from Live Wild or Die #5
Sometimes there are no answers. Conflicts can not always be resolved peacefully; someone "wins" and someone loses. So it may be with humanity (the industrial experiment) and its unwilling opponent, biodiversity. In our present numbers and with the dominance of the consumption system, there is little hope for a healthy natural environment or the millions of species which will be forced into extinction before most of us die. For we inhabit a world in which the growth of industrial culture and its technologies and mechanisms of control is accelerating at an evil pace. With every passing day, the cancer of industrial "civilization" extends and reinforces itself - so that yesterday's most frightening corporate dreams become today's development projects, leading to tomorrow's toxic nightmares. We know that the pace at which the cancer grows in the rate at which paradise disappears. Sacred wild lands; fantastic and wonderful variations of plants and animals; entire cultures and their knowledge of how to live in balance as well as our potentially wild and free selves, are sacrificed for the "progress" of an insane society. We are witnesses to and participants in (to varying degrees) global biological meltdown and the consolidation of powerful technologies of destruction in the hands of fascist powers. The inevitable result of the human activity that passes for everyday life seems obvious: the death of nature.
There is no hope for the Endangered Species Act, for any law that interferes with the corporate menace will be repealed or circumvented. No hope for earth summits, Green Party reforms, or a sudden collapse of the industrial death system. No; society will continue to pursue armaments and scientific research (space exploration, robotics, computers, genetic manipulation, biospheres, mass transit/electric cars) and high tech medical intervention as "solutions" rather than acknowledge them as part of the problem. People will continue to pollute, overpopulate, to live individualist automobile culture, to destroy the forests and then attempt to move someplace less spoiled, and to deny their doom. "Activists" will continue the futile effort of education and reform. What reform or reason is there with a system that cares only about its growth and treats every "discovery" as a new frontier to be exploited and subsumed? Or with a culture that swallows and absorbs anything alternative to be spit back out as the latest "hip" fashion to be bought? Yes; the downfall will be a long and ugly process and will take a huge toll - the machine will fight to the to the end to keep itself going, no matter the cost in life, human or otherwise. By the time the system collapses (and collapse it will, for it is not sustainable) there will be few if any viable ecosystems left, and we may created atmospheric and climatic changes that end most of the life on earth.
Our path can seem daunting - if we fail to act or are not successful in our efforts, it will be exponentially more difficult for future generations to stop the devastation, let alone turn society in a new direction. Dead ends abound. Hope often seems like just another word in the dictionary, rather than an emotion we experience. It seems that for every corporate project stopped there are a hundred more pushed to deadly completion. Anyone attempting to point out the inanities of the prevailing paradigm is looked upon as a modern day chicken little. Doubts can begin to creep in. Maybe we're overestimating how bad things really are. In the absence of any kind of real movement, we compromise what we know in our hearts, and funnel our energy into the system. We wonder if we weren't so aware of the evils, if life would be easier.
Yet we must not despair nor become paralyzed by our legitimate cynicism. What is the value of humanity and what self-worth can we find if we can not effectively resist ecocide? Yes, it is a difficult path; we are trying to be feral in a managed world. We must travel our lives as free, joyful human beings and we must strive to seek our place in the natural balance of things. Do anything less, and we will not have the material with which to build a new society upon the ashes of the old. This means that those of us who really care about the future must find creative ways to circumvent these dead ends. Never underestimate your own inner power! Look how far you've come from the school kid who loved TV to the being who understands what freedom means, and fights for it in everyday life.
So where do we start? There are so many issues, causes, projects. Sure, we can concern ourselves with the destruction of tropical rainforests and support faraway resistance struggles, but we can not cop out. You stand on stolen, occupied and devastated land. Global destruction starts in our backyard and is forcibly exported throughout the world, as our consumer society is shoved down people's throats through a variety of military, political and economic methods. We in the industrialized world have a special task (or joy) - to impair the dominate culture's ability to expand, and ultimately to function. There are many creative ways we can achieve this (some of which you will find within these pages), and we start by removing the dominant paradigm from our minds and by learning to see in new ways. It's kind of like cleaning your room - it's a constant process, and you have to sweep away the dust often. This project calls for rejecting the whole of modern civilization and building a life-centered culture, were all life and future generations have equal rights and claims to a healthy natural environment. A return to a simple, joyful life of self-sufficiency. This necessitates acquiring and passing on those skills and attitudes that allow us to inhabit a place in a sacred sustainable manner. There is much we can learn from the indigenous and aboriginal cultures which remain, if we are willing to listen. Introduce yourself and your friends to the wildness of the earth and of that within. Move away from materialism, apathy and easy reform. Band together with fellow resisters and practice living together as a tribe. Begin a wheatpasting/billboard alteration/sabotage conspiracy. Stay in one place for a while, for a long time, and get to really know and love it. Learn how to take care of each other, physically and emotionally. Learn your local plants, eat wild food! Buy little, share more, work less. Start a fire, dismantle or disable a machine of destruction. Pick a local eco-raper and hunt them: hinder their ability to continue their operations. Spread your subversive creativity and passion!
Remember. Learn from history and herstory. We are at war with a systems and functions of industrialized society; the economy, the accumulation of resources, the exploitation, the technology, the values and arrogant assumptions. We do not aim to seize control of, but rather to destroy entirely, the means of production. We do not seek a program or leader to follow. We seek an end to governments, the act of governing, and the power over other living beings. A caution: we must be careful not to aim for some nihilistic glorification of the eco-warrior role. There is a screaming need to re-learn where and who we are on this planet, to understand the meaning of harmony, to transcend our domestication . Haste, bold ones, the wolf howls and the owl hoots; let not their crying ghosts haunt our pitiful monuments.
