Endgame Volume I_ The Problem of Civilization - Derrick Jensen [117]
Creatures eat each other. They cause pain to each other. That is part of life. That is part of death. That is part of eating. This causing of pain, this killing, happens whether or not we are vegetarians. It happens whether or not we choose to believe that others feels pain. I prefer to not cause pain, and must be reminded by my vegetarian friends when I accidentally step on a beetle or slug that I am a large mammal, and large mammals accidentally step on smaller creatures. But when I do cause pain, whether by accidentally squashing a sow bug, intentionally killing a fish or potato to eat, or pulling invasive scotch broom, I attempt to at least be honest about it.
WHY CIVILIZATION IS KILLING THE WORLD, TAKE FOUR.
March 6.
That’s why.
March 6, 1857, the United States Supreme Court rules in Scott v. Sanford that because blacks are “so far inferior” to whites, “they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
Fast forward.
March 6, 1974, Ayn Rand addresses West Point cadets, something she considered the greatest honor of her life. When someone has the impertinence to “express an unpopular view” and ask her about the United States’ basis on the dispossession and genocide of Indians, she responds, “They didn’t have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using. . . . What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their ‘right’ to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal [and how else would she expect an animal—which is what we are—to live?], or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent.”192
Some things don’t change.
WHY CIVILIZATION IS KILLING THE WORLD, TAKE FIVE. In 1900, Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana, who later won a Pulitzer Prize, and was much later included favorably in John F. Kennedy’s immensely popular and influential Profiles in Courage, put forward his best arguments in favor of the United States invading—oh, sorry, liberating—the Philippines. I quote his argument at length because he articulates so perfectly and so guilelessly what is wrong with civilization, and because with a few minor changes his words could just as easily have been spoken two thousand years earlier or a hundred years later: “Mr. President, the times call for candor. The Philippines are ours forever, ‘territory belonging to the United States,’ as the Constitution calls them. And just beyond the Philippines are China’s illimitable markets. We will not retreat from either. We will not repudiate our duty in the archipelago. We will not abandon our opportunity in the Orient. We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world. And we will move forward to our work, not howling out regrets like slaves whipped to their burdens, but with gratitude for a task worthy of our strength, and thanksgiving to Almighty God that He has marked us as His chosen people, henceforth to lead in the regeneration of the world.
“. . . For power to administer government anywhere and in any manner the situation demands . . . is the power most necessary for the ruling provisions of our race—the tendency to explore, expand, and grow, to sail new seas and seek new lands, subdue the wilderness, revitalize decaying peoples, and plant civilized and civilizing governments all over the globe. . . .
“Mr. President, this question is deeper than any question of party politics: deeper than any question of the isolated policy of our country even; deeper even than