From Golden, Colorado jail [Walter is making himself available to the media for interviews from jail. Contact 303-277-0211]
I contend that you cannot truly be for Animal Liberation without having at least an equal concern for Earth Liberation. The primary reason for this is because all life is symbiotic with its environment. As adults in contemporary Western Eurocentric society we are taught to compartmentalize everything we see. This stems from a maniacal urge to relate everything strictly in terms of personal worth. In other words, we are taught from day one to view the world solely from our point of view: human centric and human supreme.
One interesting way you can view human supremacy at work in almost anyone is to ask the question "Tell me about World History." Practically every person I have ever asked that question to has reflexively answered with examples of human history only from various times and places. Seldom will you hear about the history of the dinosaurs, the tectonic movements of continents, or the profound abundance and evolution of aquatic life. Nor will you hear about the endless species, types and abundance of the plant kingdom or the movements and cycles of Mother Earth herself. No. Usually if someone really digs deep you may hear about hominids or our next of kin, apes. Which apparently are only important because of their close relation to us.
Looking at nearly all the World religions we see similarly that the god or gods of all creation are just smitten with us humans. In the Holy Bible, there is barely two pages in the beginning of Genesis explaining the creation of the entire material universe, the Earth and all its critters. The rest is all about people. How ridiculously vain to think that all life is only here for the benefit of one life. In Hindu mythology we find that for some unexplained reason humans are at the top of the Karmic food chain and to be born human is one step away from divinity. I assert that it is these kinds of utterly insatiable vanities that have made humans a cancer and pestilence to the Earth and all life upon her. I think that one can definitely be spiritual and still separate from such profound speciesist, self-centeredness. Atheists, although much more free-thinking in many ways, seem to carry all the vestiges of human supremacy as well. Even U.F.O.-ologists assume that aliens - which are always depicted as humanoid - would be brilliant enough to warp time and space to travel the multiverse just so that they could come here to Earth and insert cold, metallic objects into our rectums. Real, rational way to think it through.
Anyway, back to what matters - the Earth. As I said, we are not important, Mother Earth is. And all life is 100% dependent on her 100% of the time. Without oxygen to breath, you would die in a matter of minutes. Without water, a matter of days. Without food, a matter of months. And without a natural environment, a matter of years. Mother Nature is the real goddess and we are just a tiny entry in her book of Life. The only thing that makes us important, really, is our profound wickedness and evil on the face of the globe.
Many times in my writings I refer to Animal and Earth death as a "holocaust." I realize that people being human-centric view 'The Holocaust' as the worst thing that ever happened. But truthfully that is a drop in the bucket compared to our own holocaust against the Earth. What happened to the Jews at the hands of the Nazis was insane and cruel. What whites have done to the Native peoples and still do to them all over the globe is atrocious. But while of course there are correlations to be made amongst all forms of oppression, these are not really comparisons. What one segment of the human race does to another is nowhere near the perfidiousness of our species against all other species. We (humanity) destroy, lay waste and make extinct whole species and varieties of Life. We hunt them to death, eat them to death and poach them to death. We cut down their habitats and poison the bio-dome. We perpetuate the biggest holocaust ever in the history of the world! We domesticate, subjugate and seal the fate of all. There is only two ways that this theater of insanity will end. Either we will adopt a biocentric attitude or we will trash the Earth until she retaliates (and guess what, our collective grey brain matter is not going to win against the fury of the Earth).
Biocentric is just a way of saying from our Mother Earth's point of view instead of just our own species (by 'our' I mean all Life not just humans). To begin the paradigm shift to a biocentric worldview is a life-long journey for us alienated humans. We are the original domesticated animal. The first step is interconnectedness. As I said earlier, all Life is symbiotic to its surroundings or environment. There are millions of examples of this in nature. One simple one is a squirrel on a tree. It’s obvious to me that they are extensions of one another. A squirrel is roughly the same color as the tree bark. Its little feet and claws perfectly adapted to climb as ours are to the ground. Conversely, the tree perfectly sustains the squirrel with sustenance and shelter. And the squirrel keeps predators away and spreads the seed for the tree. Symbiotic. And equally simple but a more curious mystery of interconnectedness is 'the face.' Nearly all Life has a face. Under water, on land, in the air. Eyes, ears, nose, mouth. Why? Because all Life on Mother Earth is a manifestation of the intelligence of nature, far more majestic and imaginative than any one of the entries in her book of Life.
Just as there are millions of ways in which we can observe the symbiotic relationships between Earth and Animal, there are just as many ways we can ponder on interconnectedness. Far too many for this brief article. But none of these contemplations matter unless they manifest themselves in our actions. If our understanding of connectivity doesn't change our behaviors then we really do not understand it to begin with. When I first went Vegan, I remember feeling a certain power about it. Looking back, I now know that what I felt was a little bit of integration. A step towards being a part of things, instead of trying to be supreme. I can eat animals and their by-products if I choose to. That is my ability. But I don't feel that it is my right. Just because I can, doesn't mean that I should.
Taking myself out of that perceived position - namely being part of a "superior race," the human race - alleviated a splinter in my mind. It helped me in my dealings with others and it helped me stand up and fight for those that cannot fight for themselves. The interconnected mentality still helps me today. My petty fears and tribulations are not what is important; I am not important. What I am a part of is important. What I fight for is important. This Earth is my Mother and you owe your Mother your life. The animals that live all around us, great and small, are other Nations, fellow sentients as we are. Not just with their own species characteristics but individuals as well. Just as no two people, cats, or dogs are alike.
The only thing we do better than the rest is manipulate our surroundings. We warp, bend, and alchemize until we have cars, phones, bombs and whatever we envision. But we use our nature-given abilities for selfish ends and to the Earth's detriment. Our advancement seems to be the Earth's cancer. There are at least a dozen insects I can think of off the top of my head that are vital to the ecosystem. But if we humans ceased to exist immediately, we wouldn't be missed. The Earth would be far better off.
Since I am biocentric, I am not a fan of technologically advanced civilization. The more we innovate, the more people compartmentalize. In the process, people turn into social invalids. Instead of talking to the person next to you on the bus, you sit there frigid and text a person on the other side of town. Instead of engaging in real social interactions, we become part of 'online communities' where everyone is only what they portray and nobody else's foibles need to be dealt with or even admitted. Instead of confronting evil, we blog about it, as if everyone's sheepish agreement to an ideology could ever take the place of doing something about it. I would rather fist fight a fascist than 'friend' a bunch of armchair generals. The more we philosophize and make these issues abstract, the further away we get from doing something about it.
The solution to the Earth being murdered isn't to wear skinny jeans and not bathe. The solution is the same as when Native Americans trod the warpath for our Mother Earth. It’s the same as when the Black Panther Party became sick of watching cops kill their people in the streets. And it’s the same as when the Suffragettes got sick of being beaten with the same 'rule of thumb' that the great-grandparents of the Black Panthers were whipped to pieces under. That solution is to see the problems for what they are, refuse to accept them any longer, and fight like hell until you're dead, imprisoned, or things change! That is the reality. You do not 're-wild' by being domesticated.
Our Mother Earth does not need spokespersons, she needs warriors. If these words seem severe, it only because something must counteract the cowardice and apathy of the First World, consumer junkie drones. The militant Animal Liberation movements and the militant Earth Liberation movements are extensions of one another. Just as the squirrel and the tree. Together we form the pinnacle of all other liberation movements because if we fail there will be no more humanity to liberate. The time will soon be upon us where our Mother Earth will retaliate just as a body seeks to destroy a virus and the upheaval will affect the just and unjust alike. And no matter what we believe, we will pay for having not acted.
