We are proud to announce a new project: The Green Flame, a Deep Green Resistance podcast offering revolutionary analysis, skill sharing, and inspiration for the movement to save the planet by any means necessary. Our hosts are Max Wilbert and Jennifer Murnan.
Our first episode features Elisabeth Robson on why she calls The Green New Deal a “moral hazard,” a beautiful interview with the incomparable Saba Malik, who shares stories of gifting and receiving, of embracing and defending communities that are worth fighting for, and a poem by Michelle Lynn Jones that will leave you feeling as integrally a part of this living planet as you actually are.
Song: Keep her Safe by Lydia Violet, featuring Joanna Macy
https://lydiafiddle.com/track/1081767/keep-her-safe-feat-joanna-macy
You can subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or anywhere else you get your podcasts. More episodes coming soon.
Next weekend, Deep Green Resistance is hosting an advanced training in direct action, revolutionary strategy, tactics, and organizing taking place next to Yellowstone National Park. If you wish to attend, sign up now. We also have one free scholarship available that covers the cost of attending. Email us at training [at] deepgreenresistance [dot] org if you wish to apply for this scholarship.
Sakej Ward Sakej (James Ward) belongs to the Wolf Clan. He is Mi’kmaw (Mi’kmaq Nation) from the community of Esgenoopetitj (Burnt Church First Nation, New Brunswick). He is the father of nine children, four grandchildren. He resides in Shxw’owhamel First Nation, B.C. with his wife Melody Andrews and their children. Sakej is a veteran of both the Canadian and American militaries. He finished his military career at the rank of Sergeant in an elite Airborne unit. Sakej holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science with a specialization in International Relations and a Master’s of Arts Degree in Indigenous Governance. Sakej has a long history of advocating and protecting First Nations inherent responsibilities and freedoms, having spent the last 24 years fighting the government and industry. Having taught, organized, advised and led various warrior societies from all over Turtle Island down into Guatemala and Borike (Puerto Rico) Sakej has made warrior-hood his way of life. He has been on over a dozen warrior operations and countless protest actions. He dedicates all his time to developing warrior teachings and instructing warrior societies from all over.
Kara Dansky Kara Dansky is an independent consultant and the founder of One Thousand Arms. One Thousand Arms consults with organizations in conducting research and policy analysis on criminal and racial justice topics, including policing, bail and pretrial, sentencing and corrections, mass incarceration, drug policy, immigration policy, and others. She is also a radical feminist and serves on the Board of the Women’s Liberation Front. Kara created Gender Critical Lawyering in order to bring radical feminist arguments before the Court. She has previously served as Special Advisor at the New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, Senior Counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Center for Justice, Senior Advisor at the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Executive Director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, and Staff Attorney at Society of Counsel Representing Accused Persons. She earned her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and her B.A. from the Johns Hopkins University, both cum laude.
Rachel Lima
Rachel Lima (Charlie Rae) is a freelance writer for The Fifth Column and a dedicated independent journalist who has taken on the topic of transgenderism. Growing up with gender dysphoria, Rae speaks from the perspective of a tomboy who evaded the grips of this fad by a decade. Rae is a Tau Sigma honors student from NCSU intermittently studying communication, and a grassroots activist who has worked on everything from on-the-ground coverage, to local elections, to door knocking, to fundraising, to social media campaigns, to being a student senator representing her college body, to interviewing for local independent media, to guest lecturing at University, to photographing for the resistance, etc. Rae has developed an encompassing resistance seminar so that DGR and its members will have the tools and the mindset to incorporate resisting transgenderism into their approach.
Will Falk Will Falk is a lawyer and writer living in Heber City, UT, on occupied Ute territory. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, and a former public defender, his legal practice is committed to protecting human and non-human communities. The natural world speaks and Will’s work is how he listens. His writing has been published by the Dark Mountain Project, Earth Island Journal, CounterPunch, Whole Terrain, CATALYST Magazine, and the San Diego Free Press, among others.
Max Wilbert Max Wilbert is a third-generation organizer who grew up in Seattle’s post-WTO anti-globalization and undoing racism movement. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Communication and Advocacy from Huxley College. He lives in rural Oregon. Max has a 15-year history as an organizer and revolutionary. He is a co-founder of Deep Green Resistance and longtime board member of a small, grassroots environmental non-profit with no employees and no corporate funding. His first book, a collection of pro-feminist and environmental essays, was recently released. He is also the co-author of the forthcoming book “Bright Green Lies,” which looks at the problems with mainstream so-called “solutions” such as solar panels, electric cars, recycling, and green cities. The book makes the case that these approaches fail to protect the planet and aim at protecting empire from the effects of peak oil and ecological collapse. He has participated in countless protests and more than ten direct actions, and been a part of multiple campaigns and land defense efforts. He has organized training for activists and revolutionaries in 10 states and in Canada.
Mike Bucci Mike Bucci is an environmental activist with Deep Green Resistance. He also helps community-based organizations develop affordable housing. He lives in a small cooperative of “homesteaders” in NY City (originally settled by the Leni Lenape tribe), and in the woods in an upstate NY watershed area surrounded by acres of old growth and farmland. Currently, he’s focused on promoting more effective activism against the industry’s build out of fossil fuel infrastructure, and fighting to end institutionalized racism, while building communities of resistance. In solidarity with radical feminists he supports the end of patriarchy and gender. In the past, he co-founded both NY Men Against Sexism, and Men Against Pornography.
On Wednesday night, DGR Oregon members hosted an Open House for all activists and community members interested in meeting active DGR members, sharing a meal, talking politics and activism, and learning how to get (more) involved. Our goal was twofold: (1) to continue our work to normalize and demystify direct action as a viable and necessary offensive strategy to fight back against the culture of empire and (2) to publicize and register guests for our upcoming Advanced Direct Action Training over Earth Day Weekend (April 21-23) outside of Eugene.
For other DGR chapters and members interested in hosting a similar event, here are some reflections on what worked well and what we’d do differently next time:
Hold open house in a central, public space. We reserved a free, local community meeting space, rather than holding the open house at one of our houses.
Require RSVPs for event location details. This way, you can vet interested individuals and activist groups, and (ideally) have an approximate head count, ahead of time.
Provide snacks and drinks, rather than a full meal. We put together an impressive and delicious potluck spread for guests, including lamb stew, several salads, Mexican casserole, and chocolate brownies! While it was well-appreciated by those who attended, in hindsight the time it took to prepare and transport the food and drinks could have been better spent on more impactful DGR-related work.
Make one-on-one connections with guests. As activists, we know that a significant barrier to leaving our comfort zones and exploring radical activism is the fear of social/community ostracization and isolation. By holding an open house, we were able to meet people individually and face-to-face and form personal, human connections before transitioning into the heavier content of radical environmentalism, radical feminism, direct action, etc.
Provide DGR reading materials. We set up our typical tabling display for guests to explore, including a trifold display about DEW, copies of Deep Green Resistance, and pamphlets on DGR, feminism, indigenous communities, the people of color caucus, and more.
Include an informative visual presentation and member introductions. We welcomed guests with a slideshow playing on a loop; it included photos of past DGR actions, members, and messaging, as well as some relevant videos. After sharing a meal, the organizers introduced ourselves and reflected individually about our interests and involvement in DGR. This was an opportunity for us to speak to: DGR history, strategy, local chapter focus, and upcoming events. This brief presentation also helped to personalize DGR and debunk any circulating myths about DGR as an underground, or anarchist, or specifically pro-violence movement.
Be prepared to intervene if a (male) individual coopts the conversation or event. It’s important to model for activists new to DGR what a feminist-informed discussion and space look and feel like. Even though it can be uncomfortable, decide ahead of time who the unofficial “moderator” will be if the conversation is derailed or becomes tense or aggressive, and especially in the case of misogynist or racist behavior or statements. Don’t leave it up to the women to assume this role (unless we volunteer in the first place)!
Expect no-shows. By the day of the open house, we had around 30 RSVPs, which was a much higher number than we’d anticipated! However, only 9 guests actually showed up, so we spent a lot of time preparing way too much food and materials.
Follow-up with guests as soon as possible. Make sure that all guests sign in, and make plans to follow up with guests individually soon after the event.
Our open house was productive in that we met and had conversations with several people who plan to attend our direct action training next month. Several guests asked thoughtful questions, offered informed opinions, and were very appreciative of the work we do as activists. The event also helped to foster community building within DGR Oregon itself, especially for new DGR members. On the whole, however, we agree that we could have spent less collective time organizing this event in order to dedicate more time to other activist work with a (potentially) more immediate impact in our community or in halting the destruction of the planet.
Three members of the radical environmental organization Deep Green Resistance and two other individuals were detained for more than seven hours at the Peace Arch border crossing between Washington State and British Columbia on their way to Vancouver to attend a talk by author and activist Chris Hedges last Friday, September 25. They were questioned about the organizations they were involved in, their political affiliations, and their contacts in Canada before being turned away by Canadian border agents. Upon re-entering the United States they were then subjected to another round of questioning by US border agents. The car they were traveling in as well as their personal computers were searched.
The interrogation comes on the heels of an FBI inquiry into Deep Green Resistance last fall in which more than a dozen members of the group were contacted and questioned by FBI agents. Several months later the group’s lawyer, Larry Hildes, was stopped at the same border crossing and asked specifically about one of his clients, Deanna Meyer, also a Deep Green Resistance member. During the 2014 visits, FBI and Department of Homeland Security agents showed up at members’ places of work, their homes, and contacted family members to find out more about the group. Meyer, who lives in Colorado, was asked by a DHS agent if she’d be interested in “forming a liaison.” The agent told her he wanted to, “head off any injuries or killing of people that could happen by people you know.” Two of the members detained at the border on Friday were also contacted by the FBI last fall.
Since Hildes was last held up at the Peace Arch border crossing in June he filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Traveler Redress Inquiry Program. In August he received a letter from the DHS saying the agency “can neither confirm nor deny any information about you which may be within federal watchlists or reveal any law enforcement sensitive information.”
It’s not only Deep Green Resistance members who have had trouble getting across the border. Environmental activists who were part of a campaign in Texas opposing the Keystone XL pipeline were the targets of an FBI investigation in 2012 and 2013 and have also been denied entry into Canada. At least one of those activists, Bradley Stroot, has been placed on a selective screening watchlist for domestic flights.
Nearly all of the activists involved are US citizens who have not had issues traveling to Canada in the past, leading them to believe that the recent FBI investigation and interest in their activities has landed them on some kind of federal watchlist. According to Peter Edelman, an immigration attorney in Vancouver, there are three broad categories under which Canadian border agents may deny entry to a foreign national: If they suspect you are entering Canada to work or study or you clearly don’t have the financial resources needed for the duration of the visit; if you pose a security threat to Canada or are a member of a terrorist or criminal organization; or if you’ve committed certain crimes. Edelman says that US citizens tend to get targeted more easily at the Canadian border because of the various information- sharing programs between the two countries. As soon as they scan your passport, border agents have access to a whole host of state and federal databases. Still, Edelman says, “Who gets targeted and who doesn’t is definitely an exercise in profiling.”
On Friday, September 25 Deep Green Resistance members Max Wilbert, Dillon Thomson, Rachel and two other individuals not affiliated with the group drove from Eugene, Oregon to attend the talk by Hedges, which was a collaboration with the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter and the Asian Women Coalition Ending Prostitution. They got to the border around 1 p.m., told the border agents where they were going, and that they’d be returning to Oregon the next day. They were then asked to exit their vehicle and enter the border control facility, where they assumed they would be held briefly before continuing on their way.
Instead, they ended up spending four hours on the Canadian side, each questioned separately. At one point, an agent came into the building carrying Wilbert’s computer and notebooks. He asked the agent what they were doing with the computer and was told they were searching for “child pornography and evidence that you’re intending to work in Canada.” The agent also said they were “not going to add or remove anything.”
According to Edelman the searching of computers and cell phones at the border has become standard procedure despite the fact that there are questions about whether a border search allows for such invasive measures. Border agents take the view that they are permitted to do so, but the legal picture remains murky. “The searching of computers is an issue of contention,” Edelman says.
After four hours of questioning, all but one of the travelers were told that they would not be allowed to enter Canada. Wilbert, who grew up in Seattle and has traveled to Canada many times without incident, including as recently as January 2015, was told that they were suspicious he was entering the country to work illegally. A professional photographer, he had volunteered to take pictures of the event, which he had openly told the agents. “It was pretty obvious they were grasping for straws,” Wilbert says. “Under that level of suspicion you wouldn’t let anybody into Canada.”
The other three individuals were told they had been denied entry for previous political protest-related arrests. Rachel, a Deep Green Resistance member arrested in 2012 during a protest near the Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, had traveled to Canada in December 2014 without any problems. The one individual allowed entry had no prior arrest record or explicit affiliation with any political groups. (Interestingly, several Deep Green Resistance members traveling separately, including one of the group’s founders, Lierre Keith, were allowed to pass through the border and attend the event.)
After being denied entry to Canada, the group turned around and attempted to reenter the United States, at which point they were again pulled aside and told by US border agents to exit their car. The group was then subjected to a similar round of questioning that lasted three and a half hours. This time, US agents took three computers from the vehicle into the border control facility and kept them for the duration of the interrogation.
According to Wilbert, the questions on the American side were more obviously political. Agents wanted to know the names of the groups they were involved in, what kinds of activities they engage in, what they believe in, and who they were going to see.
“It seemed very clear on the US side that they had already come to conclusions about who we are and what we were doing,” Rachel says.
Around 8:30 p.m. they were told they could leave and that it had been nothing more than a routine inspection.
Wilbert doesn’t see it that way. Two days later he got a new computer and says he plans to get rid of the one seized by border agents. Despite assurances from the border officials that nothing was “added or removed” he says, “We feel like everything we do on those computers will never be private.”
“It was pretty clear to us that it was an information gathering excursion,” says Wilbert. “They had an opportunity to harass and intimidate and gather information from activists who they find threatening.”
Adam Federman, Contributing Editor, Earth Island Journal
Adam Federman is a contributing editor at Earth Island Journal. He is the recipient of a Polk Grant for Investigative Reporting, a Middlebury Fellowship in Environmental Journalism, and a Russia Fulbright Fellowship. You can find more of his work at adamfederman.com.
Republished with permission of Earth Island Journal
Deep Green Resistance (DGR) is dedicated to the fight against industrial civilization and its legacy of racism, patriarchy, and colonialism. For this reason, DGR would like to publicly state its support of the San Carlos Apache tribe and the residents of Superior, AZ in the fight to protect Oak Flat from the destructive and unethical practices of foreign mining giant Rio Tinto.
Background
For over a decade the San Carlos Apache tribe and supporters have been fighting against profit-driven attacks on their land by the Superior, AZ based company Resolution Copper (RC), a subsidiary of the international mining conglomerate Rio Tinto. The foreign Rio Tinto is an Anglo-Australian mining company with a shameful history of environmental degradation, human rights abuses, and consorting with oppressive regimes around the globe.
Resolution Copper plans a massive deep underground copper mine in the Oak Flat area using a technique called block caving, in which a shaft is drilled more than a mile deep into the earth and the material is excavated without any reinforcement of the extraction area. Block caving leaves the land above vulnerable to collapse.
Despite this, Resolution Copper is set to acquire 2,400 acres of the federally protected public land in the Tonto National Forest in southeast Arizona in exchange for 5,000 acres in parcels scattered around the state. The 2,400-acre land, part of San Carlos Apache’s aboriginal territory, includes Oak Flat, Devil’s Canyon, and nearby Apache Leap – a cliff where Apaches jumped to their death to avoid being killed by settlers in the late 19th century. The San Carlos Apaches and other Native people hold this land as sacred, where they conduct ceremonies, gather medicinal plants and foods, and continue to build connections with the land. The now public land is held in trust by the federal government and is also used by non-Native nature lovers for hiking, camping, bird watching and rock climbing, and is used for field trips by Boy Scout groups.
Recent Activity
On December 4, 2014 the House passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which included the Oak Flat Land exchange as an attachment to the annual must-pass defense bill. This particular version of the land exchange included in the NDAA (the “Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act of 2013”) is the 13th version since the bill was first introduced in Congress in 2005 by former Congressman, Rick Renzi (later convicted in 2013 of multiple counts of corruption, including extortion, racketeering and other federal charges). AZ Senators McCain and Flake, responsible for sneaking this unrelated attachment into the NDAA, subverted the will not only of Native American Tribes, conservation organizations, the Superior Town Council, and others, but the will of the United States Congress which has forcefully rejected the land exchange for nearly 10 years. Flake, who previously worked for Rio Tinto at their uranium mine (co-owned by the Iranian government) in Namibia, acknowledged the bill could not pass the US Congress on its own merits.
Shortly after passing through the House, the NDAA was signed into law by President Obama on December 19, 2014, exactly 5 years after he signed the “Native American Apology Resolution,” a little-noticed expression of regret over how the U.S. had abused its power in the past.
The Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act demonstrates a total disregard for Native American concerns. Resolution Copper has also openly admitted to the fact that their process of mining would create significant land cracking and eventually subsidence. Another grave concern is the permanent damage to surface and groundwater. This mine will deplete enormous quantities of water and pollute it, which will devastate local communities.
Oak Flat is also a rare desert riparian area. Less than 10% of this type of habitat remains in Arizona. The land exchange would allow mining companies to avoid following our nation’s environmental and cultural laws and would bypass the permitting process all other mines in the country have followed. Since this mining would, by design, lead to the complete destruction of the Oak Flat area and potentially impact both Apache Leap and Gaan Canyon, the San Carlos Apache Tribe (along with over 500 other tribes across the country) strongly opposes it and the illegal land exchange.
Call for Solidarity
Indigenous peoples have always been at the forefront of the struggle against the dominant culture’s ecocidal violence. Beneath the violations of US law lies the glaring threat of sacred Apache land being further harmed and colonized. If RC is allowed to follow through with its mining plan, not only would this land be stolen from the Apaches, but it would be rendered unrecognizable.
There is a monumental need for solidarity work to save Oak Flat. The only acceptable action on the part of Resolution Copper is immediate cessation of any and all plans to mine in the ancestral home of the Apache people; anything else will be met with resistance, and DGR will lend whatever support it can to those on the front lines. The time to act is now!
**DGR recognizes that members of settler culture are living on stolen land in the midst of a current and ongoing genocide of indigenous people and culture. We encourage those who wish to be effective allies to indigenous people to read our Indigenous Solidarity Guidelines.
