181. DERRICK JENSEN

I've already discussed some of the extremist riff-raff who wrote Advanced Praise blurbs for Heinberg's peak oil bible The Party's Over: the white separatist Virginia Deane Abernethy (#106,#123), the racist collaborator David Pimentel (#106,#123) and the paranoid mental case Michael C. Ruppert (#115, #116, #132). Today, let's take a look at another one of Heinberg's buddies, Derrick Jensen:

He almost sounds like a sane person in the promo copy in Heinberg's book -- just another moderate in the peak oil debate:

As Richard Heinberg makes shockingly clear in this extraordinarily well-researched and -written book, our way of life will soon change dramatically, as oil production and reserves both begin to decline. He also makes clear that our actions now will strongly affect what is left of the world when this shift away from oil takes place. But before we can act we must understand, and before we can understand, we must be informed. In this compelling book, Richard Heinberg gives us the tools -- the information and understanding -- to act. The Party's Over is a wise and important work.

-- Derrick Jensen, author of A Language Older than Words and The Culture of Make Believe

This is just a front. Jensen is actually a drooling luddite, and an advocate of violence against energy infrastructure. He talks very differently when he lets his hair down among the true believers:

Jensen currently lives among the redwoods of Crescent City, California, where he devotes much of his time to wildlife habitat restoration. In his own words: "Are human beings destined to destroy this earth? Why do we act as we do? What will it take for us to stop the horrors that characterize our way of being? Every morning when I wake up, I ask myself if I should write or blow up a dam."Source

My main objective is to bring down civilization. Actually that's not quite true. My main objective is to live in a world with more wild salmon every year than the year before, more migratory songbirds, more natural forest communities, more fish in the ocean, less dioxin in every mother's breast milk. And I'll do what it takes to get there. And what it will take is for us to dismantle everything we see around us.Source

If someone would have brought down civilization whatever that means, 150 years ago, people living along the Columbia river would still have salmon to eat. If people would have brought down civilization 200 years ago, people who live in what is now the New England states would still have passenger pigeons.Source

The whole reform versus revolution question, which is not the question you asked, is just crap. If we just wait for the great glorious revolution there is not going to be anything left when we get there, and if on the other hand all we do is reform there won’t be anything left in the end anyways. We need it all. We need everything. We need people chaining themselves to trees, we need people taking out dams...Source

In so far as what we can do to get there, I’ve done benefits for earth liberation prisoners and fully support the actions of the ELF and the ALF. I have supported them publicly on a bunch of occasions, and in a bunch of different local and national venues. That said I do have a criticism, and my criticism is that I wish they would move up the infrastructure. I think what we need to do is start looking for bottlenecks and start looking for leverage points.Source

-- by JD