Endgame Vol.1 (17 page)

The question quickly becomes: what rights do people have? More specifically, does anyone have the right to enslave another? More specifically yet, does any group of people have the right to enslave others—human or nonhuman—simply because they have the power to do so, and because they perceive it as their right (and because they have created a propaganda system consisting of intertwined religious, philosophical, scientific, educational, informational, economic, governmental, and legal systems all working to convince themselves and at least some of their human victims it is their right)? If not, what are you going to do about it? How much will it take? How far will you go in order to stop those in power from enslaving—and killing—the mass of humans, and in fact the planet?

I often give talks, at universities and elsewhere. I gave one such talk last week. Just before I walked on stage, the person who brought me there whispered, “I forgot to tell you, but I publicized this as a speech about human rights. Can you make sure to talk about that?”

I nodded agreement, although I had no idea what to say. Everything that came to me was tepid, along the lines of “Human rights are good.” I may as well say I’m for apple pie and the girl next door. Even though I didn’t tell her this, I think she read my face. She smiled nervously. I smiled twice as nervously back. It’s a good thing we weren’t playing poker.

She went out to introduce me. I thought and thought, and wished there were a lot more upcoming events for her to talk about. I wished she would start announcing the day’s major league baseball scores. I wished she would forecast the weather, and tell the fortunes of the people in the front row. But she didn’t do any of that, and soon enough it was my turn. As I walked on stage, however, I suddenly knew what I had to say, and was reminded, as I often am, how quickly the mind can work under pressure, or at least how quickly it can work those times it doesn’t seize up altogether. “Most people,” I said, “who care about human rights and who talk about them in a meaningful fashion, as opposed to those who use them as a smokescreen to facilitate production and implement policies harmful to humans and nonhumans, usually spend a lot of energy demanding the realization of rights those in power give lip service to. Sometimes they expand their demands to include things—like a livable planet—people don’t often associate with human rights. People have a right to clean air, we say, and clean water. We have a right to food. We have a right to bodily integrity. Women (and men) have the right to not be raped. Some even go so far as to say that nonhumans, too, have the right to clean air and water. They have the right to habitat. They have the right to continued existence.”

People nodded. Who but a sociopath or a capitalist—insofar as there is a difference—could disagree with any of these?

“But,” I continued, “I’m not sure that’s the right approach. I think that instead of adding rights we need to subtract them.”

Silence. Frowns. The narrowing of eyes.

“No one,” I said, “has the right to toxify a river. No one has the right to pollute the air. No one has the right to drive a creature to extinction, nor destroy a species’ habitat. No one has the right to profit from the labor or misery of another. No one has the right to steal resources from another.”

They seemed to get it.

I continued, “The first thing to do is recognize in our own hearts and minds that no one has any of these rights, because clearly on some level we
do
perceive others as having them, or we wouldn’t allow rivers to be toxified, oceans to be vacuumed, and so on. Having become clear ourselves, we then need to let those in power know we’re taking back our permission, that they have
no right
to wield this power the way they do, because clearly on some level they, too, perceive themselves as having the right to kill the planet, or they wouldn’t do it. Of course they have entire philosophical, theological, and judicial systems in place to buttress their perceptions. As well as, of course, bombs, guns, and prisons. And then, if our clear statement that they have no right fails to convince
them—and I wouldn’t hold my breath here—we’ll be faced with a decision: how do we stop them?”

A lot of people seemed to agree. Then after the talk someone asked me, “Aren’t these just different ways of saying the same thing?”

I wasn’t sure what she meant.

“What’s the difference between saying I have the right to not be raped, and saying to some man, ‘You have no right to rape me’?”

I was stumped. Maybe, I thought, my mind actually
had
seized up, only so completely that I hadn’t known it. The reason the words had come so quickly is because they were just a recapitulation of the obvious. I have a few male friends who routinely take something someone else says, change a word or two or invert the sentence structure, and then claim it as their own great idea. I’ve been known to do that myself. But then I realized there’s an experiential difference between these two ways of putting it. A big one. Pretend you’re in an abusive relationship. Picture yourself saying to this other person, “I have the right to be treated with respect.” Now, that may developmentally be important for you to say, but there comes a point when it’s no longer appropriate to keep the focus on you—
you’re
not the problem. Contrast how that former statement
feels
with how it feels to say: “You have
no right
to treat me this way.” The former is almost a supplication, the latter almost a command. And its focus is on the perpetrator.

For too long we’ve been supplicants. For too long the focus has been on us. It’s time we simply set out to stop those who are doing wrong.

Before I go any further, I need to be clear that it’s not up to all of us to dismantle the system. Not all of us need to take down dams, factories, electrical infrastructures. Some of us need to file timber sale appeals, some need to file lawsuits. Some need to work on rape crisis hot lines, and some need to work at battered women’s shelters. Some need to help family farmers or work on other sustainable agriculture issues. Some need to work on fair trade, and some need to work on stopping international trade altogether. Some need to work on decreasing birth rates among the industrialized, and some need to give all the love and support they can to children (I’ve heard it said that the most revolutionary thing any of us can do is raise a loving child
¹²²
).

One of the good things about everything being so fucked up—about the culture being so ubiquitously destructive—is that no matter where you look—no matter what your gifts, no matter where your heart lies—there’s good and
desperately important work to be done. Know explosives? Take out a dam. Know how to love and accept children, how to teach them to love themselves, to think and feel for themselves? That’s what you need to do.

If you agree with my premises and arguments, yet find yourself for whatever reason unable or unwilling to take the offensive, your talents are still needed. I think often of the military tactic called Hammer and Anvil, used most famously by Robert E. Lee at the battle of Chancellorsville. Lee kept Anderson’s and McLaws’s divisions in place while sending Stonewall Jackson’s corps around the enemy’s flank to crush that part of the opposing army between Jackson’s hammer and Anderson’s and McLaws’s anvil. Both parts—offense and defense—were, and are, necessary.

At another talk, this one last fall, a man asked a question I’d never heard before: “If ten thousand people lined up ready to do your bidding, what would you say to them?”

My answer was immediate: “I’d tell them sure as hell not to listen to me.”

His was just as fast: “That’s a copout. How many dams could ten thousand people take down? People know how bad things are, but they don’t know what to do. They want to be told. That’s your responsibility. What’s the purpose of writing if you don’t tell us what to do?”

I shot back: “Instead of telling me what hypothetical readers want, tell me what you want.”

“Tell me—”

“Do you want me to tell you—”

“—Yes—”

“—what to do?”

He nodded, then said, “You’ve had more time. . . .”

“Okay,” I said. “Tomorrow, go to Barton Springs”—Barton Springs are a set of defining, and critically imperiled, springs in Austin, huge and beautiful, dying before the eyes of those who live there and love them—“and sit.”

“Then what?”

“Wait until the springs tell you what to do.”

“Why won’t you—”

“I just did. Barton Springs know this region much better than I. They know what this region needs, know what sustainability looks and feels like here. The springs are much smarter than I am. They’ll tell you exactly what to do.”

Somebody else asked, “Is it Barton Springs?”

“Yes,” I said, “And no. It’s everywhere. Just listen. Not to me. To yourself. And to the land.”

It is axiomatic that we are in no way protected from the consequences of our actions by remaining confused about the ecological meaning of our humanness, ignorant of ecological processes, and unmindful of the ecological aspects of history.

I’VE BEEN THINKING A LOT LATELY ABOUT CARRYING CAPACITY, AND WHAT that will mean for life through the crash. The best book I’ve read about carrying capacity—what it is and what it means—is
Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change
, by William R. Catton, Jr. Any environment’s carrying capacity, he states, is the number of creatures living a certain way who can be supported permanently on a certain piece of land, for example how many deer could live on a certain island without overgrazing and damaging the capacity of that island to grow food for them.
Permanently
is the key word here, because it’s possible to overshoot carrying capacity—to temporarily have more creatures than the land can support—but doing so damages the land, and permanently lowers future carrying capacity. This is true when we talk about nonhumans, and it’s just as true when we talk about humans.

Consider the land where you live. How many people could it have permanently supported before the arrival of our extractive culture? How many people
did
it support? What did these people eat? What materials did those who came before use to make their homes?

And now? What will those who come after eat? If you were to rely only on local foods harvested sustainably—by which I mean entirely without the assistance of civilization or its technologies (e.g.,
no
fossil fuels or mining)—what would you eat? Do the plants and animals eaten there before still call this their home? How many people could live in your place forever? How many people
will
live there after the crash?

There are a few ways one can temporarily exceed a place’s carrying capacity (I first wrote, “There are a few ways one can temporarily exceed the carrying capacity of one’s home” but realized that the sentence is absurd: given the obvious consequences, no sane and intelligent group of people would ever intentionally exceed the carrying capacity of their home). One is by degrading the landscape; for example, eating all of the local fish this year instead of eating few enough that the fish remain fecund as always. Another example would be killing off species you don’t eat—salamanders, owls, bees, grasshoppers, and others—and in doing so almost undoubtedly impeding the eventual viability of your food sources.