On November 8th, Deep Green Resistance Seattle will hold an open meeting. We’ll also be discussing basic questions such as:
Please RSVP by texting or calling (206) 395-6251 and we will share the meeting details.
Deep Green Resistance members and friends during a recent speaking tour in Oregon.
The Deep Green Resistance Seattle blog is a great source for local news and information on our organizing efforts across the region. But if you want to keep up with news for Deep Green Resistance around the world (we are now operating in more than a dozen countries on every continent), you should check out the main Deep Green Resistance blog.
The DGR blog explores topics of environmentalism, resistance, indigenous sovereignty, anti-racism, feminism, imperialism, and more. The site also shares updates from DGR chapters around the world as well as upcoming events and report-backs from various actions.
Deep Green Resistance is an analysis, a strategy, and the only organization of its kind. As an analysis, it reveals civilization as the institution that is destroying life on Earth. As a strategy, it offers a concrete plan for how to stop that destruction. As an organization, Deep Green Resistance is implementing that strategy.
Deep Green Resistance Seattle is the local chapter of this movement, and we’re recruiting.
The goal of DGR is to deprive the rich of their ability to steal from the poor and the powerful of their ability to destroy the planet. This is a vast undertaking but it needs to be said: it can be done. Industrial civilization can be stopped.
DGR is an aboveground organization that uses direct action in the fight to save our planet. We also argue for the necessity of an underground that can target the strategic infrastructure of industrialization. But these actions alone are never a sufficient strategy for achieving a just outcome. Any strategy aiming for a livable future must include a call to build direct democracies based on human rights and sustainable material cultures.
Not all of us can be on the front lines, and not all of us are community organizers. These are critical roles and we hope that more people with these skills or proclivities will join us. But it’s equally important to have material support: no resistance can move forward without it.
Here are two ways to support Deep Green Resistance:
Recently, some friends of ours organized a protest on the slopes on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, against the desecration of sacred lands by the construction of a massive telescope facility.
To see a slide show of images from the protest, visit the Deep Green Resistance Hawaii website.
“Deep Green Resistance has been accused of transphobia because we have a difference of opinion about the definition of gender.
DGR does not condone dehumanization or violence against anyone, including people who describe themselves as trans. Universal human rights are universal. DGR has a strong code of conduct against violence and abuse. Anyone who violates that code is no longer a member of DGR.
Disagreeing with someone, however, is not a form of violence. And we have a big disagreement.
Radical feminists are critical of gender itself. We are not gender reformists–we are gender abolitionists. Without the socially constructed gender roles that form the basis of patriarchy, all people would be free to dress, behave, and love others in whatever way they wished, no matter what kind of body they had.”
Deep Green Resistance Seattle is open for questions related to this topic: contact us via our website if you wish to talk.
Read the rest of the Radical Feminist FAQs on the Deep Green Resistance website, or watch a presentation from Rachel Ivey on the subject.
Seattle is a hub of the sex trade. Authorities estimate 300 to 500 people are victims of human trafficking in the Northwest every year — mostly women forced to work as prostitutes. This video shows some progressive efforts being taken to criminalize the buying of sex (which we believe is economically-coercive rape).
Deep Green Resistance stands for abolishing the sex trade and decriminalizing women who have been forced — by people or by circumstance — to take part in it. As such we advocate for the Nordic Model – an approach that makes sense and has hard data backing up it’s effectiveness.
The Nordic Model is similar to the approach shown in this video: it criminalizes the men who buy sex, while decriminalizing the women and others who sell it and providing exit services and support for these individuals. We’re glad to see that Seattle is taking this progressive approach to prostitution and sex trafficking.
View the video here: http://video.kcts9.org/video/2365348281/
This press release comes to us from Fertile Ground Environmental Institute, a grassroots, Deep Green non-profit.
Global warming. Racism. Sexual Violence. Inequality. War. Species extinction. What are the links between these issues? And how can we move towards victory? An upcoming conference seeks to bring these issues together and answer these critical questions.
“All of the issues we face come from the same culture of extraction,” says event organizer Saba Malik. “They are driven by an urge to exploit. That is what we need to confront.”
Earth at Risk: The Justice and Sustainability Conference is being organized by a grassroots non-profit called Fertile Ground Environmental Institute. The event will feature presentations from radical activists and thinkers on the frontlines of struggle.
Participating speakers and organizations include: Vandana Shiva, Alice Walker, Chris Hedges, Chief Caleen Sisk, Derrick Jensen, Unist’ot’en Camp, Indigenous Women Against the Sex Industry, Thomas Linzey, Sakej Ward, Gail Dines, Dahr Jamail, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, Diane Wilson of CODEPINK, and many more.
Most environmental and social justice conferences are driven by corporate agendas and seek appeasement. Earth at Risk is different: it’s a grassroots gathering of people who reject greenwashed solutions and seek revolutionary change.
“Through the green economy an attempt is being made to technologize, financialize, privatize and commodify all of the earth’s resources and living processes,” says keynote speaker Vandana Shiva. “But the growth of the market cannot solve the very crisis it creates.”
Time is short. Indicators of environmental health and cultural morality are heading in the wrong direction. We need all hands on deck, but it’s hard to know where to start. Earth at Risk is a beginning. Join us at the event, and learn the information and the strategies that we need to turn this struggle around.
Visit www.EarthAtRisk.info for a full list of speakers and event details.
Will you be there?
Via the DGR News Service (October 7th, 2014):
Recently, persons working for the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Joint Terrorism Task Force have contacted multiple DGR members by phone and in-person visits to their homes. These agents attempted to get members to talk about their involvement with DGR, have asked for permission to enter members’ homes, and contacted members’ families.
DGR strategy and community rests upon a diligent adherence to security culture – a set of principles and behavior norms meant to help increase the safety of resistance communities in the face of state repression. All members are required to review and agree to our guidelines upon requesting membership, and we routinely hold org-wide refresher calls to remind everyone. We understand that while these guidelines can help increase our safety from state repression, unfortunately we cannot ever guarantee complete protection.
DGR is strictly an aboveground organization. As per our code of conduct, our members do not engage in underground or extra-legal tactics, and any member who violates our code of conduct forfeits their DGR membership. We advocate for a strategy that can effectively address the converging threats to the living world. Such a strategy is a threat to the ruling system, and state repression should be expected. DGR is dedicated to remaining effective while also doing all we can to increase member safety. We will not be intimidated into compromising our work, and we remain committed to amplifying the voice of resistance against injustice and ecocide.
Read our security culture guidelines.
Via Facebook:
FBI activity in Bellingham today 10/09/14 targets activist(s)
Intimidation by Visitation – Campaign against DGR expands beyond Membership
I was approached, at my door in Bellingham, WA, at 10:45 AM by two suits from state security. The lead flashed a badge and claimed to be from the FBI. She said “We are here to ask if you will answer a few questions about DGR.”
“I will not”, I replied.
Then I asked for their cards. The male passed me a card from the Criminal Intelligence Unit of the Bellingham Police Department. It identified him as Detective Al Jensen. The female said she did not have a card, so I asked for her name so I could write it on Jensen’s card. “Brenda”, she said. I asked “Is that all of it” and she replied “Yes”.
Jensen jocularly mentioned that we knew each other from the Occupy Movement/Camp and Train Blockade, attempting to coax up conversation. I did not take the bait.
They gathered themselves and left.
The Law Offices of Lawrence A. Hildes at (360) 715-9788 wants to hear from anyone questioned or visited during this visitation sweep. This includes those DGR members who have been or become targeted.
It is expected that this state security team was on a round of visitations/questionings in Bellingham today. If you know of someone they contacted, please get this notice to those people.
No one should hide an encounter like this with state security. No one should fear backlash as a consequence of effective activism. Activist Attorneys wish to hear from you if you have been questioned or visited by state security seeking dirt on other activists.
For Immediate Release
Media Inquiries contact: Keala Kelly 808-265-0177 Email: sacredmaunakea@gmail.com
Website: http://sacredmaunakea.wordpress.com/
Mauna Kea Protest
Tuesday, October 7, 2014 — 7am to 2pm,
Saddle Road at the entrance to the Mauna Kea Observatory Road
Native Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians will gather for a peaceful protest against the Astronomy industry and the “State of Hawaii’s” ground- breaking ceremony for a thirty-meter telescope (TMT) on the summit of Mauna Kea.
CULTURAL ISSUES: Mauna Kea is sacred to the Hawaiian people, who maintain a deep connection and spiritual tradition there that goes back millennia.
“The TMT is an atrocity the size of Aloha Stadium,” said Kamahana Kealoha, a Hawaiian cultural practitioner. “It’s 19 stories tall, which is like building a sky- scraper on top of the mountain, a place that is being violated in many ways culturally, environmentally and spiritually.” Speaking as an organizer of those gathering to protest, Kealoha said, “We are in solidarity with individuals fighting against this project in U.S. courts, and those taking our struggle for de- occupation to the international courts. Others of us must protest this ground- breaking ceremony and intervene in hopes of stopping a desecration.”
Clarence “Ku” Ching, longtime activist, cultural practitioner, and a member of the Mauna Kea Hui, a group of Hawaiians bringing legal challenges to the TMT project in state court, said, “We will be gathering at Pu’u Huluhulu, at the bottom of the Mauna Kea Access Road, and we will be doing prayers and ceremony for the mountain.” When asked if he will participate in protests, he said, “We’re on the same side as those who will protest, but my commitment to Mauna Kea is in this way. We are a diverse people…everyone has to do what they know is pono.”
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES: The principle fresh water aquifer for Hawaii Island is on Mauna Kea, yet there have been mercury spills on the summit; toxins such as Ethylene Glycol and Diesel are used there; chemicals used to clean telescope mirrors drain into the septic system, along with half a million gallons a year of human sewage that goes into septic tanks, cesspools and leach fields.
“All of this poisonous activity at the source of our fresh water aquifer is unconscionable, and it threatens the life of the island,” said Kealoha. “But that’s only part of the story of this mountain’s environmental fragility. It’s also home to endangered species, such as the palila bird, which is endangered in part because of the damage to its critical habitat, which includes the mamane tree.”
LEGAL ISSUES: Mauna Kea is designated as part of the Crown and Government lands of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
Professor Williamson Chang, from the University of Hawaii’s Richardson School of Law, said, “The United States bases its claim to the Crown and Government land of the Hawaiian Kingdom on the 1898 Joint Resolution of Congress, but that resolution has no power to convey the lands of Hawaii to the U.S. It’s as if I wrote a deed saying you give your house to me and I accepted it. Nobody gave the land to the U.S., they just seized it.”
“Show us the title,” said Kealoha. “If the so-called ‘Treaty of Annexation’ exists, that would be proof that Hawaiian Kingdom citizens gave up sovereignty and agreed to be part of the United States 121 years ago. But we know that no such document exists. The so-called ‘state’ does not have jurisdiction over Mauna Kea or any other land in Hawaii that it illegally leases out to multi-national interests.”
“I agree with how George Helm felt about Kahoolawe,” said Kealoha. “He wrote in his journal: ‘My veins are carrying the blood of a people who understood the sacredness of land and water. Their culture is my culture. No matter how remote the past is it does not make my culture extinct. Now I cannot continue to see the arrogance of the white man who maintains his science and rationality at the expense of my cultural instincts. They will not prostitute my soul.’”
“We are calling on everyone, Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians alike, to stand with us, to protect Mauna Kea the way George and others protected Kahoolawe. I ask myself every day, what would George Helm do? Because we need to find the courage he had and stop the destruction of Mauna Kea.”
(See attachment and links for more details)
WHO IS FINANCING THE THIRTY-METER TELESCOPE?
Multi-national funding for the 1.4 billion dollar project is being provided by:
The Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation of Palo Alto, California National Institutes of Natural Sciences in Japan
The National Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences The California Institute of Technology
The University of California
The Indian Institute for Astrophysics
Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy (ACURA) University of Hawaii
Links to stories that convey the opposition to the TMT: Laws being broken on the Mauna:
The native perspective and cultural/religious breaches of law:
A good resource for multiple perspectives and information sources is on our FB page here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SacredMaunaKeaHeMakahiapoNaWakea/289 571671233467/?notif_t=like
List of TMT financial sponsors:
