Environmentalists actively seeking the destruction of civilization may seem like characters out of a Tom Clancy thriller [1]. But in an interview posted on the left-wing [2] site Alternet, three environmentalists called for the end of civilization, as we know it, for the elimination of agriculture, and for attacks on the infrastructure holding civilization together. That article's headline asked, "Do we need a militant movement to save the planet (and ourselves)?"
Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Aric McBay, leaders of a radical environmental movement known as Deep Green Resistance [3], argued that in order to save the planet industrial civilization must be destroyed, and that humanity must return to living the primitive lifestyles found in indigenous cultures. To accomplish these goals, McBay called for people to "break down the structures that are destroying the planet."
Keith concurred with McBay, citing a laundry list of evils to be opposed and ultimately destroyed. She declared that "we need a culture that is self-consciously oppositional to things like corporate power, capitalism, industrialization and ultimately civilization, because that is the arrangement of power on this planet right now."
The three also called for the elimination of the supporting structures of civilization - agriculture and infrastructure.
Keith quoted two professors who stated that: "Sustainable agriculture is an oxymoron" - conveniently ignoring the fact that humanity has utilized agriculture for thousands of years.
Keith, Jensen, and McBay also called for violent change.. Jensen argued that this was part of a military strategy, declaring that "what we're talking about in this case is attempting to destroy the enemy's capacity to wage war on the poor and on the planet.' Keith also called for 'direct attacks on infrastructure.'
When the interviewer asked what would replace industrial civilization, McBay's answer was simple: 'If we are talking about a post-industrial society, then I think we have to draw on the examples of traditional, indigenous societies.'
In other words, humanity should retreat back to the Stone Age - an age where McBay, Keith, and Jensen would be too busy gathering food to write their opinions about the wonders of primitivism (if writing still existed).
The destruction of industrial civilization, of course, would necessarily reduce the human population (and almost certainly shorten lifespans) - a fact that doesn't bother the three eco-extremists in the least. Jensen had previously called [4] for the mass execution of environmental offenders: "If it were up to me, all the people associated with the Gulf oil spill, which is murdering the Gulf, would be executed." (He backed down slightly from that claim during the Alternet interview, claiming "If I were to write that now, I would take out the word "all" and put in the word "many.")
Keith didn't even bother to hide her disdain for those who couldn't accept her radical opinions, declaring that "I'm not speaking to mainstream America. I don't know how to talk to those people, and there is no point in me trying."
Her lack of understanding was shared by Jensen, who declared: "I don't understand why it is even controversial to talk about dismantling industrial civilization when it has shown itself for 6,000 years to be destroying the planet and to be systemically committing genocide."
Perhaps because very few people think that agriculture is the equivalent of genocide?
Their goal is the grandiose mission of saving the world from humans who are destroying the planet. They declare [5] that that "industrial civilization is incompatible with life" - ignoring the fact that civilization protects and sustains human life. But in their vision, humanity is no more worthwhile from any other form of life. In the famous words of [6] PETA president Ingrid Newkirk, "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy."
Yet rantings of people like Keith, Jensen, and McBay are taken seriously by the radical left, since Alternet proved willing to interview them sympathetically. Environmentalists such as Paul Watson, who infamously declared [7] that humanity was the "AIDS of the earth," are among the heroes in the pantheon of the radical left.
