Are You Ready To Resist Roundup?

Deep Green Resistance member Raven Gray is actively writing for her new blog, Wild Awake, on subjects ranging from “reskilling” and permaculture to listening to the land and protecting it against industrial civilization. Her whole blog is worth following and exploring, but we wanted to especially highlight her recent piece about planned use of Roundup and other broad spectrum herbicides along the Point Reyes National Seashore: Are You Ready To Resist Roundup? Following on a prior look at Invasive Plants: Friends or Foe?, Gray explores how legitimate concern for the health of native plant communities has been twisted into its toxic mimic: support for the widespread application of poison. This provides a quick-fix “solution” while not coincidentally feeding profits of companies like Monsanto which heavily fund anti-“invasive” propaganda.

For those with much exposure to permaculture, the notion of so-called invasive plants as healers of civilization’s multitudinous damages to our soils is not new. But as with so much other greenwashing promulgated by mainstream environmental groups on behalf of their corporate partners ― renewable energy technologies are good for the planet, clearcuts are good for the environment, and on and on ― many people accept the carefully crafted message: “We must poison to preserve life.” Gray’s articles debunk this variant of the notion that humans know best how to “manage” the land.

The evidence is mounting, and it is too large to ignore. Glyphosate has wide-ranging adverse effects on all of life. Several countries have banned (or are in the process of banning) glyphosate. But while the rest of the world appears to be waking up to its dangers, it’s business as usual in the US.

What is the true cost of polluting our world with toxic chemicals? What if Roundup is the next DDT, and responsible for the new Silent Spring? How exactly is Roundup going to protect the endangered plants, birds and animals that live in the Point Reyes National Seashore? The red-legged frog? The snowy plover? Tidestrom’s lupine?

Roundup does not serve plants or animals. It does not serve the public interest. It does not serve life. It serves the US biotech industry and the US government who are pushing glyphosate around the world in an attempt to dominate global agriculture.

DGR NY on Guy McPherson’s Nature Bats Last

Pauline Schneider and Guy McPherson interviewed Frank Coughlin of DGR NY for the March 3rd episode of the Nature Bats Last podcast. Coughlin gives a basic overview of Deep Green Resistance: our philosophy, our strategy, our campaigns, and our goal of building a culture of resistance. He speaks, from his perspective as a health care practitioner and his experiences abroad, about the need for resistance in the heart of empire, rather than leaving the responsibility for revolution solely to those most oppressed and with the fewest resources. He also ties this exploitation of global capitalism to social injustices at home, and to ecological devastation.

Coughlin helped organize a workshop in New York City in late February featuring McPherson, and explains how the recent event grew out of a successful partnership the year before. McPherson presents a sober assessment of the state of climate change and the dire circumstances for all life on earth, including humans. Deep Green Resistance presents a strategy based on such a realistic assessment, proposing action on the same scale as our predicament. This sort of eyes-wide-open learning and decision making is likely to lead to more effective action than analyses and approaches oriented towards feel-good personal actions.

Listen to this episode as a good introduction to Deep Green Resistance with a personal spin: Frank Coughlin on Nature Bats Last, and visit Deep Green Resistance New York if you live in the area and would like to get involved.

Chris Hedges on the State of Extraction: exploitation, capitalism, and patriarchy

Chris Hedges spoke last weekend at the State of Extraction conference at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC. While most speakers focused exclusively on natural “resources” ripped from the planet, Hedges brilliantly linked this environmental devastation with the social impacts of colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism on our most vulnerable populations. He challenged the narcissism, individualism, and identity politics that have come to dominate modern culture, including most of the left. He identified as especially insidious the widespread acceptance of prostitution and pornography: no other subjugation is so widely rationalized and dismissed as these abuses of women. Even in so-called progressive and radical circles, sexualized violence and racism are fiercely defended where no one would try to justify such violations in any other circumstances.

In fact, Hedges was temporarily deplatformed from the State of Extraction conference precisely for calling on the left to recognize the war against women as part of the larger colonialist project, in his recent article amplifying the voices of women on the front lines. Even in venues actively opposing the status quo of capitalism and extraction from the earth, any challenge to the accepted wisdom of patriarchy is met with knee-jerk attacks and an unwillingness to listen. We’ve seen this again and again in recent years as radical feminist speakers have been silenced: deplatformed from venue after venue, threatened with rape and murder, and attacked in vicious smear campaigns. The only thing unique about this latest incident is Hedges’ position as a privileged white man.

Deep Green Resistance strongly advocates for a radical view of our interlocking crises, environmental and social. We need to get to the root of our problems to fashion effective solutions. In our FAQ Is DGR a Feminist Organization? we explain:

Right now, patriarchy is the ruling religion of the planet. Women are just another resource for men to use in their endless quest to prove their toxic masculinity and breed soldiers for civilization’s constant state of war. The masculinity and the war—against people, against the planet—together have created a perpetual motion machine of domination and destruction of the land and human rights. This is why militarism is a feminist issue, why rape is an environmental issue, why environmental destruction is a peace issue. We will never dismantle misogyny as long as domination is eroticized. We will also never stop racism. Nor will we mount an effective resistance to fascism, since, as Sheila Jeffreys points out, fascism’s root is ultimately the eroticization of domination and subordination–fascism is in essence a cult of masculinity. Those are all huge spin-outs from the same beginning. The result is torture, rape, genocide, and biocide.

Please ponder this as you watch Chris Hedges give this amazing and truly radical speech:

Trigger warning: Besides the generally disturbing nature of this subject, Hedges reads a graphic account of a brutal rape from minute 46 to 48.

Also read DGR member Jonah Mix’s analysis of the speech and male backlash against it: When “Paternalism” is Worse Than Commercial Rape: #StateofExtraction and the New Manarchist.

Fundraiser: systemic change to protect prairie dogs from developers

As we’ve reported here before, members of Deep Green Resistance Colorado, in partnership with Wildlands Defense, have been campaigning to protect a large prairie dog population from developers intent on building the largest mall in America. Many local Castle Rock, CO residents gave near-unanimous testimony on behalf of delaying construction a few months, to at least relocate the prairie dogs in a marginally humane manner before destroying their homes. Yet the town council and the developers collaborated to painfully gas the prairie dogs, to make “the problem” go away. (And to minimize the danger of any protected raptors, who predate on prairie dogs, complicating the project by being present at a required upcoming bird count.)

This behavior is unacceptable. Though the developers have already murdered many of the prairie dogs, there is still time to stop the developers from further slaughter. Equally important is the need to show that communities will impose repercussions on companies which behave in such a wantonly destructive and cruel manner, to send a message that such actions will not be profitable. If we can sufficiently damage their bottom line, it will help protect other communities against reckless corporations in the future.

To this end, prairie dog supporters have launched a fundraiser to support:

…a referendum on the zoned planning amendments that pave the way for the prospective Promenade mall. The referendum will give the people of Castle Rock the ability to decide if they want this development company, who just slaughtered in the cruelest way imaginable thousands of prairie dogs, to continue their development of the largest commercial property in the history of the town.

[…] The example in Castle Rock has the opportunity to cast a far-reaching message to all future developers that have prairie dog colonies on the land they plan to develop.

Please support this effort by visiting the prairie dog fundraiser page, spreading the word, and donating money if you possibly can.

Deep Green Resistance on reddit

Check out our new Deep Green Resistance subreddit, where we have postings from our chapter websites, Facebook pages, and the DGR News Service, plus stories submitted by visitors. Reddit provides a great platform for finding, discussing, upvoting, and sharing articles of interest, so take a look and Subscribe to the subreddit if you find it interesting. As the subreddit becomes more active, we’ll draw on it as a source for our other media channels, so it’s a great place to add anything related to radical activism and resistance to civilization which you think we should share more widely.

We look forward to growing this newest platform for Deep Green Resistance outreach!

“All These Days I” by Jamie Little and the filthy politicians

the filthy politicians, with Jamie Little, make a musical (and succinctly logical) argument for forcibly stopping the insane dominant culture, which is akin to an axe murderer frantically killing everything within reach. They reiterate a point often made by Deep Green Resistance: we need it all in this fight – propagandists and fighters, books and bullets. And those fighters on the front lines depend on supplies from a support base. There’s a place for everyone in this culture of resistance, so find yours before it’s too late for life.

Listen to this track and read the lyrics below, and hear more songs at the filthy politicians on bandcamp and at the filthy politicians on soundcloud.

all the days i threw away

it’s obvious i just don’t trust what comes my way

all the days i walked away

i never realized what controls my mind to be

check it – for every day i just threw away

now i’m grown up or so they say

all this bullshit comin my way

but i’m told this is life – til i’m old i should stay

in line like a rollerblade

but fuck that this life ain’t an arcade

do you think it’s a game to the slave who made

your i phone, blue jeans, or your microwave? no

no, and yo it’s not your fault

but we’re livin in the midst of a heist from the vault

nothin is sacred – for riches they’ll rape it

take a look around before the forest is pavement

tell me where the ice caps, whales, and their ways went

why i should give a fuck about outer space when

runnin away ain’t the answer

we can’t escape it – we need to stop the cancer

stop creatin and makin poison

stop feedin it to all the little girls and boys and

stop burning oil, stop all this toil, stop bein loyal

to the same system that destroyed the soil

to the way of life that made this pot boil

your privilege is faced with a choice to continue

keep on keepin on or do you have it in you?

to reject all their bribery

it’s not for the poor it’s for you an me so

we gotta re-imagine – we gotta fight back

and not stop until we’ve stopped their attack

it’s not abstract – it’s as clear as day

there’s an axe murderer and he’s swingin away

but with so much already gone we’ve got used to livin this way

but all we’ve ever seen is proof

that this shit won’t stop anytime soon

if we don’t act now then we seal our fate

if they have their way it’s gonna be too late so

go do what you gotta do

get a bullet or a book or a breath or a clue

this depends on me, it depends on you

life is the front line – sad but true

we don’t all have to fight

but for supplies in the night, can we depend on you?

Older but not wiser…

by Unblind

I love you Dad, I really do.

So, it kills me to feel this way about you.

There was a time when we could converse, talk late into the night about the universe.

We shared stories, sipped drinks and poked fun at the world, we agree on so much it was great to be heard.

Your opinions were from life and they were your own, you gave me advice when I felt so alone.

I valued your views and made mine the same, never could I of guessed that that would some day change…

We barely talk now when we get together, the only safe topic seems to be the weather.

The stories you share now all come from TV, there’s nothing about you, us, or your family.

Your opinions aren’t your own, in fact they’re quite sour, we can’t talk politics or we argue for hours.

Your views no longer make sense they are based on the news, we’re at odds now even my kids are confused.

I love this planet, you used to love it too. Can’t you tell from the villains and those who speak true?

You challenge every thing that I say, yet you don’t take a minute to see things my way.

It hurts to be belittled by someone you trust, I guess we’re done talking….

I’ll just leave you to rust….

Reality check on resource requirements of wind power

As we’ve pointed out in our Green Technology & Renewable Energy FAQs, so-called “clean” energy sources such as solar and wind become anything but, when harvested via industrial means. Each PV solar panel, each wind turbine, and every other proposal for generating electricity depends on mining, inherently destructive to the earth. In addition, each requires fossil fuels for mining, transportation, assembly, and installation. There’s nothing “sustainable” about any of it.

energy skeptic backs up some of our concerns with quick calculations on the reality of how many tons of what materials would be required to have wind turbines generate half of US electricity usage. Notably, it would take 52 years worth of worldwide steel production to build enough turbines. It’s interesting to look through the rest of the numbers too.

Bottom line: not only can’t we meet our current electricity usage with “renewables” like wind energy, but it’d be horribly destructive to try. It’s counterproductive, even dangerous, to hold onto fantasies of green energy saving us.

The Battle for the Hambach Forest

By Michael Regenfuss of Deep Green Resistance

There is an ongoing fight, just north of Düsseldorf, Germany, to save the Hambach Forest, Germany’s last old growth forest. The forest is a 1,000 hectare old growth oak forest right next to the largest open cast coal mine in Europe. The mine is 12 kilometers long, 4 kilometers wide, and 300 meters deep. The mine produces 100,000,000 tons of coal per year, used to supply 5 power plants.

The coal is used primarily for the weapons manufacturing industry in the nearby Rhineland industrial district. The mine is set to operate until 2045. The forest was acquired in 1978 by RWE, which now operates the mine. The forest was originally 5,500 hectares and since 1972 had been owned by the municipality of Niederzier. Since 1978 the forest has largely been cleared to make way for brown coal mining.

The company has also been using a law that the Nazis used to take land from people to evict people from entire villages. Over a ten year period this relocation process has removed entire village populations and demolished the structures to mine the coal underneath. During the relocation process some elders have died due to the stress and heartbreak of losing their homes. Many people are coming down with cancers, heart disease, and emphysema from airborne toxic particles.

The remaining forest, despite its dramatic diminution, is still a functioning habitat. It consists primarily of oak and hornbeam, who shelter endangered Bechstein’s bats.

An ongoing blockade has been in place since April 2012 to save this remnant forest. The blockade was evicted from the forest in November 2012, but after only one day they regrouped and occupied a meadow next to the forest. In April 2013 they reoccupied the forest. More recent actions included a treesit in a 250 year old oak at the edge of the forest, a group of Earth First! members blocking the loading of coal trucks, and a protest in nearby Bergheim against a newly built coal burning plant.

The struggle continues to save the Hambach Forest. For slides, videos, and more information on past actions and on the current blockade, visit Hambach Forest (English) or Hambacher Forst (German). If you can physically help with the blockade, please join them in person. You can also donate money through their website. Whatever you can do would be really appreciated. Time is running out for this place; the final showdown for this forest will probably happen by August 2015. Thank you for your interest and support to save this beautiful place.

New ebook: “100 Daily Affirmations for Revolutionary Proletarian Militants”

Stephanie McMillan has a new ebook available for downloading, for $2.99: “100 Daily Affirmations for Revolutionary Proletarian Militants”. The ebook is a collection of hints of encouragement for those who want to destroy global capitalism, paired with cute drawings.

You can also view all the Affirmations at Stephane McMillan’s website for free, but you may like having a collection all in one place, and buying the ebook is a great way to support her work!