by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 18, 2013 | Colonialism & Conquest
By Agence France-Presse
Thi Sieu says her family lived for generations on a small plot of land studded with cashew trees until they fell victim to an alleged land grab by powerful local elites, a fate shared with many indigenous farmers in Vietnam’s lush central hills.
All land in the communist nation is owned by the state and usage rights are frequently opaque, allowing corrupt local officials and well-connected businessmen to seize land with impunity, according to activists speaking to AFP.
The Central Highlands have long been a hotbed of discontent over land rights, thanks in part to government schemes luring big agricultural firms and lowland migrants seeking their fortunes in booming cashew, coffee and rubber industries.
Official figures show the area’s population surged from 1.5 million in 1975 to around six million in 2010, prompting complaints from indigenous minorities of forced evictions by newly arrived ethnic Kinh, who make up 90 percent of the population.
Thi Sieu is a M’Nong, one of a patchwork of indigenous minorities which make up the remaining 10 percent of Vietnam’s roughly 90 million people.
She said her family’s trees were felled and ancestral graves destroyed in 2011 to make way for a rubber plantation run by a private company operating with the support of local officials.
“They said if we did not go they would beat us and kill us. There was no compensation at all. They cut down our trees. We lost everything — our land and our crops,” Sieu, 42, told AFP.
“Most of the land in our area now belongs to those who have money. Many of them are Kinh people,” she said.
“Our M’Nong community does not have much land now. We’ve been kicked out of areas that we had been living in for generations. We’re forced to become farm labourers,” Sieu added.
Many such local tribes — collectively known as Montagnards — sided with the US-backed south during Vietnam’s decades-long war. Some are calling for more autonomy, while others abroad even advocate independence for the region.
The last major protests against the loss of traditional lands to large-scale plantations was in 2004, and the government is still hunting down those involved. Eight men were recently jailed for up to 11 years for a demonstration in 2002.
‘Robbing villagers’ land for profit’
Three decades ago, before Vietnam abolished collectivisation and began a process of market reforms, land disputes were largely based on demographics and history, and concentrated in “diem nong” hot spots like the Central Highlands.
But as the country developed and land values rose, the trouble spread to cities where land values are higher.
People realised that by owning land close to cities they could “make seriously more money” than from remote coffee plantations, said Professor Adam Fforde, a Vietnam expert at Australia’s Victoria University.
According to octogenarian activist Le Hien Duc — who began working on land issues in the 1980s — once-isolated cases of land grabbing have become “rampant.”
“Local officials are robbing the villagers’ land for profit,” said Duc, who once worked for the country’s revered founding President Ho Chi Minh.
Villagers have no way to seek redress, as local authorities — their first avenue for complaint — are usually involved in the corrupt land deals, she said, calling for a clear land law and a serious anti-graft drive.
Nationwide, some 70 percent of complaints filed to authorities concern land.
“But there is no solution,” Duc said. “The people get kicked around like a ball between different levels of government — local, district, province. Then finally, they go to Hanoi.”
Daily protests in the capital
Sieu has travelled to Hanoi three times — at great personal expense — to file complaints to get her land in the Central Highlands back, without success. She is far from alone in making the attempt.
Come rain, shine or police crackdown, protesters can be found standing on a busy street corner near several government buildings in central Hanoi, holding handwritten signs detailing their land grievances.
“I have been here four months. The police have tried to remove me many times. But I will not leave — we will not leave — until they fix this problem,” said Do Thi Ngoc Nguyen from southern Dong Nai province.
With all land owned by the state, people must rely on land use rights certificates, but in reality they offer limited protection.
The problem is set to become more acute this year with the expiry of 20-year land use leases, which give many farmers some legal claim to their land. The government has not made it clear how the issue will be addressed.
“The robbery of the land, by local government, officials and enterprises, is the root of all the instability we see,” one leading Hanoi-based Vietnamese academic said on condition of anonymity, citing a growing number of protests in the capital.
“The villagers always lose,” he said, explaining that authorities commandeer the land in the name of “public interest” only to sell it to developers who build expensive houses and shopping malls.
Public opinion is firmly on the side of the land protesters.
Farmer Doan Van Vuon became a folk hero after using homemade shotguns to resist forced eviction last year — an incident that prompted one popular blog to name him “Person of the Year 2012”. He was jailed for five years in April.
Other land defenders have paid a different price. Le Thach Ban, 74, walks with a limp after being attacked by thugs last year when he refused to give up his land for a development in Hung Yen province near Hanoi.
“I had a punctured lung, head injuries, three broken ribs and spent 23 days in hospital,” he said, vowing to stay despite the efforts to remove him.
“We will defend the land that belonged to our ancestors,” he said.
From Gáldu
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 20, 2013 | Agriculture, Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy
By Inter Press Service
Mayangna indigenous communities in northern Nicaragua are caught up in a life-and-death battle to defend their ancestral territory in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve from the destruction wrought by invading settlers and illegal logging.
The president of the Mayangna indigenous nation, Aricio Genaro, told Tierramérica that their struggle to protect this reserve, which is still the largest forested area in Central America, was stepped up in 2010, due to the increased numbers of farmers from eastern and central Nicaragua moving in.
In addition to the destruction of natural resources, this invasion has turned violent and poses a serious threat to the biosphere reserve’s indigenous population, estimated at roughly 30,000. Since 2009, 13 indigenous people have been killed while defending their territory, said Genaro.
The latest victim of this violent confrontation was Elías Charly Taylor, who died from gunshot wounds he received in the community of Sulún on Apr. 24, when returning from a protest demonstration against the destruction of the forest.
This protest, initiated in February, has drawn the attention of the government of leftist President Daniel Ortega and publicly exposed the destruction of Bosawas, which encompassed more than two million hectares of tropical forest when it was designated a Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1997.
According to a study published in 2012 by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the Nicaraguan National Union of Farmers and Ranchers, the European Union and Oxfam, if deforestation were to continue at its current rate, all of the reserve’s forests would be wiped out in 25 years.
Vanishing wildlife
The Mayangna live from hunting and fishing, domestic livestock raising and subsistence agriculture, growing crops like corn, beans and tubers with traditional methods. But their way of life has been severely impacted by the invading farmers.
“They shoot everything, burn everything, poison the water in the rivers, and chop down the giant trees that have given us shade and protection for years, and then they continue their advance, and nothing stops them,” said Genaro.
“You don’t see tapirs anymore, the pumas and oncillas (tiger cats) have fled the area, you no longer hear the singing of the thousands of birds that used to tell us when it was going to rain. Even the big fish in the rivers are gone. Everything is disappearing,” he said.
According to Kamilo Lara of the National Recycling Forum, a network of non-governmental environmental organisations, more than 96,500 hectares of forest have already been destroyed within the protected core of the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve.
Lara added that “55 percent of the forests in the so-called buffer zone, where some 20,000 mestizo farmers (of mixed indigenous and Spanish ancestry) have settled, have been cleared to sell the timber, to create pastures for cattle grazing, and to grow crops for commercial purposes.”
He further estimated that some 12,000 of the 19,896 square kilometres initially set aside as the original reserve have been damaged due to the expansion of the buffer zone, which was initially less than 5,500 square kilometres in area.
Jaime Incer Barquero, a presidential advisor on environmental affairs, told Tierramérica that the national authorities need to speed up protective measures “before the reserve loses its status (as a UNESCO biosphere reserve) and the world loses the reserve.”
This view is shared by the UNESCO representative in Nicaragua, Juan Bautista Arríen, who believes that “urgent and firm action” must be taken to protect both the indigenous population and the natural environment.
Read more from Inter Press Service: http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/05/indigenous-nicaraguans-fight-to-the-death-for-their-last-forest/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 4, 2013 | Defensive Violence, Mining & Drilling, Property & Material Destruction, Repression at Home
By Sandra Cuffe
This article was originally published by Upside Down World on May 2, 2013, and is republished here with permission from the author.
With the world’s attention focused on the on-again off-again genocide trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt and his head of military intelligence in Guatemala City, there has been little international reporting on other events in the Central American nation. Meanwhile, as the trial continues, conflicts involving rural communities and Canadian mining companies are escalating, to the point that a State of Siege was declared last night.
Fifty miles southeast of the capital, private security guards working for Vancouver-based mining firm Tahoe Resources shot and wounded several local residents on Saturday in San Rafael Las Flores, on the road in front of Tahoe’s El Escobal silver mine. The mining company’s head of security was arrested while attempting to flee the country. A police officer and a campesino were killed during conflicts earlier this week. Through it all, demonstrations against the mining project have continued amid conflicting reports and government misinformation.
Following a Cabinet meeting late last night, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina declared a 30-day State of Siege in four municipalities around the El Escobal mining project: San Rafael Las Flores and Casillas in the department of Santa Rosa, and Jalapa and Mataquescuintla in the department of Jalapa. The measure is in effect as of today. Initial reports indicated that the constitutional rights suspended include freedom of movement, freedom of assembly and protest, and certain rights of detainees and prisoners.
Even before the measure was declared, communities were denouncing army mobilization in the region last night. When he announced the State of Siege, Pérez Molina stated that security forces reported for duty at three military bases last night and that operatives would begin early this morning.
“We fear for the lives of our leaders,” stated a message circulated online by the Xinka People’s Parliament, denouncing the mobilization of armed forces in Jutiapa with the alleged intention of arresting Xinka leaders in Santa María Xalapán, Jalapa. “We’re returning to the 1980s, with the persecution of leaders, extrajudicial execution and forced disappearance.”
Two weeks ago, Guatemalan Minister of the Interior Mauricio López Bonilla announced that executive and judicial officials were analyzing the possibility of declaring a State of Emergency in at least 30 municipalities throughout the country, due to violence. The government, according to the April 16 announcement, had anticipated finalizing the details of its evaluation of “red zones” within two weeks and implementing the measures suspending constitutional rights, possibly within three weeks to a month. At the time, mining was not mentioned.
The suspension of constitutional rights did not come as a surprise to Moisés Divas, Coordinator of the Diocesan Commission in Defense of Nature (CODIDENA) in Santa Rosa.
“The extent of the reaction from both the company and the State has completely violated people’s constitutional right to protest,” Divas told Upside Down World in a telephone interview on Monday. At the time, he was in Guatemala City accompanying some of the wounded San Rafael Las Flores residents at the Office of the Public Prosecutor, where they were being seen by a medical examiner.
“They no longer even respect human life. The government officials who should be at the service of the population have now turned against the population to defend a transnational project,” said Divas.
Tahoe Resources owns the El Escobal mine, but Vancouver-based mining giant Goldcorp retained a 40 percent ownership interest in Tahoe when it sold the project in 2010. Still under construction, El Escobal was granted an exploitation license by the Guatemalan government on April 3 amid widespread protest and threats against opponents. Five days later, the community-based movement against mining in San Rafael Las Flores began an ongoing resistance camp on privately owned land less than 200 feet from the mine’s front gate. Despite a violent eviction on April 11, when 26 people were arrested and held for four days before being released without charges, the resistance maintained its presence at the camp.
On Saturday, April 27, a group of local residents left the resistance camp along the road that passes directly in front of the mine, heading towards the community of El Volcancito. When they passed the front gate, security guards opened fire on them from the other side.
“The mining company ordered the shooting against people there, injuring more than 10 people with gunshot wounds,” said Divas. “Six of them were taken to get medical assistance in Cuilapa and two to the Roosevelt Hospital in the capital, because they found evidence of serious injury.”
Wilmer Pérez, 17, Antonio Humberto Castillo, 48, Noé Aguilar Castillo, 27, and Érick Fernando Castillo, 27, were all released after medical treatment in Cuilapa. Adolfo García, 57, and his son Luis García, 18, were taken to Guatemala City. Adolfo García was later released, but his son Luis remained in hospital care. The 18-year-old was shot in the face, suffered extensive damage to his jaw, lip, and teeth, and requires maxillofacial surgery.
Alberto Rotondo, Tahoe’s Chilean head of security, was overheard giving the order to shoot, among other comments and insults, while some of the injured have stated that they saw him draw and fire a weapon as well. According to a Prensa Comunitaria article posted that same night, local witnesses said that Rotondo “ordered [the security guards] to shoot, saying that they are fed up with all this garbage, referring to our people. They insulted them, and then they loaded their rifles and began to shoot at them.”
Rotondo was later arrested at the airport attempting to flee the country on Tuesday morning, accused of attempted homicide for his role in the April 27 shooting. After his case was transferred from the capital to Santa Rosa, he was sent to the maximum security prison in Cuilapa. According to Prensa Libre coverage, a judge in Guatemala City also issued arrest warrants for three other individuals with regards to Saturday’s shooting.
On Monday morning, Minister of the Interior Mauricio López confirmed that El Escobal mine security guards had shot at local residents. But despite all evidence to the contrary, he also said that the residents had been attempting to forcibly enter the mine site at the time and stated that only rubber bullets were used.
Oscar Morales García, a member of the Committee in Defense of Life in San Rafael Las Flores that has been mobilizing against the mining project and organizing community consultations, says the statements are simply untrue.
“There are people who were shot with real bullets. One has a bullet lodged in his body and it was decided that it’s better if it stays there instead of taking it out. And the other youth, the son, whose face was disfigured when he was shot. Those aren’t rubber bullets,” he told Upside Down World in a telephone interview on Monday.
Morales García also says that there may have been less evidence had it not been for the actions of local community residents on Saturday.
“After the attack against those six people, the national police force and the mine guards came out, intending to remove evidence, to drive their vehicles over the crime scene, and to pick up the bullet casings. But some of the people who were there didn’t let that happen. They told the police to get back and then protected the crime scene,” he said. “After six, eight hours of waiting for representatives from the Office of the Public Prosecutor to arrive, yes, they found evidence. The evidence was there. The crime scene had been protected by civilians.”
López Bonilla’s assertion that rubber bullets were used wasn’t the only government statement to be called into question on Monday. Presiding over the signing of a new royalty agreement between Tahoe Resources and the Ministry of Energy and Mines, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina said that there is community support for the mine.
According to the new voluntary contribution agreement, Tahoe will pay five percent in royalties instead of the one percent required by the country’s mining legislation. The additional funds will be distributed to several different municipal governments in the departments of Santa Rosa and Jalapa. The mayor of San Rafael Las Flores was present at the signing ceremony in the capital along with several other elected municipal leaders.
“I saw the statements made by President of the Republic Otto Pérez Molina, saying that the population of San Rafael supports the mining company,” said CODIDENA Coordinator Moisés Divas. That same day, he said, San Rafael Las Flores residents were out in the streets in huge numbers to protest the agreement. “I don’t know what argument or foundation he used to say that people support the mining company.”
Community consultations are underway in San Rafael Las Flores. Eight have been carried out in as many communities. More than 1,200 people have said no to mining and only eight individuals have voted in favor of mining, said both Divas and Morales García. The overwhelming majority of the thousands of people who participated in municipal-level consultations in other municipalities in Santa Rosa – Casillas, Nueva Santa Rosa and Vieja Santa Rosa – and Mataquescuintla in neighboring Jalapa have also rejected mining.
Morales García also rejected the allegation of local support. “The government just announced [on Monday] that we’re merely two or three people who don’t want mining in San Rafael, that everyone else agrees with it,” he said. Beyond just marginalizing the resistance, said Morales García, the government was acting in concert with the Minera San Rafael, Tahoe Resources’ Guatemalan subsidiary.
“What actually happens is one thing, and the version managed by the government and the mining company is something else. The best Minera San Rafael spokesperson here is Minister López Bonilla,” he added.
In 1982, then Second Lieutenant Mauricio López Bonilla was part of the “La Juntita” Young Officers Advisory Group working for the military junta led by Ríos Montt. He retired from the Army as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1997, shortly after the Peace Accords officially ended four decades of conflict in 1996. He later became the electoral campaign manager for current President Otto Pérez Molina, whose role in the brutal counterinsurgency campaign of the early 1980s in the Ixil region has again come into question during the genocide trial. López Bonillla was sworn into his Cabinet position when Pérez Molina began his term in January 2012.
A whole new set of statements made by López Bonilla came under fire on Tuesday, after a police officer was shot and killed in San Rafael Las Flores. The Minister of the Interior publicly accused Xinka leaders of orchestrating an operation to take 23 police officers hostage in Jalapa.
Community and regional leaders representing the non-Mayan Indigenous Xinka population in southeastern Guatemala have been outspoken opponents of El Escobal and mining in the region. Four Xinka community leaders were abducted by armed masked men on March 17 while on their way home to the neighboring department of Jalapa after observing the community consultation process in El Volcancito, San Rafael las Flores.
Rigoberto Aguilar and Roberto López, both local leaders of the Indigenous Xinka Community of Santa María Xalapán, managed to escape. Roberto González Ucelo, President of the Indigenous Xinka Community of Santa María Xalapán and of the Xinka Parliament, survived after a police operative was sent in. But Exaltación Marcos Ucelo, Secretary of the Xinka Parliament, was found dead. Now six weeks later, the Xinka Parliament has denounced that no progress has been made to bring those responsible to justice.
In an atmosphere of heightened tension after Saturday’s shooting by El Escobal security forces, communities mobilized in San Rafael Las Flores and Jalapa against the mining project on Monday, denouncing the agreement being signed in the capital between Tahoe and the government and the presence of municipal authorities at the event. Conflicts involving the national police force ensued in both locations. In San Rafael Las Flores, a police officer was shot and killed on Tuesday morning when police attempted to evict the community resistance. In Jalapa, 23 police officers were taken hostage and disarmed on Monday afternoon at a blockade between the town of Jalapa and Mataquescuintla. A massive police response involving some 2,000 officers was sent to rescue the first group. In the process, on Tuesday morning, several police officers were wounded and a campesino was killed. Police vehicles were also torched and destroyed in both locations.
On Tuesday, Vice Minister of the Interior Edy Juárez publicly stated that community leader Rudy Pivaral was responsible for inciting violence in San Rafael Las Flores, leading to the death of police officer Eduardo Demetrio Camacho Orozco. Minister of the Interior López Bonilla publicly accused Xinka leaders Roberto González Ucelo and Rigoberto Ucelo of orchestrating the conflict in Jalapa and said he would hold them responsible for any acts carried out with the weapons taken from the police officers when they were held hostage.
“They hold me responsible for all the problems that occurred,” Xinka leader Roberto González Ucelo told the Independent Media Center (CMI) on Wednesday. “I have proof that I went to Cuilapa, I was in Cuilapa, so I didn’t organize [anything] because I was on my way to Cuilapa.” There was evidence of the trip, he said, from various receipts and the registration of his visit in the municipal office in Cuilapa.
An outpouring of support for the Xinka Parliament, community leaders and the local resistance to mining came from Indigenous, campesino and human rights organizations following the government accusations.
“The atmosphere is really tense here,” González Ucelo said of Santa María Xalapán. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
On Wednesday, the Office of the Public Prosecutor requested the arrest of 18 people on charges related to the conflicts earlier this week in San Rafael Las Flores and Jalapa. However, the suspension of constitutional rights regarding legal detention and interrogation under the State of Siege leaves community leaders and outspoken mining opponents in the region vulnerable to unchecked repression.
Largely silent throughout most of the recent developments, Tahoe Resources issued a statement on Wednesday, May 1, “to clarify inaccurate media reports about violent incidents that have broken out in recent days.” In line with the company’s response after the murder of Xinka leader Exaltación Marcos Ucelo, Tahoe claimed the incident in Jalapa had nothing whatsoever to do with the mine.
Regarding protests against the mining project, Tahoe Resources CEO Kevin McArthur stated that, “while many of these activities have been peaceful and respectful, violence from outside influences has escalated in the past weeks since we received our operating permit,” according to the statement.
“Tahoe’s Guatemala security manager was detained by authorities on Tuesday,” the company confirmed, but alleges the arrest was simply “due to the highly charged atmosphere and inaccurate press reports about Saturday’s events.”
Tahoe is also sticking to López Bonilla’s initial claim that only rubber bullets were used, adding that the Escobal security force acted to repel a hostile protest of some “20 people armed with machetes” at the mine gate. “We regret any injuries caused by rubber bullets, but we take the protection of our employees and the mine seriously,” said McArthur, according to the statement.
“As a result of the incidents in recent days, work at the mine has slowed and construction and development is expected to return to normal by Thursday,” according to the company statement.
But if the past couple months are any indication, there is no real normal when it comes to El Escobal. Normal has been ongoing community-based resistance in the face of violent repression, which will likely escalate under the State of Siege.
For Oscar Morales García, the “violence from outside influences” has come from Tahoe Resources. “The truth here is that the social peace was shattered when the mining company came to San Rafael,” he told Upside Down World.
Morales García knows that Annual General Meetings are coming up this month for Goldcorp (today, May 2, in Toronto) and Tahoe (May 9 in Vancouver), and he has a message for the shareholders of both companies.
“Tahoe’s silver, minerals and gold in San Rafael are now stained with blood. It may be true that the government authorized an exploitation license, but what would be called a social license for Minera San Rafael doesn’t exist here. It doesn’t exist and it never will,” said Morales García.
“The message for the shareholders is loud and strong,” he continued. “You don’t have a social license. The resistance is just beginning. And we’re in it for the long haul.”
From Upside Down World: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/4270-state-of-siege-mining-conflict-escalates-in-guatemala
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 15, 2013 | Alienation & Mental Health
By Kourtney Mitchell / Deep Green Resistance
A dystopia is a community or society, usually fictional, that is in some important way undesirable or frightening. It is the opposite of a utopia. Such societies appear in many works of fiction, particularly in stories set in a speculative future. Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization, totalitarian governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Elements of dystopias may vary from environmental to political and social issues. Dystopian societies have culminated in a broad series of sub-genres of fiction and are often used to raise real-world issues regarding society, environment, politics, religion, psychology, spirituality, or technology that may become present in the future. For this reason, dystopias have taken the form of a multitude of speculations, such as pollution, poverty, societal collapse, political repression, or totalitarianism. (From Wikipedia)
Although I do not claim to be well-read when it comes to science fiction writing (the only dystopian novel I can remember reading is 1984 and it scared the shit out of me), I don’t think you have to be a sci-fi scholar to see that we are living in a dystopian culture.
Civilization is a dystopia. It contains all of the characteristics of the basic dystopian narrative, and it’s only getting worse over time. This culture causes and perpetuates the most reprehensible behaviors, and has created the most violent reality the planet has ever endured. But what makes it downright insidious is its unashamed attempts at masking this reality by creating an entirely fake one to distract us, to keep us occupied while the planet and its community of life perishes.
Violence is not only inevitable in an extractive culture, it’s necessary. By definition, civilization requires violence, because cities require the importation of resources due to its denuding the resources on its own landbase, and therefore must be violent towards other cultures and their landbases in order to secure necessary resources. This culture is literally draining the planet dry, hurtling it towards a Venus-like future. That this is even a possibility is horrible beyond description.
Pathology is common in this culture. The most notorious psychopaths – those running corporations, governments, militaries and police – are rewarded for their behavior. They are afforded even more opportunities to enact violence on the planet and its life. Think about how morally depraved a culture must be to reward psychopathic behavior. To make it worse, this culture has created social conditions inevitably resulting in poverty and addiction and then punishes the victims of its own creation. This is why victims of substance abuse can be imprisoned but corporate executives are allowed to retire with pensions. This is why homeless people are beaten, harassed and jailed for sleeping on the street but homes are allowed to sit vacant, and police protect the property of wealthy business owners.
In a more sane, just culture, such people wouldn’t be able to walk the streets safely. They would fear for their lives. Anyone who pollutes air, water and soil or otherwise enacts violence on entire groups of people should be afraid to leave their homes. But in this world we live in – this depressing reality – we consider the worst behaviors to be of the most benefit.
This culture hates women, people of color, the poor, indigenous communities and ultimately life itself. It has declared war on nature, as biotic cleansing is the very mechanism of its method of food production, and complete ecosystem collapse its inevitable result. Ours is a reality in which men battering women is the most common crime, and rape is used as a weapon of war. Ours is a frightening mix of genocide, resource depletion, mass extinction and endless warfare.
We create video games that glorify the worst tendencies. Members of this culture are trained from childhood to rely on technology for entertainment, and then to crave the propaganda and outright lies this culture disseminates using that technology. We live vicariously through celebrities, because our own lives are so void of inherent meaning other than to perpetuate this system. And most of us are so dependent on it, we will fight to keep it going.
Deep within our consciousness, in our hearts and minds – and our memory – we know this culture is depraved. We are afraid of this world. We hide in our homes, some of them fenced-off and guarded from the rest of the world. We collectively escape reality through movies, television, theme parks and shopping (i.e. behavior marked by over-consumption, impulse and lifestyle elitism). We spend innumerable resources convincing ourselves to consume, so much that we have become identified with consumption. We call ourselves consumers.
Do I even need to get into the increasing totalitarianism of the surveillance infrastructure?
Civilization is insane. Members of this culture are suffering from a psychosis, a crisis of the mind and spirit. We are disconnected from the very source of life on this planet. We hate nature so much we would rather create supernatural beings resembling our worst tendencies and behaviors, force each other to worship these creations under threat of violence, and then lie to ourselves about these created deities loving and saving us. We are so disconnected from the natural world that we project our own psychosis onto it, so that we begin to see the entire cosmos as just as dysfunctional as we are, and then use that as an excuse to commit further violence against it.
Some of us, even in the midst of such a crazy world, still find ways to love deeply, fight passionately and enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Many people are adjusting their lens to view the world as it really is, even though it’s painful to do. Having decided to embrace our situation with courage, instead of with cowardice, we have refused to continue to allow this culture to persist any longer. We are driven by a love for this planet and its community of life, and determined to give it a chance to thrive once more.
It takes bravery to step outside of this culture and accept reality, to see the atrocities and no longer consider them inevitable. But this bravery is necessary. We need more sane people in the world. We need more people accepting the truth no matter how much it hurts. We need more people who are completely intolerant of such gross levels of suffering, who will offer their time, energy and bodies in defense of this beautiful planet.
The planet needs us, and we need us. And we are the only ones who will save us.
