Fertile Ground - Fall '11 - Earth at Risk & West Coast Tour

Fall 2011 Newsletter - Vol. 2 No. 4

This fall is an exciting time for Fertile Ground. For one, our official name has changed. We are now the Fertile Ground Environmental Institute. We think this name change reflects our goals and our mission more clearly, and helps us move forward with the organization.

Our own Dillon Thomson is currently in the midst of a west coast speaking tour promoting Deep Green Resistance. He’s already spoken in Bellingham, Seattle, and Portland. You can find upcoming locations on our website here: www.dgfg.org/national-tour.html.

Deep Green Resistance Speaking Tour- Fall 2011

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And coming up soon is the headline event of the year: the 2011 Earth At Risk conference in Berkeley, Cali. on November 13th. This event is a unique chance to see renowned speaker and activist Arundhati Roy, along with acerbic columnist Chris Hedges and poet-philosopher Derrick Jensen. We have lowered ticket prices in solidarity with the Occupy movement worldwide. General admission tickets are now $10, and low-income/student tickets are now $5. The full list of speakers, along with ticket info, can be found at www.EarthAtRisk.net. We hope to see you there!

“Today corporate globalization needs an international confederation of loyal, corrupt, and preferably authoritarian governments in poorer countries to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies. It’s called “creating a good investment climate.”’

- Arundhati Roy

Please make a contribution today to support our work! Fertile Ground is a 501c3 federally recognized non-profit organization, so donations are tax-deductible. You can donate on our website, www.dgfg.org, or by mailing a check to PO Box 1122 Bellingham, Wash., 98227. Please contact us if you wish to volunteer or donate physical goods, such as computers, cell phones, or printers. Thank you for your support!

You can follow our work and get news updates on our twitter feed or via facebook. And our new reading list is online - check it out for great recommendations like Columbus and Other Cannibals, one of the foundational texts of the anti-civilization movement by indigenous educator and activist Jack D. Forbes.

For the land,
The Board of Directors of Fertile Ground

Climate change is leading to the breakup of sea ice in the polar regions of the world, with dire consequences for coastal communities and countless non-human species.

Mission Statement:
Fertile Ground promotes worldwide oppositional cultures to challenge the systems that oppress and dominate human populations and the natural world. We build support for localized resistance against industrial civilization by providing educational materials and developing Deep Green leadership.

News:

Dillon Thomson was interviewed on the Joe Show on KGMI radio in Bellingham, Wash. just before the beginning of his tour. Dillon comes on around 22 minutes into the show. You can listen to that interview here:
http://www.kgmi.com/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=5504761.

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Our friends in the Deep Green Resistance movement have released an open letter to the Occupy movement. Here are the first few sentences:

We invite you to imagine, as many of you already probably have, if thousands of people occupied local refineries, roads, ports, oil and mining extraction sites, etc. – in other words, imagine if people occupied the locations where the 1% destroy the land and exploit humans, all for profit. Imagine their stock prices falling, their cash flow being interrupted, their ability to get loans and/or expand “production” – a euphemism for converting living beings into dead products – finished. Imagine if we were able to stop them, stop the 1%. Literally. Not symbolically.  We think it can be done if we all do it together. We think it can be done if we all figure out how to do it and if we are willing to make the necessary sacrifices, together. Here’s one way we could start...

The full text of the letter can be found on the Deep Green Resistance website.

"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing."
- Malcolm X

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It’s been an amazing year for Fertile Ground. One of our projects has been to develop a strong and user-friendly website for the organization. Our original website, fertileground1.ning.com, has been a great place to meet people and continues to be a gathering space for many Deep Green thinking individuals who want to share their enthusiasm. However, there are a couple of drawbacks to the Ning system: one is the fees they began charging last year and the other is the inability to customize features. These issues have driven us to develop the new site at dgfg.org.

Our new online home will have a forum for discussions and posts, FG blog, video resources and pretty much everything else you're used to on our old website, plus a few extras.

We're really looking forward to making the new site a streamlined hub for Deep Green Resistance education and community resources. Please visit the site and look around. Email your comments to deepgreenfertileground@gmail.com and we'll do what we can to see your suggestions are implemented.

If you are interested in helping out with developing or maintaining the website please let us know. There are many important long- and short-term tasks that may need your talents. This is a community endeavor and has thus far been built by the wealth of skills contributed by our friends.

Expect the Ning site to close at the end of 2011.

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The latest feature on the Fertile Ground website is our blog – we are posting writings by Fertile Ground organizers and friends. Please contact us with submissions of writings, photographs, or videos for the blog.

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As always, we are looking for volunteers, interns, and organizers. Please contact us if you can help!

Chernobyl - now home to more than 300 wolves, as well as Europe's native bison and horse species.

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We Believe:

That human survival is dependent on healthy, diverse ecosystems.
That industrial civilization is undermining every living system on the planet.
That the rights of life trump the perceived rights of commerce.
That most injustices are systematic and deliberate.
That the scale of planetary degradation is massive and should be met with solutions that match the scale of the problems.
That the modern environmental movement will need to undergo a fundamental transformation for it to be successful.
That technological innovation will not prevent the systematic degradation of our planet.
That this culture will not make a voluntary change to a sustainable lifestyle.
That protective use of force is justified in defending our landbase.
That our current civilization needs to be replaced by thousands of cultures that are fully integrated into their local ecosystems.

“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal".” - Martin Luther King Jr.

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