Be careful what you are thankful for, as it may not be yours at all!
This week is “Thanksgiving” and Suburban Empire.com wants to pause for a moment and reflect on what actually happened when this “Nation” was “Founded”.
"Americans” will gather this Thursday to eat factory farmed processed corn products, accompanied by factory farmed, mistreated turkey. They will generate tons of garbage in the form of packaging and other waste associated with the production of the “food”, that will only be used once and either thrown in to a “recycle” bin or directly into a garbage can and will end up in a landfill either way. The throwers of the trash will give no more thought to the realities of their current occupation, than they will to the garbage they toss. After all, god gave their forefathers permission to be here............... or did “he”?
The tribes that existed on this continent before the arrival of Europeans should not be called with a title like “Native American”; as it begs to question why someone here would name their group, or the land they lived on, after someone from Florence. It is as inappropriate as using the word “Indian” to describe a member of the Navajo People, or the Wampanoag People, or the Sioux People or the Wyiot People, or the Jemez People, or the Paiute People, or the Crow People, or any of the thousands of other tribes that were here before the Spanish, British, Dutch, and French showed up, as “American”. After all, they owe no homage to Amerigo Vespucci or any other European person. They had already “discovered” this land mass a long time before any European did.
And frankly, the Europeans did just “show up”.... There were already established people here, they were already living a low impact lifestyles with minimal conflict. The Peoples who's Nations the Europeans invaded, and still occupy, did not recognize land “ownership”; only territorial areas where tribes often overlapped without clear specific lines on a map as boundaries with guarded boarders,which was a European tradition.
The peoples who's land the Europeans stole were not interested in gold as a median of exchange, they were more focused on simple exchange for economic activity, they did not have buffalo skin derivative bundle schemes, they did not have a problem with excessive executive compensation in the leadership of the hunting parties, nor did they have to throw billions of imaginary blankets into a an imaginary “TARP” fund.
The Navajo did not have bubbles in the Hogan market burst: leaving hundreds kicked out on to the game trail due to foreclosure. And there was not a “Goldman Sioux” bank giving themselves lavish holiday parties and bonuses while other members of the tribe got tossed out of their tee-pee's to pay for it.
There were no traffic problems, acid rain, smog, or effects from global warming caused by the people who were on this continent already. There was no “spin” in the smoke signals; and the songs they sang were not subject to copyright (like “Happy Birthday” is). They did not build prisons... and the terrorists who attacked them? Won. There were no scalping's on the streets of Vienna as retaliation for the wholesale slaughter of this continents people, there were no “smart tomahawks” raining down on Brussels.
The Europeans, who had been welcomed as guests; were far from good guests, they violated their own sacred “Ten Commandments” and Killed, Stole, Bore False Witness, Coveted, and broke treaties they had sworn before god would be upheld on their way West across the landscape. They “founded” a nation right on top of the existing nations that were already here, like a housing developer builds over an ant hill.
Contrary to popular belief, the people who were established here were not “savages” at all, they were just living in a different civilization then the Europeans who came to occupy the landscape; as it turns out we (the Europeans) were, and still are, the savages.
We are just an annex of Europe; a suburb. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why we are so accepting of ugly, bland, monotone buildings being plunked upon the land; because we are a nation of occupiers, and this “nation” is in fact; an occupation.
In the push to develop and expand the occupation all the way across the continent one of the factors in establishing legitimacy in claim on the land has been construction of “improvements” such as permanent structures. Structures often built in haste just to have “something” there; then push west, always further west... rushing to put up buildings to establish claim... Then off again. We got used to shoddy buildings very early, no wonder we accept the big box, and strip suburbs so easily. We are just trying to justify the occupation.
That is the problem with “celebrating” this “holiday” the way we do; the land we live on was stolen, therefore everything produced upon it is presumably stolen as well. And here's the thing about stolen property; it's not yours even if you weren't the one to steal it. Stolen Art works this way, even if the piece was stolen generations ago by someone else, once the piece is located; it is returned to the heirs of the original owner. And if you buy something that is “hot” and you know it is stolen, you are guilty of receiving stolen property. If you did not know the property was stolen, then you still have to forfeit the property to it's rightful ownership, but you don't have to serve time.
My family has been here since the 1700's, and were “decreed” land in what is now known as Vermont, by a king of a distant land who had no rightful claim on the land. It was not his to give. I do not “own” any of this land as it passed out of my line of the family long ago; if it were in my “possession” I would be quite inclined this day to give it back to it's rightful “owners”, the nation of people who were there before my ancestors showed up on some twisted mission from god and took it.
Then there was part two of the crime... The Europeans then went to the African Continent and stole people to work the land they stole. Remember how much of this was built by slaves? And we congratulated ourselves as wonderful humanitarians because we “freed” them (as a side bar to a war with “ourselves”); right into a different kind of bondage.... sharecropping.
And each time we saw we hadn't gone far enough in making up for the crime of kidnapping an entire race... we gave them crumbs and felt like we were great humanitarians again “Well, we used to hang them” we tell our selves now, as we drive past a drug infested ghetto like somehow the Europeans aren't to blame for the situation. We like to blame not only the victims; but their decedents as well.
The People who were here before the Europeans showed up; and the Africans who were kidnapped and brought here were never “godless savages”, they were just on a different path of development, they were not more or less “advanced” than the Europeans; they just had not experienced the same circumstance.
There was not a “Bronze Age”, “Dark Age”, "Iron Age" and all the other “Ages” that happened in Europe. There were in fact “Ages” happening here, they were just different, and the development of the cultures that existed here were doing well with the low impact hunter gatherer model at the moment we arrived. They got put into a fast forward, express lane, step bypass, crash course, “development” program that devastated not only the cultures of the people, but the individuals themselves.
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Euro-Americans love to pity the “drunk Indians”, as it justifies the feelings of superiority that the Christian religions demand of the European occupiers. In reality the alcohol and drug problems that have devastated both the “African American” and “Native American” populations are a direct result of being express tracked from tribal hunter gathers with some farming skills to oil consumers with no development time. Like the Dark (part of the development even though it was a "step back") Ages, the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment or any of the dozen of other cultural development periods that happened on the European Continent; but not Africa, or the North and South Continents of the Western Hemisphere.
This was, and still is, taken as a superiority of one “race” over another... it was nothing of the kind, it was circumstance and nothing more or less. And the inability of all members of the “minority” groups to play cultural catch up is not an indication of superiority either; it is a symptom that steps to “development” have been skipped by a group of people. From bow and arrow to Model T in just a few hundred years, while skipping the steps of finding out the properties of gun powder, and steel. It is like asking a group of kindergärtner's to pass a calculus test, (asking people of a different “age” to compete) and blaming those of them who don't understand any of what is written on the paper in front of them for not understanding what they haven't had time to learn, or teach to themselves.
I see some of you are getting edgy and angry with my words... they are not incorrect. I also see some of you getting angry in a different way; “Well... what do you want us to do? Go back to Europe?”
There's a thought. But you had better ask your hosts what they want you to tear down and fix before you go.... oh, and we had better be putting a big, huge damage deposit down too.... we aren't getting it back you know.
Don't worry, the nations that were here, are still here (for the most part) ; just waiting for the oil to run out... when that happens the Navajo people will scarcely miss it, for they have preserved their culture to the best extent they can.
While Miss Califwhorenia, Carrie Prejean was getting her tits stuffed in preparation to become Miss USA.... across the desert Miss Navajo Nation*, Tashina Nelson was butchering and dressing a sheep as part of the cultural awareness and proficiency requirement of her pagent. You see, Miss Navajo Nation represents the Navajo People, and it is important that she have a clear understanding of her culture. Miss Navajo Nation will be ready to lead in the era of peak oil... Carrie Prejean wasn't even awake for her tit job, and has no cultural understanding of what it takes to stuff a boob.
I should imagine Ms Nelson, will have a much higher chance of survival in an environment where one is required to produce their food, than Ms Prejean.
This “Thanksgiving” while you are giving thanks for the things you think you “own” like your house, car, or even country, make sure that they are “yours” to give thanks for. If it is a sin to steal, than it follows that it is probably a sin to be thankful for possession of something that was stolen. Maybe you and I should be thankful for something else; we should be thankful that there is no justice in the world (yet), because if there was... we would not be gorging ourselves on that factory farmed food, watching the corporate sports, bitching about how bad we have it; in a suburban empire that was not ours to build in the first place.
Suburban Empire.com wishes you an introspective “Thanksgiving”.
(* Link Provided to Miss Navajo Nation Site on links above right... Please have your sound on and watch the intro, the song playing is beautiful. If this post made you feel guilty at all please click on the pay pal link and donate to them!)
Now get down to that comment box and show us some ugly!
Comments
What?
Why don't you leave? Oh that's right you have it too good here. Alan
What right?
What right do few million "Native Americans" have, to control 20% of the Earth's inhabitable land mass in perpetuity? So the rest of the 6+ billion people worldwide have to squeeze into what's left, but they get to roam the high plains and forests, mountains and hills, unmolested by the rest of the world for all time?
"...as it may not be yours at all."
Great article. I'm thankful for it, although I realize it is no longer ours at all... it now belongs to the Chinese, and they didn't even have to fire a shot to get it.
The Trials of Turtle Island
The end came for the People on the first visit of the disease carrying Europeans - who ever they were. A few decades later, in much of the continent up to 95% of the population had gone, and along with them much of their culture. The 'pristine wilderness' that the later incomers found, was what remained of a previously managed ecosystem. But this careful symbiotic management system was by no means universal throughout Turtle Island, as the disappearance of the Nasca (in South-eastern Peru) civilization and the periodic rise and fall of Aztec, Mayan and Inca civilizationals show. Slavery and human sacrifice was also not unknown. To wit it appears the People were human as well.
The time has come (2012) for a new cycle, a true new age. One where we all recognize past 'wrongs' and let them go. And forge a new vision, a new dream where all humans gain an equal share of the benevolence of Mother Earth, and learn in return to respect and help Her. For she is very patient, and thinks nothing of waiting a few million years for a more beneficent species to develop if we do not or cannot rise to that challenge.
Love Sid.
Poppycock
It's all poppycock.
The Navajos arrived in the Athabaskan migration, along with the Apaches and several smaller tribes at about the same time that my ancestors arrived on these shores on the Mayflower. When my ancestors arrived here in the American West, they found the Navajos in the process of killing off the Hopi and other descendants of the Anasazi, "the Ancient Ones".
I know a lot of Navajos. I work with them, and the Hopi every day. I like them. But they are being held back from their full potential by the nanny-state conspiracy of their own tribal governments, in collusion with the US government.
All well and good but...
It get the idea of heritage but isn't it true as well that the Navajo Nation is continuing to rape their lands exchanging coal for money from the dominate culture? How is that forward looking? How is whoring for the whiteman's change making decisions for the good of the seventh generation as the tribes of the northeast believed before they discovered casinos? I'm not convinced that the redman has a lock on "right thinking."
We'll all go back to Europe. You go first.
Maybe you're familiar with new anthropological and archaeological findings with respect to the colonization of the Americas by the ancestors of Native Americans. Seems that the ancestors of today's Native Americans are descended from Siberian nomads. But it seems that the Siberians might not have been first ones here. They may have been preceded by people that were racially different ie their skeletal remains had more in common with Australian Aboriginal people or the Japanese Ainu. So maybe prehistoric inhabitants of the Pacific Rim got here first and had their land confiscated by later migrations of the ancestors of modern Native Americans. What I'm saying is nobody's hands are clean, not even the ancestors of Native Americans.
I have a problem. My parents came to North America from Italy. The area of Italy where they were born was first occupied by Homo Erectus, then by Neanderthals who probably pushed out Erectus, then by prehistoric but modern Sapiens hunters who pushed out Neanderthals, then by prehistoric farmers from the Middle East or Asia Minor who conquered the hunters, then by Indo European Picene tribes who existed in historic times and conquered the prehistoric farmers, then by Celtic tribes that came from the north and conquered the Picenes, then by Roman colonists from Latium that came and conquered the Picene and Celts, then by Germanic tribes that conquered the Romans, then by Byzantine armies that conquered the Germanic tribes etc etc. So am I supposed to be the aggrieved descendant of which of these groups exactly? Am I supposed to demand recompense as the pissed off descendant of the original Sapiens hunters, the prehistoric farmers, the Picene tribesmen, the Celtic tribesmen, the Roman colonist? I'm confused. Where do I bring my complaint? The government in Rome? The EU? The UN? Does anybody give a damn? Or do I let it go and get on with my life seeing as history is history and bad as it is, it can't be re-written. Maybe modern Native Americans should try this approach. The hunter gatherer way of life is over, the old cultures and tribes are done for. Adapt.
spelling
Friendly spelling suggestions:
guarded borders
whose Nation, whose land
scalpings
continent's
medium of exchange
its rightful
Nation of Victims
Have you read, "Guns, Germs, and Steel?" That book is amazing.
I've heard this before....the "stolen land" thing. Why did Europeans come here? Could it be that their land was stolen or their rights stripped by some other dominant culture? I have no doubt that had the Navajo or any other Native American tribe been pressed hard would have arrived in Europe and dominated the landscape. People are people, and civilizations are defined by violent competition for resources.
The worst thing we've done to Native American tribes is made them victims. I grew up on the edge of one of these reservations in Montana where the poverty level is shocking, but was also amazed to see so many wasted resources, so this idea of some sort of innate ability to "commune with nature" is a Hollywood myth. Native American cultures are every bit as violent as European culture. The true oppression comes from promoting the idea that Native Americans are victims which is horribly damaging to a culture.
I agree with a lot of your content on this site and draw similar conclusions, but not on this one. Thanks for being brave enough to put it out there and defend your position.
Luke, ownership of a website
Luke, ownership of a website does not automatically transfer a sort of Papal infallibility upon your writings. Your reply to my comment was flip and intellectually arrogant. I might add that political correctness, no matter how much it is in fashion amongst the more historically challenged, does not translate into unbiased truth. Again, I would urge you to educate yourself.
Please see "About" for reply.
"This site deals in opinion only, and should not be considered a “news source”. The essays reflect the views of the author only and are not meant to inform, influence, or educate, they are for entertainment purposes only. They will be biting, caustic, cynical, possibly offensive, may contain errors (gramatical, spelling, and factual), and should probably not be read by anybody under or over the age of 18."
"Suburban Empire.com, oversimplified opinion whose reach exceeds it's grasp."
No pope here...
Luke, ownership of a website
Luke, ownership of a website does not automatically transfer a sort of Papal infallibility upon your writings. Your reply to my comment was flip and intellectually arrogant. I might add that political correctness, no matter how much it is in fashion amongst the more historically challenged, does not translate into unbiased truth. Again, I would urge you to educate yourself.
Simplistic, historically and Archaeologically inaccurate drivel
Your article owes a great debt to the romantic "noble savage" ideas of the 17th and 18th centurys. The idea that you put forth that the original inhabitants of the Americas had no carbon footprint and lived in total harmony with the land flies in the face of the fact that the "amerinds" did damage their environment. Look at the reasons for the collapse of the Mayan Empire. Look at the reason for the disappearence of the creators of the Nazca lines and images, to mention just two small examples. I am not trying to denigrate those peoples or to argue with the fact that the Europeans took their land, but to give an idealized, not to say utopian version of their history does them and the rest of humanity a great dis service. The root problem faced by ALL of humanity can be summarized by observing that the capacity of the human race to expand its population is limitless. The capacity of the planet to support that increasing mass of humans is finite. This problem knows no race or culture. You sir, need to educate yourself before you post such drivel. Hatred of your own culture no matter how legitimate, does not automatically translate into sanctity for others.
There it is!
I knew he would show.
As per the last sentance of my post; here we have a guy who skimmed it... may have had a point early on in the comment, but lost it quickly.
Where we ended up was he wanted me to spend much much more than three written pages going on and on in a very non generalist sort of way for a post he only was willing to skim in the first place.
Then at the end he presumes to tell me what I need to do before writing a post on a web site I am paying for... and does it in an insulting manner no less. After all they do call it Web"HOST"ing, and you are a VISITOR.... Maybe act like a guest on your visit?
The only reason this comment stays up is he proved my point perfectly. Ugly!
Laptop $600..... Website $15.... Domain name $15.... Being proven right.. Priceless!
The Sokoki band of Abenaquis
The Sokoki band of Abenaquis might want the deed to your land in Vermont. You should contact them. I think they live in St. Albans.
Rodgers Rangers killed a bunch of Abnakis in Odanak, Quebec in the French and Indian war:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rogers_(soldier)
They were refugees from all over New England, including here in Maine after they were massacred in 1724 in Norridgewock.
There is still a reservation in Odanak, Quebec.
American Land Ownership
I am a descendant of European ancestors and I am very ashamed of what my ancestors did to the various tribes of people who occupied this once beautiful land. I feel that they should be given back all the land that was stolen from them. I would gladly give my portion of land back if I had any. The native tribes knew better how to treat the land and revered it, taking only what was needed to live. My ancestors believed that the land was theirs for the taking and had a right to plunder it. I cry every time I see a bit of land being torn up for some shopping center or worst. I, like the native tribes, love the land and want to take care of it to allow future generations to live a peaceful, clean life on clean land. I attended college to major in Natural Resources and Agriculture to learn how to care for the land. But, most agencies subscribe to the "white mans" way of treating the land. I want to do it the native tribes way. So, I have never been employed by any of these agencies. I apologize to native tribes for what they had to endure from the Europeans. I am married to a Cherokee woman and she is the love of my life.
Beautiful piece of writing!
Beautiful piece of writing! I came here from Kunstler, where the neo-nazis roam, but I agree with everything you wrote.
One piece of info. I read a fascinating book called (I think) "And A Bottle of Rum".
The author pointed out that, contrary to what we've been taught, the whole trading for shiny beads scenario didn't last long with the native tribes.
But alcohol, now that was different. Rum, which was made from a byproduct of the slave powered sugar cane plantations of the truly valuable English colonies, was eagerly sought by some of the natives, and the fur trade was actually fur for rum. There was protest by some of the non-drinking natives about what rum was doing to their tribal life, but it was ignored.
I recommend the book. It was pretty interesting.
what you mean 'we', white man?
My late father was a member of the Mayflower Society, and had documentation that traced (some of) his ancestors back to a 1620 arrival on this continent. But that was a long time ago - and even if we postulate that we European-Americans are living on "stolen land" (like the Bruce Cockburn song) - hasn't just about every habitable patch of ground on the planet seen a succession of inhabitants, often with less-than-gentle displacements of one group by another? I think so.
May the Creative Forces of the Universe stand beside us, and guide us, through the Night with the Light from Above (metaphorically speaking).
mistah charley, ph.d.
http://tinyurl.com/yl6zrpa
Your story.....
When the brothers and sisters migrated out of Africa, they moved across Europe and into Asia. As they migrated, they hunted and farmed and fought among each other and killed for the bounty of the land as they poisoned it.
Eventually some got to a land bridge and crossed into North America.
They built homes, hunted and farmed. They fought among each other and killed for the bounty of the land as they poisoned it.
More came across the bridge. They too built homes, hunted, farmed and fought with those already here. And hurt the land as they took from it, making it barren and not longer productive.
And still more came across the bridge, until the bridge was no more.
More people built boats and sailed out of northern Europe. Their boats landed on the East coast of Canada and built homes, hunted and farmed and fought among with those who were here before them....And fouled the land...
Many years later, more came in boats from Spain and England. They too built homes further south, hunted and farmed.....and fought with those who were already here.
So who got here first? Most natives are not from the first wave of migrants, so they too are invaders.
Or maybe "first" doesn't matter. It didn't matter in Europe or India or China...we built and hunted and farmed there too....and we killed.
You are my brother. You cannot say if you are from the first group who came to North America, or the second, or the tenth or the fiftieth. You are simply my brother who came before me.
And all who came before fouled the land. They moved constantly to find new prey after they had taken all. They moved to clear new corn fields every 70 years as the land was made barren and wasted.
I honour and respect your traditions, brother, but do not assume for a moment that you have any more right to be here than I. You have suffered no more loss or pain than those who came here from poverty, persecution and slavery. You have not touch this land as gently as you suggest, but as roughly as any people could.
None of our brothers can possess the land they walk on. We can only have the privilege of walking upon it for a time........
So walk forward into the future with me. Do not look back upon the pain and loss we have all felt at our own hands. Tell me of your traditions and rituals and I will tell you of mine.
And let us can be proud with what each other has achieved and not angry or jealous....
For we can only heal this land and our brotherhood together
I agree.
What would you have us do? I'm still going to gather with my family and eat and enjoy their company. You know what, I'm still going to go about my day exactly have I always have. Thanksgiving--despite what you seem to think--is not actually about the bloody Pilgrims anymore. It's about family, being thankful for what you have, and of course eating a lot of food. For a lot of us, it's mostly about the last ;)
It is important to recognize the travesties of the past in the fleeting hope they are not repeated. But inflicting shame and guilt upon those who are not responsible for the actions of their forefathers is ridiculous.
There is much that can be done to aid the Native American peoples. Griping about Thanksgiving is not one of them.
Earth, Human tipping point
As I enter the Winter of my life and I reflect back over the horse shit I bought into in the Spring of my life and my feeble rejection of same in the Summer and Fall, I take some small solace in the thought that my near 30 years working within the U.S. military industrial nightmare will have in a small part helped eliminate the vast majority of the Euro/American populace, along with most of the rest of the human parasites whom infest the Earth, in the not too distant future.
I am consistently amused by the religiously convinced whom seriously believe that their gods are organizing everything that takes place on this spaceship Earth. My inability to comprehend why their gods would let humans destroy the Earth with their locust like exponential population explosion and consumptive avarice is explained to me as god's ways are not able to be comprehended by mere mortals. Is it not amusing how many of these mere mortals with the conviction of their interpretation of their god's laws can proselytize to others with a straight face.
My intuition is to condemn Euro/American avarice as the principle instigators of the upcoming/ongoing big die off ; however, contemplation of human critters leads me to suggest that Euro/Americans are but one path, the one we took, and that sans all Europeans and Americans the industrial revolution would have occurred somewhere on the Earth and the localized temporary reversal of entropy enabled by the consumption of the Sun's energy stored in oil and coal would have taken place as well. Humans appear to be psychologically very similar the Earth around and whether we arrive at this tipping point in the Earth's history now, 100, 500, 1000 or 10000 years from now some humans some where were going to bring the Earth to this brink in the not too distant future.
SNAFU
Everyone talks about the
Everyone talks about the horrors of the Nazi holocaust...and indeed it was an atrocity. But no one talks of the holocaust of the invaders of North and South America. They say that was "so long ago".
One difference though, Hitler "tried" to commit genocide, our European ancestors succeeded in wiping out entire genotypes.
Columbus day is another celebration of atrocity, he began killing and enslaving native peoples shortly after "discovering" this continent.
Perhaps we should also celebrate a " Hitler" day?
And instead of celebrating thanksgiving perhaps we should fast and reflect on just why we should be gorging ourselves on stolen food.
Other than feeling guilty,
Other than feeling guilty, what do you suggest we do? Have you asked any first nations people what they would want us to do prior to heading back to Europe? or if they would? Don't you think that we are in for the long haul by now, together? Not only in the US but in Canada, and Latin America.
Further, I assume you have put "quotations" around development to suggest that our contemporary notions of what is developed have been pressed upon indigenous peoples. If that's the case why spend a whole paragraph stating that they weren't given enough time to develop? Do you believe they would have by any sort of criteria? I recommend Jared Diamonds "Guns, Germs and Steel" if you haven't read it. Also there is great deal of evidence that suggests many indigenous cultures were not sustainable at all, and not all were hunter-gatherer nations either. In regards to thanksgiving, I had mine in October, and in Canada, there are no re-enactments, plays or anything to do with first nations people. We celebrate the harvest, and eat and drink with our families and loved ones. Its great.
Cheers
Other than feeling guilty,
Other than feeling guilty, what do you suggest we do? Have you asked any first nations people what they would want us to do prior to heading back to Europe? or if they would? Don't you think that we are in for the long haul by now, together? Not only in the US but in Canada, and Latin America.
Further, I assume you have put "quotations" around development to suggest that our contemporary notions of what is developed have been pressed upon indigenous peoples. If that's the case why spend a whole paragraph stating that they weren't given enough time to develop? Do you believe they would have by any sort of criteria? I recommend Jared Diamonds "Guns, Germs and Steel" if you haven't read it. Also there is great deal of evidence that suggests many indigenous cultures were not sustainable at all, and not all were hunter-gatherer nations either. In regards to thanksgiving, I had mine in October, and in Canada, there are no re-enactments, plays or anything to do with first nations people. We celebrate the harvest, and eat and drink with our families and loved ones. Its great.
Cheers
Other than feeling guilty, I suggest you prepare to die.
You are all missing the point.
When the inevitable happens, there will still be people who remember the old ways. They may not even be aboriginal peoples. The Amish are just one other set of people who will do just fine on that day when everyone wakes up and realizes that the light switch no longer works.
And when that day comes, most of us will starve to death, and we will turn on each other like dogs. But the people who remember the old ways will be ready. And presuming you survive the spasm of the first six months of the crisis, guess who will be waiting to kill you?
Payback is usually a bitch.
Other than feeling guilty, I suggest you prepare to die.
You are all missing the point.
When the inevitable happens, there will still be people who remember the old ways. They may not even be aboriginal peoples. The Amish are just one other set of people who will do just fine on that day when everyone wakes up and realizes that the light switch no longer works.
And when that day comes, most of us will starve to death, and we will turn on each other like dogs. But the people who remember the old ways will be ready. And presuming you survive the spasm of the first six months of the crisis, guess who will be waiting to kill you?
Payback is usually a bitch.
ridiculous
if the "low impact" hunter gatherer model of society was so ideal, why couldn't you guys hold onto your land for more than 200 years? in a world run by the processes of natural selection and survival of the fittest, it is a fact of life that, whether human or animal, when a stronger force runs into a weaker force, the weaker force loses...throughout the entirety of human history societal groups have been clashing over lands, and the stronger one claims that land for as long as that group is able to defend it for...it is how every single modern day European nation state has been formed, and is a common principle in most classical policital science theory dating back to Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan...if you have more territory than you can defend, chances are you are eventually going to lose it to some group that wants it more and has a greater ability to take it than you do to defend it...well, i hate to sound callous (aka like a realist), but if the low impact hunter gatherer model of society was so prefferable and dominant, it wouldn't have been overrun by the "oil consuming" ways of Europe so quickly...European society had things like guns, trans-oceanic ships, antiseptics, electricity, etc (and just as rich of a spiritual and artistic culture), and its no surprise that a society that had made that many ground shattering advances came and absolutely dominated ...i can absolutely appreciate you bemoaning your culture's loss of influence and relevancy, but make no mistake, i will not feel guilty about anything i give thanks for this year because of your ancestor's inability to man up and defend their land like every other single relevant group or culture has had to for the last, oh, million years or so...in a world where resources are a fixed pie, and one's survival depends on apprehending the resources needed to survive, stronger groups don't just step aside to make room for weaker groups just because they feel bad...enjoy your casino money...i'll be giving thanks for the fact that humanity finally has the chance to realize their collective potential due to the birth of the internet, telecommunications, and the age of information in general that allows all the collective genius of humankind to simultaneously and immediately exchange ideas to better our plight on this earth...i will also be giving thanks for the fact that i won't die of "natural causes" at age 40 and don't have to skin any buffalo for my dinner tonight