Alliances have changed the course of history, they have both won and lost battles of the political and the personal. Alliances are key to every victory, and this is no different when it comes to the battle to save the planet. The environment is being destroyed by the current way the planet is run and the people who run it. Saving the ecosystems of this planet can only be done if the current system of power falls. As long as nature is seen in terms of profit and resources it can never be preserved. The capitalist pocketbook is too intricately tied to the system that controls all things, nature included.
So, what am I saying? A radical environmentalist, often referring to herself in the anti-civilization group talking about alliances? I speak of other radicals, with minds much the same as those who cherish the environment. People who care not only for the social aspects of things (workers’ rights, LGBT rights, women’s rights etc.) but also for the natural world. Their causes are causes that most, if not all, environmentalists I have met agree with. Our cause is one that most, if not all of this group I have ever met, agree with as well. The end goal for the environmentalist? A sustainable way of living upon this planet that preserves as much life as possible in both the human and non-human fronts. The end goal of the other group of which I speak is a way of life that could, and should result in attaining the goal of the environmentalists as well. The goals are intricately intertwined and thus, so should our movements be.
What is this other movement I speak of? Socialism. Two months ago I knew what socialism was, but not in an active way. I didn't know much about the modern socialist movement or what their views relating to a modern world were. My beliefs and actions crossed paths with socialists, their movements, and members on occasion but for whatever reason I never delved into a conversation with someone who considered themselves a socialist. That all changed a month or so ago when I bumped into an old friend that through conversation has opened my eyes to not only socialism as a modern practice and future goal for government but has forced me to look at my environmental beliefs through a new lens. On Earth Day I went to a panel hosted by ISO (International Socialist Organization) on the college campus in the city where I live.
That panel resulted in me realizing that the goals of the environmental and socialist movements are quite similar in practice. Numbers are a problem for both movements and the more people involved in either helps the cause. Below I give you excerpts from both socialist-leaning literature and environmental literature. These excerpts help to not only inspire action but also to show the similarities between movements. They help to alleviate the fear that I held (and feel many environmentalists hold) about the lack of ecological focus in the Socialist movement.
First are three excerpts from books that lean toward the Socialist Perspective:
Excerpt from: The Enemy of Nature, The End of Capitalism or The End of the World? By Joel Kovel:
“Ecological thinking concerns relationships, and the structures and flows between them. At one level, this is mere common sense; at another, it turns the world upside down and commits us to a world-view and philosophy of nature very much at odds with the dominant system. Nature as such vastly exceeds the phenomena of life, yet life may be justly regarded as being at the same time both a special case of nature, and, in a way we only dimly perceive, as a potential of nature—something that nature generates under specific circumstances. Life is unitary, in the sense that the basic molecular architectures of humans, redwoods and slime moulds all indicate a common ancestor. Yet life is also inconceivably—to our dim awareness—multiform, in a profusion that has arisen over 3.5 billion years through ceaseless interactions between living creatures, and with their non-living surround. It follows that all ecosystems that contain living beings also relate to the rest of nature, whether this be other creatures, the immediate surround of molecular, atomic or sub-atomic realms, or the extension of nature into the cosmos.” (91)
Here, an excerpt from John Bellamy Foster’s The Ecological Revolution: “It is a sign of the growing influence of environmental issues that in recent years numerous thinkers, from Plato to Gandhi, have had their work reevaluated in relation to ecological analysis. Yet, it is in relation to Marx’s work that the largest and most controversial body of literature can be found, far overshadowing the debate over all other thinkers. This literature (insofar as it takes environmental issues seriously) has fallen into four camps: (1) those who contend that Marx’s thought was anti-ecological from beginning to end and indistinguishable from Soviet practice; (2) those who claim that Marx provided illuminating insights into ecology but ultimately succumbed to “Prometheanism” (pro-technological, anti-ecological views)—a corollary being that he believed that environmental problems should be eliminated as a result of the “abundance” that would characterize postcapitalist society; (3) those who argue that Marx provided an analysis of ecological degradation within agriculture, which remained, however, segregated off from his core social analysis; and (4) those who insist that Marx developed a systematic approach to nature and to environmental degradation (particularly in relation to the fertility of the soil) that was intricately bound to the rest of his thought and raised the question of ecological sustainability.” (167)
Another excerpt from Foster’s book: “The goal of ecological revolution, as I shall present it here, has as its initial premise that we are in the midst of a global environmental crisis of such enormity that the web of life of the entire planet is threatened and with it the future of civilization. This is no longer a very controversial proposition. To be sure, there are different perceptions about the extent of the challenge that this raises. At one extreme, there are those who believe that since these are human problems arising from human causes they are easily solvable. All we need is ingenuity and the will to act. At the other extreme, there are those who believe that the world ecology is deteriorating on a scale and with a rapidity beyond our means to control, giving rise to the gloomiest of forebodings. Although often seen as polar opposites, these views nonetheless share a common basis. As Paul Sweezy observed, they each reflect ‘the belief that if present trends continue to operate, it is only a matter of time until the human species irredeemably fouls its own nest.’” (253)
As you can see from the above examples not only is the environment something that is thought of quite extensively by those that are a part of the socialist movement (and people that are against capitalism in general), but the end views are really not that different from those who consider themselves environmentalists. See the excerpts below for environmentalist perspectives.
An excerpt from Derrick Jensen and George Draffan’s book Strangely Like War: “Nineteen ninety-five was the year I finally understood how the U.S. political system works, and at the same time realized how irredeemable are that system and the culture at large. That was also the year many indigenous friends said to me, ‘What took you so long to figure that out?’ They’d had plenty of experience opposing this system—five hundred and some years of resistance to this culture and its environmental and cultural degradation—and had long since apprehended the truth in Red Cloud’s words: ‘They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they never kept but one. They promised to take our land and they took it.’…But as is always the case when attempting to stop our culture from destroying some part of wild nature, all losses are permanent, and all factories temporary. Winning a timber-sale appeal doesn’t mean stopping a timber sale. It doesn’t mean protecting a piece of ground. It means protecting a piece of ground for the year or two it takes the Forest Service to write up another EA, this time trying harder to bamboozle us. The score today is less than 5 percent of the ancient forest in the United States remains.”
Here is part of an interview between Derrick Jensen and Dave Foreman (“For more than twenty years Dave Foreman has been at the forefront of the conservation movement, working where political activism intersects with ecological philosophy. In the 1970s, believing that the best way to preserve wilderness was to work within the system, he became the Southwest regional representative of The Wilderness Society. In 1980, disillusioned by the inability of mainstream conservation organizations to halt the destructive forces within our culture, he confounded Earth First! The goal of Earth First! Was to help develop a biocentric worldview and to translate that philosophy into action by fighting with uncompromising passion for the earth”) that appears in the book Listening to the Land By: Derrick Jensen. “Derrick Jensen: What will it take for us to survive? Dave Foreman: Courage. In my speeches I talk about what Aldo Leopold called green fire. When Aldo Leopold was young he used to shoot any Wolf he saw, and years later, in A Sand County Almanac, he wrote how the death of one of those Wolves changed his life. He said, ‘We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes—something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing that green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.’ We need that green fire in our eyes. Somehow we’ve got to remember how to think like a mountain, and somehow to speak for the Wolf. Each of us is an animal, and a child of this earth. Each of us has responsibility to all other animals and plants and to the process of evolution that created us. All of us alive now are members of the most important generation of human beings who have ever lived, because we’re determining the future, not just for a hundred years, but for a billion years. When we cut a huge limb off the tree of natural diversity, we’re forever halting the evolutionary potential of that branch of life. That’s what it fundamentally comes down to. Nobody has ever lived who is more important.”
So, what’s my point? Don’t write off people because they don’t identify themselves in the same ‘ism’ as you do. Socialism, anarchism, environmentalism…the list goes on and on. Many of these movements have similar goals that include bringing down the destructive and dominant system that is killing personal integrity, freedom, the environment, and many other things. Where would the harm be in aligning ourselves with groups that have similar goals and an overall care for life (be it human animals, plants, or other life forms)? Agreeing on every topic is hardly the point. Hasn’t conserving the environment always been the goal? I’ve heard so many environmentalists say “by whatever means necessary”. Well, here is a means. Here, in the socialists is a group of caring individuals with goals that intertwine in many instances with those of the environmental movement. Why not join ranks, work together, share knowledge and ideas…and bring this fucked up system down once and for all?
Let’s find the green fire that Aldo Leopold spoke of. Let’s be the fire. Revolution is near; the line in the sand is drawn. Capitalism, destructors of the environment, and violators of all things natural and good on one side, we on the other. Let’s grasp hands with our brothers and sisters and fight together.
