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Endgame Volume I_ The Problem of Civilization - Derrick Jensen [235]

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fully apprehend the inhumanity of our culture. Most people do not cut down forests, pollute rivers, force indigenous peoples off their land and commit genocide, or exploit workers out of a conscious sense of hatefulness (conscious perhaps being the operant word); they do it for money. Money fuels economic activities, and at the same time is the reward for participation in a culturally valued enterprise, causally linking financier to activity; without venture capital there can be no capitalist venture, and without monetary reward no venture capital will be provided. Another way to say this is that slavery would not have been viable without loans from bankers like Junius Morgan, and while Junius never once wielded the whip he undeniably, and from a distance, benefited from the lashings. It’s very simple: our culture allows, even encourages (demands would probably be the best word) someone to profit—to gain power, material possessions, or prestige—at the expense of another’s misery” (Jensen, Culture, 408, 410).

15. See, for example, Lewis Mumford, Farley Mowat, R. D. Laing, and Derrick Jensen.

Civilization

16. Diamond, 1.

17. Webster’s New Twentieth-Century Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd ed., s.v. “civilization.”

18. Oxford English Dictionary, compact ed., s.v. “civilization.”

19. Stannard, 4.

20. Ibid.

21. Mies, 98.

22. Mumford, Technics, 186.

23. Diamond, 1.

24. Mumford, Technics, 186. There is awkwardness in the original, even though Mumford is normally an exquisite stylist.

25. Diamond, 4.

26. Turner, 182.

27. Faust, 293.

Clean Water

28. Personal communication, December 11, 1998.

29. George W. Bush and others stated in response to the World Trade Center attack that it was our patriotic duty to go out and shop: “Take your family,” Bush also said, “down to Disneyworld.”

30. Most women I know consider those numbers to be low, with actual numbers approaching unity. Many women tell me they know of no women who have not been sexually assaulted.

31. Caputi, Age of Sex Crime, 91.

32. Ibid., 160.

33. I’m speaking theoretically on this one: I love doing research, but my love does know bounds.

34. Mullan and Marvin, 157.

35. The work of Charlene Spretnak was important to my understanding here.

Catastrophe

36. Paz, 212.

37. Mowat, Stannard, Drinnon, and Turner, for example.

38. Laing, 58.

39. For example, that the damn New York Yankees go to the World Series every year; oh, scratch that: the Yankees in the Series is about as inevitable as you can get.

40. Previous paragraphs cobbled together from Scheffer, et al.; “Gradual Change”; and “Accumulated Change.”

41. Cited in Vidal, 19.

42. Mumford, Pentagon, plate 24.

Violence

43. Peter, 115.

44. Mies, 99.

45. Grassroots ESA Coalition, http://nwi.org/GrassrootsESA.html (accessed January 16, 2002).

46. “Fast Facts about Wildlife Conservation Funding Needs,” http://www.nwf.org/naturefunding/wildlifeconservationneeds.html (accessed January 16, 2002).

47. “States Get $16 Million.”

48. Center for Defense Information, http://www.cdi.org/ (accessed January 16, 2002). It’s very hard to find old budgets on their website, but the numbers are just as startling, if not more so, in more recent budgets.

49. Stark and Stark.

50. The CIA’s World Factbook, s.v. “Afghanistan,” http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/af.html (accessed November 19, 2001).

51. Ibid.

52. “MK84,” FAS Military Analysis Network, http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/mk84.htm (accessed November 19, 2001).

53. Walker and Stambler, 23.

54. Ibid., 24.

55. Matus.

56. Edward Herman, 24.

57. Matus; Walker and Stambler; and “BLU-82B,” FAS Military Analysis Network, http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-82.htm (accessed November 19, 2001).

58. Anderson.

59. Tomlinson.

60. Cockburn, “Left,” 1.

61. “CNN Says Focus.”

62. “Fox: Civilian Casualties.”

63. Ibid.

64. “Victims.”

65. Oxborrow.

66. Watson.

67. “Information on Depleted Uranium,” Sheffield-Iraq Campaign, http://www.synergynet.co.uk/sheffield-iraq/articles/du.htm (accessed January 23, 2002).

68. I first

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