As Long as it Takes: Strong Ties, Strong Hearts

"There have been others also just as true and devoted to the cause...with such women consecrating their lives—failure is impossible!"—Susan B. Anthony

As an activist and organizer, I concern myself with the work of getting people together to change the world. A necessary part of this is striving to see activists bringing all of their respective gifts and forms of commitment to the table. With strong ties between strong hearts, the path to lasting social change is begun and sustained.

My time as an activist has shown me that connecting to and keeping relationship with allies is an invaluable aspect of movement-building. For some years, I have tried to organize in my local community. Here lives a diverse array of strong-hearted activists with gifts that, while amazingly unique, serve to mutually support each others' efforts. There are herbalists, musicians, writers, environmentalists, socialists, feminists, gardeners, and political organizers, all of whom work towards a more sane and just society. The hope I've placed in the power of all of them coming together does pay off, though it is no small task to help guide the momentum into fruition.

A more immediately gratifying example of this has been my experience in working with the international social justice and environmental movement called Deep Green Resistance (DGR). For the year and a half that I've been involved with DGR, I have witnessed discipline, strategy, and character on the part of it's members that is deeply impressive. Further, I'm honored to work on the organization's staff, and as part of this being involved with the interviewing of many potential recruits. It has not been lost on me that, while most who want to join share the same basic goal of liberating the earth from industrial civilization, each brings wildly unique gifts to put to use along the way.

The background of activists within Deep Green Resistance varies as well. As the organization states, "DGR is made up of writers, community organizers, janitors, parents, grocery clerks, musicians, feminists, teachers, farmers, dishwashers, artists, caregivers, laborers, and students." While I often work with members on the basis of organization and projects, I am aware and in awe of the beautiful and dynamic lives each lead, of which their work in the movement is but one part.

Sometimes, I worry about losing connecting with these allies. My knowledge of the incredible possibilities of what we can make happen by working together carries with it also the truth that we could once again be separated and isolated from one another. Indeed, between working jobs to pay rent, raising children, and tending to personal hobbies, it can prove hard for some to find time for involvement in the activities of DGR.

So, I try to hold on tight. I ask, is it our communication tools that need adjusting? Are people being treated well? What should be done to retain them and engage them? Clearly, these questions can be overwhelming for one person to grapple with and rarely do answers emerge simply because they are summoned.

This yearning to keep intact the community is present every single day and enough so that I eventually began formulating a response that is at least partially adequate. I tell myself: Maybe, it's that people come for the fight, but really stay for the culture. The task of organizers then becomes creating a healthy culture of resistance for the fighters to live within.

Those who seek out Deep Green Resistance are usually not lacking in a will to fight, as one might guess by the movement's name. The explicit goal of DGR is to "deprive the rich of their ability to steal from the poor and the powerful of their ability to destroy the planet." This is not the place for those with feeble politics or weak wills. But, while DGR seems to offer a place for the warrior inside us, we must ask also if it is welcoming to loving human beings. Friendship is a cornerstone to any healthy community, and it will take these bonds, these strong ties, to do this intensive work alongside each other.

In the end, I cannot force anyone to stay in the movement, or to use their gifts in a particular way. I wouldn't want to, anyways. They will stay if they want; if the community is healthy and has the potential to really effect change, they likely will. So, I ask you, my comrades, what is it that makes this culture of love and rage, this tightly-knit community that can fight back against the dominant culture and win. How can we encourage this and turn it into reality? Throughout every day of doing this work, I will also ask myself these questions. As long as it takes.

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.

Community or Community of Resistance

For the past couple of years, I have mainly been working on trying to get folks in my community together to do positive things together and address the terrible things happening in the world right now, locally and globally. This has been my first big goal as an "activist": to effectively organize some sort of radical or "alternative" culture in West Bend.

It has pretty much been going great in terms of what I wanted to accomplish. We almost have a community social space (Candlelight Collective). We have a community garden plot. A couple of us more "radical" folk have made friends with other, more "main-stream" activists in town. I'd say that community is being built.

But, lately I've been thinking about this:

Derrick Jensen has this great quote that goes "dismantle globally, renew locally". This means that we need both an above-ground and under-ground resistance movement. The under-ground do the dirty work of things like tearing down industrial infrastructure and directly confronting power structures, while the above-ground support those doing the under-ground work and simultaneously create a new culture. This is what Derrick calls "A culture of resistance".

In West Bend, there is definitely a new culture springing up, but i would not say it's one of "resistance". At least, it's not one that's resisting the larger cultural machine or one that's effectively creating political change in the area.

My issue with all of this is that I don't know if this is the type of community that I really want to be putting my efforts into creating. I mean, yes i want folks to create good relationships with each other and yes i want for there to be a positive space that nurtures people's creativity and dissent. I especially want for all the kids to befriend and start to learn from all the older folks. I want for all the humans here to start to learn and love the landbase and all it's non-human creatures. I want all of this. BUT, I don't know if i want to work towards creating an "alternative" culture that still exists within the mainstream and isn't doing much to alter the mainstream. I want a culture of resistance.

There's this group called Fertile Ground from Bellingham, WA that really inspires me. They explicitly say that they are "an above-ground arm of a culture of resistance". This means that they do educational work: informing as many people as they can about the destructiveness of this culture, the need to bring down civilization, and how to get involved in "deep green resistance". To me, this is vitally important. I could see myself, an organizer, doing things like that for the rest of my life (or civilization's life, preferably.)

My issue is that while i feel so strongly about protecting the natural world from industrial civilization and communing with the landbase, not many folks in my town are on the same page as me. They are great people and of course i want to keep discussing things like this with them and make it relevant and apparent locally, but it's tiring and sometimes makes me feel ineffective.

The big thing for me is that I know civilization for what it is and i know it's coming down sooner or later. I know in my bones that i want to spend my whole life fighting on the side of the living against this culture. I want to make this my life's legacy. I have already started by the simple act of pitting myself against the lies and alienation that this culture imposes upon me and trying to tear it out of me from it's roots. I no longer want to hold these life-affirming truths to the side as i submerge myself in denial and pretend the situation doesn't really concern me or isn't urgent. Of course I still want to be comfortable and have nice, relaxed friendships and just hang out in town and have fun, but i think my life (and the lives of others, including the whole fucking planet) is worth more than that. I feel a calling in me: i know these things and i need to act on them.

My situation is: i need to find how and where will i be most effective. I guess that's what i'll have to figure out.


(note: When talking about resistance in this post and on this blog, I do not mean participating in illegal activities. I have NEVER and will NEVER participate in any of the under-ground actions of the culture of resistance.)