the May 25th airing of Resistance Radio.

In this interview, Saba Malik and Derrick Jensen discuss misogyny, ecocide, and the relationship between the two. Malik explains that a mindset of domination links the various forms of oppression we see in civilization. This mindset seizes on perceivable differences between groups to create classes, with one class justified in exploiting the other. This began with agriculture: the formation of sex classes gave men the “right” to use women for labor, offspring, and sex. As civilization expanded, this relationship was used as a model for dominating other “races” of humans and other species.

Play the embedded audio below, or listen to the interview on the DGR Youtube channel.

Download mp3

Browse all of Derrick Jensen’s Resistance Radio interviews.