We Need All We Have

Image by Meredith Stern, Just Seeds

In these times of omnicide­­­­—the ongoing attacks on all ecological and communal integrity—every one of us must ask ourselves what gifts we have and how we can best use them in the service of life. As many as there are problems created by the dominant culture, there are opportunities to resist systems of oppressive power and renew just and sustainable ways of living. It’s urgent that each of us begin identifying and meeting these opportunities. This planet cannot afford any less.

The diversity of efforts I see in my own community is greatly inspiring. Many different people—of various ages and backgrounds—are doing many different forms of crucial work, all of which is, in the end, complimentary and intertwined.

Some of the activists I know focus on community events. They put together music and art shows that tell stories of love and resistance. They organize discussion groups about radical, meaningful, and locally relevant subjects. They establish spaces where women can meet and discuss outside of men’s habitual domination of group dynamics and subject matter. They establish spaces that are safe for lesbians and gays to meet without experiencing discrimination. They screen films about social and environmental justice, and make time afterwards for discussion.

Some of the activists I know focus on the landbase. They learn and teach about the different creatures who call this place home. They find which natural communities are suffering from industrialism and exploitation and strive to help them to restore. 

Some of the activists I know focus on food. They have started a community garden, which offers around one hundred plots available for use. They run small-scale, organic farms, and strive to teach people about growing food in a way that’s healthy for humans and the land. They run projects that help distribute good food, encouraging others to take care of their bodies and helping tie together local food systems.

Some of the activists I know focus on literature. They are radical librarians, fighting against book banning and for community. They run literature distribution projects to disseminate inspiring revolutionary information.

Some of the activists I know are healers. They learn and teach about medicinal plants, healing themselves and their friends in a natural way. They offer counseling for those struggling through challenging situations. They teach about the healing powers of food.

Some of the activists I know focus on social justice. They fight systems of oppression that negatively impact women, lesbians and gays, the poor, indigenous communities, and people of color. They fight the attacks on their community by the ruling class and the colonialism and warfare used against communities around the world. They dare to challenge capitalism in favor of a more sane and just way of life.

Some of the activists I know are artists. They make music, writing, and art with themes of fighting back. They donate their gifts and work to add an artistic element to the projects of other activists.

To know so many activists dedicating their lives to justice and sustainability is deeply inspiring. When we see the scope of the crises this planet faces in its full horror, it is overwhelming. But resistance starts with a recognition of our own agency and power. It may not be easy, but, if you love life as I do, you know it must be done. My hope is that the activists I know continue doing what they are doing, that their endeavors keep growing and inspiring others. My goal is revolution, and we’ll need all we have to get there.

Fascism and Resistance in Wisconsin

Given the current social climate of the dominant culture, it shouldn't be a big surprise that Wisconsin's Governor, Scott Walker, has been re-elected in the recent recall elections and, further, continues to rapidly gain power despite his overtly fascist practices.

This individual example of social destruction—Walker's attacks on the natural world, deconstruction of labor unions, reversal of civil rights, and widening of the gap between poor and rich—is consistent with the actions of those in power, globally. In fact, these actions are systematic and necessary in order to maintain industrial capitalism. Their system is now in the midst of collapse, and corporate hands are grasping for whatever power remains in their reach.

A "Left" movement, as I define it, entails the understanding that capitalism is inherently unjust and unsustainable, maintaining the goal of it's elimination. Mainstreams Leftists, however, act most often as a "loyal opposition," if not in direct collusion with fascism.

As long as the channels for social change are limited to electing politicians and marching with signs, no significant challenges to power are made and the powerful will not concede or change in any meaningful sense. Frederick Douglass makes the point with this well-known and powerful quote:

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

Until we demand and end to Scott Walker's reign of control and destruction, and until we are prepared to use force to back up this demand, we can't even begin to stop the acceleration of these terrible circumstances. We certainly can't make change for the better. Look around. This is happening now.

What will it take?

What might it take? We know the problem. We know it is a crisis. We know we want it to stop. But, what will it take?

It will take asking this question again and again. It will take letting it shape our strategies and tactics. It will take listening to and learning from communities who have been fighting this battle for so long. It will take learning from past resistance movements what what has worked, what hasn't worked, and how we can be most effective in our situation. It will take challenging systems of oppression; especially in the culture as a whole, but also in our communities. It will take our time and energy; the time and energy we might have otherwise spent seeking a One True Love, staring at a glowing screen, getting drunk or doing drugs, trying to get rich. It will take every day and every breath, a commitment to resistance and affirmation of loyalty to life.

It will take starting now. It will take so much more. The world is at stake. Whatever it takes, it must be done. By you. By me. Let's see what it takes, now.

The Story of a River

This words that make up this piece were given to me by the river whom is it's focus.

The Milwaukee River runs through the place where I live. Really, it is the place where I live, or at least part of it. This place would not be what it is without the river.

On a warm, sunny day the river will call to me in a bodily way to come into the water, or at least to feel it with my hands or feet. I’m sure this relationship between river and human, river and bird, river and insect, is older and more sacred than I can imagine.

When the river calls to me in this way, I want so badly to get in. I want to spend all of the warm and sunny days heeding this call, and the other days watching from the river’s side, listening and learning.

What breaks my heart is that I will not enter this river and let its waters caress my body, at least not today or any time soon, because its waters are full of poison.

Less than ten years ago, my friends and I would swim in the river on every warm and sunny day. Then, a number of them started experiencing rashes on their skin or felt sick from accidentally letting some of the river water into their mouth. We stopped swimming in the river. The poison dumped or seeped into the river continues to build, and the river continues to be killed, while we essentially stand aside and mourn.

I’m tired of mourning and I’m tired of hearing that this destruction is natural, inevitable, “just the way things are.”

What made clear in my own life that this river was changing for the worse, that it was being killed, was when I no longer wanted to let its waters touch my body. While obviously bad in itself, there’s a larger picture here that must be looked at.

There are living beings—including the river itself—whose lives depend on this river. When the river dies, so to do the fish, bugs, birds, and other animals who drink and eat from the river, who call the river home. Thus, each year that there are more and more pollutants from agricultural run-off in the river, there are less and less songbirds and frogs.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans on this continent, there were human beings who lived here that loved the Milwaukee River. They were indigenous peoples called the Menominee, Potawatomi, and Fox, among other tribes. The lives of these human beings were firmly intertwined with the life of the river. These human beings ate and drank from the river, prayed to the river, and listened to the river’s wisdom.

Those sustainable human cultures were victims—and continue to be victims—of large-scale murder—genocide—at the hands of white settlers. The same people who committed these atrocities against the indigenous humans are now killing the river. Both the river and the human beings who love it—and know how to live sustainability with it—are targets of the dominant culture, industrial civilization. In order to control, exploit, and pollute the river, the humans who depend on it for sustenance must also be displaced or eradicated. We can see how this happened here at home in the case of the Milwaukee River, but we must see further that this has happened everywhere and is the story of civilization.

Currently, every stream in the United States is contaminated with carcinogens. 99% of native prairies have been destroyed.  99% of old growth forests are gone. 90% of the large fish in the oceans are gone. It’s estimated that unless there is a dramatic shift in course, global warming will become irreversible in around 5 years, eventually rendering all life on this planet doomed.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The destruction can be stopped and we must stop it. Clearly, the river, the land, indigenous humans, and so much more life, are the victims of an abusive system. Like all perpetrators, the way to stop them is to aim at the root of the problem and remove or block their ability to abuse. Basically, the goal is to return the circumstances to the way they were before the abuse started, with the victims free and safe. The abuse of civilization has been a campaign of 10,000 years, so obviously there is much to be done to stop it. But, what choice do we have other than to start now and try?

Who or what do you love? Surely you love something or you wouldn’t be here. What would you do to defend your beloved?

I love the Milwaukee River.

I love the kingfisher birds who glide near the water's surface. I love the Sandhill cranes who stand tall in the shallow water, looking wise and blending into the background. I love the Mullein plants growing on the bank. I love the frogs gurgling and humming amongst reeds. I love the bass fish who group together, but only just close enough so each can know that the other is there.

I want to see this river come back to life, year after year regaining health. I want to see no more poison seeping into the river, no more dams suffocating it, no more destruction of any kind. I want to see all of that destruction reversed and those who would commit abuse stopped and held accountable for their crimes against life.

I love the Milwaukee River and I love life. I will do whatever is necessary to defend the living, before the planet is killed entirely. Will you join me?

"Politically Correct" vs. Politically Opposed

In the early days of my being politicized, I spent time with people in a subculture which can be summed up with the title “anti-authoritarian punk.” A favorite activity of people in this group was to bash something they called “political correctness.” At almost every gathering I attended—without fail—hours would be spent snickering and bad-talking the notion of being politically correct, and ostracizing activists accused of subscribing to that notion.

As I understand it, the argument went that political correctness, or “P.C.,” was apparently a plot by some do-gooders to censor everyone else and prevent them from saying and doing what they want (for example using infamously common hate speech against women and people of color). The battle they claimed to be fighting was one of retaining the “freedom” to “shock” people, because, in the end, the ultimate goal is one of breaking social conventions rather than justice.

Later in my life, having been an activist and a radical for several years, I now see the whole subculture of “anti-authoritarian punk” as having been entirely entrenched in, and supportive of, the privileges that come with being a beneficiary of sadistic arrangements of power (be it white supremacy, patriarchy, or capitalist exploitation).

Historically, those in power have had to objectify others—made into “capital O” Others—before they could exploit them. When I think of the people I knew in this “anti-P.C.” camp, I am generally overcome with disdain and rage, because they are simply a new face doing the same objectification. Their effect on social justice movements is not benign, but a significant part of the problem. Oppression is effectively normalized by their brand of “freedom to” rhetoric, thus duping disenfranchised youth and others who stumble upon this sentiment to buy into the thrills of breaking boundaries instead of realizing their potential to make the world a better place and then plugging into projects and communities of righteousness.

If “P.C.” means I’m not okay with hate speech, if it means that I stand against behavior that is cruel and obviously inappropriate, then I’m fine being identified with it. But, if we want to speak honestly about the political element of reinforcing unequal dynamics, I’d much prefer the term "politically opposed”. I am politically opposed to actions and words that are oppressive, because I see it as a part of the continuum of struggle that has been the reality for many generations of people coming from traditions of feminism, anti-racism, and social justice activism.

The political element of these situations is what causes the impossibility of their harmlessness. It’s one thing to poke fun at your close friend in a way where you can both share a laugh. It’s quite a different matter for a person who is, for example, a white man, to verbally or physically assault another person who is, for example, a woman of color, despite the perpetrator claiming the guise of “freedom of expression.” The former scenario can be called “joking”, but the latter scenario can’t be called anything but oppression.

I certainly am politically opposed to oppression. Whether someone thinks I am correct or not to hold this position is of little concern to me.

Image credit: Shaun Slifer