Building-Alternatives

This article is from the blog buildingarevolutionarymovement. In this post I’ll explain why people say they support capitalism and then the actual reasons why people support capitalism. To end capitalism we need to understand why people support it. I’m listing the positives in the post that I don’t agree with. In future posts I’ll describe the myths of capitalism and the reasons why we need an alternative. It’s easy and common to conflate capitalism, liberalism, neoliberalism and free market economics. Many use them interchangeably and I’m going to go with that for this post. ...

For more information Fabio Víquez I fabio@colmenalab.com I +506 87089747 Leo Cerda I leo@blackindigenousliberation.com I +101 202 3418609 A delegation of representatives from six countries of America, representing Black and Indigenous communities and organizations belonging to the Black and Indigenous Liberation Movement (BILM) joined the Anishinaabe Nation and other Indigenous Peoples under the United States to demand that Enbridge Corporation stop the construction of the Line 3 oil pipeline, as well as all extractivist, racists, and colonial projects that violate their rights, territories and culture. ...

This article is from the blog buildingarevolutionarymovement. George Lawson writes in Anatomies of Revolution about two common but unhelpful ways that revolutions are viewed. Either as everywhere – on the streets in the Middle East, to describe new technology, in films and also to describe political leaders. The second is that they are minor disturbances and “irrelevant to a world in which the big issues of governance and economic development have been settled.” [1] ...

Editor’s note: We believe that the UN are an elitist organization and more part of the problem than offering vital solutions. Ecological restoration however will become much more important in the near future, and learning from indigenous peoples and their ways to connect to their landbases may be our only chance of survival. This article originally appeared in Resilience. By Maceo Carrillo Martinet “Today let’s start a new decade, one in which we finally make peace with nature and secure a better future for all” declared António Gutteres, the UN Secretary General, on June 5 during the virtual opening event of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. With environmental degradation already affecting almost half of humanity, and with every major scientific body declaring the next 10 years are critical to confront the climate crises, the urgency to restore the health of our landscapes has never been greater. Having worked professionally as an ecological restoration planner in my home state of New Mexico for 13 years, I sat eagerly at the edge of my seat to learn from my global community of practice. ...

This article is from the blog Building a Revolutionary Movement. I’m going to use Jane McAlevey’s definition for organising as described in a previous post: “organizing places the agency for success with a continually expanding base of ordinary people, a mass of people never previously involved, who don’t consider themselves activists at all – that’s the point of organizing.” In this post, I’ve included activism around ‘rights’ and ‘issues’, to make this list as comprehensive as possible. I’d also add that this is a rough sketch of what to organise (and mobilise) around and this list needs more research and probably reworking. ...

This article originally appeared on Mongabay. Featured image: An elephant bull strides through Kimana Sanctuary, with the iconic Mount Kilimanjaro in the background. Image by Kang-Chun Cheng for Mongabay. KiliAvo Fresh Ltd seeks to establish water-intensive commercial farm that would obstruct wildlife corridor adjacent to Amboseli National Park. Majority of landowners of the former Kimana Tikondo Group Ranch area working together to preserve free movement of wildlife and livestock in this dryland ecosystem. April 26 ruling dismisses the farm’s appeal against revocation of its licence by National Environment Management Authority. by Kang-Chun Cheng ...

Editor’s note: Large scale agriculture, especially the industrial form with its dependence on heavy machinery, highly toxic chemicals and genetically modified crops is incredibly destructive. It’s also remarkably undemocratic since it is pushed by large multinational cooperations and their exclusive institutions like the World Economic Forum and the UN. If we as humans want to have a future on this planet (it looks like we don’t), we need to shift radically to more community based, small scale, democratic food systems and locally applicable techniques for ecological restoration, since large scale agriculture will inevitably fail and leave toxic, deserted landscapes behind. ...

Mining, aquaculture, plantations and other commercial activities have taken a toll on mangroves in Indonesia, home to the world’s largest extent of these important ecosystems. On the Bangka-Belitung islands off Sumatra, residents of one village are doing their part to maintain the mangroves through replanting. For the Batu Betumpang villagers, the mangroves are the source of the shrimp they use to make their belacan shrimp paste, a key source of livelihood here. The villagers say there’s a growing awareness of the importance of mangroves, without which “our income will definitely decline because shrimp will run out.” This article originally appeared on Mongabay. Featured image: The lighthouse on Bangka’s Batu Betumpang Beach. Image by Nopri Ismi for Mongabay. ...

This article originally appeared on Roarmag. Editor’s note: Asking questions, questions that emerge from your empathy if you care for life on the planet, and questions that emerge from your confusion if you see that so many things are going so badly wrong, is a very important, crucial step. We completely agree with the last paragraph of this article and our answer is DGR’s Decisive Ecological Warfare strategy. Featured image: “Frack Off” by Nell Parker. ...

In this article published originally on Stop Fossil Fuel s you are offered an overview of Jem bendell’s work and suggestions of how you can contribute to resilience. Environmentalists advocate reduce, reuse, and recycle as the 3 R’s of sustainability—good practices, but incommensurate with the scope of our emergency. To better mitigate the looming ecological and social crises, we propose superseding these R’s with resilience, relinquishment, and restoration. Along the way, we’ll look at the three I’s of denial which helped get us into this mess: ignorant, interpretative, and implicative. ...