This episode of The Green Flame revolves around a group discussion ofNaomi Klein‘s 2007 book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. We discuss the points of the book that are on point, other areas where the book fails, and how in some ways Klein’s own analysis describes how her mainstream climate movement operates.
In this book, Klein describes the spread of neoconservatism (aka neoliberalism, in some cases), and how it has been facilitated by a deliberate strategy of “shock treatments.” The shock treatments, Klein argues, has always required dictatorship for enforcement. Also read an analysis of the book.
Our music for this episode is “Drag the Forests Down” by Foxpockets.
The title of the film “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” comes from an Irish ballad written by Robert Dwyer Joyce (1836–1883), a Limerick-born poet and professor of English literature. The song is written from the perspective of a doomed young Wexford rebel who is about to sacrifice his relationship with his loved one and plunge into the cauldron of violence associated with the 1798 rebellion in Ireland. The references to barley in the song derive from the fact that the rebels often carried barley or oats in their pockets as provisions for when on the march. This gave rise to the post-rebellion phenomenon of barley growing and marking the “croppy-holes,” mass unmarked graves into which slain rebels were thrown, symbolizing the regenerative nature of Irish resistance to British rule. As the barley will grow every year in the spring this is said to symbolize Irish resistance to British oppression and that Ireland will never yield and will always oppose British rule on the island.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
I sat within a valley green, I sat there with my true love, My sad heart strove the two between, The old love and the new love, – The old for her, the new that made Me think of Ireland dearly, While soft the wind blew down the glade And shook the golden barley
‘Twas hard the woeful words to frame To break the ties that bound us ‘Twas harder still to bear the shame Of foreign chains around us And so I said, “The mountain glen I’ll seek next morning early And join the brave United Men!” While soft winds shook the barley
While sad I kissed away her tears, My fond arms ’round her flinging, The foeman’s shot burst on our ears, From out the wildwood ringing, – A bullet pierced my true love’s side, In life’s young spring so early, And on my breast in blood she died While soft winds shook the barley!
I bore her to the wildwood screen, And many a summer blossom I placed with branches thick and green Above her gore-stain’d bosom:- I wept and kissed her pale, pale cheek, Then rushed o’er vale and far lea, My vengeance on the foe to wreak, While soft winds shook the barley!
But blood for blood without remorse, I’ve ta’en at Oulart Hollow And placed my true love’s clay-cold corpse Where I full soon will follow; And ’round her grave I wander drear, Noon, night, and morning early, With breaking heart whene’er I hear The wind that shakes the barley!
Music in this video
Song: The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Bonus Track) Artist: Tommy Makem Album: Songs of Tommy Makem Licensed to YouTube by: The Orchard Music (on behalf of Tradition Records); BMI – Broadcast Music Inc., The Royalty Network (Publishing), and 6 Music Rights Societies
The Green Flame is a Deep Green Resistance podcast offering revolutionary analysis, skill sharing, and inspiration for the movement to save the planet by any means necessary. Our hosts are Max Wilbert and Jennifer Murnan.
Support the Show
Like what you hear? Make it all possible by going to Deep Green Resistance and making a one time or monthly recurring contribution.
Deep Green Resistance is a radical feminist organization, because all oppression is connected. The freedom of women as a class cannot be separated from the resistance to the dominant culture as a whole. Racism is connected to patriarchy, patriarchy is woven together with the destruction of the planet, and ecocide is interlinked with class oppression.
This episode of The Green Flame focuses on “Pornography Men Possessing Women,” one of Andrea Dworkin’s most influential and important books. In this episode we highlight reflections from the Deep Green Book Club to approach the heart of Andrea Dworkin’s analysis and life’s work.
Poetry and Music
We thank Trinity La Fey for a special live recording of her poem “Tintinnabulation.”
Thank you to Beth Quist for sharing her live acoustic performance of her composition, Angel of Death. Beth is playing all the instruments as well as being the solo vocalist. The “studio” is her RV!
Musicians and artists have lost much of their their ability to create a livelihood as a result of social distancing during the pandemic. Please, if you are able, send some love and support their way.
The Green Flame is a Deep Green Resistance podcast offering revolutionary analysis, skill sharing, and inspiration for the movement to save the planet by any means necessary. Our hosts are Max Wilbert and Jennifer Murnan.
Support the Show
Like what you hear? Make it all possible by going to Deep Green Resistance and making a one time or monthly recurring contribution.
This episode of the Green Flame is an interview with Kim Hill, a permaculture design teacher based on the South East coast of New South Wales, and Joanna Pinkiewicz, a women’s rights activist and environmental activist, based in Tasmania. We discuss the Australian bush fires, the role of fire in the landscape, indigenous land management practices, land defense, grief rituals and nature connection, and the likelihood that corporations and developers with backing from the government will open up fire-affected land to development and mining. Two of DENNI’s songs are included with permission: Trees and Wise Ones.
The Green Flame is a Deep Green Resistance podcast offering revolutionary analysis, skill sharing, and inspiration for the movement to save the planet by any means necessary. Our hosts are Max Wilbert and Jennifer Murnan.
This episode of The Green Flame podcast looks at Decisive Ecological Warfare, the only revolutionary environmental strategy designed to dismantle the global industrial economy by any means necessary.
Our show features a conversation with movement lawyer and poet Will Falk, and Deep Green Resistance co-author and philosopher Derrick Jensen. The conversation covers ecological collapse, resistance, morality, immigration, permaculture, and more.
We also share poetry by the exiled black revolutionary Assata Shakur, and 9 Principles of War from the U.S. Military that can be adapted for use by activists. Our music track for this episode is “Crying Over You” by Christoper Morrow, used under CC BY 3.0.
The Green Flame is a Deep Green Resistance podcast offering revolutionary analysis, skill sharing, and inspiration for the movement to save the planet by any means necessary. Our hosts are Max Wilbert and Jennifer Murnan.
Decisive Ecological Warfare
Decisive Ecological Warfare (DEW) is the strategy of a movement that has too long been on the defensive. It is the war cry of a people who refuse to lose any more battles, the last resort of a movement isolated, co-opted, and weary from never-ending legal battles and blockades.
The information in the DEW strategy is derived from military strategy and tactics manuals, analysis of historic resistances, insurgencies, and national liberation movements. The principles laid out within these pages are accepted around the world as sound principles of asymmetric warfare, where one party is more powerful than the other. If any fight was ever asymmetric, this one is.
The strategies and tactics explained in DEW are taught to military officers at places like the Military Academy at West Point for a simple reason: they are extremely effective.
When he was on trial in South Africa in 1964 for his crimes against the apartheid regime, Nelson Mandela said: “I do not deny that I planned sabotage. I did not do this in a spirit of recklessness. I planned it as a result of a long and sober assessment of the political situation after many years of oppression of my people by the whites.”
We invite you to read this strategy, and to undertake that same long and sober assessment of the situation we face. Time is short.
