In addition to collecting funds and supplies for both the Tar Sands Blockade and the Unis’tot’en Camp, the two-day event will include workshops and teach-ins at the 27 Social Center (2727 W 27th Ave Denver, CO) on radical resistance to extraction across Colorado & North America.

With the aim of providing a space for education and discussion around a wide range of topics, the organizers hope to foster further discussion and facilitate new relationships that will cultivate resistance against industrial extraction in Colorado and solidarity with those fighting it elsewhere.

Workshops–which will cover a variety of topics including radical environmentalism, social justice, anti-extraction and direct action–will be hosted by Deep Green Resistance, Denver Anarchist Black Cross, the Beehive Design Collective, indigenous organizer & NVDA trainer Robert Chanate, Glenn Morris of the American Indian Movement of Colorado, and more. An updated schedule is posted below.

Besides building local capacity and networks, the event also aims to directly support those who are on the front lines in the fight against the tar sands and industrial extraction. The event will serve as a fundraiser, with a requested donation at the door of $5-20, with all proceeds going to the Tar Sands Blockade and the Unis’tot’en Camp. However, no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Lunch will be provided for those attending, including vegan and gluten-free options.

We will also be collecting donations of materials for these groups, so please bring any camping gear (tents, sleeping bags, etc.), bicycles (working or not), warm winter clothes, climbing gear, rain gear, non-perishable food, rope, medical supplies, and tools (shovels, saws, drills, etc.). For a complete list, see the Tar Sands Blockade’s ‘Wish List’:http://tarsandsblockade.org/donate-3/wishlist/

The Facebook event can be found here.

Workshop Descriptions:

The Beehive Collective presents:
The True Cost of Fossil Fuels: Climate Justice and the Fight for our Future!(10:15am, Saturday, January 5th)

Join us for an interactive, graphics-based workshop about the growing
movement for climate justice on this continent.

This summer North America saw an inspiring amount of grass-roots
organizing against fossil fuel extraction.  From growing resistance to
hydro-fracking for natural gas, to the derailing of the Keystone XL
pipeline project,  to the continued disruption of mountaintop removal
sites in Appalachia, folks are waking up to the threat posed by dirty,
dangerous fossil fuel extraction and working to build alternatives.

At this crucial moment, we would like to invite your community to be part
of this dialogue. The Beehive will share the stories of different fossil
fuel struggles around the continent using the acclaimed “True Cost of
Coal” graphic. We will engage participants by mixing together antidotes
from the coalfields of Appalachia, statistics about different forms of
fossil fuel extraction, and a variety of activities to learn more about
the struggles against fossil fuels in this region and weave them into this
growing tapestry of resistance!

Hidden Impacts of Fracking In Colorado (1:15pm, Saturday, January 5th)

Presented by Shane Davis,  local fracking activist
The state of Colorado has failed to prevent adverse impacts to the environment and to human health.  Uncovering official State documents reveals the shocking truth of the harmful threats we face from mining that uses hydraulic fracturing. (Data mining workshop 101: Industry language, acronyms, departments, official docx, website architecture and acquisition methods to compile meaningful, useful data)

Time Is Short: The Case for Underground Resistance (3:30 pm, Saturday, January 5th)

Every living system on the planet is in decline, and industrial capitalism is killing Earth. While countless communities around the world are fighting back, we must be honest: overall, we are losing. Deep Green Resistance advocates for organized, strategic underground action to collapse the global industrial economy before it is too late. This presentation will explore the history of underground action and the it’s potential as a strategy to save a dying world.

Liberals and Radicals: Critical Theory for Effective Action (4:15 and 5:15 pm, Saturday, January 5th)

Members of Deep Green Resistance will present and facilitate a discussion about liberalism and radicalism, two political doctrines often talked about but not understood.The historic and contemporary dominance of liberalism has handed us a framework that misunderstands the nature of power and social change, and that truncates actions that would otherwise be effective. By re-examining liberalism and radicalism in the context of the environmental movement, we can make better decisions and take more effective action.

For more information, contact DGR Colorado at deepgreenresistancecolorado@riseup.net

“Columbus was a wétiko. He was mentally ill or insane, the carrier of a terribly contagious psychological disease, the wétiko psychosis. The Native people he described were sane people with a healthy state of mind. Sanity or healthy normality among humans and other living creatures involves a respect for other forms of life and other individuals. I believe that is the way people have lived (and should live). The wétiko psychosis, and the problems it creates, have inspired many resistance movements and efforts at reform or revolution. Unfortunately, most of these efforts have failed because they have never diagnosed the wétiko as an insane person whose disease is extremely contagious.” —Jack D. Forbes, Columbus and Other Cannibals

For more information: American Indian Movement of Colorado

Transform Columbus Day Alliance

https://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com/events/transform-columbus-day-2012-pueblo-co/

via Legal Fund Benefit in Boulder!.

(From shutdownwhiteclay.wordpress.com)

***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***

Contact: Rachel Ivey, DGR (321-945-1276, rachelivey@riseup.net)

DEEP GREEN RESISTANACE, ROCKY MOUNTAIN PEACE & JUSTICE CENTER TO HOLD BENEFIT FOR ARRESTED ACTIVISTS

Deep Green Resistance and the Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center are hosting a benefit concert on Friday, September 21st at the Friends’ Meeting House (1825 Upland Ave) at 6pm. The Earth Guardians and Common Good will be contributing musical performances, and Oak Chezar will be doing a standup comedy act at the event to raise money for the legal defense of five activists who were arrested at a protest near the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation last month.

The event is being organized for the benefit of five activists from Deep Green Resistance (DGR), who were arrested at the http://shutdownwhiteclay.wordpress.com/2012/09/02/protest-temporarily-shuts-down-whiteclay/”>Women’s March for Peace. On August 26th, Lakota women from the Pine Ridge Reservation, their families and their allies—including DGR and the Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center—marched from Pine Ridge to the town of Whiteclay, Nebraska. Whiteclay has a population of 14, yet 4 liquor stores sell 12,500 cans of beer each day, perpetuating & profiting off the continued destruction of the Lakota, for whom alcoholism is endemic, felt by women and children on the reservation in particular, with rates of sexual assault and domestic violence double the national average.

“For over 100 years the women of the Oglala Lakota nation have been dealing with an attack on the mind body and spirit of their relatives”, says Olowan Martinez one of the organizers of the Women’s March and resident of Pine Ridge. “The Oglala have been silenced through chemical warfare waged by the corporations who are out to exploit and make a profit off of the suffering and misery of our people. The time has come to end this suffering by any means necessary.”

After the Women’s March, 5 activists from DGR locked themselves together with specially designed lockboxes, blockading the town and shutting down all alcohol sales for over 7 hours, costing the infamous stores more than $5,000 in revenue, before they were arrested by Nebraska State Patrol, and transported in a horse-trailer—in violation of state law—to jail, before being cited with three misdemeanor offenses.

Police misconduct was a theme throughout the march; a 14 year-old, defending himself from attack by some of the store owners was also arrested, and an officer sprayed pepper spray indiscriminately out the window of his cruiser, targeting women and youth, including a 10 year old boy. In light of these events, it is clear that justice has not yet been won for the residents of Pine Ridge.

“Within the context of more than 500 years of genocide at the hands of European Invaders, Whiteclay—and the excessive force of the police to protect it—is more than a criminal operation: it is a tool of genocide,” says Alex Budd of Boulder, one of the five arrested at the action. “One hundred and fifty years ago, it was smallpox infested blankets. Today, it is Whiteclay, Nebraska.”

Deep Green Resistance is committed to standing with the Lakota until the last of Whiteclay’s bars closes its doors forever, but the five arrested for civil disobedience are collectively facing up to $6,000 in fines and legal fees.  In order to continue this fight, they need material support from those of us who understand the importance of victory.  They are asking for donations at the door on a sliding scale of two to ten dollars from attendees of the benefit. Donations are crucial and deeply appreciated, and will go towards their legal defense and the campaign to shut down Whiteclay.  For more information, contact deepgreenresistancecolorado@riseup.net or visit www.shutdownwhiteclay.wordpress.com.

What: Everyone is invited to a dinner and movie night at Woodbine Ecology Center on Wednesday September 19th. The evening will be focused on a discussion about big oil and what folks can do about it. As we all know, Colorado is about to head on an insane path of fracking, and has done so already in many places devastating our sacred water supply. It is very important that we organize and work towards stopping this atrocity. The documentary film we have chosen is called Sweet Crude (http://www.sweetcrudemovie.com/home.php) and illustrates how the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta is dealing with big oil in their community. We would love to get everyone concerned together to discuss this important issue for a night of food, fun and discussion.

The information for both of the screenings are as follows:

Boulder screening: Tuesday, August 14th at 6:30pm at Unity Church (2855 Folsom Street Boulder, CO)  More information can be found here.

Denver screening: Thursday, August 16th at 7pm at the 27 Social Centre (2727 W 27th Ave Denver, CO) More information can be found here.

Both of these screenings will accept monetary and/or food donations to support the caravan from Colorado, but nobody will be turned away.

If you are unable to make it to the screenings and would like to donate, we are collecting funds to help make the action a success. With the material resources to feed people and buy the equipment and supplies that will be necessary for the action, it can’t happen. Please visit this page to make a contribution.

Information on the action in Pine Ridge is below:
Women’s Day of Peace 2012: The Life Givers of the Nations say no more alcohol in White Clay.

Lifting our Hearts from Wounded Knees
August, 26th 2012 12:00 p.m. Billy Mills Hall Pine Ridge, SD
Action against White Clay Nebraska

“Our Stand Is Locked to the Land, Shut Down White Clay Today!”

White Clay is an unincorporated village with a population of 14 people in northwest Nebraska. The town sits on the border of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home to the Oglala Lakota (also known as the Oglala Sioux Tribe).

White Clay lies on disputed land, merely 200 feet from the official reservation border and less than 3 miles from the center of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the largest town on the reservation.

Sale and possession of alcoholic beverages on the Pine Ridge is prohibited under tribal law. Except for a brief experiment with on-reservation liquor sales in the early 1970s, this prohibition has been in effect since the reservation lands were created.

White Clay has four off-sale beer stores licensed by the State of Nebraska which sell the equivalent of 4.5 million 12-ounce cans of beer annually (12,500 cans per day), mostly to the Oglalas living on Pine Ridge. These retailers routinely violate Nebraska liquor law by selling beer to minors and intoxicated persons, knowingly selling to bootleggers who resell the beer on the reservation, permitting on-premise consumption of beer in violation of restrictions placed on off-sale-only licenses, and exchanging beer for sexual favors .The vast majority of those who purchase beer in White Clay have in fact no legal place to consume it, since possession and consumption of alcoholic beverages on the Pine Ridge Reservation remain illegal under tribal law. Many people have died in the streets due to exposure, as the state of Nebraska fails to uphold state law or police White Clay. As long as the liquor stores in White Clay remains in business, the genocide of the Oglala Lakota people will continue.

Tribal activists of the Strong Heart Warrior Society have conducted annual blockades since 1999, trying to intercept alcohol and drugs being brought into the reservation. In June 2006 tribal activists protested beer sales by blockading the road from Pine Ridge to White Clay and confiscating beer bought in White Clay. These activists hoped to prevent bootlegging and illegal sales on the reservation. On June 9th of this year, young Lakota activists and their non-native allies held a blockade of the highway leading into White Clay, and gained concessions from law enforcement. This action in August will be a continuation of these efforts.

A message to participants joining in the march:
This will be a Women’s lead march, only women will be speaking during and after the march. Men are encouraged to come and will be there to show support and provide security for the women. We will also provide support work at the campsite so the women can get together and have women only circles. The men will also get together at the camp and have male ally circles. There will be more information provided at the campsite.

To get involved contact:
Olowan Martinez Lead Organizer
605.407.1773 or truelyn8tive@yahoo.com
or
T.R. McKenzie Coordinator for Deep Green Resistance Great Plains
trmckenzie@riseup.net or 605.868.8111
and/or the point person in your region. If you would like to be a point person for this action in an area not already covered please contact Olowan or T.R.

Point People:
Western South Dakota – Olowan Martinez truelyn8ive@yahoo.com or 605 407 1773
Eastern Iowa – Nate Adeyemi : adeyemi_dgr_gp@riseup.net or 815 632 7243
Wisconsin – Ben Cutbank: ben_dgr@riseup.net or 262 208 5347
Omaha NE – Christie Schoening : tuffenoughtorock@gmail.com or 402 250 8140
Lincoln NE – Jeffrey Eggerss – jeffreyalaneggerss@gmail.com or 402 601 6985
Colorado – Jennifer Murnan- Jennifer@riseup.net or 303-823-6336
Western IA/Eastern SD – T.R. McKenzie: trmckenzie@riseup.net or 605-868-8111
West Coast – Xander Knox: xander_dgr@riseup.net or 253-906-4740
SouthWest – Hershe Michele – hershe310@gmail.com or 505-340-3362

More Info:

Everyone is responsible for their own food for this action, there may or may not be camping fires to use for cooking while camping on Pine Ridge, due to the chance of starting a wild fire. Everyone in the caravan is responsible for the gas in the vehicle they are driving and riding in. DRUGS AND ALCOHOL will not be tolerated at all during this entire caravan and action. You will be escorted out of camp and asked to immediately leave. Please do not test us on this rule. Thank you everyone for your commitment and love for the cause.

Camping and Caravan Info: To join in the caravan heading from the East, groups will meet again at T.R. and Joey’s place in Jefferson SD, on Thursday August 23rd after 3p.m., dinner will be provided. We will leave from Pine Ridge the next morning around 8am Friday August 24th. All groups are encouraged to meet at Wounded Knee on August 24th at 3pm. The campsite on Pine Ridge will be announced at a later date. If you are traveling from the West please get in contact with Jennifer Murnan from DGR Colorado she will have lodging for folks the night of August 23rd. August 25th will be a day of social gatherings, Women circles, Male Ally circles, and trainings for the March on the 26th.

***Information on the Camping situation in Pine Ridge will come later stay tuned***

Deep Green Resistance Indigenous Solidarity Guidelines.
1. First and foremost we must recognize that non-indigenous people are occupying stolen land in an ongoing genocide that has lasted for centuries. We must affirm our responsibility to stand with indigenous communities who want support and give everything we can to protect their land and culture from further devastation; they have been on the frontlines of biocide and genocide for centuries, and as allies, we need to step up and join them.
2. You are doing Indigenous solidarity work not out of guilt, but out of a fierce desire to confront oppressive colonial systems of power.
3. You are not helping Indigenous people, you are there to: join with, struggle with, and fight with indigenous peoples against these systems of power. You must be willing to put your body on the line.
4. Recognize your privilege as a member of settler culture.
5. You are not here to engage in any type of cultural, spiritual or religious needs you think you might have, you are here to engage in political action. Also, remember your political message is secondary to the cause at hand.
6. Never use drugs or alcohol when engaging in Indigenous solidarity work. Never.
7. Do more listening than talking, you will be surprised what you can learn.
8. Recognize that there will be Indigenous people that will not want you to participate in ceremonies. Humbly refrain from participating in ceremonies.
9. Recognize that you and your Indigenous allies may be in the minority on a cause that is worth fighting for.
10. Work with integrity and respect, be trustworthy and do what you say you are going to do.

Now available for your reading and distributing pleasure, a new DGR zine-formatted version of An Open Letter to Fellow Environmentalists is ready for download. “An Open Letter to Fellow Environmentalists” is an essay about the fallacy of clean energy as a means of environmental preservation, written by a member of DGR Colorado early this year.

“I know what it’s like. I know exactly how it feels to look around and see a world not just dying but being suffocated, being tortured and maimed, sacrificed on the twin altars of profit and production. As a young person today, I know what it’s like to fear the future, to fear for my future. I—like many of you—have read all the studies and reports I need to see to know what’s coming, what disaster is now screaming, all but unchallenged, down the track upon us.”

Let us know what you think of the zine and the essay, and feel free to spread it around within your own circles.

Women’s Day of Peace 2012: The Life Givers of the Nations say no more alcohol in White Clay.

Lifting our Hearts from Wounded Knees
August, 26th 2012 12:00 p.m. Billy Mills Hall Pine Ridge, SD
Action against White Clay Nebraska

“Our Stand Is Locked to the Land, Shut Down White Clay Today!”

White Clay is an unincorporated village with a population of 14 people in northwest Nebraska. The town sits on the border of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home to the Oglala Lakota (also known as the Oglala Sioux Tribe).

White Clay lies on disputed land, merely 200 feet from the official reservation border and less than 3 miles from the center of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the largest town on the reservation.

Sale and possession of alcoholic beverages on the Pine Ridge is prohibited under tribal law. Except for a brief experiment with on-reservation liquor sales in the early 1970s, this prohibition has been in effect since the reservation lands were created.

White Clay has four off-sale beer stores licensed by the State of Nebraska which sell the equivalent of 4.5 million 12-ounce cans of beer annually (12,500 cans per day), mostly to the Oglalas living on Pine Ridge. These retailers routinely violate Nebraska liquor law by selling beer to minors and intoxicated persons, knowingly selling to bootleggers who resell the beer on the reservation, permitting on-premise consumption of beer in violation of restrictions placed on off-sale-only licenses, and exchanging beer for sexual favors .The vast majority of those who purchase beer in White Clay have in fact no legal place to consume it, since possession and consumption of alcoholic beverages on the Pine Ridge Reservation remain illegal under tribal law. Many people have died in the streets due to exposure, as the state of Nebraska fails to uphold state law or police White Clay. As long as the liquor stores in White Clay remains in business, the genocide of the Oglala Lakota people will continue.

Tribal activists of the Strong Heart Warrior Society have conducted annual blockades since 1999, trying to intercept alcohol and drugs being brought into the reservation. In June 2006 tribal activists protested beer sales by blockading the road from Pine Ridge to White Clay and confiscating beer bought in White Clay. These activists hoped to prevent bootlegging and illegal sales on the reservation. On June 9th of this year, young Lakota activists and their non-native allies held a blockade of the highway leading into White Clay, and gained concessions from law enforcement. This action in August will be a continuation of these efforts.

A message to participants joining in the march:
This will be a Women’s lead march, only women will be speaking during and after the march. Men are encouraged to come and will be there to show support and provide security for the women. We will also provide support work at the campsite so the women can get together and have women only circles. The men will also get together at the camp and have male ally circles. There will be more information provided at the campsite.

To get involved contact:
Olowan Martinez Lead Organizer
605.407.1773 or truelyn8tive@yahoo.com
or
T.R. McKenzie Coordinator for Deep Green Resistance Great Plains
trmckenzie@riseup.net or 605.868.8111
and/or the point person in your region. If you would like to be a point person for this action in an area not already covered please contact Olowan or T.R.

Point People:
Western South Dakota – Olowan Martinez truelyn8ive@yahoo.com or 605 407 1773
Eastern Iowa – Nate Adeyemi : adeyemi_dgr_gp@riseup.net or 815 632 7243
Wisconsin – Ben Cutbank: ben_dgr@riseup.net or 262 208 5347
Omaha NE – Christie Schoening : tuffenoughtorock@gmail.com or 402 250 8140
Lincoln NE – Jeffrey Eggerss – jeffreyalaneggerss@gmail.com or 402 601 6985
Colorado – Jennifer Murnan- Jennifer@riseup.net or 303-823-6336
Western IA/Eastern SD – T.R. McKenzie: trmckenzie@riseup.net or 605-868-8111
West Coast – Xander Knox: xander_dgr@riseup.net or 253-906-4740
SouthWest – Hershe Michele – hershe310@gmail.com or 505-340-3362

More Info:

Everyone is responsible for their own food for this action, there may or may not be camping fires to use for cooking while camping on Pine Ridge, due to the chance of starting a wild fire. Everyone in the caravan is responsible for the gas in the vehicle they are driving and riding in. DRUGS AND ALCOHOL will not be tolerated at all during this entire caravan and action. You will be escorted out of camp and asked to immediately leave. Please do not test us on this rule. Thank you everyone for your commitment and love for the cause.

Camping and Caravan Info: To join in the caravan heading from the East, groups will meet again at T.R. and Joey’s place in Jefferson SD, on Thursday August 23rd after 3p.m., dinner will be provided. We will leave from Pine Ridge the next morning around 8am Friday August 24th. All groups are encouraged to meet at Wounded Knee on August 24th at 3pm. The campsite on Pine Ridge will be announced at a later date. If you are traveling from the West please get in contact with Jennifer Murnan from DGR Colorado she will have lodging for folks the night of August 23rd. August 25th will be a day of social gatherings, Women circles, Male Ally circles, and trainings for the March on the 26th.

***Information on the Camping situation in Pine Ridge will come later stay tuned***

Deep Green Resistance Indigenous Solidarity Guidelines.
1. First and foremost we must recognize that non-indigenous people are occupying stolen land in an ongoing genocide that has lasted for centuries. We must affirm our responsibility to stand with indigenous communities who want support and give everything we can to protect their land and culture from further devastation; they have been on the frontlines of biocide and genocide for centuries, and as allies, we need to step up and join them.
2. You are doing Indigenous solidarity work not out of guilt, but out of a fierce desire to confront oppressive colonial systems of power.
3. You are not helping Indigenous people, you are there to: join with, struggle with, and fight with indigenous peoples against these systems of power. You must be willing to put your body on the line.
4. Recognize your privilege as a member of settler culture.
5. You are not here to engage in any type of cultural, spiritual or religious needs you think you might have, you are here to engage in political action. Also, remember your political message is secondary to the cause at hand.
6. Never use drugs or alcohol when engaging in Indigenous solidarity work. Never.
7. Do more listening than talking, you will be surprised what you can learn.
8. Recognize that there will be Indigenous people that will not want you to participate in ceremonies. Humbly refrain from participating in ceremonies.
9. Recognize that you and your Indigenous allies may be in the minority on a cause that is worth fighting for.
10. Work with integrity and respect, be trustworthy and do what you say you are going to do.

In addition, we are collecting funds to help make the action a success. With the material resources to feed people and buy the equipment and supplies that will be necessary for the action, it can’t happen. Please visit this page to make a contribution.

I love this land. I love the plains and the hills and the forests and the mountains and the rivers, and everyone who calls those places home. I’ve lived here my entire life, and while I don’t know this land nearly as well as I should, it is my home. But this place is being killed, slowly destroyed, and I don’t want to see that.

I want to see healthy forests. I want to see firs, spruces, pines, and aspens thick in the mountains. I want to see an end to thinning and logging in these hills. I want to walk through strands of Ponderosas, the air thick with the smell of vanilla and butterscotch. I want to wander through Douglas Fir at night and see them dancing in the wind. I want to look up and see the stars through their happy, wise boughs. I want to walk through Aspen groves hundreds of years old, the thick trunks of the oldest clones rough and black to the touch, and their golden leaves chattering softly in the slightest breeze.  I want fires to burn every year like they should, slowly regenerating the forest and opening up space for new life. I want to feel the ground soft, covered in decades of accumulated needles. I want to see the forest dark and thick in the light of the summer, with deadwood and decomposing grandmother and –father trees giving their bodies to birds and squirrels and unknown insects, before slowly disintegrating into the soil.

I want to see the plains alive again. I want them to stretch out beyond the horizon, free of cornfields and cattle, free of fracking chemicals and pipelines, free of pavement. I want to see buffalo on the plains, their herds growing bigger every year, darkening the rolling hills for miles. I want to see generation after generation born as pure-blooded bison. I want them to return to their old homes.  I want to hear their calls in the fall when the cold first comes. I want to hear the chirp and chatter of prairie dogs. I want to see them ducking in and out of their burrows, sounding alarms whenever strangers approach.  I want to sit in the shade of cottonwoods, and walk their meandering trails along rivers and streams.

I want to see our rivers freed, running their own paths and singing their own songs. I want to see them swell in the spring, without worry of parasitic diversions and appropriations. I want their waters to flow beyond these lands without being taken for irrigation or city medians. I want to feel their icy-cold in my bones. I want them to carve out valleys and meadows and mountains; the places they’ve known for millennia and belong to. I want them full. I want to see them flowing clean of lead and mercury and tailings remains. I want them to be home again for beavers and trout. I want to hear them laughing as they wind their way from their origins out to wherever they may go, to meet and greet people and lands I’ll never know.

I want to hear wolves in the mountains. I want to hear elk bellowing in the rut. I want to hear coyotes singing at night. I want to hear wild turkeys, and stumble across their feathers when I walk through the woods.

I want to see the pine beetles stop their yearly climbs up through the mountains. I want them to stay where they belong.

I want to see the mountains rising up from the plains. I want to see them old and listen to the wisdom in their bones. I want their bones to be left alone. I want them to be left alone, no longer blown apart or ripped open.

I want to see black bears gorging themselves on raspberries and blueberries and thimbleberries and chokecherries and strawberries.

I want to feel the wind playing with my hair without the smell of smog or industry. I want to suck in mountain air and feel woozy from the sweetness of meadow flowers in summer.

I want to feel the rain kiss my face without the burn of chlorine or lead or mercury or zinc or benzene.

I want to be buried in the snow in spring, heavy and wet. I want the snow to soak the ground, replenishing what was lost in the heat of the summer.

This place is beautiful; beautiful and alive. I want to listen to its stories and learn its lessons. I want to know it and love it and be loved by it. I want to see it healed. I want to see it for what it is, and for what it once was. I want it to be what it once was. I want it to be what it still truly is, if only we would see it and hear it and let it be free. I want it to stop being killed.

The dominant culture of industrial civilization is killing it, poisoning and draining its waters, clearing its forests, and extirpating its inhabitants—the many members of this living community. It has already decimated the plains, slaughtering the bison and prairie dogs, plowing up and paving over the soil. For nearly two centuries, the dominant culture has been tearing apart the flesh of the mountains. It has been filling the air with smoke and smog and dust and poison.

I want this land, and all of its inhabitants and participants, to be free, to be alive, to be left alone, to be loved.

But this culture, this society of rape and ravage, of death and domination, of utility and uncaring, unfeeling, won’t let it be. It is incapable of leaving the coal in the mountains, the water in the rivers, the trees in the forest. Which is why this culture must be stopped, by any means necessary.

It must be dismantled, and its infrastructure crippled beyond repair. The logging infrastructure must go or be disabled. The mining infrastructure must go or be disabled. The water and irrigation infrastructure must go or be disabled. The agricultural infrastructure must go or be disabled. The social, economic, and political infrastructure of this culture—which drives and enables the destruction of this land—must go or be disabled.

And we all know that this culture won’t go willingly, that it won’t—can’t—take ‘no’ for an answer.

So it must be disabled & dismantled.

Bring it down. For the forests. For the mountains. For the rivers. For the bison and coyotes and sagebrush and prairie dogs and grosbeaks and beaver and elk and bears. For the trout and aspen and columbines and sunflowers and gamble oak.

Either this culture will be dismantled and destroyed, or this land will be. If you love this land, its beauty, its secrets, its wisdoms, its life, then it’s time to fight back for all you’re worth.

END:CIV examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?”

The causes underlying the collapse of civilizations are usually traced to overuse of resources. As we write this, the world is reeling from economic chaos, peak oil, climate change, environmental degradation, and political turmoil. Every day, the headlines re-hash stories of scandal and betrayal of the public trust. We don’t have to make outraged demands for the end of the current global system — it seems to be coming apart already.

But acts of courage, compassion and altruism abound, even in the most damaged places. By documenting the resilience of the people hit hardest by war and repression, and the heroism of those coming forward to confront the crisis head-on, END:CIV illuminates a way out of this all-consuming madness and into a saner future.

For more information, contact deepgreenresistancecolorado@riseup.net, or call 720-425-4955.