There are hot wars all over the planet and there is also the new cold war (which has been going on for decades) in which some people are seeking to preserve our social and ecological destructive systems and others are seeking to change them. Yet this is a simplistic interpretation as there are billions of people who just keep their heads down and get on with their lives, hoping for the best, which is strikingly similar to the old cold war. In many ways the news that circulates about the state of the planet is always discussed in a way that is extremely disempowering for most people. It is very difficult for someone without a scientific background to fully understand what is going on.
A war involves battles and people dying, which is the case with today’s cold war II, people are dying sometimes suddenly but also continuously from pollution, road accidents, toxic food, poor housing and poverty. None of it is good and we are faced with a strong probability of cascade failures of the essential systems that support us and many other forms of life.
In a similar way to the first cold war there are people infiltrated in most of the important global and national organisations. For example a study published in Public Health and Nutrition revealed that the esteemed Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in the US is massively funded by different processed food companies such as Nestlé, the academy even owns shares in some of these companies. This is a single example of many groups who sway governments and the public with their propaganda. They use the same ‘war games’ strategies used by other industries in the past, obufscation, producing or promoting badly done research and denigrating real research when the results are contrary to their interests.
These agents of toxicity have occupied the public space, in 2018 the US food industry spend a combined total of 17 billion dollars U.S., second came the car industry spending 14 billion dollars U.S. Of course this is just what is declared and doesn’t include all the treats given out to policy makers.
Faced with such a situation what, strategically, can those who oppose the destruction do? Even those strategists like Von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu would probably throw in the towel! Von Clausewitz maintained that “To achieve victory we must mass our forces at the hub of all power & movement. The enemy's 'Center of Gravity'“ which is nice and may work in a hot war but not in a dispersed cold war. Different groups have tried putting pressure on the “center of gravity” for decades, to find their untrained forces confronted by quasi-military units equiped with projectile and chemical weapons (baton rounds, flash balls, tear gas etc). The protesters are always tactically and strategically inferior to the trained and armed forces they confront. To quote Narcotics Anonymous “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” The same could be said of repeating the same tactics and strategies that have failed time and again.
So what can we do? Well Sun Tzu maintained that “If a battle can not be won do not fight it” and “it is more important to outhink your enemy than oufight him”, that sounds like a good start. One thing that would seem obvious is to decide which ‘battle’ is strategically the most important. Cars are responsible for millions of deaths each year, many fast deaths but also an enormous number of people who are being slowly poisoned. The problem with attacking cars is that so many people love them and even more rely on them to get to work and the shops and whatever. Thanks to massive marketing campaigns and the stifling of any opposition the car industry has made private cars indispensable in the minds of huge swathes of the population. The battle to rid our societies of this disease won’t be simple and will mean removing the need for cars.
The food industry is slowly poisoning billions of people, each day, it supports and maintains an agro-industry which is wrecking the environment. Food is also essential, people can get by if their car breaks down but will be totally messed up if their food supply stops. I’ve written a number of artciles on the subject and I recently read “Spoon fed” by Tim Spector, it is an excellent book written by someone who knows what he is talking about and is as angry about the situation as I am.
Strategically it will be more simple to address the food supply situation than the car one.
XR in the UK have decided to stop direct actions. I don’t know if this is a result of people like me suggesting that direct actions and protests aren’t working, but it is a good thing if they use their activists in a more strategic way, that word again.
Bill Mollison, co-founder of Permaculture design, reckoned that people should set up their own place and then head out and help others do the same. I believe he was spot on and the best way forward is for activists and protesters to return to their local areas and with the other residents transform them into resilient and ethical places to live and thrive. Something I have been writing about for years. So, strategically, how would this help? An industry can survive only as long as people buy it’s products, so this is it’s Achilles heel, remove the consumers and the industry will dwindle away. Something we have seen before when a certain industry has become defunct or superseded, the British canal businesses are an example, surplanted by trains. It also means that we are fighting the cold war II on a million different fronts. We need to insure that the food industry is superseded by local production and exchange.
It will take time to accomplish this but it is also surprising how quickly people can change especially when said changes mean they are better off and improve their quality of life. What is great is that this is already happening in many places, people taking control back and slowly changing the world for the better.
To finish here is another quote from Von Clausewitz “Be audacious and cunning in your plans, firm and persevering in their execution, determined to find a glorious end.”