This Means War (3/6)

[Ch4rl3sK]

i don't really get it, if you compare with tribes that live deep in the woods and are self sustaining they basically each have their own roles like we do, only difference is that we desire more "stuff". so there are more people working different jobs. in a city like mine with 300k+ people it's would never be possible to say to someone, oh i need this to live, I'll just go ahead a and take this. the "system" you talk about is just a glorified version of what native tribes do. IMHO

[sksnkton]

oh hey hes a hypocrite for speaking out about deforestation whilst publishing books how smart am i for figuring that out...

[PtAltmVansanTarr]

@oatstao lots of people I know, even people who go only half way by not driving or by driving a smart car.

[oatstao]

Cancer is the systemic physical manifestation of that apathy mechanism

directly related to the lives people get caught up in.

How many do you know that have now been so called pwned for their

very soul, by redundancy and physical drainage by various factors other than creative out put.

Sadly the minority of people I know, that know better, do nothing in reality.

A whole lot of posturing like they are 'conscious' but they really are a facade which

taints things a bit eh?Who has given up cars?

[oatstao]

great talk, great questions posed and very generous amount of knowledgeable facts! :D rare to hear all of this, with no sign of a product endorsement.

Thanks for posting this.

For years, I've been doing things to help slowly make corps lose money or just not get my my credit. I make personal choices, not personalized choices made for me.

Petrol Killer is emblazened on my bicycle. There is a phenomena of the last 8 years in Canada where Motor vehicle drivers, want to murder cyclists.

[evoloballz]

5 stars for the "we are fucked" comment. We are all thinking it, he's just saying it out loud.

[MrEddievanhalo]

I agree with Derrick that "we are fucked' and I'll tell you why. Look at the issue of Global Warming and Climate Change...From what I see most people don't even believe it's real! Second is the issue with Peak Oil, most people from what i see have never heard of it, or they think it's all a hoax. We have lived in the industrial fantasy for many years now, and people are doing everything they can to keep it going and growing...WE ARE FUCKED!

[fourplusseven]

The usual Jensen-level analysis there.

It's not "we are fucked" -- we're in civilizational decline and rising temperatures. Both have happened before. My guess: 60%-90% reduction in human population in the next century/two as this civilization ends & new dark age starts.

This has happened before so you can prepare, as John Michael Greer, Sharon Astyk or Rob Hopkins are. OR you could shout 'we're fucked' really loud, and maybe blow up a dam, because let's face it, that's so helpful.

[MrEddievanhalo]

Blowing up a dam is not going to solve anything...I KNOW THAT! Yes civilization like you've stated has collapsed before, but we are living in a global Civilization with almost 7 billion people and Civilization is more addicted to materialism than ever...That has not happened before! 200 species are going extinct per day according to the latest scientific data...Yes species have obviously gone extinct in the past , but the rate of extinctions is happening at a much faster rate.

[fourplusseven]

If you know blowing up a dam won't do anything, you might want to mention it to your buddy Jensen there.

No we haven't had a human civilization collapse on this scale before, and it won't be pretty. The extinctions will slow down as our capacity to pollute disappears, owing to the very cultural decline you don't argue is happening.

Sitting around moaning about how evil it all is (which is all Jensen is doing) makes no difference whatever. But plenty of things will make a huge difference.

[pazomblez]

so how else would you define "we're fucked"? to me what you've just described sounds like we're pretty fucked. i don't think jensen means human extinction when he says that 'we're really fucked.'

[fourplusseven]

"We're fucked" could mean anything. It's vague, panic-stricken apocalypse rhetoric resulting from inability to see calmly.

It's pathetic.

We have a situation, & the governments are too fargone to notice; anyone who (like the people I mentioned above) can pull themselves together, look rationally at what is going to happen, and do something, will find there's much work to get on with.

Anyone who can't get past 'we're fucked', well, you just sit there whilst the adults do something.

[pazomblez]

maybe you should familiarize yourself with his work a bit more before you criticise him so strongly. he's basically saying exactly what you just said (not in this interview though, it covers just a small part of his thought).

simplifying a bit, what he's saying is that 1) first of all, we need to recognise that 'we're fucked' and then 2) we need to do something about it.

it's all well and good to talk about action but if you can't even see there's a problem then you aren't going to get anywhere.

[pazomblez]

i should add that jensen is really much better as a writer than as an interviewee. you're right that a lot of what he says here seems inchoate and not well thought-out. his books provide a lot more context and explain his views much better than he can in a short interview. he explains what he means by 'we're fucked' very clearly in 'endgame' (volume 1) and then suggests several different approaches to resolving/mitigating the problem (volume 2). read 'endgame' and then decide what you think.

[fourplusseven]

Every time the guy opens his mouth he sounds like a moron. All his 'tube interviews are the same. He (and all his fans) are about 'destroying the evil system', pure kindergarten stuff. His fans like to lecture on the 'immorality of agricultural surplus' and suchlike nonsense; nothing I've seen on the tube even for one second suggests he has a brain. Why should I sully mine by reading him?

If you want me to: tell me first, do you think civilization is evil? And do you think Jensen thinks it is?

[fourplusseven]

Oh, and when you do get around to replying, why not also give us a precis of all these different "approaches to resolving/mitigating the problem" you mention that Jensen has? I've never seen one reference in any interview with him to any action that would make the remotest positive difference, so I'll sure be interested.

[fourplusseven]

Hello?

[thepassiveradical]

@fourplusseven

Im not here to defend Derrick but to question your assertions. As for destroying the evil system, how is that childish? There have been people all throughout history that have wished to not contribute something that theyre against.

What would you propose? What are your feelings on environmental activism?

[fourplusseven]

Roughly those of Rob Hopkins, John Michael Greer, Sharon Astyk, et al. Google and absorb.

[fourplusseven]

Anyone who thinks this guy has a clue is dreaming.

[fourplusseven]

Something else while I'm at it.

I've posted a few arguments now that Jensen -- philosophically, environmentally and politically speaking -- doesn't know squat. No-one has argued back with any cogency.

Not one intelligent viewpoint on any page featuring Jensen -- only ineffectual copout rhetoric and posturing. Any need to think, and people seem struck dumb.

Might want to consider that, people. Is this really the guy you want directing your ideas? Is he actually informing you?

[fourplusseven]

As I suspected -- no reply.

[nasanction]

It will not stop until Man Kind has disappeared...

[jimiBEbandit]

not mankind, civilization. the hunter gatherer is the only form of human that should exist here.

[pat52007]

My Grandfather was half-Indian, and I have no difficulty believing that Indians were far superior than the blood sucking, earth detroying, mega-titans, we have now. But those of us that have retained our conscience for all living things, there is indeed hope!!

[annesophie82]

The threshold is when people understand that they should be more afraid of allowing the status quo to be maintained than their own fear of change. We live in a society where people are petrified of change, and yet change is life. Change is everything.

[upstart1776]

Junk science kook.

[mans0nh]

Signs of intelligence. I'm sorry where are we meant to be looking.

You don't seem to be able to understand what is being said. Hopefully your children won't. Then you won't have to answer their questions as to why their futures are shit.

[upstart1776]

Oh please, stop. listen to this asshole...it's all this anti-Republican political shit. Which- is the real problem with your goof-ball 'green' movement. You people are just disaffected liberals with a place to place your political hate. You aren't interested in the environment, because all you people do is talk about destroying the work of others. Don't like Weyerhauser? become the CEO and change it from within. That's the respectable way. This guy is just a manipulator extraordinaire.

[mans0nh]

Wow, again attack the messenger not the message.

I have no political affiliation. I don't like the liberals, conservative, party Quebecois, Ndp, or anyone in government.

You really think the system can be changed from within. People have been trying that for decades, but it doesn't work.

Oh well, just keep doing what your doing, and just don't tell your kids. And then when the shit hits the fan and destroys it, look the other way and hope your one of the few people who can still afford it.

[Johnnyflife]

again. upstart is a typical mindless drone who can justify the destruction of the environment. Many do, using the bullshit of religion, politics, and military. Again please use your mind that is there and aching to be tapped into instead of the mind that you've been conditioned to use for the well being of a destructive, greedy, and brainwashed society.

[KidsTrax]

Polar bears > human beings

apparently : |

[mans0nh]

no, its more like = = =

its just humans !> polar bears, this does not imply polar bears > humans.

[Veggieforce]

1:58

brother Jensen summed it up in four syllables.

[mans0nh]

He most definitely did.

Did he say chromes disease? Disease of civilization.

[ethor5]

that would be a rainbow disorder, or dna thing ...or needs a new bumper on his car. I think he said Chron's.

[RevolutionaryJam]

i want to plant treeeeees :-(

[mans0nh]

You can. Its hard work, but you can sign up for that. I am not sure where, do a search on google.

Unfortunately they have been doing it for as long as we have been here. But we kill more than we plant.

[RevolutionaryJam]

well there's a great charity in the north of scotland called Trees For Life that does great work restoring some of our natural forest, I mean to get up there this year if I can

[mans0nh]

That sounds so much better than the ones I have heard of.

You can plant for forestry companies, but they are all in rows, and animals don't live in them, then they come and cut them down again :(

[creten69]

Id have to be hungry,id even eat the shit that %90 of american assholes already eat.I mean if i had to eat grass and flowers and bugs,I'd be mad,but then alot of people would die,and i would eat them.

[LostFREEDOM]

Id Vote for you !! If they were real elections...but there not.

[dusteroo]

He should be on the Tonight Show

[david112776]

MMMM. Who is thinking, and who is doing something about it. Im talking to people, but we need more people. Its almost critical mass, but middle america outways the rest of downtown Rome. People need to evolve, or we face a dire future. If we start a 20 year plan today, we might save the world for our children. If we decide to talk about a 20 year plan in five years?, we're shit outta luck. By the way, the whole concept of religion really should be a universal concept expressed in one word

[mans0nh]

Can i guess the world?

Oh and yes about the plan thing. If we had started 20 year plan 20 years ago we would be where we are now. Thats because they did, and no one payed attention.

In 1988 after a lot of scientific investigation, it was announced to the world by scientists that we needed to change things or we were fucked.

But by 1990 no one was listening.

Agreed we need a plan, and we need to do something now.

I am going to as soon as I am done here. I have 1 year 2 months, then I start

[GenerationVictory]

100%

there

veritas lux mea

V

[eman737]

these guy is so on the ball

5/5

[greatnothing42]

i'm thinking of the curator of the smithsonian who threw away the last reminant of the dodo bird because "it was too dusty and old" i feel sick.

[Beatnuk]

They (the powers in charge) are blurring the lines, before they scare us (the foundation of the pyramid) into crossing it.

[dusteroo]

LOL

"...We're really fucked."

[smkymcnugget420]

we are so fucked no one, not even he knows the magnitude

[mans0nh]

Actually scientists do. They discovered through research in 1988 that we were fucked. They told the world. And the world paid attention. Until 1990 when people stopped listening.

If you want to know more there are a lot of us who want to do something. We just need to organize.

When i get back from my trip into the Canadian Shield I plan to do something. Not sure how yet, not sure what.

[irkone]

Mom please flush it all away. I wanna see it go right in and down. I wanna watch it go right in. Watch you flush it all away. Time to bring it down again. Don't just call me pessimist. Try and read between the lines. I can't imagine why you wouldn't Welcome any change, my friend. I wanna see it all come down. suck it down. flush it down. "Aenema" Tool

[alexanderamelia]

"I'm incredibly privileged. And it's my responsibility to use that privilege to bring down the whole system. Otherwise I'm not worth shit." (from the video)

Yup.

[dusteroo]

I was about to quote that as well. That's a very honest point he made..  as well as pretty much 100% of everything he says.

[dingorex]

What can we do to bring back the elms that once flourished in our country?

[omgutubeismylife]

wow

[dragon8u]

I support you, but do we fight with guns?

[Mureke]

Why, because guns aren't environmentally sound? We fight with whatever it takes. We use the tools of the system to bring it down. If there was to be a successful revolution, I say the resulting state must also be defended with guns. After all, I don't think anarchy is the best alternative, but a deep ecological society.

[blampow]

"The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right."

G.K. Chesterton

Guns require communication between large groups of people, division of labour, factories, metal smelting, etc... to "defend" a deep ecological society, you'd need to be on even footing w. any *non* DE societies, i.e. the same as them.

[blampow]

It's like returning to childhood by arguing like an adult: if you can argue, you're not a child anymore. You can't go back.

It's not coincidence that Jensen focuses on what he *dis*agrees with more than his actual plans for alternatives.

[neroadam]

"...Jensen focuses on what he disagrees with more than his actual plans for alternatives..."

Yeah that's not really true at all, is it?

See: Endgame Vol. 2: Resistance.

[blampow]

OK, I've read the premises, excerpts, some reviews, a wiki entry ... I'll try to get the book, but so far it seems it's about *how* to take apart civilisation, rather than something to put in its place. I mean, it's called "resistance", not "now what".

[blampow]

And since he wants to reverse the developments of the last 5000 years, I'd like him to have worked out something to work *towards* that can be phrased as something other than "not this". Otherwise, I just get visions in my head of communist gov'ts acting just like regular gov'ts while calling themselves "revolutionary".

[blampow]

If he wants to prevent people from forming division of labour, etc... it seems like he'll need a powerful apparatus for enforcing it. And we're back to square one: panopticon, authority, etc...

I'm not violently opposed to his *criticisms*, I just don't think acting on criticisms without alternatives is beneficial.

[blampow]

In one of these videos, he says "how will me coming up with an alternative help the salmon" - the idea seems to be, we need to limit civilisation's damage until it can be destroyed completely. Thing is, what do you do once you've destroyed civilisation?

[neroadam]

"Thing is, what do you do once you've destroyed civilisation?"

You live.

[blampow]

And when some people nearby get together and try to restart it - how do you stop them?

[blampow]

Assuming conversation fails.

[neroadam]

That assumes that civilization is brought down by devolutionaries and not ecological catastrophe. If it's brought down by the latter, then 'restarting it' isn't really an option, is it?

[blampow]

Jensen defines civilisation as "complex of stories, institutions, and artifacts—that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities (civilization, see civil: from civis, meaning citizen, from latin civitatis, meaning state or city), with cities being defined—so as to distinguish them from camps, villages, and so on—as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life."

[neroadam]

Yup. After widespread ecological catastrophe, I don't reckon the energy and resources required to sustain a large sedentary population will be available.

[blampow]

"Yup. After widespread ecological catastrophe, I don't reckon the energy and resources required to sustain a large sedentary population will be available."

Could well be.

[blampow]

I don't see your point - if everyone's killed in either of your cases, no - if some are left alive, civ. would, I think, restart to the limit of the capability of the survivors.

Anyway, my point stands that "civilisation" is just what people do, and will always do - it can't *be* "brought down" because it's not some malignant external tumour that can be blamed for all our problems: if anything, it's the abstraction of what makes us different from great apes.

[pennilesscripple]

humans lived and thrived without civilization for 10K+ years. they still do, in small pockets that are threatened to be absorbed into civilization. it can't be blamed for all of our problems as people, but it is the source of a whole heap of ills, and dismantling that source will ultimately eradicate the ills. perhaps you are working under a different definition of the word 'civilization.'

[blampow]

"perhaps you are working under a different definition of the word 'civilization.'"

I'm using Jensen's own definition, from endgame: "a culture — that is, a complex of stories, institutions, and artifacts — that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities (civilization, see civil: from civis, meaning citizen, from Latin civitatis, meaning state or city),

[blampow]

... with cities being defined — so as to distinguish them from camps, villages, and so on — as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life."

[blampow]

Getting back to where we started:

"dismantling [the institution of people living in place in densities high enough to require routine importation of food and other life necessities] will ultimately eradicate [all of our problems as people] [because] just look around at how 'happy' everyone is".

Even you can't defend that as much of a statement. I like your Fuller quote on your page: no offense, but I don't see much else but vague good intentions and pamphlet-speak.

[pennilesscripple]

okay blampow i read your comments

thanks for the assessment

i'm not interested in a meaningless comment war, so not gonna go for your bait (as you say, no offense)

interesting that you have such a strong reaction to this conversation

[blampow]

Well, I have a strong reaction because a milder form of "mean businessmen ruin happy trees" has been the theme of my canadian upbringing (I suppose Jensen might seem more radical in the US), and seeing it extended to "we should live like apes", but snowed over with hallmark-card euphemisms, seems like the cutting edge of the dumbing down of postliterate culture.

[pennilesscripple]

i don't know if you can find a dumber culture than one that destroys the very landbase on which its survival depends. what is dumber than a culture that destroys people's souls and then develops pharmaceuticals to make them feel happy but oh WHOOPS those pharmaceuticals just might make them go randomly shoot up a bunch of people. it's not about going *back* to the apes. it's about walking *forward* on a saner path.

[blampow]

If it's not about going back, words have no meaning, because Jensen specifically repudiates any historical developments since people had to live in one place and import food. That's a lot of repudiating. He wants to undo historical developments. Even if you consider it an improvement, it's very much "back".

[blampow]

I'm with you on the criticism of Prozac culture, though. The unabomber had some good comments on that in his manifesto (not being sarcastic - he could write, he just wasn't so good at putting it into practice). But disliking our latest attempt at Huxleyan soma isn't the same as disliking the concept of cities.

[blampow]

I liked your Fuller quote, but I guess you're not much of a Fuller fan. What about not having tapped 90+% of the energy in a glass of water? A coal-based power plant needs more "landbase" than a hydro-based power plant. Give a nanotech or fusion plant a chance, and maybe our species has something to look forward to other than a second-hand paleolithic.

[blampow]

In any case, that prospect is so unappealing that if it's the best we can offer our greatX100 grandchildren, I think our landbase would be better off if we just went ahead and apocalypsed ourselves, because those future kids aren't going to contentedly continue that way forever - see my other comments here about "enforcing the gone-ness".

[blampow]

Critical thought is replaced with wincing, doleful looks into the distance: it's all so disingenuously "coffeeshop".

I'd be glad to discuss it further, because it interests me. Sorry if I was rude before, but dismantling 5000+ years of civilisation kind of should provoke a reaction, no? Unless you're just looking for an easy way to look "baseball movie coach soulful".

[pennilesscripple]

i'm glad the conversation interests you, but the ridicule, as i said, undermines my faith in your ability to have a conversation that goes anywhere. consider that those looks in the distance are not theatrics but rather a brilliant man gathering his thoughts before speaking carefully.

[blampow]

I mean, if you realistically proposed demolishing even a major city, say, you'd expect emotional reactions. And if you reacted to criticism by acting like you're "above" emotional reactions to it, people would assume you weren't serious.

[pennilesscripple]

the cities will fall by themselves. civilization is unsustainable. yes i know...people have pretty much nothing but emotional reactions to these very important conversations. so let's all weep and wail about how we don't want the very thing that is destroying us and our world to end. it's like an abused wife who can't leave her abusive husband.

[blampow]

If all you're advocating is passively waiting for civ. to fall, and then perform mental hygiene amongst the ruins so we can go on as best we can, well fine. But Jensen equates current gov.s with nazis, and supports mailing bombs to politicians, blowing up dams, and generally doing whatever's necessary to ensure there "are more wild salmon next year than this year". That's what I assumed you supported.

[blampow]

Also, the "abusive husband" line is a rephrased Jensenism, and a metaphor for a proposal we both understand isn't the same as a supporting argument. That's what I meant by "pamphlet speak".

[pennilesscripple]

blampow, clearly jensen's work has touched a nerve with you. i wish you the best in working it out. a lot of people seem to want to shoot the messenger instead of listen to the message. i have no faith in my ability to nor any desire to 'convince' you of anything within the space of youtube comments. when someone's words or ideas confirm the knowing in my heart, i use them. i call that connecting to others. you ridicule it. okay.

[blampow]

Why do you hate america? Do you want the terrorists to win? We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here.

Being another mouth reprocessing the communal idea-pool trickled down from central authority is one thing - using that same idea-pool to fish for keywords to clothe it represents an admirable

[blampow]

(cont) perfect circle.

Other works that have touched my nerves include creationism and the speechwriters for the Bush admin. Proponents for violently dismantling civilisation who treat the proposal as a ... nebulous emotional stance, a piece of ideological jewelry, and discussions thereof as more a chance to stew in keyword-based emotional broths than a series of points and counterpoints are very nerve touching. Why did you respond to me in the first place if you had nothing to say?

[blampow]

(cont) perfect circle.

Other works that have touched my nerves include creationism and the speechwriters for the Bush admin. Proponents for violently dismantling civilisation who treat the proposal as a ... nebulous emotional stance, a piece of ideological jewelry, and discussions thereof as more a chance to stew in keyword-based emotional broths than a series of points and counterpoints are very nerve touching. Why did you respond to me in the first place if you had nothing to say?

[blampow]

Uh, sorry for double post. Feel free to delete, redpharmacist.

[blampow]

Also - Jensen's not a "messenger", he's an "advocate" or "instigator".

If he were just saying "civ. will collapse", then there'd be nothing to argue about, just wait and see. But he's saying "hey everyone, blow up a dam and kill politicians."

That's the difference between standing outside your house and saying "hmm, this looks unstable" versus trying to get people to throw rocks through the windows and cut the gas lines.

[pennilesscripple]

okay so civilization is more important to you than the life and health of the planet and its inhabitants.

and the life and health of the planet and its inhabitants is more important to me than civilization. and okay you don't like what jensen says, and you take his comments out of context--well you have a lot of company. perhaps you should start a 'peacelovers who want derrick jensen dead' website.

[blampow]

What was the context for advocating blowing up dams and killing politicians? What made you think I loved peace? What makes you think I want Jensen dead?

Your comment that I like civ. more than people, while self-defeating (civ. is made of people), has at least some relation to what I've said:

[blampow]

it's true, I don't think you can pry people off it, and if it's as hardwired as it seems to be, and as horrible as you say it is, and trees/salmon/"landbases" are that much more important than any lasting technology/culture/art (beyond tribal stuff), and an eternal secondhand paleolithic without parole is the only way people can survive, I think our species may just not fit into this universe.

[jphwacheski]

why do people think we are going to just abandon the internet. and all accumulated knowlage?? Just because we shift our way of living on this planet, so that it is sustainable, does not imply "stone-age" technology,. only a change to appropriate technology and ways of living,. yes lots more people will work some part of their days growing foor, and clothes, and shelter, however science and networking technology working within the bounds of logical resource use will be with us still,.

[blampow]

Who's the "we" in your sentence? Hey, I'm all for sustainability, but Jensen has not signed up for your "we". He quotes the 5000-6000 year thing for a reason: he thinks all human history since then was a mistake, that should be retroactively erased. He wants us back to the level of hunter-gatherers.

You're throwing your own soft, green-party ideology in front of the path of a criticism meant for an anarchoprimitivist - not a sustanabilist.

[blampow]

I do, however, think that hypothesis is silly: my line about "going ahead and apocalypsing ourselves" was more of a dismissal of these fears than an embrace of their accepted consequences.

[blampow]

Civ. is always unsustainable, at a given level: someone once said new york would be uninhabitable by the early twentieth century because of all the accumulated horse dung from the carriages. Situations change, people adapt, less wasteful technologies get invented. We already tried the paleolithic. It was boring.

[blampow]

I just don't think anarchoprimitivists really mean, or even understand, what they say: it's not about riding a bike, it's about billions of human deaths, the erasing of most of recorded history, the rolling back of every modern convenience, all art, literature, technology ... and not just for volunteers, but for everybody. I mean, this is big stuff, and I'd like to see someone who can articulately defend it beyond talk-show emotive maneuvering soundbytes.

[pennilesscripple]

you are working under different definitions of 'art, literature, and technology,' all three of which have always been a part of every culture. perhaps people don't use your form of debate to convince you because they see that that form of discourse as meaningless. by the way, speaking of debate, your tendency to ridicule undermines your authority.

[blampow]

"Art, literature and technology" may have been a part of every culture, in the form of face painting, tribal myths and birch bark canoes, which seems like stretching a point, but the Prado, Louvre, electricity, libraries, etc, aren't going to do too well under Jensen's scheme, and I was referring to them. That may have been unclear.

[blampow]

Once civ's gone, keeping it gone would, paradoxically, require a version of it, to enforce it's gone-ness. Orwell's Animal Farm comes in - there needs to be an institution to enforce the antiinstitutionalarianism.

[neroadam]

civilization is a recent phenomenon. you clearly don't have any idea how first humans lived.

[blampow]

No, I'm fairly familiar with anarchoprimitivism's ideas about indigenous peoples. The thing is, the data's sketchy at best, and it's never been demonstrated as possible to "go back": it's like wanting to return to childhood. Somebody will ruin it, get the upper hand, and to stop them, you've got to advance in civilisation with them.

[pennilesscripple]

you see living in community and connecting deeply to the earth and each other as a regression, as would anyone who has absorbed the lies of the dominant culture. i see what people commonly call 'progress' as a regression. just look around at how 'happy' everyone is, and how sick and sad the earth and the animals are.

[blampow]

"living in community and connecting deeply to the earth and each other"

Hmm. Yeah. It's all ideals, rhetoric and thesauruses until your kid gets an infected cut on his foot that he'll die from without antibiotics. Thomas de Zengotitia calls this the "Justin's Helmet Principle": you're the savage in Huxley's Brave New World, ready to sacrifice stability for meaning and whatnot, and then reality intrudes.

[blampow]

I suppose your research method - "just look around" - would also benefit from a control group, i.e. some type of TIME MACHINE. Statistics on life in preindustrial societies don't make it look too fun: nor do statistics on conversion rates from and to industrial civilisation imply much of a mandate for its dismantling. You see waiting lists for admission to rainforest tribes?

[blampow]

Chief Seattle's famous speech was fiction, written by Ted Perry for the script of an ecological film called "Home". Also see "The Ecological Indian: Myth and History" by Shepard Krech III. If you have some ironclad documentation of human prehistory being glorious, I'd like to hear it: but the whole thing about being "prehistorical" is that the records are iffy.

[blampow]

Perry wove such wonderful lines as "The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth" ... (he) expected to be given credit for writing this film script, but he made the mistake of including the Chief's name in his text. According to Perry, the producer didn't credit his screen writer because he thought the film might seem more authentic without a "written by" credit.

[blampow]

Also, what's happened to every indigenous society that's come in contact with civilisation? Absorption, at best. The most requested show on the Aboriginal People's television network of australia is Seinfeld.