An Ecological Argument for Independence
The following was first distributed as a short pamphlet for No Kings II in Downtown Phoenix
Export oriented agriculture is killing us. Arizona is not barren, and our methods for farming (human) food are unmatched in their water efficiency. What has drained our rivers and killed our soil is growing feed for foreign livestock. Our lives hang on by short term agreements made with bordering states over who can squander how much of the Colorado River.
Aside from the rivers, our groundwater is being poisoned with heavy metals and the runoff of Uranium mining (which encroaches on the lands of our Havesupi neighbors to the north). For as long as we let D.C. keep us under their heel, this will go on for the sake of their military industrial complex.
Then how do we break free from the grip of the Federal government? How do we seize the local self determination to save our own lives? The shutdown proved how thoroughly this regime has stripped the state apparatus of token programs meant to keep us dependent on them. All it has to offer are the agents occupying our cities. Sixty confirmed ICE raids culminating in hundreds of kidnappings have been documented over just this summer.
Instead of being the Empire’s borderlands, this could be known as our land. We don’t need to stay a possession of some Imperial force. In modern times, the only way anyone will survive here is if we reject those frameworks seeking to impose themselves on us and build our own to suit ourselves.