Excerpted from the book Endgame: The Problem of Civilization, by Derrick Jensen.
If you’ve gotten this far in this book—or if you’re simply anything other than entirely insensate—we probably agree that civilization is going to crash, whether or not we help bring this about. If you don’t agree with this, we probably have nothing to say to each other (How ‘bout them Cubbies!). We probably also agree that this crash will be messy. We agree further that since industrial civilization is systematically dismantling the ecological infrastructure of the planet, the sooner civilization comes down (whether or not we help it crash) the more life will remain afterwards to support both humans and nonhumans.
If you agree with all this, and if you don’t want to dirty your spirituality and conscience with the physical work of helping to bring down civilization, and if your primary concern really is for the well-being of those (humans) who will be alive during and immediately after the crash (as opposed to simply raising this issue because you’re too scared to talk about the crash or to allow anyone else to do so either), then, given, and I repeat this point to emphasize it, that civilization is going to come down anyway, you need to start preparing people for the crash.
Instead of attacking me for stating the obvious, go rip up asphalt in vacant parking lots to convert them to neighborhood gardens, go teach people how to identify local edible plants, even in the city (especially in the city) so these people won’t starve when the proverbial shit hits the fan and they can no longer head off to Albertson’s for groceries. Set up committees to eliminate or if appropriate channel the (additional) violence that might break out.
We need people to take out dams, and we need people to knock out electrical infrastructures. We need people to protest and to chain themselves to trees. We also need people working to ensure that as many people as possible are equipped to deal with the fall-out when the collapse comes. We need people working to teach others what wild plants to eat, what plants are natural antibiotics. We need people teaching others how to purify water, how to build shelters. All of this can look like supporting traditional, local knowledge, it can look like starting roof-top gardens, it can look like planting local varieties of medicinal herbs, and it can look like teaching people how to sing.
The truth is that although I do not believe that designing groovy eco-villages will help bring down civilization, when the crash comes, I’m sure to be first in line knocking on their doors asking for food.
People taking out dams do not have a responsibility to ensure that people in homes previously powered by hydro know how to cook over a fire. They do however have a responsibility to support the people doing that work.
Similarly, those people growing medicinal plants (in preparation for the end of civilization) do not have a responsibility to take out dams. They do however have a responsibility at the very least to not condemn those people who have chosen that work. In fact they have a responsibility to support them. They especially have a responsibility to not report them to the cops.
the good thing about everything being so fucked up is that no matter where you look, there is great work to be done. Do what you love. Do what you can. Do what best serves your landbase. We need it all. This doesn’t mean that everyone taking out dams and everyone working to cultivate medicinal plants are working toward the same goals. It does mean that if they are, each should see the importance of the other’s work.
Further, resistance needs to be global. Acts of resistance are more effective when they’re large-scale and coordinated. The infrastructure is monolithic and centralized, so common tools and techniques can be used to dismantle it in many different places, simultaneously if possible.
To be truly effective (and to avoid reproducing the industrial infrastructure) acts of survival and livelihood need to grow from particular landbases where they will thrive. People need to enter into conversation with each piece of earth and all its (human and nonhuman) inhabitants. This doesn’t mean of course that we can’t share ideas, or that one water purification technique won’t be useful in many different locations. It does mean that people in those places need to decide for themselves what will work.
Most important of all, the water in each place needs to be asked and allowed to decide for itself. I’ve been thinking a lot again about the cell phone tower behind Safeway, and I see now how these different approaches manifest in this one small place. The cell phone tower needs to come down. It is contiguous on two sides with abandoned parking lots. Those lots need to come up.
Gardens can bloom in their place.
We can even do our work side by side.*
You can learn more about Derrick Jensen’s work here: https://derrickjensen.org/
Browse all of Derrick Jensen’s Resistance Radio interviews at https://deepgreenresistance.blogspot.com/p/derrick-jensen-resistance-radio-archives.html
What will it take to save the living planet? What will turn the tide of climate change and lead to forests rising again? What will defeat or transform the empire that is consuming our living world?
How can we win?
These are the largest and most important questions we face, and they are our mission here at Deep Green Resistance. We dedicate ourselves, relentlessly, to pursuing answers to these questions. And answers we have found—some of them. History and analysis teaches us that transformative, revolutionary political movements rise and fall with cultures of resistance: the people and communities that provide support, material aid, and solidarity to fuel movements.
You are part of this culture of resistance, and we salute you. We thank you for your solidarity, your material aid, and your support. We are humbled by our community: your dedication, your work ethic, your experience, your power, your passion.
Last Sunday, November 22nd, we hosted a 4-hour live streaming event called “Drawing The Line: Stopping the Murder of the Planet,” and we received an outpouring of support. We have raised over $5,000 USD, which for a small grassroots organization like us is a significant portion of our budget. If you didn’t have a chance to donate yet, it’s not too late, and we still very much need support. We hoped to raise $15k, and are still operating in the red. If you can support us, please visit this link to donate, or this link to sign up for monthly contributions. As always, you can contact us to discuss other options.
You can watch the recording of the event here:
We want to thank everyone who contributed to us last week, and over all the years. We are so grateful for the support we receive from our readers, friends, family, donors, and allies. Our work is truly a group effort, and support is truly an essential part of this.
Image: Mother bear and cubs in the redwoods, photographed by Derrick Jensen.
REMINDER: This Sunday, November 22nd, join us for a live streaming event—Drawing the Line: Stopping the Murder of the Planet—featuring Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, Chris Hedges, and grassroots activists from around the world.
The event will begin at 1pm Pacific (2100 UTC) and will be live streamed at https://givebutter.com/deepgreen.
This Sunday, we ask: where do you draw the line? What is the threshold at which you will fight for the living planet? And how shall we fight?
This event will introduce you to on-the-ground campaigns being waged around the planet, introduce various strategies for effective organizing, rebut false solutions through readings of the forthcoming book Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It, and discuss philosophy of resistance. There will be opportunities to ask questions and participate in dialogue during the event.
The mainstream environmental movement is funded mainly by foundations which don’t want foundational or revolutionary change. Radical organizations like Deep Green Resistance therefore rely on individual donors to support activism around the world, which is why Drawing the Line is also a fundraiser. We’re trying to raise funds to support global community organizing via our chapters, fund mutual aid and direct action campaigns, and make our core outreach and organizational work possible.
Whether or not you are in a financial position to donate, we hope you will join us on November 22nd for this event! There will be a chance to ask questions and participate in dialogue. We hope to see you on Sunday.
Where do you draw the line? What is the threshold at which you will fight for the living planet? And how shall we fight?
This November 22nd, join Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, Chris Hedges, organizers from around the world, and guests for a special 4-hour live streaming event, Drawing the Line: Stopping the Murder of the Planet starting at 1pm Pacific time and hosted by Deep Green Resistance.
This event will introduce you to on-the-ground campaigns being waged around the planet, introduce various strategies for effective organizing, rebut false solutions through readings of the forthcoming book Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It, and discuss philosophy of resistance. There will be opportunities to ask questions and participate in dialogue during the event.
The mainstream environmental movement is funded mainly by foundations which don’t want foundational or revolutionary change. Radical organizations like Deep Green Resistance therefore rely on individual donors to support activism around the world, which is why Drawing the Line is also a fundraiser. We’re trying to raise funds to support global community organizing via our chapters, fund mutual aid and direct action campaigns, and make our core outreach and organizational work possible.
Whether or not you are in a financial position to donate, we hope you will join us on November 22nd for this event.
In this video clip Derrick Jensen talks about how to support direct action, both through loyalty and physical, material support. Derrick lists many ways people can support others on the front line, using examples such as supporting indigenous people opposing oil pipelines and the importance of using your skill set from accounting and writing to others who can cook and sew.
When one cannot go to support an action directly, how can one still support that action?
Napolean, or maybe it was Frederick the Great, famously commented that an army marches on it’s stomach. What is meant by that is that the quartermasters are just as important as the soldiers. Another way to say this is that in battle, in World War II, for example, only about 10 per cent of the soldiers ever fired their gun in battle. The vast majority of soldiers were clerks, or truck drivers, or people who delivered ammunition, or medics, or cooks, or something else. That is a pretty common figure—about, 10 per cent, or often less. I think it was only 3 percent of the IRA that picked up any weapon.
Let’s think about a professional basketball team, or a professional baseball team. You not only have the players. You’ve got all the minor leagers. You’ve got the trainers. You’ve got the dieticians. You’ve got the people who sell the tickets. You’ve got the groundskeepers. You’ve got all these others.
Or in a movie. A movie does not just consist of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. There are gaffers and stunt people, and editors, and caterers. So the point is that there are very few accomplishments that people actually do solo. Most of us require support in whatever we are doing. That support work is just as important as the more glorious aspects.
My friend Lierre Keith often says that what an activist movement needs is two things. It needs loyalty and material support. For example, right now, there are people, primarily indigenous people, some non-indigenous people, who are opposing pipeline that is going across their land. Of course, every pipeline goes across indigenous land, but we’ll leave that aside for the moment. For people whom, for any number of reasons, cannot go there to be there physically, there are a near infinite number of things they could do.
They can write letters to the editors locally. They can advocate in one way or another for them. They can send them supplies. The people actually in the frontline still need to eat. They are going to have shoes that fall apart. Or, they’re going to tear a hole in their jeans. Or, they’re going to get sick.
When we were attempting to stop timber sales, we would sometimes have to work very hard to meet the deadline. We’re having to have till midnight to finish our appeal. There was a post office that stayed open till midnight, for whatever reason. We would oftentimes be working as hard as we can. We were working for hours and hours. We’ve only got two hours left to go. We’d actually get very hungry. Somebody has to go get some food. That’s just as important as the person who drives it to the airport, where the post office was. That’s just as important as the person who writes it up.
Physical material support is very important. There’s also the notion that a guerrilla army swims in the ocean of the people. You need to develop support among the people in order to have a guerrilla army. That’s not just true for the guerrilla army. That’s also true of activism. We need to raise public support for our positions.
I’ve thought often of an experiment called something like “The Second Person Experiment.” They had a bunch of people sitting in a room, like a doctor’s office. They’d have a couple of people come in who were part of the experiment. One person would say, for example, something very racist. The others would not believe it. They would just say it was the part of the experiment.
What they found was that the response of everybody in the room was heavily influenced by the response of the second person in on the experiment. Let’s say that the first person says something racist. If the second person says, “That’s pretty funny, that’s great.” Everybody in the room is much more likely to respond positively than if the person said, “Hey! That’s not very cool.”
I think about that a lot. In fact, it came across a very very small way in the past few weeks. I’m on an email list in my neighborhood. It’s a neighborhood watchlist, where they will announce when somebody gets their house burgled. They’d say, “Everybody watch out. There’s somebody burgling a house. They were seen leaving in a whatever.” So, that’s pretty handy.
But another thing that the people running the list would do, that kind of annoys me is they will complain every time anyone in the neighborhood sees a mountain lion or a bear. And, they’ll say, “We need to call fishing game and get rid of the animals, cause a mountain lion was seen carrying a great kitty.” Nothing personal to the great kitty sitting in the house.
They’ve been doing this a lot. I’ve been keeping silent. Finally, I just couldn’t keep silent anymore. I wrote a very nice note saying, “We need to remember that we’re in their homes. If you have a cat and you leave your cat outside, that’s the risk you’re taking. The mountain lion or the bear should not be harmed for the risk that you took or your cat took.” Nevermind that cats kill birds, but let’s leave that aside.
It was a very nice note, but it had to be said, because I wanted to break the hegemony of it. It’s the same on the larger scale. There’s a line I’m going to mangle, I believe it was from Gandhi. “First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they oppose you, then you win,” or something like that. I think that’s awfully simplified. But, it’s really true that somebody has to go and say something. And then somebody else has to repeat it. And, somebody else has to repeat if, till it gains cultural currency.
Let’s think about this in terms of the attempts to support the indigenous people opposing the pipelines. If they had 50,000 people show up, that’d be great. But, if that 50,000 people show up, but they have no body show up with a port-a-putty, and they had nobody show up with food, that 50,000 people thing would last about six hours and leave a mess. You need to have support in order to have a long-term campaign. That’s absolutely crucial. It’s just as crucial as anything else. What can people do, who are not on the frontline?
I have a friend who is an accountant. Part of her activist work is she does accounting for various organizations that need accounting. That’s something you have to to do too, especially if you have a non-profit. You have to have a 501C3, means that you have to go through all of that stuff. It’s nice to have someone to navigate that territory.
I don’t care what your skills are. If you’re a good writer, they need good writers. If you’re a good cook, they need good cooks. If you are a good accountant, they need good accountants. It is so true. I get tired of being called the “violence guy,” because I talk about resistance. Truth is, we need everything. We need school teachers. We need accountants. We need cooks. We need sowers. We need everything.
I want to challenge everybody who’s listening to this. I’d like you to take at least one hour every week and do some form of activism, or support for somebody else’s activism.
I am going to tell a story, which is how I got started as an activist. When I was about 24 or 25 or 26, I realized I wasn’t paying enough for gas. I wasn’t covering up the social and economic costs. Every time, I would buy gas, for every dollar I spent on gas, I would donate a dollar to a local environmental organization, cause they need it. But I didn’t have any money. I was completely unemployed. I had very very little money. So, what I’d do instead is I’d give myself a choice. Either pay a dollar for every dollar of gas. Or, I could pay myself $5 for every hour of activism. If I spent $10 on gas, I could either give $10 to a local organization or do two hours of work of activism.
I want to challenge everyone to do that. Take some amount, and either give a “tithe” to some local organization, or do two hours of work for a local organization. Or, one hour of work. Everybody can take 1 hour away from their lives. I don’t care how busy you are. You can take 1 hour. You can write a letter. You could go to a protest. You could help start assembling a package. You can do just that much to start. It’s a wonderful start.
You can listen to more videos by Derrick on this YouTube channel or visit his website at http://www.derrickjensen.org