Resistance-Radio

Marilyn Linton / Deep Green Resistance Eugene Derrick Jensen interviewed Stella Strega Scoz, a DGR member in the Canary Islands, for the December 6th episode of Resistance Radio. Scoz heads the Integral Permaculture Academy, which takes a radical approach to permaculture practice and teaching. Balanced resistance movements have both the outward action and the inward support and strength of strong community behind them. A system in harmony with the living world, promoting reconnection to it, and resisting the oppressive dominant systems must be built with an awareness of the current circumstances, an inclusion of indigenous wisdom from many sources and experts in applicable fields, and a heart-felt love of life. ...

Chris Hedges, one of the great intellectuals of our time, opens this important interview with two quotes. James Baldwin says of the rebel and the artist that it’s not so much that they have a vision, but that they’re propelled by it. Hannah Arendt writes of people who resist that “It’s not those who say ‘This shouldn’t be done.’ or ‘We oughtn’t to do this.’ It’s those who say ‘I can’t.’” ...

Chris Matera founded and works in his spare time for Massachusetts Forest Watch, fighting against destruction of New England forests. Derrick Jensen interviewed him for the November 30 episode of Resistance Radio, discussing the many forces pushing for logging. As expected, the timber industry puts out carefully crafted propaganda designed to confuse well meaning but ignorant people. Companies claim clearcutting will counteract stressors, correct forest imbalances, and otherwise improve forest health. They claim clearcutting will improve habitat for cute animals (already overabundant because of past logging), not mentioning the threatened species who will suffer further harm. They claim they need to clearcut trees now to prevent future hurricanes from knocking them down. ...

Almost every Sunday, Derrick Jensen interviews an activist, biophile scientist, land restorationist, or other person similarly engaged in building a culture of resistance. The interviews are always worth listening to, packed with interesting information and insights drawn out by Jensen’s experienced questions. The interviews are available as mp3 downloads or audio streams from our Resistance Radio archive page, and we’ve now made them available on Youtube as audio with a still image of the interviewee, accessible to those who prefer to browse Youtube or want to add the episodes into playlists. We’ll keep adding new interviews as they’re released. See them all at the Deep Green Resistance Youtube channel, and please share these important conversations widely!

In a thematic follow-up to the interview with Culum Brown, Derrick Jensen’s August 17 Resistance Radio episode features Con Slobodchikoff. Slobodchikoff studies Gunnison’s Prairie Dogs as a model for understanding animal language, and shares some delightful and amazing observations on the complexity of their relationships and communication. For example, the prairie dogs can tell each other the equivalent of “Here is a tall thin human walking slowly wearing a blue shirt coming towards us.” ...

For the August 10th episode of Resistance Radio, Derrick Jensen interviewed Culum Brown, an Australian scientist. Brown has specialized in the behavioral ecology of fishes, with a focus on their ability to learn and remember things like environmental hazards, specific places of danger, and the social behavior and trustworthiness of other individual fishes (within the same species and across different species.) With a combination of fascinating anecdotes and scientifically researched conclusions, Brown counters the popular notions that fish are stupid, can’t learn or remember, and can’t feel pain. (In fact, he says pain receptors in humans evolved and are nearly indistinguishable from those of fish; the only reason we can feel pain is because they can.) Jensen and Brown also explore the question of whether fish feel emotions, and if so, which ones. The interview debunks some assumed foundations of human supremicism and ethically demands that we change how industrial civilization treats fish. ...

For the July 20 episode of Resistance Radio, Derrick Jensen interviewed Dahr Jamail, an award winning reporter for truthout.org. He began his career driven by the obvious lies surrounding the invasion of Iraq, not understanding the apathy of Americans all around him, but compelled to spend his small savings on a laptop, camera and a plane ticket to the middle east. Since then, he has continued to write about US imperialism, including oppposition to it by veterans; and about environmental issues from the BP oil spill to fracking to his current focus on anthropogenic climate disruption (climate change.) ...

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. ...

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. ...

Annette Smith is executive director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment, an organization she co-founded 15 years ago with Vermont citizens when a large energy project was proposed for her region. After successfully defeating that project, Annette has worked with Vermonters throughout the state to defeat large quarries, landfills, farms, and other large energy proposals while also improving Vermont’s groundwater protection laws. Derrick Jensen interviewed her for the May 18th airing of Resistance Radio. ...