Underminers and Deep Green Resistance

Look! Over there on the right. There’s a link to Deep Green Resistance. I only put links to things I think are genuinely useful and important.

Just thought I should get that clear straight away, in case anyone was getting the idea that Underminers was some kind of rival, or alternative to the fomenting DGR movement. It certainly isn’t – they are, while not quite partners, two complementary things that support and reinforce each other in startling ways.

First off, if you don’t already know, Deep Green Resistance is a movement of people, united by the desire to see the end of industrial civilization. In short:

The goal of DGR is to deprive the rich of their ability to steal from the poor and the powerful of their ability to destroy the planet. This will require defending and rebuilding just and sustainable human communities nestled inside repaired and restored landbases. This is a vast undertaking but it needs to be said: it can be done. Industrial civilization can be stopped.

The way DGR aims to work is not easily explained in a paragraph, so I recommend you go here and find out more. Clearly DGR and Underminers (and the burgeoning Underminers Network) has a lot in common, but there are key differences. Underminers is focused on removing the Tools of Disconnection that prevent the vast majority of people from taking back their lives and no longer being part of the industrial machine – I believe that there are currently far too few connected people to make a significant difference.

DGR is about directly attacking the industrial machine, removing its ability to continue destroying the living planet. Like Underminers, it starts from a point where there are already people ready and willing to create change, except that with DGR, that change means actively dismantling the industrial system.

Neither are contradictory. This diagram should help:

The Underminers’ world is primarily in the top left box, by which the act of undermining frees up more people to carry out further acts of undermining directly and via a number of side-effects, such as community building. Those people liberated through undermining may not choose to consciously carry out undermining themselves, but through Personal Impact Reduction, they do so anyway, because the effect of this is to weaken the grip of industrial civilization on their daily lives, thus Weakening Industrial Civilization.

The Deep Green Resistance movement comes into its own in that right-hand box, where countless acts are being supported and carried out to directly weaken the industrial machine. I strongly believe that undermining is essential if the DGR movement is to reach its potential. Similarly, DGR is essential in weakening the grip that civilization has over people’s everyday lives – DGR is a both a direct force for change and a form of undermining.

I look forward to this being a truly collaborative effort. We are, after all, in the same boat, and would really like to go in the same direction…at first. What happens after is up to you.

Note: In the light of recent events occurring between the authors of the DGR book, and members of DGR with regards to gender politics, it is worth stating that I wholeheartedly support the fundamental aims of the Deep Green Resistance movement, whilst not necessarily agreeing with the views of all members of the organisation. In any collection of people there will be disagreements – it’s just a shame that a disagreement over something that could have been a long-term goal, has been allowed to manifest itself so virulently.