Do Not Let Fascists Destroy the Environment While Taking Over the World
I've explained elsewhere, in other articles (with several references), why the current U.S. government should appropriately be considered fascist. Briefly, for the sake of completeness, I'll just point my readership to Mussolini's definition of "corporatism" and leave it at that. If any person ever knew anything about fascism it should be that rotted corpse. More lively, and less fascistic people, like Naomi Wolf & Naomi Klein, have also made strong cases in regard to this definition of the U.S. political system.
How should revolutionary resistance against this fascistic empire be orchestrated?
This is the world-changing question and my answer to it gives few guarantees. The main thing a revolutionary needs is awareness of the global situation and the stakes we are fighting for. With this knowledge comes the freedom to act without fear of personal loss -- because it's all going to be lost anyway, including your dignity as a human being, if no action is taken. You can either remain inactive as your freedom, your community, your loved ones, and the environment, are all systematically destroyed OR you can organize your life and fight back.
Perhaps the most difficult part of revolutionary organization is finding other sincerely devoted revolutionaries to coordinate your activities with. This is difficult for a number of reasons.
Generally, people in modern America are dumbed down and easily distracted. As much as people may think think that I'm pushing the Kool-Aid with this piece, they ignore the pushers of patriotic American blindness that have dished the stuff out for hundreds of years. They push it to us as children at school, in church, at home, on the TV, in the malls and on the highway. We are told lies every single day through the simple nature of our consumeristic culture. We are led to believe that this is the only way, the best way, and that we had better stick with it to make it even better. And most people never see through this clearly. They can't get past it. It's too emotionally taxing for them to face and too physically threatening for them to resist -- even if they intellectually start to suspect that something just isn't right.
Conversely, it is difficult to find competent allies because many of those who are competent will have already masked their revolutionary activities. The difficulty of finding sincere individuals is also complicated
by simple philosophical and personally idiosyncratic differences. It's a catch-22 because the easier it is to find and involve yourself with active radical individuals (with whom you are compatible), the more likely it will be that their security culture has been compromised. Tolerance and cooperation with any and all suggests low standards which can easily be exploited by the state. For that reason, bonds need to be formed early on OR by means of a gradual process. Jumping into the fray with a serious action alongside someone you just met can be very dangerous to your health and freedom. The more serious you are, the more likely you will be to encounter more serious, more covert, opposition from the state. (A word needs to be said about above-ground and underground radicals, but I will try to conclude with that in the final section.) On a similar note, it has been suggested that revolutionary radicals should have children because their actions will largely offset the effects of some slightly increased demands of overall consumption.
Where to establish a base of operations for a radical community is also a big question. A common revolutionary suggestion (which goes back historically to at least the 19th century "Narodnichestvo" movement in Russia) is that radicals should go live amongst lowest, most abused classes. At some point that may have been an appropriate suggestion (despite the complications which developed), but I think the landscape (politically and topographically) has been altered in many ways that make this a less effective strategy today.
To go live amongst the poorest today you would have to go into lands where people are, in some cases, completely disenfranchised and dying of hunger. Even in the U.S. such a strategy would suggest going to the veritable gutter where the police presence is constant. As much as I sympathize with the dire plight of inner-city residents and the hardships they constantly face, I can only recommend leaving the large ghettoized death-traps at any opportunity whenever possible. Even relatively well-to-do cities have serious impending issues and are not at all sustainable. This is not to say that all radicals will actually leave those locales but, if they don't, they should organize even more aggressively as above-ground activists against police brutality and in favor or urban green spaces. Also, solidarity actions can be taken with city-dwellers when needed -- even if you leave the city yourself.
I'm not suggesting that those confined to big city life should be completely abandoned and forgotten, but I don't think the most effective long term activities can be undertaken in the belly of the beast. The cities will break down to constant urban warfare and the state will have much concentrated power there. If you choose to stay and fight on that ground you will probably suffer great losses (and romanticizing about the flavor of industrial centers is self-deluding).
The safest and most effective place to operate and build community is near a wilderness area which is threatened by destruction but which also still remains largely intact. The benefits of living near such an area are plentiful.
While still having access to standard civilized resources, a community established in such a locale will be able to begin providing for itself by learning what the wilderness provides in a natural sustainable way. This can include hunting wild game and making use of vegetation in a sustainable manner. Additionally, some compromise might be made in establishing sustainable permaculture gardens (while simultaneously working to preserve and restore the nearby wilderness).
Another benefit of living near a threatened wilderness area is the ability to protect it. This can be done in a number of ways -- ranging from the sabotage of destructive industrial tools to more typical acts of protest and working within local politics to hinder destructive or oppressive activities (whether these activities are sponsored by the state or a corporation). The politics of local reform can be clouded by the roles of above-ground and underground revolutionaries, but it's not always necessarily an either/or situation -- local reform can supplement more radical direct actions.
Related to the last point, and having to do with a relatively low population density, is the lack of an overwhelming police force in most wilderness areas. This may change somewhat depending on the success and nature of the defensive environmental activities, but again... working within small local governments can reduce the chances of the local police forces growing.
One Basic Outline of a Sustainable Revolutionary Network
Let's hypothetically consider an endangered forest of 1000 square miles... A dozen small permaculture farms could be established around the perimeter of this forest (where it was already clearcut and somewhat developed), each farm could be run by 12 or so radicals working along the lines already suggested.
I've explained elsewhere, in other articles (with several references), why the current U.S. government should appropriately be considered fascist. Briefly, for the sake of completeness, I'll just point my readership to Mussolini's definition of "corporatism" and leave it at that. If any person ever knew anything about fascism it should be that rotted corpse. More lively, and less fascistic people, like Naomi Wolf & Naomi Klein, have also made strong cases in regard to this definition of the U.S. political system.
How should revolutionary resistance against this fascistic empire be orchestrated?
This is the world-changing question and my answer to it gives few guarantees. The main thing a revolutionary needs is awareness of the global situation and the stakes we are fighting for. With this knowledge comes the freedom to act without fear of personal loss -- because it's all going to be lost anyway, including your dignity as a human being, if no action is taken. You can either remain inactive as your freedom, your community, your loved ones, and the environment, are all systematically destroyed OR you can organize your life and fight back.
Generally, people in modern America are dumbed down and easily distracted. As much as people may think think that I'm pushing the Kool-Aid with this piece, they ignore the pushers of patriotic American blindness that have dished the stuff out for hundreds of years. They push it to us as children at school, in church, at home, on the TV, in the malls and on the highway. We are told lies every single day through the simple nature of our consumeristic culture. We are led to believe that this is the only way, the best way, and that we had better stick with it to make it even better. And most people never see through this clearly. They can't get past it. It's too emotionally taxing for them to face and too physically threatening for them to resist -- even if they intellectually start to suspect that something just isn't right.
Conversely, it is difficult to find competent allies because many of those who are competent will have already masked their revolutionary activities. The difficulty of finding sincere individuals is also complicated
by simple philosophical and personally idiosyncratic differences. It's a catch-22 because the easier it is to find and involve yourself with active radical individuals (with whom you are compatible), the more likely it will be that their security culture has been compromised. Tolerance and cooperation with any and all suggests low standards which can easily be exploited by the state. For that reason, bonds need to be formed early on OR by means of a gradual process. Jumping into the fray with a serious action alongside someone you just met can be very dangerous to your health and freedom. The more serious you are, the more likely you will be to encounter more serious, more covert, opposition from the state. (A word needs to be said about above-ground and underground radicals, but I will try to conclude with that in the final section.) On a similar note, it has been suggested that revolutionary radicals should have children because their actions will largely offset the effects of some slightly increased demands of overall consumption.
Where to establish a base of operations for a radical community is also a big question. A common revolutionary suggestion (which goes back historically to at least the 19th century "Narodnichestvo" movement in Russia) is that radicals should go live amongst lowest, most abused classes. At some point that may have been an appropriate suggestion (despite the complications which developed), but I think the landscape (politically and topographically) has been altered in many ways that make this a less effective strategy today.
To go live amongst the poorest today you would have to go into lands where people are, in some cases, completely disenfranchised and dying of hunger. Even in the U.S. such a strategy would suggest going to the veritable gutter where the police presence is constant. As much as I sympathize with the dire plight of inner-city residents and the hardships they constantly face, I can only recommend leaving the large ghettoized death-traps at any opportunity whenever possible. Even relatively well-to-do cities have serious impending issues and are not at all sustainable. This is not to say that all radicals will actually leave those locales but, if they don't, they should organize even more aggressively as above-ground activists against police brutality and in favor or urban green spaces. Also, solidarity actions can be taken with city-dwellers when needed -- even if you leave the city yourself.
I'm not suggesting that those confined to big city life should be completely abandoned and forgotten, but I don't think the most effective long term activities can be undertaken in the belly of the beast. The cities will break down to constant urban warfare and the state will have much concentrated power there. If you choose to stay and fight on that ground you will probably suffer great losses (and romanticizing about the flavor of industrial centers is self-deluding).
The safest and most effective place to operate and build community is near a wilderness area which is threatened by destruction but which also still remains largely intact. The benefits of living near such an area are plentiful.
While still having access to standard civilized resources, a community established in such a locale will be able to begin providing for itself by learning what the wilderness provides in a natural sustainable way. This can include hunting wild game and making use of vegetation in a sustainable manner. Additionally, some compromise might be made in establishing sustainable permaculture gardens (while simultaneously working to preserve and restore the nearby wilderness).
Another benefit of living near a threatened wilderness area is the ability to protect it. This can be done in a number of ways -- ranging from the sabotage of destructive industrial tools to more typical acts of protest and working within local politics to hinder destructive or oppressive activities (whether these activities are sponsored by the state or a corporation). The politics of local reform can be clouded by the roles of above-ground and underground revolutionaries, but it's not always necessarily an either/or situation -- local reform can supplement more radical direct actions.
Related to the last point, and having to do with a relatively low population density, is the lack of an overwhelming police force in most wilderness areas. This may change somewhat depending on the success and nature of the defensive environmental activities, but again... working within small local governments can reduce the chances of the local police forces growing.
One Basic Outline of a Sustainable Revolutionary Network
Let's hypothetically consider an endangered forest of 1000 square miles... A dozen small permaculture farms could be established around the perimeter of this forest (where it was already clearcut and somewhat developed), each farm could be run by 12 or so radicals working along the lines already suggested.
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