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ISE Newsletter: Spring/Summer 2020

The ISE has some excellent upcoming programs, so be sure to check out our online Social Ecology Intensive in June, Summer Ecology of Freedom Reading Group, new issue of Harbinger, an invitation to get involved with the ISE, and more!

Reimagining a World where Justice is Possible

Salddin Ahmed on the uprising against white supremacy sparked by the murder of George Floyd. “The real looters are the 1%, not those who have been robbed of their livelihood. The real thugs are the ruling elites who habitually associate looting and violence with the victims… A world that does not have a place for black people is too small, too stupid, and too violent to be fixed. Instead, it must be reimagined and reconstructed. “

New Book: Climate Justice and Community Renewal

Climate Justice and Community Renewal:   Resistance and Grassroots Solutions      Edited by Brian Tokar and Tamra Gilbertson This book brings together the voices of people from five continents who live, work, and research on the front lines of climate resistance and renewal. The many contributors to this volume explore the impacts of extreme weather events in […]

When We Lose the Ability to Be Shocked, Fascism Has Already Arrived

A pattern of deterioration of the state is now visible from the USA and Brazil to India and Turkey despite the gulf that separates them in terms of political traditions, institutional practices, and constitutional protections of human rights. In each case, the public sphere is continually shrinking under the pressure of a mass movement that shows three incredibly dangerous symptoms: racism, religious fundamentalism, and a populist leader whose popularity among his volkisch base often increases the more anti-democratically he behaves.

New Social Ecology Comic!

We’re thrilled to share a new comic strip about social ecology and the ISE produced in collaboration with our friends at Ad Astra Comix – take a look!

The Coronavirus Pandemic, Capitalism, and Nation-States

The pandemic has exposed irreconcilable contradictions in the entity of the nation-state and the capitalist world system.
Without vigilant analysis of the present moment and rigorous critique, we will be risking our entire political freedoms for decades to come. If the historical moment is not acted upon, the crisis will become a catastrophe, and the catastrophe could take us back to an even darker age.

Coronavirus: what you need to know

The domination of nature has reached crisis proportions under capitalism, and viral outbreaks are yet another ecological problem. There are ways that we can prevent the spread of these pathogens: wash your hands, disinfect your phone, don’t touch your face and self-quarantine if you exhibit symptoms of being sick. But without addressing the root causes of these issues—capitalism and the idea of dominating nature—these sorts of problems will only worsen. Social ecology offers an alternative vision of what an ecological and socially just world might look like – a world organized around care instead of domination that fosters a reharmonization of humanity and non-human nature.