Tag Archives: Derrick Jensen

Relationship with Salmon and other Stories

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Hello and Welcome to R.A.G.E.
Radio Against Global Ecocide
Coming to you from occupied Amiskwacîwâskahikan.
I am your Host Seymour Lyphe.

It is a newly formatted R.A.G.E. Radio Against Global Ecocide with a new logo designed by the super talented political activist, artist and syndicated cartoonist Stephanie McMillan. Over the weeks and months to come I hope to have both radio and  some video shows too!

Act of Giving Back

Act of Giving Back

This week show for the new RAGE is an interview a I did a number of months ago and likely one of the best one of the best , insightful and to the point interviews I have had the pleasure of doing.

I spoke with  Chaw-win-is  who is from both the Tla-o-qui-aht and Cheklesaht nations and Anthony about relationship with Earth and the beings  we share her with. Or more to the point the lack of relationship that exist in the dominant culture. They both shared their insights, their peoples insights and stories.  Their points about how people had taken responsibility for their relationship with Earth, Salmon, tree, bear ,wolf and rivers to name a few and now it is missing now in the dominant culture. The interview reminds all of us of the commitments  they make to us. In turn the the commitments we own to them. We need a resistance that will take up those responsibilities and commitments, those commitments that make us part of the living world again, that we may become human again.

(This interview was done over Skype which caused some issues with the audio and I to apologize everyone especially Chaw-win-is and Anthony  for that.)

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Can’t Buy Me Change

By Derrick Jensen

Derrick Jensen is the author of A Language Older than Words and Deep Green Resistance, among other books. He was named one of Utne Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World.”

The fact that the question – can we promote ecological sustainability through buying better things? – is taken seriously points to the absurdity of so much environmental discourse. We need to be clear: An industrial economy, no matter how green it declares itself, is inherently unsustainable. It is based on the use of nonrenewable resources and the hyperexploitation of renewable resources. In short, it’s based on drawdown. It’s a bit late in the murder of the planet to have to be saying this to environmentalists.

There has never been a sustainable civilization, and industrial civilization has been especially disastrous. Industrial civilization is also inherently unjust, as it is based on the importation of resources – a less kind word is theft – from colonies to the center of empire. In order for these resources to be stolen, Indigenous People must be driven from the land and forced into the global cash economy. The fact that people of good heart can ignore this reveals the degree to which they have internalized the logic of capitalism.

Let me put this another way. Would “buying better things” have stopped the Nazis? Would it have stopped apartheid? Would it have stopped slavery in the US? Of course not. In the latter two cases it was tried and it failed. Why? Because it completely ignored the role of power in causing injustice.

Before you blanch at my comparison of capitalism to the Nazis, look at this from the perspective of the 200 species driven extinct today, the 200 species driven extinct tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, in a holocaust of unimaginable proportions. Look at this from the perspective of the millions of children killed each year as a result of so-called debt repayment from the colonies to the center of empire. Look at this from the perspective of Indigenous humans forced off their lands. “Buying good stuff” does absolutely nothing to address these problems.

Read the rest here from Earth Island Journal

 

Why Deep Green Resistance

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“Deep Green Resistance is a plan of action for anyone determined to fight for this planet—and win.”

 IF for not other reason this would the greatest reason for supporting and joining the DGR movement.

Winning is the only option there is. Losing means no Earth. Without her there is no life, none, zero, zip.

Most of the movements, environmental groups and climate action groups, except Indigenous ones that are based on their traditional values, pay at best lip service to the idea that Earth is a living being.

DGR takes “Earth is a living being” as a given and goes on to says that every living being’s life is as valuable to them as our lives are to us.

DGR recognizes that Earth is being raped and abused by this industrial civilized culture and that this must be stopped.

Apparently though some people who refer to themselves as anarchist have decided that DGR is a threat to them or their freedoms or some part the of what they would call their moral make up.

And the fact Earth is being rape and murdered in front us is really secondary or even tertiary to their concerns.

One of the concerns is that of authoritarianism and the fact that one needs to sign a statement of principles and a code conduct.  

Having read theses (any one can read them here code of conduct, statement of principles ) there is nothing here I find threatening to my well being or personhood. They are conduct codes put in place at every conference I have gone to on the environment and climate with the exception of recognizing the fact that non-Indigenous are on stolen land which is an addition I fully support.

Quite frankly if you are not will to commit to not raping and abusing other living being and treat Earth, humans and non-humans with respect I really do not want you in any group  in which I belong .

The vitriolic attacks on DGR by these so called anarchist, their abusive and slanderous attacks on the promoters of DGR especially Derrick Jensen and Lierre Keith have to me proven that in fact the folks at DGR are correct, a code of conduct is necessary, especially to weed out those who only pay lip service to the idea of respecting others.

No one has to join DGR. Having gone to a number of DGR workshops I find to whole comment(s) about authoritarianism baffling and completely unfounded in fact.

I do not assume the authority to tell people how to judge anarchist whose history dates back to the 1860′s. Their actions speak for themselves.

I do ask people grant DGR, who by the way has just started, the same respect; to judge it by the actions of the various local DGR groups growing across the land.

It is really time that we get serious.

No listen… It is time we get serious

No… no… listen… it is time we get serious

There is a disease that is presently worshiped by the dominant culture the wihtikow disease (wétiko as some know it) I have written of it, Derrick Jensen writes extensively about it in Songs of the Dead and Jack Forbes, the originator of the concept explains it in great detail in Columbus and other Cannibals . It has infected almost everyone in the world, only the most remote of communities have not been.

This disease must, if we are to have any viable future, must be eradicated. At one time there were very severe penalties for greed and selfishness now they are hailed and wise actions. We must fight it in ourselves and all around us.

DGR is a process and movement in that direction.

We do not have time for the organic or amazing revelations to come into being because the disease does not allow it. The disease keeps the greed to the forefront of the minds of the zombies making them afraid to be free humans again.

To love Earth, our bodies and all being we share life with, is like water to one with rabies for the wihtikowak (wétikos).

This is not an easy path, as the rabid dog attacks of self proclaimed anarchists and other groups has proven. The wihtikowak will hates us and despise us and worst.

We will need to be strong and compassionate for and with ourselves. We need to support one another. It is very very important.
To me DGR give us all this opportunity together come as community or if you do not wish to join DGR then work together in common cause to protect Earth and stop the culture of the wihtikowak.

The line “resist as if your life depend on it “ is not a metaphor.  Resist as if your beloved’s life depends on it. Resist as if someone going to shoot your beloved right now.

The dominant culture as you all know is about death, about greed and about hate.

Your mother is being raped! Are you going to attack the one who told you or are you going to stop the rape?

In Songs of the Dead Derrick talks about choosing between life or death

I choose Life.

DGR movement is one way to choosing Life.

_____________________________________________

 END:CIV

Watch the movie (better yet buy the movie) get involved

Stephanie McMillan – The system can not be permitted to kill the planet.

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Radio Against Global Ecocide

Coming to you from occupied Amiskwacîwâskahikan.

I am your Host Seymour Lyphe.

And a special hello to all those organizing to stop the insanity of the dominant culture.

Today on the show Stephanie McMillan.  Stephanie is an award winning Cartoonist, Author and Organizer. She best known for her political cartoons Minimum Security and CodeGreen.  She is co-author and illustrator of As the World Burns – 50 Way to Stay in Denial and illustrator of Mischief in The Forest. She is also in the movie END:CIV

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Passengers by thefilthypoliticians

Dahlia Wasfi Speaks by thefilthypoliticians

From Overthrowing the Profit System to Not for Profit
The rise of NGOs and the decline of mass movements

The past forty years have seen an explosion in the growth of NGOs. The World Bank estimates that nearly 15% of all overseas development aid is now channeled through NGOs. At the same time, we have seen a precipitous decline in mass social movements.

One Stuggle South Florida is hosting a discussion on the rise of the NGO and the fall of mass movements. Our hope is to foster an inter-organizational dialogue to raise awareness of the NGO trap and how together we can rebuild mass movements for justice, social change, and popular power.

PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF CONVERSATION

Oct. 20, 2010

Participants: Victoria Guinea Pig, Kranti and Javier

Kranti: I’m willing to do *anything* to save the planet. But nothing works. The system keeps winning.

Victoria Guinea Pig: Failure is not an option. The system can not be permitted to kill the planet. You must stop it.

Kranti: But everything we try to do is ineffective.

Victoria Guinea Pig: Well. To be effective, you start with a goal. You have that already: save the planet. What is your overall strategy?

(Kranti and Javier look at each other, blankly).

Victoria Guinea Pig: How do you think the planet can be saved?

Kranti: By smashing capitalism. Duh.

Victoria Guinea Pig: How do you think you can defeat a whole global economic system? A system with a monopoly on laws, police, armies, wealth, productive capacity, as well as cultural and political institutions?

Kranti: Um… we keep attacking it from all sides until it falls to its knees, cries like a baby and surrenders?

Javier: All by ourselves? We can’t do it alone, Kranti.

Kranti: Plenty of people all over the world are doing it. Look at MEND. They’re small but managed to force a 40% reduction in oil production in Nigeria. Look at the Greek anarchists. The revolution in Nepal. The Naxalites in India. Look at… um. There are a lot we don’t even know about.

Javier: But in the US there are too few. To attack from within the center of the Empire, we need some kind of movement here. Without at least some public support, we’re toast.

Kranti: Let someone else organize it. I hate working with people. Everyone’s stupid! They think politicians will listen to them. They think it makes a difference if they drive a hybrid car or use Sierra Club-endorsed bleach. They believe we’ll invent magical technology that will use no energy, sequester CO2 and bring everyone extinct back to life while still keeping all the air conditioners running. I don’t want to waste my time with the ideologically challenged.

Victoria Guinea Pig: People are not stupid. Propaganda has brainwashed them. After armed forces, culture and information are two of the system’s most effective weapons. People’s thinking is shaped by whatever system they live under.

Javier: We could start a study group…

Kranti: Please don’t ask me to embark on a long-term educational campaign. The planet doesn’t have time. Also: booor-ing!

Read more here

‘We Need to Stop This Culture Before It Kills the Planet’

A Conversation With Derrick Jensen

By Mickey Z.

Worst of all, there’s nothing unique about the past 24 hours. It’s business as usual, a daily reality—and no amount of CFL bulbs, recycled toilet paper, or Sierra Club donations will change it even a tiny bit.

As you do your best to convince yourself of the vast chasm between the two wings of America’s single corporate party, I suggest you listen carefully to hear if even one of the politicians mentions any of the following:

  • Every square mile of ocean hosts 46,000 pieces of floating plastic
  • Eighty-one tons of mercury is emitted into the atmosphere each year as a result of electric power generation
  • Every second, 10,000 gallons of gasoline are burned in the US
  • Each year, Americans use 2.2 billion pounds of pesticides
  • Ninety percent of the large fish in the ocean and 80 percent of the world’s forests are gone
  • Every two seconds, a human being starves to death

This is just a minute sampling, folks, and sorry, but your hybrid ain’t helping. That reusable shopping bag you bring to the market has zero impact. Your home composting kit is not gonna start a revolution.

As you begin reading this interview, take a look at the nearest clock. Now, dig this: Since yesterday at the same exact time, 200,000 acres of rainforest have been destroyed, over 100 plant and animal species have gone extinct, 13 million tons of toxic chemicals were released across the globe, and 29,158 children under the age of five died from preventable causes. Read the rest here

Derrick Jensen; The Power of Narratives

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Radio Against Global Ecocide

Coming to you from occupied Amiskwacîwâskahikan.

I am your Host Seymour Lyphe.

And a special hello to all those confronting the insanity of the dominant culture.

Today on the show Derrick Jensen. Derrick is the well known author of Endgame I & II, Culture of Make Believe, What We Leave Behind Lives Less Value and at least 12 other books that look honestly and unflinchingly at the dominant culture and its insane destruction of our home, planet earth. This is the second time Derrick has been on the show. This time we talk about the stories the culture is tell us over and over and what stories help and hurt resistance.

If you are like me, you often want to know the books that Derrick talks about in any interview, more in depth.

Here is a list of the books Derrick mentions plus some influential books that have helped him reach many of his conclusions

In the interview:

R. D. Laing – The Politics of Experience

John Livingston – Fallacy of Wildlife Conservation

Richard Slotkin – Gunfighter Nation

Howard Zinn – A People’s History of the United States

Amy Tan - The Kitchen God’s Wife

Some of the Books/Narratives that have influenced Derrick

Neil Evernden -  The Natural Alien

Susan Griffin -  Woman and Nature

Jane Caputi – The Age of Sex Crime

Andrea Dworkin – Life and Death

Jack Forbes – Columbus and Other Cannibals

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The Tyranny of Entitlement

I’M CONTINUALLY stunned by how many seemingly sane people believe you can have infinite economic growth on a finite planet. Perpetual economic growth and its cousin, limitless technological expansion, are beliefs so deeply held by so many in this culture that they often go entirely unquestioned. Even more disturbing is the fact that these beliefs are somehow seen as the ultimate definition of what it is to be human: perpetual economic growth and limitless technological expansion are what we do.

Some of those who believe in perpetual growth are out-and-out nut jobs, like the economist and former White House advisor Julian Simon, who said, “We have in our hands now—actually in our libraries-—the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next 7 billion years.” And showing that, when it comes to U.S. economic policies, insanity is never out of season, are yet more nut jobs, like Lawrence Summers, who has served as chief economist at the World Bank, U.S. secretary of the treasury, president of Harvard, and as President Obama’s director of the National Economic Council, and who said, “There are no . . . limits to the carrying capacity of the earth that are likely to bind at any time in the foreseeable future. . . . The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit is a profound error.” Read the rest of the article here

Fertile Ground – A Community of Resistance part 2

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Hello and Welcome to R.A.G.E.

Radio Against Global Ecocide

Coming to you from occupied Amiskwacîwâskahikan.

I am your Host Seymour Lyphe.

And a special hello to all those building Communities of Resistance.

This is a special Fertile Ground show. Some of the Fertile Ground people talk about community what is means to them and some ways it may look.

Cameron, Dillon and Max share their thoughts about community and its importance.

“…these are ways of life. If activism and social change are not part of the general space you live in and the air you breathe I don’t think you are going to make much change.” -  Cameron

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The End of Civilization

from pulse berlin

a discussion with radical writer and environmentalist Derrick Jensen
interview by Andrea Hiott
Available languages: English

The United States of America was once “the Saudi Arabia of the world” when it came to oil production: in other words, the majority of the world once purchased its oil from the States. Now those vast resources have been depleted. Many other places around the world have also peaked. In Baku, Azerbaijan, miles of machine carcasses clutter the landscape – oil from here once powered the Allies (especially the Russians) towards defeating Germany in World War Two, and now the well is dry. Less than sixty years ago, the British found oil in the North Sea. According to Colin Campbell, an oil geologist and consultant to the world’s top oil companies, Britain will become a net importer of oil within the year, and its oil will be used up by 2020. Read the full article here

Fight Our Common Enemy: Global Industrial Capitalism

Global capitalism is the economic system that dominates the planet. It runs on the exploitation of human labor to turn the living world into dead commodities, for the profit of a few. The small, powerful minority who own the means of production enforce their dominance through their control over political and cultural institutions, and their monopoly on force. They create a situation of dependency – forcing us to work for them to obtain basic needs like food and shelter. They annihilate those who resist or refuse to assimilate.

This system values profit over life itself. It has been built on land theft and destruction, genocide, slavery, deforestation and imperialist wars. It commits numberless atrocities as a matter of routine daily functioning. It kills 2.4 million children worldwide under age 5 each year by withholding adequate nutrition. It kills 100,000 people annually in the US by denying decent health care. More than 54% of the US discretionary budget is spent on perpetrating imperialist aggression, and recent casualties include more than a million civilians in Iraq, and more than 46,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Aside from outright murder, the economic and psychological violence wrought upon the world’s inhabitants is so extensive and comprehensive that it’s effectively all-encompassing.

The system is killing the entire planet, the basis for all life. It’s converted 98% of old growth forests into lumber. 80% of rivers worldwide no longer support life. 94% of the large fish in the oceans are gone. Phytoplankton, the tiny plants that produce half of the oxygen we breathe, have declined by 40% since 1950. 120 species per day become extinct.

Industries produce 400 million tons of hazardous waste every year. Recently, the water in 89% of US cities tested has been found to contain the carcinogen hexavalent chromium. To feed capitalism’s insatiable need for economic expansion, increasingly dangerous methods of energy extraction are being perpetrated: deep sea drilling, oil extraction from tar sands, fracking. No matter the consequences, no matter what the majority of people may want, those in power insist on (and enforce) their non-negotiable right to poison the land, water and air in pursuit of maximum profit. Read the full article here


Robert Jensen; Community, Collapse and Despair

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Hello and Welcome to R.A.G.E.

Radio Against Global Ecocide

Coming to you from occupied Amiskwacîwâskahikan.

I am your Host Seymour Lyphe.

And a special hello to all those building a community of resistance everyday.

Below are some of the answers to the question on Despair I posed a few posts ago.
Then follows my interview with Robert (Bob) Jensen. Robert Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin.

His an author, activist and feminist. As usually I start with asking him  to describe himself.

Articles that I refer to in the interview:

The Anguish of the Age: Emotional Reactions to Collapse

Why am I here? Our struggle for meaning, in the world and church

To quote Derrick Jensen “despair is an appropriate response to a desperate situation” . I really appreciate being able to be “real” and express my despair, but very few can understand. Those that do, support me, and I support them. And that’s the key, as we need the support of loving community to “normalize our despair”, turn it into fuel to put our love into action.

I’m constantly learning to embrace the collapse of industrial civilisation and make this collapse my fuel. It’s a crazy ride, I’ve been on it as an activist for 13 years. Tough going, hell yes! Would I want to be doing something else? Hell no! What an exciting time to be alive mate!

Kia Kaha (stand firm, stand in your power)
-T

____

“I don’t let despair stop me. It’s there, like gravity, or chronic pain, but I refuse to let it overwhelm me. I can’t let it win, because then power wins. That is what people who fight for justice have always been up against. I use their existence as inspiration. I also find great joy in being alive, and I find plenty of moments of grace that keep me sane and calm, even joyful. Today, a fledgling sat on my porch railing, soliciting food from her parent, right below the birdfeeder. Knowing that I helped make that tiny life, those perfect wings and that pounding heart, possible made me profoundly happy. The world is being killed and the world is still a miracle. We can’t give up.”  -L

___
“Here’s my theory:  When Bush II was president, we were outraged at the wars, abuse of the environment, torture, indefinite detention, etc. Then when Obama continues all of this, people realize that either nothing is real or nothing matters.
Nothing is real, meaning for instance, that if all the best scientists say global warming is real and an incredible danger, yet nothing is done about it.  Are these scientists making it all up, is it real?
The newspapers glorify war, billboards show crying women hugging returning, happy soldiers.  Yet we know there are thousands of suicides, thousands of Iraqi and Afghanistan women who no longer can hug their returning soldiers, thousands of brain injured requiring years of assisted living, at the young age of 23 or 24, atrocious destruction of the environment in war.  Are the newspapers making it all up?  Is it really true that we are winning the war in Iraq, when hundreds of Iraqis are still being killed and wounded monthly?
So, obviously torture, assassinations, and other killing is ok, even from an unmanned drone. Life is worth nothing, nothing matters.  From this nothingness comes our despair.   And everyone is terrified.
Maybe, as I get more desperate, I get more honest.  I no longer tell people I am fine, when they ask me, How are you?  I sit with my feelings longer and feel the tears and fears.  I try to listen to the ‘still, small song inside’ more.  So, in these ways, despair has motivated me.  And I started back w/ the 2 hour walks.
I think lots of times though, I deal w/ despair with catatonia.  Withdraw from pain and feel lost.  Then something seems to save me, my cat wants to play, I hear the little wren’s sweet voice outside, a friend calls, I read Robert’s article, I remember Marianne Williamson’s quote,”as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others”, I smoke a cigarette, I write a response to something I read on the internet.  I remember that we all just want to be loved, and I play music.  And I remember that today might be my last day.  I start to care again.” -L

___

“Since the 1980s, my life’s main focus has been to work against imperialism
and exploitation. Much of that time was spent as a communist organizer;
the rest has been as a political cartoonist. When the US war on Iraq
started in 2003, I went through a period of deep despair for nine months.
I couldn’t believe or accept that the largest protests in the history of
the world had failed to stop the war. I lost hope that change was
possible. It seemed to me that we, the majority of people, were helpless,
completely at the mercy of ruthless exploiters and mass murderers.

I had already long known that the system was exploitative by nature, but
this war, for me, meant the falling away of any illusion or pretense that
those in power were going to be restrained in the slightest bit by
negative public opinion or pressure. They simply didn’t care any more what
anyone thought of them or wanted.

Once the war started, I gave up. I cried a lot. I stopped drawing
cartoons. I asked anyone who would listen how they could go on in the face
of this madness, what could possibly give their lives meaning now that we
had been utterly defeated?

One day I happened to be visiting a community garden with a friend, and I
asked the person who had organized it, “What keeps you going with this
garden when we all know the world is being killed?” He answered, “We’re
animals who evolved to have close relationships with plants. I’m just
doing what’s in my nature.”

I sat in the sun and thought about that, and felt my despair melt away.
His answer didn’t change the grim reality of our situation, but it did
make me think about human nature and how we respond to oppression. Our
nature as living beings is to resist being harmed and to fight for life. I
decided I was going to live in accordance with my nature as a human
animal, and to rejoin the fight to save our planet and destroy the
exploiters. I haven’t wavered since.” -S

___

“Despair has never acted as a source of motivation for me. If anything, personally, despair is an emotion I typically repress because of the overwhelming catastrophes behind it, supporting it. When I allow the entire scope of what is happening in the world into my immediate perception of the world, I feel that I vanish as an individual and am being washed away by some enormous tsunami-like force.
Although I don’t stand in despair at most moments, I can’t stress enough the importance of experiencing that grief at some point in your life. Despair — and the crises supporting it — must be integrated into the minds of peoples, shaping their perception of the world around them. Once you’ve established your own feelings on what you need to do, on what you know to be “right”,  I believe you have the right (and in my case, the necessity) to push that despair out of your immediate experience. What motivates me instead is the simple, ethical response to the state of the world that I’ve come, through despair, to internalize.”  -C

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Derrick Jensen – Despair

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Robert Jensen;Feminism and Masculinity, Minnesota Mens Action Network, October 2, 2009

River, I am Listening Now

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Hello and Welcome to R.A.G.E.

Radio Against Global Ecocide

Coming to you from occupied Amiskwacîwâskahikan.

I am your Host Seymour Lyphe

And special hello to all those who love their land base.

Today is the first of my interviews with non-humans. My first interview is with river near my place, kisiskāciwani-sīpiy

I used to believe I was fairly good at being in touch with nature. When I walk though the forest I would walk around spider webs, careful not to step on mushrooms. Even in town I would step over ants on the sidewalk, which is tricky because ants are not very linear. I talk with chickadees, crows, and magpies; any bird that will hang around for a chat. I stop walking so a squirrel will not see me and cross the road safely. I talk with plants and yes even hugged a few trees which is a very calming feeling.

I was not until did the interview with kisiskāciwani-sīpiy that I realized that really much of my relationship the real world was, well, less than real. My connection with the kisiskāciwani-sīpiy was one of the most emotional experiences of my life.

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Pretend you are a River by Derrick Jensen

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It has been very hard for me to figure out how I going to present this at the same time I believe it is important that I do.

As I was sat down (I slipped and fell in a sitting position so I stayed where I was) to do my interview with the river and record the sound it was making it become obvious, as it would to anyone who sits by a river, that a river is much more then water running over rocks. It is everything the lives in and around it. It is the beings that come in contact with no matter how briefly. I will play Derrick Jensen’s piece Pretend you are a River at the end of this as it is one of the best pieces I have every read and heard on what it is to be a river. Here is the story the river told me. The story was told to me through imagery and emotion.

The kisiskāciwani-sīpiy was born with the raise of the mountains and was shaped through the ice age. Now it told me it is dying. The glaciers that give it life are fading away.

I was shown images of a time when the forest and prairie crowded against the river when it had friends to talk with, not the strange yellow or green aliens of today.

Then it all changed.

Imagine you are being poisoned. Imagine that the life blood is being drain from you so the poison becomes stronger. Imagine that you are forced to pass this poison on to all your friends and those who live with you. Imagine you are forced to give this poison to everyone you meet one your path. Imagine that with very fibre of your soul you do not want do to this. You scream out for help but those who listen are gone. And the poison keeps coming.

I saw the death of kisiskāciwani-sīpiy friends, death of those who listened. At times the there was more blood then water, then the oldest of friends fell and soon came the strange and crazy ones.

During this time I cried as the river was crying. It seemed to becoming from a depth I have not been to before. I choked and gasped as if I was trying to rid myself of the poisons within me. At times I just writhed in pain.

Afterwards I lay there stunned by the emotions I had just witnessed. I felt as if I had just an inkling of what it must be like to be tortured or subjected to the worst concentration camp conditions.

I thought also that we who live in the dominant culture really have no idea what its doing to the world, to the living earth for the sake of comfort and ease of life.  And I was going to say  “those who are supposedly fighting for kisiskāciwani-sīpiy and other rivers really understood the pain the river are in would be working that much harder to protect them” but I am not sure for I have seen very little willingness on the part environmentalist to give up their comfort for any of the living world.

I also start to understand what it is to be alive in the world to feel connected to the place I live. I wonder if I came anywhere close to the connection listener and the river had.  I will make every effort to does so.

After my talk with kisiskāciwani-sīpiy I have come to realize that we are meant to drink living water. The water that come form pipes is not longer living and is full of its own unknown concoctions. The problem is that the living water is now poison and we cannot drink it. Tap water is zombie water, zombie water for zombies.

We need desperately to heal the rivers, heal ourselves. We need a resistance that will make it so.

…1,2,3, what are we fighting for?

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Hello and welcome to
RAGE!

Radio Against Global Ecocide

Coming to you from occupied Amiskwacîwâskahikan.

I am your Host Seymour Lyphe

And a special Hello to all those who battling Human Supremacists everyday!

Yes the immortal words of Country Joe and the Fish “And its 1,2,3, what are we fighting for?” but instead of a Vietnam protest song I thought it would be a great way to remind ourselves in the environmental community just what are we fighting for.

It is obvious to me that those who signed on to the Canadian Betrayed Forests Action (CBFA) forgot who they were fighting for; the Boreal Forest! Instead they sold it out to chipping and chopping blocks euphemistically called the Market.

It is ecosystems we are defending not industrial human systems, which destroy all they touch.

I think this picture says it best of all. It is those whose voice is not being heard that we must give our support. For their lives are as valuable if not more so to the planet than ours. In my interview with Derrick Jensen he asked what would the boreal forest that in and near the tar sands do if they had opposable thumbs and could move? It is the right of every sentient being to defend itself and it is the right other those love them to defend as well.

Last Valentines I went ot places I love and did most recording so I thought I would do it again.  So today’s show it just of those voices I am talking about. As I sat there into the sedge grass with the skullcap, mint, hemp nettle, stinging nettle, hyssop, saskatoons, poplar, cotton woods, red spruce white spruce willows, mosquitoes, bees, flies, deer flies, horse flies, chickadees, flycatchers, red winged blackbirds, crows, ducks and yellow warblers, I am thinking  who is going to defend these voices, these lives against industrial civilization?

What are we Fighting For – Full show

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What are we Fighting For – Full show 24k

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I was doing some digging around and found this on the Canadian Government website talking about Forest Products;

Technology Road Map for Forest Operations in Canada written over 10 years ago and if you check  the Fiber, Marketing and Sociopolitical sections a few things really stand out

  1. Much of it reads like the CBFA as far as the industry is concerned.
  2. “Log quality is declining, but higher prices for specialty products and increased competition for fibre are forcing the industry to maximize value recovery from each log.”
  3. “Volumes per unit area and tree sizes will be smaller, requiring equipment modifications to retain productivity.”
  4. “In light of declining timber availability, governments are encouraging value-added”
  5. “”Green labelling” represents a non-tariff trade barrier that may be of major importance to the Canadian forest industry. This essentially requires the certification that wood products are produced from trees harvested in sustainable managed forests.”

So what is the CBFA really; one big Value-Add. Backed  by the people that are suppose to be supporting the forest not selling it off the block. It is also interesting to note that the Government of Canada recognized 14 years ago, that forests were becoming smaller in height and size and that the health of the trees was become worst and worst; noting the loss of soil.

This is what industrial human systems do. This is what human “capital management” does. It destroys period.

I was looking through Andrew Nikiforuk’s book Tar Sands Dirty oil and the Future of a Continent and I saw the name J. Howard Pew. It caught my eye because one of the so called ENGOs is the Pew Environment Group International Boreal Conservation Campaign,  So I checked out this Pew and found out he started the Tar Sands industry with the first full scale mining and processnig of tar sands the company is now  know as Suncor.

Pew told his audience at opening ceremonies for the Great Canadian Oil Sands plant that “No nation can long be secure in this atomic age unless it be amply supplied with petroleum… ”

I did more research which led to

Then I found this Offsetting Resistance and it starting to make sense. It reminds me of the Art of War;

“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War

 

Filthy Politicians – What s going on

What’s Going On?


The Filthy Politicians | MySpace Music Videos

Follow-ups and Further Mores

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This is a quick note on some great articles and interviews:

First on the CBFA – the Canadian Betrayed Forest Action

These are of couple of articles in The Dominion on the CBFA

The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement Reconsidered

ENGOs sign over right to criticize, companies continue to log caribou habitat

Reactions to Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement

Officials, First Nations, activists offer praise, criticism

I have mixed feelings about what I said regarding those that signed the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement (CBFA).  Though I feel it is a waste of time trying to humiliate them, I do think it is a mistake to just let them off the hook.  So perhaps it is appropriate to react in the manner these ENGOs are reacting to the murder of the planet:  a letter-writing campaign (this is both tongue-in-cheek and not).  I have written an open letter which you can send to any and/or all of the ENGO organizations that have signed the CBFA.  You can download the PDF here and let them know your disapproval.

Here are their contact pages:

http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/About-us/Contact-us/

http://www.borealcanada.ca/about-contacts-e.php

http://www.cpaws.org/about/contact/

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/about/contact/

http://www.forestethics.org/contactus.php

http://canopyplanet.org/index.php?page=contact-us

http://www.nature.org/contactus/?src=f3

http://www.pewtrusts.org/about_us_contact.aspx

http://www.ivey.org/aboutus/index.html#contact

Derrick Jensen and Chris Hedges

discuss militant resistance July 5 2010

Stephanie McMillan  Minimum Security: Code Green

interview on Think TwiceRadio -Susan Marie: This is NOT the Apple

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almost-there - Stephanie McMillian

Coastal BC First Nations public declaration to oppose Enbridge’s pipeline and tanker project.

First Nations in BC declare opposition against Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline

RAGE-ing back, The Oh No Canada version

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Welcome to another edition of Rage

Radio against Global Ecocide

Coming to you from occupied

Amiskwacîwâskahikan

The Oh No Canada version, Second largest Colonial institution (by Land Mass) in the World.

I am your host Seymour Lyphe.

 Okay I have been gone for a while and time for a new show.

Let’s talk about colonialism; two of the largest colonial institutions in the world celebrated their anniversaries this past week. Can you guess who they are?  As Waziyatawin said in her interview with me one cannot be decolonizing and still get teary eyed over the colonial national flag or anthem.

It is important to see this institutions for what they are; justification for genocide and continual destruction of the natural world.

There are atrocities committed each day under the name of national security, national economies and the people even when the atrocities are committed against the people themselves.

I will be doing a full show on colonialism and its effects on the environment.

So… let’s have a look at what been going on while I have been gone;

1)      Well first off is the BP’s disaster in the Gulf. (regarded as the biggest oil disaster  US history and with the most lack lustre response.)

  • It is incredible with all money and technology the US has they have yet stopped the flow of oil.
  • Also that there has not a more outrage form the general public. Sure everyone thinks it bad but very few understand this is really out right murder of the life in the Gulf. But then is not really not that surprising given how separated we are from that which truly keeps us alive.
  • I was horrified to learn that BP and refusing to allow the rescue of sea turtle and actually burning them alive.  http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1101844/pg1
  • Stephanie McMillian is raise money for a the emergency summit and hopefully they can http://minimumsecurity.net/blog/gulf-summit-fundraiser/
  • http://www.gulfemergencysummit.org/  go help out the summit any way you can. One thing of note much of the demands are human centric. I do not have issue  human concern, my concern is the fact humans are not the most important species on the planet. It is something we need to understand if we are going to make real strides  in real change for the environment.
  • If anyone needs proof that Joe Public real does not care it is a perfect example.
  • Check out the video on the website from Wimp.com.  Apparently this has happened before. http://www.wimp.com/oilspills

2)      The Tar Sands are nearly back to 2008 levels of production before the time of Bails out and avarice ( hold it! … those time have always been with us; for at least 6000 years).  Obviously my bumper stickers about the tar sand ain’t doing much. of course much of this is directed at investors so the rose story about the Tar Sands is design to get more of them specially with the reassurance that the grow will be mostly in-situ and thus less of an environmental impact (Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more…).

3)      The World People’s Conference on Climate Change- The Rights of Mother Earth.

  • I heartened that such a conference happens and that people would gather and put out such document. (http://pwccc.wordpress.com/prorgama/ )
  • Not answered: How do we deal those who do not recognize or willing ignore the rights of mother earth and all living beings? How do we deal with the Wetiko?
  • There is a good article on the Energy Bulletin Called  Why sociopaths win & why, no, you don’t want to be one of them by Kathy McMahon  http://www.energybulletin.net/node/53296 .

4)      Oh Yeah speaking of Sociopaths there was the G8- G20.

5)      And most importantly during this time – 3 months

  • 3.3 million hectares of forest were lost (1 hectares =2.47 acres)
  • 6,900 species went extinct
  • CO2 is at 390 ppm and rising not falling
  • And roughly 19.5 million people were added to the world population, more than half the population of Canada.

 At what point?

____________________________________________________________

Oh No Canada

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No Canada – Filthy Politicians

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Oh No Canada - 24 k version

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Calling All Fanatics

Protecting nature should be more important than enjoying it
by Derrick Jensen

Published in the July/August 2010 issue of Orion magazine

I’VE ALWAYS kind of hated that quote by Edward Abbey about being a half-hearted fanatic (“Be as I am—a reluctant enthusiast . . . a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic”). Not so much because of the racism and misogyny that characterized some of his work. And not even because of the quote itself. But rather because of how that quote has been too often misused by people who put too much emphasis on the half-hearted, and not nearly enough emphasis on the fanatic.

The fundamental truth of our time is that this culture is killing the planet. We can quibble all we want—and quibble too many do—about whether it is killing the planet or merely causing one of the six or seven greatest mass extinctions in the past several billion years, but no reasonable person can argue that industrial civilization is not grievously injuring life on Earth.

The rest of the article can be found here http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/5622
 
 
Here’s an idea:

plug-the-well by Stephanie McMillan

 

 

Mass Organizing Meeting to Stop the Gulf Ecological Disaster

July 5th, 2010

Calling all people in South Florida, if you’re angry about the Gulf oil spill and all its associated crimes, please come to an organizing meeting for a new coalition to fight back against these atrocities and those responsible. I’ll be there — hope you will too!
Stephanie

***
Here’s the Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=135485193148140&ref=mf

Mass Organizing Meeting to Stop the Gulf Ecological Disaster
Date: Saturday, July 10, 2010
Time: 10:30am – 12:30pm
Location: St. Maurice Catholic Church (Hospitality Room), 2851 Stirling Road, Dania Beach, Florida

Go or send what support you  can, it is important!!