We’ll need a miracle to save the world, and the only miracle we’re going to get is us. Right now, we—as in life on this planet we—are losing. That nobody wants to say this out loud doesn’t change its truth: we are losing, and badly.
For all the tireless marching, writing, petitioning, film-making, and purification of our lifestyles, how much destruction has actually—in the real world, not just our hearts and minds—been stopped?
We are losing. No one wants to say this out loud. Every impassioned conversation, book, and documentary film seems to follow the same wishful script: things are bad—okay, things are really bad—and while that’s certainly not good, it doesn’t change the fact that we are actually winning, that our individual actions are making a difference, that hearts and minds are changing, that we’re on the cusp of a great turning, that sustainability is upon us. All this whether the greedy or ignorant like it or not.
With our hands up in the air, who will do the work to make sure this future turns to reality? It’s easy to be optimistic in the cradle of privilege. It’s easier to look out the window and see winds of change when that window isn’t found in a sweatshop or prison complex. Those who feel firsthand the destruction of life—of democracy, community, freedom, landbase, and bodily integrity—do not have this luxury; they cannot pretend justice is now, or will be, prevailing when every day is testament of the opposite.
Many on the Left would call this cynicism. They would say it reflects a negative attitude. They would say negative attitudes don’t get us anywhere. They fail to mention what will.
The first step to not losing is to admit that we are. Cynicism is defined as a “feeling of distrust.” We would all agree that it is distrustful of humanity to imagine that we can do nothing. But it is also distrustful of our own collective power to lie about our dire situation and stake the future of the planet on mere hope and prayer.
We are losing. Most of the world’s old-growth forests, prairies, and large ocean fish have been wiped out. Indigenous species—including human beings—are under perpetual assault. Every river in the world is contaminated with carcinogens. 27 million people live in slave conditions. One in four women are raped and less than 10 in 100 perpetrators spend even one night in jail. The richest 1% own more wealth than the poorest 95%. One in nine African-American men are incarcerated. Nearly half a million farmers in India have committed suicide after having their livelihoods destroyed by multinational corporations. Every moment, every hour, every day, every year, it all gets worse.
In giving up the fantasies of some inevitable paradigm shift and subsequent global salvation—however good the fantasies may make us feel—another option reveals itself: actually changing the world. There is no shortcut to the nitty-gritty work of organizing, mobilizing, and taking action. Those not blinded by privilege know this all too well.
Despite intricate visions of what is to come, the activists so quick to employ lullabies in the place of concrete action are in fact doing a great disservice to the struggle. For those actively engaged in challenging unjust power certainly need encouragement, yes, and certainly need the assurance of knowing a better world is on the other side, yes, but they do not need to be lied to and they do not need reality watered down. Calling this a disservice is an understatement. Activists betray the oppressed they claim to stand for by promising a future they won’t act to create. They are witnessing a crime—be it land theft, rape, white supremacy, gay-bashing, or ecocide—and doing precisely nothing, safe in the excuse of a sweet, imagined tomorrow. It doesn’t get much more cynical than that.
We are losing. Where is the evidence showing this is not the case? The world isn’t dying from a lack of righteous rhetoric or symbolic action; it’s dying from the largest campaign of exploitation staged by the most unholy of alliances between the richest 1%. More, it’s dying because we aren’t doing anything about it. Setting good and pure thoughts aside, we haven’t even really begun to do anything about it.
Admitting to the vastness of the odds we face does not imply giving up. On the contrary, it is a sobering reassurance that there is much work to be done. It is an obligation for each of us to act. As Lierre Keith puts it, “any institution built by humans can be taken apart by humans.” We may be losing, but this does not mean we can’t start fighting back; it doesn’t mean there aren’t those who already have. Indeed, it is the underprivileged that lack the naivety—and, indeed, the cynicism—about the possibility of social change who have been most courageously engaged in it.
Ours is not a happy story. But while scene after scene depicts ever more loss, the ending has not yet been written. This is not cause for guessing what will happen. This is cause for fighting like hell to make sure it includes a living planet.
Members of the dominant culture—including the most progressive and well-meaning of us—teeter between cynicism and blind hope. When we feel despair, it’s all we can do to desperately explain it away by conceding to our own powerless: the problems are too big, so we may as well give up. On the flip side, we see a glimmer of humanity beneath the haze of apathy and conclude a revolution is nigh. Neither impulse serves our struggle.
Right now, we are losing. We need to not be so cynical as to pretend this loss is inevitable and not so idealistic as to pretend that we can wish our way to victory. Change happens when we fight for it. To begin this fight, we’ll have to at least be honest about our predicament: those on the side of a just, sustainable world are losing to those who would destroy it. This means we need to try harder.
It took five centuries for the Irish independence movement to break the stranglehold of British colonial rule. Every generation passed down the struggle to the next one; they passed down a culture of resistance and the understanding that this fight is a long haul. Other resistance movements have shared the same courage and determination, struggling for years and years to taste justice, persisting even when all seemed lost.
We too often forget our own history. Far from five centuries, today’s activists can barely manage five minutes without gratifying results. Worst of all, these (non-)actions reflect their unfounded expectations and, when change invariably doesn’t show, they give up.
Denying reality because it’s hard. Promising results without any plan of action to see them through. These are the qualities of children, not a strategy for success. As Frederick Douglass so bravely said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men [and women] who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.”
The rest of the world beckons activists of privilege to see past our blinders, past our cynical apathy, and open our hearts to reality, however uncomfortable it may be. It’s time to say this out loud: we are losing. It’s time to make a promise and dedicate our lives to seeing it through: we will win.
Beautiful Justice is a monthly column by Ben Barker, a writer and community organizer from West Bend, Wisconsin. Ben is a member of Deep Green Resistance and is currently writing a book about toxic qualities of radical subcultures and the need to build a vibrant culture of resistance. He can be contacted at benbarker@riseup.net.
By Jonathan Fowlie, Scott Simpson and Jeff Lee / Vancouver Sun
The B.C. Liberal government has strongly rejected the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, stating in a formal submission to a National Energy Board review panel that the company has not properly addressed the province’s environmental concerns.
The province did not outright kill the proposed $6-billion oil pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast at Kitimat, but said Enbridge has left unanswered too many questions about its ability to protect marine or freshwater ecosystems in the event of a spill.
The proponents have “presented little evidence about how it will respond in the event of a spill,” the province wrote in its submission to the Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review Panel.
“It is not clear from the evidence that (Northern Gateway) will in fact be able to respond effectively to spills either from the pipeline itself, or from tankers transporting diluted bitumen from the proposed Kitimat terminal.”
B.C. said Enbridge failed to explain how it would respond to a catastrophic spill.
“The project before (the Joint Review Panel) is not a typical pipeline. For example: the behaviour in water of the material to be transported is incompletely understood; the terrain the pipeline would cross is not only remote, it is in many places extremely difficult to access; the impact of spills into pristine river environments would be profound,” the province wrote.
“In these particular and unique circumstances, (Northern Gateway) should not be granted a certificate on the basis of a promise to do more study and planning once the certificate is granted. The standard in this particular case must be higher,” it added.
“‘Trust me’ is not good enough in this case.”
The rejection is a major hurdle for the multi-billion dollar pipeline project, and especially for its ability to gain approval from the Joint Review Panel.
“It simply is insufficient for us to think it should go forward,” provincial Environment Minister Terry Lake said in an interview on Friday.
“The company was unable to give us adequate detail about how they would respond to a spill in some of these (freshwater) locations,” he continued.
“There’s a lot of questions about the behaviour of this product in cold marine environments, and a recognition that more research needs to be done on whether this material would float or whether it would sink, because obviously that makes a difference in terms of any potential spill and how it would be dealt with.”
Lake said the province’s submission is not a death knell for the project, but does set a “high bar” for it to proceed.
“Until the National Energy Board is able to process all this and deliver a final verdict, we don’t want to conclude that this is absolutely a no,” he said. “But we’re just saying from what we’ve seen to date, it doesn’t meet the test.”
Today [May 21, 2013] representatives of dam-affected communities and organizations from South America, the Middle East, Europe, the US and Africa, including Brazilian indigenous leaders accompanied by Amazon Watch, blocked the entrance to the construction site of the Ilisu dam in southeast Turkey demanding an end to controversial development that would sink an ancient city dating back to the Bronze Age.
Some 20 people including Kayapó Chief Megaron Txucarramae, one of Brazil’s most noted indigenous leaders in the struggle against the Belo Monte dam in the Amazon, held up banners in English and Turkish reading ‘Rivers Unite, Dams Divide: Stop Ilisu and Belo Monte dams.’ Delegates from the International Rivers Conference held in Istanbul last Saturday joined local protestors to show solidarity with their struggle to stop the Ilisu dam on the Tigris River, Turkey’s last free-flowing river.
“The peace process cannot be completed without the cancellation of the controversial Ilisu dam project and the protection of Hasankeyf. At the same time, damming the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and stopping their flow reaching Syria and Iraq is a contradiction to Turkey’s ‘zero problems’ policy with its neighbors because the increasing water crisis in the Mesopotamian basin may lead to increased conflict,” said Dicle Tuba Kilic, Rivers Program Coordinator for Doga (BirdLife Turkey).
The Belo Monte dam in Brazil and the Ilisu dam in Turkey are two of the most controversial mega-dam projects in the world today. Both dams are located in cultural and natural hotspots, inflicting devastating consequences and displacing over 75,000 people in Amazonia and Mesopotamia. In addition, the Ilisu dam, located a few kilometers from the Iraqi border, will affect the livelihood of Marsh Arabs living in the newly restored Basra Marshes. Turkey controls the Tigris and Euphrates headwaters, which dictates how much water flows downstream into Syria and Iraq.
“Our struggle to preserve the Xingu River from the Belo Monte dam is no different from the fight to protect the Tigris River from the Ilisu dam. We are unified in our positions to say ‘no’ to our governments. You cannot kill a river that sustains its people and culture,” said Kayapó Chief Megaron Txucarramae.
Legal and political controversies have surrounded the push to build the Belo Monte and Ilisu dams. No adequate Environmental Impact Assessment has been carried out for either dam, and both governments have failed to implement prior consultations and mitigation plans to protect the environment and rights of affected communities. Both dams proceed despite court rulings halting their construction and widespread national and international opposition to their development.
Faced by governments steamrolling human rights and environmental protections, dam-affected communities are uniting their struggle under the DAMOCRACY banner. DAMOCRACY includes 15 national and international organizations from all corners of the globe. Among them are Doga Dernegi, Amazon Watch, International Rivers, and RiverWatch.
Damocracy is produced by Doga Dernegi (BirdLife Turkey), in collaboration with other founding members of the Damocracy movement: Amazon Watch, International Rivers, RiverWatch, Gota D’água (Drop of Water) Movement, Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) and Movimento Xingu Vivo para Sempre (MXVPS).
Most of us who hold radical political beliefs have likely felt isolated and alone at one point or another. This isolation is a powerful tool of oppression. When we are alone, we are powerless to share our experiences, powerless to reflect on them, and powerless to organize together to make concrete material change in the world.
Fighting back against this isolation and building strong communities of mutual support and resistance needs to be one of our top priorities as people who care about justice in the world. Change requires sacrifice, and sacrifice requires commitment. True community is one of the few ways to build that commitment, to one another and to the land.
It sometimes surprises me how many ordinary people understand the Earth- and community-destroying nature of the dominant culture. I really should stop being surprised – most people don’t have the language to describe and analyze the culture, but the knowledge is there, deep within us.
Capitalism, white supremacy, civilization, patriarchy – we understand in our bones, from when we are children, that this is a way of life built on crumbling foundations and supported by global violence and ruthless exploitation.
But it’s hard to take the next steps alone. It is hard to move from a place of understand to a place of action. That is why, since the beginning of the Deep Green Resistance movement in 2011, there have been several speaking tours across turtle island to promote the DGR strategy and analysis, support allies, and build communities of resistance.
In fall of 2011, the first Deep Green Resistance speaking tour traveled the west coast of Turtle Island (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkQ8kT_uzDY). Since then, other tours have made their way across the eastern seaboard, the midwest, and deep into Canada.
This summer, the latest in a long series of DGR speaking tours will be making it’s way across occupied native land known as ‘New England’. This tour will focus on sharing strategies and tactics for effective resistance – knowledge that can be used by anyone to gain more leverage in our movements for justice. We are asking your support to make this happen. We need funds to help the tour succeed and venues to host public events. We can’t do it without you.
Three residents of Central Appalachia and supporters with Mountain Justice chained themselves to an industrial tank of black water in front of Alpha Natural Resources’ Bristol, Va., headquarters to protest Alpha’s mountaintop removal strip mining and coal slurry operations across the region.
“I’m risking arrest today because mountaintop removal has to end now for the future viability of Appalachia,” says Emily Gillespie of Roanoke, Va., whose work with the Mountain Justice movement is inspired by Appalachian women’s history of non-violent resistance. The tank of water represents coal contamination from affected communities across the Appalachian region.
The group called for Alpha to stop seeking an expansion of the Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment in Raleigh County, W.Va. “We want Kevin Crutchfield, CEO of Alpha Natural Resources, to produce a signed document expressing that they won’t seek the expansion of the Brushy Fork Impoundment before we leave,” Junior Walk, 23, from the Brushy Fork area said.
“I live downstream from Alpha’s Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment on Coal River. If that impoundment breaks, my whole family would be killed,” Walk said, “Even if it doesn’t, we’re still being poisoned by Alpha’s mining wastes everyday. I’m here to bring the reality of that destruction to the corporate authorities who are causing it, but who don’t have to suffer its consequences.”
More than 20 peer-reviewed studies since 2010 demonstrate a connection between mountaintop removal coal mining operations and increased cases of kidney, lung, and heart diseases, as well as increased birth defects and early mortality. The ACHE act, currently in sub committee in Washington, calls for a moratorium on new mountaintop removal operations until a definitive, non-partisan study can demonstrate the reason for these community health emergency levels of health impacts.
The impoundment at Brushy Fork holds back almost 5 billion gallons of toxic sludge and is considered the largest earthen dam in the Western hemisphere. Recently leaked records show that coal slurry impoundments in Appalachia failed 59 out of 73 total structural tests performed by the Office of Surface Mining. “Alpha is only profitable because they’re allowed to gamble with our lives—and we’re the ones who pay the cost of their negligence and toxic pollution,” Walk said.
Alpha has lost numerous lawsuits relating to pollution from mining wastes in recent years, but they continue to violate safety regulations and expand their hazardous operations.
After refusing to take responsibility for the massive floods caused by the King Coal Highway and their destructive mountaintop removal mining practices, Alpha continues to push forward similar projects, such as the controversial Coalfields Expressway in Virginia.
To the cheers and applause of the dozens of supporters below, anti-fracking activists unfurled a two-story banner with “Don’t Frack Illinois,” from the balcony of the state capitol rotunda. During impassioned testimony from activists with the Illinois Coalition for a Moratorium on Fracking (ICMF), the brightly colored banner gave visual support to the voices gathered from throughout the state who came together in Springfield for this the second lobbying and day of action called for by the coalition. “We won’t allow water, air, and living communities to be traded for short-term jobs,” If the industry pursues fracking in Illinois, we will hold these corporations and the policymakers who support them accountable.” said a member of Deep Green Resistance.
Oil and gas companies have bought mineral rights to land and are poised to start fracking in Southern and Central Illinois. Meanwhile, state lawmakers are debating on how to handle this threat. In February a regulatory, bill HB 2615, was introduced. This bill was crafted by a select group of industry, lawmakers and a few large green groups. This bill puts in place some safeguards, but largely leaves communities vulnerable. Chiefly, HB 2615 does not give local counties local control to ban the practice and it does not require that companies disclose proprietary chemicals used in the mining process prior to introducing them into the environment.
In contrast, a Moratorium bill, SB HB 3086 would put a two year moratorium on fracking in Illinois and require that the state conduct a thorough, independent assessment of the effects of hydraulic fracturing. Southern Illinoisans Against Fracturing our Environment (SAFE) a grassroots group based out of Carbondale, IL and a growing number of environmental groups are pushing for a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in Illinois.
“It’s ridiculous that our lawmakers see hydraulic fracturing is an opportunity for our state. Out of state corporations will be making most of the money while residents and our climate will be suffering from this polluting industry” said Angie Viands of Rising Tide Chicago.
This day of action in Springfield included citizen lobbying, a morning press conference with the banner drop, and Illinois Peoples Action storming the Illinois Manufacturer’s Association (IMA) offices. IMA is a main proponent of bringing hydraulic fracturing to the state.
