END:CIV – Resist Or Die

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END:CIV examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?”

The causes underlying the collapse of civilizations are usually traced to overuse of resources. As we write this, the world is reeling from economic chaos, peak oil, climate change, environmental degradation, and political turmoil. Every day, the headlines re-hash stories of scandal and betrayal of the public trust. We don’t have to make outraged demands for the end of the current global system — it seems to be coming apart already.

But acts of courage, compassion and altruism abound, even in the most damaged places. By documenting the resilience of the people hit hardest by war and repression, and the heroism of those coming forward to confront the crisis head-on, END:CIV illuminates a way out of this all-consuming madness and into a saner future.

Backed by Jensen’s narrative, the film calls on us to act as if we truly love this land. The film trips along at a brisk pace, using music, archival footage, motion graphics, animation, slapstick and satire to deconstruct the global economic system, even as it implodes around us. END:CIV illustrates first-person stories of sacrifice and heroism with intense, emotionally-charged images that match Jensen’s poetic and intuitive approach. Scenes shot in the back country provide interludes of breathtaking natural beauty alongside clearcut evidence of horrific but commonplace destruction.

END:CIV features interviews with Paul Watson, Waziyatawin,  Gord Hill, Michael Becker, Peter Gelderloos, Lierre Keith, James Howard Kunstler, Stephanie McMillan, Qwatsinas, Rod Coronado, John Zerzan and more.

“A fierce critique of systematic violence and industrial civilization, End:Civ is not intended for garden-variety environmentalists. If you are anywhere below, say, an 8 on that sliding scale of pissed off, then this film is going to scare you — which means you should watch it.”
-Eugene Weekly

“A tour de force film from Franklin López which does more than justice to Derrick Jensen’s thesis that industrial civilization is destroying life on the planet.  Employing all the contemporary audio visual techniques our digital world makes possible for a single brilliant penurious filmmaker, López harvests sounds and images from our demented world to relentlessly show the rape of the mind and the earth.  To those outside the small choir who see the message of resistance as obvious, this powerful film makes them deal with it either by denial or acknowledging, yes I see it is obvious.”

James Becket
-Director of The Best Revenge

“Franklin Lopez is a fantastically talented filmmaker, who has created a powerful and important film about the most important topic ever: how to stop this culture from killing the planet.”
-Derrick Jensen, Author of Endgame

“By far the most routinely praised contemporary media activist is Franklin López. His shows and films not only possess a distinctive look and feel, but they also contain a wicked sense of humor that is often sorely lacking among alter-globalization activists. López’s work engages in constructing a new vision where popular culture serves the interests of the poor and dispossessed, where humor is reignited within activism, and the D.I.Y. ethics of punk and hip-hop allow those with talent and gumption to be the media, once again.”
-Chris Robé, Pop Matters

“Franklin Lopez’ END:CIV is a labour of love, a stunning 75 minutes film…”
John Zerzan, author of Future Primitive

“It brought me to tears…” “I recommend it to people”
-Alex Smith, Host of Radio Ecoshock

“Franklin Lopez’s END:CIV project is awesome.”
-Shannon Walsh, Director of H2Oil

“Both the quantity and the quality of this movement’s filmmaking is increasing. This is the big battlefield on which we fight right now.”
-Michael Rupert, CollapseNet.com

Franklin López will be touring with END:CIV in 2011.
The END:CIV DVD by PM Press can be ordered now.
If you wish to book a screening in your town or want to order a DVD, simply click on the links below.

Order DVD — Book a community screening — Book a university screening

Day of Direct Action Against Extraction April 20, 2011

Communities around the world are under attack from extractive industries that poison our families, kill our loved ones on the job, and destroy the ecosystems we cherish. The BP oil spill was unfortunately just one of an endless string of disasters born of an economic system that must endlessly consume the Earth’s  resources.

Extraction is the act of taking without giving anything back. Extraction takes workers lives so  corporations can make a few more bucks. Extraction takes clean water and air and gives us blackened oceans and a climate in chaos. Extraction takes the natural wealth of communities and ecosystems and leaves behind poverty and ecological wastelands.

For a stable climate, clean air and water, we must stop the extraction of fossil fuels and other “resources.”  From the tar sands of Alberta to the Gulf Coast, people are fighting back against the extractiveindustries  that have declared war on our planet. Rising Tide is calling for a day of direct action against extraction on the 1 year anniversary of the BP oil spill.

On April 20th take it to the point of production.  Shut down a well site, occupy a mine, take over an office, blockade a bank. Nobody’s community should be a sacrifice  zone.

For climate justice and a livable planet,

Rising Tide North America

[click for printable poster]

JOIN THE CHAIN REACTION

Bring It Down Today

By Travis C., WilderPress! Editorial Collective

I sometimes wonder what it will be like when it all comes down, when this fucking crazy machine comes to a grinding halt. I’m talking about the capitalist machine and the
industrialized addicted society that kneels to it.

I’m talking about america…

I think about what the streets will look like when the plants push up through the concrete; when the grocery store shelves empty and the only reminder of times long gone are the plastic bags blowing in the streets like sagebrush across the desert. I think about the shattered windows and broken doors—they did little to keep out the looters or the stones hurled by rioters. I think about the vulnerability of the cities when the electrical infrastructure fails and the power plants shut down—their demise a product of human’s irresponsible abuse and depletion of natural resources. I think about cars abandoned on the side of the road…left behind, forgotten, and worthless without their precious fuel…

Click here to read the full article…

In the sacrifice zone

Earth First! shakes up the Durango conservation scene

by Amy Donahue, The Durango Telegraph, 9/3/09

Well before Ed Abbey put the sands of Utah on the map, the Southwest has been a magnet for outdoor enthusiasts and wilderness aficionados willing to fight for the places they love. However, the very richness of the natural resources that bring these nature-lovers to the Four Corners also brings those interested in resource extraction. Thus, it often is a place of conflicting concerns and priorities.

“The Southwest is a designated national sacrifice area, and as the nation begins to look deeper for energy sources, we will be the focus of the onslaught in the coming decades,” said Nathan Coe, who recently co-founded a Durango chapter of Earth First! “We’re going to get hit harder and harder for things like oil and gas extraction, shale oil, uranium and infrastructure. These are all issues that mainstream groups have fought for years and have effectively stalled, but the projects are still moving forward.”

…

Coe and fellow Durangoan Travis Custer attended an Earth First! conference in Tucson in February. Along with attendees from Grand Junction and Denver, the two decided to revitalize an EF! presence in Colorado under the name High Country Earth First!. The Denver chapter already has begun campaigns against the expansion of I-70, but the chapter here is still in the developmental stages. Custer said that before a Durango chapter of EF! can establish itself, it is important to look at how the group may fit in with the already-strong activism here.