Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee: a political ecology of change

3) What we are fighting for is more important than what we are fighting against. Bees don't go flying around the countryside looking for animals to sting. They will, however, sting whoever messes with their home hive. The hive is a complex society within which bees fulfill a range of jobs including defense of the village. Enemies come and go but the work of making honey goes on. We must be clear that the honey we are fighting for is more than just a dream in our minds. It encompasses the heroic efforts people make every day to experience solidarity in their personal lives and secure the necessities of life for loved ones. It encompasses respect for the needs of other species--known and unknown to us--to pursue their existence in a natural world not under constant threat of demolition. We struggle so that people can make the honey that they are already trying to create.

4) It's about power. The last election exposed our hunger for symbolic victories. If they dangle those in front of us, we could be kept entertained for decades arguing about whose turn it is next to run the empire. Maybe they'd allow a lesbian the ticket next time. Or who could resist the profound symbolism of a Cherokee in a US Presidential race!? We are better off learning from the Chicago Panthers. It's always about power, not appearance.

5) We are poised at a moment in our human story when audacity is called for and timidity is deadly. We are on a chunk of coastal ice that has broken off from the shore and is drifting away. If we stay put we will float out to sea until the ice melts beneath us. It feels as though leaping across the gap would be the big risk because we could fall into the cold water. If we stay put and float out to sea we will get all kinds of praise for being responsible and level headed. The longer we hesitate, the wider the gap we'll need to leap. What makes sense to do?

In translation this means that the capitalist feeding frenzy is running up against the limits of a planet that can't sustain it, but it will not let anyone interfere with the feast. Only a complete social transformation can alter this trajectory. The national and international mechanisms that are supposed to protect us have been corrupted and are now used to distract and divert us. Cats kill birds. That's what they do. Wishful thinking doesn't change that.

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