Capitalism

This article originally appeared on Roarmag. Editor’s note: Asking questions, questions that emerge from your empathy if you care for life on the planet, and questions that emerge from your confusion if you see that so many things are going so badly wrong, is a very important, crucial step. We completely agree with the last paragraph of this article and our answer is DGR’s Decisive Ecological Warfare strategy. Featured image: “Frack Off” by Nell Parker. ...

In this article the reader is offered a short narrative about the impending catastrophe linked to the use of fossil fuels. Experiment in Madness Imagine an airplane in an experiment set up by mad scientists. The plane has a limited amount of fuel, so must come down sooner or later. The mad scientists give the plane’s 1000 inhabitants money every minute the plane is in flight, paying more money the faster and the higher it goes. The money is allocated unevenly, with decisions made by those with the most money. So the 10 passengers who own 50% of the wealth pilot the plane, taking into consideration the ideas of the next wealthiest 90 passengers who own another 38%. The pilots ignore the 900 passengers who share the remaining 12% of the plane’s wealth. Happily, nearly everyone is excited for the plane to go as fast and high as possible, in hopes of increasing their earnings. ...

As the book Deep Green Resistance reminds us, there are certain aspects of collapse that are positive (declining oil demand, for example) and others that are negative (e.g., rising patriarchal, racist elements). This piece from Vince Emanuele argues that individualist survivalism is often an anti-social response to the social problems we are facing, and that we must organize as communities to survive. Guns, Land, and Chickens Won’t Save You by Vincent Emanuele / Counterpunch ...

For this episode of The Green Flame, we speak with Sergio Alexander Kochergin, a filmmaker, organizer, former U.S. Marine, and native of Ukraine. He did two deployments to Iraq in 2003, 2004, and 2005, and testified before members of Congress in 2008 as part of the new Winter Soldier hearings organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War. Sergio lives in Michigan City, Indiana where he is the co-founder of Politics Art Roots Culture, or the PARC center, which is an event and community space. ...

Trinity La Fey writes of sharing walls with abusers, of poverty and work, of finding radical feminism, and of navigating relationships in the midst of a patriarchal society. By Trinity La Fey Background is always tedious; I’ll try not to bore. Poverty, racism and sexism were not things I gradually discovered. I spent early years with a ranch-based family, that I had no idea I wasn’t related to, that called me their n!&*$r baby when I reflexively braided my hair into manageable bits. We were all pale as the moon, all American mixed. Their racism confused me because I knew that we were not 100% whatever white was. Children get it. Coming from ranch families that had the grandmother trauma of the depression made the family frugal to the point of neglect. The single man coming from this environment who was responsible for the lives of my brother and I was destitute. There was no one to mitigate his desperate rage and isolation, or inherited, old-timey sexism. We had the lot of landing with a genuine psychopath, but those circumstances would have pushed even the most outstanding person. Because the level of violence and impunity was so extreme, however, there was just no getting out of it (sane or otherwise) without putting a few things together, both about how social power works and the difference between self-discipline, or self-control and say, punishment or manipulation. ...

Originally published on Nature Communications, this is an excerpt from an article describing scientists’ warning on affluence by Thomas Wiedmann, Manfred Lenzen, Lorenz T. Keyßer & Julia K. Steinberger. Super-affluent consumers and growth imperatives Growth imperatives are active at multiple levels, making the pursuit of economic growth (net investment, i.e. investment above depreciation) a necessity for different actors and leading to social and economic instability in the absence of it. Following a Marxian perspective as put forward by Pirgmaier and Steinberger, growth imperatives can be attributed to capitalism as the currently dominant socio-economic system in affluent countries, although this is debated by other scholars. To structure this topic, we will discuss different affected actors separately, namely corporations, states and individuals, following Richters and Siemoneit. Most importantly, we address the role of the super-affluent consumers within a society, which overlap with powerful fractions of the capitalist class. ...

This piece, republished from Counterpunch, explores the current uprising against police brutality in the context of the struggle against capitalism and asks: what are the most effective forms of struggle going forward? Join the conversation in the comments section. Amputating Capitalism by Vincent Emanuele / Counterpunch “We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one. We sought physical attrition; our opponents aimed for our psychological exhaustion. In the process we lost sight of one of the cardinal maxims of guerrilla war: the guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win.” ...

This episode of the Green Flame is an interview with Kim Hill, a permaculture design teacher based on the South East coast of New South Wales, and Joanna Pinkiewicz, a women’s rights activist and environmental activist, based in Tasmania. We discuss the Australian bush fires, the role of fire in the landscape, indigenous land management practices, land defense, grief rituals and nature connection, and the likelihood that corporations and developers with backing from the government will open up fire-affected land to development and mining. Two of DENNI’s songs are included with permission: Trees and Wise Ones. ...

In recent years, nature conservation has become a flourishing business sector where huge sums of money change hands and endangered organisms are transformed into financial products. This film exposes the corporations and non-profits banking on the monetization of the planet.

Editors note: “Green technology” has become the policy centerpiece of the mainstream climate movement. But the idea that technology will solve global warming is a dangerous lie. And as Kim Hill explains in this piece, it is also highly profitable. This is no accident. We offer this article to those who suspect XR is engaging in ineffective resistance, and who are looking for a better way. Analysis is the first step toward effective action. ...