#eco leftism

[mi1kw33d-2]

unpopular vegan opinion: i don’t care about your culture. “but eating animals is an important part of my culture/religion/etc!” i don’t care. it’s still murder. there are ways to feel connected to your culture that aren’t murder.

[anarcho-catboyism]

Horrible fact of the day: Chevron just released a new boat fuel that WILL give you cancer.

Not "might", not "could", WILL. It has a cancer ratio of 1.3:1, as in, in a group of 10 people, 10 would contract CANCER.

(Edit: apparently some articles are now saying 1.4:1, and some are saying a little under that. Either way, the consensus seems to be anywhere between a 95-100+% of contracting cancer, with some expectations of this fuel not even needing a full lifetime of exposure for you to get Cancer.)

The EPA's safety limit is 1:1,000,000 as in 1 in a million people get cancer.

The EPA approved it anyways. I am not joking. The EPA approved a boat fuel that has a near 100% chance of giving someone cancer. It has such a good chance of giving someone cancer that if you DIDN'T get cancer YOU WOULD BE AN OUTLIER.

Fuck the oil industries.

Edit: If you find this (rightfully) horrifying, have you considered industrial sabotage? /hj

This isn't something we can vote away. This isn't something the rich are gonna apologize and make a 10 minute apology video for this. They don't care if you starve or wither in hospitals or get blown up in their wars.

If you don't know where to get started:

If you already know what to do, then it's time to do it. Participate in mutual aid, raise awareness in real life as well as online, participate in or train in self defense and emergency medical training classes.

[fullyarmoredbattlesturgeon]

[continentaldivide]

Many politicians pledge to be dedicated to the environment, and to put environmental issues first, but in reality many people often prioritize their own needs before those of the earth's. If we want a place to live in the future, action needs to be taken now!

[red-scare-sapphic]

[canisvesperus]

I don’t have all the answers. I may have some of the answers. I may just have a few good suggestions or questions, but I know this:

I am not a “consumer” or a “citizen” or a “man.” I do not want to press 0 to speak to a customer service representative. I do not want to open a can, a box, a wrapper, or go through a drive through to eat. I do not want to find my “community” behind a screen. I do not want to stay off the grass. I do not want to fill out and return this form. I do not want my ethnicity to be used as a weapon. I do not want my water to come from a bottle or a faucet. I do not want my understanding of the world to come from what someone inside a box or wearing a lab coat tells me. I do not want to do what I’m told. I do not want to live in a way that kills everything around me. I do not want to wipe my ass with the rainforest. I do not want to live among that which is produced and consumed. I want to hug you. I want you and I to be able to love one another without fear, reservation, or pretense. I want to eat food directly from the earth and act directly from my heart. I want to live and laugh and cry and love in a community the way our ancestors did for millions of years. I want you to be there with me. I want us to stop destroying everything. I need you. You need me. We don’t need any of the rest of this shit that we manufacture, and produce, and throw away. Beneath the concrete, and alcohol, and uppers, and downers, and anti-depressants, beneath the fashion trends, and social networks, and cell phones, and TV shows, and gender roles, and street lights, and gas stations, deep within this cage we call civilization you are still wild. I am still wild. Inside of me beats the feral heart of the animal that I am. I am flesh and bone, blood and spirit, earth and light. I long to be a part of the earth on which I live, to drink from clean rivers, and breathe clean air. I don’t want to be a cog in a machine. I want to dismantle the machine. I am a human being and I want to live as one. As such, civilization is my enemy and this is my battle cry. If it is yours as well, then let us go about creating the world we want to live in.

Until the Earth is Wild Again,

Bobby Whittenberg-James

My Battle Cry

[dailyanarchistposts]

The Politics & Art of Solarpunk

Although solarpunk never had a particular political ideology assigned to it, it’s been embraced by liberatory ideologies of all flavours. From social ecologists to post-civ anarchists to green socialists.

The philosophy of solarpunk and the politics of anarchism are practically built for each other. Anarchism emphasises personal freedom and collective liberation from hierarchies, authoritarianism, and exploitation. It seeks, as an ongoing project, common ownership, voluntary cooperation, horizontal organization, and mutual aid. Anarchism has generally been ahead of its time on many political issues, from queer to women’s liberation, and its approach to ecology has been no different.

Solarpunk can easily be synthesized with anarchism, and many of its various strains, as it explores the possibilities of liberatory technology, the localization of production, an end to destructive and wasteful consumption, and a reorientation of our relationship with society, work, nature, and ourselves.

It all sounds pretty gooey and feel good. But I want to briefly address those that have lost hope in a better world. Who are stuck thinking that this, largely, is the best that we can do. There’s this idea in politics these days that imagination has no place in our “pragmatic”, no-nonsense world. Which is just false. Humans are flexible creatures, capable of a whole range of social arrangement. If everyone limited themselves to the confines of what is, we wouldn’t be where we are today. It’s time to take some steps forward, with a variety of tactics in hand.

One of which is art. Art has a tremendous influence on us. Music, books, paintings, TV shows, movies, etc, they shape our ideas of what humanity is and what humanity can be. While there haven’t been many major examples of solarpunk art and entertainment yet, I think we can change that. There are interesting stories to be explored and debates to be had, through art. Imagine a novel that explores the different sides and dimensions of the debate on meat consumption in a solarpunk world or a comic that follows a community’s journey as it seeks to rewild and resuscitate the surrounding ecology.

Or picture this. Maybe alongside a game that imagines a horrifying endgame that maintains capitalism, like Cyberpunk 2077, we imagine an uplifting, yet still challenging game that exercises our ability to balance the needs of our local ecosystem and deal with the difficult decisions and conflicts that arise as we reorient our place in the world. Could call it Solarpunk 2033 or something. There’s a free idea right there.

[anarchistfrogposting]

How would anarchists deal with Climate change?

This does include: How would they communicate it to everyone; how would *enough people* *comply enough* to stop/reverse the effects?

What type of polution would remain?

The thing you have to be conscious of is that the most significant impacts of climate change are really not about individuals. The shift of focus from the big polluters to individuals, more often than not the poor, was a targeted and co-ordinated campaign that was designed to take building heat off polluting companies. And it worked. It worked because the idea that we can’t (and shouldn’t) change systemic conditions and that we should individualise our problems and work only on our own relationship with climate change and pollution sits well with the individualist metanarrative of liberal capitalism. Don’t get me wrong, there’s lots of things we can personally do to help the environment, but the real blows to carbon emissions and pollution will come from systemic change.

So a lot of the factors driving climate change would be eliminated in an anarchist society. Capitalist overproduction would be curtailed because there’s no currency- people get what they need when they need it. So waste is drastically reduced, reducing pollution and carbon emissions.

Because there’s no profit motive, and no need for overproduction nor driving factors for overconsumption. Industries don’t have to curtail environmental provisions for their production methods, and instead they can even make it their focus to produce goods sustainably; after all, literally why not?

Communitarian organisation has an inherent lean to reducing reliance on cars and focusing on public transport, so car emissions would be reduced (it would simply be more convenient to use the vastly improved public transport network!).

There’s no need for a lot of the factors driving food waste, so agricultural land can be repurposed into natural reserves. I think around 50% of the food produced in America goes to waste. Think about what you could do to reconstitute the American prairie, European Forests, and Jungles across the world if we co-ordinated a reduction in food waste like that. Think about the biodiversity we could win back. All of these environments are huge carbon sinks in their own right. Agriculture produces a huge amount of greenhouse gases. And we don’t need nearly as much as we have! Those hunger/famine/starvation crises we hear about? They’re necessary to the function of capitalism. They’re crises of poverty. They’re crises of market exclusivity.

Have no doubt about it. Climate change is an inevitable consequence of Late Stage Capitalism. I believe the drastic impacts of climate change we are going to see in the coming decades are what will eventually bring about its end. It’s up to us to make sure that the system that rises from the ashes is one that is better for all.

[gorisni-wrackel]

Ted Kaczynski was a reactionary and shouldn't be admired.

I do not think most people need to see this, but a lot of pseudo-left people - notably anarchists - Think highly or at least favorably of Kaczynski. While respect for Kaczynski is multifaceted - It may be due to thinking specifically ecoterrorism is viable or worthwhile, or admiration for propaganda of the deed, or thinking he was on the left or left-sympathetic. While what I'm saying is not unique, this may be someone's first exposure to this information; I'll give a few bulletpoints here. Of course, if anyone has anything I did not cover here, feel free to add.

Virulent anti-communist. if one reads his manifesto, he regularly decries the left and communists. As seen in this excerpt from the section titled "THE DANGER OF LEFTISM", "To avoid this, a movement that exalts nature and opposes technology must take a resolutely anti-leftist stance and must avoid all collaboration with leftists. Leftism is in the long run inconsistent with wild nature, with human freedom and with the elimination of modern technology. Leftism is collectivist; it seeks to bind together the entire world (both nature and the human race) into a unified whole." Quite clearly reactionary.

Did not believe his actions would change anything. "My motive for doing what I am going to do is simply personal revenge. I do not expect to accomplish anything by it." From his diary. He also added "I certainly don't claim to be an altruist or to be acting for the 'good' (whatever that is) of the human race. I act merely from a desire for revenge. Of course, I would like to get revenge on the whole scientific and bureaucratic establishment, not to mention communists and others who threaten freedom, but, that being impossible, I have to content myself with just a little revenge." Also from his diary

May have outright been a misogynist incel. I do not have anything further to add upon the article, as I think the profiler ought to speak for himself here, But I think the conclusions are sound.

[chromaticramblings]

if you feel guilty about something you love because it contributes to capitalism:

don’t.

capitalism needs you to be tired. it needs you to be so exhausted that you can barely think of anything outside of work, so that you can’t imagine how things could be better.

if you do things you love, you keep that energy for yourself. that’s energy you can turn outwards. that’s energy you can use to grow and help others and be human.

obviously we wanna harm reduce. obviously in an ideal world, that thing you love has zero negative impact. but you can’t work towards that world if you aren’t working on liberating yourself first.

[itisiives]

Hey, sorry for taking advantage of the Trump/Musk situation, but does anyone want to use my referral link to get some Earth-friendly stuff and stick it to Amazon? There are a lot of cool things, even tabletop compost bins for when you want to start growing your own food now that American agriculture will go to hell. (And toilet paper to stock up on.)

(I'm trying to raise money to get the hell out of here, lol.)

[fullyarmoredbattlesturgeon]

Does one have to be vegan to be an eco anarchist?/g

this came out really long sorry lol

not necessarily, it is usually a matter of personal philosophy.

that being said, many are, and it is impossible to ignore the realities of factory farms and industrial-agriculture-under-capitalism - even if you are not vegan, it is important to understand and fight against these things.

but there's also a lotta non-anarchist vegans that tend to miss the broader points and flock to say, products with palm oil and the like in them - products which are *also* part of a very damaging system of exploitation, even if it is not meat.

so tldr: there's no right way to be an anarchist, but it's a good thing to at the very least eat less meat, especially if it is from a factory farm - but don't stop being critical there. think about where your food comes from, and what it involves.

ask yourself: what were these animals lives like, and how were they treated?

ask yourself: who harvested your food, and what were they paid?

ask yourself: on whose land was this grown and raised, and was that land stolen?

ask yourself: was the land hurt by growing this there, in the way it was grown?

ask yourself: who owns the means of agricultural production?

and don't stop asking, even if the packaging goes on and on about how clean and good it is. companies will lie to you, will try to sell you an aesthetic of "guilt-free food".

if possible, buy local, buy from people that you know. contribute to a community garden, if you have one. participate in gift economies where they can be found.

small examples: find local fruit trees - many are planted as decoratives, but never harvested - and share the fruit with the folks around you. lotta people also keep ducks or chickens - so if you want eggs, it may be as easy as simply asking (many people aren't even completely sure what to do with all the eggs they have).

whatever you do, keep in mind that you're not gonna save the world by yourself - but small things like these can really add up, especially when you are not the only one.

and most importantly: have a nice day.

: )

[continentaldivide]

So you may be thinking, anarchy, isn't that a bit drastic? Yes, and I may go back on this perspective in some number of years, but right now I think it's what the world needs. What I do believe is that the core principles of anarchy are often misconstrued by both the media and what we're taught in school.

Oxford Dictionary has two definitions for anarchy:

a state of disorder due to the absence or unrecognition of authority or other controlling systems.

the organization of society on the basis of voluntary cooperation, without political institutions or hierarchal government; anarchism

This being said, the political belief of anarchy (2) is often mixed up with the subject of state of disorder (1). What most attracts me to this faction is the concept that no one is free until we destroy hierarchal structures which serve to put people down based on class and other demographic factors such as race or gender. Along with this, the sub-faction of eco-anarchism believes that climate change and other environmental problems are the largest issues impacting our world today, and believes that radical action is needed to make any change. Seeing as how slowly it has taken to enact positive environmental legislation in society today through democratic principles, the next best step are those highlighted in the tenants of radical environmentalism.

In the end, no one is free until we are all free. "No gods, no masters."

[pppeonies]

"To speak for labor; to plead the cause of the men and women and children who toil; to serve the working class, has always been to me a high privilege; a duty of love.

I have regretted a thousand times that I can do so little for the movement that has done so much for me. The little that I am, the little that I am hoping to be, I owe to the Socialist movement. It has given me my ideas and ideals; my principles and convictions, and I would not exchange one of them for all of Rockefeller’s bloodstained dollars. It has taught me how to serve—a lesson to me of priceless value. It has taught me the ecstasy in the handclasp of a comrade. It has enabled me to hold high communion with you, and made it possible for me to take my place side by side with you in the great struggle for the better day; to multiply myself over and over again, to thrill with a fresh-born manhood; to feel life truly worthwhile; to open new avenues of vision; to spread out glorious vistas; to know that I am kin to all that throbs; to be class-conscious, and to realize that, regardless of nationality, race, creed, color or sex, every man, every woman who toils, who renders useful service, every member of the working class without an exception, is my comrade, my brother and sister—and that to serve them and their cause is the highest duty of my life.

And in their service I can feel myself expand; I can rise to the stature of a man and claim the right to a place on earth—a place where I can stand and strive to speed the day of industrial freedom and social justice."

[dailyanarchistposts]

Only Workers can Prevent Global Warming

Capitalist “solutions” to Global Warming will push the cost onto those least able to pay and generate splits in society which will prevent effective action. Only the working class can prevent global warming, by making the capitalists pay. Only the working class, by taking direct action to seize the means of production from the capitalists, can:

Close down the fossil fuel power industry and convert to renewables without forcing miners and power workers into unemployment;

Massively boost public transport and shift the emphasis of travel away from the private motor vehicle, without forcing workers in the vehicle industry into unemployment; and

Change the pattern of urban development to end suburban sprawl and focus on sustainable communities and transport options.

Even a government wanting to solve global warming can be defeated by the economic power of capitalists intent on protecting their own profits. Only through workplace organising and direct action can this power be removed. And only a federation of workplace and community councils can plan and implement a path to a sustainable future, in Australia and for the planet as a whole. We’re talking about a workers’ revolution, because nothing else will work.

WORKERS’ DIRECT ACTION AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING

[anarchistfrogposting]

There's something i'l have to deal with in the far-ish future and i'm curious about your opinion. I'm in the line to inherit a modest (as in like, 20 acres i think?) piece of agricultural land from my grandma. What do you think would be the best way to handle it when i inherited it? Do you think the only morally right thing to do would be to try to turn it into a co-op or something similar to that?

Obviously, there’s a lot you can do with a piece of land. This kind of question reflects a larger question about what the proper thing to do with a business inside of a capitalist economy is, given you come to own it.

I’m assuming by agricultural land, you mean you’re growing crops rather than putting animals to pasture.

There’s a quick answer which is basically yes, build a co-op with it. Even from a very narrow mindset (“how do I keep this business going?”), co-ops can be very successful businesses, as the fact that workers have a direct and proportional stake in the business means they are less alienated from their work. The proliferation of worker-owned co-ops are a pretty significant aspect of the economic preconditions of anarchist society, and integrating them into communities by making them a part of networks of communal development and aid is critical also. If you’re planning on hiring workers and forming a workers co-op, I’d look into ways of making your decision-making processes as democratic as you possibly can. I’m pretty sure @fuckyeahiww has good info on this. If they see this post I’m sure they can chime in about whether or not I’m right about that.

Given it’s agricultural land, I would also offer that you have the power to be a pretty significant player in some mutual aid projects in your local area, since even siphoning a small amount of your produce into something like a communal food aid project (or w/e) could feed a whole bunch of hungry folks. I’d also look into ways to distribute some of your food waste (like commercially unviable produce) into food banks and other projects that make use of food waste. This is also an environmental consideration.

There are accounts far better than mine for this kind of question. I’d personally recommend some of the more established solarpunks on this platform.