Derrick Jensen's
Endgame Volume I: The Problem of Civilization
Finally, a man with the balls to call a spade a spade. In this book, Jensen lays out repeatedly and in very definitive terms why and how civilization is killing the planet, making a strong case for civilization as a most violent and denying abuser of Earth: mineral, vegetable, and animal (including humans). He has no patience for saving the world through petitions and peaceful means while the violent ruling parties bulldoze and bomb their way towards completely eradicating life and the ability to sustain life. He spends some time analyzing the fallacy of Gandhian non-violence, with his basic argument being that those who dogmatically refuse to use violence under every circumstance play into the destruction wreaked by those in power who have absolutely no issue with using violence to have their way.
Jensen writes a lot about landbases, bringing us back to the basic fact that we need clean water and air to survive. He recounts the violent and expansive history of entitlement, encroachment, and insatiable consumption that is civilization, constrasting that to the lives of indigenous people the world over, who are among the diverse forms of life which continue to be systematically destroyed by civilization, in the name of "progress."
Volume II, which I haven't read, is called
Resistance, and is supposed to explore the tactics that people can use to "bring down civilization." Jensen explores the basis of these tactics at the end of Volume I, explaining the concepts of "fulcrums" with which to leverage force against the many "bottlenecks," or weak points, of civilization.
Review:
Facing reality in Derrick Jensen's "End Game"
I've now started James Howard Kunstler's
The Long Emergency, describing the peak oil problem as well as some problems inherent in the progressive model of civilization, and how we all are in for a big shock when oil starts running out (indications are that this is happening now). Sounds grim, but compared to Jensen's analysis, this book seems to be a skip through a fairgrounds wearing rose-colored glasses and a tie-dye tee-shirt.
I'm sure many of you will want to go out and read these books immediately.