Time-Is-Short

Editor’s Note: This article was published by the Deep Green Resistance News Service March 27, 2014. We’re republishing the entire Time is Short series, and we welcome your comments. We have had several months to reflect on the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela. Since his death, world leaders have attempted to coopt this legacy. It is especially interesting to see how many who once branded Mandela a terrorist are rushing to pay their respects. [1]His freedom fighter past has been quietly forgotten. Mainstream writers, intellectuals, and politicians prefer to focus on his life after prison. A simple Google search for Mandela is dominated by articles about tolerance and acceptance. ...

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on the Deep Green Resistance News Service on April 17, 2013. We are republishing the entire Time is Short series, and invite your comments. By now we should all be familiar with what’s at stake. The horrific statistics—200 species driven extinct daily, every child born with hundreds of toxic chemicals already in their bodies, every living system on the planet in decline—haunt us as we go about our work in a world that refuses to hear, listen, or act on them. After decades of traditional organizing and activist work, we’re beginning to come to terms with the need for a dramatic shift in strategy and tactics, and indeed in how we conceptualize the task before us. ...

Editor’s Note: This article originally ran August 8, 2013, in the Deep Green Resistance News Service. We are republishing the entire Time is Short series, and welcome your comments. By Lexy Garza and Rachel Ivey / Deep Green Resistance Humans are storytelling creatures, and our current strategy as a movement is a story, with a beginning, middle, and end. We need to ask whether that story matches up with reality, and with the way social change has happened throughout history. ...

Editor’s Note: This article originally ran July 24, 2013, in the Deep Green Resistance News Service. We are republishing the entire Time is Short series, and welcome your comments. By Lexy Garza and Rachel Ivey, Deep Green Resistance Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. This quote by Spanish writer and philosopher George Santayana was posted on the wall in my high school history classroom. The idea, as my history teacher explained, it is that learning about history is vitally important because by knowing and understanding past events, we can actively shape the future. According to my teacher’s view, at least the view he shared with his students, the history in our textbooks is objective, time-tested truth, and nothing more nor less. ...

Editor’s Note: This article originally ran March 20, 2013, in the Deep Green Resistance News Service. We are republishing the entire Time is Short series, and considering that the newly elected US Senate now has enough votes to pass approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline and has made it second on its list of priorities, we think this is especially relevant. ...

Editor’s Note: Though this article is newly published today on the Deep Green Resistance News Service, we will be re-publishing the Time is Short series every couple of days along with other regular news and articles, so please subscribe and watch for updates. By Norris Thomlinson / Deep Green Resistance Hawai’i To most of us with no military experience, the Decisive Ecological Warfare strategy (DEW) of Deep Green Resistance can seem abstract. The aboveground efforts of rebuilding local food systems, local economies, and local decision making are straight-forward and well known to citizens engaged in any sort of social justice or environmental activity. More confrontational public direct action and nonviolent civil disobedience are familiar to most activists, from historical examples of women’s suffrage and civil rights movements to modern fights like the tar sands blockade and the Unis’tot’en Camp. However, the crucial underground role of directly attacking critical infrastructure, though it sounds exciting in theory, has little grounding in our daily experience or even in the history we’ve learned. ...

We have had several months to reflect on the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela. Since his death, world leaders have attempted to coopt this legacy. It is especially interesting to see how many who once branded Mandela a terrorist are rushing to pay their respects. [1]His freedom fighter past has been quietly forgotten. Mainstream writers, intellectuals, and politicians prefer to focus on his life after prison. A simple Google search for Mandela is dominated by articles about tolerance and acceptance.But often lost in discussions of Mandela are the details about why he was sent to prison by the Apartheid Government. He rose to leadership in the African National Congress (ANC) against Apartheid and his role in the creation of its militant wing, the Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK) which means “Spear of the Nation” in Zulu and Xhosa. ...