For the decades I’ve spent as a belligerent, anarchical, front-line, direct-action tree-hugging rabble-rouser, I’ve watched discussions in the conventionally structured, due-process oriented, charitable status-guarding, foundation-funded movement evolve through “official narrative” issues such as industrial logging, pollution, population explosion, pesticides, GMO’s, dirty oil and pipelines, and now, almost unanimously, it’s focused on the general Climate Catastrophe. Nevertheless, methinks that there’s a glaring vacuum of discussion in that milieu, -and all others- concerning the current, very significant escalation of the Nuclear Issue.
In my view, NUKE now far supersedes Climate Catastrophe as the instrument by which all things beautiful here on Earth will be exterminated. With the NATO proxy war raging against Russia, and the berserker Israeli GENOCIDE machine slaughtering down on Gaza and its associated violence spiralling outwards, with continued American warmongering towards China, not to mention, perhaps the most volatile, hair-trigger nuclear stand-off between India and Pakistan, the Armageddon clock marches inexorably towards midnight. And with aging, ill-designed and poorly located nuclear power plants now melted down, melting down, or falling apart around the world, utterly no nuclear waste solutions, new developments in mini-nukes, and runaway, unregulated development of “tactical nukes,” drone, robotic and Artificial Intelligence technology, -either by accident or design, we could, at any moment, be subjected to an instant, globe-enveloping nuclear catastrophe.
It is shocking to see the ancient, befuddled and confused American President with one finger planted firmly on the Genocide button, while the other finger twitches spasmodically over the Armageddon button. And with his equally senile, visionless, utterly morally corrupt and maniacal orange-faced opponent champing at the bit for re-election as “Leader of the Free World,” the future of sentient life on Earth is looking a whole lot bleaker. And while Sweden has today inexplicably signed onto the USA weapons-industry-controlled NATO war machine, Putin is threatening the use of Nuke’s if NATO ultimately somehow advances into the Ukraine. Even more worrisome is that raging berserker, Netanyahu, unrestrained by any sense of moral decency, humanity or even the International Court of Justice Genocide Provisions, hell-bent on entirely and deliberately obliterating the People of Palestine. That this god-awful demon can also unleash a torrent of nukes at the press of a button, -which would certainly escalate into immediate, all out global nuclear war,- should shock us all to the core. They say that Climate Catastrophe is a “slow-moving” disaster. Well, Nuclear Holocaust will come upon us instantaneously, and can now be launched just on a deranged, outraged, and sudden whisp of a whim.
The Nuke issue needs to rise up, immediately, to the emergency Number One priority in all of the natural and humanitarian efforts by the aware, awakened, activated and conscientious element of human society, even by conventional, “official narrative-abiding” environmental and humanitarian organizations. Big Nuke subsumes all of the other issues by which the most conscientious and morally awakened amongst us are activating. Obviously, all of the plethora of issues we are working on must be advanced, but the nuclear emergency is by far paramount.
In my activist experience, in spite of long cycles of somnolent social torpor, in which no visible progress is made to nudge establishment powers towards some/any ethical action, windows of opportunity do occasionally arise. Every now and then, there’s an opening in the cloud through which pent-up momentum can charge through and tangible progress can be achieved. Like here, in Northern British Columbia, where a $100,000,000 Big-Oil PR initiative “the Enbridge Gateway Pipleline project” mounted by Alberta’s trans-national Tar-Sands extractors and their bought federal and provincial government lackeys, attempted to forward an gargantuan Dirty-Oil pipeline project through to the Pacific Ocean was stopped in its tracks by ordinary people. This Big Oil scheme was defeated by simple, concerted First Nation and citizen-settler activism, -and without even one person needing to lie down in front of a bulldozer. Conventional, organized environmental groups helped, but it was spontaneous, conscientious, anarchic People-Power which ultimately won the fight.
While I was growing up, my mother, otherwise a very conscientious person who taught me to love wilderness, smoked cigarettes in the house as a matter of course. On television we watched Dean Martin chain-smoke cigarettes throughout his show. There was a covered designated smoking area at my high school. 20 years ago, if you had asked me if smoking cigarettes in restaurants and bars would one day be illegal and smokers would be treated as social pariahs I would have said that was impossible. Yet that has all changed dramatically.
When the time is ripe, the People can rise up to defeat even the most powerful and entrenched forces of destruction. I think there’s a large gaping window of opportunity right now. All around the world, the People are rising up in great numbers to protest the Genocide, and they are doing so against seemingly insurmountable odds. These enormous demonstrations are generally spontaneous and not organized by any conventional groups. And we are are seeing encouraging cracks beginning to form in the establishment edifice. We’ve got the ICJ ruling on Genocide, with many countries lining up to back the South African appeal. The “BRICS” countries are increasingly beginning to overwhelm the “West,” not only economically, but also morally, and even amongst the most blatantly Zionist-grovelling countries, namely Canada, the UK, Germany, France -and even the #1 Genocide aider and abettor, the USA, appear to be beginning to show signs of yielding, a little. We can look to the UK, where George Galloway has just won a “thumping victory” against the Zionist-controlled excuse for government and the prevailing Western “official narrative.” With Galloway’s victory, even from within an entirely corrupt and useless electoral process, change within the establishment system just might be, somehow, possible.
Here in Canada, our shameless, quisling Prime Minister, has embarrassed us before the world by declaring steadfastly, -and erroneously, according to even corporate media polling- that “Canada stands with Israel.” The Trudeau regime, which continues to send Israel a steady stream of arms, -while purporting to abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and purporting to respect the International Court of Justice, is now flirting around timidly, -lest complaining too much might disturb his Zionist masters-, calling for a initially, a “Humanitarian Pause,” and now, a “Six week Ceasefire,” posturing about restoring UNWRA funding, and of late, maybe bombing Gaza with several sandwiches as his USA boss has been doing. All of these pathetic efforts he has just said, but not done.
I admit that my belligerent anarchical activism has been primarily motivated by outrage and even hate, which has rendered me persona non grata amongst polite, genuflecting “official narrative” minded environmentalists. I can say that I hate Netanyahu and Biden and so many other obstacles to Peace and good planetary stewardship. And I have thought that anger was a good motivator, -it got me off my ass. I thought that public naming and shaming political and corporate recalcitrants was an important and under-used tool in the fight. And I know that anger and hate are the basest of human motivators, and have spent years trying to meditate myself out of this subhuman emotion. But to no avail, -it remains there, at the core of my being. I’ve long thought that I should just accept it, and put that awful impetus to use “for the better.” Nevertheless, looking back on my activist accomplishments over decades, I’m ashamed to say that good results are pathetically few. It’s so easy to get furious and hopeless, -and for the past decade, I’ve resorted to feeling that, as the final human generation to be able to immerse, and enjoy the wondrous whelm of primaeval wilderness, that it behooves us to do just that, -just go in there and immerse, -and simply give up on trying to influence the fate of the world. But I can’t sit in this magnificent forest and not hear the screams of the people of Palestine being slaughtered en masse…
I realize that as conscientious, awakened beings, apathy is just as evil and useless as hate. It gets us nowhere. I’ve gotten nowhere at all by being belligerent or apathetic. And here in Canada, where the general populace lives in relative comfort, belligerence, gluttony, hate and apathy abounds. Canadians, are saturated on the “official narrative” as propagated by the CBC and every other Zionist-controlled media and are just comfortable enough to stay hateful and apathetic. Any attempt to contradict the “official narrative” results in immediate, extreme consequences that threaten that comfort zone. Standing up for Palestine, for example, will guarantee that your voice will not only be silenced by the corporate media, but also on Zionist-controlled “social media” platforms such as Facebook, or even “X.” Post the word “Palestine” on Facebook, and their censor-bots will immediately excommunicate you from your “friends,” reducing viewership of that post to virtually zero, -while a picture of your cat will generate thousands of “likes.” “X” censorship appears to be more insidious, where it’s difficult to grow one’s audience without paying for exposure, and having done that, “X” will arbitrarily shut down any Palestine commentary that generates momentum. And Elon Musk, who recently visited Aushwitz accompanied by the utterly loathsome Zionist Genocide-apologist Ben Shapiro, has made his pro-Genocide position abundantly clear…
There’s plenty of room for more love and action in this world, – to love and act for the People of Palestine for example. Love is more powerful than hate. There’s plenty of room for empathy. Empathy is more powerful than anger. And there’s plenty of room for action. Action is more powerful than apathy.
Having tried, and failed to employ the bad motivators, I want to try out the better approach. I love this planet, and having travelled around the world many times, I’ve loved the people I met. I empathize very much with all of their suffering and want to help. And we need to see the overarching immediate threat to our world, which is most clearly BIG NUKE. NUKE, by accident or design threatens everything, immediately. Every effort to defuse this calamity has failed and the danger is growing. No conventional means have worked. And I need to get off my apathetic, hateful ass and start working again to do what is right.
Ingmar Lee is a grateful settler/ally, blessed to be living in the unceded territory of the Heiltsuk First Nation, near Bella Bella on the Pacific Coast. He can be reached at [email protected]
