Media-Review

In this piece, Trinity La Fey breaks down Maïmouna Doucouré’s film Mignonnes, which has become extremely controversial . The Mignonnes Question by Trinity La Fey Frenchwoman Maïmouna Doucouré, who wrote and directed ‘Cuties’ (English translation), a film which has sparked an online petition calling for it’s removal from Netflix’s streaming platform, has defended her work against the scrutiny it has come under (largely as a result of the way Netflix chose to represent her film), by asserting that we need to not " blame the girls" in these potentially accurate portrayals of their lives and behaviors. ...

In this critical review, Elisabeth Robson reacts to the newly released environmental documentary Planet of the Humans. The film explains why technology won’t save us and leads viewers to question the industrial paradigm. Liberals have been quick to attack the film, mistaking it for a pro-fossil or pro-nuclear fuel argument, and recognizing that critiquing “green” energy undermines the morality of their entire ideological project of “sustainable modern development.” The far-right has attempted to co-opt the message as well. Both are predictable and profoundly mistaken responses. See the end of this review for a few point-by-point rebuttals of these misrepresentations. Our choice is not between “green” energy and fossil fuels. That is a false binary. We must choose between industrial destruction—including both ‘renewables’ and fossil fuels—and creating a biocentric future. We need revolutionary transformation of society, not superficial changes to the energy sources of empire. Planet of the Human s is not without flaws. No piece of media is. But it contributes critically to a movement too long dominated by cornucopian, anthropogenic industrial energy advocates. ...

By Norris Thomlinson / Originally published on DGR Hawaii / Featured image by Angela Davis, CC BY 4.0 Once you understand something about the history of a people, their heroes, their hardships and their sacrifices, it’s easier to struggle with them, to support their struggle. For a lot of people in this country, people who live in other places have no faces.” –Assata Shakur A World Apart I grew up in the same country as Assata Shakur, but as a poor black woman, her autobiography reveals an experience a world apart from my own middle class, white male upbringing. She ably captures these differences in a series of anecdotes revealing that she did in fact grow up in a different country: “amerika”, while I enjoyed the facades of democracy, peace, and justice in America. I’ve been aware of the shocking statistics of incarceration rates of people of color, disproportionate distribution of wealth, heartbreaking inequity in education systems, increased exposure to toxins, decreased lifespans, and on and on. But I haven’t read much by black authors about their personal experiences navigating these systems of oppression and injustice. Shakur’s autobiography is surprisingly easy to read and even enjoyable, despite and because of its humorous tragedy, and makes an excellent introduction to a different reality for those of us born into white and/or male privilege. ...

By Max Wilbert The woman places an arrow on her bow, draws to her cheek, and fires. The arrow arcs over a high-voltage electrical transmission line, carrying a non-conductive rope. She jogs to her arrow, and begins to reel in the rope. As she pulls it over the lines, a conductive cable is revealed to be attached to its end. As the cable bridges the three-phase power lines, a short-circuit ripples down the lines. Miles away, an aluminum smelter grinds to a halt. ...

by Anne Keala Kelly It’s a twofer. With a Thanksgiving holiday release of “Moana,” Disney’s Polynesian cartoon extravaganza can simultaneously expand its lucrative enterprise of exploiting marginalized, indigenous peoples (Pocahontas, Lilo and Stitch, Frozen) while perpetuating American amnesia. A note about Thanksgiving: Early feasts of giving thanks celebrated some notable atrocities committed against Native peoples, including the 1637 massacre of 700 Pequot Indians by white Christians and the 1676 butchering and beheading of Wampanoag Sachem Metacom, whose severed head was then displayed on a pike for 25 years at Plymouth. Ultimately it was President Abraham Lincoln who declared it a national holiday in 1863, less than a year after he ordered the hanging of 38 Dakota men, which remains the largest mass execution in U.S. history. ...

Book Review of Deep Green Resistance: A Strategy to Save the Planet By Zoe Blunt I first heard about Deep Green Resistance in the middle of a grassroots fight to stop a huge vacation-home subdivision at a wilderness park on Vancouver Island. Back then, it hadn’t really occurred to me that a book on environmental strategy was needed. Now I can tell you, it’s urgent. Deep Green Resistance (DGR) made me a better strategist. If you’re an activist, then this book is for you. But be warned: at 520 pages (plus endnotes), it’s not light reading. Quite the opposite — DGR dares environmental groups to focus on decisive tactics rather than mindless lobbying and silly stunts. ...

By Intercontinental Cry https://vimeo.com/128091605 RE-LEARNING THE LAND is the story of a Blackfoot community in southern Alberta, Canada, and how they have re-taken control of their education system within Red Crow Community College. The film traces the decolonization of their learning and the development of an innovative program, Kainai Studies, within Red Crow College, the same site as a former Residential School. The Kainai Studies program is reclaiming and teaching to a new generation the Blackfoot knowledge system that sustained their community on their land for thousands of years. ...

In 1993 Michael Carter was arrested and indicted for underground environmental activism. Since then he’s worked aboveground, fighting timber sales and oil and gas leasing, protecting endangered species, and more. Today, he’s a member of Deep Green Resistance Colorado Plateau, and author of the memoir Kingfishers’ Song: Memories Against Civilization. Time is Short spoke with him about his actions, underground resistance, and the prospects and problems facing the environmental movement. The first part of this interview is available here, and the second part here. Time is Short: You mentioned some problems of radical groups—lack of respect for women and lack of a strategy. Could you expand on that? ...

By Kim Hill / Deep Green Resistance Australia Naomi Klein’s latest book, This Changes Everything, is based on the premise that capitalism is the cause of the climate crisis, and to avert catastrophe, capitalism must go. The proposed solution is a mass movement that will win with arguments that undermine the capitalist system by making it morally unacceptable. This premise has many flaws. It fails to acknowledge the roots of capitalism and climate change, seeing them as independent issues that can be transformed without taking action to address the underlying causes. Climate change cannot be avoided by building more infrastructure and reforming the economy, as is suggested in the book. The climate crisis is merely a symptom of a deeper crisis, and superficial solutions that act on the symptoms will only make the situation worse. Human-induced climate change started thousands of years ago with the advent of land clearing and agriculture, long before capitalism came into being. The root cause—a culture that values domination of people and land, and the social and physical structures created by this culture—needs to be addressed for any action on capitalism or climate to be effective. ...

By Norris Thomlinson / Deep Green Resistance Hawai’i Open Sesame examines the importance of seeds to humans as the genesis of nearly all our domesticated foods. It details the tremendous loss in varietal diversity of our crops over the last century, due in large part to increasing corporate control over the seed market. Farmers and gardeners in every region once had access to dozens of varieties of each vegetable and staple crop, finely adapted to the specific growing season, temperatures, rainfall patterns, insects, diseases, and soils of their area. With few people now saving their own seed, we’ve entrusted our food supply to a handful of seed companies selling the same handful of varieties to growers across the US. This will prove increasingly problematic as climate chaos increases divergence from climatic norms. We need a return to seed saving and breeding of numerous local varieties, each starting from a baseline adaptation to the specific conditions of each area. Diversity gives a better chance of avoiding complete catastrophic crop failure; this variety may yield in the heavy rains of one year, while that variety may succeed in the drought of the next. ...