Time-Is-Short

It’s often said that where there is oppression and brutalization, there is resistance; that resistance is fertile, and that it inevitably takes root in the cracks between the building blocks of exploitation and injustice. Even as industrial civilization drives indigenous peoples from their homelands and destroys what little remains of the living world, there is resistance. Even as men abuse and violate women, there is resistance. Even as whites oppress and exploit people of color, there is resistance. We continue to find determined resistance in the places we would think it least likely to survive in. ...

Mining is one of the most viscerally destructive and horrific ways in which the dominant culture—industrial civilization—enacts its violence on the living world. As entirely and unequivocally destructive as this society is, few other industrial activities are as horrifically confronting as mining. Whole landscapes are cleared of life as communities—most often indigenous or poor—are forced from their homes. Mountains level to piles of barren rubble which leach countless poisons, scouring life from whole watersheds. Pits of unimaginable size are carved from the bones of the earth, leaving moonscapes in their wake. ...

By now we should all be familiar with what’s at stake. The horrific statistics—200 species driven extinct daily, every child born with hundreds of toxic chemicals already in their bodies, every living system on the planet in decline—haunt us as we go about our work in a world that refuses to hear, listen, or act on them. After decades of traditional organizing and activist work, we’re beginning to come to terms with the need for a dramatic shift in strategy and tactics, and indeed in how we conceptualize the task before us. ...

As radicals, we believe that another world—a world without patriarchy, white supremacism, capitalism, colonialism, or ecocide—is possible. But in the face of the reality in which we live our day to day lives, it can become difficult to remember not only the possibility of successful resistance to power, but also its rich and proud history, of which we are a part. This is all the more true when we recognize that a potent resistance movement will have to include militant, underground resistance. Being aware of our place within that legacy and re-telling the stories of past movements serves to fan the flames of our own will to resist, and are crucial pieces in building a culture of resistance. ...

The Keystone XL Pipeline is without question the largest environmental issue we in North America face today. It’s not the largest in the sense that it is the most destructive, or the largest in terms of size. But it has been a definitive struggle for the movement; it has brought together a wide variety of groups, from mainstream liberals to radicals and indigenous peoples to fight against a single issue continuously for several years. It has forged alliances between tree-sitting direct actionists and small rural landowners, and mobilized people from across the country to join the battles in Washington and Texas, as well as at the local offices of companies involved in building the pipeline in their own communities. It has also posed serious questions to us as a movement about how we will effectively fight those who profit from the destruction of the living world. ...

Environmentalists today have our work cut out for us. Caught between the urgency of the ecological crises and reactionary capitalist forces that continue to push (quite successfully) for ever more outrageous and egregious destruction, finding an effective and timely path forward is no easy task. There are a wide variety of strategies for change vying for our attention, broadcast to us by a diversity of folks with a diversity of motivations—some of which are mixed, others confused, and more that are dangerous. By and large, the strategies we’ve adopted for our movements go unchallenged and unquestioned. ...

Resistance against exploitation is nothing new. History is full of examples of people—perfectly ordinary people—fighting back against injustice, exploitation, and the destruction of their lands and communities. They move through whatever channels for action are open to them, but often, left with no legal or political power, they turn to militant means to defend themselves. It is hardly a simple decision, and rarely the first or preferred option, but when all other paths have been explored and found to lead nowhere, militant action becomes the only realistic route left. Movements and communities come to that truth in many different ways, but almost without fail, they come to it borne by a collective culture of resistance. One inspiring example is the Bolt Weevils. ...

In our last bulletin, Time is Short presented an overview of the need for strategic target selection. With the industrial economy barreling ever onwards, dragging the world towards biotic collapse, the importance of targeting our efforts cannot be overstated. Identifying and striking at key targets is necessary for any social change movement to be successful, and this is all the more true for radical movements that seek to fundamentally change systems of oppressive power. ...

By Alex Rose / Deep Green Resistance Colorado We’re up against a lot. With hundreds of species going extinct every day, with the oceans being vacuumed of life, with the last vestiges of wild forests being felled or burned and the heart of the planet being torn up to poison the air, civilization is driving Earth towards biotic collapse. We can’t afford to waste time or energy with so much at stake; dismantling the society that is dismantling the planet is no easy task. ...

Within the radical environmental movement, it is widely acknowledged and rightly accepted that we have little time left before the earth is driven into catastrophic and runaway biotic collapse. We know that civilization is predicated on the slow dismemberment of the planet’s life support systems—a dismemberment that is increasing in speed as more efficient and devastating technologies are developed. We know that for a healthy, living world to survive, industrial civilization cannot. ...