OpEds: Politics as usual is useless—Resistance is the first duty of citizens today

At the behest of agribusiness and other ecoanimally-destructive  industries, both environmentalists and animal liberationists are now subject to “terrorist” classification according to various federal and state unconstitutional statutes. This is how Orwellian and paranoid the new world order led by the US plutocracy has become. And the corporate media, as usual, remain the biggest obstacle to a general awakening. Below, Steve Best’s personal manifesto. —Eds

By Steve Best

• The sense of urgency is rising in proportion to the severity of the crisis. Increasingly, calls for legislative change, moderation, compromise, and taking the slow march through the institutions can be seen as grotesquely inadequate, as growing numbers of people gravitate toward more radical tactics of change. “Reasonableness” and “moderation” in the current situation seem to be entirely unreasonable and immoderate, as “extreme” and “radical” actions appear simply as necessary and appropriate. 
• From Athens to Paris to Brazil, there is growing realization that politics as usual just won’t cut it anymore. We will always lose if we play by their rules rather than invent new forms of struggle, new social movements, and new sensibilities. The defense of the earth requires immediate and decisive action: logging roads need to be blocked, driftnets need to be cut, and cages need to be emptied. But these are piecemeal and reactive measures, and in addition to these tactics, radical movements and alliances must be built that unites struggles on behalf of humanity, nonhuman animals, and the earth in a politics of total liberation. 
• Resistance is the oxygen of the future. Live to resist, resist to live.

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