Repost

Given the events of the past few months in Castle Rock (resisting the efforts of Alberta Development to slaughter prairie dogs in the name of a mall), it seems appropriate to re-post a letter by Derrick Jensen of Deep Green Resistance: Open Letter to Reclaim Environmentalism Once, the environmental movement was about protecting the natural world from the insatiable demands of this extractive culture. Some of the movement still is: around the world grassroots activists and their organizations are fighting desperately to save this or that creature they love, this or that plant or fungi, this or that wild place. ...

By Max Wilbert, Deep Green Resistance Seattle A good friend recently reminded me that there is a big difference between activism and organizing. Activism is to be involved at some level in political struggle; organizing is to make that struggle effective by planning for success. Organizing requires attention to the smallest details and the broadest overview. It takes a great deal of strategic thinking, critical self-evaluation, people skills, and persistence. Organizing is hard. None of us are born with the skills needed for effective organizing; we have to pick them up as we go. All we have is us, and so many of us are tied up with families, jobs, and other responsibilities. But if we’re going to win struggles for social and environmental justice, we need more organizers. ...

Many if not all indigenous peoples treasure sacred places - areas of the natural world in which the people live, which provide special meaning, refuge, and succor. Sacred places often serve as locations for (embodiments of, even) rites and rituals that strengthen the cultures of the people who value these places, and which serve as critical venues for cultivating their individual and collective identities. In some ways, the indigenous peoples are those places, and those places are the people. ...

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That the real, physical world is the source of our own lives, and the lives of others. A weakened planet is less capable of supporting life, human or otherwise. Thus the health of the real world is primary, more important than any social or economic system, because all social or economic systems are dependent upon a living planet. It is self-evident that to value a social system that harms the planet’s capacity to support life over life itself is to be out of touch with physical reality. That any way of life based on the use of nonrenewable resources is by definition not sustainable. ...