A Language Older Than Words - Derrick Jensen [174]
The responsibility for holding destructive institutions—more broadly systems, and more broadly yet cultures—accountable falls on each of us. We are the governors as well as the governed; it is only when we daily allow our servants—our so-called "elected representatives"—to act outside our behalf that they can actually do so. This means that all of us who care about life need to force accountability onto those who do not; we must learn to be accountable to ourselves, our consciences, our neighbors, and the nonhuman members of our community—to salmon, for example, and grizzly bears—rather than be loyal to political, economic, religious, penal, educational, and other institutions that do not serve us well. If salmon, to return to a creature who once spawned not two miles from where I live, are to be saved, we must give the corporations and bureaucracies that are driving them extinct, such as Kaiser Aluminum, the Bonneville Power Administration, and the United States government, a reason to save them. We must tell these institutions that if they cause salmon to go extinct, we will cause these institutions to go extinct. And we must mean it. We must then say the same to every other destructive institution, and we must act on our words; we must do whatever is necessary to protect our homes and our land bases from those who are destroying them. Only then will salmon be saved. Only when we as citizens and communities begin to act as though we value life over production will we begin to act as though we value life over production. It really is that simple.
In a speech a few years ago, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich threatened drug smugglers: "When you make the decision that you'll get rich at the expense of our children, you are signing your own death warrant." In a larger context this is not a threat at all, but a simple statement of fact. All of us who participate in a system that "makes" money at the expense of our ecological base—upon which not only our economics but our lives depend—are signing our own death warrants. Allowing our crazy system to destroy our land base is not merely unethical and unwise but suicidal.
The Declaration of Independence states, "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness], it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it. ..." It would be more precise to say that it is not the Right of the People, nor even their responsibility, but instead something more like breathing—something that if we fail to do we die. If we as a people fail to rid our community of destructive institutions, those institutions will destroy our community. And if we as a community cannot provide meaningful and nondestructive ways for people to gain food, clothing, and shelter then we must recognize it's not just destructive institutions but our entire economics—our entire civilization— that's pushing biological systems past breaking points. Once we've recognized the destructiveness of our civilization we've no choice, unless we wish to sign our own and our children's death warrants, but to fight for all we're worth and in every way we can to change it. There is nothing else to do.
It is customary when winding down a book about the destruction of the planet to offer tangible solutions for readers to pursue. After learning about the apocalypse, we are told to write our senators, send faxes to CEOs, and especially to send money to those who delivered the message. There are several reasons I can't and won't be more specific than to tell people to fight like hell. The first is that to propose discrete solutions trivializes the efforts of those who have come before. If the solution were that simple—merely a matter of capturing a sudden flash of cognitive insight—don't you think somebody would have delivered the golden key? We whisper, Hey,