[K-Dog]

ECOSOCIALISMANDNATURE.SUBSTACK.COM • 2026-07-16

The Colonial Invention of Pristine Nature

From Yellowstone to Gaza: how colonial power turns inhabited worlds into empty landscapes.

The same colonial logic appears in Palestine through the notorious formula "a land without a people for a people without a land." The slogan originated in nineteenth-century Christian restorationism and was later adopted by several supporters of Zionist settlement. Its political force did not depend on Palestine being literally uninhabited, since Arab, Jewish and other communities already lived there. It depended on denying that the existing population constituted a people whose historical presence, social world and political claims counted.

And to Donald Trump the American prole does not exist.  If Americans cared to Trump he would respect elections.  You really do not need any more info than that to properly asses the situation.  It is now clear that ICE is currently murdering people on a regular basis to normalize the mayhem Trump has planned for the midterms.  How many was it in the last week?  Three I think, at least two.  Texas and Chicago for sure.

The ecosocialist task is to dismantle this abstraction. Human beings live within nature, through nature and by transforming nature, since every society reorganizes material and ecological relations. The decisive questions concern the social form of this transformation: who controls it, whose needs it serves, where its costs are displaced and whether it reproduces or destroys the conditions of collective life.

Capitalism transforms nature into value.

Colonialism transforms inhabited land into available space.

Pristine nature transforms the history of dispossession into sublime beauty.

Exploitation of 'the other' is a consistent theme in history.  The good fight is to find a better way.  Eliminating exploiters seems like a good place to start.