A day or so after the attacks on the World Trade Center President Bush suggested that we “go shopping” lest “the Terrorists win.” I was taken by the strange logic and the phrase has echoed in the back of my mind ever since. I’m beginning to understand it.
The Barnharts recently spent sixty hours or so strapped in a confined space exactly the shape of a minivan. To keep my mind from spinning out of control and self destructing, I listened to several books on cassette tape, including “Sitting Bull and his world” by Albert Marrin. It is a full account of the last days of the “Plains Indians”, including the Sioux. I learned the demise of the American Buffalo was purposefully engineered by Washington to starve the Sioux out of Canada and confine them in concentration camps, called reserves. The US army supplied weapons to marksmen and thrill seekers to maximize buffalo casualties. Cavalrymen rode organized patrols to turn back or shoot any herds that might wander north and become food for 19th century terrorists. When Sitting Bull and the last of the starving Sioux moved off the Canadian Prairie to become wards of the state, they numbered less than 200, men, women and children.
One event caught my attention especially. In 1873, the economy of the US was jeopardized by collapse of over-leveraged investment banks. President Grant was advised that salvaging the investments would require an increase in gold production. Coincidentally, the undeveloped gold fields lay in the Black Hills of Dakota, the crown jewel of the Sioux reserve. Without the game rich Black Hills, the Sioux were left with Buffalo free Prairie and no hope of sustaining a hunter-gatherer society. As you can imagine, the Sioux ended up mostly dead and the Black Hills became a commodity. This time around there are no Indians to expend in the interest of “recovering” the economy, so it has been decided to steal from the future. Capital and its economic machinery must be protected.
A co-worker periodically attempts, in Spanish, to convert me to various conspiracy theories. I told him the conspiracies I am afraid of are not hidden, they are written in business plans, mission statements and quarterly reports, they are in the President’s speeches. Allow me to interpret that cryptic Presidential message of 2001: “Our enemies will try to convince you their war is with the economic system of the West. Do not believe this. They are just bad people who hate freedom. They fight for no reason. Go buy something or the industrialists will lose.”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I didn't know Millard speaks Spanish
ReplyDeleteI think it’s interesting to note that about 1880 a Sioux spiritual leader named Wovoka received a vision from a messiah whom he recognized as Jesus. In the dream, according to Lori Liggett, Wovoka came to understand that “the recent times of suffering for Indians had been brought about by their sins, but now they had withstood enough under the whites. The buffalo and antelope would return, and deceased ancestors would rise to once again roam the earth, now free of violence, starvation, and disease. The natural world would be restored, and the land once again would be free and open to the Indian peoples, without the borders and boundaries of the white man. The new doctrine taught that salvation would be achieved when the Indians purged themselves of the evil ways learned from the white man, especially the drinking of alcohol. Believers were encouraged to engage in frequent ceremonial cleansing, meditation, prayer, chanting, and most importantly, dancing the Ghost Dance. Hearing rumors of the prophecy and fearing that it was a portent of renewed violence, white homesteaders panicked and the government responded.
ReplyDelete“The government agent at Standing Rock, James McLaughlin, described the Ghost Dance as an "absurd craze" -- "demoralizing, indecent, disgusting." Reservation agents described the Indians as "wild and crazy," and believed that their actions warranted military protection for white settlers. But while one of the primary goals of the Bureau of Indian Affairs was to convert the Indians to Christianity, they did not recognize that the fundamental principles of the Ghost Dance were indeed Christian in nature and had the effect of converting many to a belief in the one Christian God. In addition, Wovoka preached that, to survive, the Indians needed to turn to farming and to send their children to school to be educated. Ironically, while these efforts would appear to coincide with the goals of the Bureau, the Ghost Dance was outlawed by the agency.”
It’s fun to think about the way The Ghost/Buffalo Dance in which men and women danced in a frenzied circle is so similar to the ecstatic circle dance of the Shakers of New England and even closer to the Indian Shakers of Washington. But what is even more interesting is the way Wovoka was able to understand at least in some form the teachings of Jesus and mobilize them in his context among a group of unruly, desperate nomadic hunter-gathers with little or no knowledge of the historical Jesus. It makes for an interesting case study of the function of prophetic knowledge in any social situation. Take for example the current discourse of sustainable development: a vague counterintuitive movement designed to address inevitable change by trading some aspects of our current economy for new strange methods of living analogous to what Wovoka was advocating in his situation. As we see in the example above and in your post, these movements do not follow the same logic as capitalist/American manifest destiny: insatiable development that sacrifices the life of the Other and the Future. Rather sustainable development and Buffalo Dances are a creative actions directed toward an imbalance of power, knowledge, and resources which jeopardizes the resilience of our society. They are also different partial answers we get when we ask the question what would Jesus do? since we always find Jesus strongly on the side of the voiceless and poor in heart pushing back against drastic changes, human disasters (the recent natural disaster in Haiti was actually mostly a preventable human disaster – placed next to San Francisco the fragile ecosystem of Haiti screams in sharp relief, 50,000 weighed against 63 ) which destroys communities, families, and lives.
Hi Darren, I recently recovered my blogger account which had fallen into disuse. I can finally respond. I guess Wovoka was a American historical figure that never made it into my textbooks. Fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI was diagnose April 17,2015 and find out I'm HIV positive.I was scared because there is no cure for HIV/AIDS but today some people still don't believe that there is cure for HIV, it can only be cured through Africans root and herbs,and our doctor's here in USA few of them know about the African herbal medicine can cure Hiv but they chooses to hide it from us just to make a sales of medical expertise. I did a research online finding way to get rid of my disease,I saw a comment about a herbal doctor on internet Name Dr itua ,who has cured several disease with his powerful herbal medicine, I contacted him on whats-app, chat with him explain my self to him.He said he can cure hiv perfectly well , he gave me his request which i send to him. within 5 days he sent me the herbal medicine through ups courier delivering service And told me how to take the medicine for 2 weeks to get cured,I did for 2 weeks, within this 7 days i notice a very big change in my health and i new some thing great has happened then i went to confirm my result after finishing the herbal medicine for two weeks it was absolutely negative.The doctor who new i was hiv positive was asking me how come i am negative, what did it took to get cure and were did i get this medicine from and how did i get rid of it I told him every thing about the herbal medicine that cure me. imagine doctor telling me not to let anyone know about it,I wasn't shock though i knew they know about the herbal cure but chose to hide it in other to make sales on medicals expertise,if you are HIV positive Or other disease such
ReplyDeleteCancer,Hiv,Herpes,Shingles, Hepatitis B,Liver Inflammatory,Diabetes,Fibroid,Parkinson's,Alzheimer’s disease.contact Dr Itua for any kind of herbal product and remedies through Email Or Website.. drituaherbalcenter@gmail.com