DGR Cadres 2012

I drew this picture of the Deep Green Resistance cadres gathered in Wisconsin in Spring 2012 for a Members' Conference and Cadre Training. These comrades filled me with so much inspiration, and I wanted to create something dedicated to them.

Original photograph by: Max Wilbert. Sorry to those cadres who aren't featured in the drawing.

Also: Myself and the other DGR Cadres are featured in a show on Radio Against Global Ecocide. Click here to listen.

Recommended film: Sophie Scholl: The Final Days

Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and the anti-Nazi resistance group the White Rose Society, is an example we all should look to in resisting the unjust and murderous culture in power. After watching the film based on their story, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, my heart is broken at their sacrifice and inspired by their courage to act.

Executed by Hitler's regime for their effectiveness, the White Rose Society wrote and distributed pamphlets denouncing the Nazis, their wars and atrocities. Their organization operated secretly underground, working late at night in a private office space with printing equipment.

The Scholl siblings understood the risks they were taking by acting against the Nazis, and this was shown through every step of their interrogation and trial. Upon confessing their involvement in the resistance group and position against the Nazis, they held firm to their sentiments and were proud of them.

Courage is a great in concept, yet often difficult to have in life-threatening matters, but Sophie Scholl and members of her group show that doing what is right is more important than any one of our lives alone. This may be the most important lesson that can be learned from their story and words.

Hans and Sophie Scholl were quite young, seeking to encourage similar resistance amongst their peers. By their age, it could be guessed that they were extremely passionate and willing to fight, but the virtue of discipline may not be assumed. Their seriousness and discipline is clear from their story, and embodied in quotes like this (from Hanz): "Keep a strong spirit and a tender heart."

After all they had done to support resistance to Hitler and the Nazis, the Scholl siblings were hung. Their spirit of resistance must not be in vain. We must speak out and act now, even if it seems no one else is doing the same. As Sophie said in what were some of her last words: "Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did."

Original pamphlets by the White Rose Society can be found and read here.

Recommended media: Lakota Woman, The Color Purple, Foxfire

Recently, my roommate brought home a big bag of books from a used book store she had visited while out of town. The books all had in common that they were authored by women. One by one, my roommate started reading these books. While reading and after finished she'd tell me how wonderful they were. So, one by one, I read each book she did, picking each one up practically immediately after she set it down. (I've also been happy that there has been films adapted from most of them!)

Usually, it will take me at least a couple of weeks to read through a book. This may be because I most often read non-fiction. I'm also noticing many of those non-fiction books are written by men (albeit pro-feminist, radical men). There's something refreshing about these books, though. Whether it is because they are not non-fiction theory, or because they are written by women, or both. Here are a few I've read and/or watched most recently:

Lakota Woman, both a book and film, is an amazing autobiography of Mary Crow Dog (now Mary Brave Bird), feminist and former member of the American Indian Movement (A.I.M.) She tells her experiences growing up on a reservation and being forced to attend a boarding school. Her rejection of assimilation into white culture leads her into the revolutionary A.I.M., with whom she stages an occupation at Wounded Knee in the early 1970's. At the same time of her radicalization, she also rekindles participation in sacred Lakota spiritual traditions. This story is filled with history and the personal narrative paints the picture of a brave and inspiring human being fighting for a better world. Favorite quote:

They say that the law is getting ever more enlightened and liberal and color-blind. That is bullshit. In 1884 the first Crow Dog won his case before the Supreme Court which, under the 1868 treaty, ruled that the government had no jurisdiction on the Sioux reservations. Almost a hundred years later the courts ruled against us on the same question. The thing to keep in mind is that laws are framed by those who happen to be in power and for the purpose of keeping them in power.

The Color Purple is a novel by Alice Walker that speaks to sisterhood and struggle of African-American women in the southern U.S. only shortly after slavery was formally abolished. This classic story follows Celie as she learns to appreciate her body, speak up and fight back against abusive and controlling men, and struggle for her humanity and self-determination. Favorite quotes:

I loves Harpo, she say, God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead before I let him beat me. Now if you want a dead son-in-law you just keep on advising him like you doing. She put her hand on her hip. I used to hunt game with a bow and arrow, she say.

She say, My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you can't miss it.

Foxfire is a film, based on a book by Joyce Carol Oates, about a group of girls in high school who meet in unity to stop a male teacher from sexually abusing them and others. After physically confronting him, the loyalty they feel to each other grows as does their embracing of sisterhood and the will to fight back. I absolutely loved the uncompromising attitudes against men's abuse of women in this film. It did have it's drawbacks, though, in that like many "mainstream films", there was unnecessary sexualization of female characters. A favorite quote:

If you ever put your hands on me again, I'm gonna snip your little nuts off with my toenail clippers!

"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

Recommended Book: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

After finishing Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, I feel more ready than ever for the feminist revolution. I also feel horrified.

The main character of this book, Offred, struggles with memories of freedom, love, and life, which she must suppress in order to survive in the society that's been forced upon her. In this society, she exists as a vessel for carrying a child. Whom would be immediately taken from her and used "for the good of the race". Offred is not free to read, write, choose her clothing, say what she thinks, eat what she wants, live as a human being.

An underground network called Mayday exists and is secretly gathering information to resist. By collaborating with them, Offred frequently dares to claim her own humanity in defiance of the authority constraining her.

Detailed in this book is the patriarchal wet-dream of probably most men within civilization: total domination and control. It should be obvious: the horror I mentioned is in the myriad similarities between the "fictional" culture described in the book, and the current arrangement of power.

I so appreciate Margaret Atwood for writing this book; let her words not be in vein. Men, time for you to lay down your weapons, or better: choose justice and join the fight.

I leave you with a quote from the book, said by the main character:

I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light.

Music of Resistance: An Interview with Big Dudee Roo

By: Ben Cutbank, for Beautiful Resistance Distro

What follows is an interview with Aurora Lewis and Max Lockwood of Big Dudee Roo, an ecologically-inspired music group from Wayland, Michigan. I had a chance to talk with them around the new year of 2012 about their new album, what inspires them, and being part of a culture of resistance. Visit their website to learn more about them. Order their CD from Beautiful Resistance Distro, here.

Beautiful Resistance Distro: Hello, Its Ben for Beautiful Resistance Distro. I’m honored to have the chance to have a discussion with members of the music group Big Dudee Roo. To start, would you please give a brief explanation of who you are and what you do?

Max: We’re a folk-rock band from Wayland, Michigan. We write a lot of original music and play a lot of shows around Michigan. I think our music has a wide range of themes, as far as the songs that we write. Me and Nate, our banjo player, tend to focus on different environmental and social justice themes, in sort of a way that relates to people individually and emotionally. As far as the music itself goes too, we really try to focus on having a unique, original sound that is still grounded in folk and rock influences, and those genres. We pay really close attention to the songs. There’s really no virtuosic playing in the band. Everyone kind of plays their role and contributes to the song itself without stepping all over the song. You know, there’s not a lot of solos or anything. So, it’s sort of more egalitarian the way we make music.

Aurora: Yeah, I think mostly we all just love to play. You know, we just love music.

Max: And, we’re all really close friends. We all grew up in the same small town here in Southwest Michigan. So, we have a close bond with each other.

BRD: When did you start playing music together as Big Dudee Roo and what first led you to begin using your gifts as musicians as a tool for expressing your personal views on environmental, social, and political issues?

Aurora: As far as when Big Dudee Roo started playing: like we said we all went to the same high school. Everybody else in the band is a few years older than me. I’m Max’s little sister. They started playing— Max and Nate played 7^th and 8^th grade talent shows. And then Justin was your friend too, and so is Kurt, so they started playing together.

Max: Kurt was actually Justin’s next door neighbor. We needed a drummer and Justin was like, “I think Kurt’s a drummer”. And Kurt used to babysit Justin back in the day because they live right next to each other.

Aurora: Yeah, and then I started singing backup with them when I was about fourteen years old and I officially joined the band when I was about sixteen.

Max: And, we used to be called Big Dudee Roo and the Raptors.

Aurora: We all had nicknames; raptor nicknames.

Max: It’s such a long name that no one could remember or get it right. They’d be like, “What…did you just say?” So for practical purposes we just cut off “the Raptors”.

Aurora: Yeah, there was one venue that put up a flyer about us that said “Big Dundee Roo and the Rafters”.

Max: As far as when we started using our musical talents to support or promote different political and social causes: that was something that attracted me about music right from the beginning. When me and Nate were in 8^th grade we had a pop-punk band. That’s how we got our start. I was attracted by—back then I remember there was a band called NOFX that I was into. They had some political songs, some anti-Bush songs and I thought that was so cool. So, when I first started writing songs that was something I started doing really early, trying to write protest songs. Then, over the years our political consciousness as individuals and as a band grew a lot and I personally got really into Deep Green Resistance activists and writers. I read a lot of Derrick Jensen and Lierre Keith and even spent some time over in Bellingham, Washington, working with some members of Fertile Ground, who are still really great friends today. So, it’s always been important to me, and I think it’s important to everybody in the band, to see music not just as pure entertainment, but as something that can make people think and get at their emotions. You know, on one hand music is entertainment—you want to make music that sounds good and that people are going to enjoy, that they can dance to, move to—but on the other hand it’s always been more than that for me. I remember in high school I was totally obsessed with the band Pearl Jam. It sounds funny, but I was totally attracted to how they did things like took on Ticketmaster for having a monopoly. A lot of their songs actually deal with feminist issues. There are lots of songs that concern abortion and also songs about the abuse of the culture. That was something that really attracted me. Anyways, we love—like last year when we got to play at Candlelight Collective in West Bend—that was so much fun and we had such a great night. Because a lot of times we play in bars and different places aren’t necessarily paying close attention to the words, and maybe even not the music, sometimes. So, it was great to play at a place like that where everyone was super engaged and playing attention to the words we were saying. And, we could tell the stories about the songs. That just feels so good. Those are the shows we love to play.

Aurora: The gems.

Help the Mental Health and Civilization zine project reach print

Mental Health & Civilization is a compilation zine that explores how civilization leads not only to the degradation of the planet, but of our mental health as well.

Through personal stories and critical essays by various contributors, Mental Health & Civilization connects the dots between the insanity and destructiveness of the dominant culture and widespread personal mental un-health.

This zine will be available in both print and digital formats.

Contributors include: Robert Jensen, Urban Scout, Crimethinc., The Icarus Project, and many more, with art by: Stephanie McMillan, Kaitlynn Radloff, Ted Bolha, and more.