“You’re not crazy and it’s not your fault”

Derrick Jensen on coming to grips with this destructive culture

Deep ecology author Derrick Jensen won fame and notoriety with heavy works of non-fiction like Endgame, which compares western civilization to an abusive family where violence is a constant threat. He argues that we must bring down this culture by any means necessary. Since then, Jensen has published a searing exposé about zoos and captive animals with Karen Tweedy-Holmes called Thought to Exist in the Wild; Resistance to Empire, a collection of incendiary interviews with other activists; and What We Leave Behind, co-authored with Aric McBay – a heartbreaking polemic on the concepts of waste, life, and death.

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END:CIV – Pacifying Resistance

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Some of the most celebrated social justice victories of the 20th century are attributed to the great pacifists of our time, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. This constitutes a historical whitewash, as these “victories” were achieved when the state weighed its options and chose the lesser of two evils: the pacifists. In this segment Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, Aric Mcbay, Harjap Grewal, Gord Hill and Peter Gelderloos deconstruct the Gandhi myth and show us why militant action plays an important role in movements of resistance.

Music by stig inge oy. and CJ Boyd

END:CIV Premise 2

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Last week the supposed defenders of the environment, A.K.A. the Environmental Non Governmental Organizations or E.N.G.O.s, cut a “deal” with timber industries to protect a large chunk of the boreal forest. On the surface this agreement looks good, but the entire deal was not published, only an abridged version was made available online. Some of the groups that took part of this deal are Greenpeace, the David Suzuki Foundation and Forest Ethics.

The one aspect of this “accomplishment” that they are not publicizing is that they struck it without consulting with the First Nations, the original human inhabitants of those lands.

As we face increasingly catastrophic environmental destruction, it is imperative that we seek guidance from those who “managed” the environment sustainably for over 10,000 years.

This short piece from “END:CIV” is a visual interpretation of Derrick Jensen’s Second Premise from ENDGAME:

Traditional communities do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed. They also do not willingly allow their landbases to be damaged so that other resources—gold, oil, and so on—can be extracted. It follows that those who want the resources will do what they can to destroy traditional communities.

Music by stig inge oy. and CJ Boyd

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Star Wars – The Environmentalists Version

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“I don’t know if you know this, but the original draft of the movie star wars was not written by Lucas, the original draft was written by environmentalists. And it’s a little bit different”

Those were the first words I ever heard Derrick Jensen speak, and my world view has never been the same since. The year was 2006 and I had just moved to New York City to work for Democracy Now!. I was taping the Community Solutions conference, a peak oil convention held at Cooper Union. Unlike the other speakers, Derrick did not talk about about solar panels or wind turbines. He spoke of our culture’s systematic destruction of the planet and of the failure of the environmental movement. After hearing his talk, I immediately sought out his books and the first seeds of END:CIV were planted.

The “Star Wars” piece is one of Derrick’s best analogies, one that delivers a precise critique of mainstream environmental groups.

Directed by Franklin López, Motion Graphic support by pussykrew. Production assistance by Paul Clarke, Annette Fick, Rosalee Yagihara and Chris Bevacqua.