We Are Power

I laugh when I hear people accusing others of being "snowflakes". The term is meant to be disparaging, and labels the other as fragile, easily offended, and prone to melting at the slightest contact with an issue. 

Those that sling this term, though, forget that when lots of snowflakes get together, say on a mountain slope, they can become a powerful and destructive force known as an avalanche. 

A large collection of snowflakes moving together can clear their path of any and all obstructions, or in our case, oppressors.

While researching one of my favourite human beings, activist, poet, author, and musician John Trudell, I saw that he expressed similar thoughts when he said,

As individuals we have power and, collectively, we have the same power as the earthquake, the tornado, and the hurricanes. We have that potential. 

Trudell knew about the power of the people, and that our power comes from being a part of Nature. He knew about the power of collective action in fighting back against those that would oppress us, and as a Native American living in the US, he knew a lot about oppression.

He also knew that the forces aligned against his people, would come for the rest of us next.

"See, we are power. They deal in violence and repression, we are power. We are a part of the natural world. All of the things in the natural world are a natural part of the creation and feed off the energy of our sacred mother, Earth.

We are power. 

But they have separated us from our spiritual connection to the Earth, so people feel powerless. We look at the oppressor and we look at the enemy because they have the most guns and the most lies and the most money. People start to feel powerless. 

We are power, we are a natural part of the creation, we were put here on the sacred mother Earth to serve a purpose. And somewhere in the history of people we’ve forgotten what the purpose is. 

 
The purpose is to honor the earth, the purpose is to protect the earth, the purpose is to live in balance with the earth, the earth is our mother.

And we will never free ourselves as human people, we will never free ourselves as sexual people, we will never free ourselves until we address the issue of how we live in balance with the Earth. 

Because all our resistance and all of our struggle is hollow, it’s false, it’s another one of the oppressor’s hypocrisies. 

If we do not look out for the welfare of the Earth first, because I don’t care who it is, any child who turns on their mother is living in a terrible, terrible confusion. 

 
The Earth is our mother, we must take care of the Earth." 

If we can come together to take care of a burned medieval cathedral, can't we also come together to take care of Mother Earth? What good is a 900 year old architectural wonder if there is no one around to enjoy it?

We have the power to turn things around. If we the people, working collectively, don't do it, no one will. 

Finally, they say that Notre-Dame Cathedral was built to last till the end of the world. Maybe it did.

Canada's 1951 Oil Attitude

Japanese solar farm built on an abandoned golf course elevates it to a higher purpose.

You would think it was 1951 the way some Canadians are talking about building a new pipeline they say is "needed" to ship tar sand goop to China for the next 60 years.

Meanwhile, in Japan they are converting unwanted golf courses into solar farms. 

And in New Zealand they have just made all new off-shore oil and gas exploration off limits. It is the biggest oil exclusion zone in the world.

Pipeline proponents haven't noticed that China is becoming the biggest thing in renewable energy in the world. Will they really want our dirty oil shipments until 2078? 

I doubt it.

It is time for the big oil deep state to lay down their economic threats, environmental degradation, drilling rigs, leaky pipelines and orphaned wells, and see what the rest of us see - the end of our dependence on their dirty products. 

It's happening, and no amount of fake oil industry memes will change that.

Even big banks are getting in on oil divestment. HSBC announced that they will no longer be financing Alberta tar sands developments, or other oil and gas projects.

Oil slick leaders tell us that pipelines are in the "national interest", but are they really? We already subsidize fossil fuel producers to the tune of $3.3 billion dollars a year. Now we are going to fork out billions more in taxpayer money to build a pipeline owned by a private corporation?

I can imagine what 3.3 billion a year in subsidies would do for the green energy sector, but big oil wouldn't like it.

Even if pipelines were in Canada's best interest, is it in our global interest to be promoting dirty energy projects when renewables are finally getting off the ground in a big way? 

Pipelines don't make environmental, economic, or social sense any more. It is time to drop the 1950s oil attitude and get with the renewable energy program.

Biophilia And Deep Green Resistance

The Fourth Principle of Deep Green Resistance:

When civilization ends, the living world will rejoice. We must be biophilic* people in order to survive. Those of us who have forgotten how must learn again to live with the land and air and water and creatures around us in communities built on respect and thanksgiving. We welcome this future.


* Biophilia is a term popularized by Harvard University myrmecologist (ant scholar) and conservationist E.O. Wilson to describe the extent to which humans are hard-wired to need connection with nature and other forms of life.

More specifically, Wilson describes it this way: “Biophilia…is the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms. Innate means hereditary and hence part of ultimate human nature.” (Wilson, 1993, p.31).

To Wilson biophilia is really a “complex of learning rules” developed over thousands of years of evolution and human-environment interaction.

Evidence of the emotional and psychological benefits of nature is mounting and impressive (research shows its ability to reduce stress, to aid recovery from illness, to enhance cognitive skills and academic performance, to aid in moderating the effects of ADHD, autism and other child illnesses).

Recent research suggests even that we are more generous in the presence of nature; all these values are in addition to the immense economic value of the ecological services provided by natural systems.

From: http://www.deepgreenresistance.org/who-we-are/statement-of-principles