So I'm a big fan of Derrick Jensen's, author of the Endgame series and A Language Older Then Words, among others. The other day, while in Powell's, I came across his graphic novel As the World Burns: 50 Things You Can Do To Stay in Denial. In the age of movies like Leo DiCaprios' The Eleventh Hour and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, "green" issues of magazines and tv shows, all of which are, no doubt, raising awareness of the global ecocide that is going on, but, despite all of this, I think many of the "green" shows, movies, books and so on that are out there right now, are perpetuating a certain amount of denial. After all, as Derrick Jensen is famous for pointing out, changing light bulbs may "save" electricity, but that just means more electricity can be used somewhere else, probably to make money for a big corporation somewhere, so they can continue polluting. And "saving electricity," does not bring down the dams, that ultimately, are what is causing fish species to go extinct and ecosystems to collapse. Derrick argues that it is the system itself which needs to be questioned, because as long as large corporations distract us with light bulbs and low-flow shower heads, they can continue the rapid destruction of the planet that is continuing, every day, all day, as long as this destructive system is in place.
One of the cartoons in the book I especially liked was the conversation between a fox and a stereotypical new age type guy. The new age guy tells the fox he'd be more sustainable if he switched to a vegetarian diet...that eating "mousies" is just cruel and many more foxes could be sustained on the earth if they all only ate berries and grasses and seeds. The fox yells back something like "don't tell me about the mousies...if you weren't in denial and really wanted to save the mousies, you'd destroy vivisection labs...!" Of course, the new age guy believes in nonviolence and won't consider destroying a vivisection lab, even though he knows doing so would stop the suffering of millions of lives. Instead, he starts chanting "peace above me, peace behind me, peace below me..." In another scene, the same new age guy and the fox are sitting in an old growth forest that is being destroyed, and instead of taking any action, the new age guy sits down on a stump and starts the same chant and urges the fox to do the same. The fox meanwhile runs off to mobilize other animals to action to save the forest. The message is clear; despite bumper stickers, prayer, meditation, chants, changing light bulbs, turning our water heaters down, using recycled toilet paper, eating vegetarian, the world is still burning..the destroyers are still hard, hard at work. Derrick's message reminds me of that Rage Against the Machine song, the lyrics being "WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKKKKKKKKKEEEE UPPPPPPPPPPP!" And yet, he does it with cute cartoons (drawn by artist Stephanie McMillan,)...pictures of foxes, a heroic one-eyed rabbit that actually does destroy a vivisection lab (then bunnies become the terrorists, with the nation going on "carrot orange alert,",) anyway, my point is, if you can't stomach the harsh truths laid out in Derrick's other books, which can be quite tough to read since he talks a lot about child abuse, paralleling that with the destruction of the planet, this might be a good book for you. It lays our denial open, puts it out there for you to see, but in a gentle, non-judgmental way. Wood and I took turns reading it to each other, doubled over in laughter, making silly voices up for all of the charactures. I suggest you find a friend to read it with in that manner..it is a highly entertaining satirical read, while still having a very important and clear message, which is "down with civilization and ON WITH THE WILD FUTURE!"
Love ya,
Carrot
