Let whatever history remains note that we didn't go down without a fight. We saw the environmental destruction, we protested, we raised alarms, we acted and defended the planet with our lives........
Between 2012 and 2022, around the world, one environmental defender was killed every other day, according to international human rights group Global Witness. That’s nearly 2,000 peasants, farmers, fisherfolk and activists murdered for defending their land from some of the biggest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions — including mining, logging and agribusiness corporations — as well as hydropower projects, which have their own ruinous environmental impact.
Let whatever history remains note that we didn't go down without a fight. We saw the environmental destruction, we protested, we raised alarms, we acted and defended the planet with our lives.....
May God have mercy on the souls of these Gardeners and Shepherds, and may we never forget their on-going sacrifices.
While the State Department condemns such killings — and, in 2017, even formed an interagency working group to monitor and address violence against environmental defenders — in practice, the United States has almost never had to take accountability for the local killings of activists by the governments it supports.
But when a U.S. citizen like Brandon Lee is shot, the public begins following the path back to America to look for answers.
Climate change is coming for us all, and livable land is going to be harder and harder to come by. I've moved us somewhere that hopefully gives us a bit more time, but I'm not under any illusion that we'd get to stay as soon as the powerful want it. They don't need their own guns, my tax dollars pay for their military and their own police.
It's comforting: what's going to do is in isn't broad apathy or ignorance. It's just the greedy few, yet again.
Oh I think we should organize and resist and stricke back. But have you ever actually done any work with groups that get targeted by the powers that be and see all that hard work come to nothing...
Oh I think we should organize and resist and stricke back. But have you ever actually done any work with groups that get targeted by the powers that be and see all that hard work come to nothing but jail and violence and displacement? Fighting is good, but acceptance that it likely wont work is also important. You can't go in expecting to win, that won't last and you're going to break.
This is an unbelievable take. Openly stating that the "neocolonial US military apparatus" is to blame for murders in the Philippines - not because any US entity actually did anything, but because...
The hidden nature of the killings and the entanglement of military, paramilitary and local police makes it hard enough to trace state complicity, let alone track them back to more powerful geopolitical actors — such as the neocolonial U.S. military apparatus that has long cleared the way for resource extraction, and the global corporate and financial interests that ultimately profit. Yet, in many states — including the Philippines and much of Latin America — the wars on terror and drugs under which these executions are carried out are extensions of U.S. hegemony and conducted with U.S. weapons and training.
While the State Department condemns such killings — and, in 2017, even formed an interagency working group to monitor and address violence against environmental defenders — in practice, the United States has almost never had to take accountability for the local killings of activists by the governments it supports.
This is an unbelievable take. Openly stating that the "neocolonial US military apparatus" is to blame for murders in the Philippines - not because any US entity actually did anything, but because it has "cleared the way for resource extraction and global corporate interests" - is absurd. As is the notion that the US needs to be held personally accountable for the murder of activists in countries it supports.
The Philippines is a democracy, not some banana republic propped up by the CIA. It's almost insultingly infantilizing to claim that the US should be held ultimately accountable.
I'm engaging with this specifically because the bulk of the article, in terms of word count, is a critique of the US's Leahy vetting proces, rather than a critique of the Philippines.
Let whatever history remains note that we didn't go down without a fight. We saw the environmental destruction, we protested, we raised alarms, we acted and defended the planet with our lives.....
May God have mercy on the souls of these Gardeners and Shepherds, and may we never forget their on-going sacrifices.
Climate change is coming for us all, and livable land is going to be harder and harder to come by. I've moved us somewhere that hopefully gives us a bit more time, but I'm not under any illusion that we'd get to stay as soon as the powerful want it. They don't need their own guns, my tax dollars pay for their military and their own police.
It's comforting: what's going to do is in isn't broad apathy or ignorance. It's just the greedy few, yet again.
Oh I think we should organize and resist and stricke back. But have you ever actually done any work with groups that get targeted by the powers that be and see all that hard work come to nothing but jail and violence and displacement? Fighting is good, but acceptance that it likely wont work is also important. You can't go in expecting to win, that won't last and you're going to break.
This is an unbelievable take. Openly stating that the "neocolonial US military apparatus" is to blame for murders in the Philippines - not because any US entity actually did anything, but because it has "cleared the way for resource extraction and global corporate interests" - is absurd. As is the notion that the US needs to be held personally accountable for the murder of activists in countries it supports.
The Philippines is a democracy, not some banana republic propped up by the CIA. It's almost insultingly infantilizing to claim that the US should be held ultimately accountable.
I'm engaging with this specifically because the bulk of the article, in terms of word count, is a critique of the US's Leahy vetting proces, rather than a critique of the Philippines.