Endgame Premises Archives: 5: Property is more valuable than lives
The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable
than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the
amount of property they control—in everyday language, to make money—by
destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those
below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise
destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.
Paul Feather calls us to reframe this time of crisis: “Shall we permit the storytellers to name what it is that we do? They would call this a lockdown, but we are going through the motions of a general strike. Our foe is down. Are there no holds barred? Strike now! Strike down their stories. … Continue reading Will People Go On General Strike?→
🌏🔥 I'm glad anytime youth speak out and organize, but the U.S. Court rejection of the #YouthvGov #JulianavUS climate lawsuit is predictable. Courts can be an important defensive battleground, but are fundamentally colonial + corporate institutions.https://t.co/CN6dUT6qzP — Max Wilbert (@MaxWilbert) January 19, 2020 via Common Dreams: “In a ruling taken as a devastating blow for … Continue reading U.S. Court Rejects “Our Children’s Trust” Youth Climate Lawsuit→
by Sean Butler and Will Falk / Featured image: an aerial photograph showing harmful algae blooms in Lake Erie in August of 2017. These are believed to be caused by the effluent runoff from factory farms in the watershed. Public domain photo by NOAA. Rights of nature advocates often repeat the words, “The structure of … Continue reading Rights for Lake Erie? Why Corporate Rights and Preemption Must Go→
By Max Wilbert As the world moves further into a state of climate crisis, it’s imperative that we study and critique the strategies being proposed to address greenhouse gas emissions, and develop our own strategies based on rigorous assessment of their effectiveness. Many of the strategies currently being pursued by the mainstream environmental movement hinge … Continue reading The Legal System Will Not Save the Planet→
By Jayalaxshmi Mistry / Republished from The Conversation, CC license. Despite centuries of persecution, indigenous groups still manage or have tenure rights over at least a quarter of the world’s land surface. Often inhabiting these lands as far back as memory extends, they share a deep and unique connection to their environment. Recently released figures … Continue reading Defending Earth Now More Dangerous Than Some War Zones→
DGR member and lawyer Will Falk explains why the legal and regulatory system is structurally incapable of defending the natural world from threats, because it was never designed to do this. His conclusion is that communities must organize around revolutionary, ecological principles to defend the land themselves. We cannot rely on government to do it … Continue reading The Legal System Will Not Save the Planet→
by Derrick Jensen When I find myself in times of trouble, I’m less interested in Mother Mary’s wisdom than I am in Joe Hill’s: Don’t mourn; organize. There’s a sense in which Trump’s election is a surprise, similar to how we somehow seem to be continually surprised when easily predictable negative consequences of this … Continue reading One Does Not Hate When One Can Despise: On Donald Trump and How We Got Here→
By Pushpa Achanta / Waging Nonviolence In early October, news emerged that India’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change was blocking the implementation of a high-level government panel’s report on tribal rights that recommended the creation of stringent rules to safeguard indigenous people from displacement. Meanwhile, two state governments have begun implementing a much different set … Continue reading Inside the indigenous movement to protect India’s commons→
By Cultural Survival Two Q’anjobal Maya community leaders who were imprisoned in Guatemala for the past two years, have finally been declared innocent and released. A regional Guatemalan criminal court found the two men to be absolved of all charges on October 28, 2015. Rogelio Velasquez and Saul Mendez had been unfairly imprisoned as a … Continue reading Guatemala: Two Indigenous Prisoners Released after Years in Prison on False Charges→
