DGR 101

“Welcome to the struggle of all species yearning to be free. We are the burning rage of this dying planet.”

Deep Green Resistance is an analysis, a strategy, and a movement being born, the only movement of its kind.

As an analysis, it reveals the last 10,000 years of human history–the rise and dominance of civilization–as the culture of death that is now threatening every living being on Earth.

As a strategy, it critiques ineffective lifestyle actions and explains their inevitable failure to stop the destruction of people, species, and the planet. In contrast, DGR offers a concrete plan for how to stop that destruction.

As an aboveground movement, just now taking its first steps, Deep Green Resistance is based on this analysis and implementing this strategy. And we’re recruiting.

No more ineffective actions – piecemeal, reactive, and sad. No more feel-good, magical-thinking, navel-gazing, consumer-based, capitalist-approved denial and dead ends.

The 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 will require defending and rebuilding just and sustainable human communities nestled inside repaired and restored landbases. This is a vast undertaking but it needs to be said: it can be done. Industrial civilization can be stopped.

Come learn about DGR, answer questions and discuss potential tactics and strategies. This time is meant to be informal and to give a brief introduction. We welcome you to the resistance.

Join the event on FB! https://www.facebook.com/events/1530325410517530/?context=create&previousaction=create&source=49&sid_create=2836636057#
In love, rage, and resistance

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If you have any questions, need directions, or need any further information, please contact us at newyork@deepgreenresistance.org. To keep up to date on our events, check us out on facebook or join our celly group by texting @dgrnyc to 23559.

Video from “Creating Strategies for Revolution” Panel talk

About the Event

Industrial civilization and capitalism are currently harming or killing billions of humans and countless nonhumans, and threaten to destroy all life on our planet. On August 27, Deep Green Resistance New York held a discussion on an appropriate and even necessary response: revolution. About fifty people attended to hear panelists including Jen Bilek & Frank Coughlin of DGR NY, Chris Hedges, Ted Rall, David Valle of OWS Zapatista Solidarity, Kiki Makandal of One Struggle NY, and Itzy Ramirez & Javier of Associated Indigenous Movement. The speakers addressed many aspects of revolution:

  • What Is Revolution?
  • The Role of Women in a Revolution
  • What Is a Culture of Resistance?
  • Destruction of and Role of Indigenous Cultures in a Revolution
  • How a Revolution Happens

Highlights

We need systemic change, not regime change. Many historically momentous events, such as the Indian independence movement and the success of the ANC in South Africa, are incorrectly termed revolutions even though the classes dominating and dominated didn’t actually change. For true revolution to occur, dominated classes need to overthrow the dominating classes and restructure society to eliminate exploitation.

We need to avoid sectarian interfeuding with those who could be allies. Many individuals and groups with different approaches or philosophies on some points can still work side by side to take down capitalism and civilization. We can sort out our differences after we defeat our common enemy and defuse the immediate threats of catastrophe. There are, of course, groups with whom we’ll decide we can’t work, but we should base those decisions on rational analysis of where we have fundamental differences vs where we can agree to disagree. We do have to be careful to avoid a neoliberal approach of hyperinclusivity and hyperindividualism. We should deliberately build anti-individualism, countering the dominant trend of privileging individual autonomy and identity at the expense of the group. It’s crucial to say “It is inappropriate to do certain things, regardless of your politics.”

Along those lines, a common pitfall for militant resistance movements is to embrace machismo and hypermasculinity. We must emulate the Zapatistas, consciously putting women in positions of power, challenging internal patriarchy, and changing deeply held cultural paterns and behaviors to increase participation of women. Deep Green Resistance, thanks to its code of conduct and interview process, is an example of a radical feminist organization creating safety for women to work alongside male allies.

The actual mechanics of revolution depend on a long process of building both non-violent and violent capacity. Ted Rall points out that true revolutions have, historically, always included violence because people with power and prividlege do not give it up voluntarily. Chris Hedges focuses on the final stage of successful revolutions, which typically depends on the foot soldiers of a regime refusing to protect the elite any longer, or to carry out their orders for repression. This non-violent non-participation is critical.

See more

Leigha Cohen edited video footage of the event into “A Progressive Voice.” Watch it below, and visit the Deep Green Resistance Youtube Channel for more videos from other DGR events.

Open Mic #NYC2Palestine

Come join fellow activists in the fight against all oppression!
https://www.facebook.com/events/1464025527196093/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

“You are invited to come out and participate on stage or relax in the audience. Either way, you are most welcome! We are all family in struggle for liberation and freedom from New York to Palestine. Be prepared to share, cry, laugh, sit back and relax or stand up to your feet and snap your fingers as we speak truth to power and connect with one another.

We want to hear from you. Bring your original pieces of poetry, lyrics, etc., and come out and share your message and experiences with us. Palestine does not have the money, U.S. support or any of the resources that Israel has, but Palestine has something more: It has its connection with all oppressed people of the world. We are drawing on the organic connections folks have already made in Palestine and Ferguson, Missouri. Due to recent events in both places, the tone for the evening will be on oppression, including racism, militarization of police, ethnic cleansing, with rage, resistance, and love.

COST: THE EVENT IS FREE FOR ALL!

This venue is a safe space where we can all meet and express ourselves. We will also be educated on our legal rights and be introduced to the movements in NYC.

WHY: THE IMAGES COMING FROM FERGUSON WOKE UP MANY OF US ACROSS THE NATION. THEY RESEMBLE THE IMAGES THAT HAVE COME OUT OF PALESTINE FOR YEARS. FAR TOO OFTEN BLACK COMMUNITIES HAVE BEEN OPPRESSED BY THE SYSTEM PUT IN PLACE TO SERVE ITS PEOPLE. WE WANT TO CONNECT OUR PEOPLES LIKE OUR STRUGGLES ARE CONNECTED BECAUSE OUR LIBERATION IS COLLECTIVE. LET’S BUILD POWER TOGETHER.

AS THE NATION WATCHED THE TEAR GAS AND RUBBER BULLETS BEING SHOT AT AMERICAN CITIZENS IN HORROR. SO DID THE REST OF THE WORLD AND IT WAS THE PEOPLE OF GAZA THAT RESPONDED WITH LOVE AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR SURVIVAL.

IT WAS DURING THIS TIME THAT OTHERS BEGAN TO SEE WHAT SO MANY OF US HAD ORIGINALLY STATED REGARDING THE OPPRESSION AGAINST THE PALESTINIANS. THE EXACT SAME TEAR GAS THAT IS USED DAILY ON THE PEOPLE OF GAZA WERE BEING USED ON THE WOMEN, CHILDREN AND MEN OF FERGUSON. THEIR STREETS IMMEDIATELY BECAME A WAR ZONE. DUE TO THE PEACEFUL PROTESTS BECAUSE OF A CHILD(MICHAEL BROWN) BEING MURDERED BY POLICE OFFICER WILSON, WHILE UNARMED AND WITH HIS HANDS UP.

HOW MANY MOTHERS IN GAZA HAVE EXPERIENCED THIS SAME PAIN? GAZA BEING THE WORLD’S LARGEST OPEN AIR PRISON, ONLY LEADS ONE TO WONDER JUST HOW DO THE PALESTINIANS SURVIVE?

A DIVERSE GROUP OF US SAW COMMON GROUND. FROM THE DAILY ILLEGAL SEARCHES POLICE DO ON OUR STREETS TO THE ILLEGAL RAIDS CONDUCTED IN GAZA. TO THE CHILDREN BEING SWEPT OFF THE STREET BY IDF TO OUR NATIONS SCHOOL-TO-PRISON-PIPELINE. AS WE MET, A FEW WORDS KEPT POPPING UP. SUCH AS RAGE, OPPRESSION AND GENOCIDE. SO WE DECIDED TO COLLABORATE AND GET THE COMMUNITY INVOLVED.

WHAT DO WE NEED: WE NEED FOR YOU SHARE AND SUPPORT OUR EFFORTS IN THIS MOVEMENT. YOU CAN START TODAY BY INVITING YOUR FRIENDS TO OUR EVENT. THINK OF US AS FAMILY! THIS IS THE FIRST OF MANY EVENTS WE WILL BRING TO OUR COMMUNITIES.

AFTER YOU SHARE THE EVENT WE NEED FOR YOU TO GATHER BOOKS. BOOKS THAT CAN BE SENT TO GAZA TO ASSIST THE CHILDREN IN THEIR STUDIES. HERE IN AMERICA OUR CHILDREN OF COLOR NEED MORE BOOKS ACCESSIBLE TO THEM ON THEIR TRUE HISTORY. AND WE ALSO RECEIVED A REQUEST FROM A LIBRARIAN THAT THE SYSTEM IS IN NEED OF SPANISH LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN.

REMEMBER TO INVITE YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY, REMEMBER THE CHILDREN IN NEED AND BRING A BOOK. COME IN PEACE AND READY TO EXPRESS YOURSELVES!

@[null:@[null:#JUSTICEEVERYWHERE]]
@[null:@[null:#NYC2GAZA]]
@[null:#BREAKAWAY]
@[null:@[null:#NYC2PALESTINE]]
@[null:@[null:#PALESTINE]]”

Won’t Turn Down: Weekend of Resistance Memorial March

They burned down Mike Brown’s Memorial.

The cops looked on. The same ones who still harass protestors. And the world watches and waits while justice is denied.

All over, it seems like every day, cops destroy black and brown life.

But like Ferguson, we won’t sit by and watch. We won’t turn down. We’ll stand up and take the streets.

Come out with Ferguson and the Bronx in solidarity with Ferguson’s Weekend of Resistance. We’ll build a memorial and march for Mike and every young black and brown life lost, robbed by the cops.

We won’t turn down until the police and their legacy of death are out of our lives for good.

https://www.facebook.com/events/450074491800495/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

Won't Turn Down P2

Won't Turn Down P1

Resistance Camp Against Rockaway Pipeline

Come join Rockaway community activists, No Rockaway Pipeline, and many others who are putting out the call for direct and long lasting resistance to the newest piece of ecocidal infrastructure to be developed in NYC. An alternative to the corporate driven People’s Climate March, organizers are calling for people interested in helping out, attending, hosting skill shares, teach-ins, gardeners, farmers, and anyone who will be affected by climate change (that includes you!) to come to an informational meeting Friday Sept 12th. Check “No Rockaway Pipeline” on Facebook or email stopthepipeline@riseup.net for more details.
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People’s Climate March

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As we work to build a strategic and effective culture of resistance, we must work towards further radicalizing those who work towards social change. The People’s Climate March will attract tens of thousands of concerned individuals and is being billed as the “largest climate march in history.” But let us as radicals be clear that it is being funded by corporate money, contains no concrete demands, and will easily be utilized as a photo op by corporate green-washing. In the work of revolutionary politics, Deep Green Resistance NY will be participating in the march and the surrounding events, but let us remember the balance between being co-opted and being able to manipulate the millions of dollars for revolutionary purposes. Help us continue to build the culture of resistance that will be needed to dismantle this destructive system. There are lots of interesting events this weekend to help us mobilize such a culture. Our members will be at these events this weekend, so please look for our flyers and come introduce yourselves!

Free University “Decolonize Climate Justice” Sat 9/20 10:30a-3p (https://www.facebook.com/events/293851494139805/)

Reality: 4-day climate mobilization dinner and discussion about infrastructure 9/20 @ 7p (https://www.facebook.com/events/1503594999882777/)

Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, and Khashama Sawant at All Souls Sat 9/20 @ 8p (http://www.meetup.com/new-york-brainiacs/events/203302592/)

On Sunday 9/21, we’ll be marching with Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) in solidarity with indigenous women.

We’ll be meeting at: 68th Street & Central Park West. Enter via 72nd St between 9 & 10:30 am
Meet under the ‘Women for Climate Justice’ banner. It is important to arrive before 10:30 to march in this contingent.
DGR NY will be holding a “We Will Dismantle the Pipeline” banner.
At the end of the march, we will hold a DGR introduction at 4pm. Please look for the large “We Will Dismantle the Pipeline” banner. Location information will be sent out via celly (sign up by texting “@dgrnyc” to 23559).As more events become publicized, we’ll be involved, so check our facebook, email us, and sign up for the celly!

In love, rage, and resistance

Creating Strategies for Revolution

A panel discussion with Chris Hedges, members of Autonomous Indigenous Movement, People’s Survival Program, OWS Zapatista, One Struggle and Deep Green Resistance.

Read a report-back and view video from the event.

REFORM IS NOT ENOUGH

We are standing in a world on the brink of extinction. What are we going to do about it?

“They only did what we would expect all human beings to do; to use their deaths, if they could not save their lives, to weaken or hinder the enemy as much as possible; to use even their doomed selves for making extermination harder, or maybe impossible, not a smooth-running process… if they could do it, so could others. Why didn’t they?”
-Bruno Bettelheim, concentration camp survivor, on the 12th Sonderkommando revolt

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Join the event on FB!

How Many Minutes to Midnight? Hiroshima Day 2014

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25388-how-many-minutes-to-midnight-hiroshima-day-2014

If some extraterrestrial species were compiling a history of Homo sapiens, they might well break their calendar into two eras: BNW (before nuclear weapons) and NWE (the nuclear weapons era).  The latter era, of course, opened on August 6, 1945, the first day of the countdown to what may be the inglorious end of this strange species, which attained the intelligence to discover the effective means to destroy itself, but — so the evidence suggests — not the moral and intellectual capacity to control its worst instincts.

Day one of the NWE was marked by the “success” of Little Boy, a simple atomic bomb.  On day four, Nagasaki experienced the technological triumph of Fat Man, a more sophisticated design.  Five days later came what the official Air Force history calls the “grand finale,” a 1,000-plane raid — no mean logistical achievement — attacking Japan’s cities and killing many thousands of people, with leaflets falling among the bombs reading “Japan has surrendered.” Truman announced that surrender before the last B-29 returned to its base.

Those were the auspicious opening days of the NWE.  As we now enter its 70th year, we should be contemplating with wonder that we have survived.  We can only guess how many years remain.

Some reflections on these grim prospects were offered by General Lee Butler, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which controls nuclear weapons and strategy.  Twenty years ago, he wrote that we had so far survived the NWE “by some combination of skill, luck, and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion.”

Reflecting on his long career in developing nuclear weapons strategies and organizing the forces to implement them efficiently, he described himself ruefully as having been “among the most avid of these keepers of the faith in nuclear weapons.” But, he continued, he had come to realize that it was now his “burden to declare with all of the conviction I can muster that in my judgment they served us extremely ill.” And he asked, “By what authority do succeeding generations of leaders in the nuclear-weapons states usurp the power to dictate the odds of continued life on our planet? Most urgently, why does such breathtaking audacity persist at a moment when we should stand trembling in the face of our folly and united in our commitment to abolish its most deadly manifestations?”

He termed the U.S. strategic plan of 1960 that called for an automated all-out strike on the Communist world “the single most absurd and irresponsible document I have ever reviewed in my life.” Its Soviet counterpart was probably even more insane.  But it is important to bear in mind that there are competitors, not least among them the easy acceptance of extraordinary threats to survival.

Survival in the Early Cold War Years

According to received doctrine in scholarship and general intellectual discourse, the prime goal of state policy is “national security.”   There is ample evidence, however, that the doctrine of national security does not encompass the security of the population.  The record reveals that, for instance, the threat of instant destruction by nuclear weapons has not ranked high among the concerns of planners.  That much was demonstrated early on, and remains true to the present moment.

In the early days of the NWE, the U.S. was overwhelmingly powerful and enjoyed remarkable security: it controlled the hemisphere, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and the opposite sides of those oceans as well.  Long before World War II, it had already become by far the richest country in the world, with incomparable advantages.  Its economy boomed during the war, while other industrial societies were devastated or severely weakened.  By the opening of the new era, the U.S. possessed about half of total world wealth and an even greater percentage of its manufacturing capacity.

There was, however, a potential threat: intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.  That threat was discussed in the standard scholarly study of nuclear policies, carried out with access to high-level sources — Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years by McGeorge Bundy, national security adviser during the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies.

Bundy wrote that “the timely development of ballistic missiles during the Eisenhower administration is one of the best achievements of those eight years.  Yet it is well to begin with a recognition that both the United States and the Soviet Union might be in much less nuclear danger today if [those] missiles had never been developed.” He then added an instructive comment: “I am aware of no serious contemporary proposal, in or out of either government, that ballistic missiles should somehow be banned by agreement.”  In short, there was apparently no thought of trying to prevent the sole serious threat to the U.S., the threat of utter destruction in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

Could that threat have been taken off the table?  We cannot, of course, be sure, but it was hardly inconceivable.  The Russians, far behind in industrial development and technological sophistication, were in a far more threatening environment.  Hence, they were significantly more vulnerable to such weapons systems than the U.S.  There might have been opportunities to explore these possibilities, but in the extraordinary hysteria of the day they could hardly have even been perceived.  And that hysteria was indeed extraordinary.  An examination of the rhetoric of central official documents of that moment like National Security Council Paper NSC-68 remains quite shocking, even discounting Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s injunction that it is necessary to be “clearer than truth.”

One indication of possible opportunities to blunt the threat was a remarkable proposal by Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin in 1952, offering to allow Germany to be unified with free elections on the condition that it would not then join a hostile military alliance.  That was hardly an extreme condition in light of the history of the past half-century during which Germany alone had practically destroyed Russia twice, exacting a terrible toll.

Stalin’s proposal was taken seriously by the respected political commentator James Warburg, but otherwise mostly ignored or ridiculed at the time.  Recent scholarship has begun to take a different view.  The bitterly anti-Communist Soviet scholar Adam Ulam has taken the status of Stalin’s proposal to be an “unresolved mystery.” Washington “wasted little effort in flatly rejecting Moscow’s initiative,” he has written, on grounds that “were embarrassingly unconvincing.” The political, scholarly, and general intellectual failure left open “the basic question,” Ulam added: “Was Stalin genuinely ready to sacrifice the newly created German Democratic Republic (GDR) on the altar of real democracy,” with consequences for world peace and for American security that could have been enormous?

Reviewing recent research in Soviet archives, one of the most respected Cold War scholars, Melvyn Leffler, has observed that many scholars were surprised to discover “[Lavrenti] Beria — the sinister, brutal head of the [Russian] secret police — propos[ed] that the Kremlin offer the West a deal on the unification and neutralization of Germany,” agreeing “to sacrifice the East German communist regime to reduce East-West tensions” and improve internal political and economic conditions in Russia — opportunities that were squandered in favor of securing German participation in NATO.

Under the circumstances, it is not impossible that agreements might then have been reached that would have protected the security of the American population from the gravest threat on the horizon.  But that possibility apparently was not considered, a striking indication of how slight a role authentic security plays in state policy.

The Cuban Missile Crisis and Beyond

That conclusion was underscored repeatedly in the years that followed.  When Nikita Khrushchev took control in Russia in 1953 after Stalin’s death, he recognized that the USSR could not compete militarily with the U.S., the richest and most powerful country in history, with incomparable advantages.  If it ever hoped to escape its economic backwardness and the devastating effect of the last world war, it would need to reverse the arms race.

Accordingly, Khrushchev proposed sharp mutual reductions in offensive weapons.  The incoming Kennedy administration considered the offer and rejected it, instead turning to rapid military expansion, even though it was already far in the lead.  The late Kenneth Waltz, supported by other strategic analysts with close connections to U.S. intelligence, wrote then that the Kennedy administration “undertook the largest strategic and conventional peace-time military build-up the world has yet seen… even as Khrushchev was trying at once to carry through a major reduction in the conventional forces and to follow a strategy of minimum deterrence, and we did so even though the balance of strategic weapons greatly favored the United States.” Again, harming national security while enhancing state power.

U.S. intelligence verified that huge cuts had indeed been made in active Soviet military forces, both in terms of aircraft and manpower.  In 1963, Khrushchev again called for new reductions.  As a gesture, he withdrew troops from East Germany and called on Washington to reciprocate.  That call, too, was rejected. William Kaufmann, a former top Pentagon aide and leading analyst of security issues, described the U.S. failure to respond to Khrushchev’s initiatives as, in career terms, “the one regret I have.”

The Soviet reaction to the U.S. build-up of those years was to place nuclear missiles in Cuba in October 1962 to try to redress the balance at least slightly.  The move was also motivated in part by Kennedy’s terrorist campaign against Fidel Castro’s Cuba, which was scheduled to lead to invasion that very month, as Russia and Cuba may have known.  The ensuing “missile crisis” was “the most dangerous moment in history,” in the words of historian Arthur Schlesinger, Kennedy’s adviser and confidant.

As the crisis peaked in late October, Kennedy received a secret letter from Khrushchev offering to end it by simultaneous public withdrawal of Russian missiles from Cuba and U.S. Jupiter missiles from Turkey.  The latter were obsolete missiles, already ordered withdrawn by the Kennedy administration because they were being replaced by far more lethal Polaris submarines to be stationed in the Mediterranean.

Kennedy’s subjective estimate at that moment was that if he refused the Soviet premier’s offer, there was a 33% to 50% probability of nuclear war — a war that, as President Eisenhower had warned, would have destroyed the northern hemisphere.  Kennedy nonetheless refused Khrushchev’s proposal for public withdrawal of the missiles from Cuba and Turkey; only the withdrawal from Cuba could be public, so as to protect the U.S. right to place missiles on Russia’s borders or anywhere else it chose.

It is hard to think of a more horrendous decision in history — and for this, he is still highly praised for his cool courage and statesmanship.

Ten years later, in the last days of the 1973 Israel-Arab war, Henry Kissinger, then national security adviser to President Nixon, called a nuclear alert.  The purpose was to warn the Russians not to interfere with his delicate diplomatic maneuvers designed to ensure an Israeli victory, but of a limited sort so that the U.S. would still be in control of the region unilaterally.  And the maneuvers were indeed delicate.  The U.S. and Russia had jointly imposed a cease-fire, but Kissinger secretly informed the Israelis that they could ignore it.  Hence the need for the nuclear alert to frighten the Russians away.  The security of Americans had its usual status.

Ten years later, the Reagan administration launched operations to probe Russian air defenses by simulating air and naval attacks and a high-level nuclear alert that the Russians were intended to detect.  These actions were undertaken at a very tense moment.  Washington was deploying Pershing II strategic missiles in Europe with a five-minute flight time to Moscow.  President Reagan had also announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) program, which the Russians understood to be effectively a first-strike weapon, a standard interpretation of missile defense on all sides.  And other tensions were rising.

Naturally, these actions caused great alarm in Russia, which, unlike the U.S., was quite vulnerable and had repeatedly been invaded and virtually destroyed. That led to a major war scare in 1983.   Newly released archives reveal that the danger was even more severe than historians had previously assumed.  A CIA study entitled “The War Scare Was for Real” concluded that U.S. intelligence may have underestimated Russian concerns and the threat of a Russian preventative nuclear strike.  The exercises “almost became a prelude to a preventative nuclear strike,” according to an account in the Journal of Strategic Studies.

It was even more dangerous than that, as we learned last September, when the BBC reported that right in the midst of these world-threatening developments, Russia’s early-warning systems detected an incoming missile strike from the United States, sending its nuclear system onto the highest-level alert.  The protocol for the Soviet military was to retaliate with a nuclear attack of its own.  Fortunately, the officer on duty, Stanislav Petrov, decided to disobey orders and not report the warnings to his superiors.  He received an official reprimand.  And thanks to his dereliction of duty, we’re still alive to talk about it.

The security of the population was no more a high priority for Reagan administration planners than for their predecessors.  And so it continues to the present, even putting aside the numerous near-catastrophic nuclear accidents that occurred over the years, many reviewed in Eric Schlosser’s chilling study Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. In other words, it is hard to contest General Butler’s conclusions.

Survival in the Post-Cold War Era

The record of post-Cold War actions and doctrines is hardly reassuring either.   Every self-respecting president has to have a doctrine.  The Clinton Doctrine was encapsulated in the slogan “multilateral when we can, unilateral when we must.” In congressional testimony, the phrase “when we must” was explained more fully: the U.S. is entitled to resort to “unilateral use of military power” to ensure “uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources.” Meanwhile, STRATCOM in the Clinton era produced an important study entitled “Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence,” issued well after the Soviet Union had collapsed and Clinton was extending President George H.W. Bush’s program of expanding NATO to the east in violation of promises to Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev — with reverberations to the present.

That STRATCOM study was concerned with “the role of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era.” A central conclusion: that the U.S. must maintain the right to launch a first strike, even against non-nuclear states.  Furthermore, nuclear weapons must always be at the ready because they “cast a shadow over any crisis or conflict.” They were, that is, constantly being used, just as you’re using a gun if you aim but don’t fire one while robbing a store (a point that Daniel Ellsberg has repeatedly stressed).  STRATCOM went on to advise that “planners should not be too rational about determining… what the opponent values the most.”  Everything should simply be targeted. “[I]t hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed… That the U.S. may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be a part of the national persona we project.” It is “beneficial [for our strategic posture] if some elements may appear to be potentially ‘out of control,’” thus posing a constant threat of nuclear attack — a severe violation of the U.N. Charter, if anyone cares.

Not much here about the noble goals constantly proclaimed — or for that matter the obligation under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to make “good faith” efforts to eliminate this scourge of the earth.  What resounds, rather, is an adaptation of Hilaire Belloc’s famous couplet about the Maxim gun (to quote the great African historian Chinweizu):

“Whatever happens, we have got,

The Atom Bomb, and they have not.”

After Clinton came, of course, George W. Bush, whose broad endorsement of preventative war easily encompassed Japan’s attack in December 1941 on military bases in two U.S. overseas possessions, at a time when Japanese militarists were well aware that B-17 Flying Fortresses were being rushed off assembly lines and deployed to those bases with the intent “to burn out the industrial heart of the Empire with fire-bomb attacks on the teeming bamboo ant heaps of Honshu and Kyushu.” That was how the prewar plans were described by their architect, Air Force General Claire Chennault, with the enthusiastic approval of President Franklin Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall.

Then comes Barack Obama, with pleasant words about working to abolish nuclear weapons — combined with plans to spend $1 trillion on the U.S. nuclear arsenal in the next 30 years, a percentage of the military budget “comparable to spending for procurement of new strategic systems in the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan,” according to a study by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Obama has also not hesitated to play with fire for political gain.  Take for example the capture and assassination of Osama bin Laden by Navy SEALs. Obama brought it up with pride in an important speech on national security in May 2013.  It was widely covered, but one crucial paragraph was ignored.

Obama hailed the operation but added that it could not be the norm.  The reason, he said, was that the risks “were immense.” The SEALs might have been “embroiled in an extended firefight.”  Even though, by luck, that didn’t happen, “the cost to our relationship with Pakistan and the backlash among the Pakistani public over encroachment on their territory was… severe.”

Let us now add a few details. The SEALs were ordered to fight their way out if apprehended.  They would not have been left to their fate if “embroiled in an extended firefight.”  The full force of the U.S. military would have been used to extricate them.  Pakistan has a powerful, well-trained military, highly protective of state sovereignty.  It also has nuclear weapons, and Pakistani specialists are concerned about the possible penetration of their nuclear security system by jihadi elements.  It is also no secret that the population has been embittered and radicalized by Washington’s drone terror campaign and other policies.

While the SEALs were still in the bin Laden compound, Pakistani Chief of Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was informed of the raid and ordered the military “to confront any unidentified aircraft,” which he assumed would be from India.  Meanwhile in Kabul, U.S. war commander General David Petraeus ordered “warplanes to respond” if the Pakistanis “scrambled their fighter jets.” As Obama said, by luck the worst didn’t happen, though it could have been quite ugly.  But the risks were faced without noticeable concern.  Or subsequent comment.

As General Butler observed, it is a near miracle that we have escaped destruction so far, and the longer we tempt fate, the less likely it is that we can hope for divine intervention to perpetuate the miracle.

DGR 101

Let’s take advantage of the gorgeous weather and meet outside by Riverside Park, at 82nd Street and Riverside drive on the park benches

“Welcome to the struggle of all species yearning to be free. We are the burning rage of this dying planet.”

Deep Green Resistance is an analysis, a strategy, and a movement being born, the only movement of its kind.

As an analysis, it reveals the last 10,000 years of human history–the rise and dominance of civilization–as the culture of death that is now threatening every living being on Earth.

As a strategy, it critiques ineffective lifestyle actions and explains their inevitable failure to stop the destruction of people, species, and the planet. In contrast, DGR offers a concrete plan for how to stop that destruction.

As an aboveground movement, just now taking its first steps, Deep Green Resistance is based on this analysis and implementing this strategy. And we’re recruiting.

No more ineffective actions – piecemeal, reactive, and sad. No more feel-good, magical-thinking, navel-gazing, consumer-based, capitalist-approved denial and dead ends.

The 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 will require defending and rebuilding just and sustainable human communities nestled inside repaired and restored landbases. This is a vast undertaking but it needs to be said: it can be done. Industrial civilization can be stopped.

Come learn about DGR, answer questions and discuss potential tactics and strategies. This time is meant to be informal and to give a brief introduction. We welcome you to the resistance.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1511136979098229/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular&source=1

In love, rage, and resistance