Star Nonviolent Civil Disobedience

September 13th, 2009
by Ariel Wetzel

I love it when science fiction is linked to real life radical social movements. When I saw Derrick Jensen speak a few years ago at my university, I loved his retelling of Star Wars to critique of reform-centered environmentalism. Now filmmaker Franklin López, who plays the anarcho-cyborg Stimulator on the popular web show It’s the End of the World as We Know it and I Feel Fine, has translated Jensen’s memorable talk into video.

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- More blogging by Ariel Wetzel at http://www.lake-desire.com



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Filed under politics | Comments (5)

5 Responses to “Star Nonviolent Civil Disobedience”

  1. Yonmei on September 14, 2009 7:36 am

    *snigger*

    Fantastic. Thank you for sharing.

  2. Ed Parsons on September 14, 2009 8:41 am

    Funny and well done, but Jensen seems to accidentally reinforce the opposite point to that he intended. In Star Wars, the only way the Rebels are able to win is through almost literally a magic bullet at the one crucial weak spot that blows up the Death Star. Facing off against the Empire military just gets them killed and barely slows down the Imperial fleet – the average rebel pilot just dies screaming, while the magical heroes win the day. In real life, there is no magic bullet against Empire – and if you want to use force of arms against them, remember that they’ve got far more resources and far more experience than you can ever hope for…

  3. Ariel Wetzel on September 14, 2009 11:20 am

    Good point. As much as I like Jensen’s work, I certainly have plenty of criticisms. In his Star Wars allegory, the violent rebels are mostly a distraction for the magic plan. I think pacifists are important parts of social movements too and should be honored, but coincide with agitating militants.

  4. Deborah on September 29, 2009 12:44 am

    Oh WOW! LOL! I almost thought this was true (until I heard the “original title”). I was expecting him to say something about Joseph Campbell at first, but I think the environmentalist “Vegan pie” story was hilarious. Very awesome video :). I think it’s funny that Jensen sounds so serious but it’s obvious that this is meant as a joke.

    Just so you know I have Chapter 1 of my SciFi/Fantasy book Serra ne Gadian on my website. After taking a long break, I am now posting the next chapter in a few days :).

  5. Star Non-Violent Civil Disobedience « Speculative Fiction on February 1, 2010 2:54 pm

    [...] Derrick Jensen “If Star Wars was made by environmentalists.” (via) [...]

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