The group leading the resistance to the lithium Nevada mine proposal is openly, defiantly outside the American mainstream — against capitalism, against industrialization and electrification, and “proudly Luddite in character.”
The self-described “radical environmental movement dedicated to stopping the murder of the planet,” says it wants not just to shut down a mine but in time to eliminate the country’s industrial base in a bid to prevent a global ecological collapse. And the power of their mainstream opponents means that new methods of resistance are needed.
Will Falk, a Deep Green Resistance activist, said in an email that U.S. law favors mining claims over American Indian cultural and spiritual uses. As a result, until “massive and organized” change within American industry is achieved, “no one will be very successful in stopping projects like the Thacker Pass project.”
“We are fighting as hard as we can to keep mining corporations from turning Nevada and Oregon into sacrifice zones for electric car batteries,” he said.
Fellow Deep Green Resistance activist Max Wilbert acknowledges he does not know whether the anti-mine campaign will be successful.
“At Thacker Pass, grassroots environmentalists and traditional indigenous people are facing the overwhelming power of big business and government,” he said in a Facebook note. “This reflects a broader pattern: The entire environmental movement has been a running retreat for decades.”
SEE ALSO: Nevada lithium mine pits Biden green agenda against radical environmentalists
The group advocates “decisive ecological warfare” through unpredictable attacks on infrastructure that would cause cascading systems failures. Deep Green Resistance warns supporters on its website not to talk to federal agents and to make clear that the group is a legal, aboveground environmental group. But in a section on security procedures, the organization mentions covert underground activities in support of Deep Green Resistance goals.
The website says there is a firewall between Deep Green Resistance and “underground action.”
The group’s primary activities are legal, it says, “in contrast with ’underground’ organizations that conduct clandestine, highly illegal activities.”
The website says, “We advocate for this, as we think coordinated underground action is the best chance for saving the planet.”
Deep Green Resistance does not plan or carry out underground action, yet the website links to a page titled “Underground Action Calendar” listing various direct actions. Those actions include the cutting of fiber-optic cables in France in April that disrupted internet service.
The organization seeks a four-pronged strategy: advertise, educate, infiltrate and expand.
“For the sustainability of all life on earth we must fight united against the ruling elite on a number of fronts concurrently to enable an anti-imperialist movement to take root and an egalitarian global society to develop,” the post said. “The brutal industrial economy has failed miserably. Its inherent contradictions have merely served to: concentrate great wealth into the hands of the ruling elite; poison our atmosphere; create wars; famine; exploit our labor; torture and imprison us; and divide us by race, gender and religion.”
Deep Green Resistance activists’ websites and blogs praise the Marxist-Leninist Black Panther Party and communist guerrilla leader Che Guevara as models.
The group also plans to infiltrate “white radicals” using the Black Panther Party methods of social and community outreach.
“Using this as a model, white radicals must awaken ’redneck’ and ’hillbilly’ Americans despite an aversion to their racial and gender politics,” the post said. “While it’s essential we combat the alt-right and Nazi party anytime they attempt to rally, it is also critically important that we infiltrate their communities and positively influence their children to disrupt their indoctrination into a world of fear and hatred.”
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.