Customer Reviews

Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests (Politics of the Living Books)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Like the reviewer before me I'm going to post Jensen and Draffan's challenge on page 6. "The truth lies on the ground. Go out and walk the clearcuts for yourself. Rub the dried soil between your fingertips. Walk the dying streams; listen to the silence in the skies (except for the whine of chainsaws and roar of distant logging trucks). Walk among ancient ones still standing, trees sometimes two thousand years old. Put your hands on their bark, on their skin. Taste the difference in the air. Smell it. Reflect on the beauty of what's still there, and on what has been lost--what has been taken from us."

I've walked many clear cuts. I used to be a logger. I was the "good german" who followed orders put forth by my foreman, county forester, state forester, and the corporations (Louisiana Pacific, Georgia Pacific, Potlach, Johnson Timber...etc) telling me which trees to cut and how much. The management practices that I followed didn't make much sense to me than, and REALLY don't make sense to me now after reading Jensen's, Strangely Like War: The Global Assault On Forests.

When I first started logging I was led to believe that I was actually "improving" the forests by cutting down trees that were going to die anyway. Or I was creating "habitat" for Whitetail Deer and Ruffed Tailed Grouse. Or I was helping out our economy and contributing to society. All "claims to virtue" that Jensen and Draffan debunk in Strangely Like War. Jensen also debunks the claims in his other works. The fact of the matter is that the forests aren't being managed with the diversity of wildlife as the management plans first priority. The forests are being managed for the optimum production of the desired species set forth by the transnational corporations who want them. The lawmakers, foresters, and contractors than follow suit. And what is really SAD is that the management practices don't make fiscal sense either! Jensen and Draffan have pointed this out better than any authors that I have read on this issue.

Also, as a hunter I have walked clear cut forests and "dog haired" Aspen regeneration. If you have ever had the chance to walk in a "old growth" forest and a "dog haired" Aspen regeneration you will understand why the arguments and facts set forth by Jensen and Draffan make sense.

Last winter I almost died in the hospital in Duluth, Minnesota. The sickness started out with flu like symptoms and I eventually passed out while urinating at my parent's house. I broke a rib and smashed the back of my parents toilet. I ended up in the emergency room. The doctors could not make a for sure diagnosis, they ended up treating me for Lymes Disease at my recommendation.

For those of you who don't know what Lymes Disease is, it is a tick borne disease. Ticks live on warm blooded animals. In Wisconsin we have an over abundance of ticks because of the lack of predation of White footed mice and Whitetail Deer, the prime carriers of ticks. ONE of the reasons why there are to many Whitetail Deer and Whitefooted mice is because of our treatment of the forests. Two examples of many is: Owls eat a lot of White Footed mice in mature forests where there is a canopy, but can't get to the mice in a "dog haired" regeneration patch. To sum it up the over abundance of Ticks in Wisconsin is a direct result of our forest management practices. Whitetail Deer thrive in fragmented forests which are a direct result of our forest management practices.

Getting back to my near death experience. A few days past and I wasn't getting any better. I was having terrible headaches, my testicles swelled up three times there original size and I had spots on the palms of my hands and the bottoms of my feet. I went back to my local doctor, he claimed he had never seen anything like it. He immediately sent me to ST. Marys in Duluth, Minnesota.

After four days in the hospital, a lot of intervenious antibiotics and support from my girlfriend and family I pulled out of it. The Infectious Disease Specialist said it had to be three tick born diseases at once. She also said, she had never seen anything like it. I'm just glad to be alive...:-)

I know from experience that my body didn't like waking up day after day to go kill trees. And I KNOW the trees and the rest of the life that inhabited the forest couldn't have liked it either. In my dealings with federal, state, county and corporate foresters there management practices didn't make sense. Trying to hunt animals in clear cuts and regeneration patches don't make much sense to me either. Almost dying because of a over abundance of ticks wasn't at the top of my list of experiences I want to go through either. Reading Jensen and Draffan's Strangely Like War broke the camels back, it makes absolutely NO SENSE to be doing what we are doing to the forests.

If you want to do something about the destruction of the planet's forests this is the handbook for you.

A concisely worded, hard-hitting, well-researched book, Strangely Like War reveals the obscured and absurd connection between rabid consumption, relentlessly extractive industrial forestry, and the consequent genocide of those who are pushed from the land to which they belong. Already well-versed in this subject, authors Draffan and Jensen have provided us with a sobering expose of global deforestation, the political corruption that aids and abets it, and a stirring portrait of various indigenous peoples who have suffered (and still suffer) genocide as a result. Arguing from a position outside strict environmentalism, Strangely Like War levels a broader critique of globalization: "this parasitic, monetized, commodity-driven, inequitable, monocultural socioeconomic system", sometimes referred to simply as Western Civilization (altho geography no longer has anything to do with it). Along side everything else Jensen has every written, this book is a soulfully critical masterpiece that should not be overlooked.

A MUST READ

I am impressed with how concise, clear, and well researched this book is. I have bought it for all of my friends and I recommend it to forest activists everywhere. This book covers the worldwide forest crisis and how that impacts everyone from the most endangered species to the drinking water in your home. It also covers the entire history of deforestation from the rise of civilization in the Middle East through the present day. The authors' directness and honesty are refreshing. Most writers who pretend to be confronting these problems shy away from spelling out the connections between the corporations and those in government that not only allow but also encourage the destruction to continue. Thank you Jensen and Draffan for this beautifully written tool for forest education!

I am struck by the other reviews of this important book: The reviewers from the West coast (who are watching the forests fall) give it high marks, while the mid-west reviewers (where the forests fell long ago) are more concerned with the tone of the book. I invite those midwesterners to come visit their western woods while some still remain. Then reread this book and see if you can share some of that anger.

In our profit-driven consuming culture, where it is fair to say that most people have "Gone to Sleep", authors of the newly released, Strangely Like War, Derrick Jensen, and George Draffan, scrutinize a widely held concept and statement in the first paragraph guaranteed to wake you up, "Gone Extinct. Such a passive way to put it, as though we know no cause, can assign no responsibility." A brilliant opening, that arouses questions of responsibility we would be unwise, or mulish to ignore. There is a synergistic relation between planetary and personal well being; that the needs of the one are relevant to the other. And Jensen and Draffan, explicitly detail the relevance in a superb and courageous undertaking of the severe and consequently destructive myths of the transnational timber industry when this fundamental premise is ignored.

As the authors state in their book, "The problem is not and has never been a lack of accounting methodologies or industrial know-how; the problems are denial, recalcitrance, and apathy. The solution isn't technical, but political. The solution isn't even political but social. The solution isn't even social but psychological. The solution isn't even psychological but perceptual. The solution isn't even perceptual but spiritual. The problem is our entire way of living and relating to the world."

I highly recommend this startling and fact-driven book; it will impel you to action, and simultaneously rouse a fire in your heart to make a difference.

Strangely Like War lays to waste the timber industries excuses, apologies and justifications for destroying the worlds forests - and the possibility of a healthy future along with it. With language that rips off the blinders, Jensen and Draffan deliver facts that industry doesn't want you to hear and passion it doesn't want you to feel. Deforestation is everyone's issue. This galvanizing book will leave you informed, inspired and mad as hell at the corporate thievery that is destroying our one and only home in the universe.

Derrick Jensen and George Draffan begin this book with a challenge (page 6): "The truth lies on the ground. Go out and walk the clearcuts for yourself. Rub the dried soil between your fingertips. Walk the dying streams; listen to the silence in the skies (except for the whine of chainsaws and roar of distant logging trucks). Walk among ancient ones still standing, trees sometimes two thousand years old. Put your hands on their bark, on their skin. Taste the difference in the air. Smell it. Reflect on the beauty of what's still there, and on what has been lost--what has been taken from us."

I have never walked a clearcut. And I only vaguely remember visiting the giant redwoods in California as a child, when a week seemed an eternity and two thousand years ago was only before my dad and mom were born. And I've driven mountain roads admiring the trees that line them, never realizing they were left there for that reason, that beyond the "beauty strips" there exists death and devastation I couldn't fathom and have difficulty facing now.

Jensen and Draffan helped me see and truly comprehend the pain and suffering our planet's forests and all of their inhabitants are experiencing. They bravely and honestly expose government, timber industry and corporate corruption. They conscientiously define the dangers we all, humans and non-humans, face when these, the most precious and literal lungs of the planet, are being eradicated and turned into "chopsticks, two-by-fours and newspapers." But they go beyond all of this, straight to the heart of the matter, which is civilization itself. They don't pull punches, don't exaggerate or merely implicate, they spell out for us and clearly redefine who we are and what we are doing to the natural world.

Having read all of Jensen's previous books, I expected to be transformed. I knew I'd never look at a tree without somehow feeling a lovely connection to the life that is within it as the life that is within me. But, this book offers so much more. You will be informed, empowered and enlightened. If you are not driven personally to take a stand on behalf of the forests and their intricate and fragile systems that truly make life on this planet possible, you will, at the very least, want to support those who do.

This book is a must read for anyone who has believed that the timber industry(ies) OR forest services have the forests best interests in mind. I never truly realized how timber industries throughout the world (US included) integrate themselves into the governmental structure just to get their way. It was also a shocking realization about the destruction of forests and will change your definition of what a forest really means, i.e. a forest is not a stand of monoculture planted trees but a living multitude of tree species and interwoven plant and animal life.

As in all Derrick Jensen books this books facts are backed up by excellent research. He pulls no punches. His honesty regarding what humanity is doing to the Earth will leave you shaking your head. Please read this book and spread the word. Derrick Jensen says "The forests are being killed. What are you going to do about it?" He gives us 4 pages of "Resources to get involved".
This book is a must read for anyone that cares. You will feel empowered to do something for the Earth.

This short, readable book examines the ongoing tragedy of massive deforestation around the world. Jensen and Draffan rightly date deforestation to the earliest days of civilization, using the story of Gilgamesh's logging in ancient Mesopotamia as a frame for the book.

In more modern times, Jensen and Draffan emphasize the inability of mere law to stop the global onslaught on forests. Corrupt politicians, economic "imperatives," and the very nature of civilization itself make this environmental devastation inevitable.

I like this book more than many of Jensen's books in that it's more tightly written and argumentative. He's a very talented writer but his other books tend to take a more meandering, contemplative and metaphorical approach that is clearly tied to the style of his personal journals. In light of his usual style, it's odd that the authors never really exploit the simile in their title - - deforestation doesn't seem much like war at all in this book. Instead, deforestation represents the relentless march of civilization against its Other, both indigenous peoples and nature.

This book represents another part of Jensen's larger project, to make people see civilization itself as the real threat to the environment. For him, civilization must be overthrown, probably violently, if it is not to destroy the planet. I've discussed my reaction to this larger project in my reviews of his other books, notably "Endgame." That's hundreds of pages long, while this book could conceivably be read in one sitting. It's a good introduction to the larger project.