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#587 - Action Will Be Taken (Patreon)

Published:
2025-01-07 19:43:34
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

When the possibility of positive political change seems so distant, and the stakes are so high, at one point is radical action advisable? This was a question posed by the Earth Liberation Front, the environmental group that became synonymous with "eco-terrorism." We watch the Academy Award-nominated documentary IF A TREE FALLS: THE STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT (2011), which charts the group's rise and fall.

TORONTO: See Will introduce a screening of Jess Franco's Bloody Moon on January 14, 7pm at the Fox Theatre. Tickets - https://www.foxtheatre.ca/movies/the-important-cinema-club-masterpiece-classics-bloody-moon/

"Bob Dylan’s enduring appeal: ‘A Complete Unknown’ takes on the man, the myth, the legend — and mostly succeeds" by Luke Savage - https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/bob-dylans-enduring-appeal-a-complete-unknown-takes-on-the-man-the-myth-the-legend/article_feb051f8-c13f-11ef-9a3d-63c8ad8b7faf.html

"'Action Will Be Taken': Left Anti-intellectualism and its Discontents" by Liza Featherstone, Doug Henwood, and Christian Parenti - https://damagemag.com/2018/07/16/action-will-be-taken-left-anti-intellectualism-and-its-discontents/

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Comments

Casey B

Thank you so much for finally covering this movie. I really appreciated the discussion, particularly the section about how people can become demoralized by the setbacks and defeats in electoral politics. I wish I had shared this with the poll but here is a video of the eco-anarchist philosopher(?) Derrick Jensen using Star Wars as an analogy to justify violent direct action to protect the environment. I think you both would appreciate it. https://youtu.be/eknuqWQ4-Mw?si=EsjxmF0HEJueeKIP

10KBC

Interesting - I’ve heard the ideology of 2000s activists seen at Occupy and the earlier WTO demonstrations referred to as “anarcho-liberalism” which I think Bhaskar Sunkara may have coined

Jonathan Ziemba

Interesting episode. It reminded me of the Kelly Reichardt movie Night Moves, which similarly depicts ecoterrorists in Oregon. Not her strongest film but worth a watch if you haven’t seen it. Great last scene / sequence. The line timber producers give about planting more trees than they harvest is a bogus refrain we hear a lot here in Oregon. It’s technically true, but tearing down a forest and replacing it with monocultural timber stand is an environmental loss. Most of the “forests” you drive through in the coast range are simply farms. The ethics of timber farming aside, the line about planting more than harvesting is a convenient deception they employ.

Tasselled_Wobbegong

Christian Parenti giving people shit for being politically ill-informed is sadly ironic, given that he's drifted to the right since that piece was published. His whole shtick these days is to shill for Trump, RFK. Jr, and other reactionary figures from a 'left' perspective because they supposedly oppose the "deep state" (à la Glenn Greenwald). He gets published a lot in a shitty conservative rag called Compact with headlines like "Trump’s Real Crime Is Opposing Empire" and "The Left Case for Kash Patel."

Tasselled_Wobbegong
>>160600375

Jensen rejects the anarchist label and identifies as a 'Primitivist,' iirc. The ecologist Murray Bookchin has some biting critiques of the environmentalist tradition represented by the likes of the EDF and Jensen's org, Deep Green Resistance. Bookchin called them "lifestylists" because of their prioritization of individual acts of protest over movement-building and class struggle.

Guy Nelson

I work for a government research and development group in Australia around agriculture. I will say that the main issue surrounding GMO anything is that it will be privatised and then can be used a as a coercive product. What this means is that if someone had a GMO plantation and it happened to ‘accidentally’ cross pollinate with a neighbour farmer or plantation then it can and will be used litigiously against them as it’s a product that does not belong to them and then there can effectively be a take over of their industry. It’s also important to note that GMO plants are incredibly invasive and aggressive and can effectively wipe out other varieties, which then creates a monoculture. People might ask why a monoculture is bad… but just think about it for five seconds. We need genetic diversity in our habitats and landscape. Much like our economies, our ecosystem thrives when it works together and isn’t overly saturated by one pervasive force.

Evan W

From a British Columbian perspective, forestry, logging and anti-logging activism are of course very complex. We should understand that Canada now has a very comprehensive forest regeneration strategy. A lot has changed since the initial unregulated era of clearcutting over a century ago. Clearcuts are prescribed in ways that try best to maintain existing biodiversity and ecological systems. A glance at Google Airphotos over central Vancouver Island will reveal clearcutting in checkered patches to reduce fragmentation of habitats and retention of undergrowth. All clearcut areas are also replanted and managed to ensure supply is renewable. Ongoing challenges are the extent to which Provincial governments are able to enforce oversite of private logging companies that are licensed to log Crown Lands. This is regularly threatened by conservative governments. A reoccurring issue is the designation of Old Growth forests. There are many pockets of surviving old growth forests that are within Crown Land but not Parkland, meaning theses trees can be legally logged. Recent protests include blockades and other fforms of direct action to prevent the destruction of old growth and push to convert this land to dedicated parkland. Other issues are the intersection of indigenous land caims in active logging areas. The Clayoquot sound protests in the 90s was an example of where anti-logging environmentalists aligned with indigenous land defenders to prevent logging on unceded territory. Conversely the recent Fairy Creek Protests were more complex. The Pacheedat Band Council licensed their reserve lands (which included Old Growth) to be logged. Activists protested the logging through direct action, and the band council acquire a court injunction to have the RCMP to remove the protesters. This was further challenged as the First Nation was split on the issue. Pacheedat anti logging protesters were also present, but the protest was dominated and led by white settler protesters which caused further internal tensions. To be a committed leftist and environmental activist today is arguably much more challenging than the ELF activists presented in the documentary. An added complexity is the ongoing labour issues with closures of sawmills and decline of steady unionised jobs in the industry. As Luke said, coherent ideology is required to ensure the the movement is kept alive and uncompromised. In summarym the most coherent perspective is to support the labour of loggers and value of sawmills while ensuring the industry remains highly regulated by progressive provincial governments. Logging should be protested when it threatens old growth and environmentally sensitive areas that have not yet been designated parklands. For effective protest, direct action in the form of blockade is required. Symbolic protest in front of Legislatures is not effective. Where protested land is designated reserve land or unceded indigenous territory, a committed leftist should have a good understanding how the First Nation will be directly affected.

Kainien Morel

Welcome back, lads! (That was undue, I did listen to the first 'The Newsroom' episode to my dismay, I was one of those people who was eagerly waiting for the Studio 60 episodes to conclude, but it sounds like you guys are going to be having a lot of fun with those as well at least.) During Luke's rant on the dominance of iterative sequels over "new IP" in the video game space, I was immediately reminded the reported data that in 2023, of the top 10 "most played" video games (as a calculation of tracked audience size and hours played), the sole new entry--not a sequel, remake, etc.--was Bethesda's STARFIELD (i.e. Skyrim--a sequel's sequel--in space). It wasn't even close either, STARFIELD came it at number 8 (if I'm not mistaken) as the sole new franchise of the top 10, hardly a perfect game by any imagination (though it could easily claim to be Bethesda Softwork's most polished, and least crashy, release to date). The data isn't in for 2024 yet but if I had to guess...Game Science's Black Myth Wukong? An action RPG where you literally play the lead character of the Chinese classical epic Journey to the West? That's coming to Xbox sometime this year (and maybe the Switch sequel), so that will increase the audience base. If it isn't obvious, the industry is extremely unforgiving to what it calls "new IP", not in the least because even the "indie" video game scene (which with the demise of once commonplace 'B development' and of course the rising price of development) itself is deeply reliant on iterative development (last year I actually completed Frostpunk 2, the sequel to a much harder game that I never finished, and I'm playing the third game in the South Korean 'The Coma' series). Well, at least we'll probably never get a sequel to what is arguably the most popular video game in the world, Minecraft (distinct genre spin-offs excluded). Anyway, thanks for an enlightening episode and a short reprieve from Aaron Sorkin's centrist insanity.

Jeremy Hawkins

I probably shouldn't begrudge anyone for taking the piss out of Hollywood remakes, reboots and sequels, but I don't think it's fair to judge 2025 as especially grim due to a clickbait twitter account's tweet. I checked out rolling stone's list and they've got new original movies from Bong Joon Ho, PTA, a Safdie brother, Ari Aster, Guillermo Del Toro, a second movie by Celene Song, 2 by Steven Soderberg (though I admit that's a free space on the bingo card) and other original things by decent journeyman directors. Again, not saying the state of things is good, but there's stuff to look forward to.

Kenny Hedges

The "Play it loud" moment in the Dylan film bugged me, but otherwise I enjoyed it.

Michael and Us
>>160726972

Why? It's something Dylan actually said! (though they mangled the timeline, because the person who shouted "Judas!" didn't do so at Newport and Dylan didn't say "Play it fucking loud" at Newport either but rather a few months later — maybe that's why it irritated you? I'm curious...) - L

Kenny Hedges
>>160726972

And there’s quite a ramp-up as he’s responding to the Judas line, a pause, he gets angry and then it absolutely explodes. I understand shifting it a bit, it just didn’t land. Also almost 100 per cent sure the Judas voice is male. A lot of it worked well, though.

Brian Therens

Loved the ep! Luke threw me when talking about the list of highly anticipated art expected in 2025. While it is absolutely true that sequels dominate the list of movies and games that people already know about, that probably makes a kind of sense. Video games in particular are more interesting than that, with fewer AAA games being made every year as budgets get even more expensive. The effect is we don’t know what games will be great this year, Balatro was made by a single person, released in 2024, and nearly won Game of the Year. we don’t yet know what amazing games and film will be out in 2025, and certainly no anticipated sequels list will list them

Addison Hoff

Ok, I hate myself for doing this, and I want to start off by saying I’ll never rush to Ridley Scott’s defense, especially when it comes to historical accuracy, but the battle of Salamis was real, one of the bigger naval battles of one of those Peloponnesian Wars. Apologies for pedantry

Tyler Sutherland

I liked the Dylan movie. Especially Norton as Seeger. I don't have even 5% a connection to Dylan as anyone else let alone Luke-- I grew up on The Beatles, public radio rock, etc-- so I can't speak to authenticity or accuracy. But I did enjoy it! 7/10, read my Letterboxd (please don't)

Tyler Sutherland

I'm gonna throw it out there that Luke is being too kind to Carter even whilst trying to temper any idealization of his presidency; Carter aided several dictatorships ("Israel" amongst them) including the Shah of Iran as well as the Indonesian regime whilst it was openly and proudly committing genocide in East Timor. He established the base of neoliberalism that Reagan would supercharge just a few years later, which ro be fair Luke does acknowledge. The People's History of the US by Zinn goes into this further, but I do feel that Carter has avoided a more critical reevaluation by the left due to 3 things: 1. His very tepid post-presidential 'redemption' from occasionally helping around construction sites, 2. providing his admirable but still toothless critique of the apartheid in Palestine, and 3. Being sandwiched between Nixon and Reagan. We need an in-depth and comprehensive look from the left on Carter.