In this episode of The Green Flame we speak with Dahr Jamail. In late 2003, weary of the overall failure of the US media to accurately report on the realities of the war in Iraq for the Iraqi people, Dahr went to the Middle East to report on the war himself. Dahr has spent more than one year in Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists in the country. He has reported from Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. He reports extensively on veterans’ resistance against US foreign policy, and is currently focusing on anthropogenic climate disruption and the environment.
His writing has been translated into French, Polish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic and Turkish. On radio as well as television, Dahr has reported for Democracy Now! and Al-Jazeera, and has appeared on the BBC, NPR, and numerous other stations around the globe.
Dahr’s reporting has earned him numerous awards, including the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism, The Lannan Foundation Writing Residency Fellowship, the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, and five Project Censored awards.
Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Izzy Award, in 2018 the Park Center for Independent Media (PCIM) at Ithaca College awarded Dahr an Izzy for his “path-breaking and in-depth reporting in 2017” exposing “environmental hazards and militarism.” The Izzy Award, presented for outstanding achievement in independent media, is named in memory of I.F. “Izzy” Stone, the dissident journalist who launched I.F. Stone’s Weekly in 1953 and challenged McCarthyism, racism, war and government deceit.
The End of Ice is one of Smithsonian Magazine’s 10 Best Science Books of 2019, and was a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award in 2020. https://www.dahrjamail.net/
This episode of The Green Flame features an interview with James Darling who is currently on the 8th day of a hunger strike against logging of old-growth forests in British Columbia, Canada (occupied First Nations territory). You can contact James at: (250) 816-4321, or at james0darling@gmail.com.
In this interview, James talks about why he started the hunger strike, the old-growth logging in British Columbia, the path forward for the movement, and revolutions that have used hunger strikes.
This interview with radical lesbian feminist, activist, and writer Julia Beck includes her insights on being politically homeless, girl gangs, the resilience of women (particularly women who have de transitioned), and our need for mutual respect and solidarity and support. Our skill share for this episode is a reading of DGR’s Solidarity Guidelines. Music is by Ali Bee, radical feminist singer and songwriter, and by Thistle Pettersen, radical feminist, activist and musician. We invite our listeners to explore the diversity within the radical feminist community and to challenge ourselves at every level, personally, politically and socially, in the fight to end patriarchy.
This Wild Mind Intensive program is offered by the Animas Valley Institute to Deep Green Resistance organizers, allies, and supporters. It will be held near Portland, Oregon in the United States.
“Wild Mind” Intensive for Activists & Revolutionaries
Those who confront oppression and destruction often struggle with profound stress and disconnection. This intensive aims to help you access deeper wellsprings of strength through connection to wild mind. Imagine what it would be like if nature and dreams were your primary guides.
Healthy, mature cultures emerge from the depths of our psyches and from the Earth’s imagination acting through us — through encounters on the land, dreams, and our visionary self.
In his book Dreams, the author Derrick Jensen wrote: “That we come to the earth to live is untrue: We come but to sleep, to dream…dreams are living, willful beings.”
The cultures of nature-based and indigenous peoples are rooted in their mythology and their relationship with Earth.
Modern culture not only lacks these qualities, but actively mocks them. Yet, the revolutionary potential of our dreams, visions, and encounters in the other-than-human world await us nonetheless, for those who can break through these barriers. Through Bill Plotkin‘s Nature-Based Map of the Human Psyche, a holistic model rooted in the four-directions, we can access our innate human potentials that we may not even have known existed, cultivate their powers, and integrate them into our everyday lives. We can also contact our fragmented and wounded sub-personalities which formed to protect us in childhood, but may now have become barriers to our authentic humanity.
Later in Dreams, Derrick Jensen asks “how would you live this life, if you fully internalized and realized the implications of participating in a vibrant, living, meaningful universe?”
In this 5-day intensive, you can begin to reclaim and embody your original human wholeness and experientially explore your human psyche as a unique expression of the universal forces of nature. You will engage in nature-based practices to cultivate your fourfold wholeness, create more beneficial relationships with your sub-personalities, and commit yourself to the largest story you’re capable of living in service to the greater Earth community.
“All human beings are descendants of tribal people who were spiritually alive, intimately in love with the natural world, children of Mother Earth. When we were tribal people, we knew who we were, we knew where we were, and we knew our purpose. This sacred perception of reality remains alive and well in our genetic memory. We carry it inside of us, usually in a dusty box in the mind’s attic, but it is accessible.”
Discover new ways to resource yourself and inspire your defense of the more-than-human world.
Enhance your resilience and adaptability for the challenges of these times. Converse with the natural world. Listen to your dreams. Track what arises in your body, heart, and deep imagination. Engage in the practices of council, creative expression, self-designed ceremony, wandering on the land, movement, and soul poetry. Become clearer about the particular gifts and purpose you were born to offer the world.
“I’m not suggesting we call on those on other sides in lieu of fighting back. Quite the opposite: I’m suggesting we try to learn to listen better so that we may gain whatever assistance they may be able to give us.” – Derrick Jensen, Dreams
The land and our dreams support both evolution and revolution. By cultivating our wholeness and accessing our visionary capacities, we become co-creative partners with Earth.
“Why is the world being destroyed? In large part, the answer lies with consent…From birth, we are trained to obey authority…If resistance is a muscle, then our situation — a world wracked by global warming, species extinction, imperial war, resource extraction, and systematic violence against women, people of color, and the poor — calls for us to start training.”
– Max Wilbert, Practicing Lawbreaking (Deep Green Resistance Guest Speaker for this program)
Rescheduled from the original June 2020 dates. You can see the program here:
This is an all camping program.Participants are responsible for bringing their own lunches/snacks and will be forming meal teams to provide/prepare breakfast and dinner. Scholarship monies have already been applied to program cost. CoViD-19 precautions will be observed.
This article introduces a basic guide of generally accepted “security codes” for movements which can be applied in a variety of direct action, protest, and event situations.
Activists and revolutionaries will often find themselves in situations that are dangerous for a variety of reasons. Whether we are engaged in protest, events, or direct actions, we need to protect our community, our mission, and ourselves. That is why we endeavor to teach security training to everyone in our community.
Security falls into a number of domains. We must protect information using security culture, digital security, and other “infosec” techniques. We must protect relationships and organizations using vetting procedures, gradual building of trust, compartmentalization, and so on. And we must protect ourselves physically by learning self-defense techniques and being prepared for the situation we find ourselves in.
This article is proposing a set of generally accepted “security codes” for the movement that can be applied in a variety of situations. These protocols refer to the accepted or established code of procedure or behavior in any group, organization, or situation. By having a set of generally known and accepted protocols, we can:
Minimize confusion;
Build competency in security techniques; and
Avoid wasting time and energy repeating information to large groups of people
Here we propose a basic 3-part code that varies between low-risk, medium-risk, and high-risk situations. These basic protocols should be considered a baseline and can be adapted to offensive and defensive situations.
Code Green (Low Risk)
This protocol should be applied in situations when no risks are expected. For example, private events held on friendly territory may be a “green” situation. However, in keeping with developing a general security culture, some precautions should still be taken.
Mission specific considerations and equipment
Maintain situational awareness
Maintain basic security culture precautions
Basic health and safety considerations: food, water, first aid kit
EDC (Everyday Carry)
Practical clothing
Communications: may be open, depending on the circumstances. Using secure communications is always recommended, but not crucial.
Code Yellow (Medium Risk)
This protocol should be applied in situations when there is an elevated potential for risk. For example, a public protest or event may be a code yellow situation. In a code yellow situation, information should be treated more carefully.
All of the above, plus:
Conduct a security analysis prior to the event/action, then brief your team on findings
Designate a security team and prepare for possible threats
Consider creating an Operations Order and formalizing roles
Use encrypted communications and minimize information leakage
For offensive operations, use TOR and secure research methods. Leave cell phones at home or place in a faraday bag.
Code Red (High Risk)
This protocol should be applied in situations when there is certainty of high risk. For example, a serious direct action or defensive action when you expect serious forms of repression would be a code red situation.
All of the above, plus:
Full Operations Order and briefing prior to action
Additional formal roles, such as leader or leadership group, medic, logistics, etc. (mission specific)
Consider additional protective clothing if there is a possibility of being hurt
Compartmentalize information on a need-to-know basis
All communications via secure channel or face-to-face
This is basic guide that can be adapted to a variety of situations. Feedback is welcome and this material will be updated over time.
Curated by Esther Figueroa, environmental filmmaker based in Jamaica, in collaboration with Caribbean Creativity based in the Netherlands, GEFF 2020 is part of a movement to bring attention to both long standing and newly evolving threats from global extraction.
Twenty Documentary Films (Program One)
FOCUS ON GLOBAL EXTRACTION * GEFF PROGRAM ONE features a selection of over 20 documentaries focused on all the regions of the world, with a wide range of topics demonstrating the all-encompassing and intersectional nature of global extraction and exploitation. From the military industrial complex and colonial occupation, to mining, tourism, industrial agriculture, factory farms, climate crisis, plastics, waste, forests, soil, forced labor, fossil fuels, smart-technology, and the rights of nature.
URGENT SHORTS * GEFF PROGRAM TWO presents an educational overview of why we should #FocusOnGlobalExtraction and take #GlobalExtractionAction. A text written by Esther Figueroa is accompanied by links to almost 40 Urgent Shorts including testimonials from people impacted by extraction and exploitation, media produced by grass-roots and international activist organizations, news outlets and short documentaries.
Accompanying the Urgent Shorts program is a bonus list by topic of links to 70 extraction related documentaries, testimonials, news programming and shorts, including extensive links to media about environmental justice. All media featured in the URGENT SHORTS * GEFF PROGRAM TWO are publicly available online and can be accessed at anytime, not just during GEFF 2020.
On 16 July, the United States of America will celebrate the 51st anniversary of NASA’s launch of Apollo 11, and on 20 July, the moon landing. On 30 June, 2020, SpaceX a private company owned by Elon Musk, launched a US military Space Force satellite, one of dozens of military and commercial satellites launched by the company since 2013.
SpaceX is also currently developing flights to the Moon and Mars. As the US, China, Japan and other countries, as well as privately owned companies, pursue a new era of mineral extractive space exploration, the First Global Extraction Film Festival is held to reflect on the destructive impacts of hundreds of years of extractive industries on Planet Earth.
