Land Back

Revolutionary indigenous ecosocialists write in their manifesto "A Red Deal" that Land Back be a primary demand. I admittedly struggled with this in the same way I have struggled with the BLM slogan Abolish the Police. If I maintain the goal of building a mass movement of any kind, these two demands are absolute non-starters with "the masses" I live among. But at this stage of the game, maybe impossible demands are the way to go. There isn't the vaguest hint of any "mass movement"building , even to support tepid, pro-capitalist growth Green New Deal legislation. So one might as well demand the US give back all the land it stole from the Indians. Why not? Abolish prisons and set everyone free, abolish the military and stop colonizing the planet. While we are at it, we can make the Deep Greens happy and call for the end of "industrial civilization" and a make-over for consumer culture. Ban agriculture! End Electricity! At this stage of the "game", any of these are just as likely as Keep Fossil Fuels In the Ground. When you have reached a point where an old white male Senator or two (Manchin and Tester) can prevent any climate legislation from being considered, as floods and fires rage across the landscape and the perma-frost melts, it is time to abandon pragmatism. If humans won't get vacinnated, what chance is there they would give up any part of their lifestyle? In his novel Ministry for the Future, author Kim Stanley Robinson imagines that a heat wave killing 20 million people in one week finally kicks elites into gear, pushing them to accept the crisis and enact emergency measures. This is terrifyingly all-too plausible.