Deep Green Resistance

Deep Green Resistance
Aric McBay, Lierre Keith, Derrick Jensen; 2011, Seven Stories Press

When my co-workers ask what I did on the long weekend, I'm going to tell them I spent it reading a manifesto on insurrection.   They won't believe me - but you will.

I've often said that our culture is sick and dysfunctional.  The authors of Deep Green Resistance  (DGR) agree.  They write: "We're up against a system that is not only unjust, but insane"  (page 190.) Their answer to dysfunction is resistance - and by  resistance, they mean resistance in the sense the French resisted the Nazis. IEDs; guns; explosives; death and destruction .....   They state  "A culture of resistance believes in resistance because no amount of love or compassion or earnest education...has ever stopped the powerful." (page 190.)

Really?  Tell it to Gandhi - India is no longer the jewel in the crown of the British.   And the Indians didn't pick up arms - they drove the British out through a campaign of non violence.

Tell it to Gwynne Dyer.   Discussing revolutions,  he states:  "The nonviolent revolutions that began in East Germany in November 1989, and ended Communist rule in the old Soviet Union itself by late 1991, could have been stopped if the local Communist regimes had been willing to follow the Chinese example, but none of them had the stomach for killing on that scale.  So about 350 million Europeans got their freedom and almost nobody died. At almost exactly the same time, the apartheid regime in South Africa released Nelson Mandela and began the talks that led to majority rule in 1994."  http://www.straight.com/article-398587/vancouver/gwynne-dyer-twentyfive-years-nonviolent-revolution

DGR praises MEND in Nigeria, and states that MEND has reduced Nigeria's oil output by one third.  (page 479.)  Yup - sure - violent tactics are working well to stop oil production there.   A quick check via Google brings up oil production statistics.

"Lagos – Nigeria’s crude oil production has increased from one million barrels per day in 2008 to    2. 6 million barrel per day due to the improvement in post-amnesty programme. "http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/02/nigeria%E2%80%99s-crude-oil-production-rises-to-2-6m-barrels-daily-fg/

DGR is a really interesting book  - the authors are passionate about the problems we face - they love this planet and all our relations  -  but they are wrong in advocating violence as a solution to an insane culture.   Read the book for everything but the authors' solutions to our problems.  And hey - bonus!  If  you ever need to construct an underground cell , run a covert operation,  and destroy infrastructure, DGR has the directions!

DGR  also has a website if you want  more than my jaundiced view.
Find it at:  http://deepgreenresistance.org/