Deep Green Resistance
* Book: Derrick Jensen. Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet (2011)
Review
Tiger Attack [1]:
"Derrick Jensen is at it again with his new book, Deep Green > Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet (2011), except this time with > two co-authors taking the lead. The first is Lierre Keith, author of > the book, The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability > (2009). The second, Aric Mcbay, a previous co-author with Jensen in > the book, What We Leave Behind (2009) and author of Peak Oil Survival: > Preparation for Life after Gridcrash (2006) and Wake: A Collective > Manual-in-progress for Outliving Civilization (www.inthewake.org). > Jensen an author of countless books such as a Culture of Make Believe > (2004), Endgame (2006), and his new book Dreams (2011). Jensen now > takes a more passive role writing the introduction and answering > questions at the end of chapters.
Keith and Mcbay seems to pick up and expand on the more militant
> aspects where Jensen left off in Endgame. “The book is about fighting
> back” to “save the planet” and the book completes its task for
> proposing a strategy, but whether that strategy resonates and speaks
> to people is an entirely different story. The book is broken into four
> sections: resistance, organization, strategy and tactics, and the
> future. The first and last sections are written primarily by Keith and
> the second and third by Mcbay.
The first section: resistance, establishes the problems and myths of
> civilization and goes to some depth in historical currents of
> resistance in history. Keith has a chapter called “Liberals and
> Radicals” where she seeks to distinguish the difference between the
> two and then demonstrates how both can operate in building social
> movements based on legal remedies, direct action, withdrawal, and
> spirituality. In this she describes a kind of socialist society she
> wants to build and what it ought to be like. This analysis is build on
> a Marxian definition of radical, Keith (p. 62) states, “[b]ut for
> radicals, society is made up of classes or any groups or castes. In
> the radical’s understanding, being a member of a group is not an
> affront. Far from it; identifying with a group is the first step
> toward political consciousness and ultimately effective political
> action.” A Marxist feminist current is carried into a chapter titled a
> “Culture of Resistance.” Mcbay ends the section with “A Taxonomy of
> Action.” Mcbay categorizes the different actions, omission and
> commission, giving a brief history on where they came from and how
> they functioned.
Organization written entirely by Mcbay, becomes a more technical
> section in laying out conceptual tools for resistance. This section
> beings with “The Psychology of Resistance” which lays out different
> psychological studies and ideas to demonstrate who, how, and how many
> may typically resist oppressive situations. One interesting notion
> was“learned helplessness” by Martin Seligman. The section continues to
> lay out a number different organizational models and demonstrates how
> different models benefit certain situations. This is followed by a
> discussion on decision making, recruitment, and security culture. The
> French resistance in occupied France and U.S. Army field manuals are a
> common source of reference.
The third section strategy and tactics lays out a broad plan of attack
> for a lethal natural environmental movement. This section summarizes
> military strategy and tactic from a couple U.S. Army field manuals.
> The strategic and tactical information is then synthesized and related
> to the successes and failures of different social movements and armed
> struggle groups. Starting from slave abolition to women suffrage, all
> the way to Irish Independence, the Weather Underground (WU), and the
> African National Congress (ANC). Then the concept of “Decisive
> Ecological Warfare” is deployed to bring the strategic and tactical
> necessity of underground cells to destroy industrial infrastructure
> and aboveground groups to support the underground actions while
> keeping a culture of resistance in mind. These ideas are explained at
> some depth.
The last section states the six principles of Deep Green Resistance
> and the need for Decisive Ecological Warfare. This section continues
> to tell a story of what could be and how, giving an example of these
> ideas in actions and the difficulties, pleasures, and hardships that
> could come from attacking the industrial system. And the book ends as
> many sections do, reminding you that 200 species died today—your
> inaction is complicit with ecocide.
The book contains a number of interesting ideas and includes a diverse
> range of material. The authors do well to expose the myths of
> civilization and to explain military strategy and tactic for
> dummies—the Hitler assassination diagram was clever. This book
> provides a common ground, or set of terms, to understand important
> methods of organization, security, strategy, and tactic. This may be
> beneficial to an audience ignorant to the realities of an industrial
> culture and power. That said, there are some significant shortcomings.
A concentration of concern exist in chapters, “Liberals and Radicals”
> and “Culture of Resistance.” These chapters seem to lack clarity,
> explanation, and fail to tie together clear ideas presented in an out
> of sequence structure. This continues in “Culture of Resistance” with
> a weak historical genealogical approach to European counter cultures.
> A further discrepancy is the definition of radical, stated above. This
> definition of radical appears shortsighted. Radical, stemming from the
> Latin word radix, meaning: root, the Marxian definition does not
> address the systemic or root issues of industrial civilization. There
> seems to be contradiction and confusion between the Marxist-feminist
> society proposed by Keith and the anti-civilization agenda of the
> book. The explanation of this indigenous friendly, socialist society
> is one notch deeper than superficial—a difficult image to paint
> nonetheless.
The culture of resistance and society proposed suffers from a romantic
> communism. Keith seems naive to power, an accusation she wages
> correctly against other groups, but her authoritative leftism may have
> unintended consequences. Keith, referring to spirituality in a
> “Culture of Resistance” (p.166-7) writes:
A moral code may inscribe obedience to authority throughout society or
> it may call us to fight injustice; we can find examples of both even
> in the same religious traditions….We need that new religion to help
> set the world right, and to nestle each human life in an unbroken
> circle of individual conscience and longing, communal bonding,
> connection to the multitude of members of this tribe called carbon….
Keith concludes in the “Culture of Resistance”section (p. 190) stating:
The task of a culture of resistance include holding and enforcing > community norms of justice, equity, and commitment, and solidarity; > encouraging vibrant political discussion and debate; producing > cultural products—poems, songs, art—that create a mythic matrix > organized around the themes of resistance; building individual > character based on courage, resilience, and loyalty.
These could be words from a right-wing christian community. The
> specifics of this culture of resistance are not developed much past
> the adjectives of the last quote. There is continuous repetition of
> positive adjectives and little elaboration on how these cultures will
> develop there “own institutions”—many of that is put on the
> “Permaculture Wing.” The authoritative leftism thrown around is enough
> to turn most radicals away and discredit some of her finer points.
This brings up the examples used. Many of these social movements and
> armed groups are not radical in any deep sense of the word. Despite
> the accurate criticism placed against Permacultureists, there practice
> is more radical in many ways to the social movements and
> Marxist-Lenninist groups cited. Just because a group uses guns does
> not mean they are radical. These were points made it the book, but
> contradiction ensued. The conditions in South Africa are argued by
> many to be worse now than ever— parts of ANC leadership sold out to
> the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund almost right off
> the bat. Further, the demands of civil rights and women suffrage were
> not radical, they were reasonable demands and concessions to be
> accepted by capitalist society. More to the point, they talk about
> Members for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), but not once
> do they talk about the deal the Nigerian government made with MEND for
> disarmament in exchange for amnesty, 1,500 dollars, and jobs. The
> leadership took it, and guess what? The leadership sits rich in the
> city while the foot soldiers still wait for their payments and jobs in
> a government indoctrination camps. MEND has recovered and has declared
> to resume attacks on June 2011, but the more complex lessons for
> strategy, tactic, and hardship are not taught. The authors of DGR did
> not even talk about the armed groups of Latin America from the 1960s
> to 1990s.
That said, this book is an interesting topic, but spends to much time
> constructing and describing what the authors thinks is a perfect
> society and fails to reconcile accurately the true hardship and
> shortcomings of armed struggle groups. Then again, the GDR manifesto
> is $19.95 new, not to mention $150-$500 workshops, so how serious can
> you take the authors anyway? I recommend this book for nonprofit
> employees or self-identified student activists. The reading will be
> interesting no matter who you are, but has a authoritative leftist
> current that may undo the success of Derrick Jensen’s Endgame."