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Protecting Mauna Kea: Why the Mountain?

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By Will Falk

I am preparing to leave for Hawai’i to offer myself in support of resistance to the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project that would place a large telescope and stadium-sized structure on the peak of native Hawaiians’ most sacred place – Mauna Kea.

The project, funded by a partnership including the University of California, the California Institute of Technology, and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy among others, would also place a 5,000 gallon chemical waste container above the largest freshwater aquifer on Hawai’i Island.

I first heard about this struggle from the brilliant documentary film-maker Anne Keala Kelly when she spoke at the Earth at Risk conference in San Francisco organized by the Fertile Ground Environmental Institute last fall. I was beyond excited when a friend recently put me in touch with Keala explaining that the Mauna Kea protectors seek more support from the mainland.   [Read more…]

My California Drought

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By Will Falk

there’s water, at least,
on the coast
and that’s where I’m heading

when stopped near
Petaluma, California
a sunburnt sign
hangs over a vineyard
celebrating a family
insurance business’s
longevity   [Read more…]

The Dead Write No Poems

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By Will Falk

National Poetry Month happens to mark the year anniversary since I set out on the road to dedicate my life to the struggle against this dominant culture hell-bent on destroying the world.

Questions arise on this road, questions that I must answer if I am going to continue on this way.

One of the questions I seek answers for involves poetry. I love poetry. I love reading poetry, I love listening to poetry, and I love writing poetry. But, the hour is extremely late, and poetry means nothing if it is not used as a weapon in defense of the real world.   [Read more…]

being Sweeney tonight

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By Will Falk

a warm wind
blended with whiskey
softens the distinction
between tonight
the sky
and my confusion

those shadows aren’t real
shadows, or
the shades of crows
because there are no crows
in crow canyon anymore
only darkness dripping   [Read more…]

Unist’ot’en Camp: The Best Medicine

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By Will Falk

I’ve decided to go off my medication. This decision is one I’ve been struggling with for months. It’s not a decision I make easily, but I think it’s the best decision for me. Ever since I was diagnosed with severe depression and prescribed anti-depressants in November, 2012, I have had a dubious relationship with my medication.

It is true that I have been on anti-depressants and have not tried to kill myself since August, 2013. It is also true that I was taking my anti-depressants each time I tried to kill myself. I know that my decision to stop taking my pills will cause friends and family anxiety. But, I truly feel this is the best decision for me.   [Read more…]

Change the World, Change Yourself

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By Will Falk

Friends and family tell me I too often focus on the negative. My doctors and therapists have told me me this, too. Diagnosed as I am with severe depression and surviving two suicide attempts, I used to believe them.

Part of my recovery involved completing a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) program. CBT assumes that changing the way a patient thinks leads to changes in mood and behavior. Patients keep “thought records” where they document negative thoughts and then challenge the validity of those thoughts with the help of a therapist. On the surface, CBT seems like a good way to combat depression, right?

I do not think so, anymore. I came to therapy feeling like I was the problem. My sensitivity to the problems I saw around me caused me profound grief. I felt guilty for my ineffectiveness as a public defender to stem the tide of poor people being thrown in prison. I felt guilty as a member of a natural community for being unable to stop the destruction from raging on. My doctors and therapists insisted that if I changed my perceptions then I would alleviate the grief. In other words, my doctors and therapists told me, “You cannot change the world, so change yourself.”   [Read more…]

Walking the Trapline at Unist’ot’en Camp

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By Will Falk

The snowstorm arrived at Unist’ot’en Camp a day before we did dropping over a foot of snow and stillness on the territory. The clouds cleared the second night we were there opening the skies to the silent music played by the twinkling of countless stars. While most of the crew sat around the woodstove in the cabin a hundred yards away, I stood listening to my breath crystalize to the rhythm of my heartbeat in my ears.

Listening like this, I realized I forgot what stillness was.   [Read more…]

Penis Control Before Gun Control

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By Will Falk

My position on gun control is simple. As long as the police, soldiers, and rapists have guns, we should have guns, too.

As long as one in four women in this country are raped in their lifetimes, women should have access to guns. As long as people of color are gunned down in the streets, they should be capable of defending themselves. As long as theft of native land continues alongside genocide of native peoples, they should be able to arm themselves against their invaders.

People – mainly white, male people – tell me that I take too extreme of a view. They tell me they just do not see the violence.   [Read more…]

Rioting on Trial

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A Cross-Examination of the Lies About Ferguson 

By Will Falk

Mainstream media and white privilege have put the Ferguson riots on trial. Accusations range from claims that rioting is counterproductive at best to downright morally reprehensible for refusing to adhere to principles of dogmatic non-violence at worst.

I practiced as a public defender in Kenosha, WI and came to understand through experience that Michelle Alexander is correct in characterizing America’s so-called criminal justice system “the new Jim Crow.” As a public defender, I saw how those confronted with criminal conviction are overwhelmingly poor and overwhelmingly people of color. I came to see my role as a bandaid over a gunshot wound. I was just trying to slow the system as it bled lives away and ruined poor communities.

The public defender’s stock and trade is cross-examination. When a police officer or adverse witness lies in court, the public defender uses questions in her cross-examination to undermine the lies. In the court of public opinion, we are being lied to. I want to use cross-examination to illustrate these lies.   [Read more…]

(Not) Making Sense of Ferguson

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What would justice for Michael Brown look like?

By Will Falk

Let’s be clear: The decision not to indict Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown Jr. was inevitable.

I do not write this to undermine, in any way, the justifiable rage being expressed around the country. I write this in the hopes that we can accurately diagnose the cancer characterized by the symptoms we have seen – symptoms like the death of another young black man at the hands of a white policeman, the failure of a grand jury to indict that policeman, and a mainstream media determined to paint acts taken in retaliation as somehow too extreme. Once we have accurately diagnosed the cancer, I want us to locate the tumors and remove them.   [Read more…]

Stand with Indigenous Peoples, Stop the Pipelines

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As so often happens, Native Americans are leading the fight to save the world.

By Will Falk

While half of the world’s species are disappearing, while the remaining 48 hunter/gatherer societies are literally fighting for their survival, while 32 million acres of rainforest are cut down a year, and while three hundred tons of topsoil are lost a minute, we are again at war with those who would destroy the planet.

There have been many wars fought on behalf of our life-giving land in North America. The overwhelming majority of those killed in defense of the land have come from peoples like the Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Nez Perce, the Black Hawks, and the Apache. Native Americans have long stood in the way of this destructive culture. It is time that we join with Native Americans and other dominated peoples around the world who are at war. It is time that we, the privileged in this settler culture, step off our pedestal and onto the battlefield to place our bodies in harm’s way like so many indigenous people have before us and continue to do today.   [Read more…]

DIY Resistance: Grasp Things at the Root

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By Will Falk

I recently attended another sustainability conference at a local university. The experts sat in a half-circle facing their audience in rank-and-file foldable chairs. I, like most of the audience, hoped to hear a brilliant solution to the ongoing destruction of the living world. The amount of experience and knowledge assembled in the experts’ panel was formidable.

There was an organic farmer, a local politician, a Christian minister, an executive director of an environmental NGO, a scientist, a green engineer, and a young indigenous woman representing the Native Students Union. My expectations were high.

The typical conversation topics were covered. “Is climate change real?” “What does ‘being green’ mean to you?” “What is sustainability?” I was prepared to sit through these questions patiently as the answers from the experts represented an introduction to Environmentalism 101 because I knew the pay-off question was coming.   [Read more…]

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