Videos recommended by Deep Green Resistance

We’ve compiled lists of videos we recommend to those learning about radical history and resistance, from presentations by DGR members to fictional films. We have two sets of lists. Enjoy!


Deep Green Resistance Youtube Channel features resistance videos with Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, Aric McBay, and other DGR members. You’ll also find non-DGR films and music videos with anti-civ analysis and themes of resistance.

  • Trailers for upcoming DGR films
  • DGR Workshop Presentations
  • DGR Presentations at PIELC (Public Interest Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, OR)
  • DGR Authors (Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Aric McBay) giving various presentations
  • Other DGR members on various speaking tours
  • Radical Feminism
  • Resistance & Anti-civilization Films
    • Resistance – Contemporary
    • Fictional Resistance & Anti-Civ
    • Resistance – Historical
    • Indigeneity
    • Civilization: The Problem
  • Resistance Radio: audio interviews by Derrick Jensen
  • Music videos

We also have a set of Deep Green Resistance IMDB lists. These don’t include any actual video clips, but do provide more information on the films, including reviews by other people.

  • The Problem of Civilization – Big Picture
  • The Problem of Civilization – Specific Issues
  • Resistance – Contemporary
  • Resistance – Historical
  • Resistance – World War II
  • Resistance – Fictional
  • Indigeneity
  • Feminism
  • Historical & Political Documentaries
  • Restoration & Nature Documentaries
  • Animal Rights
  • Fictional anti-civilization films

Response to Aric McBay’s “Deep Green Resistance and Transphobia”

Deep Green Resistance has refrained from making any statement in regards to the circumstances under which Aric McBay left the organization to date. This decision was made on the basis that it would be unhelpful to resistance efforts in general and also because DGR did not wish to speak badly of him.

Because he has now chosen to publicly make statements that do not reflect the actual events of his departure, DGR is issuing the following statement.

Aric McBay was part of a small, unsuccessful effort to oust both Lierre Keith and Derrick Jensen from the organization. The entire staff and many of the members resisted this attempt.

DGR’s stance on women’s spaces was only one issue on the table among others at this time. It was the women of DGR who made the decision to keep women’s spaces for women only. It was not decided by Derrick Jensen or Lierre Keith. The assertion that this was policy handed down from them is a lie.

Aric was part of a conference call about this subject and chose to say nothing. He left the organization soon after, taking a large sum of DGR money for work he had not done and which he has yet to pay back. His only comment was that there was a lack of transparency in decision making. Until that point the majority of decisions had been made by himself and a co-coordinator.

It is clear that Aric’s departure was for the best. Feminist politics, including the right of women to define their own spaces, is central to our work.  Anyone who does not respect the choices of women does not belong in DGR.

Recruitment: An excerpt from Deep Green Resistance

Chapter 10
Recruitment
by Aric McBay
When they asked for those to raise their hands who’d go down to the courthouse the next day, I raised mine. Had it high up as I could get it. I guess if I’d had any sense I’d’ve been a little scared, but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do to me was kill me and it seemed like they’d been trying to do that a little bit at a time ever since I could remember.
—Fannie Lou Hamer, civil rights leader

Methods of outreach and recruitment vary depending on whether a group is aboveground or underground, how it is organized, and what role is being filled. There are really two kinds of recruitment, which you might call organizational and mutual recruitment. In organizational recruitment, an existing organization finds and inducts new members. In mutual recruitment, unorganized dissidents find each other, and forge a new resistance group. When resistance is well established, organizational recruitment can flourish. When resistance is rare or surveillance extensive, dissidents mostly have to find each other.

Recall that a movement can be divided into five parts based on roles: leaders, the cadres or professional revolutionaries who form the movement’s backbone, combatants or other frontline activists, auxiliaries, and the mass base.

Leaders, if they are recruited at all, are likely to find each other early on or be recruited from within the organization (especially in the underground, for the obvious reasons that they are known, have experience, and can be trusted).

The cadres and combatants or frontline activists are recruited in person, screened, and given training. Recruiting such people may require the bulk of recruitment resources, but that commitment of resources is necessary; cadres form the backbone of the resistance as professionals who give their all to the organization, and combatants are, of course, on the front lines.

Auxiliaries may be easier to recruit because they require a lesser commitment to the group, and the screening process may be simpler because they do not need to be privy to the same information and organizational details as those inside the organization. However, there generally should be some kind of personal contact, at least to initiate the relationship.

The mass base does not require direct recruitment because they support the resistance because of their own circumstances or experience, combined with propaganda and outreach from the resistance. Outreach to the mass base can take place through inexpensive mass media like books and newspapers, so that they require minimal effort per person to “recruit,” but they also offer little or no material support to the resistance. However, they may take some action on prompting from the resistance, and participate generally in acts of omission or noncooperation with those in power.

So how does one recruit? It depends. Aboveground groups have it pretty easy in terms of recruitment, because recruitment plays to their strengths. It’s relatively easy for them to engage in outreach and to publicize their politics and actions. Of course, because of this they are more vulnerable to infiltration. Underground groups need a somewhat more involved recruitment procedure, largely for security reasons, and they have a much smaller pool of potential recruits. All of this brings us to one of the most important conundrums for modern-day militants, what you might call the paradox of militant radicalization.

Most people who want to change the world start with low-risk, accessible activities, things like signing petitions or writing letters. When those don’t work, activists may escalate to protests, disruption, and civil disobedience. Maybe they are teargassed or beaten at a protest, and they become radicalized. If they care enough about their cause, they will continue to ratchet up their action until it works. Unless their issue is popular enough to be solved with legal action, activists eventually hit a wall at which further escalation is illegal or dangerous. At this point, some people choose to act underground. And here’s the paradox: aboveground action is based on getting attention. The people who have been the most persistent and relentless and most successful at raising awareness—the very people with the dedication and drive needed to go underground—may be the people who are at the most risk in going underground.

People living in overtly oppressed groups do not have the privilege of ignorance, and are more likely to be radicalized younger and in greater numbers. But within a surveillance society that doesn’t alter our fundamental problem: the process of militant radicalization is liable to draw counterproductive attention to the radical, simply because most people don’t turn to militant action until they have personally exhausted the less drastic and lower-risk avenues. Many of the most serious and experienced members of aboveground resistance thus become cut off from further escalation.

There’s no perfect solution; serious resistance entails risk, and all members have to decide for themselves what levels of risk they are willing to take on. Keeping a low profile is part of the answer. Someone who is considering serious underground resistance should avoid prominent, militant aboveground action; it’s important not to draw unwanted attention in advance. That doesn’t mean that people should stop being activists or stop being political, but militant aboveground action is a definite disqualifier for underground action.

This paradox must be addressed by individual communities of resistance having a culture of resistance. We must offer alternatives to the traditional routes of radicalization. Rather than simply following the default path, budding activists need to be told that there is a choice to be made between aboveground and underground action. Activists can privately discuss these options with trusted friends, but without planning specific actions (which would entail extra risk). This applies regardless of whether a movement is willing to use violence or not. As we have discussed, repression happens when a movement is effective, regardless of their tactics: witness Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Furthermore, it’s our assumption that successful resistance will grow, gather attention, and progress toward more militant activity as needed. That growth will increasingly draw unwanted attention and infiltration from intelligence agencies. That means any resistance movement that plans to eventually succeed needs to incorporate excellent security measures from the very beginning. Because the situation has been worsened by the rapid development of electronic surveillance, we radicals have been a bit behind the curve on this. Recruitment is a crucial area to apply good security.

__________________________________________

Read the entire chapter by purchasing Deep Green Resistance or borrowing it from your local library.

Organizational Structures – An excerpt from Deep Green Resistance

BASIC ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES

From Deep Green Resistance, by Lierre Keith, Aric McBay, and Derrick Jensen

Page 293-296

Within both aboveground and underground activism there are several templates for basic organizational structures. These structures have been used by every resistance group in history, although not all groups have chosen the approach best suited for their situations and objec­tives. It is important to understand the pros, cons, and capabilities of the spectrum of different organizations that comprise effective resist­ance movements.

The simplest “unit” of resistance is the individual. Individuals are highly limited in their resistance activities. Aboveground individuals (Figure 8-Ib) are usually limited to personal acts like alterations in diet, material consumption, or spirituality, which, as we’ve said, don’t match the scope of our problems. It’s true that individual aboveground activists can affect big changes at times, but they usually work by engaging other people or institutions. Underground individuals (Figure 8-la) may have to worry about security less, in that they don’t have anyone who can betray their secrets under interrogation; but nor do they have anyone to watch their back. Underground individuals are also limited in their actions, although they can engage in sabotage (and even assassination, as all by himself Georg Elser almost assassinated Hitler).

Individual actions may not qualify as resistance. Julian Jackson wrote on this subject in his important history of the German Occupation of France: “The Resistance was increasingly sustained by hostility of the mass of the population towards the Occupation, but not all acts of indi­vidual hostility can be characterized as resistance, although they are the necessary precondition of it. A distinction needs to be drawn between dis­sidence and resistance.” This distinction is a crucial one for us to make as well.

Jackson continues, “Workers who evaded [compulsory labor], or Jews who escaped the round-ups, or peasants who withheld their pro­ duce from the Germans, were transgressing the law, and their actions were subversive of authority. But they were not resisters in the same way as those who organized the escape of [forced laborers] and Jews. Contesting or disobeying a law on an individual basis is not the same as challenging the authority that makes those laws.'”

Of course, one’s options for resistance are greatly expanded in a group.

The most basic organizational unit is the affinity group. A group of fewer than a dozen people is a good compromise between groups too large to be socially functional, and too small to carry out important tasks. The activist’s affinity group has a mirror in the underground cell, and in the military squad. Groups this size are small enough for participatory decision making to take place, or in the case of a hierarchical group, for orders to be relayed quickly and easily.

The underground affinity group (Figure 8-2a, shown here with a dis­tinct leader) has many benefits for the members. Members can specialize in different areas of expertise, pool their efforts, work together toward shared goals, and watch each others’ backs. The group . can also offer social and emotional support that is much needed for people working underground. Because they do not have direct rela­tionships with other movements or underground groups, they can be relatively secure. However, due to their close working relationships, if one member of the group is compromised, the entire affinity group is likely to be compromised. The more members are in the group, the more risk involved (and the more different relationships to deal with). Also because the affinity group is limited in size, it is limited in terms of the size of objectives it can go after, and their geographic range.

Aboveground affinity groups ( Figure 8-2b) share many of the same clear benefits of a small-scale, deliberate community. However, they may rely more on outside relationships, both for friends and fellow activists. Members may also easily belong to more than one affinity group to follow their own interests and passions. This is not the case with underground groups-members must belong only to one affinity group or they are putting all groups at risk.

The obvious benefit of multiple overlapping aboveground groups is the formation of larger movements or “mesh” networks (Figure 8-3b). These larger, diverse groups are better able to get a lot done, although sometimes they can have coordination or unity problems if they grow beyond a certain size. In naturally forming social networks, each member of the group is likely to be only a few degrees of separation from any other person. This can be fantastic for sharing information or finding new contacts. However, for a group concerned about security issues, this type of organization is a disaster. If any individual were compromised, that person could easily compromise large numbers of people. Even if some members of the network can’t be compromised, the sheer number of connections between people makes it easy to just bypass the people who can’t be compromised. The kind of decentral­ized network that makes social networks so robust is a security nightmare.

Underground groups that want to bring larger numbers of people into the organization must take a different approach. A security-con­scious underground network will largely consist of a number of different cells with limited connections to other cells (Figure 8-3a). One person in a cell would know all of the members in that cell, as well as a single member in another cell or two. This allows coordination and shared information between cells. This network is “compartmentalized.” Like all underground groups, it has a firewall between itself and the above­ ground. But there are also different, internal firewalls between sections.

New Book Featuring Deep Green Resistance Authors: The (Un)OccupyMovement

A new book, compiled and edited by Mankh (Walter E. Harris III), features contributions from Deep Green Resistance authors Aric McBay, Lierre Keith, and Derrick Jensen. The book is called The (Un)Occupy Movement: Anatomy of Conscousness, Practical Solutions, Human Equality. Prose and Poetry, and you can order copies here.

Excerpt from the book’s introduction:

As the title suggests, there is an “Occupy Movement” (begun with Occupy Wall Street) that has stirred the so-called American melting pot from its backburner state. Suddenly, things are cooking and more and more People are getting a whiff of the spirited air. Yet, from the perspective of the First Nations or Natives, the land has been unjustly occupied since 1492. Indigenous Peoples around the globe are dealing with similar issues. Hence, “Unoccupy Movement.”

Read a review of the book here.

Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, Waziyatawin, Aric McBay Speak at Occupy Oakland

Watch Derrick Jensen, Waziyatawin, Lierre Keith, and Aric McBay speak at Occupy Oakland to a welcoming audience!


Lierre Keith

[The Occupy] movement has staked a claim on being the 99%. I think that’s self-evident. Capitalism is the 1% taking from the 99%. But add this. 98% of the old growth forests are gone. 99% of the world’s prairies are gone. That means 99% of the pasque flowers and 99% of the prairie dogs and 99% of the bison. The wealth is created from their dead bodies. The point isn’t to distribute the wealth, it’s to stop the death while there is something left alive.


 

Aric Mcbay

What we need is two pronged. On the one hand we need to build local, sustainable, democratic communities in which everyone’s basic needs are met…We have to learn how to meet our own needs. On the other hand we have to fight to stop global industrial capitalism. We can only win if we shut down the machine. That is the only way to ensure a livable future. What we need is a real resistance movement.



Waziyatawin

Given the realities of peak debt and peak oil, we are now facing the collapse of the American economy and the collapse of civilization more broadly. These combine with the crises emerging from global warming, climate change, and the collapse of ecosystems do to hyper-exploitation, meaning that it is time for everyone to recognize the harm of the existing system and institutions and to seek to dismantle them completely to save all life before it is all destroyed.



Derrick Jensen

Since the legal system won’t hold destructive institutions accountable, the responsibility falls on each of us. This means that all of us who care about salmon, for example, must learn to be accountable to salmon rather than loyal to political and economic institutions that do not serve us well. The same is true for those who care about San Francisco Bay, for those who care about democracy, for those who care about communities, for those who care about the future, for those who care about any living being. We must act on that loyalty. We must do whatever is necessary to protect our homes and our land bases from those who would destroy them… Only then will we have a future.


Watch more videos at the Deep Green Resistance Youtube Channel.

Earth At Risk 2011: Arundhati Roy, Derrick Jensen & more

November 13th, 2011 | Berkeley, CA

A rare occurrence of Arundhati Roy speaking in person in the United States.

Derrick Jensen has been called “the philosopher-poet of the environmental movement.” During this day-long event, Derrick interviewed six people who each hold an impassioned critique of this culture and offered ideas on what can be done to build a real resistance movement.

Our planet is under serious threat from industrial civilization. Yet activists are not considering strategies that might actually prevent the looming biotic collapse the Earth is facing. We need to deprive the rich of their ability to steal from the poor and the powerful of their ability to destroy the planet. We need a serious resistance movement that includes all levels of direct action–action that can match the scale of the problem.

Derrick Jensen Interviews Arundhati Roy, Thomas Linzey, Waziyatawin, Aric McBay, Stephanie McMillan, and Lierre Keith.

Purchase DVDs at Derrick Jensen’s website or watch videos below:

Deep Green Resistance Workshops

Before the Deep Green Resistance organization was the book. Before the book were workshops conducted by the eventual co-authors. The workshops haven’t been offered since 2011, but here’s an archive of what they involved:

Deep Green Resistance Weekend Workshops with Derrick Jensen, Aric McBay and Lierre Keith

We live in the most destructive culture to ever exist. In Derrick’s talks around the country he repeatedly asks his audiences, “Does anyone think this culture will voluntarily transform to a sustainable way of living?” No one ever says yes. If we really accept the seriousness of the situation, what would that mean for our strategy and tactics? This is the urgent question we will be exploring over the weekend.

Host a DGR Workshop in your area, and you will get two days to learn practical, effective strategy and tactics, get a more in-depth analysis of the problems we face, and explore hypothetical resistance scenarios. Discuss the steps that would be necessary to stop the industrial economy and repair our planet. The workshop is a fabulous way to gather the radicals in your area for a weekend that will change your perspective on the fight for a liveable future.

Topics to include:
Organizing the Resistance
Bringing It Down: Bottlenecks and Levers
Building It Up: A Culture of Resistance
Liberal vs Radical: Some Conceptual Basics
Fighting Future Fascism
Security Culture
Q & A with Derrick

“DGR is an antidote to futility, inaction, paralysis and despair. Finally, I can see a way forward.”
–K.M.

dgr-facilitators

More Details & Logistics


We are excited that ‘graduates’ of our DGR workshops and other activities working on the same issues have decided to stage their own workshops and activities that draw on our curriculum. We heartily encourage people to run their own actionist workshops at this crucial time. At the same time, we (Derrick, Lierre, and Aric) have no way of vetting or checking all of the people using the term ‘Deep Green Resistance’ for their workshops. So any ‘DGR’ workshop that isn’t actually offered by Derrick, Lierre, and Aric is a separate entity offered by separate people or organizations, with no guarantees from us. We take no responsibility for their content or presentation, but we wish them the best.