#also I use El Movimiento to talk about collective liberation cuz it feels powerful

[pixie-melon]

Colonization will always try to separate “human” from “nature” because it depends on people feeling isolated and disconnected. From each other, from the planet, from nature because that makes it easier for the colonizers (The Rich and Powerful) to steal from us (extract resources) if we:

1. Don’t know what they’re stealing from us (connect to the land, your community and globe. Get roots through connection and knowledge and you’ll feel safer taking action)

2. Don’t think we deserve the earth we walk on or the people we love or the things we have (express gratitude, show love. To the self and the earth and others. Pick up trash. Carry extra bus fare and maps to give. Rest when you’re sick, share meals with others)

And

3. Find the enemy in our own and not The Empire (have conversations with others. Not about politics or theory or the weather. Talk about your lives your needs. Your interests and fears. Connect over your nuance and humanity and we can SAVE each other with a network of care)

This type of “environmentalism” stands directly in the way of praxis because it’s an extension of capitalist-colonial thinking. It’s not really environmentalism at all because it’s not interdisciplinary or intersectional. It overlooks the human psychological impact of being told “you don’t deserve to be here”, the trauma that statement passes on and how that trauma creates stagnancy, and animosity between the family unit then the community. Stagnancy and in-fighting creates a political environment where extractivist capitalism can thrive (because it’s easier to steal from a population that doesn’t know you’re stealing from them), isolationist ideals breed fascism and we come to the current global sociopolitical landscape.

It is quiet literally in your best interest, and therefore the collective best interest, to radically and fundamentally care about yourself, because once you know your value you’ll understand the power that The People have. That El Movimiento has. That tenderness and care has.

Because I deserve to be here, happy and cared for and about. So do you. So do we all. Once we understand our place in nature we understand our duty to our selves and fellow human, plant, animal to live together and live well.

I refuse to believe any of us want this. Even the most indoctrinated and disillusioned. This colonial capitalist, greed based system is not “natural” because it’s not sustainable and life always works towards sustaining itself. That’s evolution. We will evolve beyond it because we have to but we don’t have to do it with a massive death toll as we are now.

The time we exist in now is unprecedented but revolution has ALWAYS succeeded in making change, it’s against the spirit of humanity to give up now we can’t afford to believe this shit let alone spread it to our CHILDREN! Children are our future they are hope incarnate why take that power from them? The little bit of power they have under these exploitive institutions. We need to feed that hope and love and care. That’s what sustains us.

If we can put humans on the moon we can find a way to live sustainably. It’s literally our nature. Don’t let them take that from us too.

TDLR: DOOMISM (esp. climate doomism) IS THE DEATH OF PROGRESS CHOOSE TO CARE AND LOVE AND HOPE INSTEAD

the problem i have with the whole "humans and nature as opposed and mutually exclusive forces" style of environmentalism is that it discourages people from a sustainable, mutualistic relationship with the ecosystems around them, because getting resources from an ecosystem is Bad. Therefore it requires you to think that parts of Earth that provide resources are not ecosystems.

this is where you get unbelievably stupid crap like the "half earth" project that proposes "protecting" half of Earth's land mass as nature preserves, never mind how we choose what half or what happens to the other half.

this type of environmentalism literally encourages people to think of their own presence as excluding or cancelling out "Nature."

And so people think of their lawns as Not Ecosystems, as Not Nature, so they cannot think "How do i live in right relationship with my ecosystem, as its caretaker?" This is death to ecological thinking.

The lawn was consciously created by intention and design, with heavy machinery that was manufactured, sold, and operated, it is not spontaneously created by fumes that the human body gives off.

You act upon the land, now time to learn what you are doing, and who you are doing it to.