Derrick Jensen

Yesterday, Saturday, October 3, 2009, Shusli and I went to see Derrick Jensen speak at the First Unitarian Church in beautiful downtown Portland. He was here as part of what is called Econvergance.

Derrick is a well known "anti-civ" author. His books include "Endgame," "The Culture of Make Believe," "A Language Older Than Words," "Walking on Water," and about 10 others. Shusli and I highly recommend reading all of them.

Prior to his talk, I watched Derrick walk in down the aisle like he was part of the audience. He talked with folks he knew like all the audience members were doing, and there was no crazy fanfare as is usually involved with celebrity and semi-celebrity types.

Derrick is a strong non-indigenous ally of us indigenous types, one of the strongest I have ever met. He is a rare clear thinker who sees things for what they are and writes about them as such. Civilization is killing the planet. He points out the polluted rivers, air, landbase. He points out the slaughter of millions and that the U.S. is a nation of occupation. He is a teacher of this knowledge. And he asks that all important and rather dangerous question: What are we going to do about it?

If corporations were poisoning your kids, what would you do? If corporations and the government they own were putting toxins in the breast milk of women, what would you do? If corporations were posioning our rivers and making our salmon go extinct, what would you do? And coporations are doing just that and so much more, and what are we going to do about it? What is your threshold? What is the final straw before you do your part? Not an easy question to answer. Not black and white at all.

A young woman stood up during the Q and A and stated she doesn't want to go to prison or die or anything like that, so who is gonna do any of the things that need to get done (such as taking out a dam or two so the salmon and other species and humans can live)? Derrick pointed out that only 2% of the Irish Republican Army took up arms. The rest were support folk protecting those that did so and helping them as best they could. She can do support for those of us who are willing to stand on the front lines.

"We are living in occupied territory..." Derrick stated at one point of his talk. Only three of us appluaded, Shusli, me, and a powerful writer and thinker from BC named Waziyatawin. We must have been the only three indigenous types in the church. It is telling of the "convergence" of native and non-native resistance and understanding.

So, the question is: What are we gonna do about the destruction of the salmon and all of the natural world? What is our threshold before we finally do something, anything?