A Green Anarchist Caper

Our frayed psychology & our dizzying array of addictions; the endless wars & the incomprehensible, unrelenting pursuit of ecocide -- they all suggest an inescapable conclusion: Humanity has been hijacked. It’s a whodunit! By whom? For what purpose? Most importantly – and here we depart from the traditional whodunit narrative – what has been stolen from within us? 

When we answer this, we may regain it and thus regain ourselves & our place in the world.

the secret library

there is a secret library

in the backlot

behind the school

go there and read its pages -

wildflowers tilting to & fro

weeds that can be eaten -

mugwort & lambsquarters

& black mustard

go to the secret library

and eat its pages

you will be overtaken

by the first forces

to collide here 
to form this sun-
orbit sphere

now they’re inside you

and they will be

long after the school

collapses into dust

and the concrete

erodes back

into calcium and clay

The "Oh Shit" Moment That Never Came?

Just below the Arctic Circle in Siberia, temperatures hit 92°F the other day. The permafrost of the region is melting, resulting in rampant and out of control wildfires and a 1000-mile long burning curtain of smoke and, most disturbingly, increased methane release. Does this qualify as an "oh shit" moment? Perhaps not. It seems likely nothing will. Not the flooding of Manhattan subways. Not increased wildfires and droughts. Not the disappearance of bees or monarch butterflies. And not the disappearance of Arctic sea ice. Not "the warmest year on record" followed by "the warmest year on record." Not the violent disruption of the jetstream. And not Siberian heat waves.

It may be that, somehow, nothing can qualify as an "oh shit" moment. Could it really be that we will just trundle off into the long night of extinction indifferently? Unknowingly?

Unknowingly. Perhaps there is something to pursue in that word “know.” In certain Romance languages, the verb “to know” is the same as the verb “to taste” - in Spanish, “saber” and in French, “savoir.” This means that in order to know something you must taste it. It reminds me of a story a feisty old sociology professor told us in college. It seems there was a group of tourists visiting Texas and, seeking an authentic culinary experience, they went out for some barbecue at a ranch. The roast meats were good, if slightly "different" tasting, but the guests enjoyed the food.  After dinner, they inquired to their hosts as to what manner of preparation was used on the barbecue chicken. The guests were informed them that they had eaten barbecued rattlesnake for dinner. The cosmopolitan travelers proceeded to vomit up the delicacy.

And so it is with our baking planet. The cataclysms are unfolding, the mercury is rising and people are witnessing these events. However, we are unable to name the events for what they are. Ideology interferes. Culture interferes. The events are put in the "unthinkable” mental bin. Na na na na na! This isn’t happening! This isn’t roast rattlesnake! This is delicious roast chicken! 

The events occurring in the material world are unthinkable because they are the result of a belief system which defines the lives of so many: Progress is good. Progress took us from hunting and gathering to agriculture to industrialism to the information age. We did this with the fossil fuels and grit and innovation. Ergo, fossil fuels and grit and innovation are good. Ergo, they cannot result in planetary devastation.

Perhaps all that can be said to people contorted into such a mental knot is this: It's time to wake up and taste the rattlesnake.

Note: The elegaically poetic phrase “the long night of extinction” is from Derrick Jensen’s 2012 book, Dreams.

The Perfect Dictatorship or The Perfect Dystopia?

Gabriel Garcia Marquez famously referred to the 70-year rule of Mexico by the PRI as "the perfect dictatorship." There was the façade of a democracy, there were elections but - somehow - the PRI always won, throughout the country. It is obvious to anyone paying attention and anyone who is not in denial that "the perfect dictatorship" now resides in the United States. There is the façade of democracy, there are elections but - somehow - the same policies are continued, election cycle after election cycle with the same results: a devastated climate system, increased inequality, a gulag archipelago of prisons, and a perpetual (and unironically titled) War on Terror. This is unsurprising: the two parties serve the same masters. And we are expected to wave the flag every Fourth of July and pay our taxes with a smile and vote for the candidate who is, we hope, "less evil." It appears that the United States of America is also the perfect dystopia - one in which the omnicidal agenda of the elites is voted on by its victims and always wins.

Democracy Then and Now

The founding fathers sought to create a nation where one's own avarice and willingness to exploit would define who becomes a social elite. By drafting a constitution that did not allow African Americans, Native Americans, women or non-landholding whites to vote, they also ensured that the government would work hand-in-hand with private interests to always serve the interests of the new elites.

The colonies were founded as investments, funded by London bankers and the British monarchy, seeking as high a return as possible on their investment. The Revolutionary War allowed the new elites to leave aristocratic Europe behind, but the model of doing business ventures where no consideration is given to human or environmental consequences continued unabated. In fact, through his land speculation (i.e. pressuring Native Americans through various means to relinquish their lands), George Washington was soon among the wealthiest men in the country.

The founding US principles of the sacred right to pursue one's own personal avarice to its always vanishing endpoint, the "conquest" {sic} of nature and the scientifically risible invention of "race" are now running their course. A culture that pursues such ideas is, in reality, pursuing ecocide, misery & alienation &  attendant drug and alcohol abuse, empire, militarism, a police state, as well as a host of other unsustainable conditions that are now collapsing under their own weight.

Democracy must morph into inter-relationship with a land base by people and fellow beings and places who know each other and who maintain a fluid conception of leadership. I do not believe that mass society – defined, in theory, in the political realm by leaders and citizens – has any future. It appears to be a mode that is in collapse. True and direct democracy is where the needs of all, of future generations, and of nonhumans are considered. In short, democracy will return to land-based communities of scale where The Whole (as Gary Gripp terms it) is part of daily living and daily decision-making.