MZ: Not surprisingly, another major African-American figure from the 1960s--Malcolm X--had some positive words for extremism in the name of toppling that insane culture. Using Hamlet as a springboard, Malcolm wrote:
"(Hamlet) was in doubt about something--whether it was nobler in the mind of man to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune--moderation--or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. And I go for that. If you take up arms, you'll end it, but if you sit around and wait for the one who's in power to make up his mind that he should end it, you'll be waiting a long time. And in my opinion, the young generation of whites, blacks, browns, whatever else there is, you're living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there's got to be a change. People in power have misused it and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built and the only way it's going to be built with--is with extreme methods. And I, for one, will join in with anyone--I don't care what color you are--as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth."
DJ: I think the key has to do with wanting to change this miserable condition.
I try to be fairly inclusive of the people I would work with, but I've realized over the past many years that I'm not working toward the same goals as many of the environmentalists who are explicitly working to save capitalism or to save civilization, rather than the real world. In talks and interviews I often ask what all of the so-called solutions to global warming or the murder of the oceans, or biodiversity crash, etc, all have in common. And what they all have in common is that they all take industrial capitalism as a given, and the natural world as that which must conform to industrial capitalism. That is literally insane, in terms of being out of touch with physical reality. I mean, look at Lester Brown's Plan B 4.0 to Save Civilization. What does he want to save? Could he be any more explicit? He wants to save civilization. But civilization is killing the planet. It's like writing a book about how to save a serial killer who is murdering so many people he's running out of victims. We see this attitude all the time. When people, for example, ask how we can stop global warming, they're not asking how we can stop global warming; they're asking how we can stop global warming without changing the physical conditions (burning oil and gas, deforestation, industrial agriculture, and so on) that lead to global warming. And the answer to that question is that you can't. Likewise, when they ask how we can save salmon, they aren't really asking how we can save salmon, they're asking how we can save salmon without removing dams, stopping industrial logging, stopping industrial agriculture, stopping industrial fishing, stopping the murder of the oceans, stopping global warming, and so on.
A question I keep asking is: with whom (or what) do you identify? Where is your loyalty? Whom, or what do you want to save? And if what you really want to save is this "miserable condition"--capitalism, civilization, what have you--at the expense of the planet, then we're not really working toward the same goal, are we? My loyalty is with the nonhuman and human victims (or targets) of this culture, and my work is toward stopping this culture's assaults on nonhumans, on the land, on the planet itself, on women, on indigenous peoples, on the poor.
MZ: It's a testament to the power of propaganda how even well-meaning folks will choose the options--both public and private--that work against their own interests. Gay rights activists are currently applauding the alleged repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." In the name of promoting diversity and inclusion, they are celebrating the ability to volunteer for an institution that exists to violently crush all diversity and inclusion.
The conditioning is so interwoven throughout every aspect of our culture that even respected Leftist thinkers simply cannot comprehend your comment, "civilization is killing the planet" and resort to retorts about "misanthropy."
So, the question must asked, Derrick: Can these people be reached with the message that we can't have industrial capitalism as a given without all the murderous side effects?
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