Reaction, not Resistance.

I generally refuse to debate to which degree our collective future is set in stone. Placing hypothetical situations at the forefront of political thought seems foolish to me, as none of us are clairvoyant. Hypothetically, if all fossil fuels were left in the ground, and no more were burned as of tomorrow, we might have a chance of survival as a species. Hypothetically, a solar storm could knock the grid offline, saving the natural world from further extirpation. Hypothetically, the powerful could adopt humane policies to reduce human suffering during ecological and industrial collapse. We know, however, that these are sordid fantasies. They are sordid because they detract from real suffering being visited upon the natural world everyday, and the suffering of those humans to which the apocalypse is not a distant future event, or a clever metaphor. For many people, the end of the world has arrived, in all of it's painful indifference to life, love, and any sense of fairness or equality. To paraphrase Orwell, if you want a vision of the future, look at the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I've taken this to mean that our politics must necessarily be reaction based. There will be no better tomorrow, no salvation, no retribution or justice. There will be pain, a pain that we will not be able to alleviate, only react to in the interim, before our inevitable untimely deaths. For these reasons I consider political philosophies that seek to create a better world outdated, and I feel we are forced to adopt a reaction based politic.
Reactive politics do not have constraints, they do not adhere to a specific goal, they are unique to the individual, and are therefore indomitable. For each individual with a reactive politics, there is the potential for action. Reactive politics can not be defeated, for it has no desire to win, indeed, winning is seen as impossible, and abstract to the point of protecting civilization from it's enemies. Revolt, for the reactive individual, is for it's own sake. Reactive politics cannot be coopted, they exist only in the moment of action. When wild animals, and wild humans kill civilization's emissaries, they are engaging in reactive politics. The killing is not meant to culminate into a revolution, nor is it based in an ideology, but is a reaction to an immediate threat. Humans engage in reactive politics even when all hope is lost, as was the case during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. They chose to die in their own terms, despite the knowledge that their deaths were certain. Over this century, as more and more communities come to see that hope is lost to head off climate change, reactivity will become a common form of radical politics, and the powerful will have much more to fear.

The Rainbow Family Won't Take No For an Answer

-Eight years ago, at the age of eighteen, I was a newly homeless and pitifully inexperienced traveler hitchhiking up the west coast of Florida. My relative indolence and privilege had led me to believe I could pull this off while carrying nothing but a sleeping roll and some water in a school bag. Needless to say, I quickly became hungry, very hungry. I was eating so little that it became hard to even stand, while I attempted to solicit rides from the on ramp of I-75.
-I remembered something an acquaintance had told me in passing about something called the Rainbow Gathering, that they gave away food. I knew nothing more and didn't need to. If they would feed me, I would go. So I did, and was met with a mass of substance fueled adult children gathered in Ocala National Forest under the auspices, supposedly, of praying for world peace, although even the most casual observer can see that it was primarily a space for abusing substances. Of course this is not universal among rainbow attendees (I don't mean to make assumptions about people I don't know) and I met many people I am still proud to call friends. The prevailing atmosphere though, was one of absolutely toxic and suffocating masculinity. I would not have been able to articulate this at the time.
- I decided to write this because of a horrifying and genocidal decision by the Rainbows to hold their national gathering this year in Black Hills National Forest, unceded Lakota Sioux territory, considered to be sacred. The Lakota Sioux people have been unequivocal in their opposition to the Rainbow Family coming to the Black Hills, and their demands should not have to be repeated (you can get a good idea why here https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-united-states-department-of-agriculture-usda-south-dakota-governor-south-dakota-state-senate-south-dakota-state-house-ban-the-2015-rainbow-gathering-in-the-black-hills-national-forest).
- In typical patriarchal form, the Rainbows have refused to take no for answer. This was the same behavior that I observed at the Ocala Gathering. Drunken men accosting drivers for spare change at the entrance, Trash strewn everywhere, poorly dug latrines spilling shit into the ground and surface water, women being discouraged from reporting rape. They even managed to start a forest fire in long grass. The level of cultural appropriation employed by this subculture is nauseating to me in retrospect. Dozens of spiritual traditions and cultural practices from around the globe are viewed as open game, from Buddhism to Hinduism, from Hopi traditions to Muslim traditions. All for the benefit of white american men looking to get fucked up.
- I want to be straight forward now, that this kind of violation constitutes rape, just like the women at the gathering, just like the pristine tracts of land that the Rainbows destroy, and just like the genocided culture the Rainbows are now threatening to descend upon. Often what passes for the opposition in the US terrifies me. After all, a fascist man will rape and be clear with his victim that it is out of contempt and hatred for her, a Leftist man will rape and tell his victim that she is being liberated.
- Do tie-dye and incense make genocide more palatable? Does the suffering of others get assuaged in our minds if the aggressor has flowers in his hair? Is the Grateful Dead playing in the background loud enough that they can't hear NO? It's long since time to stop and listen, to reflect on ourselves, and to tell the Rainbow Family to go somewhere else.

A Short Poem

watching the well dry makes one thirst,
and willing to kill for those last few drops.
liquid exquisence, the simplest worth,
don't forget the taste.

don't forget the taste of the air,
exhuast and vapor, the ghosts of smoke,
moves through the locks of a child's hair,
remember that taste,

or begin to forget

Meaningless Resistance, Suicidal Despair

TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of Violence


- This year on April 18th, during Washington, D.C.'s Cherry Blossom festival, an anonymous man stepped onto the lower west terrace of Capitol Hill, unzipped his backpack, took out a placard that read "Tax the 1%" and proceeded to shoot himself in the head. The story garnered very little media attention.
- We don't know who this man was, not even his name, and we can only speculate as to the motivations and circumstances surrounding his suicide. We are left then to interpret this event as one might a dream.
- To my mind, the most important symbol in this event is the placard. The demand ,"Tax the 1%", is tepid, something most of the industrial world does already, yet so deeply out of reach in the United States that it drove this man to suicide. Many of us know that if such a mild reform isn't going to be implemented, that we have no chance of our more radical demands being met, and to the powerful doing anything to stave off our extinction as a species is deemed radical.
- It is understandable then, that among those fighting for even the most mild reforms and concessions, a deep despair arises. The despair does not only arise from the knowledge that reform will not be granted, but from the knowledge that such reforms will not save us. For myself, and for many others I have spoken to, this can be too painful to admit, so we protect ourselves through denial.
- We tell ourselves that technology will make fossil fuels obsolete. We tell ourselves that passing a given law will pave the way for a just society. We tell ourselves that if we all cut our personal carbon footprint, eat vegan, use less water, etc. the next century won't be the horrific mess it's shaping up to be. We tell ourselves that putting the right politician in office will change everything. We tell ourselves that popular revolution is nigh. No lie is too transparent, if it allows us not to collapse into despair.
- For some of us, when the denial becomes so thick and obtuse that it can no longer be maintained, it will be too much to live through. We are not helping ourselves by obscuring the nature of our predicaments. This man is not the first to take their own life as an act of meaningless resistance, and I fear as the century progresses, he won't be the last.

The Rapture of The Left and The Technological Messiah.

- I once had a friend say to me that climate change is the rapture of the left. Initially I disagreed with him. I argued that climate change is a measurable trend, not a future event foretold to a prophet. I argued that climate change required no faith, as it can be displayed very clearly to anyone willing to learn. I pointed out every problem with the metaphor that I could think of. Surely, secular, scientific people have no belief in raptures, divine judgement, or a god. I was very wrong.

-The reason, I think, that I didn't understand my friend's analogy is that it was missing an important caveat. If climate change is the rapture of the Left, then who is their god? What does the left believe will offer humanity, or at least a select few, salvation? The obvious answer is technology. Environmentalism, in a darkly ironic way, has become a global cult of technology worship.
-The myth goes like this: For a long time humanity lived in harmony with nature, until something called the industrial revolution. This was when humans started to burn fossil fuels, creating an ever widening rift between humans and their environment. Since the industrial revolution, the human population of this planet has exploded to 7.5 billion, almost all of their lives completely dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. Because of our hubris and greed, humanity will be punished by droughts, rising seas, extreme weather, etc. Yet there is a way to be saved!
-The messiah is at hand, his earthly form is solar panels, wind turbines and smart grids. We must worship him by recycling, eating organic, riding bicycles, and displaying smug disdain for all the unsaved who do not follow our messiah.
-This is the belief structure of the modern left, and it needs to be challenged at every turn. I'm not the first to say this, and I won't be the last, that technology will not save us.

Humanity is Dead. Long Live Humanity!

There is nothing wrong with our species. Let me repeat that, there is nothing wrong with our species. We are not flawed, inherently selfish, greedy, or malignant. We are animals, in the same way that whales,  sparrows, and mice are animals. A baby born in 2015 is the same kind Paleolithic animal as a baby born in 6,000 BCE.
Misanthropy is a cop out that reeks of lazy analysis and a dismissive attitude. It is the shadow cast by Abrahamic religion onto modern secular thought. We did not fall from grace, grace is present in every facet of life on this planet that we are so very lucky to live on.
Do you believe that the species is flawed inherently? Can you say this of your lover, your parents, your children? Can you say this of indigenous peoples who have lived since time immorial without driving themselves to extinction?
I think not.

To save our species, impossible. To save our spirits, fight!

There is little that disgusts me more than those who would retreat into a narcissistic spirituality when confronted with the news of human extinction. As if the endless self reflection and quasi-therapeutic trappings of this new spiritual movement will do anything to alleviate the despair and anger of the 7.5 billion people who face certain annihilation. As if the young people of this world, having seen our future dashed upon the rocks of this civilization's hubris, want to hear about accepting despair, and working through anger. We have a right to this anger, we need this despair.
The goal of this spiritual movement is to prepare it's adherents to die peacefully. If humans are to go extinct, they say, then what is left but to turn inward. This will never work, and probably cause more harm to it's adherents.
I find this movement despicable in it's retreat from any notion of actually doing anything, in a very real and terrifying sense it is the graveyard of environmentalism. I'm very sorry, but many young people will not accept that, and even if they know that all hope is lost, they will still want to fight. They will want to fight for spiritual redemption, for emotional healing,and to exact a kind of justice on the classes of people who have condemned them to death.
The appropriate  spiritual response to human extinction is not self reflection, but outward rage and playful destruction. This rage acted out on the edifice of civilization will not save our species, but it can save our spirituality now.

Anticipatory Victimization, Trauma, and Re-empowerment

TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of violence

Disclaimer: My statements here do not come from ignorance. I suffer from PTSD, as I have been a victim of extreme violence.

-We cannot remain in a state of anticipatory victimization. Our extinction as a species should not have any bearing on how we view ourselves in the interim. To hold on to the identity of the victim, we sabotage the opportunity to make the most out of what very well may be our last decades on this planet. Our narrative is such that we are prone to falling into a Post Traumatic Stress (or perhaps I should say Pre-Traumatic Stress) reaction. Dealing with this reaction means that we must reclaim power over our lives, and re-frame our narrative to one of empowerment.

- The first step that comes to my mind is that we must not blame ourselves. A major tactic of corporate power, and one that the mainstream NGO environmental movement buys into, is to lay the blame for climate change at the feet of every individual who uses fossil fuels. This has a bi-fold effect. Number one, it removes blame from the powerful, who under this rubric only share as much blame as poor people driving to work at McDonald's and Walmart. Number two, it derails the environmental movement into a foray of useless spending habits, personal guilt, and at the extreme, suicidal grief and depression. In short, we must understand that this is not our doing.

- Overcoming trauma means re-framing the narrative of the traumatic event as to empower the victim. The traumatic event that we are dealing with is gradual and unfolding. This makes even perceiving the narrative as a whole very difficult. However, it also means that we have the opportunity to shift the narrative in real time, as someone fending off an attacker might do. Although our actions may not change anything in the long term, and our species will still be doomed to extinction, we can live our time left on our own terms.

- What does this mean for how we live? What would fending off our attacker look like? I don't make claims to know exactly. I know how it feels to be a victim, I know how it feels to shed that identity. I know that we will not be able to shed that identity if we do not call out those responsible. I know that not doing so is paralyzing, and that, we cannot afford. 

The Lag Effect of Climate Change, The Lag Effect of Violence

-The worst effects of climate change will be dealt to the world from greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere now. The effects of climate change that are witnessed today are a result of greenhouse gases released 30 years ago. Climate scientists call this the lag effect, or inertia in ecological systems. Many scientists suggest that the worst effects of climate change will be witnessed by the end of this century, however, a growing number of scientists are not so optimistic, and place these effects at the middle of the century. This means that for people approximately 30 or under now, the prime of their life will be defined by climate change, systemic collapse, violence, and certain untimely death.

- We already know who is responsible. Oil companies who know damn well what they are doing, then pay for massive disinformation and denial campaigns. A financial sector that props up an increasingly nonviable fossil fuel economy. Governments that are so beholden to corporate interest that they would never dream of taking any action that would seriously curtail the use of fossil fuels. A rampant militarism (particularly the brand that the US has adopted) that brutally defends against any disruption to the oil economy, and resorts to extreme measures like invasion and occupation in order to secure energy supplies. Law enforcement that serves as a personal domestic army for the rich and powerful. Ad infintum.

- Those who are responsible for climate change are protected by the lag effect. They are free to orchestrate the burning of fossil fuels because they know that the victims won't know they have been attacked until it is too late. In this sense, any act of resistance towards the fossil fuel economy and those who run it can be considered an act a preemptive self-defense. I'm sure that many readers at this point will attack this idea as abstract and speculative, I would beg of you to consider the position of those who see their future being destroyed,and who feel that there is nothing left to lose.

Responsibility and Powerlessness

- The converging crises that are descending on our planet are the direct responsibility of the powerful that preside over civilization today. The political and economic elite of yesteryear would not have known about the effects of burning fossil fuels, but the elite of today have no such excuse. They know very well what the consequences of their actions will be, and continue regardless. In this sense they are very culpable for the future murder of billions of humans, not to mention the trillions upon trillions of non-human animals, and the extinction of trillions of species.
- If there is any doubt that the powerful know exactly what they are doing, this myth should be dispelled by the existence of luxury several million dollar condos built in an abandoned nuclear missile silo at an undisclosed location in Kansas (http://www.survivalcondo.com/). The powerful are actively preparing for the disaster that they have unleashed, while the rest of us will be left to die in privation.
- The mainstream environmental movement has been selling us a grand lie. The grand lie is the concept of personal responsibility among the powerless. They have sold the idea that we are just as culpable as the powerful because we drive cars, consume products, etc. As if we have a say in how civilization is organized! As if we have leverage against a self-perpetuating 12,000 year old system of slavery and exploitation! This is the grand dis-empowering lie that convinces people that they can avoid certain catastrophe by driving hybrid cars. To believe this lie is to excuse the powerful of their responsibility, and therefore never come to a clear understanding of what our future will look like.

No Hope

- What are we to do when our last glimmers of hope are dashed? Our soft animal bodies bound to be broken, starved,  and exposed to ever worsening elements. Our fates tied to a murdered planet, facing a runaway climate change that now appears all but inescapable. A civilization in a violent contraction, and headed towards permanent collapse. In this horror our Paleolithic ape bodies will be torn apart, and we will suffer unspeakably.
- The young now will never reach the ages that our parents and grandparents have. We will die early, many of us in a violent manner. We will die of diseases for which antibiotics are no longer available. We will be murdered at the hands of desperate people trying to find food. We will be those desperate people who will murder for food. We will die from exposure, ravaging heat, super-storms, bitter cold without heat, and floods that will submerge major cities. We will die of dehydration and malnutrition. We will die from cancer, toxicity, and nuclear radiation. We will inherit the toxic remnants of this toxic civilization. We have no hope, we are walking ape corpses with no recourse to change our future. What is left? What are we to do? Does it inspire in you anger? It inspires in me rage. I feel my animal self struggling to break through my civilized facade. That animal self wants to lash out, that animal self wants revenge.