Culture of Resistance Archives - Page 9 of 12

Stop Thinning Forests

Stop Thinning Forests was launched by a Deep Green Resistance Colorado member whose family participated in the Forest Service’s suggested forest thinning projects for private landowners. The website shares the devastating results, including before and after photos. The site carefully documents the evidence that this sort of thinning harms forests and all their community members while increasing risk to homeowners of catastrophic fires. An important read for anyone living in areas where the Forest Service is pushing these policies!

It is our hope individuals using this website will see past the rhetoric that is being used by the Forest Service and the timber industry to convince the public that thinning will keep our homes and forests safe and healthy. It is clear that catastrophic fires are caused by climatic conditions and, as the weather changes and droughts sweep over the west, there is little we can do to stop fires. Perhaps taking a serious look at climate change and human behaviors that accelerate change, along with the insatiable desire to log our forests, would be a more effective way to address the situation.

Most importantly, take a walk into the forests and find a thinned area. Sit in that area a while and then find an area that has not been thinned and do the same. Think about the land, the ground, the living beings who depend on those areas and decide for yourself which place is truly healthier.

Food Freedom: an Integral Perspective

What do you get when you mix Deep Green Resistance EUMENA members, a focus on good food, concern for animals besides humans, and permaculture? Food Freedom! The talk explores:

The food freedom of other species
The food that most liberates our environment
Food that liberates the human mind and body
How not to be enslaved to addictions
How to free our meals & economies from the Multinationals

Watch the recording below:

DGR Member Tours Philippines

Kim Hill of Deep Green Resistance Australia toured the Philippines in February, with the Mobile Anarchist School. She spoke at universities, infoshops, a farmer’s forum and many other locations about the need for a serious resistance movement.

You can read her blog of her Philippines tour, or listen to an interview of her by an anti-civ radio show in Manila.

Solidarity Statement from Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter

Re-posted from Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter

June 25, 2013

On June 22, 2013 Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter hosted an all day event with local feminist allies to discuss, evaluate and strategize different tactics of women’s resistance to male violence against women.

Dozens of women participated in the day including members of the Indigenous Women Against the Sex Industry (IWASI), the Committee for Domestic Workers and Caregivers Rights, the Asian Women’s Coalition Ending Prostitution (AWCEP), EVE (formerly Exploited Voices now Educating) and past and current collective members of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter.

During the day we passed a resolution to publicly express our solidarity with Deep Green Resistance in light of the recent attack on their members at the Law and Disorder Conference and afterward:

We condemn the attack on the members of Deep Green Resistance at Law and Disorder Conference in Portland Oregon. We are appalled by the conference organizers utter refusal to protect DGR members from threats, bullying and silencing and troubled that no other participant interfered or insisted that the conference will practice its premise for “safe space”.

We stand in solidarity with Deep Green Resistance and its commitment to feminist principles including the right of women (as all oppressed groups) to define their boundaries and decide who is allowed in their space.

Hilla Kerner, for the Collective of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter

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.

REAL: Resistance Education At Libraries

Deep Green Resistance is pleased to announce the launch of REAL: Resistance Education At Libraries. This easy to use website helps identify libraries lacking our targeted resistance media, and makes it easier to contact each library or “Suggest a purchase” to fill in the gaps.

REAL initially focuses on three foundational works of the Deep Green Resistance and strategic anti-civ movement:

Deep Green Resistance by Derrick Jensen, Aric McBay, and Lierre Keith is crucial reading for anyone who has accepted that civilization is destroying the planet, but hasn’t known how to respond. This is the single most useful book to grow our movement of strategically thinking resisters. Deep Green Resistance is a plan of action for anyone determined to fight for this planet — and win.
Endgame, by Derrick Jensen, gives readers a crash course in anti-civ critique, an excellent and (relatively) succinct summary of what’s wrong with this culture and why. Many people already know this in their bones, but will benefit from Jensen’s eloquence and analysis to help them piece together a coherent big picture. By challenging readers to seriously ask themselves what it will take to make them fight back, and what that might look like for them as individuals and as a movement, this volume builds an important foundation for Deep Green Resistance. This book has awakened and radicalized many people, and has the potential to reach many more.
The Myth of Human Supremacy, also by Derrick Jensen’ debunks the near-universal belief in a hierarchy of nature and the superiority of humans. Vast and underappreciated complexities of nonhuman life are explored in detail–from the cultures of pigs and prairie dogs, to the creative use of tools by elephants and fish, to the acumen of caterpillars and fungi. The paralysis of the scientific establishment on moral and ethical issues is confronted and a radical new framework for assessing the intelligence and sentience of nonhuman life is put forth.

Many people first came to their awareness of the problems of civilization and the need to fight back thanks to these works. Getting them into public libraries will make them more accessible to people who find them by accident, or who seek them out after hearing about Deep Green Resistance and anti-civ activism.

You can help by using the website tools to make suggestions to your local library and to encourage friends and family to do the same. You can also contribute funds to help us donate copies of these media to libraries which can’t afford them from their own acquisition budgets.

To learn more about the project, or to get started, please visit Resistance Education At Libraries

The moral and organizational strength of the EZLN

From Intercontinental Cry: http://intercontinentalcry.org/the-moral-and-organizational-strength-of-the-ezln/

“Next 1st of January will mark the first 18 years of the armed uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). A country that was on the threshold of modernity was surprised that thousands of insurgents, mostly indigenous, had taken up arms as a last resort, to fight for a better life for indigenous peoples and for the country.

The mobilization of thousands of Mexicans forced the state to negotiate with the insurgents for a decent and fair solution. After more than two years of intense negotiations, they managed to come to the first agreement between the federal government and the EZLN on indigenous rights and culture, which was signed on February 16, 1996, in the municipality of San Andres Larrainzar in Chiapas.

When an attempt was made for the agreement to be transferred to the Mexican legislative system through a bill drafted by the Commission for Agreement and Pacification (Cocopa), the state’s reaction was brutal, cynical and stark. The initiative contained the most important items agreed between the federal government and the EZLN, there was not one idea in it that had not been agreed by the parties.”

From Radical to Mainstream

We are used to being labeled radicals, and sometimes, we use that term to refer to ourselves. But we are using the word very differently than most people do.

The root of the word ‘radical’ comes from the latin word ‘radix’, meaning ‘root’. Radish comes from the same root word.

When we say we are radicals, we are referring to a distinct political tradition that seeks to address the roots of social issues, rather than only addressing the symptoms or surface manifestations of deeper problems.

When people use that word against us, they use it to mean “Departing markedly from the usual or customary; extreme.” They mean we are fringe, crazy, deranged.

By asserting this, they claim the mainstream political space for themselves. They claim rationality, logic, and centrism, and in so doing they assert a great power. In order for us to be successful, we cannot allow them to claim the mainstream any longer.

This is a battle that has been conceded by many radicals for hundreds of years, and has contributed to the sidelining of movements. Many groups have faded into obscurity, complaining of alienation while divorcing themselves in every way from the trials and tribulations of average people. This is a political dead end.

Withdrawing from political engagement can take many different forms: self isolation is, unfortunately, one of the most common in radical groups. If we wish to succeed, we must buck this trend. We must remain engaged with society. We must claim that political space for ourselves.

WE are the normal ones. WE are the mainstream. The capitalists, the bankers, the CEOs, the businesspeople, and those who follow them blindly – they are the crazy ones. They are ones who occupy the political fringe, measured in both historical and commonsense terms.

This may seem like a purely rhetorical change, but by changing the narratives we act within, we take an important step toward expanding the effectiveness and scope of our work.

What will your legacy be?

This message was sent by a DGR supporter who has recently written us into his will:

How does it make sense to repair one acre while 1,000 get deforested for each one that we repair, and the climate continues to get hotter? A few months ago, I realized that it really doesn’t make much sense. Sure, permaculture, Transition Towns, natural building and similar efforts will help during the coming transition, but a transition to what? A dying planet, unfortunately.

Time is out and we don’t have decades to make the needed transition; we need major changes now (actually years ago), not next year or the year after that.

While thinking about this, I realized that, similarly, it doesn’t make any sense at all for me to leave my assets to my children and grandchildren through my will—not when they will have survival issues to cope with far more important than any of the money and property that I can leave them. They do not really need more stuff, they (and all other living things) need me to do something to stop this insanity—and stop it now!

The question then becomes, “How do I best do that?” One way, of course involves learning and becoming more politically active, which I have started doing. Then it struck me: Organizations (such as Deep Green Resistance) doing this critical work need all kinds of support; then this dawned on me:

Probably tens of thousands, if not millions, of senior citizens such as myself, and many others as well, want to help but do not know how they can help or they don’t feel as though they have the time and energy. But we can still help tremendously! We can leave our assets to organizations such as Deep Green Resistance to support them!

Perhaps I cannot help much right now, so late in my life, but I can still help greatly through my death! I had a clear, exciting vision of the power to produce immediate, critically needed changes if just a few thousand people did this! What if tens of thousands did this? A few million?!

So, I have changed the beneficiary on my retirement accounts from my children to Deep Green Resistance, and altered my will as well.

Feel free to contact me or contact Deep Green Resistance if you would like to discuss any of this further.

Thank you, Bud, for your generosity.

Money is a Multiplier

There are many major problems with the culture of the left. One of these problems is a distancing from money.

The roots of this tenuous relationship are certainly honorable. In the culture of empire (civilization), social behaviors that destroy earth and exploit humans are rewarded with money and wealth. Developers, slavers, agriculturalists, factory owners, CEO’s, feudal lords, and capitalists of all sorts: they thrive on the blood of the land, the blood of the people.

Of course, paying jobs exist that do not directly require this sort of exploitation. But regardless, people on the left have been understandably distant from high paying jobs and steady careers. Instead, the trend has been to “drop out” – to find ways of avoiding the necessity of gainful employment.

This manifests in many ways. Many people on the left live in poverty, either voluntary or involuntary. Many of us rely on thrift stores, dumpster diving, squatting, social support programs, or the generosity of friends and family. This is sometimes appropriate. Capitalism is a brutal hierarchy of power, and escaping that system makes sense.

However, withdrawal is not going to save us. Historically, gainful employment within society is a critical element of resistance movements. In America, Abolitionists, Suffragettes, and Irish Republicans are all examples. These organizations encouraged their members and supporters to work and support the movement with sustained funding.

Through international tours, speaking events, advertisements, neighborhood collections, religious institutions, membership dues, and personal appeals, these political activists gathered the resources that they needed to do their work.

Today, the needs of activists are the same. We print materials, pay for travel, advertise, create media, support allies, secure gathering spaces, pay legal costs, gather supplies, and see to the health and hunger of our comrades. Without the funding to support these efforts, serious activist work is impossible.

Social change requires money, and it requires a great deal of money.

Money is a multiplier. It expands the effect of our work many times over. If our resistance is to be successful, it will require many of our supporters to join the ranks of the workforce and contribute substantial amounts. This is a hard role, but vitally important. It is supplying the lifeblood of the resistance.

It is a righteous and honorable path.

Donate to Deep Green Resistance or shop at the Deep Green Resistance store.