Category: Culture of Resistance

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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.

Oglala Lakota Matriarch Regina Brave Speaks about Keystone XL Pipeline

The Keystone XL pipeline, proposed to carry oil from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, would have a devastating impact on the environment along its route, particularly in the Indigenous communities already marginalized by centuries of genocide. The Lakota people live above the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the world’s largest aquifers, which supplies 30% of the water for irrigation in the United States and 82% of the drinking water for those living above it. Any spill, which judging by the record of other tar sands pipelines is a matter of when and not if, would be catastrophic for all the life that depends on this vital source of water.

Our wealth isn’t money, it isn’t material things, it is in our health and what we pass down to our future generations… We need to pass down to our generations good clean air, a decent environment, and water as it should be, without pollution.

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.