by DGR Colorado Plateau | Jul 9, 2015 | Colonialism & Conquest
By Will Falk / Deep Green Resistance
Sitting outside the 10 by 20 foot makeshift tent that has served as my home for the last 34 days on Mauna Kea, I watch the tent poles shudder to the concussion of US Army howitzer cannons firing live shells at their training grounds below. When the wind blows just right, from the south, the rattle of automatic rifle fire reaches the occupation. There’s no denying it: A war rages in Hawai’i.
It’s a war on native peoples, a war on women, a war on the land, a war on life itself. The war did not start in Hawai’i. The war began thousands of years ago with the dawn of civilization when some humans chose to live in population densities high enough that they overshot the carrying capacity of their homelands and turned to dominating other peoples in other lands. Imperialism was born, and one-by-one land-based, truly sustainable human societies were either eradicated or forced into assimilation.
The war swept west across Turtle Island (so-called North America) – where it is still being fought -leaving whole peoples destroyed and now largely forgotten. The war is carving peaks from mountains, drying rivers so they no longer flow to their ocean homes, and boiling the planet’s temperature to levels dangerously close to being unbearable for all but a few lifeforms. The war decimates the numbers of our animal kin, too. Buffalo walk the ledge above total extinction. So do salmon. So do timber wolves. So do grizzly bear.
The war in Hawai’i began in the late 1770s when Captain Cook first appeared. By 1897, a million Hawaiians were killed in battle, by introduced diseases, and through Christian missionary efforts. Half of Hawai’i’s endemic species have been exterminated since European contact. The minds of Hawaiian children were attacked when the illegal Republic of Hawai’i outlawed the Hawaiian language in Hawaiian schools in 1896. The bodies of these Hawaiian children were attacked when they were beaten for speaking their native tongue.
A genocidal program of desecration was initiated as well. Hale O Pa’pa and the Kanaka burials there were paved over by highways while Kahoolawe was bombed to hell by the American military – and that’s just to name a very few of the sites desecrated. Now, the TMT project wants to dynamite an eight acre patch of Mauna Kea’s hallowed summit to clear the way for their telescope.
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Rumors are swirling that the TMT (Thirty Meter Telescope) project is poised to break its self-imposed moratorium on construction and send its equipment up the mountain with an armed escort. We have heard that Gov. David Ige is willing to send the national guard against the Mauna Kea protectors.
In the midst of these rumors, it is not uncommon to hear people say they hope the situation on Mauna Kea will not turn violent. The problem with expressing this hope is the situation on Mauna Kea is violent, has been violent for a long time, and will remain violent so long as those in power remain in control of the land.
Before you object to this, consider the bombs and rifle fire I am listening to as I write this.
Consider that the first time construction equipment tried to force a way over the objections of the Hawaiian people, it came with men carrying batons and pistols. These men carrying batons and pistols put 31 peaceful protectors in handcuffs, carried them to the Hilo jail, extracted 250 dollars from each one of them, and now force them to appear at a series of of court dates under threat of jail time.
Consider that David Ige, as I wrote earlier, has stated that he is willing to call in the national guard to clear the way for the TMT. Speaking of war, the national guard is an organization of soldiers. They will come with rifles instead of the police’s pistols.
This is violence.
I didn’t even mention the violence already done to Mauna Kea to build and maintain the 13 telescopes that already exist on the summit. These 13 telescopes required their own dynamite and 38 feet have been cut from the height of Mauna Kea’s summit already. There have been 7 reported mercury spills on the mountain that contains Hawai’i Island’s largest freshwater aquifer.
Mauna Kea
Plants, animals, and insects that live on Mauna Kea are murdered by this mercury and its more than likely that humans – especially children and the elderly – are harmed by this mercury, too.
Kanaka Maoli are genealogically related to Mauna Kea – it is literally a family member – so to do this kind of violence to the Mauna is to attack an older sibling.
Again, this is violence.
I anticipate that some may accuse me of encouraging an atmosphere of violence by using words like war to describe the violent reality facing Mauna Kea, facing Kanaka Maoli, and facing the long, necessary road to Hawaiian independence. Describing reality, however, is not the same thing as encouraging violence. I want this violence to stop and the first step to a cure is the proper diagnosis.
As a haole, I understand that when push comes to shove the State will crack down much harder on people of color than they will white people, and I do not want to provoke this crack down. I do think, though, that we need to be prepared to react when the State does not treat the protectors with the kapu aloha that the protectors will show those who come to destroy Mauna Kea.
Those who deny we are at war are wrong. Maybe, they cannot recognize the war because war has become so utterly pervasive. The wars of the past led to the rape of women. The war we’re fighting now causes one in six women to be raped in her lifetime worldwide. The wars of the past were fought to beat armies, to eradicate cultures, and to topple nations. The war we’re fighting now causes the extinction of whole species – 200 species a day, in fact, day after day after day.
Maybe, they cannot recognize the war because they are privileged enough not to confront the reality of this war. I think Palestinians understand this war. I think Catholics in Northern Ireland understand this war. I think Afghanis and Iraqis understand this war. I think hammerhead sharks, California condors, mamane trees, and ahinahina understand this war. They have to, because their survival depends on it.
Maybe, those who deny the war is happening think they can avoid the war’s dangers by ignoring it. It might be possible to avoid bullets, gas, and bombs by agreeing and cooperating with the cops as they place you in handcuffs, but you are just as susceptible to the environmental toxins the dominant culture unleashes on us every day. Denial saves no one from cancer.
Yes, Hawai’i with the rest of the world, is at war. This war – more than any other – is a war that we absolutely must win. If we lose, we lose life on this planet. To win a war, you must destroy your enemy’s ability to make war. The battle on Mauna Kea against the TMT is a mini-war in the larger war on life. The surest way to win this war is to undermine the TMT’s ability to build their telescope.
There are many strategies currently being employed to win this war – to undermine the TMT’s ability to build their telescope – but the weakness of most of these strategies is that they rely on our enemies to do the right thing. The countless sign-waving events conducted in support of Mauna Kea are designed to persuade the public of the justness of our movement. The incessant social media campaign we are waging is geared towards changing the hearts and minds of the world. The court cases challenging the TMT project, for example, rely on a judge to agree with the arguments made by our lawyers.
And why do we appeal to the courts to protect Mauna Kea? The answer is simple. If the judge rules in our favor, the decision will be backed with the full force of the State. The judge’s ruling and it’s enforcement will be backed with an organized group of men carrying guns – the police, or another organized group of men carrying bigger guns – the national guard. If we were to win in court and the TMT tried to build it’s telescope, it would be them and not us for once, who would be staring down the barrels of rifles. Of course, we do not trust the courts to do the right thing.
That’s why we stand on the Mauna Kea Access Road at this occupation.
Another way to say all this is: the State can, will, and already has used violence against us and our relations in the natural world. We must understand this in order to be effective. We must understand that writing really clever essays might not stop them. We must understand that hugging cops when they come to arrest us might not stop them. We must understand that we may not have an opportunity to place leis around the necks of national guardsmen when they point their guns at us.
I hear many people within the movement state confidently, “We will stop the TMT project.” But, if we do not understand the violence the State is capable of I feel like what we are really saying is “We will stop the TMT project as long as the police or the national guard agree to what we think are the rules.” I am not writing these things to cause despair. Rather, I am writing these things to encourage the deepest levels of commitment to protecting Mauna Kea.
Of course, those who think I am calling for violence demonstrate their own belief that only violence will stop the destruction of Mauna Kea, the destruction of Hawai’i, and the destruction of what is left of the world. I do not claim to know what will stop the destruction of Mauna Kea, but I do know that we must understand the way the State frames our tactics for us before we even begin. Once we understand this, we must ask tough questions.
I’ll walk my talk and begin: If the police or national guard overwhelms the protectors on the Mauna Kea Access Road, what do we do next?
From San Diego Free Press: http://sandiegofreepress.org/2015/06/protecting-mauna-kea-this-is-a-war/
Find an index of Will Falk’s “Protecting Mauna Kea” essays, plus other resources, at:
Deep Green Resistance Hawai’i: Protect Mauna Kea from the Thirty Meter Telescope
by DGR Colorado Plateau | Jul 9, 2015 | Colonialism & Conquest, White Supremacy
By Will Falk / Deep Green Resistance
I write these words from the floor of a warm corner of the men’s restroom at the Mauna Kea visitor center. The temperature outside is too cold for my laptop battery to take a charge and the restroom houses the only active plug, so I huddle in this corner to combat the words used by those who seek to destroy what I love.
I’ve been on Mauna Kea for the last 24 nights standing in solidarity with Kanaka Maoli as they protect their sacred mountain from the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project that would dynamite an eight acre patch two stories deep at the pristine summit of Mauna Kea.
When I was asked to come to Mauna Kea, I was asked to write in a way that connects the complex forces informing a destructive project like the TMT to the systems currently murdering the beautiful islands of Hawai’i. More specifically, I was asked to write to America about the genocidal context the TMT springs from.
The occupation on Mauna Kea exists for two reasons. First, the Mauna Kea protectors will stop the TMT construction equipment when they finally seek to force their way to the summit again. As I write this, it has been 79 days since the TMT construction was stopped on the Mauna Kea access road the first time. Second, the Mauna Kea protectors serve as public education ambassadors. Each day hundreds of tourists come to Mauna Kea and each day dozens stop by our tent to ask us what we’re doing.
These conversations, reactions to some of my previous essays, and discussions with other protectors lead me to believe that a vocabulary lesson for haoles is due. As haoles who want to support Hawaiian sovereignty, we must learn to use the appropriate words.
The terms I define in this essay—haole, racism, white supremacy and genocide—are experienced in a very real way by oppressed peoples around the world. It is not my place to explain these terms to people experiencing genocide in the most vivid ways, so I write to those privileged enough to be free from these realities. The first step to acting in true solidarity is accepting the truth and to accept the truth we must communicate with the most honest words.
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Haole is the Hawaiian word for “white person.” The first time I used the term in my piece “Protecting Mauna Kea: History for Haoles,” I received a wide variety of comments and messages.
Some of the comments were from native Hawaiians thanking me for being a haole willing to describe the true Hawaiian history to other haoles. Some of the comments were from people offended by my use of the term. Some of the comments were from people telling me I was wrong, that haole has no racial connotation and means simply “without breath.” Finally, and most disturbingly, some haoles accused me of spreading division within the movement by using the term and demanded that the term never be used again.
Usually, disputes over definitions can be resolved simply turning to a dictionary. So, I’ll start there. Here is the definition of “haole” from the “Hawaiian Dictionary” compiled by the famous native Hawaiian language scholar Mary Kawena Pukui: “White person, American, Englishman, Caucasian; American, English; formerly, any foreigner; foreign, introduced, of foreign origin, as plants, pigs, chickens; entirely white, of pigs. To act like a white person, to ape the white people, or assume airs of superiority (often said disparagingly, especially of half-whites). Americanized, Europeanized; to have become like a white person or have adopted the ways of a white man.”
Now, I understand that haole can become a derogatory term if words like “fucking” or “stupid” precede it, but Pukui’s definition makes it clear that the most common use of the word haole is to describe a white person. And, I was careful in my essay to use haole only to refer to white people. So, why did some haoles object to being called haoles? Why did some white people get angry for being called white people?
One thing I’ve noticed in my attempts to work in solidarity with people of color is that many white people hate being reminded of their whiteness. When I was a public defender bemoaning statistical realities like the fact that there are more black men in prison today than were enslaved in 1850 to a roomful of white judges, prosecutors and cops, I was shouted down and told we live today in a colorblind society. When I was at the Unist’ot’en Camp pipeline blockade in so-called British Columbia and our Unist’ot’en hosts explained the need for separate indigenous and settler camps due to the reality that many indigenous peoples felt more safe expressing their opinions away from settlers, there was always a white person who tried to set up in the indigenous camp with the logic that we’re all one human family.
So, the question becomes: Why do white people hate being reminded of their whiteness?
The answer, I think, is white people know they benefit both from a brutal history and an on-going reality of genocide and imperialism.White people have visited unspeakable violence on ourselves and on peoples and lands around the world. This is uncomfortable for some white people. But, the truth is the truth however uncomfortable.
Haunani-Kay Trask
I am writing about Hawai’i so I turn to the brilliant Hawaiian thinker Haunani-Kay Trask. Trask also used the term haole to describe white people and Trask was also forced to defend herself from angry white people. She explains the uncomfortable history confronting haoles, “In Hawai’i, it is the haole who stole our land, took our government, destroyed our nationhood, and suppressed our culture. It is white people who created laws to divide Hawaiians by blood quantum; it is white people who brought capitalism to Hawai’i. In other words, it is white people who, for their own benefit, have exploited and oppressed Hawaiians.”
When Hawaiians use the term “haole” – a word that means simply “white person” – they use an original word from their original language. Haoles have taken too much from Hawai’i already. When white people demand that Hawaiians give up their original words those white people seek participation in an inexcusable dominance that extends to something as sacred as original language.
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What about claims that I (and by extension anyone else who uses the term) spread division in the movement when I write “haole”? What about claims that the term haole is an expression of reverse racism?
These claims are based on an ignorance of social reality. In a world free of racism and white supremacy, differences in skin color would not matter. Humans, indeed, would be one big family. This is not the world we live in, though.
At this point, I must define racism. Again, I’ll turn to Trask who defines racism as, “A historically created system of power in which one racial/ethnic group dominates another racial/ethnic group for the benefit of the dominating group.” In a racist system, “economic and cultural domination as well as political power are included in the systemic dominance of the exploiting group.” Finally, “a monopoly of the means of violence is also held by those in the dominating group.” Racism in Hawai’i has taken the form of white supremacy where white people form the the dominating group.
Notice that Trask’s definition opposes the typical, liberal notion that racism is an emotional state existing in the minds of individuals. By this definition, then, it should be clear that haole as a Hawaiian word cannot be racist because Hawaiians are presently incapable of holding the requisite power in Hawaii to engage in racism. As long as Hawaiians remain a dominated racial group, they cannot be racist. They can discriminate against haoles, perhaps, or express prejudice, but they cannot practice racism.
To say that I am, in fact, enforcing racism by pointing out that racism exists is to buy into the erroneous idea that racism is just a belief held in the mind and as such can be overcome merely by holding love for all people. White supremacy and racism, though, are enforced by physical power and violence. To truly undermine racism requires physically dismantling the means by which racism is perpetuated. If we cannot point out that haoles are white people directly benefitting from a specific arrangement of power, then we will never effectively dismantle white supremacy—and what’s left of Hawai’i will be annihilated.
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Another word many haoles roll their eyes at is “genocide.” The truth is Hawai’i has suffered from over two hundred years of on-going genocide and the TMT project, regardless of its stated goals, is another attempted act in a long list of genocide.
Too many limit their view of genocide to ditches full of corpses or black and white photographs of gas chambers. These are certainly images of genocide, but Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (the international authority) contemplates a much broader definition.
Article II says genocide is “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group as such: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Raphael Lemkin invented the term “genocide” and informed much of the 1948 Convention’s rationale with his masterpiece written in 1943 titled “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.” He wrote, “Genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation.” Genocide can also be “a coordinated plan of actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.”
Captain Cook on the coast of New South Wales (Joseph BACKLER/Wikimedia)
Viewed through this lens, we can see the countless, obvious acts of genocide that comprise recent Hawaiian history. First, there was Captain Cook landing on Hawai’i’s shores with sailors he knew full-well carried communicable and terminal diseases for native Hawaiians. The numbers are devastating. The population of Hawaii was estimated at well-over 1 million when Cook landed in the late 1770s. By 1898, at the time of the Ku’e Petitions, only 40,000 Kanaka Maoli existed in the whole world. This loss of human life in such a relatively short time reflects the “immediate destruction of a nation” Lemkin describes.
The illegal overthrow in 1893 involved all-white conspirators forcing Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate her throne as regent of the Kingdom of Hawai’i under threats of violence. The Kingdom of Hawai’i was formed to protect Hawai’i from European powers. So, the overthrow deliberately inflicted conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the Hawaiian people. The objective of the overthrow was the disintegration of Hawaiian political and social institutions.
The banning of Hawaiian language in schools by the illegal Republic of Hawaii in 1896 was a move that was unquestionably designed to alienate Hawaiian children from their native culture, language, and religion.
And now we stand on Mauna Kea to stop genocide again. Make no mistake, the TMT project is classically genocidal aiming to desecrate the most sacred mountain in the traditional Hawaiian spirituality. Mauna Kea is the genesis site for Kanaka Maoli and is referred to as the piko, the navel of the world, connecting Sky Father to Earth Mother. The people are genealogically (read: literally) related to the Mountain making Mauna Kea an essential place of worship.
It is easy for many to see that blowing up places of worship like a synagogue or a mosque would be genocidal for causing serious mental harm to Jews or Muslims. It is easier still to see the way steamrolling places essential to world religions like Bethlehem or Mt. Sinai would be genocidal as well. Dynamiting Mauna Kea undermines Kanaka Maoli culture, spirituality, and society destroying a place of worship that is perhaps, the most symbolically significant place to the traditional Hawaiian spirituality.
Of course, the crime of genocide requires two elements – intent and action. A shrewd reader might object to accusations of genocide the same way the TMT organizers do, arguing that the TMT project does not intend to harm Hawaiians but instead is an effort to foster human understanding of astronomy. According to Gregory H. Stanton, President of Genocide Watch, “Intentional means purposeful. Intent can be proven directly from statements or orders. But more often, it must be inferred from a systematic pattern of coordinated acts.”
What happens when we view the TMT project through the totality of the haole presence in Hawai’i? Can we infer a systematic pattern of coordinated acts that would rise to the requisite level of intention needed to prove genocide?
As I demonstrated earlier, we see that the last two hundred years in Hawai’i—marked by the arrival of haoles—are dominated by genocide. Captain Cook came to the Pacific specifically to open the region to British colonization. Missionaries followed Cook to destroy Hawaiian spirituality and replace it with Christianity. Americans overthrew the Kingdom of Hawai’i to push the genocidal legacy of Manifest Destiny ever farther west. The Hawaiian language was suppressed in Hawaiian schools to program children in the Hawaiian version of “Kill the Indian, save the man.”
Now, the TMT project attempts to blow up the piko of the world, the heart of the Hawaiian people, in an act of desecration Cook, the Missionaries, and the haole plantation owners could only dream of. This is racism. This is genocide. The TMT must be stopped.
Find an index of Will Falk’s “Protecting Mauna Kea” essays, plus other resources, at:
Deep Green Resistance Hawai’i: Protect Mauna Kea from the Thirty Meter Telescope
From San Diego Free Press: http://sandiegofreepress.org/2015/06/protecting-mauna-kea-vocabulary-for-haoles/
by DGR Colorado Plateau | Jun 22, 2015 | Building Alternatives, Gender, Strategy & Analysis
In 1993 Michael Carter was arrested and indicted for underground environmental activism. Since then he’s worked aboveground, fighting timber sales and oil and gas leasing, protecting endangered species, and more. Today, he’s a member of Deep Green Resistance Colorado Plateau, and author of the memoir Kingfishers’ Song: Memories Against Civilization.
Time is Short spoke with him about his actions, underground resistance, and the prospects and problems facing the environmental movement. The first part of this interview is available here, and the second part here.
Time is Short: You mentioned some problems of radical groups—lack of respect for women and lack of a strategy. Could you expand on that?
Michael Carter: Sure. To begin with, I think both of those issues arise from a lifetime of privilege in the dominant culture. Men in particular seem prone to nihilism; I certainly was. Since we were taught—however unwittingly—that men are entitled to more of everything than women, our tendency is to bring this to all our endeavors.
I will give some credit to the movie “Night Moves” for illustrating that. The men cajole the woman into taking outlandish risks and they get off on the destruction, and that’s all they really do. When an innocent bystander is killed by their action, the woman has an emotional breakdown. She’s angry with the men because they told her no one would get hurt, and she breaches security by talking to other people about it. Their cell unravels and they don’t even explore their next options together. Instead of providing or even offering support, one of the men stalks and ultimately kills the woman to protect himself from getting caught, then vanishes back into mainstream consumer culture. So he’s not only a murderer but ultimately a cowardly hypocrite, as well.
Honestly, it appears to be more of an anti-underground propaganda piece than anything. Or maybe it’s just a vapid film, but it does have one somewhat valid point—that we white Americans, particularly men, are an overprivileged self-centered lot who won’t hesitate to hurt anyone who threatens us.
Artwork by Stephanie McMillan
That’s a fictional example, but any female activist can tell you the same thing. And of course misogyny isn’t limited to underground or militant groups; I saw all sorts of male self-indulgence and superiority in aboveground circles, moderate and radical both. It took hindsight for me to recognize it, even in myself. That’s a central problem of radical environmentalism, one reason why it’s been so ineffective. Why should any woman invest her time and energy in an immature movement that holds her in such low regard? I’ve heard this complaint about Occupy groups, anarchists, aboveground direct action groups, you name it.
Groups can overcome that by putting women in positions of leadership and creating secure, uncompromised spaces for them to do their work. I like to reflect on the multi-cultural resistance to the Burmese military dictatorship, which is also a good example of a combined above- and underground effort, of militant and non-violent tactics. The indigenous people of Burma traditionally held women in positions of respect within their cultures, so they had an advantage in building that into their resistance movements, but there’s no reason we couldn’t imitate that anywhere. Moreover, if there are going to be sustainable and just cultures in the future, women are going to be playing critical roles in forming and running them, so men should be doing everything possible to advocate for their absolute human rights.
As for strategy, it’s a waste of risk-taking for someone to cut down billboards or burn the paint off bulldozers. It’s important not to equate willingness with strategy, or radicalism and militancy with intelligence. For example, I just noticed an oil exploration subcontractor has opened an office in my town. Bad news, right? I had a fleeting wish to smash their windows, maybe burn the place down. That’ll teach ‘em, they’ll take us seriously then. But it wouldn’t do anything, only net the company an insurance settlement they’d rebuild with and reinforce the image of militant activists as mindless, dangerous thugs.
If I were underground, I’d at least take the time to choose a much more costly and hard-to-replace target. I’d do everything I could to coordinate an attack that would make it harder for the company to recover and continue doing business. And I’d only do these things after I had a better understanding of the industry and its overall effects, and a wider-focused examination of how that industry falls into the mechanism of civilization itself.
By widening the scope further, you see that ending oil and gas development might better be approached from an aboveground stance—by community rights initiatives, for example, that have outlawed fracking from New York to Texas to California. That seems to stand a much better chance of being effective, and can be part of a still wider strategy to end fossil fuel extraction altogether, which would also require militant tactics. You have to make room for everything, any tactic that has a chance of working, and begin your evaluation there.
To use the Oak Flat copper mine example, now the mine is that much closer to happening, and the people working against it have to reappraise what they have available. That particular issue involves indigenous sacred sites, so how might that be respectfully addressed, and employed in fighting the mine aboveground? Might there be enough people to stop it with civil disobedience? Is there any legal recourse? If there isn’t, how might an underground cell appraise it? Are there any transportation bottlenecks to target, any uniquely expensive equipment? How does timing fit in? How about market conditions—hit them when copper prices are down, maybe? Target the parent company or its other subsidiaries? What are the company’s financial resources?
An underground needs a strategy for long-term success and a decision-making mechanism that evaluates other actions. Then they can make more tightly focused decisions about tactics, abilities, resources, timing, and coordinated effort. The French Resistance to the Nazis couldn’t invade Berlin, but they sure could dynamite train tracks. You wouldn’t want to sabotage the first bulldozer you came across in the woods; you’d want to know who it belonged to, if it mattered, and that you weren’t going to get caught. Maybe it belongs to a habitat restoration group, who can say? It doesn’t do any good to put a small logging contractor out of business, and it doesn’t hurt a big corporation to destroy machinery that is inexpensive, so those questions need to be answered beforehand. I think successful underground strikes must be mostly about planning; they should never, never be about impulse.
TS: There are a lot of folks out there who support the use of underground action and sabotage in defense of Earth, but for any number of reasons—family commitments, physical limitations, and so on—can’t undertake that kind of action themselves. What do you think they can do to support those willing and able to engage in militant action?
MC: Aboveground people need to advocate underground action, so those who are able to be underground have some sort of political platform. Not to promote the IRA or its tactics (like bombing nightclubs), but its political wing of Sinn Fein is a good example. I’ve heard a lot of objections to the idea of advocating but not participating in underground actions, that there’s some kind of “do as I say, not as I do” hypocrisy in it, but that reflects a misunderstanding of resistance movements, or the requirements of militancy in general. Any on-the-ground combatant needs backup; it’s just the way it is. And remember that being aboveground doesn’t guarantee you any safety. In fact, if the movement becomes effective, it’s the aboveground people most vulnerable to harm, because they’re going to be well known. In that sense, it’s safer to be underground. Think of the all the outspoken people branded as intellectuals and rounded up by the Nazis.
The next most important support is financial and material, so they can have some security if they’re arrested. When environmentalists were fighting logging in Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island in the 1990s, Paul Watson (of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) offered to pay the legal defense of anyone caught tree spiking. Legal defense funds and on-call pro-bono lawyers come immediately to mind, but I’m sure that could be expanded upon. Knowing that someone is going to help if something horrible happens, combatants can take more initiative, can be more able to engineer effective actions.
We hope there won’t be any prisoners, but if there are, they must be supported too. They can’t just be forgotten after a month. As I mentioned before, even getting letters in jail is a huge morale booster. If prisoners have families, it’s going to make a big difference for them to know that their loved ones aren’t alone and that they will have some sort of aboveground material support. This is part of what we mean when we talk about a culture of resistance.
TS: You’ve participated in a wide range of actions, spanning the spectrum from traditional legal appeals to sabotage. With this unique perspective, what do you see as being the most promising strategy for the environmental movement?
MC: We need more of everything, more of whatever we can assemble. There’s no denying that a lot of perfectly legal mainstream tactics can work well. We can’t litigate our way to sustainability any more than we can sabotage our way to sustainability; but for the people who are able to sue the enemy, that’s what they should be doing. Those who don’t have access to the courts (which is most everyone) need to find other roles. An effective movement will be a well-organized movement, willing to confront power, knowing that everything is at stake.
Decisive Ecological Warfare is the only global strategy that I know of. It lays out clear goals and ways of arranging above- and underground groups based on historical examples of effective movements. If would-be activists are feeling unsure, this might be a way for them to get started, but I’m sure other plans can emerge with time and experience. DEW is just a starting point.
Remember the hardest times are in the beginning, when you’re making inevitable mistakes and going through abrupt learning curves. When I first joined Deep Green Resistance, I was very uneasy about it because I still felt burned out from the ‘90s struggles. What I’ve discovered is that real strength and endurance is founded in humility and respect. I’ve learned a lot from others in the group, some of whom are half my age and younger, and that’s a humbling experience. I never really understood what a struggle it is for women, either, in radical movements or the culture at large; my time in DGR has brought that into focus.
Look at the trans controversy; here are males asking to subordinate women’s experiences and safe spaces so they can feel comfortable. It’s hard for civilized men to imagine relationships that aren’t based on the dominant-submissive model of civilization, and I think that’s what the issue is really about—not phobia, not exclusionary politics, but rather role-playing that’s all about identity. Male strength traditionally comes from arrogance and false pride, which naturally leads to insecurity, fear, and a need to constantly assert an upper hand, a need to be right. A much more secure stance is to recognize the power of the earth, and allow ourselves to serve that power, not to pretend to understand or control it.
TS: We agree that time is not on our side. What do you think is on our side?
MC: Three things: first, the planet wants to live. It wants biological diversity, abundance, and above all topsoil, and that’s what will provide any basis for life in the future. I think humans want to live, too; and more than just live, but be satisfied in living well. Civilization offers only a sorry substitute for living well to only a small minority.
The second is that activists now have a distinct advantage in that it’s easier to get information anonymously. The more that can be safely done with computers, including attacking computer systems, the better—but even if it’s just finding out whose machinery is where, how industrial systems are built and laid out, that’s much easier to come by. On the other hand the enemy has a similar advantage in surveillance and investigation, so security is more crucial than ever.
The third is that the easily accessible resources that empires need to function are all but gone. There will never be another age of cheap oil, iron ore mountains, abundant forest, and continents of topsoil. Once the infrastructure of civilized humanity collapses or is intentionally broken, it can’t really be rebuilt. Then humans will need to learn how to live in much smaller-scale cultures based on what the land can support and how justly they treat one another. That will be no utopia, of course, but it’s still humanity’s best option. The fight we’re now engaged in is over what living material will be available for those new, localized cultures—and more importantly, the larger nonhuman biological communities—to sustain themselves. What polar bears, salmon, and migratory birds need, we will also need. Our futures are forever linked.
Time is Short: Reports, Reflections & Analysis on Underground Resistance is a bulletin dedicated to promoting and normalizing underground resistance, as well as dissecting and studying its forms and implementation, including essays and articles about underground resistance, surveys of current and historical resistance movements, militant theory and praxis, strategic analysis, and more. We welcome you to contact us with comments, questions, or other ideas at undergroundpromotion@deepgreenresistance.org
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 22, 2015 | Direct Action, Strategy & Analysis
By Will Falk / Deep Green Resistance
I went up to Mauna Kea’s summit a few days ago to pule (to pray) with some of the protectors on a ridge inside the Thirty Meter Telescope’s (TMT) proposed construction site. When we reached the site, we were confronted by half a dozen large men in orange vests and hard hats brandishing cameras, audio recorders, and notebooks.
The boss told us we were trespassing on an active construction site and subject to arrest. I looked around and saw nothing but a handful of back-hoes, the open sky at 14,000 feet above sea level, and a sublime, obsidian-colored cinder field stretching to the clouds. Of course, as I’m writing this, construction on Mauna Kea has been suspended for more than two months.
Kaho’okahi Kanuha explained that we were simply here to say some prayers. The boss told us again we were subject to arrest, mumbled into a hand-held radio, signaled to his men, and began recording us with a camera. The six men took up positions surrounding us as we held hands and faced the sky with Kaho’okahi leading some chants. Some of the men folded large arms across their chests glaring at us, others recorded us on camera, and one circled us nervously. I’ve been in a few fist fights in my life – needless, pointless expressions of a toxic masculinity – and I felt like these men were revving themselves up for some sort of scrap.
It was impossible for me to pray like this. Kaho’okahi seemed completely unnerved and when I asked him about it, he said this happens every time he comes to pray. I remember my experiences in Mass when I was younger. I imagine a priest at the altar leading his parish in the prayers that, for Catholics, turn bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ – all while strong men in hard hats patrol the pews and record the liturgy.
This, of course, would never happen. So, I ask: When Kanaka Maoli pray on a mountain exceedingly more beautiful than any basilica or cathedral I’ve ever been in, why are they being harassed like this?
I spent the first six essays in this Protecting Mauna Kea series trying to answer this question. The answers I came up with are validated after spending the last two weeks up here. The TMT project is based on the dominant culture’s sense of entitlement, historical amnesia, and pornification of Hawaiian culture. What could resemble a porn shoot more closely than men with cameras intruding on and recording acts of intimacy?
I think I’ve demonstrated that the TMT project is enabled by a problematic worldview and should not be allowed to proceed. After Governor David Ige’s announcement last week that he would support and enforce the TMT’s construction, the Mauna Kea protectors want the world to know we never expected the State to help us. We must stop the TMT project and we must do it ourselves. The question becomes: “How do we do it?”
The occupation on Mauna Kea is an expression that the protection of Mauna Kea is the people’s responsibility. We cannot trust the government to stop the TMT. We cannot trust the police. We cannot trust the courts. We have to do it ourselves. In other words, nothing has changed since the occupation began over two months ago. In many ways, the occupation on Mauna Kea reflects all of our environmental and social justice movements around the world.
The truth is – on the whole – environmental and social justice movements around the world have been getting their asses kicked. If they weren’t, 200 species a day wouldn’t be going extinct around the world. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t be losing indigenous languages at a rate relatively faster than species. If they weren’t, 95% of North America’s old growth forests wouldn’t have been clear cut. If they weren’t, every mother around the world wouldn’t have dioxin – a known carcinogen – in her breast milk. And, why are they getting our asses kicked? One reason is we’ve trusted those in power to do the right thing for far too long. The good news is – while construction on the Mountain is suspended – we have the opportunity to avoid mistakes other movements have made.
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A couple days ago in a freezing cold, clinging mist, the Mauna Kea protectors called a 5:30 AM meeting in the now-famous crosswalk on the Mauna Kea Access Road to talk strategy in light of Governor Ige’s recent announcement. Some protectors lamented the announcement and were understandably scared about what was coming next. Others maintained that the TMT project was illegal anyway, and the courts would never let it proceed. Still others cited Kingdom of Hawai’i precedents and referred to the recent war crime charges filed with the Canadian government, to assure us the TMT was dead in the water. Finally. the boldest proudly proclaimed – with a hint of the false bravado that often accompanies anxious realizations – construction equipment would have to roll over their dead bodies to get to the construction site.
I stood silently in the circle listening. I am not Hawaiian and have no place arguing with those whose land I presently occupy. My mind was filling with memories of my experiences as a public defender. I recalled the cop in Kenosha, WI where I worked who put a gun to the temple of young Michael Bell’s head and murdered him as his mother and sister watched on for the crime of possibly breaking his bail conditions. I recalled that the cop was promoted and still on the force in Kenosha.
My stomach began churning as I felt that old feeling of helplessness sitting in a wooden chair in a courtroom next to another client being sentenced to prison while there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. There was no brilliant legal argument I could make, no impassioned plea the judge would listen to. The judge had power and armed men at his command, and I did not. It was as simple as that.
My heart was tugged back to Turtle Island, the so-called North American continent where the arrival of Europeans has meant the total extermination of dozens of aboriginal peoples. I think of the Taino who were annihilated within a few decades after Columbus’ contact with them. I can almost hear Tecumseh’s voice calling out from now-dead villages in present-day Ohio and Indiana asking what happened to the Pequods, the Narragansetts, and the Pocanokets. These peoples were wiped out by European colonizers while most of Tecumseh’s people, the Shawnee, were removed at gunpoint from their homelands in the Ohio valley hundreds of miles away to Oklahoma.
Some of the protectors here tease me, calling me “America’s ambassador to Hawai’i.” Listening to some of the protectors insist that the courts, the police, and the government would never let the TMT project happen, I wanted to explain that I understand the dominant culture we’re fighting against. I wanted to say I benefit from this culture. I was raised within in. I’ve lived amongst the type of people who run those courts, sit in their government, and become the police. I know what they are capable of and that many of them are sociopaths with no regard for the well-being of those who oppose them.
I didn’t say this, though, because I knew these feelings brought me too close to acting like the White Savior come to save aboriginal peoples from their ignorance. The truth is Kanaka Maoli understand very well – much better than I – the genocidal tendencies of the dominant culture occupying their lands. They do not need my reminder. I write about this now, only to narrate my relief when Kaho’okahi said, “I understand everyone’s concerns, but the way we’re going to win this struggle is pule plus action.”
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Pule plus action. I agree with Kaho’okahi. Protecting Mauna Kea requires a strong spirituality, requires prayers, but it also means real, physical actions in the real, physical world. We need prayers, yes, just like we need those battling the TMT project in the courts, just like we need those signing petitions against the TMT project, just like we need those donating to the Mauna Kea protectors’ bail fund. But, at the end of the day, the surest way to stop the TMT project is to physically, actually stop the TMT project. This is what the encampment on Mauna Kea has always been about. The protectors are determined to place their bodies in between Mauna Kea’s summit and the construction equipment escorted by the police that will soon come to build the telescope.
I hope with all my heart that the courts will make the right decision and prohibit the TMT’s construction. I hope with all my heart that when the police receive their orders to pacify resistance on the Mountain that they will turn in their resignation papers. But, I’m not holding my breath. History has shown over and over again that the courts and the police will not help us.
Hope is not going to keep the destruction off Mauna Kea. It is much more likely that hope will bind us to ineffective strategies like trusting the government and hugging the police when they come to arrest us.
The Mauna Kea protectors insist on observing kapu aloha – a practice of love and respect – on the Mountain. I will not question this practice, but I will point out that our opponents do not observe kapu aloha. I fear that the more effective we become at stopping their project, the more violently they will respond.
I do not write this from a place of despair. I write this to give a clear-eyed vision of the effort it’s going to take. If we’re going to keep the TMT project from completion, we are going to have to do it ourselves. We’re going to have to show up in numbers large enough to overwhelm the police. We’re going to have to produce a mass of humanity thick enough to clog the Mauna Kea Access Road – and we may have to do it day in and day out for weeks. It will take a tremendous amount of bravery, shrewd strategic thinking, and a deep commitment from all of us. Or, in Kaho’okahi’s words, it’s going to take pule plus action. This is nothing new, though, and I believe we will win.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 21, 2015 | Listening to the Land
By Will Falk / Deep Green Resistance
I went to the Thirty Meter Telescope construction site near the summit of Mauna Kea for the first time, today. Four-wheel drive is recommended for the road that twists steeply with hairpin turns up the Mountain, so ten of us piled into a Kanaka uncle’s (older native Hawaiian man’s) pick-up truck to go see the summit. Leaving from the visitor center parking lot at 9,200 feet the road ascends over 5,000 feet to an elevation close to 14,000. While my ears popped, my sense of wonder grew. Conversations around the truck bed stopped as the Mountain’s power over our senses intensified.
Beginning below the tree line, the six-mile ride carries you through ancient cooled lava flows, across red-stained cinder fields, and under patches of snow adorning Mauna Kea’s brown shoulders like jewels. When we parked we took a moment to breathe the air that is thin, but crisp and fresh. The walking was hard. We moved slowly and I wondered if Mauna Kea keeps the air thin on purpose to ensure peace on the slopes. Serenity filled the spaces where the hills parted to show the clouds carpeting the valley floor below.
I felt like I was traveling in a timeless land until we turned a corner on the trail and the thirteen existing telescopes appeared on the ridge lines forming Mauna Kea’s summit. My breath caught and my stomach soured.
Some are calling the collection of observatories and assorted buildings the “industrial park on Mauna Kea” and I understand why. The telescopes themselves are housed in blank, white geodesic domes. Numerous support buildings including giant satellite radar dishes dot the slopes leading up to the telescopes. Roads – both paved and simply graded – lacerate the mountainside. Brown and orange outhouses stand like sores in otherwise breath-taking cinder fields. I recalled a picture I saw down at the visitor center showing one of Mauna Kea’s hills being dynamited before construction. Scars are still visible years later.
We did not linger long and left down the trail for Lake Waiau. There is no mistaking the sacredness of Lake Waiau. The Lake’s waters are an emerald green in the center rimmed in royal blue as the waters approach the Lake’s red cinder banks. I sat engulfed in the shimmering waves on the Lake’s surface. The wind is alive on Mauna Kea and it seemed to sense the enormity of the experience for me, dying down to allow me my stillness.
Then, two uncles in our party blew long, clear blasts on conch horns. The echoes rang through the intimate valley where Lake Waiau sits and filled my chest with warmth. I began to cry.
One of the uncles brought a harmonica and played some soft blues to the breeze. I kept crying. I cried for the destruction on Mauna Kea’s summit. I cried for the pain Kanakas expressed to me and to each other while talking story at the occupation. I cried for the pure joy of experiencing a power humans have felt for millennia and will continue to feel so long as we stop the destruction of the world’s sacred places.
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Back at the occupation, I reflect on my first trip to Mauna Kea’s summit. Ahinahina, named silverswords in English, are blooming on the slopes of Mauna Kea. The fragrance of their purple flowers sweeten the dry mountain air. Their silver stems glisten in the wind and shimmer with the sunshine. Above the ahinahina, the gold flowers of the mamane trees dance with delight to the day’s colors. I close my eyes in an effort to print these images onto my heart. I imagine what Mauna Kea must have looked like a couple hundred years ago when Kanaka Maoli – aboriginal Hawaiians – treated these slopes as sacred and forbidden to all but the most holy activities. No cattle were allowed here then. No invasive species choked out the ahinahina and mamane forcing endemic species to within inches of their existence. I imagine the mountain sides as they must have been: awash in silver and gold.
Silver and gold. I wince at the irony. That is, after all, what the Thirty Meter Telescope project is all about – pieces of silver and mounds of gold.
I open my eyes again, asking silently for the words ahinahina and mamane might want me to write. I wish I could ponder the beauty of these endangered plants forever. As I think this, standing in front of a ahinahina mesmerized by her elfin colors, a sparkle grows deep in her thin leaves and the comparison to the twinkle of stars Mauna Kea is famous for is undeniable.
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Of course, there are those saying the Thirty Meter Telescope project is about something more noble than money. I’ve heard, for example, it’s for “pure human curiosity,” or for “love for the stars.” The problem with this is not all human curiosities, nor all loves are created equal.
Where have we heard the human curiosity argument before? It is often used to excuse the actions of explorers that open the lands of original peoples to colonization. Christopher Columbus has his own holiday for “discovering America” while the total eradication of the Taino people is forgotten. Hitting closer to a Hawaiian home, Captain James Cook is honored for supposedly being the first European to land in Hawai’i.
And what has this cost Hawai’i? The population of Hawai’i in the late 1770s is estimated at more than one million people. By 1897 at the time of the Ku’e Petitions, only 40,000 Hawaiians survived. Over 95% of the Hawaiian people died in 120 years due to contact with Europeans. Of course, Cook knew this would happen as he warned his sailors not to engage in intercourse with Hawaiians.
Some will excuse Cook saying at least he tried to control his sailors. But, when we’re talking about the near total extinction of a whole culture, I think we need to judge with stronger standards. Who goes to work when they have a communicable disease like a cold? Who goes to work when they have a potentially fatal communicable disease? Who, among us, would willingly and knowingly expose our loved ones to danger? Cook did, and he did it, in part, out of “human curiosity.”
In response to the “love for the stars” argument, keep in mind that the Ku Klux Klan advertises itself as a “love group not a hate group.” Either we have to trust people like the KKK, or we realize that we cannot trust everyone’s rhetoric. Another way to look at this is to understand that often what is called “love” in this dominant culture is really a poisoned version of what love truly is. Those responsible for the TMT project might love the stars, but that love is poisoned by the destruction their project will create. What is love if it causes you to violate boundaries established by aboriginal peoples? What is love if it causes you to clear an 8 acre space, digging two stories on a formerly pristine mountain top? What is love if it causes you to dangerously perch hazardous chemical waste above the largest freshwater aquifer on Hawai’i Island?
Now, I am certainly not saying that love for stars is wrong. Every night up here on Mauna Kea, I roll out my sleeping bag under the open sky and gaze in awe at the stars. There is a right way and a wrong way to love the stars. Hawaiians who loved the stars so much they were able to navigate the largest ocean in the world with handmade canoes using the naked human eye loved the stars the right way, the least invasive way, the most respectful way. The TMT project with all of its destructive technology, all of the waste produced by the materials used in its construction like steel, aluminum, and mercury, is loving the stars the wrong way.
The counter to my argument is often, “You say you love the Mountain, but what good is a mountain?” Thankfully, the brilliant professor of ecology and leading figure in the deep ecology movement, Neil Evernden, has come up with the best response. He says the best way to respond to the questions, “What good is a mountain? What good is a ahinahina? What good is a mamane tree?” is to ask “What good are you?”
Evernden’s point is something I learned looking at Lake Waiau, is something I learned listening to the ahinahinas and mamanes. Mountains, ahinahinas, mamanes, polar bears, rhinoceroses, and you and I each exist for our own subjective purposes. Ahinahinas have lives, joys, dances, and purposes as valuable to them as ours are to us.
To take this idea even deeper, I know when I heard the clear notes of the conch horns above Lake Waiau I was sharing in a tradition thousands of years old. When the winds blew through my hair, the pores of the cinder rocks mixed with the pores of my skin, and the blue light on Lake Waiau was reflected in the blue light in my eyes, I was engaged in relationships that made me most fully human. To block those winds, to dynamite those cinder rocks, to poison the light from Lake Waiau, will destroy the relationships that make humans human. In other words, destroying Mauna Kea is destroying ourselves.
From San Diego Free Press
Find an index of Will Falk’s “Protecting Mauna Kea” essays, plus other resources, at:
Deep Green Resistance Hawai’i: Protect Mauna Kea from the Thirty Meter Telescope
