Today Is Better Than Tomorrow: A Time Of Endings; Shades Of Denial / Dahr Jamail
Transcript
In this episode, I speak with award-winning journalist and author Dahr Jamail.
I can imagine most of you listening to this episode will recognize what Dahr and I both feel and know in this time we are in. Many of us are beginning to come to terms with the reality we have been dealt — a global predicament that includes a pandemic that won’t soon leave us, economic crisis and social unrest that will only worsen as the months pass on, and nonlinear climate disruption that continues to rear its ugly head, portending horrors that are only beginning to make themselves a reality. And we know, from these trends, this breakdown will only accelerate as the months and years pass. As Dahr states, citing his time in Iraq, “today is better than tomorrow.”
In this interview, Dahr and I delve into this territory by first discussing Dahr’s initial foray into journalism almost two decades ago, when the United States made the fateful decision (under the Bush Administration) to invade and occupy Iraq in 2003. As an unembedded journalist, Dahr was able to get an on-the-ground perspective in his reporting of the completely criminal and wholly unjustified military invasion of Iraq, including all the apparent horrors that were visited on the civilian population of that nation. Dahr explains that what he is witnessing happening in the United States right now is eerily reminiscent of what he reported on and witnessed in his time in Iraq. This is where we begin this discussion, and from there we delve deeply into the dire predicament we all find ourselves in this nation, as well as globally, right now, with all its jarring contradictions and nonlinearities.
Dahr Jamail is an award-winning journalist who (formerly) reported on climate disruption and environmental issues for the online publication Truthout. He is the author of multiple books, including ‘The End Of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption.’ Currently, Dahr is collaborating with elder and teacher Stan Rushworth on a new book project, titled ‘The Changing Earth: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island’, which is "an innovative work of research and reportage that will present, via powerful and intimate encounters, the perspective of Indigenous peoples of the United States and Canada on the Earth's climate and interrelated Covid-19 emergencies."
Episode Notes:
- Learn more about Dahr and his work: http://www.dahrjamail.net
- Learn more about Dahr and Stan Rushworth’s new book project ‘The Changing Earth’: https://www.thechangingearth.net
- Support Stan and Dahr in their work through the GoFundMe: https://gf.me/u/x3jd52
- The song featured in this episode is “Demon Host” by Timber Timbre from their self-titled album: https://youtu.be/qzJJhKL2uGo
Patrick Farnsworth: Well, I guess we'll just jump in.
Dahr, it's great to have you back on the podcast. Last time we spoke, I was sitting in your living room with Barbara [Cecil], and we had a really in-depth, beautiful, deep conversation. It was definitely one of the more important interviews or conversations I've recorded for this podcast. And, I guess I've been thinking, what would be the appropriate subject or topic that we would get into if we were to do another interview. We've been having these personal conversations about what the hell is going on in the United States — there's almost too many things to nail down as far as like, what can we actually discuss?
But we finally, I think, came to some idea, if we were to do an interview, like right now, of what we would actually get into. I think we're both fairly confident in what we want to go over in this discussion.
And so, unfortunately, I'm not sitting in front of you right now. We're doing this remotely. We are living in the age of COVID. So, it just wasn't appropriate or right for me to be there right now. But, anyway, I just really thank you for agreeing to do this, man. Really appreciate it.
Dahr Jamail: Well, it's definitely my pleasure, Patrick, and it's really great to be back on your very important podcast, which is becoming more important and relevant as time goes on, with how you cover things.
So it's really, it's really great to be talking with you about this.
Patrick Farnsworth: Yeah, and when we were discussing this before, I mean, this is an interesting interview because everything that we've done before, as far as interviews go — and this is the case for most of the people I interview — there's usually some article or book or something that the person that I'm interviewing has produced that we base the interview off of.
And I know that, we discussed this in our last discussion with Barbara that you were going through a transitionary period with your work, as far as journalism goes. You were stepping away — you've done some work since then, but for the most part, you've stepped away from your work as a reporter, as a journalist. And so really right now, what we're doing is we're just basing this whole conversation off of how we're feeling and how we're interpreting what is happening right now, particularly in the United States, over the what's been happening over the past several months since the beginning of this year, basically.
So, we are exploring that territory and we're going to do the best we can as far as that goes. So I thank you for doing that because I know that that's kind of a difficult thing as a writer, as a journalist, as somebody who's like, I don't have this concrete layout, I don't have this subject that I've thoroughly explored and researched and laid out in an article or a book. So I thank you for being willing to even , have this conversation about these subjects.
But what we really wanted to get into at first was: I know that what we've talked about a great deal is your work with climate change, your work discussing climate disruption. And, we've done some really great interviews discussing that particular subject, not only the scientific information surrounding that, but also what it means to be a human being right now, what it means to be alive, the feelings that come up, dealing with grief, denial, despair — all of those stages that people go through when they come to terms with the information presented to them, which you've done an excellent job of doing in your work.
You got your start in journalism covering the war in Iraq, and it's a pretty incredible story. I think when I tell people how you got into journalism, people are like, really? That's how he got into journalism? So I think it would be good [to go over], because, you obviously became well known for that when you started out well over a decade ago, almost two decades I guess at this point. So if we could get into that first, because that's really going to be the base of how we get into this discussion, if you could discuss: how did you get into journalism? What compelled you to be a journalist in the first place?
Dahr Jamail: Right, and it makes sense that — I'll definitely start with Iraq momentarily — but it makes sense that we are going into this.
It just dawned on me, in this place of not knowing what or how to talk about everything that's going on — and I'm speaking for myself, which is why I haven't really been writing for the most part now for quite a while at least not publicly. And it's because these are such unprecedented times for us as a species. And, because it's on a global level, looking at and asking these existential questions and really being in this time where so much is ending and so much is upon us all at once that it makes sense, even this interview and our feelings coming into it, are kind of the micro, or the macro, in that way. So this kind of came to me, listening to you outline this.
But, so with me, I went to Iraq, about five months, no, six months after the invasion was launched in 2003. And I was not a journalist. I went because I was watching the propaganda domestically of the selling of the war, which we all know, was based on non-existent weapons of mass destruction, and all of this nonsense and just gross, blatant, baseless propaganda. And I went because I was seeing the corporate media selling this while I read international media, which was actually telling the truth about what the UN weapons inspectors were finding, which was nothing. I was flabbergasted and outraged. And, in just decided to deploy myself, it was something that I could do responsibly as a citizen of Empire to go and actually report on how this disaster was going to impact the Iraqi people. So I threw myself into the fray.
I went over there, from Anchorage, Alaska, where I was living at the time with a laptop, a camera, some notepads and pens, and a whole lot of gumption and not a lot of knowhow and pretty much just hit the ground running and started working as a journalist. And then within a couple of weeks — I was basically blogging even though I didn't even know to call it that at the time — but then I started getting picked up to do some freelancing for BBC World Service and realized, oh, I could actually work as a journalist. And so that’s how it started. And that was back in 2003. and then I just stepped out of the journalism saddle just this past fall.
Patrick Farnsworth: Well, I do want to ask about this detail, which is that you were, from my understanding, one of the very few unembedded journalists covering that war in Iraq. Could you explain what that means to be embedded and what it means to be unembedded as a journalist?
Dahr Jamail: Right. It is a very important thing and it applies not just for war, but specifically to Iraq. It's always been possible to embed with the military in their previous excursions around the world, at least in modern times, but the Pentagon decided, well, we can use this as a means of information control.
So, they grossly expanded the embed program for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and to the point where it's very easy to find video of this, where most corporate reporters decided to embed with the military, which means you go and you kind of run through a little indoctrination process that they set up. They put a flack jacket on you and they give you a helmet and, and you kind of learn their way of doing things. Then you're completely reliant upon them for your security, but also you give them total control over what you're going to see, when you're going to see it, how you're going to see it, and if you're going to see it, and that is how most of the war was covered by the corporate media in the United States.
Hence, it was so easy for the Bush administration to sell the occupation. And remember, the early days of the occupation. Oh, things are going so well — Bush's little stage landing on the aircraft carrier, anchored off the coast of San Diego in May of 2003, declaring "mission accomplished" when things hadn't even really started yet.
So that's, that's how effective the embed program was, where for those first few months, even, people back here were thinking, oh, this was a cake walk, we’ve brought freedom to the Iraqi people, versus an unembedded journalist, which is — I include that term in the title of my first book — someone who just went out with an Iraqi interpreter if you didn't speak Arabic such as mysel,f and went out on the streets and just talk directly to Iraqis. And so in that way, I was going into the hospitals and the morgues and Fallujah and places like this, where if you're embedded, you're usually not going to go to those places, or if you do, it's going to be in a completely controlled manner.
And so you're going to get a completely different reality reading what I wrote from Iraq versus someone riding in a Humvee with soldiers. So that's, that's the key difference. And bottom line is if you're embedded. those folks were essentially basically working as journalists for the US military, that's the easiest way to break it down. And if you're unembedded, then most of those folks were actually writing about reality.
Patrick Farnsworth: Right. So I guess the difference was that you had a real interest in the perspective of Iraqis and what they were experiencing, in their day to day lives. I mean, as the occupation was unfolding, you were there, you were like, oh, I want to actually hear what they have to say, versus this sort of filter that's put there by being an embedded journalist, right?
Dahr Jamail: I took it very personally that the way that the government of the country where I live illegally, blatantly, brazenly, contravening international law, launched an invasion and occupation against a country, in the grossest propagandistic cover. I took it very personally and I was outraged and that's why I decided, well, what can I do?
Because protests aren't doing the job. I was going to protests in Anchorage. I was doing civil disobedience. I was writing letters to senators. I was doing all these things that the dominant culture tells us that we are supposed to do if we want to affect change in a so-called democracy. And of course it was early on in my politicization process, so I naively still thought that that stuff was going to make a difference. Of course it did nothing. And I became even more angry and I said, okay, fuck it. I'm going to just go. This is an information war and people are being fed garbage, and so I'm going to go myself and do what I can to provide people with a clear picture of what's actually happening.
It was also naive because I actually believed that if enough people had that information, that it would make a difference. And I say naive because I underestimated the effects of what we're living in now, which is really the end stage of a multi-decade deliberate dumbing down of the population, with the corporatization of the media, the cutting of education, and the ensuing lack of moral and civic responsibility in the average person in the United States, not even to talk about morality or spirituality or spiritual obligation, but basically a population now that closely resembles that of Orwell's 1984, rather than a civically engaged population that actually understands that democracy rest upon each of our shoulders and that we do not abdicate that responsibility to said elected officials. That, lest we forget, if we don't like what's happening, it's our job to get them the fuck out of office.
Patrick Farnsworth: Right. Well, I'm curious about this. I remember I was 13 when 9/11 happened, and it's one of those moments that everybody that was alive can kind of remember, whether you were there in Manhattan or not, of course. And I remember, obviously, the war in Iraq began shortly after that attack, and of course the war in Afghanistan started shortly before the war in Iraq began. But I remember that feeling, that I think everybody was tapped into, was a sense of nationalism or a sense of patriotism, a sense of connection with this national community that's mostly fabricated, but that was hijacked in order to further the aims of the military-industrial complex, of the aims of Empire.
And, I remember leading up to the Iraq war — I was pretty young, but I remember that feeling. It was in the air. It was palpable that there needed to be retribution. That there needed to be something done with these people that were going to attack us again. And I'm curious, that feeling, I don't know if it ever fully dissipated in this country, but I felt it in waves and I'm feeling something like, I don't know what it is, but there's a feeling that I'm feeling right now with this mass denial of even how to deal with COVID-19 as a pandemic, as a public health crisis. I'm seeing this level of denial in that, but also in the buildup to the war in Iraq, where you have — like you were saying, you were reading international news, you were reading reporters that were outside the United States that had a clearer understanding and perspective on what was happening. And then comparing that to what was going on in the United States and how people were generally feeling, it's like these two realities that we're bumping up against each other. And that compelled you to find out for yourself what the hell was going on and do your part in imparting that information to whoever would listen.
So, that was kind of the focus of what we wanted to go with with this interview was to compare how you felt, not only when you were in Iraq itself, like when you were in that country you were experiencing what it was like to be in an occupied country that was under siege from an empire of the United States, but also how that's manifesting here right now.
But also I was thinking about this sort of feeling in the air of misinformation, propaganda, the dumbing down of the population. I imagine there was maybe a similar thing going on in the buildup to the war in Iraq. I was just curious what your thoughts were on that.
Dahr Jamail: That's yeah, there there's a tremendous amount there to unpack, but one thing that comes up, that — and I know that we had wanted to cover this as well — history has always shown us that what empires do abroad when they invade other countries and try to establish other colonies, as the US it did exactly that in Iraq, and has done in so many other places. That the tactics used there (and this goes way beyond the US empire) that what those empires do out in the field, as they're pushing the frontiers outwards and trying to subjugate others, colonize, settle, and all of the horrendous tactics of empire used abroad eventually come back home. The chickens always come back home to roost.
In Iraq, for example, I remember I interviewed a man multiple times in the town of Baqubah just outside of Baghdad, a religious Shaykh Adnan. One of the first things the Americans did — the invasion took place in March ’03, by early April, Baghdad was sacked. And he said later that month, we had military people come to Baqubah. They showed up and they set up two big tents. And they said, okay, “we want all the Sunni to go to one tent and all the Shia to go to another tent.” And he said, we just looked at each other because we've never behaved this way as Iraqis. We never saw each other as Sunni and Shia. It'd be the equivalent of walking down your street here in the United States and figuring out your different sects of Christianity or whatever other religion that your neighbors are. It's just not something that's done. You don't know, you don't care. It's none of your business and it doesn't matter, right?
And so he was really flabbergasted that first step that the Americans did was to come in and start dividing the population and then pitting different groups against each other. And this happened as they set up the coalition provisional authority government, where it was set up strictly along sectarian and ethnic lines, and not in a democratic way whatsoever. This was the tactic divide and conquer, which the Americans got from the Brits, as they did in Iraq when they were there in the 1920s — as empires do through history, as I said.
Divide and conquer tactics: giving a lot of arms and money more to one group than the other, causing problems to cause internecine fighting within groups and then between the groups. We saw this happen and be exploited all through the occupation to where they literally created sectarian war amongst the Iraqi people very effectively within just a couple of years of the occupation. So, divide and conquer works.
And so look, what did I just say? Could you apply here? Keep the population divided each at other's throats, we are seeing that played out in real time in the most blatant, obvious way with a so-called president, who's just daily stoking racial fires, going after people for their sexual orientation or their gender or the color of their skin, just every emotional hot button issue in society is being stoked. It's because it keeps all of us fighting against each other while literally what is left of this country is being looted blatantly right in front of us, except now it's in the form of these trillion dollar bailouts to corporate powers and already rich individuals, while the rest of us are basically fighting against each other for various issues. So, divide and conquer is obvious.
But another thing that I know that I wanted to talk about with you today, that this became very much to the fore for me since Trump took power, but especially in basically the last several months, is that working in Iraq as a journalist — so working in essentially what was, it varied on the day or where I went, from a low grade to a very hot war zone — was you get PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and there’s certain behaviors and feelings that come with that. I want to just talk about that because I think that now we live in a country where anybody that's even halfway paying attention to what's happening is suffering from PTSD. Robert Jay Lifton, the great psychologist, has written extensively about this (especially in the wake of 9/11), that we live in a deeply, deeply traumatized country. And this goes all the way back from the original genocide and the unhealed trauma, from both the perpetrator and those who were impacted by the actions ( i.e. the Native Americans), that goes on up. And then bring in slavery and then everything that's happened since then. So we live in a country that’s steeped in untreated PTSD.
But this has come to the fore more recently with the barbarism in the streets — police vehicles or vehicles of white nationalists run through crowds of demonstrators. Now they're being shot in broad daylight sometimes, or at night in these demonstrations, as we've seen in recent days from when we're talking right now.
So, operating in a war zone, which I chose to go into and could leave when I wanted to — and that's an important distinction because Iraqi people could not, did not, have that choice. Most of them, and most Americans now, don't have that choice, especially now with COVID-19. Try going into the border of Canada right now and see how far you get. So, we can't leave and that's an important thing to understand psychically. That's not being talked about. So when you're living in a war zone, you have a kind of anxiety riding shotgun with you every day. It’s there. You're not going to sleep as well. Your diet, your health gets affected. I remember having eyes in the back of my head. You go out, you have kind of this hypervigilance. What is this person? What sect are they? We go down the road and come upon a checkpoint and there's guys wearing police uniforms, but are they really police? Or maybe they're wearing fatigues, but are they really Iraqi military? Who knows?
Just like, look at what happened in New Mexico, in Albuquerque, where these guys show up, they look just like US military, but oh, they're white nationalist, militia men, and they're there to threaten to kill people. And it was just like that in Iraq, right? There would be demonstrations in Iraq, for example, of one group protesting a certain part of the government and then a different militia would show up and start sniping them, or maybe run a car bomb through them, or have someone just go attack them.
So see, we're seeing that kind of thing now happen here in the United States. Again, it's the chickens come home to roost phenomena, but what I really wanted to kind of unpack was working in a war zone and getting PTSD, which, part of that is survival, like you need eyes in the back of your head. You need to live with a certain amount of anxiety. You need to be on edge. You need to be sharp. You need to be paying attention to what's happening and kind of waiting for the next thing to go down so that you can react to it as a means of survival. Now, who here feels that way on a daily basis, where it takes nerves of steel just to read the news on a daily basis? Well, probably just about everybody listening to this, and it's because we are now living in a war, a low grade war zone in this country, or you go to any of these Black Lives Matter protests on any given day. At least subconsciously, [you know] you could die — a white nationalist could show up and drive a car through that demonstration or show up with an AR-15 and go off. You could get COVID-19. I mean, there are multiple threats to our health right now in this country. And, for anybody living in a city, just if you decide to go to a store, let alone going to a demonstration.
So, that's one thing that I think is important for people now to really understand. The psychic trauma and the psychic stress that we're all under living in this country at this time, while the empire is essentially in its last stage. This is where it eats itself and starts attacking its own citizens.
Patrick Farnsworth: Well, I remember we would have these discussions about — you've done a lot of great work to work with (I don't know if work through is the right way to say it) your trauma and your PTSD. I imagine that you've come to a much healthier place with yourself and your relationships, but it's something that you're going to have to deal with for the rest of your life.
And I think what I — for instance, I've never been in a war zone, of course. I've never done that. I don't know what it's like to have that experience, but we were talking about this and we had a similar thing where we're like, okay, going out in public feels like, even just going to a grocery store to pick up some supplies where I live right now, if I wear a face mask in public I get dirty looks for it. You know what I mean? It's become so politicized. So, I do feel a very low version of what you're explaining. But the sense — like I have people labeling me, they're putting me in a particular category and I am disliked for it very much, and I can't even imagine what it's like to be a worker right now in some of these places I've seen videos of, of people freaking out at the very idea that they would have to wear a mask in these stores.
But anyway, my point is, especially now with these protests and I mean, this is more than just people yelling at you. This is people brandishing guns, they're actually waving guns and shooting you, for just even participating in these protests. That's the level that we're at. And you described, like going out in public, seeing people driving around with Trump flags — I don't know if you have people flying Confederate flags where you're at, I know I do here where I'm at — but there's this real feeling in the air that like, we are in a war zone right now, we have, factions of our society that are willing to go to war and engage in armed conflict with whole segments of the population. And when you have the Trump campaign posting ads on Facebook, for instance, dog-whistling to white nationalists and white supremacists, I know exactly what's going on and it's still too hard to believe.
It's really intense. And so we were just discussing that feeling, like I'm feeling and what you're feeling, but you're more able to clearly define it because you have seen exactly where this leads because of your experience as a journalist in Iraq. And, I don't know. I don't know if there's a question in there.
I just wanted to kind of talk about how you're providing this experience here that I think people should really listen to. I mean, I don't feel as crazy when I talk to you. I'll just say that.
Dahr Jamail: I’m not sure what that says about you, Patrick. [laughing]
Patrick Farnsworth: I know. [laughing]
Dahr Jamail: But all joking aside, you brought up some good points.
So, I see there's a certain kind of, usually it's a pickup truck, either a grossly oversized one or a rather beat up one, flying an oversized American flag in the back of it. Oftentimes there's been some adaptation, so there's either no muffler or a louder muffler installed and sometimes you can even see their weapon in the back of it, or not, maybe it's a concealed. But yeah, these types of things happening, I'm seeing it here. They're basically these kinds of intentional show of force, not that every one of these people are in a militia, but odds are, they are. And so in Iraq, this was a very common tactic, just as the US military would run patrols all around Baghdad and other cities. It's basically letting people be aware that you are under occupation and we are the ones in control now. And so that is a military tactic, as I just said, with the US military. And it's a tactic adopted by these militias. So, it's not an accident. I know for me to see where I live on the Olympic Peninsula, a pretty dramatic increase of the number of these people driving around on the roads, especially in the small town where I live, which is largely progressive politically. That's not by accident, that’s by design, because it's a tactic. Or if you're hearing more and more gunfire, that's also a tactic. These things are not by accident.
So, I saw a lot of the same stuff over in Iraq. And then another point that I wanted to draw a parallel to is, certain militias were aligned with the government over there. So for example, when Al Maliki became Prime Minister, we started referred to him, as journalists, the Shia Saddam. The US did away with Saddam and his minority Sunni support in the government, and took them out of the picture. And then within about a year and a half later, Al Maliki was installed into power, Shia aligned with Shia militias.
And so, for example, when the US, in the aftermath of the November 2004 siege of Fallujah, the Iraqi government came in and had rolled a lot of the Badr army, an Iranian backed Shia militia, into the Iraqi military, and then brought them into Fallujah, a staunchly Sunni, very, very conservative city. [They] brought in essentially Badr brigade militia men to do the dirty cleanup work and subjugate the Sunni population there. And this was kind of akin to here where we see far-right, white nationalists-bent militias that are responding to these Trump dog-whistles, doing things now, like driving vehicles through Black Lives Matter demonstrations and protests, or sometimes just blatantly opening fire on them. And we're seeing just literally within the last week an increase in these incidences. So this was happening abroad. The US was supporting it, directly and indirectly within the Iraqi government and their use of various militias to put down parts of the population there that were not in alignment and supportive of the government.
And now we see Trump employ — or not him, but his administration — employing the same tactics here. Let's blow the dog-whistle. Let's tweet out another white power tweet as Trump did this past Sunday and then of course take it down. It doesn't matter that he takes it down.
The messages sent, he just keeps showing his staunch core supporters of his base, I'm with you, I've got your back, keep supporting me, and they are, and keep showing this by going out into the demonstrations and disrupting them and causing them to be more dangerous for anybody engaged in them. So these types of tactics are what we're seeing.
What all of this boils down to is, that back to the information topic is it is so critical now that people in this country especially really understand where we are and what we're seeing that, the veil has completely dropped at this point, that this never really has been a democracy, but now less so than ever. And we have to really accept that even the illusion of a democracy, or that there's opportunity, real opportunity in this country [for it] is absolutely gone. It's never really been there, but the illusion of it now is gone.
And so, are we really going to see clearly that we live in an autocratic state? Are we going to really accept now that there's not going to be a legitimate election in November? Even if there's a farce of an illegitimate election, maybe that won't even happen, but are we going to really accept that elections are really done in this country and behave accordingly? Are we going to really accept that we have a government that is out to get us? Are we going to really accept that their response to a global pandemic is that they want all people to die? They want People of Color to die. They want people that are not rich to die. Don't go by what they're saying, just look at what they're doing. And are we going to accept these truths that, whatever illusions that we may have had that made it comfortable for a lot of us to live in this country, and think that there was opportunity and freedom and such?
But, those illusions have ended. This is a time of endings, not just in this country, but globally now also, when we expand out and look at the climate crisis and the global pandemic and the end of this runaway capitalist economy, as we've known it, that all these things are ending. And there are some silver linings to some of this, but it also means that we are entering in an extremely darkening age, where whatever stress and chaos and loss that we see today, this is really just a prelude of what's coming, I think in just a handful of months from now, not even talking about years.
Patrick Farnsworth: Yeah. It's all moving very quickly. I want to tie this [together] — what you're explaining that this is the time of endings.
I know that you and I, in previous interviews and also in our interview with Barbara, we talked about denial. We frame that specifically within this discussion around climate disruption and the ecological crisis, that we are witnessing a really unprecedented change, that there's maybe a few things that could be done to maybe mitigate some of the worst impacts of it. But I mean, we're way past the point of return on this, when it comes to the climate crisis in particular, and how we all, when we come to that information in our own way, in our own lives, we have to confront our own denial. And it comes in waves. It's not like you just come to this place of complete acceptance and you just [say], all right, I'm good. It's something that comes in waves. And I've seen in myself, not only with the climate crisis and seeing how it's unfolding just in the past few months even, but also with these social crises, in this public health crisi, that we're in the midst of, in the United States specifically and globally. But seeing all these crises play out, it's just like, is this really happening? And there is this part of me that's very real that I have to speak with. I'm learning to speak to these different parts of myself and accept them for what they are.
But there's part of me that's like, I really just want it to go back to the way it was, whatever that was. Even if it was shit. I wish it wasn't like this. And I know a deeper part of me knows that that's not ever going to come back. We're never going to have that. And if you frame this pandemic and the social crises within the broader crisis of the climate crisis and the ecological crisis, this is just a dress rehearsal. This is just getting us ready. I mean, if you could say that, getting us ready for even deeper, more disruptive events that are on the horizon, and we can see them playing out right now.
And so I guess to speak to this thing where I think a lot of people that are in our field of discussion, our circles, where we're talking about denial and accepting climate disruption, I think even these people that are wanting to have those discussions about climate disruption are having a hard time even accepting what's happening right in front of their faces, very, very close to them, which is happening on a social cultural level and in a public health level as well. I'm just curious if you see those parallels of the denial of what's happening, people are seeing people get shot at these protests. They're seeing a lot of disruption happening right now. They're seeing a president, like you pointed to, that's just blatantly dog-whistling to white supremacists in this country right now. People think that an election and getting him out of office is going to bring us back to some sense of normalcy, and to me that just reeks of denialism.
So I guess to ask and frame that for you, which is: what parallels do you see in the discussions around climate disruption and acceptance of that reality and an acceptance of the reality of where we are socially and culturally right now?
Dahr Jamail: Right. Yeah, you made, I mean, several really good points and articulated a lot of it really well. And I, for a long time, have been really critical of how much denial there is in this country, and not just on the right regarding the climate crisis and other crises — racism and xenophobia and sexism, and all these things. It's so blatantly obvious that the right does, but even on the left, things like the Green New Deal — there’s this softer denialism on the left with these crises. And I think that includes even how we look at this upcoming so-called election, like that people are still behaving as though that's going to be some kind of agent in change this far along in the death of the Empire.
But regarding the climate crisis in all of this is, I think it's very, very important, again, that we talk about the right way to do endings. And I understand that denial, no matter how hardened we've become, none of us as human beings psychologically can sit there and just stare at the unraveling and the fire every day. I mean, it would be our psychological undoing, it would be the unraveling of our mental health. This is why I've struggled with depression a lot, just because of what I've stared at in my work. It's another part of why I've stepped out of journalism, for my own spiritual wellbeing. So I have a certain amount of empathy for people who don't want to really look at how far along we are regarding the climate crisis and the fact that we are living in a fascistic country at this point. And it's because it's terrifying to look at, and it's terrifying to think about the implications. And it scares me. I mean, I look out at what's happening and what's coming and what I saw in Iraq and seeing these parallels happening here, and understanding that when things start to unravel to a point here — we have organized militia attacks in different cities — on a broader scale happening, probably in the coming months, and a lot more death and a lot more insecurity and a lot more chaos. Who wants to live in a world like that? I mean, that's very, very frightening. So I have empathy for people that don't really want to see that.
And I think it's easier for me to see because I've worked a substantial part of my life in war zones, not just in Iraq, and seen what happens when societies unravel. And the vast majority of the people are very humanitarian and look out for each other and care for each other. And I've seen some of the most beautiful, selfless acts of humanity in those situations. And I've also seen utter barbarism where there's a smaller minority group that will take advantage of the situation, and kill and loot and basically turn really, really barbaric. And we're seeing that here too, which I talked about.
But I think the thing, when I look out, I’m so baffled at how still people won't really understand how far along we are politically in this country, as well as how far along we are in the climate crisis. That people can look at the amount of disinformation is so intense, and denialism — that people can't see the fact that right now, in Siberia 2.85 million acres of forest and Tundra have burned in wildfires. That climate disruption fuels wildfires, and the amount of CO2 being released as we speak from that permafrost is so great that, by the end of this year going into next year, we could see a quarter to a half a centigrade increase in global temperature, just in this one year. And this is despite the lower CO2 emissions that happened from the economic shutdown globally, at least temporarily, from the pandemic crisis.
And people will be surprised, even though we're seeing this happen right now in front of our face, that somehow in November when we don't have a legitimate election or don't have one at all, even despite seeing all the writing on the wall and all the moves being made by this administration and the Justice Department right now — that somehow people are going to be surprised. And I think that's really a direct result of how this is a culture that won't and can't do endings. When you and Barbara and I had that conversation last summer for your podcast, and we talked about that, how this is a culture of the denial of death, that we are in the death process of whatever semblance of democracy that may have ever existed in this country is gone now. We are in an ending and a death process of huge swaths of the planet.
I mean, let me put it this way to make it more personal. I have two aging parents, both with pretty intense preexisting health conditions who live down in Houston, and I'm up in the Pacific Northwest. Houston right now, as we speak, is one of the epicenters of the virus. It's just exploding thanks to a right wing governor who insisted on opening everything up, despite being in a global pandemic. My parents, they're too afraid to travel. They're stuck there. My sister, brother, and I have all taken efforts to try to him and tell them and urge them to leave. And they could, they could come up here or they could go stay at my sister's in the Northeast where she lives on a small farm and be a lot safer at least, and have a good chance of making it through this without catching this dreaded disease, and they're too afraid to leave.
And so I've had to accept that. I got to see them in early March, and that might well be the last time that I get to see my aging parents, because if they end up getting this disease, of course. I understand that it would be foolhardy of me to fly during a global pandemic, because then I might get it. And if they did go into a hospital, I wouldn't be allowed in to see them anyway. So it's quite likely that I have seen my parents alive for the last time. And now, how many other people in this country are having that experience? If you really think about it, it's probably millions of people. And I have to accept that, right? So that's a very personal acceptance that I have to make. And I've had to get there just in the last week. All this came to the fore over the last week for me, and it's that same process now with the country, with the planet, with the climate.
Look, I'm never going to see a polar bear, because I've never seen one. I'm not going to be able to travel for a long time, nor do I even want to. And, if in 10 years or 15 years from now that changes, they may well already be gone by then anyway. And how many other people are going to have to say that right now? Or say that about ever getting to see the Great Barrier Reef?
I mean, go down the list, Patrick — how many things right now do we have to let go of, because we're in a time of endings? And this calls on us to be so present in our own personal process. This is why I've not been writing, because I don't even know what to write, because this it's like sitting in hospice or sitting at the bedside of someone that you love as they die.
That my full focus on now is just being very, very present with my own personal experience of what's going on and then understanding what's really, really important. And then how can I still find ways to serve during this time? And for me, what that has boiled down to is I have a small community of people that are living on and are tied directly to this little piece of land where I live up here on the Olympic peninsula. We're growing food. We take care of each other. We talk together about what's happening on the planet and in this country right now. My job — it’s been made very clear to me is it's not to go try to stop an occupation of another country. It's not to try to stop the climate crisis. It's how can I serve my immediate community. Because that's one thing that I can do right now. And I feel, like in a crisis situation, in a survival situation — which we are in now, and it's grossly obvious to me that we are all in that — then each one of us has to, I think, get really quiet and figure out how can I really serve now because we are morally obliged to keep serving.
And I think realistically, it's going to be starting with how I take care of my immediate community where I live.
Patrick Farnsworth: Right. What I'm feeling right now, when you say all that — I was thinking about this, it feels like a time crunch. It feels like the windows of possibility are narrowing. And what I mean by that is, even when we would have these discussions about climate disruption, there was always this feeling like, well, we have some time to work with here. We have some time to prepare, and whatever that means for you personally, and on a community level, what does it mean to prepare for such a thing? And I feel especially this year, because things have been moving so quickly, we don't have really any time afforded to us anymore. I mean, we kind of do. We have a little bit of time, things are kind of stable. Sort of, but not really. And we know it's not going to stay like this. It's just going to continue to deteriorate. If you're paying attention at all, you have any understanding of what's happening right now, that it's not going to hold together for too much longer, and whatever it means to be held together is fucking terrifying. What does it mean to hold together a country like this right now?
I remember when I visited you last year and, again, you were transitioning out of journalism. You said something and it stuck with me, which was what does it mean to be a journalist in an authoritarian state? That was something you were really grappling with. And that was part of, I think, one of the questions that led you to the conclusion that you needed to step away, for at least some time, from doing the work you're doing. And I'm thinking not just that, but what does it mean to be a semi-conscious, aware person right now? What does it mean to be alive right now, and particularly within the belly of the Empire? Ss you've pointed to, the chickens are coming home to roost. The things that have been extended and imposed on other populations around the world, including what you mentioned with the people in Iraq that had been on the blunt end of this empire's attempt to control everything, is now coming back home.
And so the people who have been insulated in privilege and entitlement — like kind of an invisible thing, kind of like being a fish water, you don't even know you're in it. And that's now being made very apparent. Now everybody is being forced in this country to look at what this country is and what it is becoming.
And, and I feel like we don't have any time anymore. You know what I mean? That's really the point I'm trying to get at is like, whatever time we have left, we have to make the best of that. And so people right now that are listening that are feeling what's happening right now — I think it's like that pressure, there feels like there's a weight that's being pressed on me when I speak about this. It's like, you don't have a lot of time. You need to start making really important decisions right now, and they need to come from a grounded place of love for your family, your friends, for yourself, and for the earth. And, I think that that's a huge decision or a series of decisions that have to be made right now by a whole lot of people.
What I see in the face of those that are resisting that question, resisting even addressing that question at all, is this terrified denial. I'm seeing that in the face of all these people that are refusing to wear face masks in public, honestly. I'm seeing it in people who don't even want to address that we live in a systemically racist society. All of these things, right. And I imagine that denial that maybe you faced when you made the decision to go to Iraq and be a journalist, which was like, I'm going to look at this thing in the face, and everybody's like, why would you do that? We're doing it for all the right reasons! That gross denialism — it’s coming out in this violent way right now.
I don't know what my point is, I'm just trying to articulate the feeling that there isn't a lot of time left and we need to really — like all the things we've been talking about over these few years we've known each other, Dahr, is happening right now. This isn't some future tense thing. This is present. And it just, I really feel that right now.
Dahr Jamail: Right. The gift of crisis to me is it gives you an opportunity to be very, very real, Going back to when the last podcast I did with you, which was with Barbara when you were visiting last summer, it was right in the immediate aftermath of me having just lost my best friend, Duane, and sitting with him when he took his last breath. And it feels like that's what this time is, that we're having to say goodbye to and let go of a lot of things. We're in a world where it's a time of endings and, and it's how are we going to use that time, this time that we have right now.
And one of the things you said earlier reminded me of the saying I heard Iraqis saying in Baghdad in the early days of the occupation, which was today is better than tomorrow. That things are degrading rapidly. We know it's all going to get worse. But we're still here today. So how do we want to use today and how am I going to comport myself, now. Like using my own example of my parents, which I discussed earlier that, okay I can't go see them. They don't feel safe going anywhere. So I've possibly seen them the last time. But they're still here and I'm still here. So how do I want to behave? I still want to tell them that I love them. I still want to have conversations with them. I still want to talk with them about different things. And it's like, what kind of a son do I want to be? And what kind of a member of my own community do I want to be? That's what I'm looking at personally. And I think that this is a very, very personal time because things are so intense, of looking at the endings that are upon us.
I think that that's why I've been reticent to write anything publicly, because it feels like a really, really sacred time where each person is given this opportunity to really look inside. And I've been doing this and really cut away, all the bullshit in anything that's left undone that needs to be attended to and put to sleep, that it's time to do that now and get right with things as though we're preparing for our own death, which I've also recently updated my will because who knows what's coming. I think it's a good time for folks to do things like that too. And anything that's left undone, anything that's left unsaid now is the time to do it. Because we're still here and we have today, because we don't know what's coming. That's going to better prepare us, to really clear away all that stuff so that we can show up and be ready for whatever tomorrow might bring. And I'm not talking just about the negative and catastrophic, but also about the gifts that come with that, like when I, and anyone who's listening to this, who's sat with someone that they care about who's dying — you get to say and have said some amazing things, what are often the most incredible exchanges you'll ever have with that person right there at the end. It's also that time. It’s a very, very charged time energetically. There's a lot of growth and beauty and love that is happening, and that can happen alongside getting ready for the darkness that it is upon us. It’s intensifying by the day, and getting as ready as we can for what might happen with that.
And so for some people it means it's time to throw caution to the wind and go protest against police brutality and racism and put my ass on the line. And we're seeing millions of people doing that, courageous valiant efforts around the country and around the world. And for other people it's going and getting all their personal things in order, with their own relations with other people and cleaning things up in that regard, or with their parents or, things along those lines and other, other people who knows what it's going to be.
And so my point is, your days are numbered and our days in this world are numbered. I mean, the existing world of global capitalism, and the earth being in somewhat of a state today that next year it won't be in because of the climate crisis. That all these worlds are changing and ending before our eyes then, how do we comport ourselves and how do we get ourselves ready? And what do we feel most served to do? Because it comes down to, normal methods of organizing don't work anymore. We do not have any kind of coherent organization in this country to bring about a type of deep rooted revolution that would have to occur to really change things. But what I think is necessary is if each one of us really, really looks inward deeply at this time, gets our affairs in order, and then really listens to what we feel most called to do in that way — the earth herself is going to organize what needs to happen through each one of us. So my point is, it's not going to come from a person, it's going to come from deep, deep within (i.e. it's going to come from the earth).
And I think that's the moment where we are. I think that's the biggest gift of this time.
Patrick Farnsworth: Something clicked, because in previous discussions you have talked about grounding yourself, listening deeply, and the earth herself will speak to you in some way. There'll be some message received. It may not come at once. It may come over several years, or whatever the process is for you specifically, but you will get, as you said, your marching orders. You will know what to do because it'll become clearer over time, with the right intention and the right awareness. And then just saying what you said is like, giving yourself over to that is an act of faith in a in a way. You're acknowledging something that's very real, but you're also just trusting that the earth herself will organize everything for — not for you. You're going to have to make important decisions in your part of the process.
But it's a co-creative thing, I guess is what I'm trying to say. It requires your decision making abilities, your awareness, as well as this larger organizing intelligence that is the earth herself. And that's not just a metaphorical or a figurative thing, I guess. It's quite real. It's a quite real thing. And I see, like, you talk about the silver linings. Right now doing my work specifically, I am seeing a lot of terrible things happening, of course, which we've laid out pretty thoroughly in this interview, but I'm also seeing people that are being activated in a way that I've never, well, I've never seen (I’m not that old anyway), but I have seen people activated in such a way where they're like, I have a mission and it's good. And they know it's good and they feel it deeply and they're willing to take risks and make important decisions, and work together and organize. I'm seeing it all across the board right now.
So I think when we enter into these states especially of crisis, as global, as large as the ones that we are in the midst of right now, we're seeing what feels — I think one of the jarring things is it feels like a paradox. It feels like a bunch of contradictions clashing up against one another. You have white supremacists in the streets, shooting protesters. You have people tearing down colonialist representations and statues and symbols. You have people demanding that we address our legacy of racism and white supremacy in this country. We're also seeing the climate — the Arctic is releasing methane as you expressed earlier. We're seeing a lot of things right now and it's feels like just a giant knot of paradoxes, but there is something there to kind of appreciate about this process, humbling ourselves before it.
And knowing that we're not really in control and giving ourselves over to something bigger than us is a big part of, I think, accepting where we are right now.
Dahr Jamail: That's right. And I think that's an extremely individual act. And not that we can't do it with other people, but at the end of the day, that very inner and personal work is ours to be done at this time, as crisis always forces upon us now and always has through history. A reckoning is another way to put that.
I've had this experience, because I've had some near death experiences, your life does flash in front of your eyes. You do have a lot of memories, and anything that's been undone that needs to be corrected or amended comes to the fore. That is the time that's upon us. And I think since it is so personal, I think that's caused me to really loath and distrust anyone that's out there talking and writing about things as though they alone know how to interpret what's happening, or they can tell you what to do or how to be or how to think. I don't think it's anyone's place at this stage of the game to do that. I think it's grossly disrespectful, and anyone doing it at this point is a charlatan. You see these people putting out these 9,000 word essays about, oh, this is how we should interpret this time of the pandemic. These are charlatans and these are to be avoided because they would just simply contaminate our ability to use this very, very charged time to really, really go deep and ask the really important personal questions of ourselves, and then come through that to change into, okay, what is life demanding of me now at this time? And, I don't mean like go isolate in a hole and do this in a cave in the mountains or something, but I mean, do it internally.
And then for a whole lot of us, it might mean going out and taking the most radical action I've ever taken in my entire life in service to the earth, whatever that may be.
Patrick Farnsworth: Yeah. We have to have our wits about us right now, for sure. There are people that will take advantage of our confusion.
And it's also finding that — this has been hard for me personally, and this thing I've been working with just on a very personal level, knowing my truth. Knowing myself well enough, trusting my intuition. That's something that I've had to learn, how to develop and grow. It's like a muscle that has to be developed. And I think now is the time for people to really develop that muscle, to develop that ability, because there's going to be a lot of things that are going to come in that are going to distress you, traumatize you, confuse you ,gaslight you. That's kind of the nature of these times that we're in.
I have to tell you — I know we're getting kind of close to the end here — but, the eeriness of how this is all very predictable. Specifically with this pandemic, I watched a documentary about the 1918 influenza pandemic. And while certainly it was a different time — World War I was happening and it was different — but, the way people reacted to that pandemic is very eerily similar to what people are doing right now, during this one.
So I just want to make that point, which is that we are living in unprecedented times, but in a sense, this has happened numerous times throughout human history in some form or the other. And we could have, if we were to maybe take ourselves out of this panic that we might be in, we might be able to learn something by drawing on other people's past experiences, drawing on maybe your experiences that you had in Iraq. And there are many, many people that I would trust to express perspectives that can help ground us and know that we're not crazy for feeling what we're feeling right now. That's, I think, an important step that we have to take in being able to really ask ourselves and trust ourselves and trust our feelings right now. Because I think people are waking up and they want to know, how do we proceed? And I think, that advice that you gave there of listening to yourself, listening to the earth, knowing how to proceed, that's going to be an increasingly important question that more and more people are going to have to really honestly ask themselves as we move forward.
Dahr Jamail: That is so well put Patrick. I mean, no, exactly what you just said is actually a really great way to kind of draw this to a close. Because I think ,just to kind of say it similarly, but in my own way, that when in a crisis situation, those are exactly the senses internally that we have to rely upon. It's like, okay, this is a crisis and my life's at stake and all of our lives are at stake. And so what's really important? And, it's a first things first, what needs to be done situation.
I used to work as a mountain guide and I took a wilderness first responder course as part of that. And what we learned in that course, in what probably emergency responders everywhere are taugh,t is that when stuff goes down, when there's an emergency, say you're in the back country and someone breaks their leg and is bleeding internally. The saying is, don't just do something, stand there.
So the point is, don't panic. We'll just start doing things, but sit there. Take a deep breath. Assess. Okay, what's the most important thing that has to happen first, and start acting in that way. And that is the moment where we are. And, for other people, like People of Color who have been brutalized by the police their entire lives, or Native Americans who barely survived a genocide and have been living in erasure their entire lives, they've been living in this place for a long time. But those of us in the dominant culture in this country who have had a bit more privilege and haven't had to live that way, we're now in that world. And it’s very important for us to be allies and listen to those folks, which is why now my work is focusing on Indigenous voices and bringing attention and amplification to those voices, because these are the people now that are, I think, carrying a wisdom and a fortitude and, really, stick-with-it-ness that is being called upon all of us now deeper than ever. So, this is where we are.
It’s trusting that deeper stuff in our own deeper senses and our own intuition, that's what we have now as things spiral further and further out of control. And if we think things are intense now, wait until this fall. You just don't even know what to believe anymore, because things are getting so intense and so insane, especially in this country. Then all we're going to have to rely on is those inner senses and our immediate communities wherever we might live.
And so right now, those of us fortunate enough to have these few moments to kind of think about what that is and how do I really solidify that and bring that to the fore in my own life, now is that time. Because, I can assure you, by fall, if you haven't kind of girded yourself for that, you'll certainly wish that you had, and not to try to instill fear, but really just it's like what I did in The End of Ice, it's like pointing at this climate crisis, how far along we are.
But also there is this storm on the very, very near horizon, and me and a lot of other people have been pointing at it for a long time. Some of these people a lot longer than I have, and here it is. And so, are you going to pay attention to that and heed that, and then really look deeply internally about what you need to do to prepare and how you're going to behave once that hits? Now is that time.
And so I think that that's something for all of us to really get really quiet and just kind of sit with and consider really deeply. Because it's a very, very personal situation. And these are very personal questions that only each of us can answer for ourselves individually. We cannot get that answer outside of ourselves.
Patrick Farnsworth: Yeah. Well, it just as a side note, I think you mentioned in one of our conversations that The End of Ice — it's now been, what, almost a year and a half since it was published, released January, 2019? I remember I met you at the book release in Portland, you did a speech and, I mean, even a year and a half after that, I think you've said that your book is even a little too conservative, based on what we're seeing now. And I'm just like, damn, even if your book is too conservative, I mean, I dunno. I just think about that. I think about the comment you made, where you're just like, yeah, it wasn't dire enough.
Oh, man.
Dahr Jamail: I know, and that's just indicative of how fast everything's changing.
And we can talk about that in regards to the climate or, the spread of fascism in this country, or COVID-19, or the economic crisis, the racial crisis in this country. I mean everything now is going at warp speed. That's another part of the new reality that we live in as collapses is upon us.
Patrick Farnsworth: Yeah. Well, I just want to say, I think we touched on everything I wanted to get at and more.These conversations, they tend to go this way with you, Dahr. It's like, you start off, we're going to have this sort of information, build up with this a set of information and get into that. And then it always sinks in deeper, and what I really love and appreciate about our relationship and in our conversations.
Yeah, Dahr I really thank you so much for taking time to speak with me for the podcast again.
Dahr Jamail: Well, it's always a pleasure, Patrick. And thanks so much again for having me on.
