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Title: Black Seed Issue 1 Author: Various Date: Spring 2014 Language: en Topics: green anarchy, anti-civilization, indigenous anarchism, permaculture, earth first, nonviolence, Black Seed Source: Editor
A Contribution to the Continuing Green Anarchist Conversation...
This is a paper that we hope adds to a continuing green anarchist
conversation, one that may have started the first time native people
were introduced to civilized interlopers, or in the first resistance to
cities, or through the writings of ĂlisĂ©e Reclus (depending on how you
measure the term âanarchistâ). We are part of this tradition: one of
violence, genocide, ecology, and anarchy.
It is worth mentioning that we are in a dialogue with Green Anarchy
magazine (RIP). We were contributors to and students of that project,
and lament its lack of a clear conclusion. Instead of decaying, dying,
and being integrated into new life around it, Green Anarchy just seemed
to disappear, rejecting the very notion of its own tradition. That was
their way; ours is to honor those who came before and tend to the
tendrils and shoots that we hope to form from this black seed.
We are not simply against civilization. We understand civilization to be
one of many problems we face as anarchists. We wish to explore the
material experiences (based in the physical world of interactions) of a
perspective that places one against civilization and more broadly within
the green anarchist perspective. However, we will also develop space
distant from anarcho-primitivistsâ tendencies towards fetishizing
indigenous cultures, uncritical rewilding, appropriated spirituality,
and reliance on anthropology. As a group, our preference is to use the
editorial to take a stronger stance than we would individually. We are
not unified in our opinions. We are using Black Seed as an experiment to
suss out more particular critiques. We will use anarchist and
anti-civilization perspectives but not be constrained by them.
One of the great challenges faced by all anarchists is that our words
(rhetoric) imply activity that is damn near impossible in this world.
This is doubly true in the context of the Western world, and double the
challenge again given that we are writing this document well-ensconced
in the heart of the American empire. We are both the beneficiaries of a
system that has destroyed much more than life and the possibility of
living it freely, and the victims of this systemâs most pernicious
power: forgetfulness.
If green anarchy is something distinct from either a general anarchist
hostility towards the existent, or a red anarchist emphasis on class
issues, it is a (necessarily feeble) attempt to reconcile the
aforementioned impossibility. We live in the West and recognize the
emptiness of what such an attempt entails. We have forgotten freedom and
the beauty that surrounds us. We have a suspicion that somewhere in the
conceptual terrain of ecological groups and the environmental movement
lies something worth saving but it is probably less than we thought it
was prior to our direct experience with those groups.
We also think that existing native traditions somehow relate to our
project, which is very different from saying that we should emulate,
parrot, or parody them; we recognize the presumptuous insufficiency of
anthropology and cannot be sure how to negotiate the relationships
between post- and pre-colonized people. What would it mean to live in an
intact social body that is in spiritual connection to the earth? Neither
we, nor anyone around us (especially in the cities), will ever know the
answer to this question -- weekend trips to native lands absolutely not
to the contrary.
This is meager gruel when compared to the utopian aspirations of those
green anarchists who believed the revolution, whether it was to be
brought about by appropriate technology (in the Whole Earth Catalog
period of the 70s and 80s) or the End of Civilization, was right around
the corner. The collapse is not coming. Capitalism has proven its
capacity to swallow whole nearly every culture of resistance that has
risen out of its belly. The crisis is here. It persists in various
permutations within our everyday lives and the worldwide ecological
crises that are already underway. We could write paragraphs of
statistics about how the forests are being destroyed, the salmon, bears,
and wolves are disappearing, polar ice caps are melting, and mountains
are being whittled away. Many have named a specific year in the
not-too-distant future as a âno turning backâ point, when carbon
emissions will have reached a point beyond humanityâs ability to reverse
the damage done to the planetâs many ecologies. While weâll explore
these worthwhile reminders in our publication, weâre more interested in
hearing stories, analysis, and celebrations of general upheaval, social
revolt, and other experiments in mass refusal. We are asking for
dialogue, critique, and reflections on these experiments, while
encouraging both introductory and advanced understanding.
We are inspired by the Miâqmak warriors in so-called New Brunswick,
Canada in their struggle against fracking, those squatting and fighting
against the development of a new airport (and its society!) in the woods
north of Nantes, France, and the actions of the ELF at the Vale Resort
to name but a few. We are moved by these events because they tell a tale
of people with livelihoods inherently connected to the land beneath
their feet coming together to violently resist the dominant social order
and its practice of economic expansion.
The black seed is the distant, future possibility of our questions
acting like weeds, breaking up concrete and ideology, and germinating
into total fucking anarchy.
The Editors,
-ScĂ©alaĂ
-Cedar Leighlais
-Pietje
-Zdereva Itvaryn
-Aragorn!
An Introduction to Anti-Civilization Thought by the Green Anarchy
Collective
Bridging both time and work, the following is an article that was
featured in one of Green Anarchy magazineâs âBack to Basicsâ primers. We
see this as a starting point for further exploration and discussion. The
topics covered are central to a green anarchist critique or perspective.
This is not an exhaustive list, but rather the beginnings of what we
hope will be an ongoing conversation â one to be further expanded,
updated, and explored in subsequent issues of Black Seed.
This primer is not meant to be the âdefining principlesâ for a green
anarchist âmovementâ, nor an anti-civilization manifesto. It is a look
at some of the basic ideas and concepts that collective members share
with each other, and with others who identify as green anarchists. We
understand and celebrate the need to keep our visions and strategies
open, and always welcome discussion. We feel that every aspect of what
we think and who we are constantly needs to be challenged and remain
flexible if we are to grow. We are not interested in developing a new
ideology, nor perpetuating a singular world-view. We also understand
that not all green anarchists are specifically anti-civilization (but we
do have a hard time understanding how one can be against all domination
without getting to its roots: civilization itself). At this point,
however, most who use the term âgreen anarchistâ do indict civilization
and all that comes along with it (domestication, patriarchy, division of
labor, technology, production, representation, alienation,
objectification, control, the destruction of life, etc). While some
would like to speak in terms of direct democracy and urban gardening, we
feel it is impossible and undesirable to âgreen upâ civilization and/or
make it more âfairâ. We feel that it is important to move towards a
radically decentralized world, to challenge the logic and mindset of the
death-culture, to end all mediation in our lives, and to destroy all the
institutions and physical manifestations of this nightmare. We want to
become uncivilized. In more general terms, this is the trajectory of
green anarchy in thought and practice.
One qualifier that we feel is important to begin with is the distinction
between âanarchyâ and âanarchismâ. Some will write this off as merely
semantics or trivial, but for most post-left and anti-civilization
anarchists, this differentiation is important. While anarchism can serve
as an important historical reference point from which to draw
inspiration and lessons, it has become too systematic, fixed, and
ideologicalâŠeverything anarchy is not. Admittedly, this has less to do
with anarchismâs social/political/philosophical orientation, and more to
do with those who identify as anarchists. No doubt, many from our
anarchist lineage would also be disappointed by this trend to solidify
what should always be in flux. The early self-identified anarchists
(Proudhon, Bakunin, Berkman, Goldman, Malatesta, and the like) were
responding to their specific contexts, with their own specific
motivations and desires. Too often, contemporary anarchists see these
individuals as representing the boundaries of anarchy, and create a
W.W.B.D. [What Would Bakunin Do (or more correctlyâThink)] attitude
towards anarchy, which is tragic and potentially dangerous. Today, some
who identify as âclassicalâ anarchists refuse to accept any effort in
previously uncharted territory within anarchism (ie. Primitivism,
Post-Leftism, etc) or trends which have often been at odds with the
rudimentary workersâ mass movement approach (ie. Individualism,
Nihilism, etc). These rigid, dogmatic, and extremely uncreative
anarchists have gone so far as to declare that anarchism is a very
specific social and economic methodology for organizing the working
class. This is obviously an absurd extreme, but such tendencies can be
seen in the ideas and projects of many contemporary anarcho-leftists
(anarcho-sydicalists, anarcho-communists, platformists, federationists).
âAnarchismâ, as it stands today, is a far-left ideology, one which we
need to get beyond. In contrast, âanarchyâ is a formless, fluid, organic
experience embracing multi-faceted visions of liberation, both personal
and collective, and always open. As anarchists, we are not interested in
forming a new framework or structure to live under or within, however
âunobtrusiveâ or âethicalâ it claims to be. Anarchists cannot provide
another world for others, but we can raise questions and ideas, try to
destroy all domination and that which impedes our lives and our dreams,
and live directly connected with our desires.
While not all green anarchists specifically identify as âPrimitivistsâ,
most acknowledge the significance that the primitivist critique has had
on anti-civilization perspectives. Primitivism is simply an
anthropological, intellectual, and experiential examination of the
origins of civilization and the circumstances that led to this nightmare
we currently inhabit. Primitivism recognizes that for most of human
history, we lived in face-to-face communities in balance with each other
and our surroundings, without formal hierarchies and institutions to
mediate and control our lives. Primitivists wish to learn from the
dynamics at play in the past and in contemporary
gatherer-hunter/primitive societies (those that have existed and
currently exist outside of civilization). While some primitivists wish
for an immediate and complete return to gatherer-hunter band societies,
most primitivists understand that an acknowledgement of what has been
successful in the past does not unconditionally determine what will work
in the future. The term âFuture Primitive,â coined by
anarcho-primitivist author John Zerzan, hints that a synthesis of
primitive techniques and ideas can be joined with contemporary anarchist
concepts and motivations to create healthy, sustainable, and egalitarian
decentralized situations. Applied non-ideologically, anarcho-primitivism
can be an important tool in the de-civilizing project.
Green anarchists tend to view civilization as the logic, institutions,
and physical apparatus of domestication, control, and domination. While
different individuals and groups prioritize distinct aspects of
civilization (ie primitivists typically focus on the question of
origins, feminists primarily focus on the roots and manifestations of
patriarchy, and insurrectionary anarchists mainly focus on the
destruction of contemporary institutions of control), most green
anarchists agree that it is the underlying problem or root of
oppression, and it needs to be dismantled. The rise of civilization can
roughly be described as the shift over the past 10,000 years from an
existence within and deeply connected to the web of life, to one
separated from and in control of the rest of life. Prior to civilization
there generally existed ample leisure time, considerable gender autonomy
and equality, a non-destructive approach to the natural world, the
absence of organized violence, no mediating or formal institutions, and
strong health and robusticity. Civilization inaugurated warfare, the
subjugation of women, population growth, drudge work, concepts of
property, entrenched hierarchies, and virtually every known disease, to
name a few of its devastating derivatives. Civilization begins with and
relies on an enforced renunciation of instinctual freedom. It cannot be
reformed and is thus our enemy.
One way of analyzing the extreme discord between the world-views of
primitive and earth-based societies and of civilization, is that of
biocentric vs anthropocentric outlooks. Biocentrism is a perspective
that centers and connects us to the earth and the complex web of life,
while anthropocentrism, the dominant world view of western culture,
places our primary focus on human society, to the exclusion of the rest
of life. A biocentric view does not reject human society, but does move
it out of the status of superiority and puts it into balance with all
other life forces. It places a priority on a bioregional outlook, one
that is deeply connected to the plants, animals, insects, climate,
geographic features, and spirit of the place we inhabit. There is no
split between ourselves and our environment, so there can be no
objectification or otherness to life. Where separation and
objectification are at the base of our ability to dominate and control,
interconnectedness is a prerequisite for deep nurturing, care, and
understanding. Green anarchy strives to move beyond human-centered ideas
and decisions into a humble respect for all life and the dynamics of the
ecosystems that sustain us.
Another aspect of how we view and relate to the world that can be
problematic, in the sense that it separates us from a direct
interaction, is our shift towards an almost exclusively symbolic
culture. Often the response to this questioning is, âSo, you just want
to grunt?â Which might be the desire of a few, but typically the
critique is a look at the problems inherent with a form of communication
and comprehension that relies primarily on symbolic thought at the
expense (and even exclusion) of other sensual and unmediated means. The
emphasis on the symbolic is a movement from direct experience into
mediated experience in the form of language, art, number, time, etc
Symbolic culture filters our entire perception through formal and
informal symbols. Itâs beyond just giving things names, but having an
entire relationship to the world that comes through the lens of
representation. It is debatable as to whether humans are âhard-wiredâ
for symbolic thought or if it developed as a cultural change or
adaptation, but the symbolic mode of expression and understanding is
certainly limited and its over-dependence leads to objectification,
alienation, and a tunnel-vision of perception. Many green anarchists
promote and practice getting in touch with and rekindling dormant or
underutilized methods of interaction and cognition, such as touch,
smell, and telepathy, as well as experimenting with and developing
unique and personal modes of comprehension and expression.
Domestication is the process that civilization uses to indoctrinate and
control life according to its logic. These time-tested mechanisms of
subordination include: taming, breeding, genetically modifying,
schooling, caging, intimidating, coercing, extorting, promising,
governing, enslaving, terrorizing, murderingâŠthe list goes on to include
almost every civilized social interaction. Their movement and effects
can be examined and felt throughout society, enforced through various
institutions, rituals, and customs. It is also the process by which
previously nomadic human populations shift towards a sedentary or
settled existence through agriculture and animal husbandry. This kind of
domestication demands a totalitarian relationship with both the land and
the plants and animals being domesticated. Whereas in a state of
wildness, all life shares and competes for resources, domestication
destroys this balance. The domesticated landscape (eg pastoral
lands/agricultural fields, and to a lesser degreeâhorticulture and
gardening) necessitates the end of open sharing of the resources that
formerly existed; where once âthis was everyoneâs,â it is now âmineâ. In
Daniel Quinnâs novel Ishmael, he explains this transformation from the
âLeaversâ (those who accepted what the earth provided) to that of the
âTakersâ (those who demanded from the earth what they wanted). This
notion of ownership laid the foundation for social hierarchy as property
and power emerged. Domestication not only changes the ecology from a
free to a totalitarian order, it enslaves the species that are
domesticated. Generally the more an environment is controlled, the less
sustainable it is. The domestication of humans themselves involves many
trade-offs in comparison to the foraging, nomadic mode. It is worth
noting here that most of the shifts made from nomadic foraging to
domestication were not made autonomously, they were made by the blade of
the sword or barrel of the gun. Whereas only 2000 years ago the majority
of the world population were gatherer-hunters, it is now .01%. The path
of domestication is a colonizing force that has meant myriad pathologies
for the conquered population and the originators of the practice.
Several examples include a decline in nutritional health due to
over-reliance on non-diverse diets, almost 40â60 diseases integrated
into human populations per domesticated animal (influenza, the common
cold, tuberculosis, etc), the emergence of surplus which can be used to
feed a population out of balance and which invariably involves property
and an end to unconditional sharing.
Toward the beginning in the shift to civilization, an early product of
domestication is patriarchy: the formalization of male domination and
the development of institutions which reinforce it. By creating false
gender distinctions and divisions between men and women, civilization,
again, creates an âotherâ that can be objectified, controlled,
dominated, utilized, and commodified. This runs parallel to the
domestication of plants for agriculture and animals for herding, in
general dynamics, and also in specifics like the control of
reproduction. As in other realms of social stratification, roles are
assigned to women in order to establish a very rigid and predictable
order, beneficial to hierarchy. Woman come to be seen as property, no
different then the crops in the field or the sheep in the pasture.
Ownership and absolute control, whether of land, plants, animals,
slaves, children, or women, is part of the established dynamic of
civilization. Patriarchy demands the subjugation of the feminine and the
usurpation of nature, propelling us toward total annihilation. It
defines power, control and dominion over wildness, freedom, and life.
Patriarchal conditioning dictates all of our interactions; with
ourselves, our sexuality, our relationships to each other, and our
relationship to nature. It severely limits the spectrum of possible
experience. The interconnected relationship between the logic of
civilization and patriarchy is undeniable; for thousands of years they
have shaped the human experience on every level, from the institutional
to the personal, while they have devoured life. To be against
civilization, one must be against patriarchy; and to question
patriarchy, it seems, one must also put civilization into question.
The disconnecting of the ability to care for ourselves and provide for
our own needs is a technique of separation and disempowerment
perpetuated by civilization. We are more useful to the system, and less
useful to ourselves, if we are alienated from our own desires and each
other through division of labor and specialization. We are no longer
able to go out into the world and provide for ourselves and our loved
ones the necessary nourishment and provisions for survival. Instead, we
are forced into the production/consumption commodity system to which we
are always indebted. Inequities of influence come about via the
effective power of various kinds of experts. The concept of a specialist
inherently creates power dynamics and undermines egalitarian
relationships. While the Left may sometimes recognize these concepts
politically, they are viewed as necessary dynamics, to keep in check or
regulate, while green anarchists tend to see division of labor and
specialization as fundamental and irreconcilable problems, decisive to
social relationships within civilization.
Most anti-civilization anarchists reject science as a method of
understanding the world. Science is not neutral. It is loaded with
motives and assumptions that come out of, and reinforce, the catastrophe
of dissociation, disempowerment, and consuming deadness that we call
âcivilization.â Science assumes detachment. This is built into the very
word âobservation.â To âobserveâ something is to perceive it while
distancing oneself emotionally and physically, to have a one-way channel
of âinformationâ moving from the observed thing to the âself,â which is
defined as not a part of that thing. This death-based or mechanistic
view is a religion, the dominant religion of our time. The method of
science deals only with the quantitative. It does not admit values or
emotions, or the way the air smells when itâs starting to rainâor if it
deals with these things, it does so by transforming them into numbers,
by turning oneness with the smell of the rain into abstract
preoccupation with the chemical formula for ozone, turning the way it
makes you feel into the intellectual idea that emotions are only an
illusion of firing neurons. Numbers themselves are not truth but a
chosen style of thinking. We have chosen a habit of mind that focuses
our attention into a world removed from reality, where nothing has
quality or awareness or a life of its own. We have chosen to transform
the living into the dead. Careful-thinking scientists will admit that
what they study is a narrow simulation of the complex real world, but
few of them notice that this narrow focus is self-feeding, that it has
built technological, economic, and political systems that are all
working together, which suck our reality in on itself. As narrow as the
world of numbers is, scientific method does not even permit all
numbersâonly those numbers which are reproducible, predictable, and the
same for all observers. Of course reality itself is not reproducible or
predictable or the same for all observers. But neither are fantasy
worlds derived from reality. Science doesnât stop at pulling us into a
dream worldâit goes one step further and makes this dream world a
nightmare whose contents are selected for predictability and
controllability and uniformity. All surprise and sensuality are
vanquished. Because of science, states of consciousness that cannot be
reliably disposed are classified as insane, or at best ânon-ordinary,â
and excluded. Anomalous experience, anomalous ideas, and anomalous
people are cast off or destroyed like imperfectly-shaped machine
components. Science is only a manifestation and locking in of an urge
for control that weâve had at least since we started farming fields and
fencing animals instead of surfing the less predictable (but more
abundant) world of reality, or ânature.â And from that time to now, this
urge has driven every decision about what counts as âprogressâ, up to
and including the genetic restructuring of life.
All green anarchists question technology on some level. While there are
those who still suggest the notion of âgreenâ or âappropriateâ
technology and search for rationales to cling to forms of domestication,
most reject technology completely. Technology is more than wires,
silicon, plastic, and steel. It is a complex system involving division
of labor, resource extraction, and exploitation for the benefit of those
who implement its process. The interface with and result of technology
is always an alienated, mediated, and distorted reality. Despite the
claims of postmodern apologists and other technophiles, technology is
not neutral. The values and goals of those who produce and control
technology are always embedded within it. Technology is distinct from
simple tools in many regards. A simple tool is a temporary usage of an
element within our immediate surroundings used for a specific task.
Tools do not involve complex systems which alienate the user from the
act. Implicit in technology is this separation, creating an unhealthy
and mediated experience which leads to various forms of authority.
Domination increases every time a new âtime-savingâ technology is
created, as it necessitates the construction of more technology to
support, fuel, maintain and repair the original technology. This has led
very rapidly to the establishment of a complex technological system that
seems to have an existence independent from the humans who created it.
Discarded by-products of the technological society are polluting both
our physical and our psychological environments. Lives are stolen in
service of the Machine and the toxic effluent of the technological
systemâs fuelsâboth are choking us. Technology is now replicating
itself, with something resembling a sinister sentience. Technological
society is a planetary infection, propelled forward by its own momentum,
rapidly ordering a new kind of environment: one designed for mechanical
efficiency and technological expansionism alone. The technological
system methodically destroys, eliminates, or subordinates the natural
world, constructing a world fit only for machines. The ideal for which
the technological system strives is the mechanization of everything it
encounters.
A key component of the modern techno-capitalist structure is
industrialism, the mechanized system of production built on centralized
power and the exploitation of people and nature. Industrialism cannot
exist without genocide, ecocide, and colonialism. To maintain it,
coercion, land evictions, forced labor, cultural destruction,
assimilation, ecological devastation, and global trade are accepted as
necessary, even benign. Industrialismâs standardization of life
objectifies and commodifies it, viewing all life as a potential
resource. A critique of industrialism is a natural extension of the
anarchist critique of the state because industrialism is inherently
authoritarian. In order to maintain an industrial society, one must set
out to conquer and colonize lands in order to acquire (generally)
non-renewable resources to fuel and grease the machines. This
colonialism is rationalized by racism, sexism, and cultural chauvinism.
In the process of acquiring these resources, people must be forced off
their land. And in order to make people work in the factories that
produce the machines, they must be enslaved, made dependent, and
otherwise subjected to the destructive, toxic, degrading industrial
system. Industrialism cannot exist without massive centralization and
specialization: Class domination is a tool of the industrial system that
denies people access to resources and knowledge, making them helpless
and easy to exploit. Furthermore, industrialism demands that resources
be shipped from all over the globe in order to perpetuate its existence,
and this globalism undermines local autonomy and self-sufficiency. It is
a mechanistic worldview that is behind industrialism. This is the same
world-view that has justified slavery, exterminations, and the
subjugation of women. It should be obvious to all that industrialism is
not only oppressive for humans, but that it is also fundamentally
ecologically destructive.
Unfortunately, many anarchists continue to be viewed, and view
themselves, as part of the Left. This tendency is changing, as post-left
and anti-civilization anarchists make clear distinctions between their
perspectives and the bankruptcy of the socialist and liberal
orientations. Not only has the Left proven itself to be a monumental
failure in its objectives, but it is obvious from its history,
contemporary practice, and ideological framework, that the Left (while
presenting itself as altruistic and promoting âfreedomâ) is actually the
antithesis of liberation. The Left has never fundamentally questioned
technology, production, organization, representation, alienation,
authoritarianism, morality, or Progress, and it has almost nothing to
say about ecology, autonomy, or the individual on any meaningful level.
The Left is a general term and can roughly describe all socialist
leanings (from social democrats and liberals to Maoists and Stalinists)
which wish to re-socialize âthe massesâ into a more âprogressiveâ
agenda, often using coercive and manipulative approaches in order to
create a false âunityâ or the creation of political parties. While the
methods or extremes in implementation may differ, the overall push is
the same, the institution of a collectivized and monolithic world-view
based on morality.
Most anarchists and ârevolutionariesâ spend a significant portion of
their time developing schemes and mechanisms for production,
distribution, adjudication, and communication between large numbers of
people; in other words, the functioning of a complex society. But not
all anarchists accept the premise of global (or even regional) social,
political, and economic coordination and interdependence, or the
organization needed for their administration. We reject mass society for
practical and philosophical reasons. First, we reject the inherent
representation necessary for the functioning of situations outside of
the realm of direct experience (completely decentralized modes of
existence). We do not wish to run society, or organize a different
society, we want a completely different frame of reference. We want a
world where each group is autonomous and decides on its own terms how to
live, with all interactions based on affinity, free and open, and
non-coercive. We want a life which we live, not one which is run. Mass
society brutally collides not only with autonomy and the individual, but
also with the earth. It is simply not sustainable (in terms of the
resource extraction, transportation, and communication systems necessary
for any global economic system) to continue on with, or to provide
alternative plans for a mass society. Again, radical de-centralization
seems key to autonomy and providing non-hierarchical and sustainable
methods of subsistence.
We are beings striving for a deep and total break with the civilized
order, anarchists desiring unrestrained freedom. We fight for
liberation, for a de-centralized and unmediated relationship with our
surroundings and those we love and share affinity with. Organizational
models only provide us with more of the same bureaucracy, control, and
alienation that we receive from the current set-up. While there might be
an occasional good intention, the organizational model comes from an
inherently paternalistic and distrusting mindset which seems
contradictory to anarchy. True relationships of affinity come from a
deep understanding of one another through intimate need-based
relationships of day-to-day life, not relationships based on
organizations, ideologies, or abstract ideas. Typically, the
organizational model suppresses individual needs and desires for âthe
good of the collectiveâ as it attempts to standardize both resistance
and vision. From parties, to platforms, to federations, it seems that as
the scale of projects increase, the meaning and relevance they have for
oneâs own life decrease. Organizations are means for stabilizing
creativity, controlling dissent, and reducing âcounter-revolutionary
tangentsâ (as chiefly determined by the elite cadres or leadership).
They typically dwell in the quantitative, rather than the qualitative,
and offer little space for independent thought or action. Informal,
affinity-based associations tend to minimize alienation from decisions
and processes, and reduce mediation between our desires and our actions.
Relationships between groups of affinity are best left organic and
temporal, rather than fixed and rigid.
As anarchists, we are fundamentally opposed to government, and likewise,
any sort of collaboration or mediation with the state (or any
institution of hierarchy and control). This position determines a
certain continuity or direction of strategy, historically referred to as
revolution. This term, while warped, diluted, and co-opted by various
ideologies and agendas, can still have meaning to the anarchist and
anti-ideological praxis. By revolution, we mean the ongoing struggle to
alter the social and political landscape in a fundamental way; for
anarchists, this means its complete dismantling. The word ârevolutionâ
is dependent on the position from which it is directed, as well as what
would be termed ârevolutionaryâ activity. Again, for anarchists, this is
activity which is aimed at the complete dissolving of power. Reform, on
the other hand, entails any activity or strategy aimed at adjusting,
altering, or selectively maintaining elements of the current system,
typically utilizing the methods or apparatus of that system. The goals
and methods of revolution cannot be dictated by, nor performed within,
the context of the system. For anarchists, revolution and reform invoke
incompatible methods and aims, and despite certain anarcho-liberal
approaches, do not exist on a continuum. For anti-civilization
anarchists, revolutionary activity questions, challenges, and works to
dismantle the entire set-up or paradigm of civilization. Revolution is
also not a far-off or distant singular event which we build towards or
prepare people for, but instead, a life-way or practice of approaching
situations.
Anarchists in general, and green anarchists in particular, favor direct
action over mediated or symbolic forms of resistance. Various methods
and approaches, including cultural subversion, sabotage, insurrection,
and political violence (although not limited to these) have been and
remain part of the anarchist arsenal of attack. No one tactic can be
effective in significantly altering the current order or its trajectory,
but these methods, combined with transparent and ongoing social
critique, are important. Subversion of the system can occur from the
subtle to the dramatic, and can also be an important element of physical
resistance. Sabotage has always been a vital part of anarchist
activities, whether in the form of spontaneous vandalism (public or
nocturnal) or through more highly illegal underground coordination in
cell formation. Recently, groups like the Earth Liberation Front, a
radical environmental group made up of autonomous cells targeting those
who profit off of the destruction of the earth, have caused millions of
dollars of damage to corporate outlets and offices, banks, timber mills,
genetic research facilities, sport utility vehicles, and luxury homes.
These actions, often taking the form of arson, along with articulate
communiqués frequently indicting civilization, have inspired others to
take action, and are effective means of not only bringing attention to
environmental degradation, but also as deterrents to specific earth
destroyers. Insurrectionary activity, or the proliferation of
insurrectionary moments which can cause a rupture in the social peace in
which peopleâs spontaneous rage can be unleashed and possibly spread
into revolutionary conditions, are also on the rise. The riots in
Seattle in 1999, Prague in 2000, and Genoa in 2001, were all (in
different ways) sparks of insurrectionary activity, which, although
limited in scope, can be seen as attempts to move in insurrectionary
directions and make qualitative breaks with reformism and the entire
system of enslavement. Political violence, including the targeting of
individuals responsible for specific activities or the decisions which
lead to oppression, has also been a focus for anarchists historically.
Finally, considering the immense reality and all-pervasive reach of the
system (socially, politically, technologically), attacks on the
techno-grid and infrastructure of the mega-machine are of interest to
anti-civilization anarchists. Regardless of approaches and intensity,
militant action coupled with insightful analysis of civilization is
increasing.
As the march towards global annihilation continues, as society becomes
more unhealthy, as we lose more control over our own lives, and as we
fail to create significant resistance to the death-culture, it is vital
for us to be extremely critical of past ârevolutionaryâ movements,
current struggles, and our own projects. We cannot perpetually repeat
the mistakes of the past or be blind to our own deficiencies. The
radical environmental movement is filled with single-issued campaigns
and symbolic gestures and the anarchist scene is plagued with leftist
and liberal tendencies. Both continue to go through rather meaningless
âactivistâ motions, rarely attempting to objectively assess their
(in)effectiveness. Often guilt and self-sacrifice, rather than their own
liberation and freedom, guide these social do-gooders, as they proceed
along a course that has been plotted out by the failures before them.
The Left is a festering sore on the ass of humanity, environmentalists
have been unsuccessful at preserving even a fraction of wild areas, and
anarchists rarely have anything provocative to say, let alone do. While
some would argue against criticism because it is âdivisiveâ, any truly
radical perspective would see the necessity of critical examination, in
changing our lives and the world we inhabit. Those who wish to quell all
debate until âafter the revolutionâ, to contain all discussion into
vague and meaningless chatter, and to subdue criticism of strategy,
tactics, or ideas, are going nowhere, and can only hold us back. An
essential aspect to any radical anarchist perspective must be to put
everything into question, certainly including our own ideas, projects,
and actions.
The green anarchist perspective is diverse and open, yet it does contain
some continuity and primary elements. It has been influenced by
anarchists, primitivists, Luddites, insurrectionalists, Situationists,
surrealists, nihilists, deep ecologists, bioregionalists, eco-feminists,
various indigenous cultures, anti-colonial struggles, the feral, the
wild, and the earth. Anarchists, obviously, contribute the
anti-authoritarian push, which challenges all power on a fundamental
level, striving for truly egalitarian relationships and promoting
mutual-aid communities. Green anarchists, however, extend ideas of
non-domination to all of life, not just human life, going beyond the
traditional anarchist analysis. From primitivists, green anarchists are
informed with a critical and provocative look at the origins of
civilization, so as to understand what this mess is and how we got here,
to help inform a change in direction. Inspired by the Luddites, green
anarchists rekindle an anti-technological/industrial direct action
orientation. Insurrectionalists infuse a perspective which waits not for
the fine-tuning of a crystalline critique, but identify and
spontaneously attack current institutions of civilization which
inherently bind our freedom and desire. Anti-civilization anarchists owe
much to the Situationists, and their critique of the alienating
commodity society, which we can break from by connecting with our dreams
and unmediated desires. Nihilismâs refusal to accept any of the current
reality understands the deeply engrained unhealth of this society and
offers green anarchists a strategy which does not necessitate offering
visions for society, but instead focuses on its destruction. Deep
ecology, despite its misanthropic tendencies, informs the green
anarchist perspective with an understanding that the well-being and
flourishing of all life is linked to the awareness of the inherent worth
and intrinsic value of the non-human world independent of use value.
Deep ecologyâs appreciation for the richness and diversity of life
contributes to the realization that the present human interference with
the non-human world is coercive and excessive, with the situation
rapidly worsening. Bioregionalists bring the perspective of living
within oneâs bioregion, and being intimately connected to the land,
water, climate, plants, animals, and general patterns of their
bioregion. Eco-feminists have contributed to the comprehension of the
roots, dynamics, manifestations, and reality of patriarchy, and its
effect on the earth, women in particular, and humanity in general.
Recently, the destructive separation of humans from the earth
(civilization) has probably been articulated most clearly and intensely
by eco-feminists. Anti-civilization anarchists have been profoundly
influenced by the various indigenous cultures and earth-based peoples
throughout history and those who still currently exist. While we humbly
learn and incorporate sustainable techniques for survival and healthier
ways of interacting with life, it is important to not flatten or
generalize native peoples and their cultures, and to respect and attempt
to understand their diversity without co-opting cultural identities and
characteristics. Solidarity, support, and attempts to connect with
native and anti-colonial struggles, which have been the front-lines of
the fight against civilization, are essential as we attempt to dismantle
the death-machine. It is also important to understand that we, at some
point, have all come from earth-based peoples forcibly removed from our
connections with the earth, and therefore have a place within
anti-colonial struggles. We are also inspired by the feral, those who
have escaped domestication and have re-integrated with the wild. And, of
course, the wild beings which make up this beautiful blue and green
organism called Earth. It is also important to remember that, while many
green anarchists draw influence from similar sources, green anarchy is
something very personal to each who identify or connect with these ideas
and actions. Perspectives derived from oneâs own life experiences within
the death-culture (civilization), and oneâs own desires outside the
domestication process, are ultimately the most vivid and important in
the uncivilizing process.
For most green/anti-civilization/primitivist anarchists, rewilding and
reconnecting with the earth is a life project. It is not limited to
intellectual comprehension or the practice of primitive skills, but
instead, it is a deep understanding of the pervasive ways in which we
are domesticated, fractured, and dislocated from our selves, each other,
and the world, and the enormous and daily undertaking to be whole again.
Rewilding has a physical component which involves reclaiming skills and
developing methods for a sustainable co-existence, including how to
feed, shelter, and heal ourselves with the plants, animals, and
materials occurring naturally in our bioregion. It also includes the
dismantling of the physical manifestations, apparatus, and
infrastructure of civilization. Rewilding has an emotional component,
which involves healing ourselves and each other from the 10,000 year-old
wounds which run deep, learning how to live together in non-hierarchical
and non-oppressive communities, and deconstructing the domesticating
mindset in our social patterns. Rewilding involves prioritizing direct
experience and passion over mediation and alienation, re-thinking every
dynamic and aspect of our reality, connecting with our feral fury to
defend our lives and to fight for a liberated existence, developing more
trust in our intuition and being more connected to our instincts, and
regaining the balance that has been virtually destroyed after thousands
of years of patriarchal control and domestication. Rewilding is the
process of becoming uncivilized.
For the Destruction of Civilization!
For the Reconnection to Life!
Squirrel Blamed For Massive Southern Marin Power Outage - Marin
Independent Journal, 1/8/2014
A squirrel is being blamed for a large power outage in Marin County that
affected 23,000 customers Wednesday morning, according to Pacific Gas &
Electric Co. PG&E spokesman Paul Moreno said the outage began at 10:12
a.m. when a squirrel caused a flashover and damaged a breaker at the
Mill Valley substation. He said the squirrel acted as a conductor
between equipment and didnât survive the experience. About 12,000
customers in the affected areas of Mill Valley, Corte Madera, Tiburon
and Muir Beach had restored power by 11:17 a.m. At 11:39 a.m. power was
restored to all, Moreno said.
Popeâs Peace Doves Attacked By Crow & Seagull - from The Guardian,
1/26/2014
Two white doves that were released as a peace gesture by children
standing alongside Pope Francis were attacked by other birds. As tens of
thousands of people watched in St Peterâs Square on Sunday, a seagull
and a large black crow swept down on the doves after they were set free
from an open window of the Apostolic Palace. One dove lost some feathers
as it broke free from the gull. But the crow pecked repeatedly at the
other dove. It was not clear what happened to the doves as they flew
off. Speaking at the window beforehand, Francis appealed for peace in
Ukraine, where anti-government protesters have died.
Woman Badly Mauled By Black Bear in Her Suburban Florida Home - from
NatureWorldNews, 4/14/2014
A woman in Seminole County, Florida was attacked by a 200-pound bear in
the garage of her home, according to the Orlando Sentinel. The woman
survived with bite marks to her head, arm and leg and claw marks on her
back. She had to have 30 staples and 10 stitches in her head before
being released from the hospital. Coincidentally, the day she was
attacked an advisory had been issued about Florida black bear activity
increasing, as the animals have just come out of their dens from winter
hibernation. The day after the attack, the State said it captured and
killed three bears in the area that showed no fear of people. One of the
three bears was described as particularity aggressive. Our thoughts go
out to the bearsâ families and we wish them a speedy vengeance.
Earthquake Liberates Over 300 Prisoners In Chile - from Russia Today,
4/2/2014
Armed forces were sent to the city of Iquique, Chile to track down
escaped prisoners after an earthquake, several after-shocks and the
threat of tsunami wreaked havoc on a womenâs prison. Authorities say the
situation got out of control because the prison is located in an area
prone to flooding. At the time of reporting, only 16 prisoners had been
re-captured.
We received a handful of responses to our original call-out for
submissions that were posted on various websites. We decided to reprint
the call-out for the sake of coherency alongside some interesting
dialogue/responses weâve since had.
It has been almost 6 years since the last issue of Green Anarchy. During
its 25-issue run, the magazine brought green anarchist ideas to North
America and the world. It succeeded as an incubator of ideas and a real
provocation for those both inside and outside of the anarchist milieu.
In the intervening years, even with drastic changes in terms of green
capitalism, technological advancement, and an ever-worsening ecological
crisis, green anarchist and anti-civilization ideas have not been
terribly visible.
We intend to reintroduce this green anarchist provocation. The new
project will have a different orientation than Green Anarchy did. Rather
than framing our theory and practice in the abstract world of historical
and anthropological perspectives on civilization (or in a fetishization
of primitive cultures), we begin in conversation and with our own
personal experiences. Currently, in the English-speaking world,
single-issue, campaign-based organizing dominates radical perspectives
on the developing global ecological crises and resistance to
dominationâs ever-expanding encroachment. As anarchists, we desire to
push the dialogue further and open a space to engage critically with the
development of capitalism and the state, along with the dead-ends of
environmental activism, in both the radical varieties and the more
recent mainstream green âcivil disobedienceâ movements.
We are a collective comprised of former contributors to Green Anarchy
magazine, recent propagandists of a green anarchist persuasion, and
other rabble-rousers. This publication will be editorially controlled by
us and produced and distributed by Little Black Cart. We intend to
release a biannual publication and we are asking for your help.
We want to hear about your experiences. Please send us stories of
ecological struggle, anti-authoritarian earth-based coalitions,
non-materialist anarchist practice, allied prisoners, and signs of the
systemâs meltdown. We are interested in developing critiques of
civilization, the state, and technology; as methods of social control
evolve and adapt, so must our understandings of them. We are also
interested in a mixed medium of submissions such as original artwork,
photography, poetry, etc.
Question: Can anyone explain what non-materialist means here? Do they
just mean theyâre not Marxists?
Answer: One of the weaknesses of radical politics today is that our
desire for freedom sounds an awful lot like, and indeed uses many of the
same words as, other groups in their desire for freedom. The English
words we use have themselves been trapped by traditions: liberal,
Marxist, colonial. It is a challenge to say anything at all, especially
something simple or ancient, framed by those we despise.
Personally, Iâm looking for stories about what anarchists do that break
out of academic or spiritual discourse, out of the particular traps I
see in the circles around me. For you, it could be that the traps are
countercultural or age-related. For another, it may be a question of
rural versus urban or a question of identity or of subsistence. So to
clarify the question in our original call-out, how do we open a about
anarchist practice without receiving cornball answers to a question we
arenât asking. Iâm not looking for solutions as much as I am engagement
that lives anarchist and breathes the land.
Green anarchism often times sounds either woo or like itâs in recovery
from Situationist or Earth First! ideas. For many people, thatâs a high
mark that they would be happy to reach. However, a fierce green
anarchist perspective could also be specifically land-based,
multigenerational, and grounded in relationships beyond casual affinity.
It could learn from other people doing this things rather than chasing
the so-called radical politics of activism, safe spaces, and
decolonization in word alone.
-Aragorn!
What follows is an email correspondence between a member of the Fierce
Dreams Collective, who put together a wild-skill-share gathering out in
the woods in Australia, and one of the editorial collective members of
Black Seed. Both writers felt it was fit for submitting given that it
highlights much of the conversations and contradictions surrounding
contemporary green-anarchist thought.
Hi there Black Seed.
Itâs good to know that someone has an interest in continuing an ongoing
green anarchist journal, a process that Green Anarchy (an
anti-civilization journal of theory and action that was published from
2000-2009) started but couldnât continue with. It is missed.
I had a bit of trouble understanding some of the post, or the journalâs
intent. It could be a failure on my part, or it may be a collective
project so different folks want different things. However, the
terminology of âfetishizingâ indigenous cultures threw me off. After
all, anarcho-primitivism seems to me to be the only strain of
anarchistic thought that takes the ongoing genocide of indigenous people
seriously, and the only thread that analyses hunter-gatherer lifeways to
compare with current incarnations of mass society. This is significant
because humans have existed so long without civilization but this fact
is often still overlooked. I could understand if you want to scale back
the anthropology, but I donât feel that GA (Green Anarchy) fetishized
indigenous cultures (maybe you feel differently, maybe some specific
indigenous folks did, and thatâs a topic for discussion of course), and
I guess I wonder because this is a typical attack from leftists against
green anarchists still today.
Speaking of leftism, the callout has said it wants to go beyond the dead
ends of activism, but wants to focus on the development of capital and
the state. If this journal is inspired by GA, the most powerful and
long-lasting effects were its decimation of the left. There are so many
avenues to talk about capital and the state (red anarchist blogs,
historical materialism conferences, etc...). Iâm not sure whatâs meant
by this.
I would also offer that green anarchist thought may have not been as
visible in some ways as it was in the mid 2000âs when GA magazine was in
full force but if you are trying to rekindle interest Iâm not sure why
you would downplay or trivialize the tactical resistance to civilization
that is going on worldwide, possibly sparked by GA and similar sources.
Right now in Chile, Moscow, Brazil, Mexico, and Finland, to name only a
few, there are people speaking out and directly acting against
civilization, explicitly naming it as the enemy in various communiques.
I would say personally that the ideas have not gone away, rather they
have spread further and also formed connections with other struggles. Of
course GA was very well known, and had a huge distribution, and very
prominent writers, so there is a need for green anarchist theory and
voices nowadays in North America, which you are obviously addressing.
Anyway thatâs just a few thoughts off the top of my head. If you want to
see what our collective has been doing, there is a website:
fiercedreams.wordpress.com. Weâve had a gathering and a couple of
discussion nights so far and are motivated to continue exploring ideas
around green anarchy in our corner of the world.
All the best, keep it wild.
Riflebird
Riflebird,
First I wanted to thank you for your response. This kind of
correspondence is exactly what Iâm hoping to get out of working on this
publication. I also want to go ahead and say that my response is not
representative of the other members of the editorial collective, I donât
think this type of correspondence necessitates nor could accomplish a
âcollective response.â
I guess what âfetishizingâ of indigenous cultures that was referenced in
the original call-out for submissions means to me is this tendency I
have seen in the green-anarchist milieu to sort of put forth the idea
that the way hunter-gatherer people lived was totally egalitarian, free
from domination, and can be taken as a model to plan our future
societies after industrial collapse. What I see as problematic in that
assertion are a couple of things: A) This idea is largely reliant on the
studies of anthropology, an academic social science that views its
knowledge and research as ultimate and superior as it stands within the
academic university. I do see the importance of studying and learning
how humans have lived without the constraints of civilization, and how
those studies in and of themselves can have bright insights into the
oppressive manner of our current situations, yet the academic university
approach is something I wish to step away from in an anarchist discourse
given its specialized role in knowledge. B) The idea of creating or
finding models in which we can follow to set up new societies âafter the
collapseâ or âafter the ruptureâ is not something I am interested in at
all. My âprojectâ or however you want to describe someoneâs
pursuit-of-anarchy-in-life is negative; I mean to focus on the
destruction of civilization, the state, capitalism, technology,
mediation, etc. The topic of âhow will we hunt and gather when the
cities collapse?â can be an interesting and fun thought-experiment, yet
to me resembles the talk of âhow will we organize the factories and
cafĂ©s after the collapse of capitalism?â I am not so interested in how
to live in liberation, which when discussed in this way frames the
sometime-in-the-future-insurrection-to-come the same way that Christians
might talk about âthe Apocalypseâ or Maoists talk about âthe
Revolution,â but Iâm more interested in dismantling the current
structures that dominate our lives and the world around us. I donât
believe it will realistically ever happen, yet I believe in the
importance of it nonetheless.
Apart from that, one only needs to look at the Green Anarchy Primer Back
To Basics Volume 1 to see just one example of the tendency of the green
anarchist milieu to fetishize indigenous culture. What is seen on the
first page is a picture of children running with spears in hands, taken
completely out of context. One could ascertain that the imposed meaning
on the inclusion of this photo is âLook at these wild children on the
hunt! Amazing! Free! Anarchy!â This surface-level acknowledgement of a
lifestyle merely reduces it to images that accompany political thought,
completely disregarding the complexities and nuances that accompany any
such lifestyle completely enveloped in the immediate surrounding world.
None of this is to say that indigenous culture is of no importance. If
anything I wish to bring to light a discourse with and around indigenous
communities and anarchy through this publication. At the least I want to
hear from and dialogue with people in those communities, not write about
them from afar.
The point you made of the criticism of the left in GA: I definitely find
much importance in critiquing the left as they are our enemies and will
recuperate anything they can get their hands on. On the other hand, a
sentiment that I shared with some of the co-editors of Black Seed was
that GA seemed a bit obsessive and fixated on critiquing the left. It
became a thing for me at least where honestly I got quite bored with
reading essay after essay attacking leftists. And perhaps this is one
place in the announcement of the Black Seed project where the wording
could have been worked on a little bit more, but to me capital and the
state go hand in hand with civilization and technology. They are each
spurred on by the other, and an advancement in the economy, technology
or politics is an advancement for the others. I hope to help facilitate
through this publication an illustration of the intertwined relations of
each monster. I am completely baffled when I meet
anarchists/anti-capitalists/whatever-rebels who do not find importance
in the critiques and dismantling of technology and civilization.
And I would agree with your sentiment that it was perhaps unfitting to
downplay currently ongoing explicitly anti-civilization struggles in
other parts of the world. I would say that that sentiment came from a
focus that is more directed at North America, where the dialogue
surrounding environmental issues and radical/anarchist intervention is
predominately maintained by those of Earth First! and Rising Tide;
mostly leftist coalitions focused on issue-based-campaign organizing
that resembles nothing more than begging to me. It would certainly
behoove us in the North American context to give nods or at least
acknowledge those who we share affinity with worldwide. To âdownplay or
trivialize the tactical resistance to civilizationâ is certainly not my
intention and I would assume not those of the co-editors either.
Best wishes, for anarchy,
Cedar Leighlais, Black Seed Collective
Hello Cedar!
Thanks so much for your interesting and considered email. I found it
quite thought provoking and definitely want to pursue the dialogue as
well. As far as writing a collective response yes I have been struggling
with that conundrum too this year. For this situation itâs a lot better
to sort it out as individuals.
All that you have said makes sense to me and leaves me wanting to write
something for Black Seed. Not all of it I agree with, however, which is
all the more intriguing. For instance I donât think that all band
societies were egalitarian and utopian... but they offer the only
example of longterm anarchist life to this day in my opinion (anarchy on
a basic level, as having no rulers). So in that way, as a comparison
point, since certain groups have some characteristics (once again, not
treating non-civilized societies as a monolith) that are such a radical
departure from life in mass society, I see value in discussing the
differences. I do agree that they should not provide any kind of model
or ideal, because post-civilization life will be a hell of a lot
different to pre-civilization life. I totally agree about avoiding the
trap of relying upon anthropology to try to give authority to any
arguments against civilization, and I personally see it as just another
institution that has to go.
From what you are saying, and I will endeavor to better understand it as
we go along, we have a fair bit in common. I realize that because I
havenât been involved in any scene or urban anarchist community for a
while, some of my influences are not exactly new (not to say they are
all outdated, I hope). I am becoming more informed about what people are
generally feeling and thinking here in Australia the more I reach out
and try to have a dialogue. So I feel as if any discussions I can have
are going to be good for me, to bring me up to date and up to speed with
what is happening in the urban areas and around the world. Recently I
read Seaweedâs Land and Freedom and I feel as if that is a great
indicator, it does talk of capitalism and production, but also does not
valorize nomadic hunter-gathering lifeways as an ideal, and does not
dwell on academic or anthropological references, but it is still
certainly green-anarchist leaning. Have you read that?
As far as the left goes, I did and do appreciate the anti-leftist raves
in GA, but it is more for comic relief and blowing off steam than
anything else. I take your point that there was probably too much of it
and it detracted from the more important work of dismantling
civilization and also may have formed a clique. The main reason I still
see value in slamming the left is in the context of Australia it still
goes so unquestioned. I feel like I have to defend myself routinely
against moderate political activists a lot, and there is a strong
overtone of presumptuousness and a pious tone that is still the default
setting of âpolitical campaigningâ here. I feel as if there is still a
lot of work to do to break away from that and make it clear that we are
not part of the left and do not ascribe to the values of the left. But
for any potential Black Seed articles I would tone it down and focus on
the task at hand! Haha. I certainly can see how the atmosphere is
different in North America with Earth First! and whatnot, and it is a
different beast. There are a lot more anarchists, a lot more
anti-civilization discussion, just basically more people and more
history.
There are a lot of parallels here though with activism, anti-logging
protests, and N.G.O.âs and environmental campaigning to âsave the
forestsâ. It is the predominant method of combatting the ongoing
ecological destruction, even to this day, and these âmovementsâ mostly
plod along without critique.
You mentioned, âI am baffled when I meet
anarchists/anti-capitalists/whatever-rebels who do not find importance
in the critiques of technology and civilization.â Well, I am too, but
subsequently I am baffled a LOT. The general vibe is one of
defensiveness, outrage and scorn when these topics come up in most
anarchist spaces here. It is breaking down slowly but it is going to
take a while. Putting on Fierce Dreams has created a few openings and
possibilities and so we will continue with this project in some shape or
form as I feel that gatherings put people in direct contact with each
other, at least among some trees. For a country so vast where folks are
often isolated, it can be a good start.
All the best,
For the death of Leviathan,
Riflebird
Russia: Two Excavators Torched - from interarma.info, 2/14/2014
â... we followed routine procedure: put some rags around engine parts
and oil pumps, soaked them with gasoline, etc. After we left the area,
we tarried for some time to enjoy the night view. Both excavators were
trailing huge columns of smoke into the air. We establish the damage
done at around 6-8 million rubles (approx. 200 000 USD).
We hope this act will slow down operations in this quarry. The area
already boasts several abandoned quarries. Since our initial recon in
this district large tracts of wood were drained and cut in order to
clear up space for more quarry works. The sand excavated in here is used
for future developement projects that do not take Nature or clean air
into account.
We wish best of luck to all of you. Keep that fire burning.
MOSCOW 2014, ELF/FAI/IRFâ
Turkey: Excavator Torched - from interarma.info, 2/20/2014
âOn Thursday, February 20th, in Poyraz rural regions of Anatolian part
of Istanbul, we attacked an excavator which is left to sleep on the
verge of excavating the nature and we spray painted several locations
around the site with the signs of âELF-FAI/IRF.â While this nature
killer became unusable with a simple, time-set, handmade incendiary
device, the message we wanted to give was clear: âIf you build it, we
will burn and destroy it!â
Tractors Sabotaged in Atlanta, GA - from directaction.info, 2/22/2014
âOn the night of February 22nd, we poured a mixture of sand and water
into the fuel tanks of two tractors used in the construction of a new
Atlanta streetcar. We offer this small gesture of solidarity to the ZAD,
the No TAV movement, and the occupation of the Hambach Forest. We would
also like to send strength to those affected by increased surveillance
or repression the new developments have brought to Atlanta.â
Brazil: 10 Police Cars Torched Inside Military Barracks - from War On
Society Blog, 2/24/2014
âThe financial loss estimated by the alarmed media is around 1 million
but the actual losses are really more extensive than financial figures.
It shows that they are vulnerable and that with just a little bit of
gasoline and audacity we can strike them in the chest. The police, the
media, the law abiding citizens, the secretary of security, and the
governor poured out their pity. We applaud all the indomitable.â
Greece: Imprisoned Members of CCF Attack Prosecuting Witness During
Trial - from Interarma, 2/27/2014
During this trial, the members of the Conspiracy Cells of Fire are being
accused of setting fire to a prosecutorâs house who has been responsible
for jailing many anarchist-guerillas. In this session, Vassilis Foukas,
the prosecutor, was brought forth as a witness, and when it was the
imprisonedâs turn to ask question, Foukas grew irritated, mouthed-off
and attempted to walk out. Two of the CCF jumped up and got in his way,
attacking him. The cops stepped in and helped him to escape before more
could get involved.
Before that, the Foukas had said âI donât have to answer anything!â just
to get the response by a comrade âAsshole we burned your house, now we
will bomb itâŠâ The court adjourned and decided that the witness should
be called again so that the questions can be completed.
Mexico: Package Bomb Sent to University Scientist - from War On Society
Blog, Late-March
â...We abandon words and analyses in order to begin with our war, the
war against what kills us and consumes us, against the invincible
megamachine which only wild nature or its very own technology can
collapse. We do not seek victories, triumphs or results from what we do
or have done, we are not revolutionaries, platformists or anarchists.
We only seek confrontation with the system, the sharpening of the
conflict against it. From this day we publicly put aside the word
âanalysis,â in order to become The Obsidian Point Circle of Attack.
And with that said, we declare ourselves responsible for a package bomb
with a considerable quantity of shrapnel, sent in the final days of
March by express mail to Dr. José Narro Robles... Why attack the
ârespectableâ Mr. Narro?⊠Here is our response: Narro is one of the many
public figures who propels the great majority of scientific and
technological projects within and without the country, which tend to
improve civilization, which aim toward economic development, and which
tend toward progress, toward the perpetuation of the technoindustrial
system, and finally the modification and destruction of wild nature
(along with human nature).
We care little what they call us, such as âbarbarian,â âfoolish,â
âmediocre,â etc, we do not want to give any âgood impressionâ to their
eyes, we do not want to be, nor are we, nor will we be, the traditional
âsocial fightersâ of Mexico, we are egoist radicals, politically
incorrect, irreverently individualist at war against the progress of the
technoindustrial system.â
Oakland, CA Police Office Attacked - from anarchistnews.org, 4/2/2014
âOur aim was to demonstrate that action, however small, is both possible
and desirable.
We dedicate this action to the rebels in Durham, North Carolina who have
repeatedly taken to the streets in outrage against the killer pigs who
murdered a young man, Chuy Huerta, in the back of a cop car last year.
Weapons in hand,
we attacked for Chuy.â
Mining Executiveâs Vancouver, B.C. Home Sprayed With Gunfire - from The
Vancouver Sun, 4/4/2014
The home belonging to Johnathan More and Taylor Rae More was peppered
with bullets the morning of Friday, April 4th. Johnathan More is
president and CEO of Aldrin Resource Corp., a junior uranium company
that is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange. The company recently
announced its crews had begun drilling in search of uranium at its
property in Saskatchewanâs Athabasca Basin.
He is also named as a director of Athabasca Nuclear, another
Venture-listed uranium explorer, and the CEO and director of Mira
Resources Corp., an oil and gas company with projects in West African
countries Ghana and Angola.
More is listed on the Mira website as a former investment adviser and
the founder of JM Finance LTD, a Canadian venture capital company.
Police responded to emergency phone calls about the incident and taped
off the two-story home. It is not known whether or not they were home
during the shooting, and no suspects have been named.
Meat Industry Suppliers Sabotaged in Solidarity With Animal Liberation
Prisoners in Portland, OR - from Puget Sound Anarchists, 4/10/2014
On the night of April 10th, the locks were glued at Market Supply Co.
(139 SE Taylor St, Portland, OR) and McGraw Marketing Co. (2514 SE 23rd
Ave, Portland OR) also had its lock jammed with liquid nails.
These minor acts were done in solidarity with animal liberation prisoner
Kevin Olliff.
Montreal: Rail Lines Blocked in Solidarity with Indigenous Communities
in Conflict with the State - anarchistnews.org, 4/8/2014
â...8 train lines running through Montreal were blocked by disrupting
the rail signals. This action was done in response to ongoing effors of
colonization and repression by the state against indigenous communities
across Turtle Island.
Rebels, indigenous folk and workers alike have targeted the train lines
as an apt means for disrupting the flow of capital and these systems of
domination. Historically and presently the railways have acted as a
necessary toll for imperialism.
CN has chosen to build its infrastructure across indigenous territory as
another act of stealing land from autonomous communities.
As anarchists we are invested in contributing to an active disruption of
domination and state power.â
One of the oldest anarchist slogans was âLand and Freedom.â You donât
hear it much anymore these days, but this battle cry was used most
fervently in the revolutionary movements in Mexico, Spain, Russia, and
Manchuria. In the first case, the movement that used those three words
like a weapon and like a compass had an important indigenous background.
In the second case, the workers of Spain who spoke of âTierra y
Libertadâ were often fresh arrivals to the city who still remembered the
feudal existence they had left behind in the countryside. In Russia and
Manchuria, the revolutionaries who linked those two concepts, land and
freedom, were largely peasants.
It was not the generic working class, formed in the factories and blue
collar neighborhoods, for whom this slogan had the most meaning, but
those exploited people who had only just begun their tutelage as
proletarians.
The reformers of those aforementioned struggles interpreted âLand and
Freedomâ as two distinct, political demands: land, or some kind of
agrarian reform that would dole out to the rural poor commoditized
parcels so they could make their living in a monetized market; and
freedom, or the opportunity to participate in the bourgeois organs of
government.
Land, conceptualized thus, has since become obsolete, and freedom, also
in the liberal sense, has been universalized and proven lacking. Yet if
anarchists and other radical peasants and workers who rose up alongside
them never held to the liberal conception of freedom, shouldnât we
suspect that when they talked about land they were also referring to
something different?
Tragically, anarchists became proletarianized and stopped talking about
land and freedom. Ever dwindling, they held on to their quaint
conception of freedom that did not demand inclusion in government but
rather its very destruction. Yet they surrended the idea of land to the
liberal paradigm. It was something that existed outside the cities, that
existed to produce food, and that would be liberated and rationally
organized as soon as workers in the supposed nerve centers of
capitalismâthe urban hubsâbrought down the government and reappropriated
the social wealth.
The farthest that anarchists usually come to reject this omission is
still within a dichotomy that externalizes land from the centers of
capitalist accumulation: these are the anarchists who in one form or
another âgo back to the land,â leaving the cities, setting up communes,
rural cooperatives, or embarking on efforts to rewild. The truth is, the
âback to the landâ movement and the rural communes of earlier
generations, organized according to a wide variety of strategies of
resistance, turned up a body of invaluable experience that anarchists
collectively have still failed to absorb. Though some such experiments
persist today and new versions are constantly being inaugurated, the
tendency on the whole has been a failure, and we need to talk more
extensively about why.
Non-indigenous anarchists who have decided to learn from indigenous
struggles have played an important role in improving solidarity with
some of the most important battles against capitalism taking place
today, and they have also contributed to a practice of nurturing
intimate relationships with the land in a way that supports us in our
ongoing struggles. But when they counterpose land to city, I think they
fail to get to the root of alienation, and the limited resonance of
their practice seems to confirm this.
The most radical possible interpretation of the slogan, âLand and
Freedomâ, does not posit two separate items joined on a list. It
presents land and freedom as two interdependent concepts, each of which
transforms the meaning of the other. The counter to the rationalist
Western notion of land and that civilizationâs corrupted notion of
freedom is the vision that at least some early anarchists were
projecting in their battle cry.
Land linked to freedom means a habitat that we freely interrelate with,
to shape and be shaped by, unburdened by any productive or utilitarian
impositions and the rationalist ideology they naturalize. Freedom linked
to land means the self-organization of our vital activity, activity that
we direct to achieve sustenance on our own terms, not as isolated units
but as living beings within a web of wider relationships. Land and
freedom means being able to feed ourselves without having to bend to any
blackmail imposed by government or a privileged caste, having a home
without paying for permission, learning from the earth and sharing with
all other living beings without quantifying value, holding debts, or
seeking profit. This conception of life enters into a battle of total
negation with the world of government, money, wage or slave labor,
industrial production, Bibles and priests, institutionalized learning,
the spectacularization of daily existence, and all other apparatuses of
control that flow from Enlightenment thinking and the colonialistic
civilization it champions.
Land, in this sense, is not a place external to the city. For one, this
is because capitalism does not reside primarily in urban spaceâit
controls the whole map. The military and productive logics that control
us and bludgeon the earth in urban space are also at work in rural
space. Secondly, the reunited whole of land and freedom must be an ever
present possibility no matter where we are. They constitute a social
relationship, a way of relating to the world around us and the other
beings in it, that is profoundly opposed to the alienated social
relationship of capitalism. Alienation and primitive accumulation[1] are
ceaseless, ongoing processes from one corner of the globe to the other.
Those of us who are not indigenous, those of us who are fully colonized
and have forgotten where we came from, do not have access to anything
pristine. Alienation will follow us out to the farthest forest glade or
desert oasis until we can begin to change our relationship to the world
around us in a way that is simultaneously material and spiritual.
Equally, anarchy must be a robust concept. It must be an available
practice no matter where we find ourselvesâin the woods or in the city,
in a prison or on the high seas. It requires us to transform our
relationship with our surroundings, and therefore to also transform our
surroundings, but it cannot be so fragile that it requires us to seek
out some pristine place in order to spread anarchy. Will
anti-civilization anarchism be a minoritarian sect of those anarchists
who go to the woods to live deliberately, because they donât like the
alternative of organizing a union at the local burger joint, or will it
be a challenge to the elements of the anarchist tradition that reproduce
colonialism, patriarchy, and Enlightenment thinking, a challenge that is
relative to all anarchists no matter where they pick their battles?
Land does not exist in opposition to the city. Rather, one concept of
land exists in opposition to another. The anarchist or anti-civilization
idea against the capitalist, Western idea. It is this latter concept
that places land within the isolating dichotomy of city vs. wilderness.
This is why âgoing back to the landâ is doomed to fail, even though we
may win valuable lessons and experiences in the course of that failure
(as anarchists, weâve rarely won anything else). We donât need to go
back to the land, because it never left us. We simply stopped seeing it
and stopped communing with it.
Recreating our relationship with the world can happen wherever we are,
in the city or in the countryside. But how does it happen?
An important step is to recover histories about how we lost our
connection with the land and how we got colonized. These can be the
histories of our people, defined ethnically, the history of our blood
family, the histories of the people who have inhabited the place we call
home, the histories of anarchists or queers or nomads or whomever else
we consider ourselves to be one of. They must be all of these things,
for no one history can tell it all. Not everyone was colonized the same
way, and though capitalism has touched everyone on the planet, not
everyone is a child of capitalism nor of the civilization that brought
it across the globe.
The history of the proletariat as it has been told so far presents
colonization (the very process that has silenced those other stories) as
a process that was marginal while it was occurring and is now long since
completed, when in fact many people still hold on to another way of
relating to the land, and the process of colonization that molds us as
proletarians or consumersâor whatever capitalism wants us to be in a
given momentâis ongoing.
As we recover those histories, we need to root them in the world around
us and communalize them, so that they lucidly imbue our surroundings, so
that young people grow up learning them, and so they can never be stolen
from us again. The printed or glowing page which I am using to share
these imperatives with you can never be more than a coffin for our
ideas. I seal the beloved corpse within to pass it across the void, but
only because I hope that someone on the other side of the emptiness that
insulates each one of us will take it out and lay it on firm ground,
where it can fertilize tomorrowâs gardens.
Armed with this history, but never awaiting it, because limiting
ourselves to distinct phases of struggle alienates tasks that must form
an organic whole, we must take another step. The embodiment of a
communal relationship with the world through increasingly profound
expropriations that are simultaneously material and spiritual.
They are expropriations because they take forms of life out of the realm
of property and into a world of communal relations where capitalist
value has no meaning.
They are material because they touch the living world and the other
bodies who inhabit it, and spiritual because they nourish us and reveal
the animating relationship between all things.
Their simultaneity means that they undermine the established categories
of economic, political, and cultural. Each of our acts unites elements
from all the analytical categories designed to measure alienated life.
The transcendence of the categories of alienation is the hallmark of the
reunification of what civilization has alienated.
Do we harvest plants to feed ourselves, as an act of sabotage against a
commodifying market, or because our herb-lore and our enjoyment of
natureâs bounty tells us who we are in this world? Leave the question
for the sociologists: for us it is a no-brainer.
If this quest leads us out of the cities and into the woods, so be it
(though many more of us need lessons on how to reclaim communal
relationships, how to enact land and freedom in urban space, and fast).
But the profound need to overcome alienation and reencounter the world
will never take us out of harmâs way. If we go to the woods to find
peaceânot inner peace but an absence of enemiesâweâre doing it wrong.
Life lived against the dictates of colonization is a life of illegality
and conflict.
Expropriation means we are plucking forms of life out of the jaws of
capitalism, or more precisely, ripping them out of its hideous,
synthetic body, to help them reattain a life of their own. We do this so
that we too can have lives of our own.
This does not meanâand I canât emphasize this enoughâthat we measure our
struggle in terms of how much damage we do to the State or how much the
State defines us as a threat. Although anarchists embody the negation of
the State, we are not its opposites. Opposites always obey the same
paradigm.
The State has no understanding of the world as community. Capitalists,
who lack the strategic and paranoid overview that agents of the State
operate in, understand it even less. Some of our expropriations will be
open declarations of war, and they will result in some of us dying or
going to prison, but other expropriations wonât even be noticed by the
forces of law and order, while the capitalist recuperators wonât catch
on until our subversion has become a generalized practice.
If we are anarchists, if we are truly enemies of authority, there can be
absolutely no symmetry between what capitalism tries to do to us and
what we must do to capitalism. Our activity must correspond to our own
needs, rather than being inverse reactions to the needs of capitalism.
Little by little, we need to begin feeding ourselves in every sense
through these expropriations. And in the unalienated logic of land and
freedom, feeding ourselves does not mean producing food, but giving and
taking. Nothing eats that is not eaten. The only rule is reciprocity.
What capitalism arrogantly sees as exploitation, extracting value, is
nothing but a short-sighted staving off of the consequences of the
imbalance it creates.
Feeding ourselves, therefore, means rescuing the soil from the prisons
of asphalt or monocultures, cleaning it and fertilizing it, so that we
may also eat from it. It does not stop there. Feeding ourselves means
writing songs and sharing them, and taking hold of the spaces to do so
for free. Learning how to heal our bodies and spirits, and making those
skills available to others who confront the grim challenge of trying to
win access to a healthcare designed for machines. Sabotaging factories
that poison our water or the construction equipment that erects
buildings that would block our view of the sunset. Helping transform our
surroundings into a welcoming habitat for the birds, bugs, trees, and
flowers who make our lives a little less lonely. Carrying out raids that
demonstrate that all the buildings where merchandise is kept and guarded
are simply common storehouses of useful or useless things that we can go
in and take whenever we want; that the whole ritual of buying and
selling is just a stupid game that weâve been playing for far too long.
The ways to feed ourselves are innumerable. A body does not live on
carbohydrates and protein alone, and anyone who claims that the
exploited, the proletariat, the people, or the species have set
interests is a priest of domination. Our interests are constructed. If
we do not loudly, violently assert our needs, politicians and
advertisers will continue to define them.
In the course of our attempt to nourish ourselves outside of and against
capitalism, we will quickly find that there is no liberated ground. No
matter where we are, they make us pay rent, one way or another. A
necessary and arduous step forward will be to free up space from the
grips of domination and liberate a habitat that supports us, a habitat
we are willing to protect. In the beginning, this habitat could be
nothing more than an acre of farmland, a seasonal festival, a city park,
or even just the space occupied by a decrepit building.
There are several important considerations we must explore if we are to
find whatâs ours. They all have to do with how we cultivate a profound
relationship with place. We cannot aim for such a relationship if we are
not willing to incur great danger. Making your home on a bit of land,
refusing to treat it as a commodity, and rejecting the regulations
imposed on it means going to prison or ending your days in an armed
standoff unless you can call up fierce solidarity or mobilize an
effective and creative resistance. But the more such resistance spreads,
the more certain it is that people will die defending the land and their
relationship with it.
If you would not die for land or a specific way of moving through it,
donât bother: youâll never be able to find a home. But how can we build
that kind of love when we are only moving on top of the land like oil on
water, never becoming a part of it? Everyone yearns to overcome
alienation, but very few people still enjoy a connection worth
defending.
The fortitude we need takes great conviction, and that conviction can
only build over time. Nowadays, perhaps only one out of a thousand of us
would give up their lives to defend a habitat they consider themselves
part of. The question we need to answer is, how do we foreground that
kind of love, how do we spread it, and for those of us who survive and
move on, how do we play our part in cultivating an inalienable
relationship with place when the misery of defeat and the coldness of
exile make it easier to forget?
It is all the more difficult in North America, where society is
increasingly transient. Transcience is not a simple question of moving
around, as though anarchists should simply stay in their hometown or as
though nomads enjoyed a less profound relationship with the earth than
sedentary gardeners. But nomads donât travel just anywhere. They also
cultivate an entirely specific relationship with the world around them.
Their habitat just has a temporal as well as a spatial dimension.
The problem of transcience in capitalist society is one of not forming
any relationship with the place where we live. This is the reason why
anarchists who stay anywhere more than a few years drown in misery, and
why the anarchists who always move to the new hip spot never stay more
than one step ahead of it. It is a key problematic that we need to
devote more thought to than we do to the latest French translation or
intellectual trend.
In the Americas in particular, there is another great difficulty with
finding whatâs ours. Our potential relationship to the commodified land
(land in the liberal sense that has been imposed by force of arms) is
largely codified through a system of race categorization that was
developed by colonizers in the 17^(th) and 18^(th) centuries. This land
was stolen, and it was worked and improvedâin the capitalist senseâby
people who were stolen from their land. Itâs true that the land in
Europe was also stolen from those who lived in community with it, and
that many of those people were shipped to the Americas and forced to
work there. Itâs also true that many of them ran off to live with the
original inhabitants, or planned insurrections alongside the people
kidnapped, enslaved, and taken from various parts of Africa, and that
this subversive mingling is what forced the lords and masters to invent
race.
It no less true that apart from having money, the surest way to win
access to landâalbeit commodified landâin the history of the Americas up
until the present moment has been by being white. Whatever our feelings
or consciousness of the imposed hierarchy of privilege, indigenous
people have been robbed of their land and repeatedly prevented from
reestablishing a nourishing, communal relationship with it, the
descendants of African slaves have been kicked off whatever land they
had access to any time it became desirable to whites or any time they
had built up a high level of autonomy, while whites, at least sometimes,
have been allowed limited access to the land as long as it did not
conflict with the immediate interests and projects of the wealthy. The
legacy of this dynamic continues today.
The implication of all this is that if white anarchists in the Americas
(or Australia, New Zealand, and other settler states) want to form a
deep relationship with a specific habitat, claiming land to the extent
that it belongs to us and we belong to it, we had better make sure that
the only other claims we are infringing on are those of capitalist and
government landlords. Are there indigenous people who are struggling to
restore their relationship with that same land? Is it land that black
communities have been forced out of? How do those people feel about you
being there, and what relationship do you have with them? Under what
conditions would they like to have you as a neighbor? If white people in
struggle continue to assert the first pick on land, this is hardly a
departure from colonial relations.
Treating the land like a tabula raza, an empty space awaiting your
arrival, is antithetical to cultivating a deep relationship with it.
Etched into that land are all the relations with the people who came
before you. By trying to become a part of it, will you be reviving their
legacy, or destroying it? Find out before you attempt to put down roots.
The narrative we express in our struggles exerts a huge impact on the
outcome of those struggles. Half of domination is symbolic, and by
focusing on the quantifiable or the putatively material, rebels have
missed out on this other sphere within which battles against power take
place.
If we occupy a building as squatters, we signal that our concern is
empty buildings and not the land beneath them, nor our relationship with
it. If squatters become strong enough that the State is forced to
ameliorate and recuperate them, it will take the path of ceding legal
spaces and maybe even tweaking the housing laws or creating more public
housing. In a revolutionary sense, nothing is won.
If we occupy a building as anarchists who communicate nothing but a
desire to destroy all forms of authority, we are safe from recuperation,
because we project no way forward for our struggle, no path for the
State to reroute. We also make it almost impossible to advance, and we
facilitate state repression. With nothing to win, our struggle thrives
on desperation, and with nothing to share, no one else will connect to
our struggle except the equally nihilistic.
But what if we raised the cry of âLand and Freedomâ? What if we
projected our struggle as a drive to progressively liberate territory
from the logics of state and capitalism? What if we unabashedly spoke
about our desire to free ourselves?
While we are weak, we will choose weak targets: vacant lots, abandoned
land, an empty building with an absentee landlord. Or a place we already
have access to, a home we live in for example. Whether we transform that
place into a garden, a social center, a workshop, or a collective house,
it must find its way into a specific narrative of liberation. If we
justify our use of that space on the grounds that we are poor, that
there isnât enough affordable housing, that the youth need a place to
hang out, that people need access to a garden for lack of fresh produce
in their diets, or any similar discourse, we are opening the door to
recuperation, we are pinning our rebellion to a crisis within capitalism
and sabotaging all our work as soon as the economy improves or the
government institutes some reform to ease the shortage of housing,
produce, youth centers, and so forth.
If we justify our use of that space with a rejection of private
property, we have taken an important step forward, but we also construct
a battlefield in which our defeat is assured. A rejection of private
property is abstract. It leaves a vacuum that must be filled if the
capitalist paradigm will be broken. A relationship always exists between
the bodies that inhabit the same place. What relationship will we
develop to drive out the one of alienated commodities? By refusing to
talk about this and put it into practice, we also refuse to destroy
private property, no matter how radical a posture we adopt. Nor have we
formed and expressed an inalienable relationship with the specific place
we are trying to claim. Why that land? Why that building? And itâs true,
we want to destroy private property the world over. But you do not form
a relationship with the land in the abstract, as a communist might. This
is why the spiritual aspect of struggle that the materialists, as
priests of Enlightenment thinking, deride and neglect, is important. A
communal relationship with the land is always specific.
This means that in every case, we need to assert our legitimacy to claim
land over the legitimacy of the legal owners. And while we recognize no
claims of legal ownership, we must deny every legal and capitalist claim
specifically and generally at the same time. This means dragging
specific owners through the mud as exploiters, colonizers, murderers,
gentrifiers, speculators, and so forth, as a part of the process by
which we assert our specific claim to that land, but always within a
general narrative that refuses to recognize the commodity view of land
and the titles, deeds, and jurisdictions that bind it.
While we are weak, it will make more sense to go after owners whose
claims to a land-commodity are equally weakâbanks that have won property
through foreclosure, hated slumlords, governments that are unpopular or
in crisis.
Initially, we can win access to land in a variety of ways. Seizing it
and effectively defending it, raising the funds to buy it, pressuring
the legal owner to cede the title. None of these are satisfactory
because all of them leave the structures of capitalist ownership intact.
Even in the first case, which clearly seems more radical, the legal
owner maintains a claim that they can pursue at a later date, eventually
mustering the state support needed to effect an eviction. Ownership has
not been undermined, only access.
Once we have access to land, it is crucial to intensify our relationship
with it. To share our lives with it and begin to feed ourselves with the
relationship we create. To signal that relationship as a reversal to the
long history of dispossession, enslavement, exploitation, blackmail, and
forced integration that has dogged us for centuries. To announce the
place as liberated land, if we are indigenous to the area, and as a
maroon[2] haven if we are not. In our use of the semi-liberated place,
we must communicate to the world that the social contract of capitalism
is absolutely unacceptable to us, that our needs are other, and we have
no choice but to fulfill them on our own. Simultaneously, we invite all
the others who are not fulfilled by capitalism to connect with us.
As we intensify a relationship of land and freedom, our spreading roots
will come up against the concrete foundation of property that lies
beneath us. The next conflict is to negate the forms by which capitalism
binds land (rejecting titles and claims of ownership) and to impugn the
right of a government to tax and regulate land that it has stolen.
In the course of this fight, we will lose much of the land we gain
access to. Buildings will be evicted, gardens will be paved over,
forests will be cut down. This inevitability gives rise to two
questions. How to strike a balance between prudence and conflicitivity
so that we neither become pacified nor lose our places needlessly? And
when we lose, how to do so in a way that is inspiring, that spreads and
strengthens our narrative and legitimacy so that next time we will be
stronger? The first question will be the harder one. Anarchists have a
long history of losing well, but at least since World War II one of our
most frequent failings has been the recuperation of our creative
projects and the isolation of our destructive projects. Gaining
something that they can lose often turns radicals into conservatives.
Our semi-liberated places must aid us in our attacks on the State and
give solidarity with those who are repressed. Not to do so means losing
these places even as they persist in time; they are colonized, they
become parodies of themselves and agents of social peace. At the same
time, even as they must play a conflictive role, these are the places
that nourish us, and we should not risk them needlessly.
Little by little, we will win places where we achieve de facto autonomy,
and communal relationships with the land and all other living things can
begin to flourish. These places will never be safe or stable. Any moment
we are weak, the State may try to take them away from us, with or
without a legal pretext. The more widespread support we have, the better
justified our narrative and our legitimacy, and the deeper our
relationship with a place, the more dangerous it will be for the State
to attack us. Additionally, in times of reaction, it will be easier for
us to hold on if we have won access to land using a variety of means,
from squatting to winning titles. Radical sensibilities will prefer the
former, but it should be clear that in both cases the capitalist
foundation remains the same. The history of the squatting movements in
Europe shows that squatting opens bubbles of autonomy but in and of
itself it does not challenge capitalism.
If we have used a variety of means, it will be harder for the State to
criminalize us across the board or to construct a legal apparatus
capable of evicting us from all of our footholds.
By communicating and building strong networks, these different
semi-liberated places can share resources and experiences, broaden their
perspectives, and compound their legitimacy. The age-old question of
organization is unimportant because such places are heterogeneous. They
practice different forms of organization and do not all fit into the
same organizational scheme. The present proposal does not envision a
movement of urban and rural land projects working towards liberation, as
though a thousand people will read this article, understand it in the
same way, and all try to put the same thing into practice. The network
that will form may well include movements within it, but none will be
all-encompassing.
In the Americas, there are already many semi-liberated places in
existence that dream of an end to capitalism, and weak networks connect
them. Most of these places, or the strongest ones at least, have been
created by indigenous struggles. I believe that anarchists who are
against civilization can find their place within such networks, defining
ourselves in relation to an ongoing attempt to restore a communal
relationship with the land, as did the Magonistas in Mexico or many
peasant anarchist partisans in the Russian Revolution. Up until now, we
mostly define ourselves in relation to an anarchist movement or milieu,
or in relation to consumer society. Neither the abstract community of
the former nor the posture of rebel and alternative within the latter
suit our project of liberation.
In part, this means avoiding sectarian duels with those anarchists who
see their battlefield as the workplace or the post-modern city. People
who understand themselves as proletarians should struggle as
proletarians. I fear that the proletarian worldview is hopelessly
poisoned by colonialism and will only reproduce the destruction of
nature and the exploitation of all living beings, as proletarian
movements have in the past, but using ideology as an indisputable tool
for predicting the future just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Itâs
better to make criticisms, share them, and back them up with robust
struggles that embody a different logic.
If we are to understand ourselves within a network of projects that
liberate the land from capitalism and create specific, communal
relationships with that land, as newcomers (referring to those of us who
are not indigenous) a certain amount of humility is in order. How can we
learn from the indigenous struggles that have fought the longest and the
hardest for the land without fetishizing them? How can we respect
indigenous land claims without essentializing them or legitimizing the
state-appointed tribal governments that often manage such claims? I can
only offer these as questions, leaving the answers to practice. It is
worth signalling, however, that such a practice must build itself on
personal relationships of solidarity and friendship rather than abstract
notions of unity.
Fortunately, there is a long history for such relationships. In the
first centuries of the colonization of the Americas, many people brought
over from Africa and Europe and made to work the newly alienated land
ran away and fought alongside indigenous people fighting for their
freedom and survival. Evidently, there existed a strong basis for
solidarity. Today, especially in North America much of that solidarity
is absent. Many of the poorest people, regardless of their skin color,
are staunch advocates of colonization, Western progress, and capitalism.
Most non-indigenous people in the Americas do not have the practical
option of going back to Europe, Africa, or Asia. Yet those of us who are
not indigenous, just because we claim solidarity and envision a happy
network of communities restoring communal relationships with the land,
cannot assume that indigenous people will want us as neighbors. This is
a problematic that cannot be resolved with theory or consideration.
Our only option is to struggle for our own needsâthis is a prerequisite
for any conversation of solidarity, as much as the identity politicians
try to avoid itâtry to build solidarity with indigenous peoples in
struggle, explore the possibilities for a common fight against
colonization, and see what answers arise, dealing with the conflicts
that inevitably arise with patience and humility.
As more and more of us begin to wrap our lives into these semi-liberated
places, communities will form. Not the alienated pseudo-communities that
the very worst of anarchists claim to have today. Communities are built
by sharing, and if all we share is a little bit of time in our alienated
lives, the bonds will not be strong enough to hold us together, as the
failures of âaccountability,â resistance to repression, healing, coping
with burnout, and intergenerationality in the pseudo-communities amply
demonstrate.
When we come together to intensify our relationships with a
semi-liberated place, we share so much more. We become part of the web
by which the others nourish themselves. At this point, it becomes honest
to speak about a community.
As such communities begin to form, certain things will become evident.
First of all, while vigorous debate and historical, theoretical clarity
are vital in the life of the community, most of the skills and
activities necessary for intensifying communal relationships are neither
abstract nor discursive. They are practical skills that support the
functions of life. Cooking, gardening, childcare, healing, sewing,
brewing, dentistry, surgery, massage, gathering, hunting, fishing,
trapping, weaving, welding, carpentry, plumbing, masonry, electricity,
painting, drawing, carving, animal husbandry, curing, tanning,
butchering, apiculture, silvaculture, mycology, storytelling, singing,
music-making, conflict resolution, networking, translating, fighting,
raiding, and otherwise relating with a hostile outside world (with legal
skills, for example).
A community with three web designers, five writers, three gardeners,
four musicians, a tanner, a brewer, a painter, and a lawyer will not
survive. And not for lack of self-sufficiency. It is not about seceding
from capitalism, but about bringing capitalism down with us. Such a
community will not survive because they lack the skills necessary to
intensify their relationships with one another and with the place they
are trying to liberate. With weak relationships, they will not be able
to withstand capitalismâs continuous onslaught. They will either be
forced to move out or to pacify themselves.
Capitalist deskilling precedes the Fordist economy. Deskilling was
present at the beginnings of industrialization, and it was present even
earlier in the witch hunts and the attendant creation of universities
and scientific professions in Renaissance Europe. Popular knowledge,
especially that related to healing, was criminalized and destroyed,
whereas a mechanical science of healing suited to nascent capitalism and
the modernizing State that was grooming it, was instituted, enclosed,
and regulated within the new academies. If we are to create communal
relations against capitalism, we must commit ourselves to an intensive,
lifelong process of reskilling so that we may nourish ourselves in every
sense.
The creation of communities will not only show us the toxic uselessness
of liberal education. It will also reveal the inadequacy of that
cherished anarchist concept, affinity.
It is time to forget about affinity. Those who currently call themselves
anarchists tend to be the warriors and messengers of communities that do
not yet exist. Some others are the poets and artists who feed off of the
warriors for a while before they go off on their own. We have seen what
artists become, surrounded by other artists, and we have seen what
warriors do, surrounded by other warriors, and the anarchist struggle
has long suffered the consequences. The concept of affinity has done
enough damage. It is a thoroughly rationalist notion, based on the idea
of sameness as prerequisite for equality, and equality as something
desirable.
Members of the much mythologized affinity group do not all experience
their affinity in the same way. They do not perceive the group equally,
and nearly every group, contrary to its mythology, does in fact have one
or two central members. What holds the group together is not affinity,
but a collective project. Only amidst a generalized scarcity of trust
and sharing does it become possible to confuse these two binding forces.
The community, as a collective project, does not need affinity to hold
together. What it needs is sharing, a common narrative, and above all,
difference. In every community there should be some anarchists, in the
sense given that term today. But a community of anarchists would be
intolerable. As long as anarchists remain specialists of propaganda,
sabotage, and solidarityâand this is the normative form that is
reproduced todayâwe will scarcely be able to build communities. But as
we learn to form connections of complementary difference, the dream of
anarchy will become available to people whose temperament is not that of
warriors or messengers, and anarchists, for our part, will find our
place in a larger social body.
The gamble here is that a great many people are attracted to the dream
of anarchyâself-organization, mutual aid, the destruction of all
authorityâbut they are not attracted to the anarchist modeâprotests,
frequent risk-taking, the constant and scathing analysis of our
surroundings; and that this anarchist mode, looped back in on itself,
creates a pseudo-community that is toxic and self-defeating, whereas if
it found a place within a broader struggle for life lived completely,
could defend and spread communities subversive to capitalism.
The challenge presented by a truly anarchist vision of the concepts,
land and freedom, center an awareness of colonization as an ongoing
force in capitalist society. It is a challenge that requires us to root
out the liberal conceptions of land and freedom and all the baggage that
accompanies them, including a great many ideations long internalized by
anarchists, such as organization through affinity, the pseudo-community
and self-referentialization within an abstract milieu, and the
externalization of land or the dichotomy city/wilderness.
Above all, it is a challenge that requires a great creative labor. The
tasks at hand can take the paths of reskilling, forming a specific
relationship with the land, recovering histories that speak of our
alienation, expropriating aspects of life, winning access to land,
transforming that land, intensifying our relationships with it, and
putting our destructive activity at the service of these new
relationships.
I want to explore each of these ideas in more depth in future articles.
But for now, we have the outlines of a challenge. It is not a new
challenge, though I have tried to orient it to the specific problems of
our times. Through reflection and action, I hope that once again
anarchists can join others in taking up the call for land and freedom,
and that when we do, weâll know what weâre about.
This is the age of disembodiment, when our sense of separateness from
the earth grows and we are meant to forget our animality. But we are
animals and we co-evolved, like all animals, in rapport with other
bodily forms and aspects of the world. Minds as well as senses arise
from embodiment, just as other animals conveyed meaningâuntil modernity,
that is. We are the top of the food chain, which makes us the only
animal nobody needs. Hamlet was very much off the mark in calling humans
âthe beauty of the world, the paragon of animals.â Mark Twain was much
closer: âthe only animal that blushes. Or needs to.â[3] The life form
that is arguably least well adapted to reality, that has weaker chances
for survival among the at least 10 million animal (mostly insect)
species. Humans are among the very few mammals who will kill their own
kind without the provocation of extreme hunger.[4]
The human species is unique but so is every other species. We differ
from the rest no more, it seems, than do other species from each other.
Non-human animals have routinely amazing facilities for accomplishing
things by acting on information they receive from their environments.
They are creatures of instinct, but so are we. As Joseph Wood Krutch
asked, âwho is the more thoroughly acquainted with the world in which he
lives?â[5] Adaptation to oneâs world is a cognitive process. If we
wonder which species is the smartest, the best answer is, most likely:
they all are.
I think that Henry Beston is beautifully helpful: âWe patronize them for
their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far
below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal
shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than
ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the
senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never
hear.â[6]
In the 1980s I knew someone who signed his excellent anti-authoritarian
writings and flyers â70 animals.â That kind of identification has
charmed me ever since. In rather a contrary spirit is the
long-prevailing ban on that act of appropriation and greatest sin,
anthropomorphism. Correcting this desperate error means that âA monkey
cannot be angry: it exhibits aggression. A crane does not feel
affection; it displays courtship or parental behavior. A cheetah is not
frightened by a lion; it shows flight behavior.â[7]
Why not take this kind of reductive approach even further and simply
remove animals from our vocabulary? This is already underway, if the
Oxford Junior Dictionary is any indication. The 2009 edition added
several techno words like Twitter and mp3, while the names of various
animals, trees, etc. had been deleted.[8] Children (and others) have
less and less contact with nature, after all.
But there is no substitute for direct contact with the living world, if
we are to know what it is to be living. Our own world shrinks and
shrivels, cut off from animal culture, from the zones of that shared,
learned behavior. What Jacob Uexhull called the Umwelt, the universe
known to each species. We need to be open to the community of our
beginnings and to the present non-human life-world.
Amphibians have been here for 300 million years; birds for 150 million
years. Dragonflies ask no more of the biosphere than they did 100
million years ago, while Homo species, around for not much more than
three million years, are the only animals that areâsince domestication
and civilizationânever satisfied, always pursuing new wants. [9]
Might it not be that nature is for the happiness of all species, not
just one?7 We sense something like this as we search for oases of
wildness in the vacuum of civilization. â âHopeâ is the thing with
feathers,â wrote Emily Dickinson.[10]
We have mainly lost the sense of the presence or aura of animals, of
those who inhabit their bodies so wholly, fully. People in traditional
indigenous cultures have not lost that awareness. They feel their
kinship with all who live. Some of the bond remains even with us,
however, and may be seen in small waysâour instinctive love of
songbirds, for example.
All is not sweetness and light in the non-human realm either, especially
in this shaken and disturbed world. Rape has been observed among
orangutans, dolphins, seals, bighorn sheep, wild horses, and some birds,
although it is not the norm in any of these species.[11] But even in
animal societies marked by male power, females generally remain
self-sufficient and responsible for their own sustenance, unlike in most
human (domesticated) societies. In some groupings, in fact, females
provide for all. Lionesses do the hunting in their prides, for
example.[10 ]Each elk herd is led by a cow, wise in the ways of coyote,
wolf, lynx, cougar, and human. And it is also the case, according to
many, that non-humans can be as individually distinct as we are. Delia
Akeley concluded that âapes and monkeys vary in their dispositions as
much as do human beings,â[12] and Barry Lopez commented on the âmarkedly
different individual personalitiesâ of wolves.[13] But one does see an
absence of many old, infirm, and diseased animals among
non-domesticates. How the âfood chainâ operates here brings up questions
such as, do wolves only kill animals that are near their end anywayâthe
old, sick, injured? This seems to be roughly the case, according to
Lopez.[14]
Hierarchy and dominance among other species is a long-running
assumption, often a baseless one. The idea that there is usually, if not
always, a âpecking orderâ derives from a Norwegian graduate student in
1922. His concept came from observing domestic chickens in his back yard
and spread virulently in the animal studies field. It is a classic
example of projecting from human domestication where, of course,
hierarchy and dominance are indeed the rule. Its universality unravels
with the fact that poultry yard pecking orders are not observed in wild
flocks.
Similar is the fallacy that the Freudian paradigm of murderous rivalry
between fathers and sons represents the state of nature. Questionable in
the first application; even more so, evidently, regarding non-humans.
Masson and McCarthy refer to zebra, kiwi, beaver, wolf, and mongoose
fathers exhibiting acceptance and affection toward their offspring.[15]
South American muriqui monkeys, female and male, are non-aggressive,
tolerant and co-operative. Steve Kemperâs âNo Alpha Males Allowedâ
focuses on Karen Strierâs work with the muriqui, which subverts the
dominant view of male primates.[16] Among Asian gibbons, primates that
live in pairs, the male may stay with his mate a very long time after
sexual activity has ceased.[17]
John Muir described a goose attacking a hunter in support of a wounded
companion: âNever before had I regarded wild geese as dangerous, or
capable of such noble self-sacrificing devotion.â[18] Geese mate
monogamously and for life.
Widespread among non-humans are the social traits of parental care,
co-operative foraging, and reciprocal kindness or mutual aid. Mary
Midgley, in sum, referred to âtheir natural disposition to love and
trust one another.â[19] Also, to love and trust others, such as humans,
to the point of raising them. Jacques Graven, in a striking finding,
refers to children having been adopted by wolves, bears, gazelles, pigs,
and sheep.[20]
In his irresistible Desert Solitaire, the cantankerous Edward Abbey
imagines that the frogs he hears singing do so for various practical
purposes, âbut also out of spontaneous love and joy.â[21] N.J. Berrill
declared: âTo be a bird is to be alive more intensely than any other
living creature, 2 man included...they live in a world that is always
the present, and mostly full of joy.â[22] To Joseph Wood Krutch it
seemed that we have seen our capacity for joy atrophy. For animals, he
decided, âjoy seems to be more important and more accessible than it is
to us.â[23]
Various non-human intelligences seem lately to be much more highly
regarded than in the past. John Hoptas and Kristine Samuelsonâs Tokyo
Waka, a 2013 documentary film, looks at resourceful urban crows. How
they use their beaks to shape twigs into hooks to snag grubs from trees,
for example. In 2002, a New Caledonia crow named Betty was declared by
an Oxford University researcher to have been the first animal to create
a tool for a specific task without trial and error, something primates
have evidently yet to achieve. Elephantsâ actions, according to J.H.
Williams, are âalways revealing an intelligence which finds impromptu
solutions for difficulties.â[24]
More surprising is what is coming to light about animals we usually
consider to be further down the âfood chain.â Katherine Harmon Courage
has uncovered heretofore unseen capacities of the octopus. âIt can solve
mazes, open jars, use tools. It even has what seems to be a
sophisticated inner life.â Courage goes on to state that the octopus
âhas a brain unlike that of almost any creature we might think of as
intelligent.â[25] Along these lines is a growing interest in
âcold-blooded cognition,â with recent studies revealing that reptile
brains are not as undeveloped as we imagined. Lizards and tortoises, for
instance, have exhibited impressive problem-solving capabilities.[26]
Jacques Graven was amazed to learn that the method of solving a maze is
âscarcely different for a roach than for a rat,â and that striking
achievements by mammals âreappear in almost identical form in
insects.â[27] Speaking of mazes and the like, it may be added that very
little of important truth is to be found in controlled laboratory
experiments, whichever species may be subjected to them.
Memory is important to many creatures as an aid to survival. The work of
animal scientist Tetsuro Matsuzawa demonstrates that chimpanzees have
far stronger memories than humans.[28] Katydids have a hearing range
many times that of ours. Honeybees can see ultraviolet light, invisible
to us. The ichneumon fly can smell through solid wood. A monarch
butterflyâs sense of taste is two hundred times as sensitive as the
human tongue. The dung beetle finds its way with reference to the Milky
Way. Animals with four legs, and who donât wear shoes, probably pick up
on a variety of emanations or vibrations lost on us. How about pet dogs
or cats who are separated by hundreds of miles from their host families,
and somehow find them? Only a kind of telepathy could account for the
very many such cases.
A great deal more could be said about the gifts of animals. Or about
their play. It is not âanthropomorphicâ to recognize that animals play.
Consider the mating dances of birds. I have seen the wonderful dawn
dances of the sandhill crane. They dance, and have inspired an endless
list of human societies. What of wild geese, whose matchless grace,
elegance and devotion put us humans to shame?
Individuals of many species operate on an awareness that there is a
distinction between âselfâ and ânon-self.â A member of one species can
always recognize another of the same species. These kinds of
self-recognition are obvious. Another instance is that of grizzly bears
hiding out of sight of humans and others. There is a consciousness that
the whole bodyâthe âselfâ if you willâmust be concealed.
But do non-humans realize that they are âselvesâ? Do they have
self-awareness such that they realize their mortality? Many posit an
absence of self-reflection and make this supposed absence the primary
dividing line between humans and all other animals. Bees use signs, but
are not conscious of their signing. On what basis, however, can we make
assumptions about what bees or other animals know or do not know?
Chimpanzees and orangutans recognize themselves in a mirror; gorillas
cannot. What exactly does this reveal? There is quite a set of
unresolved questions, in fact, as to how conscious or unconscious human
behavior is, especially in light of the fact that consciousness in
ourselves is such a completely elusive thing. The complex, versatile,
and adaptive responses we see as a rule among the living on this planet
may or may not be guided by self-awareness. But self-awareness is not
likely an all-or-nothing phenomenon. The differences between humans and
others have not been established as radical; they are probably more a
matter of degree. More fundamentally, we do not know how to even
comprehend consciousnesses different from our own.
Our concept of self-awareness, vague though it is, seems to be the gold
standard for evaluating non-humans. The other watershed condition is
that of language: are we the only species that possess it? And these two
benchmarks are commonly run together, in the assumption that
consciousness can only be expressed by means of language. It is tempting
to see in language the explanation for consciousness, to wonder whether
the latter is only applicable to language-using beings. Indeed it can
seem very difficult to think about the state of our minds without
recourse to language. But if language were the only basis of a thinking
order, all non-human animals would live in a completely disordered
world, after all.
Wolves, dogs, dolphins, elephants, whales, to name a few, can vocalize
at about the range of human registry. Humpback whale âsongsâ are complex
intra-species forms of cultural expression across vast distances. It may
be that animalsâ calls are, overall, more a matter of doing than of
meaning.
If we look for our kind of symbolic meaning, it does not seem to be
sustained among our fellow animals. In their natural state, parrots
never imitate the human voice; species that may be seen to draw in
captivity do not do so in the wild. Primates trained to master language
do not use it like humans. Herbert Terrace, once a convinced
ape-language researcher, became one of its harshest critics. Trying to
wrest âa few tidbits of language from a chimpanzee [who is] trying to
get rewards,â says Terrace, produces nothing much of importance.[29]
Animals donât do what humans do via speech, namely, make a symbol stand
in for the thing.[30] As Tim Ingold puts it, âthey do not impose a
conceptual grid on the flow of experience and hence do not encode that
experience in symbolic forms.â[31] An amazing richness of signaling, of
the most varied kinds, does not equate to symbolizing. When a creature
presents its intentional acts, it does so without the need to describe
them, to re-present them.
The poet Richard Grossman found that truth is âthe way it tells
itself.â[32] Jacques Lacan saw the orientation toward representation as
a lack; the animal is without the lack that constitutes the human
subject. At the heart of nature, wrote Joseph Wood Krutch, are the
values âas yet uncaptured by language;â he added that the quality of
cranes lies âbeyond the need of words.â[33]
Iâve long wondered how it is that so many animals look you in the eye.
What do they mean by it? Gavin Maxwell enjoyed the âwondering
inquisitivenessâ of the eyes of Canadian porpoises,[34] while Diane
Fosseyâs Gorillas in the Mist is filled with examples of gorillas and
humans gazing on one another in trust. John Muir wrote of Stickeen, an
Alaskan dog with whom Muir survived a life-threatening situation, âHis
strength of character lay in his eyes. They looked as old as the hills,
and as young, and as wild.â[35] John Lane was drawn by the eyes of
alligators, an experience ânot to be forgotten. Their black eyes hold
steady as if staring through millions of miles or years.â[36]
Maybe thereâs more to be learned there, in those direct windows, in that
openness and immediacy, than by means of quite possibly unanswerable
questions about consciousness and language. And if we could somehow see
with those eyes, would it possibly allow us to really see ourselves?
There is an unmediated openness about the eyes. Death may be mentioned
here, as perhaps the least mediated experience, or certainly among them.
Loren Eiseley, near his own end, felt that wild things die âwithout
question, without knowledge of mercy in the universe, knowing only
themselves and their own pathway to the end.â[37] Ernest
Seton-Thompsonâs Biography of a Grizzly (1901) contains much about
death. Today we are ever more distanced from encountering the reality of
deathâand animals. As our lives shrink, Thoreauâs words from 1859 are
all the more true: âIt seems as if no man had ever died in America; for
in order to die you must first have lived.â[38] One need only add, it
isnât humans who know how to die, but the animals.
As if in acknowledgment, humans have exacted a revenge on selected
species. Domestication is a kind of death, forcing animal vitality into
a subjugated state. When animals are colonized and appropriated, both
domesticated and domesticators are qualitatively reduced. It is the
proverbial âgreatest mistake in human historyâ for all concerned. The
direct victims, once quite able to take care of themselves, lose
autonomy, freedom of movement, brain size, and what Krutch called the
âheroic virtues.â[39]
A farm pig is almost as much a human artifact as the farmerâs tractor.
Compare to a wild boar. Wild means free. To John Muir, wild sheep
represented conditions before the Fall; conversely, he decided, âIf a
domestic sheep was any indication, Manâs work had been degrading for
himself and his charges.â[40] The level of an animalâs perfection, as
Nietzsche saw it, was their âdegree of wildness and their power to evade
domestication.â[41] In light of the vast picture of oppression, David
Nibert calls the institution âdomesecration,â and it is not surprising
that objections have been raised against even using the same name for
wild and domestic members of a species.
Industrialism of course brought far worse lives on a mass scale, mass
misery to feed mass society. Zoos and marine parks showcase further
slavery, a fitting complement to the captivity at large. As the unbuilt,
unmassified world recedes, the line between undomesticated and
domesticated has blurred. Pretty much everything requires managing, up
to and including the oxymoron âwildlife management.â We are now in fact
in a new age of domestication, including an unprecedented escalation of
controlled animal breeding in recent decades.[42]
The completely non-biocentric, humanist myth of immortality is part of
the ethos of domestication, its rituals focused on sacrifice rather than
on the freedom of pre-domesticated life. Freudâs Oedipal family model is
a product of jointly domesticated animals and the father. Lacanâs
formulations often stem from findings about caged animals, and
Kristevaâs notion of abjection or disturbing threat, at base, refers to
the act of domesticating. But the non- domesticated do not participate
in assimilation into the conquered whole, in Freudian terms or
otherwise.
Once there was a communal life of organisms in an ecosystem. Life fed on
life, but not in a destructive trajectory. Even now we should not forget
that the victory of domestication is far from total. Many species, for
various reasons, are outside its orbit. âThe lion tamer doesnât actually
tame anything,â John Harrington reminds us. He must stay within the
boundaries the cats have established.[43]
âAlmost everything about whales is a tantalizing mystery,â concluded
Diane Ackerman.[44] Wendell Berry quotes his daughter in his poem, âTo
the Unseeable Animalâ: âI hope thereâs an animal somewhere that nobody
has ever seen. And I hope nobody ever sees it.â[45] Do we need to 5
know, can we know, so much about other animals? Maybe what we need most
to know is that we could possibly join them in their non-domestication.
Kant was grievously wrong about human superiority. âAs the single being
on earth that possesses understanding, he is certainly titular lord of
nature.â[46] Walt Whitman provides a simple response: âDo not call the
tortoise unworthy because she is not something else.â[47] It is
noteworthy that women dominate what is called animal ethology, and are
far less prone to follow Kantâs wrongheadedness.
The illusion of human domination of the natural world comes in many
forms. One is the assumption that our prowess gives us long-range
safety; we forget that this orientation can lead us into danger in the
long run. Our lost connection, our lost awareness have led us into an
age of horrors of every kind. And as Olaus Murie once said, âIn the
evolution of the human spirit, something much worse than hunger can
happen to a people.â[48]
Jacques Derrida came to see the prime importance of the question of
animality for humans, as pivotal to âthe essence and future of
humanity.â[49] The image of a free animal initiates a daydream, the
starting point from which the dreamer departs. Meanwhile the living
reality, the communion among species, yet manage to survive. The Inupiat
Eskimo and Gwichâin people, who still travel without maps and discern
direction without compasses, know that the caribou carry a piece of them
in their hearts, while they carry the caribou in their hearts.[50]
The counsel of immediacy, of direct connection, has not been
extinguished. âBut ask now the beasts/ And they shall teach thee;/ And
the fowls of the air/ And they shall teach thee;/ Or speak to the Earth/
And it shall teach thee.â (Job 12: 7-8) In the Arctic Jonathan Waterman
moved away from separation, from domestication: âI first removed my
watch. My ability to isolate different and unidentifiable smells became
incredibly distracting. My hearing seemed to improve.â[51] Far from the
Arctic, traces of this dimension have always been felt. Melville sensed
in the sight of a sperm whale a colossal existence without which we are
incomplete. One thinks of Virginia Woolfâs use of animal vocabularies
and inter-species relations. Something whole, something unbroken, there
millions of years before Homo showed up. Bequeathing to us what Henry
Beston Sheahan called our âanimal faith,â which he saw being destroyed
by the Machine Age.[52] We are lost, but other animals point to the
right road. They are the right road.
We lack that state of grace, but we do know how much is in danger.
Laurie Allman, taking in a Michigan songbird: âI can tell in a glance
that he does not know he is endangered. He knows only that his job is to
sing, this day, from the top of that young jack pine. His beak is open,
full of the sky behind him.â[53]
Here are Richard Grossmanâs lines in favor of a return to the old joy:
"We shall forge a change of mind and come to understand the spirit as
animal.[54] We are still animals on the planet, with all its original
messages waiting in our being."
December 2013
[55]] Vera Norwood, Made from this Earth (Chapel Hill: The University of
North Carolina Press, 1993), p. 235.
Our experience is abused
by this user experience
filtered through a bitmap grid
layered in concrete and steel
A cradled touchscreen
has replaced the feel
of what constitutes
the real
Here the simulation serves
as stimulation for the nerves
Severed spirit
Never hears it
Until so much exaggeration
bludgeons to exasperation
An internet morphine drip
this digital drug of civilization
celebrity spectacles for admiration
everything a canvas
to elevate your user status
Does this user experience make us more connected
or is it the machines way of making us wretched
internet trolls
endless filibusters
distractions for a life already surrogated
distilled to bits
fed to drones
then terminated
Technology feeds this lifeless monster
then tells us that weâve come so far
it would be too much
to downgrade its GUI
to a more primitive ancestor
Science led us to empty our heart
engineered products of mathematical modeling
those in the way have received a swift throttling
an intelligently designed experience is delivered
your assigned role is user
tribute is expected,
signed,
Your Abuser
This article originally appears shortened in the printed Issue #1 of
Black Seed. The author wished to include historical content which places
the article in an historical context for the online version.
At the turn of the century, Green Anarchyâs critique of civilization and
uncompromising support of militant tactics was a challenge to anarchists
and brought a number of new debates to the surface. Green Anarchy also
existed within a space that adopted a combative approach towards
ecological struggles with a series of high profile attacks, actions,
blockades, and the like taking place across the United States. It was
the years of black blocs at summit protests, the Earth Liberation Front
(ELF), and other confrontations that tossed the question of nonviolence
to the side in favor of a multifaceted approach embracing a âdiversity
of tactics.â
In the years since, a lot of that activity has receded within anarchist
circles. The critique of civilization has arguably become less present,
even though the bankruptcy of civilization becomes more obvious each
day. If anything, the dystopian future outlined by Green Anarchy is
arriving sooner than expected. Despite a shift in anarchist circles away
from ecological struggles, these struggles have continued and in some
ways are increasing in the United States. Whether due to awareness of
global warming, the involvement of more mainstream non-profit groups, or
an increase in Earth First!-style groups and approaches, the numbers of
actions, action camps, and gatherings is growing. Somewhat like previous
eras of resistance, anarchists and Earth First!-style radicals inhabit
this new ecology of resistance, albeit with more distance between the
two camps (to the extent that they can be separate) than existed in
previous years.
Many of these actions fall under the rubric of what could be called
âradical environmentalismâ in that they are often initiated or supported
by groups that have a deeper analysis or more militant approach than the
Sierra Club, Greenpeace, or the other large environmental groups that
operate primarily on the political terrain (lobbying and soliciting
funds to engage in such activities).[56] Among these groups, Earth
First! is the most prominent. From hosting annual meet-ups and
conferences, providing trainings, and publishing accounts in the Earth
First! Journal and on their website, Earth First! has been involved,
either explicitly or indirectly.[57] Much of this new ecological
activity has been what could be described as ânon-violentâ direct
action: lockdowns, treesits, and the like. In many ways, itâs the
standard toolbox from which Earth First! has drawn from for the better
part of thirty-five years. However, what is different about these
efforts is how Earth First! and this wider crowd has self-consciously
started to adopt the restrictive rhetoric of non-violence and civil
disobedience, as well as the worn approaches.[58]
There are multiple ways to orient oneself to this approach. On the one
hand, outright dismissal seemslike the most easy course. Anarchists
would see little to gain and would have an easy time debunking the
tactical and strategic choices being made in the radical environmental
movement. It isnât hard to see this new route as a retreat into the
failed approaches of the past. However, in the relative absence of a
green anarchist presence in the United States over the past few years,
Earth First! was the primary radical and militant voice. They are one of
the only groups that will raise the problem of âindustrial
civilizationâ[59] and their publications are peppered with a vague form
of anti-civilization anarchism, even if it rarely coheres into much of
anything and is often missing from its actions.
Radical ecological action has a history in the United States that dates
back at least to the 1980s when Earth First! appeared on the scene.
Earth First! broke from the prevailing model of environmental activism
both in terms of advocating for direct action to protect wild spaces
(for example, blockading roads and treesits to prevent logging) and
sabotage. From the early 1980s on, Earth First! has supported sabotage
(often called âmonkey wrenchingâ), by openly encouraging its use,
publishing manuals popularizing the tactics, refusing to condemn its
use, and supporting prisoners doing time for acts of ecological
resistance. Earth First! is of course not a unified network, itâs a
collection of relatively autonomous chapters, characterizing itself as
ââŠnot an organization, but a movement.â[60] Consequently, making blanket
statements about Earth First! can be difficult, but it is fair to say
that the mix of direct action and sabotage has been a prominent
strategy. Nevertheless, Earth First! advocated for a range of different
approaches over the years, talking about sabotage one minute and a few
minutes later holding up the virtues of civil disobedience. In its
Primer, Earth First! speaks favorably of monkey wrenching, while hedging
its bets and saying that âthe Earth First! movement neither advocates
nor condemns monkeywrenching officially.â[61]
Earth First! has existed within a space that could be broadly called
âradical environmentalismâ that incorporates a range of other tactics.
Anarchists have been involved in Earth First! over the years, coming to
prominence in the late 1980s. An important point of reference was the
publication of Live Wild or Die. It advocated for more destructive
actions and a deeper analysis, moving closer to the anti- civilization
anarchist perspective developing at the time. Influenced by publications
such as Green Anarchist and Do Or Die out of England, more people in the
United States began to advocate for a more conflictual approach. Perhaps
as a reaction to some of the more contradictory elements of Earth
First!, these critiques grew in prominence in the Pacific Northwest
where some of the most high profile environmental struggles were taking
place. Zines such as Black-Clad Messenger published with the tag line
âactualizing industrial collapseâ and Disorderly Conduct published by
âThe Bring on the Ruckus Societyâ (a seeming tongue-and-cheek critique
of the âmass movementâ that emerged after the protests against the WTO
in Seattle in 1999) advanced a critique of civilization and advocated
uncompromising militant action,[62] an approach also characterized the
journal Green Anarchy.[63]
In the 1990s and into the early 2000s, these different groupings formed
a constellation of activity characterized by a variety of new
approaches. Lines between different grouping were relatively loose and
their was considerable cross-over between groups. From occupations and
treesits like Warner Creek to the Minnehaha Free State, different
tactics and strategies existed in parallel with and drew strength from
each other. While we now know based on various legal cases over the past
several years the lines between Earth First!, the Earth Liberation
Front, and anarchists werenât always clear, the strategies were often
different. For example, while Earth First! was involved with the
Minnehaha Free State, the Earth Liberation Front tried tree spiking.
Among the participants in the black bloc in Seattle that attacked chain
stores and various other corporations during the World Trade
Organization (WTO) summit were those who acted within this space.
While not always directly connected to ecological resistance, the years
immediately following Seattle were ones characterized by militant
confrontations with the state and attacks on corporate property. Outside
of trade summits, black blocs were a favorite tactic, attacking the
police and property. In Seattle, both the sanctity of corporate property
and non-violent protest tactics were challenged. In the wake of Seattle,
one heard relatively little about civil disobedience and non-violence,
with the discussion dramatically shifting. While not everything was
perfect, the subsequent confrontations were described as âdirect actionâ
rather than âcivil disobedience,â a change in wording that signaled a
desire to move beyond symbolic and ritualized displays of dissent. While
there was no unified view, property destruction was largely seen as a
given, with proponents either accepting it outright or trying to argue
that it was in fact ânon-violent.â Pacifism, peace police, and
non-violenceâall of which were characteristics of the post-1960s
movementsâwere heavily critiqued (see for example, Peter Gelderloos How
Nonviolence Protects the State). Rather than the restrictive
non-violence codes of the past, âdiversity of tacticsâ was the name of
the game and for the most part those advocating for a strict adherence
to nonviolence were on the defensive. In the realm of ecological
resistance, attacks by the Earth Liberation Front were quite common.
These werenât just the high profile attacks at Veil or Michigan State,
but reflected a conflictual practice that spread within the context of
radical environmentalism to places such as Louisville, KY and Long
Island.[64] Throughout the same period, the Animal Liberation Front
(ALF) and the more radical portion of the animal liberation movement
advocated and engaged in economic attacks. The SHAC campaignâwhich
combined a diverse array of strategies from harassment of individuals to
property destructionâalmost brought Huntingdon Life Sciences to its
knees. Even after September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks caused most
leftists to abandon the âanti-globalization movement,â anarchists and
others continued to pursue summit-based confrontations and nighttime
attacks amongst the standard range of collectives, publications,
infoshops, and other projects that make up the anarchist space.
If one is to compartmentalize history into eras, this era of activity
ended largely due to the collapse of the anti-globalization movement,
the Iraq War, and the rise of leftist protest coalitions (although
paradoxically, the left was unable to mount an effective challenge to
the war, but it was able to largely return the model of scripted mass
marches), and the repression of what has been called âthe Green
Scare.â[65] With Operation: Backfire, several former participants in
Earth Liberation Front actions were arrested after one became an
informant. Other related cases including Marie Masonâwho participated in
several Earth Liberation Front actions in the Midwestâand the case of
Eric McDavid (a victim of a government scheme to blow-up a dam), were
followed by a decline in ELF activity.
Even with these setbacks, two mobilizations that happened towards the
end of the 2000s reflected the lessons learned over the course of these
summit demonstrations. Groups organizing against the Republican National
Convention (RNC) in St. Paul in 2008 adopted a set of principles dubbed
the âSt. Paul Principlesâ that enshrined many of the operating practices
of the previous years. It called for the support for a âdiversity of
tactics,â while also reaching agreements not to cooperate with law
enforcement against other activists and to refrain from denouncing
others in the media.[66] The primary anarchist organizing bodyâThe RNC
Welcoming Committeeâand the prominent âliberalâ groups all agreed to the
same terms. The result was a disruptive mobilization wherein to a
certain degree there was support and respect for different approaches. A
year later, the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project adopted similar
language and organizing principles.[67]
The point of this is not just to present an overly simplified history of
the early 2000s, but to make the argument that during the period
dogmatic adherence to non-violence was largely abandoned. A wide- range
of folksâfrom anarchists in the black bloc to those engaged in various
forms of ecological resistanceâwere doing so outside of traditional
forms of non-violent protest and civil disobedience. Earth First!
existed within this context and benefited from the combative approach.
One of the most talked about recent campaigns in the radical
environmental movement has been the Tar Sands Blockade, an effort in
south Texas aimed stopping the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Tar Sands Blockade was launched with the help of
[68] and Rising Tide to establish a âpeaceful direct action campâ with a
particular focus on building relationships with those living in the
pipelineâs path.14 Members of Earth First! participated as well and the
larger Earth First! network issued a call encouraging Earth First!ers to
go to Texas.[69] Before the Tar Sands Blockade ceased operating as a
result of a civil lawsuit in which TransCanada claimed the campaign had
cost them $5 million dollars,[70] it featured lockdowns in pipes and on
bulldozers, treesits, and actions at corporate offices.
Tar Sands Blockade embraced ânon-violent direct action.â[71] Far from
using the term as a mere descriptor, they adopted the ideology of
non-violence with all of its worst aspects. They described it as âa
moral high ground from which we can build community in a broken world,â
thereby creating a value judgment against other approaches. Similarly,
they viewed nonviolent direct action as a course to be pursued only once
other methods had been exhausted (a logic that implies one must go the
tedious route of pursuing endless lawsuits first, in order to give their
âresortingâ to direct action more legitimacy). They cast nonviolence as
the only choice, stating that âWith respect for our community, our
opposition, and ourselves, we affirm that we will engage in nonviolent,
community building tactics.â Moreover, they adopted a rhetoric of
professionalism, stating that there is a âneedâ for it and that all of
those they work with will be âwell-trainedâ and âabide by our code of
conduct.â Not surprisingly, they pledge to treat all peopleâfrom police
to those building the pipelineâas if they were their âown brothers and
sisters.â After all, âin the end, we are family.â To top it off, much of
their rhetoric around non-violence was adopted uncritically from âThe
99% Springâ training guide, a booklet that was published as part of a
series of trainings held by various non-profits with the goal of
reigning in Occupy.[72] The booklet provides a basic introduction to
nonviolence as practiced by U.S.-based activist groups, complete with
sanitized histories based on prevailing myths of how âsocial changeâ
happens. Ironically the recuperative and neutralizing advocacy of
nonviolence was literally adopted from groups who had that explicit
purpose. As the campaign carried on they began to describe it as âcivil
disobedienceââa change that reflected an even narrower approach. Despite
this, nothing critical was said about the Tar Sands Blockade. The
blockade received a cover image and a dramatic photo spread in an issue
of the Earth First! Journalânotable for the complete lack of content
beyond spectacular images.[73] Only one critique of the Tar Sands
Blockade seems to have been published, otherwise coverage has been
overwhelmingly positive.[74]
Nonviolence codes have proliferated rapidly within the radical
environmental crowd. An action camp publicized on the Earth First!
Newswire for the âHands of Appalachiaâ campaign, was peppered with the
words ânon-violentâ to describe their tactics of choice.[75] In the
campaignâs âNon-Violence Policy,â they state that âAll individuals are
expected to commit to nonviolenceâ and further state that they âdo not
condone property destruction.â[76] Mountain Justice, another campaign
targeting Mountain Top Removal mining in Appalachia, has a similar code.
They explain that property destruction and violence have been used by
coal companies to silence opposition, framing themselves as a more
dignified non- violent approach.[77] They make it clear in multiple
areas of their website that they âdo NOT engage in sabotage.â[78] RAMPS
(Radical Action for Mountain Peopleâs Survival)âwhile less explicitâ
categorizes their anti-mountaintop removal work as a ânon-violent direct
actionâ campaign.[79]
Aside from limiting the range of responses to ecological destruction,
nonviolence codes serve a policing role over struggles. There is
self-policing when only a limited range of acceptable tactics are
considered. In relation to others who resist, they have a policing role
by isolating others and having a position that condemns other types of
tactics. Itâs paternalistic in the sense that the movement
specialistsâthose with the training and those who do the
trainingsâdecide for others what the best way to resist is. By stating
explicitly that they will remain within certain narrow parameters, it is
easier for the state to manage and neutralize them. While debating what
is and isnât âdirect actionâ is not the most exciting or most relevant
debate, it is interesting to note that the radical environmental
movement is increasingly defining it in ways that include tactics that
rely solely on representation by specialists, such as the so-called
âpaper wrenchingâ of filing lawsuits[80] or highly technical blockades.
Along with the embrace of non-violence, there has also been a shift
towards even more restrictive forms in which âdirect actionâ has been
replaced with âcivil disobedience.â While it may seem like a semantic
debate, it suggests a political orientation. Whereas direct action is
largely about disruption and gaining direct results (for example,
stopping logging), civil disobedience is about performing an âillegalâ
act for the purpose of appealing to authority and/or demonstrating the
unjust nature of a particular law or policy. It also carries the
expectation of politeness, that one will act in a âcivilâ manner as one
demonstrates their opposition.
There has been an increase in civil disobedience actions relating to the
environment over the past couple of years. While none of these could be
cast as âradical,â they are worth considering for the attention that
they have received within the radical environmental movement. For the
most part, these have been embraced or promoted uncritically. Over the
summer, an editor for the Earth First! Journal wrote a piece titled
âNGOs Kickoff Civil Disobedience Campaign at Chicago Anti-KXL Rallyâ
which is representative of the attitude towards these new efforts. The
campaign was organized by Credo Mobile (yes, a cell phone company that
âsupports activism and funds progressive nonprofitsâ) and aimed at
preventing President Barack Obama from approving the Keystone XL. On
their âPledge of Resistanceâ they ask people to âengage in serious,
dignified, peaceful civil disobedience,â[81] invoking the images of âthe
peaceful and dignified arrestsâ of over 1,253 people in August 2011,
which they claim delayed approval of the plan. This is scripted civil
disobedience at its finest, a scenario that could be straight out of
Ward Churchillâs Pacifism as Pathology.[82] The writer from Earth First!
didnât seem to find anything wrong with this, instead imploring radicals
to ââŠnot to blow it by being self-righteous pricks.â The writer argues
that actions âmake space for growing broader support of direct action in
general, if we engage them as such.â When the Sierra Club announced they
were going to engage in civil disobedience, the Earth First! Newswire
expressed some skepticism but saw it as the potential seeds for an
ecological âmass movementâ and said that the proper role for Earth
First! was âto keep pushing the envelopeâuntil said envelope has been
reduced to ashes.â[83]
Unfortunately, this has not happened. Groups like Earth First!âwhether
caught up in fantasies about âthe movementâ or for other reasonsâhave
uncritically supported these efforts. It doesnât seem like they are
doing much to catalyze support for direct action as Earth First! may
have defined it in the past. Instead, these groups are having a
constraining effect on the radical environmental movement. Eager to fit
into the new ecological âmovement,â it seems that many so-called
radicals are beginning to narrowly position themselves in a way so as
not to separate from these potential allies. Rather than pushing the
envelope, Earth First! is in many ways closing the envelope in ways that
limit struggles.
Groups within the âradical environmentalâ movement have started to
self-identify their actions as civil disobedience. For example, the
Michigan Coalition Against the Tar Sands (MI-CATS) described an action
in which some members locked themselves to a bulldozer as ânon-violent
civil disobedience.â[84] Many of these actions have adopted the worst
aspects of civil disobedience, playing up the âcivilâ aspect and
adopting an attitude of personal sacrifice and martyrdom.[85] They
become acts of personal heroics, as is the case when activists position
themselves as being compelled to act in the face of great injustice as a
âpersonal statement of civil disobedience.â[86] Actions become about the
individuals as much as stopping the act of destruction. The story of why
one acted is almost as important as the action itself. A familiar trope
is a rhetoric of regret, where participants might express sadness that
they are keeping people from âtheir jobsâ or the police from âprotecting
societyââeven though in this case those jobs are allowing for the
destruction and the police are a part of the system that allows for it.
[87] In the most ridiculous extreme of these actions, activists work
with the police, choreographing their actions to place minimal strain on
the police. This was the case at an action in Massachusetts where
350.org worked with police to coordinate the protest and wore shirts
identifying those risking arrest.[88] It can also happen in smaller
ways, such as when protestors announce their intentions in advance, as
was seen at a MI-CATS action where an individual climbed into a pipeline
until just 5pm.[89] This limits the tactic and removes the threat of
uncontrollable disruption. In other cases the individual focus results
in a celebrity culture where actual celebrities (think Taylor Swiftâs
ex-boyfriend, Robert Kennedy, and the like[90]) are praised for their
sacrifice (and at elevated above others as being more important), or
where âmovementâ celebrities are created.[91]
Over the summer of 2013, many ecological actions followed these models.
The #FearlessSummer campaign (a series of actions primarily promoted
through âsocial mediaâ) and the #SummerHeat (named with a âTwitter
hashtagââis this really how disconnected from the Earth we have become?)
campaign were two examples. Aside from the problematic politics of
advocating a âclean energy economyââwhich should be enough to keep
so-called radicals away, these groups also embrace the same narrow range
of tactics.[92] While theoretically decentralized, the influence of
organizations pushing for nonviolence was apparent in much of the
language. At best the topic is avoided (as is the case in the language
for #FearlessSummer), but absent a stated supported of a diversity of
tactics, it is all too easy for the recuperative aspects to take
hold.[93] An organizing manual funded by 350.org called the âCreative
Action Cookbookâ was funded by 350.org advocated nonviolence, even
offering a helpful scenario in which they described how scary a protest
with a crowd of people (âmostly young white men in their twentiesâ)
dressed in black is compared to a nonviolent protest where âeven the
police officers are smiling and they are gently putting protestors in
mass arrest trucks.â[94] In the case of #SummerHeat, action participants
at a scripted sit-in at a Chevron facility in Richmond, California were
required to sign-up online and confirm that they âpromise to be
nonviolent and peaceful in all of my activities during the action.â[95]
Guidelines further stated that âNon-violence includes no verbal abuse or
threatening motionsâ[96] and that they should âappear dignified in dress
and demeanor â these are serious issues, and we want to be taken
seriouslyâ[97].
For their part, Earth First!âas much one can make statements about
itâseems intent on pursuing a policy of engagement with these efforts.
This is most often done uncritically. In the case of the aforementioned
praised the campaign, writing â350.org joining with the Industrial
Workers of the World on an environmental justice campaign. If that
doesnât give you goosebumps, I donât know what will.â They also included
a quote praising the police for being âvery gentle, apologetic, and
polite.â In the absence of criticism, it is far more likely to see
condescending tones directed towards those who disagree with this
uncritical embrace of new movementsâwith anarchists receiving a
particular amount of scorn.[98] The attitude seems to be that debate is
divisive, a position that may get short-term allies, but is likely to
gloss over differences and cause problems down the road. Moreover, it
raises all sorts of questions: what are the ramifications of being
dishonest about oneâs beliefs for short term gain? Are they hidden out
of fear? Paternalism? Etc? While not relating specifically to
nonviolence, one example of pursuing an alliance despite significant
differences was Earth First!âs multi-year embrace of Deep Green
Resistance, a neo- Maoist group dominated by Derrick Jensen and the
transphobia of Lierre Keith.[99]
Actions
Itâs easy to criticize the efforts of groups like 350.org and the more
mainstream of the environmental groups. In many ways, in the climate
that exists in the United States, it isnât surprising that such groups
would adopt a strict adherence to non-violenceâit is one of the primary
myths that weâre taught about how âchangeâ happens. In many cases, there
are caricatures of past movementsâthe glossed over accounts of the civil
rights movement or Gandhi and the Indian independence movementâthat cast
them as solely non-violent struggles or pick out the most passive forms
of resistance and hold those up as successful.[100] A group like Earth
First! or the anarchists/radicals who chose to work with these new
groups should be challenging these narratives, not embracing them. This
could be done through constructive criticism and propaganda, or by
creating exciting and empowering alternatives.
Instead, Earth First! seems to be caught in a rut, pursuing a limited
strategy of moving from one campaign to another and pursuing the same
limited set of tactics. What is going to happen at any given action is
predictable. There will be a call for solidarity actions (nowadays often
called by some big group like 350.org as EF! is often reacting to their
work rather than setting their own unique course), a lockdown will take
place or a tripod will go up, a post will go on the newswire, and
fundraising calls will go out. Or there will be an âaction campâ
featuring the usual set of workshops, followed on the last day by some
kind of âactionâ following the above template. The actions themselves
will be highly scripted and ritualized, with a series of unique
rolesâmedia liaisons, police liaisons, arrestables, etc. There is little
if any improvisation, the actions are perfected down to a scienceâhence
the reason why Earth First! can conduct so many âtrainingsâ on how to do
them. Moreover, by adopting as their primary form relatively specialized
types of blockades that require some technical knowledgeâit creates a
culture of specialists in struggle. The result is an increasingly narrow
range of actions with increasingly high stakes. If every lockdown is
going to result in felony charges, at what point does the tactic become
obsolete?
If the tactics arenât working, neither is using these approaches to
advance Earth First!âs understanding and critique of civilization.
Whether to build the alliances described above or out of a strategic
calculation of some sort, they almost always position themselves around
a âsingle issueâ rather than addressing the totality. Consequently, when
Earth First! engages in these new movements, its viewsâ particularly the
criticism of civilizationâare not being taken up. These movements are
still defined narrowly in terms of protesting a particular type of
energy. There has yet to be anything with a perspective critical of
civilization or all forms of industrial infrastructure. So not only do
the tactics become confined, but the politics as well.
At best, the radical environmental movement is stuck in a rut, trapped
within a space of increasing contradictions as leftist groups and large
NGOs try to manage dissent. Groups like Earth First! and others that
share similar approaches are playing a role in this by embracing
non-violence, civil disobedience, moral appeals, and a culture of
ritualized and scripted actions. Rather than growing from the
experiences of the past, they have shifted onto a course that constrains
struggle rather than expands it.
Of course, it doesnât have to be like this. There are other approaches
to take. Earlier in this piece, there was a discussion of the radical
environmental milieu in the years following the Seattle WTO and how a
multi-tendency space that broke with traditional forms of protest that
created opportunities for new forms of resistance. While success is
difficult to define, those years had a level of excitement and even
victories that inspired many to take significant risksâperhaps even
inspiring some of the current crop of Earth First! elders. Had the
current level of stifling adherence to non-violence that we now see been
applied to that period, many people like myself wouldnât be aroundâwe
would have missed out on the excitement and formative experiences of
confronting lines of riot police, the joy of moments of collective acts
of rebellion, and the inspiration that came from pushing dumpsters into
lines of police. This isnât to reduce things down to simple tactical
preferences, but rather to point out that just as Keystone XL wonât be
stopped by non-violent civil disobedience in front of the White House,
the Seattle round of trade talks wouldnât have collapsed unless the
states involved saw the opposition as a genuine threatâin that case, one
which was unpredictable and uncontrollable, and one that challenged
capitalism (at the very least)âvia a diverse and combative approach.
Another example that is worth considering is the Stop Huntingdon Animal
Cruelty (SHAC) campaign. Using an entirely decentralized and open
approach, the SHAC campaignâwhich targeted Huntingdon Life Sciences
(HLS) and the companies that did business with themâallowed space for
individuals and groups to engage in a wide range of actions under the
idea that everything helped. A timeline of actions focusing on just one
company, Marsh Inc., shows a staggering array of approaches ranging from
home demonstrations, locks being glued in offices, blockades at offices,
vandalism of homes, property destruction, demonstrations, etc.[101] In
just a few months, Marsh ceased involvement with HLS. The symbiotic
relationship between the aboveground and the underground, as well as
support for a diversity of tactics helped catalyze a range of actions.
While there are additional lessons to be learned from the SHAC
campaign,[102] it is interesting to consider how such an approach might
be applied to the current struggles over pipelines. How well would
construction fare if local companies building pipelines were attacked
with the same intensity as those doing business with HLS?
Similarly, ecological resistance could learn from the approaches
developed by insurrectionary anarchists across North America. Anarchists
have created a culture of attack that in the best cases works not only
to expand their base, but also to materially damage their enemies. For
example, struggles against the police in the Pacific Northwest that both
offered relatively open forms for people to get involved in militant
street confrontations as well as nighttime attacks on police stations.
Moreover, these currents have been successful at catalyzing activity
elsewhere, with calls for days of solidarity resulting in a smattering
of actions across the continent. At the risk of reducing complexities,
this has happened by advocating relatively open tactical approaches and
articulating a need for attack. At best, Earth First! has remained
distant from these strands and at worst has been hostile.[103]
Earth First!âand âthe radical environmental movementââcould learn from
the not-so-distant past and try new approaches being taken elsewhere.
The most obvious approach is to cast aside the language of nonviolence,
civil disobedience, and morality. Tactics should be measured by their
effectiveness, not their adherence to principles loaded with value
judgments. Is this lockdown going to work? Are the benefits worth the
cost? Will this act of sabotage work? Which approach will work better?
These are the types of questions that should be asked. Moreover, a
culture should be created which embraces a diversity of tactics wherein
groups agree not to condemn the actions of others, refuse to cooperate
with the police, and refuse to isolate those pursuing more militant
approaches. Regardless of individual and group tactical preferences, all
choices gain strength when they are part of a broad space that cannot be
easily co-opted and divided.
Of course, such a culture of militancy isnât going to come about out of
a simple declaration of support for a diversity of tactics. But, it is
at least a start. If options are kept open, not only is there more to
draw from, but more places to go.
In early February, two communiques surfaced on the Seattle-based website
Tides of Flame[104],[105]. The communique author(s) took credit for
obstructing the passage of workers headed to their offices at Microsoft
in Redmond, WA, and again the next day of workers going to Amazon
Headquarters in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle. Similarly,
in the Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley) anarchists and
radicals have taken to blocking Google, Yahoo and Twitter commuter
busses, even going so far as to physically attack them. In one of the
communiques from Seattle, the author(s) plainly state that they have
taken inspiration from these Bay Area actions. This invokes the memory
of Os Cangaceiros, a group of social rebels in France during the
1980âs-90âs who would commonly block trains with banners and leaflets
proclaiming solidarity with prisoners on strike and listing their
demands. While it is exciting to see such tactics taken up commonly and
spread beyond the original context in which they surfaced, anarchists
and other rebels should nonetheless be willing to give actions and their
communications the critical glare that we apply to the rest of the
world. Holding back critique of anarchist communications out of respect
for the actions they accompany would do nothing to further and enhance
the struggle against domination.
As quoted in the first communique, âOn Monday, February 10th, a small
group of people blocked a Microsoft Connector Shuttle in the Capitol
Hill neighborhood of Seattle.â The Microsoft Connector shuttle provides
free transportation to Microsoft employees across the city of Seattle to
the Microsoft headquarters located in a suburb of Seattle called
Redmond, which can sometimes take hours to drive to during rush-hour. In
the communique, the author(s) claim âWithout the Connector Shuttle
bringing these employees to Capitol Hill, Ballard, South Seattle, and
the North End, the hyper-gentrification we now see would not have
happened. Microsoft currently employs more people in the Seattle area
than Amazon, Google, and Adobe combined. So it is not unreasonable to
place the blame for the drastic restructuring of our neighborhoods
largely on Microsoft and the developers who built according to their
needs.â
On the contrary! This reasoning fails to acknowledge the Leviathan that
is civilization, capitalism and the death-march that is technology and
progress. Microsoft cannot solely be the party responsible for the
economic development and gentrification of neighborhoods in Seattle, the
Leviathan is much more nuanced than that. It uses its limbs to obstruct
authentic life, whether through policing, science, or dystopic visions
of âthe futureâ. Furthermore, it is not just the police and city
councils who wish to see neighborhoods âcleaned upâ and are responsible
for raised rent-prices. We are all complicit in capitalism, and the
ârevitalizationâ of neighborhoods in Seattle is an effort applauded by
many of those who have relocated to the Seattle metropolitan area in the
last five to ten years to begin careers and families. While it is
important to connect the dots and name the names of those who play roles
in maintaining the ever increasing drudgery of every day life, we cannot
fall into the trap of attempting to find one common enemy when the
Leviathan is everywhere, and such our enemies.
The other communique, detailing the blockade of a train of Amazon
workers, goes into detail about the developed relations of the CIA and
Amazon, a history of CIA-staged-coups and Amazonâs union-busting
practices, and Amazonâs intention to replace all of its human workers
within their service and delivery centers with drones and robots. The
sentiment here is one of desiring a more fair workplace and a
preservation of the working class as it has existed since industrial
capitalism began. This is similar to the first communique that deeply
stresses the economic hardships that have fallen on the poor and
downtrodden throughout Seattle as gentrification rampages throughout
neighborhoods and rent prices soar, stopping just short of crying âWe
want cheaper rent now!â
If one were to take these communiques in good faith, it could be assumed
that the author(s) do indeed carry a larger critique of Microsoft,
Amazon and the developments in technology and surveillance society that
these corporations are currently aiding in. So why leave these
sentiments out? In hopes of attracting more followers, or to have a
message that is more eligible to the masses? Given that journalist
Brendan Kiley (who seems to consistently know what the anarchists are up
to and writes almost positively about them) from Seattleâs liberal paper
The Stranger had gotten a secret heads-up of the action[106], the
motivations seem clear: to communicate as far and wide to the general
populace of Seattle an incredibly acceptable critique of Microsoft and
Amazon, thus watering down the critique to be provided. This sentiment
abandons the belligerence that is the ineffable and inflammable idea of
anarchy. By definition, anarchy goes against the grain of the dominant
social order, shouting âNo!â while the rest of the world retires into
bleak submission. If anarchists water down their ideas with the
intention of finding more comrades and co-conspirators, surely they are
to only find compromise and relations that in truth lack any real notion
of affinity.
For the destruction of this world and for the fostering of friendships
that light the night and our souls aflame, we must not hide the unruly
elements of our characters in hopes of fitting in with a social body
that will never accommodate our desires. Our enemy is ever expanding and
developing as a vast and plural being, and so must our contempt for it.
An Anti-Civilisation and Anti-Colonial Critique of "Sustainable
Agriculture"
In this essay, I wish to explore the way that permaculture intersects
with an (anarchist[ic] and anti-colonial) anti-civilisation critique. By
no means do I wish to tow some anarcho-primitivist line (though some
inspiration from it is not denied), but rather to raise questions of
where permaculture may accompany a critique of civilisation, and where
it possibly diverges. Some of the critiques I raise here stem from my
years of study and experience in the area, in which my critical lens
often came to be at odds with my colleagues.
In the contemporary environmentalist milieu both the theory of
permaculture and its practice have become popular as means by which to
repair the earthâs depleting topsoil and to otherwise attempt to live
more sustainably with our planet. It is but one response to the
ecological crisis that we face, whether the conversation is centred
around climate change, environmental destruction, food security, or the
totality.
So what is permaculture? One of the co-orginators of the permaculture
concept Bill Mollison, and his colleague Scott Pittman, define it as
such:
âPermaculture (Permanent Agriculture) is the conscious design and
maintenance of cultivated ecosystems which have the diversity, stability
& resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of
landscape, people & appropriate technologies, providing good, shelter,
energy & other needs in a sustainable way. Permaculture is a philosophy
and an approach to land use which works with natural rhythms & patterns,
weaving together the elements of microclimate, annual & perennial
plants, animals, water & soil management, & human needs into intricately
connected & productive communities.â
Permaculture as a concept is, in fact, quite broad. This opens it up as
both something more in tune with the true complexities of world, yet
vulnerable to co-optation. Permaculture exists not as a singularity, but
as a multiplicity. For example, agriculture is a discipline of food
production, unaware if its relationship to other disciplines, whereas
permaculture is inter-disciplinary: it attempts to understand the
interconnectedness of an ecosystem as a totality.
Given how broad the concept of permaculture is, there can be no
generalised analysis of it. Rather, we can explore the different aspects
of it both in theory and practice, and see how these compliment or
detract from an anti-civilisation critique.
Before I go on, it may be helpful to explain where Iâm coming from.
There was a time quite a few years ago when, after having become more
acquainted with anti-civilisation ideas, I began to destruct such things
as my relationship to the earth, and my own autonomy â i.e. my own
self-sufficiency. What skills did I have? What did I know about the
earth/natural world? What did I know about my landbase/bioregion? I had
in fact been travelling for a long time, and had very little sense of
place. Eventually, I thought it was time to return to the lands I grew
up in (or thereabouts), as in fact that was where permaculture had first
developed. At that time, I saw learning about permaculture as a means to
develop a relationship to one of the things that sustains me â food. Of
course I had wilder dreams as it were, but I saw this as a starting
point.
And from there, in different forms, I eventually studied permaculture,
both formally through multiple courses, and informally through reading,
meeting people, participating in projects.
And this is where my journey began.
Most of my participation in permacultural projects, both in courses or
otherwise, was generally urban-based. This of course is not so
surprising, due to the fact I lived in the city during these times. I
did, however, experience some rural dimensions to this, specifically one
rural course (in that case, just outside of the city), and quite a few
rural excursions. This is on top of the rural aspects to the
permaculture design that I was required to learn in both courses. In
permaculture design, a given property is traditionally divided into five
(or six) zones. According to Wikipedia,
âZones are a way of intelligently organizing design elements in a human
environment on the basis of the frequency of human use and plant or
animal needs.â
However, due to the generally smaller size of urban properties, only the
first three zones (zone 0 being the house) are ever really utilised,
though this may change to two due to the disappearance of backyard
space. That is the main scope of urban permaculture.
One aspect of permaculture that straight off the bat stands out for
analysis is how it manifests in urban environments. Permaculture as seen
in cities can include community gardens, city farms, backyard gardens,
and is an attempt to make urban spaces more self-sufficient and reduce
our carbon footprint. An anti-civilisation critique of cities is that
their existence is predicated on the importation of resources (e.g.
food) from rural areas. Permaculture, especially of the urban variety,
attempts to mediate this. Funnily enough, in both of the courses I
undertook, the idea of the carbon footprint was presented, and we at
least once analysed our own.
As it is, with such a concentration of humans in a confined space, there
isnât room in their immediate area to produce the means of their
subsistence. The importation of resources, most importantly food, then
creates a larger carbon footprint. The further the distance required to
import these things, the more the system relies on of the existence of
industrial infrastructure to move the (e.g. a truck moves food from a
farm to a supermarket in the city, which is fuelled by petroleum, which
is transported by ship from Saudi Arabia, which is mined by equipment
which is also fuelled by petroleum... ad infinitum).
So then, permaculture looks at a given situation and tries to use design
principles in order to use the pre-existing features on a piece of land
(whether rural or urban) to advance further self-sufficiency, with a
lower ecological impact (i.e. carbon footprint), and generally to make a
property more green. This indeed goes beyond food, as it is a holistic
approach to analysing a given place, and can also include such things
storing water, using natural light, composting, etcetera.
It is not the purpose of this essay to discuss in detail (though I will
briefly) whether permaculture designed cities can produce enough food
for their inhabitants. Such contexts do not exist in my experience in
the West. On top of that, Havana (Cuba) is often championed as the great
hope of urban permaculture (see the documentary The Power of Community:
How Cuba Survived Peak Oil) â whilst still not producing all of its own
food. I do think what happens there is an interesting experiment, as
experimentation is important to our adaptivity to the changing context
of the ecological chaos ahead of us, yet I do also think such a fixation
with âsaving the citiesâ may well instead be dancing with the devil, yet
another manifestation of greenwashing.
Breaking this down more, there is this emphasis on taking inspiration
from nature, of which a city is quite the antithesis, and such a density
of humans cannot support the carrying capacity of a given area.
According to Wikipedia:
âThe carrying capacity of a biological species in an environment is the
maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain
indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities
available in the environment.â
According to Toby Hemenway, Paris produces 30% of its own food, more
than most western cities, and similarly, Hugh Warwick notes that Havana
produces up to 50%. So even in the permaculture mecca, the dependence on
rural agriculture (permaculture?) is still 50%. Hemenway, a
permaculturist, who lives in the city of Portland, goes on to say:
âWe can get better at growing food in the cities, but I donât think we
can get good enoughâ.
I tend to agree. Population densities characteristic of cities are not
harmonious with any sort of ecological carrying capacity. And I think
that the idea of cities is so embedded in at least some strands of
permaculture that manifests even outside of the city.
Indeed, I believe there is a certain dishonesty, or disillusionment at
best, within the western urban permaculture philosophy, saying that
certain modes of living â lifestyles, can be synthesized with carrying
capacity. They cannot. This goes beyond simply the existence of cities,
as I have witnessed the simple transplantation of the urban lifestyle
into the rural setting. There is an individualism rife here, intertwined
into a mess of hyper privilege â owning land by oneself (or simply
reproducing the nuclear family), paying for both the design and
construction to be undertaken by other people, maintaining all their
creature comforts of the city (e.g. electricity, going to the
supermarket), amongst others. Often, these houses will be much larger
than are necessary. This almost appears to be an excuse for such people
to ethically live in luxury. It is disgusting, and this very thing
typifies my current difficulty with identifying at all with
permaculture. Some also try to build themselves, but whether itâs a
matter of their design or lack of workforce, it takes decades for them
to finish building their homes. Again, if we are to take inspiration
from nature, we need not look further than ourselves. When our species
has lived with nature rather than opposed to it, both in the past and in
remnants today, we evolutionarily live together â in a community. As
Kevin Tucker said, âRewilding is never a solitary adventure.â
An important distinction to make, however, is that such manifestations
of permaculture differ greatly according to context, such as access to
wealth. What this means in practice specifically is how technology is
used. In richer countries, especially in urban environments, the
fixation with usage of complex technological gadgets increases. Rather
than it being an option, it often seems like more of a social norm. If
access plays a big part in what permaculture may look like, then the
versions of permaculture that may appear more ecologically sound will be
simpler designs that donât require the same access to economic privilege
and resources that highly technological projects do. It is this
simplicity, in the end, that inspires adaptation, holistic design, and
knowledge out of necessity.
And The Collapse
One interesting and illuminating divergence is the way in which peak oil
(or peak everything in Richard Heinbergâs words) is framed. Rather than
using the aforementioned words, or even the more emotive and provocative
collapse, some permaculturists like David Holmgren refer to a concept of
âEnergy descentâ (also referred to as âCreative Descentâ). This refers
to:
â[the] retraction of oil use after the peak oil availability... the
post-peak oil transitional phase, when humankind goes from the ascending
use of energy that has occurred since the industrial revolution to a
descending use of energy.â
One of the really productive elements of this framework as opposed to
that of a more collapse-style, is that creating this imagery of a
descent debunks the idea that there is some magical climactic event
which will bring forth mass ecological destruction and the fall of
civilisation. Instead, this points towards things unfolding in stages,
and possibly quite slowly (relatively speaking). However, it goes beyond
that, as it also is framed as a gentler, voluntary descent rather than
one that is out of our hands. More specifically, another popular concept
in this milieu is Energy Descent Planning (i.e. transition), a process
developed by the Transition Towns Movement. This is a system for
developing local plans to design and prepare for energy descent. In this
sense, it means the actual process of gradually changing the way we
live, such as the energy sources we use (alternative energy), to be
healthier for the earth and to soften the energy descent.
Overall, this is a really helpful way to frame the equation. Creating
frameworks where we positively are working together, decentralised, in
our region-specific communities speaks to the heart. However, such
positive wording is not without its dangers, i.e. greenwashing. Not to
mention that it can create the illusion that perhaps things arenât so
bad. Itâs in the clichĂ© false dichotomy of positive/negative, where one
may say, âI donât want to think of the negatives, just the positives.â.
Of course, Iâm not suggesting you go out looking for so-called negative
experiences, but rather, the trap is the bubble. Youâll forget reality.
Indeed, it would be quite a bubble for you to forget reality in its
entirety (people do try!), but with the types of walls that people
create in their lives, in their minds, bursting some bubbles sometimes
is a necessary reality check.
It may not be a collapse. Maybe it will be an energy descent. We could
be lucky. But honestly, we really donât know what will happen. What I do
know is that it may be fucking horrible and no positive wording with
save us from whatever comes ahead of us.
Then thereâs this idea of sustainability. What exactly does sustainable
even mean?
In breaking down the word âsustainabilityâ to try to flesh out what it
really entails, Toby Hemenwayâs lecture How Permaculture Can Save
Humanity and The Planet, but not Civilization, illuminates the
conversation. What he posits is that sustainability is, in fact, a bit
of a misnomer. Itâs not really something that relates to a healthy
ecology, but rather survival amidst destruction. For example, so-called
sustainable logging may not directly affect the logging of other forests
outside of designated sustainable logging coup, but it doesnât help heal
any of the destruction that has been, will be, and is currently waged on
these forests. So Hemenway places sustainability as a halfway point
between what he refers to as degenerative and regenerative practice. The
former relates to actions that facilitate the degradation of ecosystems
(i.e. everything the dominant culture does), whilst the latter
facilitates ecosystem healing (i.e. everything the dominant culture
doesnât do). Itâs an interesting point, and in fact helps break down the
façade that claims that this buzzword, sustainability, is helping to
save the planet. Itâs greenwashing again, trying to excuse our
destructive lifestyles. So in permaculture, regenerative practice
attempts to mimic natural ecological functions that help repair the
different types of damage that have been inflicted by civilisation. The
message is clear; ceasing civilisationâs damage to the earth and being
âsustainable,â will not save the earth. Until you find me a solar panel
that doesnât require mining, the damage is still being done.
So then the question arisesâis it a question of scale? So-called urban
permaculture ends up being (or at least depending on) another form of
agriculture. We may get better at growing food in cities, but cannot
grow all of it ourselves: hence, rural agriculture. Where does that
leave permaculture? And where does that leave the wild? Some propose an
anthropological look at horticultural societies as a possible link
between permaculture and the wild. Jason Godesky and Toby Hemenway
attempt to define horticulture:
âAs I mentioned, [Yehudi] Cohen [in Man in Adaptation] locates another
form of culture between foraging and agriculture. These are the
horticulturists, who use simple methods to raise useful plants and
animals. Horticulture in this sense is difficult to define precisely,
because most foragers tend plants to some degree, most horticulturists
gather wild food, and at some point between digging stick and plow a
people must be called agriculturists. Many anthropologists agree that
horticulture usually involves a fallow period, while agriculture
overcomes this need through crop rotation, external fertilizers, or
other techniques. Agriculture is also on a larger scale. Simply put,
horticulturists are gardeners rather than farmers.â
To emphasize the difference here, the mention of things like fertilisers
is important because the intensity and scale of agriculture is
predicated on external sources of nutrients, and even energy. This is
similar to a cityâs reliance on external resources to maintain itself.
Large-scale permaculture requires large wild spaces for resources (i.e.
mining â petroleum, etc). But of course as cities expand, wild spaces
must contract, as is exemplified by agriculture and especially
industrialism.
Both horticulture and permaculture contain elements of gardening. They
both have this measure of scale to them, and encourage diversity (as
opposed to agricultureâs monocropping). There is a continuum between
permaculture and foraging. For example, permacultureâs most wild zone,
zone 5, allows for hunting and foraging. And even some of what has been
perceived as foraged wilderness in horticultural societies has sometimes
turned out to actually be their version of a permaculturistâs food
forest. If then, the aim is the wild, and not simply the garden, then
permaculture is a step in the right direction. Though, to be honest, it
never seemed that many permaculturists I encountered ever seemed to see
the forest for the trees â they only ever saw a garden.
Permaculture allows for multiple functions, ecologically, but Hemenway
also claims that it canât perform all of them, hence the necessity of
large wild spaces:
âYou canât just turn the whole world into a garden. There are major
eco-system functions that arenât going to happen if we have completely
gardened the entire planet. We donât know enough about eco-system
functions to run it all ourselves. We have to let alot of it stay wild
so that alot of the not well-perceived and not well understood and
unmanageable eco-system functions can proceed.â
So again, permacultureâs success, like that of horticulture, is
predicated on allowing wild spaces for ecosystem functions. And here, in
the presence of the wild, is where the question of the carbon footprint
and carrying capacity really clash. The standard understanding of an
individualâs carbon footprint refers to how much land, or how many
Earthâs (!) are required for their needs. This usually relates to human
use of land â agriculture. But if the whole world were a farm, or a
garden, then where would the animals be? No, not cows or chickens, but
wilds animals. Where will the resources be? Carrying capacity relates to
every living being (human or not) in a given bioregion, so thereâs an
obvious problem with anthropocentrism to some extent within permaculture
too. So every inch of this Earth is not simply a production unit, as
some may perceive with their precision in measuring the output from
growing grain on a piece of land versus using it to raise cows. The
trick, again, is anthropocentrism. Both choices agricultural and neither
allow for the survival of wild animals. This brings up biocentrism, the
idea that we donât inhabit this planet for our exclusive use â we share
it.
Jason Godesky also talks about origins in the link between permaculture
and horticulture:
âThe fact that so many favorite permacultural techniquesâenhancing edge,
intercropping, guilds, and even many of Fukokaâs techniques like
seedballsâare to be found among horticultural cultures around the world,
is certainly instructive. Is there anything that can distinguish
permaculture from horticulture? To date, I have been unable to find
anything, leading me to the conclusion that permaculture is largely
re-inventing the horticulturalist wheel.â
So it isnât just that permaculture and horticulture have some incidental
similarities, but that permaculture is directly influenced by
horticulture. Itâs similar to the way that anarcho-primitivism is
influenced by hunter/gatherer societies. It can be seen as a way for
those (e.g. Europeans) whose Earth-based cultures and lifeways have been
destroyed, to give credence to those whose lifeways existed in the past
or still exist. No doubt, enduring horticultural techniques have been
integrated into permaculture, as proven by âpermaculturistsâ who were
already doing it before it was âinventedâ. Rediscovered knowledge of
techniques such as seedballs has been also integrated. Literally, it
seems like a process of relearning what we had been doing right, what
worked. But this process, of course, is coming from our current
situation, reliant on industrial agriculture. Where we are coming from
is so tainted, not simply by our resource heavy techniques (e.g.
materials dependent on mining), but by globalisation and colonisation.
This includes plants and animals of course, though I am by no means
being necessarily dogmatic against non-native species (which includes
humans!). But what Iâm also referring to is ideology.
By ideology, I donât mean some vague anti-everything ideology. Everyone
believes in something, or at least uses certain words as a way to convey
an approximation of oneâs ideas, though of course these words will never
have any authentic meaning because of symbolic language. We get inspired
by many things, and identify in various ways, but the point is to find
it in your own context. Ideology homogenizes. Agriculture is
ideological. And its ability to universally apply itself to any and all
contexts is colonisation. Moreover, the predication of agriculture upon
exterior resources because of the depletion it creates in its own
context necessitates expansion. This is civilisation.
âAgriculture itself must be overcome, as domestication, and because it
removes more organic matter from the soil than it puts back.
Permaculture is a technique that seems to attempt an agriculture that
develops or reproduces itself and thus tends toward nature and away from
domestication. It is one example of promising interim ways to survive
while moving away from civilisation.â - John Zerzan
Where does this leave us now? Indeed, permaculture is a continuum to
horticulture. Perhaps then, that allows for permaculture as a transitory
process in line with an anti-civilisation critique, and perhaps even
anarcho-primitivism. However, as with everything under capitalism, under
civilisation, they have insidious mechanisms which help perpetuate and
reproduce themselves. And through globalisation and colonisation, the
ideology of Eurocentrism has spread. John E. Drabinski posits this:
âEurocentrism is a key component of colonialism not just as a political
and economic relation, but as a cultural project: taking itself as its
own measure, Europe could do its violent work across the globe without
ever being put in question by the victims. Further, and doubling the
violence, taking itself as its own measure underpinned the missionary
relation as civilizing force that figured as central to global
domination after conquest and enslavement. Conversion to European
languages and values (in the broadest sense) becomes equivalent to
installing civilization where none previously existed.â
And the zine Desert relates this to anarchism:
âThat this is happening as part of globalisation, and the growth of
cities is not surprising given that the seeds of social movement
Anarchism are largely carried around the planet on the coat tails of
capitalism and often grow best, like weeds, on disturbed ground.â
The same, of course, could be said about anarcho-primitivism, autonomous
Marxism, insurrectionary anarchism, as well as many other Western -isms,
such as the multitude of those used in identity politics. You can see it
in the plants in permaculture gardens â diets imported from elsewhere,
and consolidated through genocide. Countless are the arguments I got
into with my fellow permaculturists about the romanticisation of
European plants and animals. You can see it in the ideas that are
normalised in our societies, in the microcosm, in our communities (or
lackthereof). The point isnât to prevent idea-sharing (nor to create
some false dichotomy of âpureâ and ânot pureâ), or to disallow
criticism, but simply to recognize autonomy. The imposition of ideas,
and the held superiority of these ideas from a place of power (i.e.
White supremacy/Eurocentrism), is the very antithesis of this. In Green
Anarchy, Aragorn! similarly talks about Self-determination and Radical
decentralization. The point here is that people, anarchists for example,
may form a politic into a singularity. This is where solidarity dies, a
place where you donât engage with people outside your âunderstanding of
reality,â but rather expect âreality to conform to their subject
understanding of it.â Furthermore, Aragorn! presents some interesting
ideas on what he thought could be an Indigenous Anarchism:
â... an anarchism of place. This would seem impossible in a world that
has taken upon itself the task of placing us nowhere. A world that
places us nowhere universally. Even where we are born, live, and die is
not our home. An anarchism of place could look like living in one area
for all of your life. It could look like living only in areas that are
heavily wooded, that are near life-sustaining bodies of water, or in dry
places. It could look like travelling through these areas. It could look
like travelling every year as conditions, or desire, dictated. It could
look like many things from the outside, but it would be choice dictated
by the subjective experience of those living in place and not the
exigency of economic or political priorities. Location is the
differentiation that is crushed by the mortar of urbanization and pestle
of mass culture into the paste of modern alienation. Finally an
indigenous anarchism places us as an irremovable part of an extended
family. This is an extension of the idea that everything is alive and
therefore we are related to it in the sense that we too are alive. It is
also a statement of a clear priority. The connection between living
things, which we would shorthand to calling family, is the way that we
understand ourselves in the world. We are part of a family and we know
ourselves through family. Leaving aside the secular language for a
moment, it is impossible to understand oneself or one another outside of
the spirit. It is the mystery that should remain outside of language
that is what we all share together and that sharing is living.â
I take inspiration from many things, such as permaculture and
anarcho-primitivism, amongst others. I donât see them as roadmaps to our
liberation (that is not necessarily how they intend to be taken, though
that doesnât mean people donât perceive them that way). The way I see
it, both encourage location specific, adaptive strategies for the roads
ahead. I also see them as tools for us to discover liberation in
ourselves, in our friends, family, communities, and in our landbases.
But it doesnât really matter whether you use these words or not. As for
me, things like permaculture and anarcho-primitivism are to some degree
re-inventing the wheel. However, they are helpful for us in remembering
what we were already doing right in our cultural histories. We can use
different words, words from our own cultures for example, but if we were
to truly search for any words that could describe our desires, of love,
of wildness, and of total liberation, I would find that there are no
words at all: silence.
Becoming wild and free, again, is a progression. The disease of the
spectacle, of such things as instant gratification, creates these
delusions that things are immediately consumable and causes us to move
on to the next thing. In nature, this is a falsehood. When we develop
direct relationships with our food, friends/family/community, bioregion,
etc, our perception of time inevitably changes. We canât rewild
overnight. Not likely even in our lifetime. The destruction of
civilisation is a long-term project as well. But we are but a speck in
the lifespan of this earth, and the beginnings of the world we are
building will be in our children, and in their children, in the children
of the foxes who ate your chickens. And in the ashes of the world we
leave behind.
âAny bioregion can be liberated through a succession of events and
strategies based on the conditions unique to it.â
- Seaweed
It will be a process, both wild and organic, adaptive and local,
generational, learning from yourselves and each other, where in the
diminishing of ideological homogenisation, diversity reigns, human and
nature. Permaculture could be a step. Anarcho-primitivism could be too.
I may not stick entirely to the path, but the tracks seem to lead me in
a direction I want to be going.
- Tanday Lupalupa
Bibliography:
Oil
not Civilization
source of our problem coexisting with nature
May the wind haunt you
with the cries of the caged,
shrill scream swirling
through your ear canal.
May the ground crack always
between your feet.
May the wild ocean
tear you limb from limb,
toss your body on the rocky coast.
May your body finally decompose.
May it for once feed life.
May it know neither economy nor politics.
In early Spring of 2013, a small handful of anarchists, calling
themselves Feral Death Coven, republished and began circulating a book
called Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture by Arthur Evans. The
original was published in 1978 by FAG RAG books, and is a cult classic
among radical fairy and queer witch circles. Without permission or
authority, the book is a beautifully pirated edition, suitable for its
content. In a world where original editions of the book regularly sells
for hundreds of dollars, such an edition is a welcome contribution to
the queer, pagan, and anti-civilization canons. The new edition has
largely been circulated at anarchist bookfairs and hand to hand, fueling
discussion and inquiry.
In the context of a renewed interest in the history of the Witch-hunts
and the rise of Christian civilization, this book offers a significant
contribution. In recent years, anti-capitalists and pagans alike have
explored a radical analysis of these histories and have worked to
understand the conditions by which patriarchy and capitalism have
developed together as two heads of the same monstrosity. This line of
inquiry is perhaps best illustrated by the relatively widespread reading
and discussion of Silvia Federiciâs Caliban and the Witch and also the
renewed excitement about Fredy Perlmanâs Against His-story, Against
Leviathan!
This book tells a congruent story, but from a unique position. While
engaging with the same history as Federici, Arthur Evans departs from
her in some marked ways. He subtitled his book âa radical view of
western civilization, and some of the people it has tried to destroy,â
and in doing so he attempts to hear and to share the perspective of
those people annihilated in the Witch-hunts. This effort is something
tragically absent in the patronizingly materialist writings in Caliban.
While Federici critiques the capitalist Mind/Body and Material/Spiritual
splits which cleaved the world into an alienated hell, her methodology
is rooted in the Mind and Material poles of these violent dichotomies.
This intrinsically domesticated perspective may indict the Witch-hunts,
yet it remains a tacit acceptance of the ideology which has fueled
centuries of genocide. In his lament for the world vanquished by
Civilization and his celebration of the voices of the defeated, Evansâ
critique has more in common with Fredy Perlmanâs. Both describe
Leviathanâs material rise as being inseparable from the sensual and
spiritual poverty it has enforced upon the biosphere.
His narrative differs from both Caliban and Leviathan in its being
explicitly queer. Fredy Perlmanâs book describes the rise of patriarchy
from a implicitly gender essentialist framework and has absolutely no
analysis of the existence or struggles of queer people, which amounts to
an unfortunate blemish on what is an otherwise brilliant text.
Federiciâs book is also regrettably tarnished by a more explicit gender
essentialism. In the introduction to Caliban she argues that âthe
debates that have taken place among postmodern feminists concerning the
need to dispose of âwomenâ as a category of analysis, and define
feminism purely in oppositional terms, have been misguidedâ and that
âthen âwomenâ is a legitimate category of analysis, and... a crucial
ground of struggle for women, as [it was] for the feminist movement of
the 1970 which, on this basis, connected itself with the history of the
witches.â Her willful refusal to engage with anti-essentialist queer and
trans thinkers is made all the more sinister by her omission of the
histories of these people within the Witch-hunts. In fact, queer people
earn little more than a single footnote in Federiciâs book length
academic text. Thus, Witchcraft is a refreshing corrective to ways that
Caliban falls short. Firstly, because as a historical document, the book
demonstrates that the nascent Gay Liberation movement also connected
itself with its witch predecessors. Secondly, by telling the history of
witches from the perspective of the queer, trans and gender-variant
people in the struggle, Evans provides an implicit rejection of âwomenâ
as a hegemonic or natural category long before the so-called âpostmodern
debatesâ which Federici conjures to dismiss this perspective. And
lastly, because this book is perhaps the first to beautifully situate
the rise of heteronormativity as inseparably bound to patriarchy,
industrialism, and the state. So, for those who cannot be satisfied with
a mere study of industrial/white-supremacist/patriarchal civilization,
Witchcraft could prove to be a weapon in a struggle which concurrently
attacks the industrial, racialized and gendered orders.
None of this, of course, is to say that Witchcraft is beyond criticism.
The book is greatly flawed and dated in ways that cannot be ignored.
Foremost among these problems is Evansâ ambiguous relationship to the
disciplines of Anthropology and His-story. While he often critiques the
biases and worldviews of the white anthropologists he draws upon, his
criticism often feels superficial at best. He implicates these
anthropologists and historians in a more general heteronormativity, but
he never takes this towards a deeper critique of Anthropology itself (as
if these Scientists would be acceptable if they were only more
gay-friendly). Anthropology, as a white supremacist and civilized
discipline, can only inherently look to the past through a domesticated
and racist lens. The result of such inquiry will always then be
mystified through a racist and essentialist paradigm. Many of the claims
that Evans reproduces from white anthropologists, must thus be treated
with even greater skepticism than he uses, and should constantly be
subject to critique.
In Evansâ own introduction, he denounces academic historians and
anthropologists. Instead, he celebrates mythology and folklore as being
as significant and vital to our understanding of our collective past. It
is sad, then, that he does not push this alternative to its conclusion.
To actually take seriously a critique of the academic approach to the
past would mean to be humble enough to admit the massive blind-spots of
our domesticated way of seeing and to revere this unknown as a chaotic
wonder to be explored. Refusing this academic worldview is equally
important if we are to acknowledge that the struggles of indigenous
people, queers, and witches are not a relic of the past â rather that
these cultures survive into the present and continue their struggle for
survival.
Yet there still remains a crucial benefit from a study of the war
between Civilization and the nature-cultures that it has struggled to
eradicate. This benefit is the perspective that the continuous
trajectory of His-story and its Civilization has been won at the expense
of countless queers, witches, gender-variants, trans-people, heretics,
indigenous cultures and wildlife. And so this story demonstrates that
the cherished Progress of the society which holds all of us hostage is
also the story of rape, torture, eco-destruction, enslavement, murder,
genocide and omnicide. If we understand the beast which confronts us, we
are all better equipped to combat it without falling into its snares.
To genuinely appraise our enemy and to avoid its traps would mean to
critique this book, but to take its conclusions beyond themselves.
Contemporary readers of the text should find it very frustrating for its
naĂŻve optimism in its final chapter. Evans concludes his extremely
thorough critique of industrialism, militarism, statism and patriarchy
by paradoxically arguing for a ânew technologyâ, a ânew socialismâ and a
ânew civilizationâ that is not based on any of the infrastructure of the
current one. These hopeful and empty assertions can only possibly read
as baseless and absurd after enduring the horrors of the textâs
narrative. Those living in the cybernetic, techno-industrial,
mass-alienated prison society which has unfolded in the last 35 years
must concede that whatever optimism around technology and socialism that
may have ever existed must be left in the dustbin of history. The
countercultural fetish for a ânew technologyâ which prevailed in the 70s
gave birth to the cybernetic governance that we now live within. It is
abundantly clear that those who fetishize technology and socialism only
serve to construct a more abysmal and well-managed dystopian future.
Evans reads as all the more dated and foolish in his sympathies for a
Maoism of the past. Any misplaced hope in the Maoist project must
reconcile itself with the industrial and genocidal atrocities to which
that project gave rise. We can safely discard of this naivete and
conclude that no ânew technologyâ or ânew socialismâ nor anything short
of a cleansing fire can assist us in our self-liberation.
Even after excising the anthropological and socialist perspectives, this
book still contains a great deal of relevance for those who desire such
a fire. Witchcraftâs own argumentation offers a vindication of queer
sensuality, magic, and anarchist violence which speaks for itself and
can be followed toward any number of endeavors in the pursuit of freedom
and wildness. In spite of our criticism, we are passionate about this
book because of the way that these perspectives and proposals invigorate
our own struggles against this world.
Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture is available from Little Black
Cart (littleblackcart.com)
At least I have you
When all is lost
When I am alone
Where all I have is fear
Pain
ztrauma
And there is no one there
For me
I have you
All my life
Iâve been searching
For someone
For people
Like me
Or that like me
However, unlikely
I left you behind
In this search
To be among the cold of grey peaks
And the loneliness of city streets
My lungs swell
My coughs taste blood
And I sneeze violently
Yet
I never think why
Itâs killing me
At times I stayed close
And felt, something
Others, I went far
And felt, nothing
Always looking
Never finding
Lost
Confused
No longer even knowing what
Iâm looking for
Feeling, nothing
Numb
The people I did find
Reminded me of you
A familiar, feeling
You
Of course
Itâs you
Itâs always been you
I found you
Youâve always been there
You never left
And as long as Iâm there for you
Youâll be there for me
Youâll live forever
With you
The sun empowers my spirit
The birds sing to my childhood memories
Leaves rustle in anticipation of the winds caress
I taste your nourishing power as I consume your bounties
Flowing water, and wild food between my teeth
You brought me back to my senses
The feeling, is back
I cuddle up to your warmth
From the fire
I look to the stars
You read me the stories in the sky
Marvel in your majesty
I close my eyes
Silence
You are silent
Beyond words
And I give myself to you
I give you everything
And you give me the world
At least I have you
When all is lost
When I am alone
Where all I have is fear
Pain
Trauma
And there is noone there
For me
I have you
And perhaps
One day
Others
Will remember you too
And together
Weâll have each other
Dispatches from the Ever-Fraying Fabric of Reality
Tourist Checking Facebook On Phone Falls Off Pier - from the Huffington
Post, 12/18/2013
âA tourist in Australia had to be rescued by police after plunging off a
pier while browsing Facebook on her phone, officials said Wednesday.
The woman was walking along a bay in Melbourne on Monday night when she
became distracted by her Facebook feed and plummeted off the pier into
the chilly water, Victoria state police said.
A witness called for help and police rushed to the womanâs aid. They
found her flailing around in the water, about 20 meters (65 feet) from
the pier.
âShe was still out in the water lying on her back in a floating position
because she told us later that she couldnât swim,ââSenior Constable Dean
Kelly of the state water police told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
âShe still had her mobile phone in her hand and initially she apologized
and said sorry.â
NYC Apple Storeâs $450K Window Shattered by Snow Blower - from Yahoo
News, 1/22/2014
âYou may have heard that record-shattering snow is ripping through the
Northeast. An Apple Store in New York City just felt it firsthand.
The companyâs world famous glass-encapsulated Fifth Avenue store was
reportedly struck by a snowblower Tuesday evening, cracking one of its
15 giant window panes, according to Apple Insider. Details on how the
accident happened are unclear, but the fix will no doubt be costly.
Apple news site 9to5Mac reports that each panel runs about $450,000. The
store was renovated in 2011, replacing the 90 small glass panes
originally making up the storeâs above-ground cube with the 32-foot
sheets that are now in place, a $6.7 million makeover.â
California Farmers Hire âWater Witchesâ To Find Water - from Aljazeera
News, 3/2/2014
Due to the intense drought that hit California this winter, farmers were
hard pressed to find naturally occurring water-wells for their farms by
using a term called dowsing, or âwater-witches.â âPractitioners of
dowsing use rudimentary tools â usually copper sticks or wooden
âdivining rodsâ that resemble large wishbones â and what they describe
as a natural energy to find water or minerals hidden deep underground.â
Two Major Pipelines Proposed To Speed Up The âDoublingâ Of Tar Sands -
from Warrior Publications, 3/7/2014
Two major oil pipelines â the most expensive in Canada â passed key
hurdles this week: Energy East and Line 3 Replacement. Observers say
they lead to âmassiveâ environmental and economic consequences.
In a dizzying week of oil announcements, two new giant west-to-east
pipelines passed key milestones. If built, the pipelines would rapidly
expand Albertaâs oil sands, cause massive environmental impacts, and
trigger thousands of new jobs, according to several observers.
The first project â TransCanadaâs Energy East pipeline â would be the
largest oil sands pipeline in North America â a continent-wrapping
4,500-km line to carry Albertaâs oil to Montreal, Quebec City and Saint
John.
Likewise â Enbridge also announced plans for another massive pipeline â
the Line 3 Replacement. The company said Monday it now has the financial
backing for the $7 billion project.
The project would replace an existing 46-year-old pipeline between
Alberta and Wisconsin. But unlike Keystone XL, this American-bound
pipeline may not need Obamaâs approval.
Aboriginal Rights A Threat To Canadaâs Resource Agenda - from The
Guardian, 3/4/2014
The Canadian government is increasingly worried that the growing clout
of aboriginal peoplesâ rights could obstruct its aggressive resource
development plans, documents reveal.
Since 2008, the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs has run a risk management
program to evaluate and respond to âsignificant risksâ to its agenda,
including assertions of treaty rights, the rising expectations of
aboriginal peoples, and new legal precedents at odds with the
governmentâs policies.
Yearly government reports obtained by the Guardian predict that the
failure to manage the risks could result in more âadversarial relationsâ
with aboriginal peoples, âpublic outcry and negative international
attention,â and âeconomic development projects [being] delayed.â
Mudslide in Oso, Washington Wipes Out Town And Kills 34, Officials Blame
State-Sanctioned Logging - from The Seattle Times
âThe plateau above the soggy hillside that gave way Saturday has been
logged for almost a century, with hundreds of acres of softwoods cut and
hauled away, according to state records.
But in recent decades, as the slope has become more unstable, scientists
have increasingly challenged the timber harvests, with some even warning
of possible calamity.
The state has continued to allow logging on the plateau, although it has
imposed restrictions at least twice since the 1980s.â
Micah White, Adbusters CEO, Makes Plea For Donations to Purchase
Google-Glasses and Train Activists in Using Them - activistboutique.com,
2/27/2014
You would have to poor through pages of obnoxious twitter posts by
Adbusterâs CEO Micah White to find where he explicitly states it, but
heâs raised enough money for himself to buy one of the
Google-Glass-prototypes. He has also started a fundraising campaign so
that he can start training activists in Nehalem, Oregon to use them and
create new âsocial memesâ to spark a âspiritual insurrection.â
âHollywood-Styleâ Surveillance Society Inches Closer to Reality -
cironline.org, 4/11/2014
The Los Angeles County Sheriffâs Department has hired retired Air Force
veteran Ross McNutt and his company Persistent Surveillance Systems to
monitor in real-time Comptonâs streets by flying aircraft with a series
of video-cameras attached to the bottom to track suspects from the
moment a crime occurs.
âWe literally watched all of Compton during the time that we were
flying, so we could zoom in anywhere within the city of Compton and
follow cars and see people,â McNutt said. âOur goal was to basically
jump to where reported crimes occurred and see what information we could
generate that would help investigators solve the crimes.â
Police officers in Chula Vista, near San Diego, already have used mobile
facial recognition technology to confirm the identities of people they
suspect of crimes.
[1] Primitive accumulation, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the
process by which the commons are converted into commoditites or means of
production; more precisely it is the often brutal process by which
capitalist value that can be put to the service of production and
accumulation is originally created. A population of rent-paying workers
and the factories that employ them already constitute a society
organized according to capitalist social relations, in which everything
serves the accumulation of ever more capital. On the other hand, things
like communal land that directly feeds those who live on it and work
with it, or folk knowledge that is shared freely and passed on
informally, constitute resources that do not generate capital (that is,
alienated, quantifiable value that can be reinvested). To benefit
capitalism, such resources need to be enclosed and commoditized, through
colonialism, disposession, criminalization, professionalization,
taxation, starvation, and other policies. This is primitive
accumulation. Marx portrayed this process as one that marks the earliest
stage of capitalism but in reality it is an ongoing process active at
the margins of capitalism, which crisscross our world with every
successive expansion or intensification of the system.
[2] The maroons were escaped slaves, primarily of African descent but
also including European runaways, who inhabited mountains, swamps, and
other wild areas in the Americas and Caribbean. They generally mingled
with and fought alongside indigenous peoples as they resisted the
plantation states being created by European powers.
[3] Quoted in Marc D. Hauser, Wild Minds (New York: Henry Holt and
Company, 2000), p. 70.
[4] Konrad Lorenz, The Waning of Humaneness (Boston: Little, Brown and
Company, 1987), p. 70.
[5] Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Ballantine Books,
1976), p. 83.
[6] Henry Beston, The Outermost House (New York: St. Martinâs Griffin,
2003), p. 25.
[7] Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy, When Elephants Weep
(New York: Delacorte Press, 1995), p. 34. Among other workds that
indicate a shift away from anti- âanthropomorphismâ are Ruth Rudner, ask
now the beasts (New York: Marlowe & Company, 2006) and How Forests Think
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013).
[8] Eoin OâCarroll, âOxford Junior Dictionary Dropping âNatureâ Words,â
Christian Science Monitor, February 9, 2009.
[9] An ugly leftist counter-notion is communist Oxana Timofeeva, History
of Animals: An Essay on Negativity, Immanence and Freedom (Maastricht:
Jan van Eyck Academie, 2012), with Foreward by Slavoj Zizek. Timofeeva
condemns natureâs resistance to technology while bizarrely claiming that
animals are natural communists! E.g. pp. 146- 147.
[10] Quoted in Susan Hanson, Icons of Loss and Grace (Lubbock: Texas
Tech University Press, 2004), p. 182.
[11] Masson and McCarthy, op.cit., p. 140.
[12] Barbara Noske, Humans and Other Animals (London: Pluto Press,
1989), p. 115.
[13] Barry Lopez, Of Wolves and Men (New York: Scribner Classics, 2004),
p. 18.
[14] Ibid., p. 55.
[15] Masson and McCarthy, op.cit., p. 72.
[16] Steve Kemp, âNo Alpha Males Allowed,â Smithsonian, September 2013,
pp. 39-41.
[17] Noske, op. cit., p. 116.
[18] John Muir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1912), p. 151.
[19] Mary Midgley, The Ethical Primate (New York: Routledge, 1994), p.
131.
[20] Jacques Graven, Non-Human Thought (New York: Stein and Day, 1967),
p. 68.
[21] Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (New
York: Ballantine Books, 1971), p. 157.
[22] Quoted in Joseph Wood Krutch, The Great Chain of Life (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1956), p. 224.
[23] Ibid., p. 227.
[24] J.H. Williams, Elephant Bill (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1950), p.
58.
[25] Katherine Harmon Courage, âAlien Intelligence,â Wired, October
2013, p. 84.
[26] Emily Anthes, âColdblooded Does Not Mean Stupid,â New York Times,
November 19, 2013, pp D1, D5.
[27] Graven, op.cit., p. 127. 7
[28] Justin McCurry, âChimps Are Making Monkeys Out of Us,â The
Observer, September 28, 2013.
[29] Quoted in Stephen Budiansky, If a Lion Could Talk (New York: Free
Press, 1998), p. 45.
[30] Kelly Oliver, Animal Lessons: How They Teach Us to be Human (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2008), p. 186.
[31] Tim Ingold, Evolution and Social Life (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1986), p. 311.
[32] Richard Grossman, âThe Truth,â in Animals (Minneapolis: Zygote
Press, 1983), p. 421.
[33] Leopold, op.cit., p. 102.
[34] Gavin Maxwell, Ring of Bright Water (Boston: Nonpareil Books,
2011), p. 45
[35] Edwin Way Teale, The Wilderness World of John Muir (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1954), p. 281.
[36] John Lane, Waist Deep in Black Water (Athens: University of Georgia
Press, 2002), p. 49.
[37] Loren Eiseley, The Night Country (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1997), p. 173.
[38] Henry David Thoreau, The Journal, 1837â1861, ed. Damion Searls (New
York: New York Review of Books, 2009), p. 585 (entry for October 22,
1859).
[39] Krutch, op.cit., p. 102.
[40] Michael P. Cohen, The Pathless Way: John Muir and American
Wilderness (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), pp. 173, 176.
[41] Jennifer Ham, âTaming the Beast,â in Jennifer Ham and Matthew
Senior, eds., Animal Acts (New York: Routledge, 1997), p. 158.
[42] Clive Roots, Domestication (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), p.
xii.
[43] Quoted in Lane, op. cit., p. 125.
[44] Diane Ackerman, The Moon by Whale Light (New York: Random House,
1991), p. 112.
[45] Wendell Berry, âTo the Unseeable Animal,â in Ann Fisher-Wirth and
Laura-Gray Street, eds., The Ecopoetry Anthology (San Antonio TX:
Trinity University Press, 2013), p. 178.
[46] Immanuel Kant, trans. J.C. Meredith, Critique of Judgement (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1952), Part 2, Section 431.
[47] Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (New York: Library of America, 2011),
section 13.
[48] Quoted in Jonathan Waterman, Where Mountains are Nameless (New
York: W.W. Norton, 2005), p. 237.
[49] Quoted in Leonard Lawlor, This is Not Sufficient (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2007), p. 7.
[50] Waterman, op. cit., p. 212.
[51] Ibid., p. 10.
[52] John Nelson, âHenry Beston Sheahan,â Harvard Magazine,
September/October 2013, p. 40.
[53] Laurie Allman, Far From Tame (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1996), p. 73.
[54] Grossman, op. cit., âThe New Art,â p. 2.
[55] Throughout this piece, terminology is occasionally used that is
imperfect at best: âecological resistance,â âmovement,â âradical
environmentalism,â etc variously make me cringe or roll my eyes.
Nevertheless, itâs hard to describe without using such terms. You know,
symbolic culture and all that jazzâŠ
[56] âA Decade of Earth First! Action in the âClimate Movement,ââ
- decade-of-earth-first-action-in-the-climate-movement/
[57] As a matter of course, I consider ânon-violenceâ to be a concept
that must be destroyed. For those unfamiliar with such a critique, Iâd
recommend consulting Peter Gelderloosâ How Non-Violence Protects the
State (South End Press, 2007) and Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on
the Role of Armed Struggle in North America, (AK Press, 2007). As a
bonus reading, Ashen Ruinâs Beyond the Corpse Machine is a fun (if
somewhat dated) look at how these debates play out in anarchist circles.
[58] âAbout Earth First!,â
[59] Earth First! Primer, p. 1,
earthfirstnews.files.wordpress.com
[60] Earth First! Primer, p. 3.
[61] Black-Clad Messenger #8, (n.p., 2000) and Disorderly Conduct #4,
(n.p., Fall 2001).
[62] An archive of issues of Green Anarchy is available online at
greenanarchy.anarchyplanet.org
/ A published book length anthology of the theoretical pieces called
Uncivilized: The Best of Green Anarchy, (Green Anarchy, 2012) is a good
starting point for an anti-civilization perspective.
[63] Leslie James Pickering, The Earth Liberation Front 1997-2002,
(Arissa Media Group, 2007).
[64] âGreen Scared? Preliminary Lessons of the Green Scare,â
[65] âSt. Paul Principles,â
[66] âResisting the G-20 in Pittsburgh,â
[67] Candice Bernd, âThe Summer of Solidarity: Direct Action Against
Extraction,â
[68] âWho We Are,â
[69] âGet Your Ass Out to Texas and Fight the Tar Sands Pipeline!,â
[70] âActivists Forced to Settle Lawsuit But Will Continue to Fight
Keystone XL Pipeline,â
[71] âNonviolent Direct Action,â
[72] âThe 99% Spring Training Guide,â
[73] âTar Sands Blockade, East Texas,â Earth First! Journal, Lughnasdh
2012, 32-33.
[74] âBlock the Flows: Defeating Tar Sands in the U.S. and Canada,â The
Raging Pelican,
[75] âHands Off Appalachia November Action Camp,â
[76] âPolicy of Nonviolence and Anti-Harrassment,â
[77] âMountain Justice policy of non-violence/non-property destruction
and Anti-harassment,â
[78] âMountain Justice Tactics,â
[79] âAbout Us â RAMPS,â
[80] Panagioti Tsolkas, âDirect Action: What It Is and Why We Use It,â
[81] âSign the Keystone XL Pledge of Resistance,â
? source=NOKXLORG_kxlpledge
[82] See pages 61â66 in Ward Churchillâs Pacifism as Pathology for a
classic description of this.
[83] âSierra Club Announces Direct Action to Stop Tar Sands?!?,â
[84] âBREAKING: Activists Block Tar Sands Pipeline,â
[85] âMichigan Coalition Against Tar Sands Defendants Move Cases Forward
in Court,â
[86] âSolidarity With Fearless Summer: Blockader Skateboards Into
Enbridge Pipe,â
[87] âMichigan Coalition Against Tar Sands Defendants Move Cases Forward
in Courtâ
[88] âForty-four Protesters Arrested at Mass. Coal-Fired Plant,â
âMichigan Tar Sands Pipeline Protester Could Get Two Years in Jail,â
[89]
[90] "OMG, Taylor Swiftâs Ex-Boyfriend Totally Arrested for Protesting
Keystone XL Pipeline,â
[91] âEarth First! Journalist popped at Tar Sands Blockade,â
[92] âFearless Summer: Powerful Start 6 Days 18 States 28 Actions,â
[93] Kristin Moe, â#FearlessSummer: How the Battle to Stop Climate
Change Got Ferocious,â
[94] Creative Action Cookbook,
[95] âSummer Heat Richmond,â
[96] âSummer Heat Richmond â Participant Info,â
[97] âFAQs,â
[98] These run throughout lots of Earth First! Journal pieces, but
thereâs an article where they encourage people to suck it up an engage
with local city commissions while slamming anarchists that is pretty
revealing:
[99] For a good discussion of the problems with Deep Green Resistance
see, Ruhe, âDeep Green Resistance: A Book Review,â
and Earth First!âs statement disassociating themselves with the group,
âDeep Green Transphobia,â
[100] See Zig-Zag, Smash Pacifism:A Critical Analysis of Gandhi and King
(Warrior Publications, 2012).
[101] SHAC ATTACK! Targeting Companies Animal Rights Style (n.d., n.p.)
[102] See âThe SHAC Model: A Critical Assessmentâ in Rolling Thunder,
[103] Panagioti, âThe Ecology of a Police State,â
- state/
[104] http://tidesofflame.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/capitol-hill-microsoft-connector-bus-blocked-for-45-minutes/
[105] http://tidesofflame.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/train-blockaded-at-amazon-hq/
[106] http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/02/11/this-mornings-amazoncia-protest