Endgame Vol.1

by Jensen, Derrick

  116. Dimitre, 10.

  117. Locke, 48.

  Listening to the Land

  118. Personal communication, October 30, 2001.

  119. Planck, 33-34.

  120. An argument I’ve heard too often having to do with this is that because I was abused as a child, I am not, in fact, angry at the culture but rather at my father. According to this argument, all of my impassioned defense of the land where I live is a displacement of the defense of myself I wish I could have made as a child. The people who say this nearly always have a look on their face that suggests they’re saying something incredibly profound, the possibility of which has never occurred to me. Of course I’ve long since sorted this one out. I despise my father because of his own despicable actions, not because of the actions of the industrial economy. I despise the industrial economy not because of my father but because of the despicable actions of the industrial economy and because of its effects on those I love. They’re entirely separable.I always respond to this argument: “I could have had the best childhood in the world, and 90 percent of the large fish would still be gone from the oceans. Salmon would still be in trouble. Dioxin would still be in every mother’s breast milk.”

  The argument is a transparent attempt to avoid looking at the real issues.

  121. Roycroft, 8.

  122. Note that I said raise not give birth to. There are already too many industrial humans, and there are plenty of unwanted industrial humans already here who need plenty of love.

  Carrying Capacity

  123. Catton, vii.

  124. Ibid., 39.

  125. Ibid., 41.

  126. Mumford, City, 38.

  127. Ibid., 36.

  128. Ibid.

  129. Catton, 43.

  130. Ibid., 42.

  131. Ibid., 43.

  132. Ibid., 52.

  133. Faust, 81.

  134. Neal Hall, personal communication, November 1, 2002.

  135. “Population Increases and Democracy,” http://www.eeeee.net/sd03048.htm (accessed September 23, 2002).

  136. One could argue, of course, that because the constant importation of resources is necessary to the perpetuation of cities (and their political/historical successors: empires and nation/states), and because those who have fully internalized the values of these ever-expanding cities have come to identify their own survival with the perpetuation of the city/empire—instead of identifying with their survival as human animals within a community that includes both humans and a landbase—all wars of empire are in some twisted sense wars of self-defense.

  137. From the perspective of the activists, this may not be a bad thing: not only do they get job security, but they get to pretend they’re doing something meaningful while not threatening their own identity—or privilege—as civilized.

  138. “Witch Hunting and Population Policy,” http://www.geocities.com/iconoclastes.geo/witches.html (accessed September 23, 2002), referencing Krag and Devereux.

  139. Genesis 1:28.

  140. Pearce, 5.

  The Needs of the Natural World

  141. Cited in Catton, 93.

  142. The night I gave that talk I was suffering a flare-up of Crohn’s disease. After I got home I collapsed and was in bed for months. I took Western medicines. Now, as I put the final editing touches on this book, I am in the midst of another flare-up, this one far worse. I have been sick for five months. At first I tried ignoring the sickness, hoping it would go away on its own. That didn’t work. Then I tried herbs from an extraordinary Chinese herbalist, but they didn’t work either. I tried Western meds. They aren’t helping. Now I am set up to take a high-tech drug in two weeks (twelve-and-a-half days, actually, or, to be more precise, 289 hours, not that I’m counting). It’s supposed to work wonders. My point in mentioning this is that these are not abstract questions. I am fully aware that without these high-technology drugs I would quite possibly die within the next month or two. This disease—a disease of civilization—would probably kill me. I am also aware that the fact that these drugs will probably save my life is not a good enough reason to not take down civilization. Years ago I interviewed someone who had been an anti-civilization philosopher until open heart surgery saved his life. That changed his perspective. Saving my own skin is not a good enough reason to kill the planet. I am also aware that I am taking this high-tech medicine, with all of its attendant costs to the planet, to vivisected animals, and so on. If not taking it would by itself stop the horrors, I would of course not take it. But my not taking this particular medicine will not stop the horrors. I will take it.

  143. Bacher, 1.

  144. San Francisco Chronicle, September 26, 2002.

  145. St. Clair and Cockburn. See also “Get the Facts and Clear the Air,” National Campaign Against Dirty Power, http://cta.policy.net/dirtypower/ (accessed September 3, 2004).

  Predator and Prey

  146. Anderson Valley Advertiser, November 19, 2003, 2.

  147. Jensen, Culture, 60.

  148. Ibid., 87-89.

  149. Faust, 184.

  150. In other words, I didn’t know the answer to this question, but because I am male I was required by law to still give an answer.

  151. I can, however, say that when I’ve shared the stage with traditional indigenous peoples, I’ve noticed that they have nodded in agreement when I’ve mentioned this predator/prey relationship.

  Choices

  152. Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 18, 2004, 8. I’m sorry again for the male specificity.

  153. The National Science Foundation to the Center for Biological Diversity, October 16, 2002, http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/species/beaked/NSFResponse.pdf (accessed October 26, 2002). Information about whales and decibels cobbled together from the following sites: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/press/beaked10-15-2002.html (accessed October 26, 2002); http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/whales/explanation (accessed October 26, 2002); http://www.faultline.org/news/2002/10/beaked.html (accessed October 27, 2002); and from lots of sources on sound. The authors of the sources on whales would almost undoubtedly be (at least publicly) horrified by my next paragraph, and I need to make clear that my response is just that: my response.

  154. Actually the river flows are a little more complex: while what I said about the Russian River being tapped out because of vineyards is true, that effect is actually invisible because of the diversion of the Eel River into the Russian River. In fact, the Russian River used to close off seasonally, but since the Eel diversion, it hasn’t. There’s actually more water flowing down the Russian River today than historically. There’s even a project under way to decrease the amount of water to make it resemble natural flows more closely. So far, so good. But it gets sticky really fast: part of the reason for the diversion from the Eel is that the town of Santa Rosa dumps its treated sewage water into the Russian River, and wants to follow the mantra of “the solution to pollution is dilution”; the other part of the reason is recreational. Drinking water and water for vineyards is all taken from groundwater—that underground part of the river we don’t see. We see the effects of this mainly in secondary streams, which dry up, and in the drying up of people’s wells. But it may also be that were the flow from the Eel shut off entirely, the Russian River would probably go to levels lower than its natural flow: you can’t take water from a region without affecting water flow. The bottom line: people have messed up what nature was doing with these rivers—the Eel is depleted by diversion, and the Russian River floods worse every year, partly because of the diversion and partly because it has been boxed in and has had so much sediment dumped into it. I am grateful to Leha Carpenter for this analysis.

  155. My thanks to Sean Tanner for this paragraph.

  156. “U.S. Military Spending,” 9.

  157. Oxford English Dictionary, compact ed., s.v. “addict.”

  158. Engels, 668.

  Abuse

  159. Murray.

  160. Fisk.

  161. �
�Signs to Look for in a Battering Personality,” Projects for Victims of Family Violence, Inc., http://www.angelfire.com/ca6/soupandsalad/content13.htm (accessed November 17, 2002).

  162. Exodus 20:5.

  163. Deuteronomy 6:14-15.

  164. And for those of you naïve enough to think Capitalism is guided by some mythic invisible hand of some mythical Free Market™, I give you the words of someone who should know, Dwayne Andreas, CEO of Archer Daniels Midland, an agricorporation that has done as much as almost any other to destroy the lives of family farmers the world over: “There’s not one grain of anything in the world that is sold in the free market. The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians” (Barsamian).

  165. Baran, xvii.

  166. New World Vistas, 89.

  167. Safire.

  168. I’ve dealt with this at length elsewhere. See, for example, Jensen, Culture, 174-85.

  169. My thanks to Deda Bea for teaching me about toxic mimics.

  170. Glaspell, 188.

  171. Jensen and Draffan, Strangely Like War.

  172. My thanks to Jeff and Milaka Strand for this analysis.

  A Culture of Occupation

  173. Estrogen Effect.

  174. My thanks to Nita Halstead for this analysis.

  175. Oregon State Senate Bill 742, 72nd Legislative Assembly.

  176. Severn, 8.

  Why Civilization is Killing the World, Part I

  177. Anderson Valley Advertiser, April 2, 2003, 9.

  178. George Draffan and I used the following analysis in our book Welcome to the Machine.

  179. Quotes from the Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual—1983.

  180. Ibid.

  181. Ibid.

  182. “Report on the School of the Americas,” Federation of American Scientists, http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1997_rpt/soarpt.htm (accessed May 12, 2003).

  183. Ibid.

  184. “Weapons of American Terrorism: Torture,” http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/weapons/US-Torture.html (accessed May 12, 2003).

  185. Ibid.

  186. Ibid.

  187. Ibid.

  188. Cockburn, untitled, 9.

  189. Priest and Gellman.

  190. Rutten.

  191. Kirby. His statement makes me wonder whether Dr. Bruno Broughton has enough of a brain to feel pain. I’m sure that there are honeybees that would be willing to sting his lips and see if this leads to “anomalous behavior.”

  192. Rand. For what it’s worth, she absolutely emphasizes the word white in the last sentence.

  193. He says this like it’s a bad thing.

  194. Ah, now there’s the point!

  195. I know this was a rhetorical question, but the answer is quite often.

  196. Note that following premise four of this book, the only blood that matters, the only lives that matter, the only broken hearts that matter are those of the exploiters.

  197. U.S. Congress, Congressional Record (56th Congress, 1st sess., 1900), vol. 23, 704, 711-12. Note that this speech was met with applause in the galleries. The entire speech is worth reading for its jingoism as well as its seamless applicability to today’s invasions and the continued march of empire.

  198. Ledeen, “Creative Destruction.”

  199. Ibid.

  200. Mersereau.

  201. Ledeen, “Machiavelli.”

  202. Beeman.

  203. Ibid.

  204. Ledeen, “Faster, Please.”

  205. Ledeen, “Scowcroft Strikes Out.”

  206. Ledeen, “Iranian Comedy Hour.”

  207. Ledeen, “Temperature Rises.”

  208. Ledeen, “Heart of Darkness.”

  209. Ledeen, “Willful Blindness.”

  210. Ledeen, “Lincoln Speech.”

  211. Leggett, 173-74.

  212. St. Clair, “Santorum.”

  213. Scherer.

  214. Regular.

  215. Anderson Valley Advertiser, July 2, 2003, 6. The speaker is Karen Hughes.

  Why Civilization is Killing the World, Part II

  216. I peeled this one off numerous websites.

  217. Heinen.

  218. I’m thinking of songs and stories that teach us how to live in place. There’s no reason to let members of the cult of the machine claim ownership of the word and concept technology.

  219. Genesis 1:28.

  220. Tiger salamanders, for crying out loud! As recently as during my childhood in the sixties, tiger salamanders were still as common as, well, as common as the toads that are now just as endangered.

  221. Jensen, Culture, 382.

  222. I was going to call them masturbational, but at least masturbation feels good.

  223. Weiss.

  224. Llanos.

  225. Ibid.

  226. Weiss.

  227. That was perhaps the central point of my book The Culture of Make Believe.

  228. I’ve talked about this in my other books, too, but I think it’s a point that bears repeating.

  229. “About PNAC,” Project for the New American Century, http://www.newamericancentury.org/aboutpnac.htm (accessed June 1, 2003).

  230. “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.”

  231. Ibid.

  232. “Get the Facts and Clear the Air,” National Campaign Against Dirty Power, http://cta.policy.net/dirtypower/ (accessed September 3, 2004).

  233. Mokhiber, 16-17.

  234. Ibid., 3-4.

  235. Reckard.

  236. Baker.

  237. Which means only those civilians killed by those who oppose the policies of the U.S and its allies.

  238. Paul Richardson, “Hojojutsu—The Art of Tying,” Sukisha Ko Ryu: Bringing Together All the Elements of the Ninjutsu & Samuraijutsu Takamatsu-den Traditions, http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/sukisha/hojojutsu.html. (accessed June 4, 2003).

  239. Jensen, Culture, 107.

  240. Crévecoeur, 214.

  241. Johansen.

  242. Franklin, 481-82.

  243. Axtell, 303.

  244. American Cynic.

  245. Axtell, 327.

  246. American Cynic.

  247. Ibid.

  248. Stannard, 105.

  249. Morgan, 74.

  250. Ibid.

  251. Ibid.

  252. Alcatraz.

  Bringing Down Civilization, Part I

  253. Reich, 3-4.

  254. Malakoff.

  255. Dvorak.

  256. Schor, 19.

  257. Wilkinson.

  258. Most of my account of the Bolt Weevils comes from Losure.

  259. Kinda makes you proud to be an American, don’t it?

  260. Welcome to the club.

  261. Sadovi.

  262. Wikle. See also Towerkill, http://www.towerkill.com, for a very good exploration of how towers kill birds.

  A History of Violence

  263. Miller.

  264. “A Study of Assassination.” This can be found at innumerable websites (well, a Google search shows 138). One version, complete with drawings, is at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/ciaguat2.html (accessed July 7, 2003).

  265. Diamond, 1.

  266. Mowat, 92-94.

  267. Ibid., 49.

  268. Ibid., 61.

  269. Ibid., 63-64.

  270. Cokinos, 102-4

  271. “B.C. Court.”

  272. “B.C.’s Spotted.”

  273. Mowat, 174.

  274. Alaska Fisheries Science Center, “A Ghastly View of Fish Squeezed through the Net by the Tons of Fish Trapped within the Main Body of the Net,” NOAA Photo Library, http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/fish/fish0167.htm (accessed July 10, 2003).

  275. “Why Is Everybody.” This article shows me yet again why this culture is killing the planet, and why I hate it. The magazine is supposedly pro-environmental, but the authors and editors make this whole disturbing discussion into a big joke. I don’t know what their fucking problem is. I was as disgusted by this
article as by the “people” the author was writing about.

  276. Seekers of the Red Mist, http://seekersoftheredmist.com (accessed July 10, 2003). This particular comment was posted April 25, 2003, at 8:31 a.m.

  277. White, 3. This issue also contains a very favorable review of an extraordinary book called The Culture of Make Believe by an extraordinarily cool guy who happens to have the same name as this author.

  278. I would add, to women and to the natural world. And women, too, are alienated, of course.

  Hatred

  279. Fromm, 114-15.

  280. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, electronic ed., vers. 1.1, s.v. “samsara.”

  281. Ming Zhen Shakya, “What Is Zen Buddhism, Part II—Samsara and Nirvana,” http://www.hsuyun.org/Dharma/zbohy/Literature/essays/mzs/whatzen2.html (accessed July 14, 2003).

  282. Richard Hooker, “India Glossary,” s.v. “samsara,” World Civilizations: An Internet Classroom and Anthology, Washington State University, http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GLOSSARY/SAMSARA .HTM (accessed July 14, 2003).

  283. Jay Morgan, “Monks Always Get the Coolest Lines,” Ordinary-Life, http://www.ordinary-life.net/blog/archives/002058.php. (accessed July 29, 2003). I’ve made minor modifications to his version to match other versions I’ve read.

  284. Robbins, 86.

  285. I’m indebted to Ward Churchill for this phrase.

  286. What’s the difference between God granting his chosen people dominion over every living thing and the U.S. military seeking full-spectrum dominance?

  287. Laing, 106-7.

  288. Ibid., 107.

  Love Does Not Imply Pacifism

  289. Guevara, 225.

  290. Doing her part to contribute to overshooting carrying capacity.

  291. Perhaps by talking about it she has gone to the “dark side.”

  292. Laing, 36-37.

  293. Elliott, 12. The italics are in the original.