by DGR News Service | Feb 13, 2014 | Building Alternatives
By Ben Barker / Deep Green Resistance Wisconsin
Without gods or masters, how do we live? Who do we live for?
One of my earliest acts of rebellion was leaving behind the religion of my parents. There was no legitimate authority in my eyes; neither natural nor supernatural.
Religion seemed an obvious enemy: clearly corrupt, notoriously pacifying, and easy to vilify. In well-meaning haste, I cast religion as something stark: always monotheistic, always Christian. And further: always dogmatic, always a tool of the powerful.
Reality is so inconveniently complex. I wanted to believe that I could live by the radical slogan, “no gods, no masters,” and truly be free of both. I wanted to believe that it is even possible to live without serving something larger than myself, on the ground and in the cosmos, in spirit and flesh.
The dominant culture forces upon us gods and masters in their most destructive forms. But in rejecting them, which other gods and masters do we end up serving? Who do we live our lives for? Which stories do we live by? And how?
Writes Rob Bell:
The danger is that in reaction to the abuses and distortions of an idea, we’ll reject it completely. And in the process miss out on the good of it, the worth of it, the truth of it.
All religions ask us to ask ourselves one question: “How shall I live my life?” For the socially-conscious, for the socially-active, this question is our guiding beacon. It always has been.
The journey towards that beacon, the attempt to describe what it means to be human, routinely leads political people to religion. It certainly led me.
I’ll be candid: I go to church. About a year ago, I could no longer deny the yearning inside me to have a spiritual home for my activism; some kind of sanctuary to rest and recharge.
The church I found is a progressive one and part of the Unitarian Universalist tradition. At first, I was skeptical. What would my radical comrades think? What did I even think? But sermon after sermon spoke to political struggle, past and present. Sermon after sermon spoke to living in reverence and humility and integrity. Then I read the official set of Unitarian Universalist principles, which includes “the inherent worth and dignity of every person”, “the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all”, and “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” Despite all apprehension, I knew I was being stimulated and challenged. I knew I was growing.
Spiritual practice is not a replacement for the hard work of political organizing, but a supplement to it; sometimes, a basis for it. In his book, Prophetic Encounters: Religion and the American Radical Tradition, Dan McKanan explains the relationship. He writes that not only have religion and radicalism always been intertwined, but that radicalism is in itself a form of religion. “It occupies much of the same psychological and sociological space,” writes McKanan. “People are drawn to religious communities and radical organizations in order to connect their daily routines to a more transcendent vision of heaven, salvation, or a new society.”
If religion starts with a capital “R”, if it has a singularly destructive form and purpose, if it is categorically opposed to liberation, how do we explain religions of resistance and religions of communion?
How do we explain former-slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who said it was only alongside other radicals that he could “get any glimpses of God anywhere”?
How do we explain Shawnee warrior Tecumseh, who tried to unite tribes under the “Great Spirit” for one of the largest resistance campaigns against white colonialism?
How do we explain Catholic anarchist Dorothy Day, who referred to the “poor and oppressed” as “collectively the new Messiah”?
How do we explain the countless radical movements throughout history which were firmly rooted in religion? How do we explain religions that have acted not as an “opiate of the masses”, but as a mobilizer of the masses?
How do we explain the thousands of indigenous human cultures able to live in place for essentially eternity, because they believed—and continue to believe—in the holiness of the natural world?
We needn’t fall in line with any of these specific religions to recognize the roles they have played in making our world a better place.
Religion can be many things, both righteous and rotten, but it certainly is not one, monolithic institution.
What is it then? “Religion, in reality, is living,” writes Native American scholar, Jack D. Forbes. “Our religion is not what we profess . . . our religion is what we do, what we desire, what we seek, what we dream about, what we fantasize, what we think. . . . One’s religion, then, is one’s life, not merely the ideal life but the life as it is actually lived.”
If religion is what we do, none of us can be said to be truly non-religious. We may be non-monotheistic. We may be non-Christian. We may be, and hopefully are, non-dogmatic and non-destructive.
All of us embody our religions each and every day. We may pick from already existing traditions or practices. We may create our own. But to assume it is even possible to live without religion is to live religiously in denial. Our actions, small and large, speak loud and clear of which religion we adhere to, of which gods and masters we ultimately serve.
Without religion, how do we live, who do we live for? If we don’t consciously choose, our actions choose for us. We can choose to be accountable to others, we can choose communion, we can choose to serve life. We can choose to live in such a way that, year after year, actually creates more ecological health and social justice. Or, we can pretend we are exempt from choosing. We can pretend to be non-religious or anti-religious, yet serve a certain religion, certain gods and masters, nonetheless. At its root, the word “worship” means “to give something worth.” In our daily lives, where do we see worth? What do we, through intention and action, give worth?
The dominant culture is deeply religious and ever eager to force its own religions upon us. Forbes writes that we all suffer under the wetiko, or cannibal, sickness: “Imperialism, colonialism, torture, enslavement, conquest, brutality, lying, cheating, secret police, greed, rape, terrorism.” The cannibal sickness is a religion. It is, as Forbes has termed it, “a cult of aggression and violence.”
Whether or not we like it, this is the cult we’ve been socialized into. Its values come naturally for us; unseating them from our hearts and minds is a lifetime project. But if we don’t try, these values will rule our lives. If we don’t replace the cannibal religion with our own religion—that is, if we don’t adopt and act from an opposite set of values—we inevitably act in its service, we inevitably worship it.
“A word for religion is never needed until a people no longer have it,” Forbes writes. “Religion is not a prayer, it is not a church, it is not theistic, it is not atheistic, it has little to do with what white people call ‘religion.’ It is our every act.”
Ailed by the cannibal sickness, how do we act? Forbes continues, “If we tromp on a bug, that is our religion; if we experiment on living animals, that is our religion; if we cheat at cards, that is our religion; if we dream of being famous, that is our religion; if we gossip maliciously, that is our religion; if we are rude and aggressive, that is our religion. All that we do, and are, is our religion.”
This is why I go to church: to share with and be held accountable by a congregation of people, all of us struggling to live out of a religion that serves not the cannibal sickness, but life. Sure, not everyone needs a congregation for this. But I find it invaluable.
In a sermon, one of the ministers at my church described his vision of religion. He said it is both private and public, an organization of people and a personal practice. He said it is an overarching myth, a path towards a new way of living. And finally, he said that the root of the word “religion” means “to bind,” because it is meant to bind each of us into a community, all working and walking together.
Another one of the ministers at my church put it this way:
If we are living, breathing, hurting, laughing, crying, questing human beings, it is impossible not to be spiritual beings. Spirituality is the energy that connects us to the greater pulse of life. We work on and with our spirituality, not to become divine, but to become more human.
Radical activism can be religious just as religion can be radical. Look around. Life moves. We can join that movement, or we can stand against it. We choose anew each and every day. Love life. Defend life. Make it your religion.
Ben Barker is a writer, activist, and farmer from West Bend, WI. He is currently writing a book about toxic qualities of radical subcultures and the need to build a vibrant culture of resistance. Read other articles by Ben, or visit Ben’s website.
This piece was originally published at: http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/02/the-gods-of-a-radical/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 9, 2013 | Pornography, White Supremacy
By Ben Barker / Deep Green Resistance Wisconsin
Radicals and the sexual exploitation industry become more and more intertwined by the day. I wish I was surprised when I learned just today that the 2013 Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair is being held in a venue owned by the torture porn website, Kink.com.
Kink.com is infamous for its images of women “stretched out on racks, hogtied, urine squirting in their mouths, and suspended from the ceiling while attached to electrodes, including ones inserted into their vaginas,” explains feminist activist Gail Dines, who argues that the pornography website is in stark violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
If you don’t want to listen to some feminist, I’ll let Kink.com speak for itself. On the website, we learn that the project began when the founder decided to “devote his life to subjecting beautiful, willing women to strict bondage.”
Of course feminists sounded the alarm right away and demanded answers and changes from the Bookfair’s organizers. Of course they were only ignored or attacked.
To be fair, a statement addressing concerns about the venue choice was almost immediately posted on the Bookfair website. Not surprisingly, it attempted to justify the decision, with the bulk of the text being about the tight budget they were working with. With the handful of lines the statement devoted to feminist concerns, they deflected responsibility by claiming that “there is a valid political criticism of every venue that is potentially available,” because “we live in a capitalist society, and until we have created an explicitly anarchist infrastructure that can support this type of event, such contradictions and compromises are inevitable.”
It would seem that the organizers of the 2013 Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair have little or no ties with Kink.com or their venue, and are indeed making somewhat of a comprise in hosting their event there, because there’s just nowhere else to go. But, yet, their statement goes on to show how aware of the issues they really are. They write: “We acknowledge that pornography and sex work have been divisive issues in the anarchist community. The choice of the Armory Community Center is not a political statement, and the Book Fair Committee is taking no political position on pornography. We accept that members of the community (and even members of this committee) have differing opinions on this issue. We will be organizing a discussion on anarchist perspectives on pornography during the book fair, and if this topic interests you, we hope that you will attend.”
This situation—a big political event hosted at a controversial location leading to public outcry—is familiar. It’s not unlike another incident of just last month, when a bunch of House Republicans booked their annual winter conference at a former slave plantation in Williamsburg (where, to add insult to injury, they planned to discuss “successful communication with minorities and women”).
But here’s the difference between the two events: When the Republicans announced the site of their gathering the Left was out in force to decry them as racist and insensitive to the historical reality of slavery. When the anarchists announced the site of their gathering the Left was out in force to decry feminist objectors as puritanical, moralist, and anti-sex.
Imagine if the House Republicans had put out a statement similar to that of the organizers of the 2013 Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair. They might write: “We acknowledge that white supremacy and slavery have been divisive issues in the Republican community. The choice of the former slave plantation is not a political statement, and the House Committee is taking no political position on white supremacy. We accept that members of the community (and even members of this committee) have differing opinions on this issue. We will be organizing a discussion on Republican perspectives on white supremacy during the conference, and if this topic interests you, we hope that you will attend.” That should be sufficient to ease the worries of the Left, no?
I beg the organizers of the Bookfair, and anarchists in general, to answer me this one question: is pain different when felt by a woman?
From Counterpunch: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/08/anarchist-book-fair-porn/
To read this article en français, see: https://www.facebook.com/notes/martin-dufresne/les-anarchistes-et-la-porno-torture/10152572173490595
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 3, 2012 | Movement Building & Support
By Ben Barker / Deep Green Resistance Wisconsin
“There have been others also just as true and devoted to the cause…with such women consecrating their lives—failure is impossible!”—Susan B. Anthony
As an activist and organizer, I concern myself with the work of getting people together to change the world. A necessary part of this is striving to see activists bringing all of their respective gifts and forms of commitment to the table. With strong ties between strong hearts, the path to lasting social change is begun and sustained.
My time as an activist has shown me that connecting to and keeping relationship with allies is an invaluable aspect of movement-building. For some years, I have tried to organize in my local community. Here lives a diverse array of strong-hearted activists with gifts that, while amazingly unique, serve to mutually support each others’ efforts. There are herbalists, musicians, writers, environmentalists, socialists, feminists, gardeners, and political organizers, all of whom work towards a more sane and just society. The hope I’ve placed in the power of all of them coming together does pay off, though it is no small task to help guide the momentum into fruition.
A more immediately gratifying example of this has been my experience in working with the international social justice and environmental movement called Deep Green Resistance (DGR). For the year and a half that I’ve been involved with DGR, I have witnessed discipline, strategy, and character on the part of it’s members that is deeply impressive. Further, I’m honored to work on the organization’s staff, and as part of this interviewing many potential recruits. It has not been lost on me that, while most who want to join share the same basic goal of liberating the earth from industrial civilization, each brings wildly unique gifts to put to use along the way.
The background of activists within Deep Green Resistance varies as well. As the organization states, “DGR is made up of writers, community organizers, janitors, parents, grocery clerks, musicians, feminists, teachers, farmers, dishwashers, artists, caregivers, laborers, and students.” I often work with members on projects, and I am aware and in awe of the beautiful and dynamic lives each lead, of which their work in the movement is but one part.
Sometimes, I worry about losing connection with these allies. My knowledge of the incredible possibilities of what we can make happen by working together carries with it also the truth that we could once again be separated and isolated from one another. Indeed, between working jobs to pay rent, raising children, and tending to personal hobbies, it can prove hard for some to find time for involvement in the activities of DGR.
So, I try to hold on tight. I ask, is it our communication tools that need adjusting? Are people being treated well? What should be done to retain them and engage them? Clearly, these questions can be overwhelming for one person to grapple with and rarely do answers do emerge simply because they are summoned.
This yearning to keep intact the community is present every single day and enough so that I eventually began formulating a response that is at least partially adequate. I tell myself: People come for the fight, but stay for the culture. The task of organizers then becomes creating a healthy culture of resistance for the fighters to live within.
Those who seek out Deep Green Resistance are usually not lacking in a will to fight, as one might guess by the movement’s name. The explicit goal of DGR is to “deprive the rich of their ability to steal from the poor and the powerful of their ability to destroy the planet.” This is not the place for those with feeble politics or wills. But, while DGR seems to offer a place for the warrior inside us, we must ask also if it is welcoming to loving human beings. Friendship is a cornerstone to any healthy community, and it will take these bonds, these strong ties, to do this intensive work alongside each other.
In the end, I cannot force anyone to stay in the movement, or to use their gifts in a particular way. I wouldn’t want to, anyways. They will stay if they want; if the community is healthy and has the potential to really effect change, they likely will stay. So, I ask you, my comrades, what is it that makes this culture of love and rage, this tightly-knit community that can fight back against the dominant culture and win. How can we encourage this and turn it into reality? Throughout every day of doing this work, I will also ask myself these questions. As long as it takes.
From Kid Cutbank: http://kidcutbank.blogspot.com/2012/08/as-long-as-it-takes-strong-ties-strong.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Aug 5, 2012 | Male Supremacy, White Supremacy
By Ben Barker / Deep Green Resistance
In the early days of my being politicized, I spent time with people in a subculture which can be summed up with the title “anti-authoritarian punk.” A favorite activity of people in this group was to bash something they called “political correctness.” At almost every gathering I attended—without fail—hours would be spent snickering and bad-talking the notion of being politically correct, and ostracizing activists accused of subscribing to that notion.
As I understand it, the argument went that political correctness, or “P.C.,” was apparently a plot by some do-gooders to censor everyone else and prevent them from saying and doing what they want (for example using infamously common hate speech against women and people of color). The battle they claimed to be fighting was one of retaining the “freedom” to “shock” people, because, in the end, the ultimate goal is one of breaking social conventions rather than justice.
Later in my life, having been an activist and a radical for several years, I now see the whole subculture of “anti-authoritarian punk” as having been entirely entrenched in, and supportive of, the privileges that come with being a beneficiary of sadistic arrangements of power (be it white supremacy, patriarchy, or capitalist exploitation).
Historically, those in power have had to objectify others—made into “capital O” Others—before they could exploit them. When I think of the people I knew in this “anti-P.C.” camp, I am generally overcome with disdain and rage, because they are simply a new face doing the same objectification. Their effect on social justice movements is not benign, but a significant part of the problem. Oppression is effectively normalized by their brand of “freedom to” rhetoric, thus duping disenfranchised youth and others who stumble upon this sentiment to buy into the thrills of breaking boundaries instead of realizing their potential to make the world a better place and then plugging into projects and communities of righteousness.
If “P.C.” means I’m not okay with hate speech, if it means that I stand against behavior that is cruel and obviously inappropriate, then I’m fine being identified with it. But, if we want to speak honestly about the political element of reinforcing unequal dynamics, I’d much prefer the term “politically opposed”. I am politically opposed to actions and words that are oppressive, because I see it as a part of the continuum of struggle that has been the reality for many generations of people coming from traditions of feminism, anti-racism, and social justice activism.
The political element of these situations is what causes the impossibility of their harmlessness. It’s one thing to poke fun at your close friend in a way where you can both share a laugh. It’s quite a different matter for a person who is, for example, a white man, to verbally or physically assault another person who is, for example, a woman of color, despite the perpetrator claiming the guise of “freedom of expression.” The former scenario can be called “joking”, but the latter scenario can’t be called anything but oppression.
I certainly am politically opposed to oppression. Whether someone thinks I am correct or not to hold this position is of little concern to me.
From Kid Cutbank: http://kidcutbank.blogspot.com/2012/02/politically-correct-vs-politically.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 9, 2012 | Gender
By Ben Barker / Deep Green Resistance Wisconsin
Revolutionaries of many types maintain that resistance by any means necessary is required to stop momentous social injustice and environmental degradation. These activists recognize that those in power are the enemy and that the enemy will stop at nothing unless forced to do otherwise. Following this understanding, militancy is understood to be appropriate given the situation.
Applied appropriately, militancy is an approach to activism that pledges a steadfast dedication to physically intervene, when necessary, in the violation of living beings and the destruction of communities. This militancy is often rooted in healthy communal norms and an allegiance to the bodily integrity of all beings.
Applied inappropriately, militancy is a reinforcement of men’s machismo. It’s a too easy jump given the hallmark militarized psychology and violation imperative of masculinity. To learn more about why militancy is applied inappropriately, we have to talk about gender.
Gender serves the purpose of arranging power between human beings based on their sex, categorizing them as feminine or masculine. In the succinct words of author and anti-porn activist Gail Dines, femininity can be characterized as an attitude of fuck me, while masculinity is an attitude of fuck you.
To be masculine, “to be a man,” says writer Robert Jensen in his phenomenal book, Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, “…is a bad trade. When we become men—when we accept the idea that there is something called masculinity to which we could conform—we exchange those aspects of ourselves that make life worth living for an endless struggle for power that, in the end, is illusory and destructive not only to others but to ourselves.” Masculinity’s destructiveness manifests in men’s violence against women and men’s violence against the world. Feminist writer and activist Lierre Keith notes, “Men become ‘real men’ by breaking boundaries, whether it’s the sexual boundaries of women, the cultural boundaries of other peoples, the political boundaries of other nations, the genetic boundaries of species, the biological boundaries of living communities, or the physical boundaries of the atom itself.”
Too often, politically radical communities or subcultures that, in most cases, rigorously challenge the legitimacy of systems of power, somehow can’t find room in their analysis for the system of gender. Beyond that, many of these groups actively embrace male domination—patriarchy, the ruling religion of the dominant culture—though they may not say this forthright, with claims of “anti-sexism.” Or sexism may simply not ever be a topic of conversation at all. Either way, male privilege goes unchallenged, while public celebrations of the sadism and boundary-breaking inherent in masculinity remain the norm.
This framework allows men the rebellious “fuck you” to be aimed not only at those who run the system, but anyone in their vicinity who has boundaries to be broken, power to be struggled for. It should be obvious that acting by any means necessary for justice is not the same as breaking boundaries of those you perceive as enemies, which, in the case of masculinity, means most everyone.
But, it’s not obvious. Thus, a group of male self-proclaimed radicals I once knew could tape a picture of a local woman who disagreed with their politics to the inside of a toilet bowl. Thus, levels of rape are increasing in forest-defense camps and punk music scenes. Thus, most men in the culture continue to consume extremely debasing pornography and attempt to practice that type of sex on women in their lives. By any means necessary, to these men, ends with a particular sadistic self-fulfillment, one that is fueled by dangerous self-hatred.
Given that most militant groups have taken this type of approach as a given, we must actively work to combat it in favor of a real politics of justice. The answer is feminism, which Andrea Dworkin defines as a war on masculinity.
Alongside challenging systems of power such as racism, capitalism, and civilization, we need to learn to challenge male supremacy as well, including when it is found within facets of our activism.
This is especially important in direct confrontations with power. Says Lierre Keith: “[W]e need to examine calls for violence through a feminist lens critical of norms of masculinity. Many militant groups are an excuse for men to wallow in the cheap thrill of the male ego unleashed from social constraints through bigger and better firepower: real men use guns.”
To begin to reject this mentality, radical men should practice stepping aside while women assume roles in leadership. Masculinity needs challenging, which men must do themselves. However, men also need to learn to listen more, taking direction from the women around them and learning to be better allies. The world cannot handle any more broken boundaries; men have breached so many already, be they communal, biotic, or personal. We need a real culture of resistance, which includes an appropriate militancy. And, if anyone should be armed, it’s feminists.
From Kid Cutbank: http://kidcutbank.blogspot.com/2012/07/masculinity-is-not-revolutionary.html
