Endgame Volume I_ The Problem of Civilization - Derrick Jensen [241]
303. Melançon.
Courage
304. I love the book enough that I published it myself, along with the extraordinary designer Tiiu Ruben.
305. As opposed to (this article would say if its author had a shred of integrity) the terrorism that characterizes those in power, and in fact is how they gain and maintain that power.
306. Wilson.
307. Fox, “Largest Arctic Ice Shelf.”
308. Perlman.
309. My sister’s got ovaries (the female equivalent of balls, I suppose).
310. I am indebted to my dreamgiver for these dreams and their interpretations.
311. Just last night I had dinner with a couple of mainstream environmentalists and a bunch of other people. My mom was there, too. The mainstreamers spent much of the dinner putting forward precisely these arguments. They said, and this is a direct quote, “Things will be all right if only we take back the Senate.” I don’t think they meant by storm, and by we I don’t think they meant normal human beings but Democrats, the left wing of the corporate party. They then said, “And it would be great if we could take over the White House, too.” My mom then said, “It doesn’t matter whether the Democrats or Republicans are in the White House. The government would still be run by the big corporations.” Wrinkled noses all around. Something stunk. What was that awful smell? Then lots of very fast sentences spilling from the mouths of the mainstream environmentalists, anything to make the moment disappear. Earlier in the evening they’d taken a different approach to someone Saying Something That Shouldn’t Be Said. I was giving a talk the next day, and someone asked what I would talk about. I said, “How to take down civilization.” The same awkward silence. The same wrinkling of noses. But this time the next thing that was said was, “Could you please hand me the hummus? It’s awfully good. And this soup is simply delightful.” Down the old memory hole.
Hope
312. Wheatley, 19.
313. There now, wasn’t that easy?
314. Actually, every time I get on a plane, I hope it doesn’t crash.
315. Well, a social life would be nice, but let’s leave that aside.
316. I’ve lost patience with those who use any excuse for inaction.
317. Kind of like a belief in a Christian God or a Christian heaven.
318. Goldsmith.
319. I mean by this both that the culture is killing the planet and killing us, and more specifically that to follow the morality generated by this culture contributes to the killing of the planet and to the killing of ourselves.
320. “Sardar Kartar Singh Saraba,” Gateway to Sikhism, http://allaboutsikhs.com/martyrs/sarabha.htm (accessed December 29, 2003). Cites Jagdev Singh Santokh, Sikh Martyrs (Birmingham, England: Sikh Missionary Resource Centre, 1995).
The Civilized Will Smile As They Tear You Limb From Limb
321. Cited in LeGuin, 45.
322. These poll results are of course jokes.
323. This person is a combination of several people I have known.
324. Doesn’t that feel good just to admit that? That realization was extraordinarily liberating for me! Now I can just get on with the work.
325. And don’t give me any shit about how the wants of most Americans aren’t in opposition to the needs of their landbase. That’s just crazy. Sure, we can talk about their deep-down desire for connection, but you and I both know that’s not what I’m talking about here.
326. Jensen, Culture, 105-6.
327. Ibid., 106-7.
328. And even that was a farce: using a rigid definition of slavery, there are more slaves in the world today than came across on the Middle Passage, and of course that number swells to even more unimaginable proportions when we include sweatshops, wage slavery, and dispossession. For a compelling examination of modern slavery, see Bales.
329. Jensen, Culture, 110-12.
330. Jefferson, 345.
Their Insanity Was Permanent
331. Forbes, 31-32, 135.
332.