#this is a post about appreciating indigenous american agriculture

[anonymusbosch]

the Americas really popped off with potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, maize, and winter squashes, and most beans, and cocoa. if I had to choose only crops native to the old world vs crops native to the new world I would pick new world in a heartbeat. there are native onions and grains and rices that are not endemic. the loss of wheat would be a tragedy but the world without tomatoes would be so so so dark

[twelvemonkeyswere]

people keep reblogging this post saying things like "but Tolkien still had horses in middle earth" and "Tolkien described characters based on real life stereotypes" and "Tolkien wrote this based on europe" and "Tolkien had humans how is that 'alien'" and, annoyingly, everyone thinks they're the first to point out "hey he uses the word potato but of course it's a translation and it's another root vegetable isn't that clever"

congrats everyone you just deduced exactly why Tolkien's Secondary World concept can never be fully carried out to perfection, since it's impossible for anyone to write about something that they aren't at all familiar with. even the weirdest concepts you see in fiction come from something someone has experienced, even if just in dreams or their imagination, even if nobody else has experienced it. so even though he aimed for this idea that the fictional world should stand on its own, it's impossible not to build it from things we have right here, on the Primary World. and you've learned, then, that the spirit behind the Secondary World is, more or less, that the fictional world must be consistent on its own WITHOUT having to call back to the primary world for it to make sense, that the reasons why something happens in fiction must be explained within the fiction itself, and not because of something we have here in the real world. immediately after you've realized that folks like Terry Pratchett break this rule while their Secondary Worlds still work perfectly, and THEN you have realized that maybe, JUST MAYBE, the literary practices of humanity are not all recipes to follow, that MAYBE we are all standing on the shoulders of giants (so to speak), and we can actually look critically at what people like Tolkien and Pratchett and everyone else did and build our own techniques while borrowing and challenging theirs. and ny then you will have reached the conclusion most literary criticism teaches nowadays, which is that art is constantly in conversation with everything around it and everything that came before it, and that artists use everything they know (especially art that was already made) to build new art on top of it. you'll have realized our literary creations are all palimpsests of sorts, and why the study of literature is so worthwhile and beautiful. it's not about finding what they called "true" originality once upon a time, it's about how creativity stems from connection and curiosity and how it expands along with people.

through this process you all will have necessarily discovered the device I originally used to write this post, which is what we call a joke.

now, I need you all babbling about Tolkien to ACTUALLY stop to consider how important potatoes are!!! how much work the Andean civilizations put into domesticating them!!! I need you all to stop thinking about Tolkien and start thinking about potatoes and the fact they literally changed how the world COOKS and how the world EATS. just 500 years!!! they've been globalized in the past 500 years!!! that's nothing in food time!!!! I need you to think about how potatoes came into being and how they came to your tables and how they came to your fields and and who put it there. I need you to appreciate the hard work of the south americans who first pioneered their use and then got their work stolen and their achievements largely erased by colonizers. the European colonizers tried very hard to systematically remove them from history, to control their and our memory of their past. and yet we KNOW part of what they did!!! some of these indigenous people are still here, surviving!!! they're still suffering the effects of colonization!!!! AND their potatoes are still here!!!!! potatoes, engineered from South American soil by generations of agricultural scientists, are still here with us!!! if you want to be serious about Tolkien then I'm begging you get serious about THIS!!! potatoes are not just there because ha ha. they are there because they MATTER. they've been economically and dietarily relevant for countless people now around the world. potatoes are called humble but they're mighty. they don't stand alone. they have a history just like you and I. food is culture. culture is us. did you think about that??? Tolkien ate potatoes and gave his characters potatoes for a reason. that reason doesn't reside in Tolkien, it resides in the potato and everything that came before it, and everything that took it to your plate.

not even JRR Tolkien, who famously developed the concept of the Secondary World and firmly believed that no trace of the Real World should be evoked in the fictional world, was able to remove potatoes from his literature. this is a man who developed whole languages and mythologies for his literary world, who justified its existence in English as a translation* simply because he was so miffed he couldn't get away with making the story fully alien to the real world. and not even he, in extremis, was so cruel as to deny his characters the heavenly potato. could not even conceive a universe devoid of the potato. such is its impact. everyone please take a moment to say thank you to South Americans for developing and cultivating one of earth's finest vegetables. the potato IS all that. literally world-changing food. bless.

[bestshirtcanbuy]

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[littleworldbigdreamsblog]

Intruders- Jessie Reyez (A Review)

Introduction

So from the first time I heard this song and watched the video I knew I had to write something on this. I have always loved Jessie Reyez, I even wrote one of my thesis papers about her song “Gatekeeper”. If I can find it I will definitely post it here. The topics that I will tackle with this one are quite heavy but it must be done. We will be looking at colonialism, the manipulation of history and the personification of nature. 

The Artist 

My girl Jessie Reyez has been making music people have been afraid to make and I will say something I don’t say often; she is so underrated. I wish more people knew about her and the messages she convey in her lyrics. Her voice is also so unique and she sings with so much passion and conviction. I have watched so many live performances of hers and I haven’t been disappointed so far. If you have never heard of Jessie Reyez I do encourage you to give her music a listen. Also she has a new album out called “Before Love Came to Kill us”, stream that ish everywhere.  

Song 

Listen here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVhqNnFh25E

So in most of Jessie’s lyrics she does this very interesting thing which again I wish more people talked about. The lyrics of her songs usually create a meta narrative. This just means that there is a main story which possesses a message or a world view within another story. For instance using “Intruders” as an example it reads like a love letter and sounds like a love song. I was casually browsing the comments on some lyrics sites for this song and a lot of people just saw the song as her saying that the man is hers and these “intruders” or other females don’t belong within their relationship. Absolutely nothing is wrong with seeing the lyrics as that alone but if you dig deeper paying special attention to certain words, you would see that this song is a lot more than what meets the eyes or ears. That is where the concept of the meta narrative comes into play. The story we read or hear on one level is a love story and the main story is about land being taken. People who would have done a little history even secondary school history know there is a term for such actions:colonialism. For a little recap National Geographic explains it to be when “one nation subjugates another, conquering its population and exploiting it, often while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people”. If you watched the music video you would see more physical representations of colonialism which I will get into but for now we are looking at the words and what they say. 

From the first set of lines in the song there is reference to the original natives of whatever colonized land she is writing about, “I found ya, cleared land /  Put down my flag /This is mine from now on”. As someone from the Caribbean I immediately thought of the Amerindians of the greater Antilles. These Amerindians or Indigenous people are known to be the original settlers of the Caribbean and possibly that of America. There were some studies done to try and track where these people came from and the results varied. Some researchers claimed they came from the Amazon while others said the DNA found from bones matched that of  people from Asia. Wherever they traveled from they are the known first civilization of people to inhabit these lands. Just those opening lines say a lot as it relates to theme and it is amazing how much just a few lines can say.      

There are other pieces of evidence of this song alluding to a telling of the colonization of native lands and people. In the second verse she sings “ I wrote you a love song /A war song/ I'll sing it when the ships come, yeah / I'll die for my state” which paints the picture of the natives standing together as the ships of the foreigners arrive willing to die for their land. And that is exactly what happened. Some assimilated while the ones who rose up were killed like animals. It was an act of genocide and historical records tend to see it another way. These records refer to the Amerindian settlements as pre-history which is incorrect as pre-history implies that the colonization of the land is the main or more important part of history when all of it is our history. This is what I meant by the manipulation of history. Just like there is evidence ie artifacts and relics as proof of the Europeans “discovering” the land, there is also evidence of the first settlers. It was a fully structured civilization which involved the tools they used, the type of agriculture grown and even their burial rituals and customs.  So therefore we cannot and should not see it as pre-history. For instance, growing up in the Caribbean, history was taught according to a British curriculum.It was only when I got older and more educated that I realised how biased it was. it was framed to make the Europeans look like our saviours. No sir! 

Video 

So the music video is a visual representation of this message or meta narrative that the song has. The video starts with a kind of Pocahontas like colours of the wind vibe with the main character worshiping the land. The land itself is personified as a man. Personification is giving more of less inanimate objects human-like features. The main character is using every part of the land to live and at the same time not harming it. 

It is a relationship that functions in harmony..... 

......until the fire nation attacked....I mean colonizers.

I feel like the Toronto-based studio, Solis Animation really studied the lyrics of the song and were able to create a video that works with the true meaning. Actually with both meanings of the the meta narrative. It functions as painting a picture of a love story but also one that shows an aspect of history that some people gloss over, that is, colonialism. I mean you can’t get clearer about what this video is really about. Even taking a look at what the colonizers were wearing. The uniforms were very similar to that of either the English or Spanish military like the colour scheme and the shape of the hats.  

 I also think it is important to note that all the people who came off the ships were female. This ties back to the part of the song that infers that it is about a love story. It is to mean that the intruders in the video while describing European colonizers, are also symbolizing the other women that would want to enter the relationship.  

As the good parts of the land were personified we also saw what happens when land is pillaged and destroyed, mainly how it bleeds. This heavily reminded me of the poem by Eric Roach called “Carib and Arawak” from his book The Flowering Rock. The poem really speaks about the land remembering the history of the genocide of the indigenous people of the Caribbean in particular the Caribs and Arawaks of Trinidad and Tobago. The poem highlights the concept of the flowers (hibiscus) grown on the land after colonial times being a reminder of the blood and death that occurred on the land. The hibiscus because of their original and true colour being red, it symbolizes how the land is bleeding out of revenge of the past.  I absolutely love this poem and if you have an interest in reading it, message me as I know it is almost impossible to find online.     

In these couple of frames we also see that she is willing to fight for her lands. This time marking herself with the blood of her home on her way to defend it. This shows the fighting spirit of the natives in order to protect their home. Based on historical accounts and records it states that some natives were peaceful and ready to cooperate until they were betrayed and they felt the need to reclaim their home.   

I believe we have come to the end of analyzing this piece of art. As someone from the Caribbean I really appreciated the way this video was put together. It emphasizes a part of our history which is sometimes buried and lost. It took a little longer to pull together not only because of the the research but also things going on in real life. I hope you learned something from reading this and if you feel like you can educate me some more on the topic feel free! 

References: 

Lyrics : https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jessiereyez/intruders.html

What is Colonialism? : https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/topics/reference/colonialism/

Where Native Americans came from: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/where-native-americans-come

Eric Roach-https://www.peepaltreepress.com/authors/eric-roach

All gifs : https://giphy.com/channel/BobbieSan

[rotationalsymmetry]

Three Sisters and Activism

I've been listening to the audiobook of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The audiobook is read by the author, who has just the best gentle storytelling voice ever and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Anyways. In one chapter she talks about the Three Sisters: corn, beans and squash. She talks about how white European settlers would see Native Americans plant these three crops together and figure they didn't understand agriculture, because of course proper agriculture means monoculture, right? But these three plants grow better together than they do separately.

Kimmerer describes how the corn sprouts first and grows tall, so that when the beans start growing upwards as a climbing vine they can use the strong corn stalk as support. How the squash spreads out with broad prickly leaves, getting sunlight and water from far away and protecting the corn and beans from the competition of other plants and from pests like caterpillars. How the beans in turn support the other two plants by fixing nitrogen in the soil. Each one supports the other in their own unique way.

Just like people have different ways of supporting each other, and you have to know what kind of person you are in order to know how to best support other people. Because you don't have to, and shouldn't, turn yourself into a copy of someone you're not to be effective. You're most effective in the world when you are yourself, fully and unapologetically.

Can you imagine growing up in a culture where the value of individuality isn't just something that comes up in stories sometimes, but is part of the basic fabric of society? Where you're encouraged from childhood to focus more on embracing your true self fully and unapologetically, than on trying to be as normal as possible? Where you're taught to appreciate and value other people's differences, and not figure out where they fit into a hierarchy where "different" has to mean either better or worse? Even the Ugly Duckling doesn't really capture this attitude: the ugly duckling is ultimately justified not because it's OK (good even) to be different, but because the duckling is actually a swan, and therefor better than the ducks.

OK. Activism. So, let's analogize between plants and human beings. The classic activist -- the warrior -- is like the corn, tall and proud and strong. The protester. The one who leads the way. For queers, the trans women who lead the protests at Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco and the Stonewall Inn in New York. The people who organized a protest the year after Stonewall and the year after that. The people who came out and still come out when coming out can cost you your job, your partner, your parents, your friends, your kids. The people who call out bigotry when they hear it.

The Black Lives Matter protesters on the front lines. The ones who lead the way, who make it easier for the ones who come after.

Then, there's activists that are like squash, that spread out and offer protection. The lawyers, the people who share social media posts and sign petitions and call their representatives, the white allies who have difficult and extremely awkward conversations with more conservative family members (or liberal family members concerned about violence.) Ones where they don’t just spit out talking points, because people who can be persuaded (which is not everybody tbf) usually need to be listened to and genuinely heard first. The allies who are prepared to witness and intervene when they see a police officer detaining a black person in ordinary life, who are prepared to stand in between the national guard and black people at protests. The people who decide to run for office so they have a chance of making better laws. The people who show up to bail hearings so those who have been arrested know they’re not forgotten. The people who hold trainings about your legal rights. The ones who spread tips on protecting yourself from teargas and rubber bullets, or how to keep yourself from being tracked by your phone.

And then there's those who act like the beans, doing the unseen nurturing work. People who organize fundraisers and donate their own money to bail funds, who drop off water or granola bars or safety goggles to protesters. People who provide a listening ear, who hold space for suffering. Who show up to meetings and take down the minutes and email them out afterwards, because somebody has to, or who provide childcare so that someone else can go to that meeting and get their voice heard. The people who write stories of hope. Who give the corn activists gift cards so they can have a nice meal out or get a massage to stave off burnout. The organizational peace-makers who diffuse tensions and smooth over conflicts. The religious leaders who provide spiritual comfort, a place to rest and heal. The ones who look for meaning in the midst of suffering. People who say the names and remember. The people who write the histories and keep the memories alive, so that the next generation of activists don’t have to make the same mistakes as the past ones. And so that we don’t all feel so alone.

[ritualmedicine-blog]

On Being Both Colonized and Colonizer

First off, I don’t expect anyone to actually read this. This blog is a way for me to hone my writing skills while parsing through topics that I care deeply about. That said, I know that I’m making this work public, and as a result people may read it. If something I post here does spark a dialogue, I’ll be very grateful for whatever wisdom is shared with me.

Decolonization is a topic that I’m incredibly passionate about, but at the same time I know that it’s not a topic that I can really lead discussion on, particularly because I am by no means an expert. While I truly believe that decolonization is for everyone and can benefit everyone (except, perhaps, a small group of power-holders), it goes against the very principles of the concept to have settlers lead the conversation on stolen land. This is why I’ve chosen to leave the word “decolonization” out of the name of my blog, despite it being the primary framework from which I will be addressing a variety of topics.

One of the things I hope I can do here is share my perspective on how what Edgar Villanueva calls “the virus of colonization” has severed the sacred ties between people all over the world and their traditional medicines, or ways of healing. This tragedy is not unique to Turtle Island (North America) and the other European colonies, but in fact can be seen all over the world.

[In his book, Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance, Edgar Villanueva describes colonization as a “virus” and uses the framework of traditional medicine to talk about money.]

My background is primarily Irish and Ashkenazi Jewish, two ethnic groups with complex relationships to colonization. Both groups have suffered at the hands of colonizers while in turn becoming colonizers themselves. This is why Villanueva’s “virus” terminology makes so much sense. As people’s cultures are destroyed by colonization, they become infected with it and many of them in turn become part of the colonization machinery themselves. There are examples of this all over the world, including the Irish slavers in the Caribbean and American South, the Free Black American colonizers who founded the Republic of Liberia, and, perhaps most controversially, the State of Israel.

200 years ago, my Irish ancestors were among the first white settlers of what is now Arva, Ontario. As native Irish Catholics, they were forced into poverty and prohibited from owning land in the country where their ancestors were buried. Had they stayed, they likely would have fallen victim to the Irish Potato Famine - a crisis with a lie for a name that saw a million Irish starve to death due to the failure of a single crop while their English occupiers continued to reap financial benefits from their otherwise well-functioning agricultural system.

[Like many victims of colonization, the Irish were often portrayed as monkeys or apes in an attempt to dehumanize them.]

In Canada, my ancestors found opportunity in an unoccupied and fertile land, at the time covered in forest. The land was unoccupied because the “Attawandaron”, or “Neutral” Nation had been exterminated 150 years earlier, first by introduced disease, and then by the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy). Both their surviving names were given to them by outsiders. “Neutral,” was given to them by French missionaries, in reference to their relative peace with neighbouring nations. “Attawandaron,” which translates roughly to “the people who talk funny” was given to them by the Wyandot (Huron), who spoke a different dialect of the same language. The name they called themselves has been lost.

On a base level, it can be tempting to find comfort in the fact that my ancestors did not participate in the genocide of the first peoples of the land my family still occupies, but regardless of whether or not they held the guns or spread the disease, the fact remains that to this day my family benefits from their extermination. I’m sharing this story not in an attempt to release myself or my ancestors from responsibility for the horrifying effects of colonization, but to illustrate its complexity. So many of us are both colonized and colonizers. As our own Indigeneity was taken from us, we also did our best to take it from others. If we recognize this, it can also help us to recognize the vital similarities in global Indigenous cultures, and their value to our modern world.

[The “Attawandaron”, or “Neutral” Nation occupied much of what is now Southwestern Ontario until their annihilation in the 1650s.]

So what does decolonization actually mean? I can tell you that for the first several months I was talking about it in front of my father, he was sure that it meant kicking all the white people out of Canada. While I’m sure that’s an attractive fantasy for many, it’s not a pragmatic or even achievable solution.

If someone with a deeper understanding happens to read this definition and finds it amiss, I’d very much appreciate being corrected, but my understanding is that decolonization, at its core, is about land sovereignty. It’s about the right not only to self-governance, but to governance over the land itself. Indigenous cultures all over the globe are defined by their relationships not only to each other but to the land. While someone with a colonizer mindset looks at the land and sees “natural resources” to reap and exploit, someone with an Indigenous perspective will look at the land and see a complex system of which they are a part. This perspective is necessary not only for the health of our species, but for the health of our burning planet. If all the governments of the world adopted an Indigenous mindset tomorrow, I have no doubt that the climate crisis would be quickly and easily solved.

Decolonization favours the idea of relational identities over individualism. Just as we are inextricably a part of the ecosystems in which we inhabit, we are also a part of our families and communities. Every Indigenous population on Earth that I’ve read about has some concept of this. On Turtle Island, we see this concept represented most often through the phrase “All My Relations,” but in Indigenous communities all over the world you will hear people referring to their kin by their relational title (for example “Auntie,” or “Sister”) instead of their name. Even in parts of Europe, we see this concept preserved in some naming conventions. Colonization, however, places much more emphasis on the individual than their relations. Perhaps unsurprisingly, those of us who live in colonial societies find ourselves at the centre of a “Loneliness Epidemic.”

[A 2018 survey found that nearly half of Americans report sometimes or always feeling alone or left out.]

While I truly believe that decolonization is the right path forward if we wish to save our burning planet, I am most interested in decolonization from a psychological perspective. I believe very strongly that the ancient medicines of story, ritual, and connection to nature are basic human needs, and that the mental health crises across the colonized world can be connected to their destruction. Luckily, these medicines are not lost. Like the Indigenous languages that have been reconstructed and saved, many of these medicines are only sleeping.

There’s much more that I hope to say on this topic as I educate myself and commit to learning in public. For now, I’d like to express gratitude to any readers who have found their way here and made it to the end of my first post. I hope that we can learn from each other and work together to build a better, more human world.

Go raibh maith agat, Jocelyn

[gravitascivics]

SOME KEY IDEAS REGARDING DEVELOPMENT

Some years ago, verging on fifty, Samuel P. Huntington wrote a fairly influential book, Political Order in Changing Societies (POCS).[1]  In that book, he offered an analysis of what factors affected the aims and goals of lesser developed countries (LDCs).  With the conflicts in southeast Asia of that time (the sixties), there seemed to be a bit of interest over the challenges LDCs faced – challenges that still exist today.

Communist attempts to spread their influence among those nations probably spurred a lot of interest here in the US.  With the fall of communism, at least that communism that emanated from the Soviet Union and a more virulent Red China, concern in the US has waned a bit. But it is felt here that what Huntington wrote about those countries, does seem to have relevance today.  It gives one not only understanding of what can or should happen to LDCs, but perhaps what is happening or should happen in the US.

         This posting and, at least, the next posting will review Huntington’s book and draw from it what might give one understandings over current American realities and their significance.  At first, the review will describe that book’s content as it dealt with the LDCs’ issues.  Overall, POCS is a systems analysis of what Huntington saw was the most pressing problem LDCs faced; i.e., their ability to govern.

         His study assumes that any analysis of an LDC should be contained within the boundaries of that LDC.  It should also question that nation’s political system’s ability to meet the social/political/economic requisites necessary to stave off decay, that could eventually lead to systems failure.  In other words, for LDCs that are in the midst of developing, their efforts are on a time clock; can they accomplish sufficient development before their system fails bringing its efforts to a crashing end?  It turns out, development unleashes disruptive forces.

And what are they aiming to develop?  That would be becoming a society with a self-sustaining economic system, sufficient equalization of economic distribution, and sufficiently democratization of political processes.  In other words, how much like the Western democracies of North America and Europe can they imitate or resemble.  

So far, a more current reading of this study suggests two criticisms one can lodge against the book:  one, it “unwisely” limits its view to only internal factors – perhaps paying an unjustified blind eye to the manipulation external elites and powerful nations have on the politics of LDCs – and using capitalist nations of the West to be the model for these nations to follow – irrespective of their varied cultures, geographic conditions, or historical narratives.  But with that in mind, one should move on.

What Huntington seemed to be after was his hope that subsequent emperical studies of LDCs would identify those factors that lead to political conditions in which polities can govern.  In that, he made a further assumption:  development or (another proWestern term) modernization creates new social forces within societies and, in turn, they cause disruptive influences which makes necessary adaptations hard to accomplish.  It was Huntington’s observation that success in adaptation, at that time, was rare.  Instead, one could expect, in those nations, instability.

So much so, that Huntington saw stability as the essential prerequisite to development or modernization.  Stability was his measure of a polity’s ability to govern, and, therefore, he held it as his major focus – his major dependent variable or condition.  He seemed to be warning:  get this wrong and all else is a waste of time; development will not happen.  

Yet, both on the part of developed nations who are playing a role in LDC development and indigenous parties involved in that process tend to be insensitive to or not sensitive enough to the implications of Huntington’s advice. These players, Huntington judged, were missing the mark for they were not addressing the essential requisites and that neglect landed up only furthering disruption.

He identified a complex social fabric.  Events that on the surface seem prudent and positive, prove not to be; while, events that intuitively seem dysfunctional, turn out to be essential. For example, what usually is disruptive, violence, at times proves unavoidable and useful.  Where economic development, seen as an independent goal, can be of obvious use, but at the same time proves to be disruptive.  And then there is corruption – at times, believe it or not, a potential substitute for revolution or rebellion – is almost synonymous with instability.  Complexities abound.

The central argument posed by Huntington was that relatively high modernization (development) progressions, which can be measured by rates of social mobilization and economic development, but is accompanied with relatively slow pace in the development of political institutions leads to political instability.  To digest what Huntington meant, one needs a clear understanding of his major ideas.

An understanding of modernization or overall development calls one to appreciate what its essential attribute is:  social mobilization.  The term, social mobilization, refers to a process.  That process is felt or observed when traditional economic, social, and psychological commitments no longer hold, forcing people to attach themselves to new values, attitudes, and most importantly to higher economic expectations.  

In other words, it is large scale transformative change at a national level.  Readers of this blog, hopefully, can appreciate, from past postings, how difficult that is to accomplish at the level of an organization, much less a nation.  Yet, Huntington claimed that that needs to occur for a nation to modernize.

As for the other ideas:  Huntington saw the idea of higher economic development as mainly a nation being able to produce higher quantities of material output, usually manufactured goods. LDCs usually already produce high quantities of agricultural goods and/or minerals.  The problem is:  the land used for those activities are owned by the elite few who tend to be very rich and as such have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.  

Political institutions are organizations and procedures which routinize political behavior into accepted forms.  People accept these forms and they are usually referred to as political norms.  An example of this could be when two cars happen to run into each other, the police come out, ask questions, perhaps take pictures, make sure everyone is alright, and so on.  That is what is expected in, say, the US; a policeman taking a bribe from the luxury car driver is not expected and defies a political norm, as well as a law. Laws, in turn, are expected to be upheld.  These are not universal norms; in many, if not most nations, elite privileges are the norm.

Where corruption is common, priveliege is expected to go to those who own or control desired assets – money, land, property, power (both legitimate and illegitimate forms), etc.  The point is: to establish stability – i.e., high levels of expectations and their realization – a nation needs well-ensconced political institutions that are counted on to counter disstabilizing events and conditions.

And that leads to the last of these ideas, political instability.  It can be characterized by violence, social group conflicts, corruption, and bureaucratic inefficiency.  It also leads to the tie-in to current political concerns in the US. No, America is not an LDC.  It is a developed country – some might consider it the most developed.  But can Huntington’s concerns cast any light on what is happening in the politics of America today?  This blog will pursue this question in the upcoming postings.

[1] Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 1968).

[fatehbaz]

why are you against the use of the term anthropocene

Well, I’m not totally against its use; I think it can be useful, especially in discussions in popular mediums outside of academia. But I do think that academic discussion of and much of the popular discourse around and involving that term, especially among Euro-American scholars, is Eurocentric and pedantic. Eurocentric, in the sense that the discourse ignores Indigenous criticisms while simultaneously appropriating Indigenous cosmologies and accepting funding/concessions from (neo)colonial institutions. Pedantic, in the sense that the discourse is too focused on finding a specific start-date; too focused on fossil fuels and not enough attention is given to the arguably more-influential role of industrial-scale agriculture throughout human history; and not enough discussion of the human institutions (social hierarchies built to facilitate empires and resource extraction) that inflict social and ecological destruction. I do sometimes like the term as a rhetorical device, but prefer terms like “Plantationocene” which are more specific about which institutions and imperial cosmologies are most influential in provoking both violence against humans and ecological change and apocalypse.

You have probably heard of alternate proposed names for the same era of human influence: Plantationocene, Capitalocene, Cthuluscene. I agree that the distinction matters, and many people (especially Indigenous people and others from Latin America and the Global South) have written about the importance of this name. Indigenous writers and scholars have, in my opinion and not surprisingly, offered the most biting criticisms of Anthropocene discourse. From the perspective of North America, I enjoyed the writing of Dwayne Donald (Papaschase Cree); Zoe Todd (Metis); Kali Simmons (Lakota); and Kyle Whyte (Potawatomi); all of whom write explicitly about the Anthropocene, the ethics of ascribing a name to this era, its Eurocentric discourse, and alternative Indigenous interpretations of global environmental history. And if my rambling is annoying and if this post seems too absurdly long to read, then I would recommend reading what Zoe Todd has written about the importance of how the name of the era influences narratives told about human social and ecological stories; she also addresses other shortcomings and Eurocentric aspects of the Anthropocene concept: Heather Davis and Zoe Todd. “On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene.” December 2017. 

—–

Here’s how I feel about the term “Anthropocene”:

Assuming we agree that the intertwined forces of colonialism, imperialism, industrial-scale agriculture, resource extraction generally, and the hierarchical social institutions which support them (including forced labor, severance of community connection to ecosystems through closure of the commons, racial and gender hierarchies, and Indigenous dispossession) are basically the major influences on global ecological change now and over the past few centuries or millennia (including the present-day, the era of overt European colonization across the globe, and earlier manifestations in historical “classic” state-building and early ancient hydraulic civilizations): Instead of looking for a specific date sometime around 1822 in Europe when fossil fuel emissions scarred the soil, like a technical geologist might, I instead try to ask at which point industrial-scale resource extraction (especially including agriculture and deliberate devegetation campaigns even in its ancient manifestations), supported by and to the benefit of social hierarchies and imperial worldviews, begin to alter soils at vast continent-wide scales enough to be the planet’s leading driver of change in soils, vegetation, oceans, and atmosphere?

Did it begin with the advent of industrial specialist guilds in Mesopotamia, when kings would bribe irrigation engineers not to help a farmer water their fields until the farmer had paid tribute or rent? Did it begin in Zhou-era or Warring States period China when deliberate devegetation campaigns, large forest-clearing projects, and flood-prevention dam infrastructure installation led to local extinction of tiger, rhinos, and elephants? Rome? The Columbian Exchange, institutionalized slavery, and plantations in seventeenth-century European colonies in the Americas?

Is an Isconahua community in Amazonia’s forests equally as responsible for global ecological change as a multi-billion-dollar American mining corporation?

This is an example of what might be the most common criticism of the term: The Anthropocene term, by invoking “anthropos,” is imprecise because rather than identifying the actual source of global ecological change (certain systems, institutions, and practices) it implies that blame be ascribed to humans-as-a-species for provoking this global ecological apocalypse. This criticism (”Anthropocene obscures responsibility”) is just one of many.

These are probably my major issues with Anthropocene: (1) According to Indigenous scholars and many writers from the Global South and especially Latin America, the name obscures responsibility and doesn’t adequately imply which human systems and institutions are responsible for global ecological catastrophe, erasing and obscuring the ongoing violence which those same institutions continue to enact, both upon ecosystems and human lives. (2) And given geologists’ common focus on fossil fuels as the key indicators of Anthropocene start-date and human influence on environment, I think that this distracts from the arguably more influential and more important role of agriculture (and associated devegetation for purposes of settlement, rangeland, etc.) as perhaps the more dramatic human influence on global ecological history. Fossil fuels didn’t kill the bison and change the entirety of the Great Plains from boreal climates to the subtropics. Empires seeking resource extraction, accomplished through violence and dispossession, killed the bison and changed the continent. (3) The concept is the result of Euro-American academic discourse and does not adequately incorporate Indigenous and non-Western criticisms. And while paying superficial lip-service to “decolonization, the same academic departments maintain relationships with (neo)colonial nonprofits and government agencies while the discourse also simultaneously engages in continued appropriation of Indigenous concepts. (4) Finally, if we agree that industrial-scale resource extraction (including agriculture) and its associated social institutions are (or at least were, for most of the past) the major human influence on altering ecology, then assigning a specific start-date is extremely difficult and probably just an exercise or thought experiment, because at what point in history did these extractivist cosmologies reach “critical mass” and become the leading worldview through which (some) humans disproportionately exercised so much power over altering landscapes?

—–

I’ll recycle something I’ve previously said:

“Did the Anthropocene begin in 1821, or 1822? Did the year 1821 mark the definitive shift into a global expansion of urbanization and monoculture plantation crops, or was it the year 1822?” These are, to some degree, technicalities. This is not, or should not, be the point of “Anthropocene.” I mean, it is often important to know some specific dates; like the specific date that Russian settlers first encountered Steller’s sea cow; the specific date that English authorities issued permits for corporate monopolies on guano trade in Peru; the specific date that deliberate fire-setting dispossessed Indigenous people in Borneo and signaled arrival of palm oil plantations; the specific dates that certain agricultural, colonial, and imperial institutions invaded, expanded, or consolidated their power. But “the single date when imperial cosmologies achieved critical mass as the dominant ecological force”? I think that’s more ambiguous.

I appreciate that some popular venues or forums like academia, occasionally, are at least attempting to openly discuss a 12,000-year-old trend towards imperial power consolidation which relies on social hierarchy, disconnecting communities from local native species and landscapes, Indigenous dispossession, and the commodification of ecological systems. Glad it’s being discussed. But the discourse has issues and I think we can do better than “Anthropocene” as a term. Even if we treat Anthropocene more like an informal thought experiment, and improve it by renaming it “Plantationocene” or something, I still don’t think formally defining a specific date or “Day 1 of the Anthropocene” is as important as clearly identifying which systems and institutions actually provoked centuries of dramatic ecological change and the current ecological collapse. I think that identifying a technical start-date for a geological epoch is comparably a distraction from the discussion of ecological degradation and extinction; a distraction from the concept’s implied-but-inadequate criticism of imperial cosmologies; and a distraction from how global ecological collapse and crisis is closely related to and deeply intertwined with social hierarchies, institutions, and violence against other humans. 

–

Thank you for the question :)

[thehavenofadreamer]

The Eighteen Stories in 2018

The Eighteen Stories in 2018

As 2018 comes to an end, may we keep in memory what this year has meant for us - relating to achievements, testaments, and special significant moments. 

This consists of selected pieces that I wrote for various media outlets in 2018, ranging from feature, straight news, and press releases.  I’ve only selected 18 among the total number of articles based on their social impact and human interest. Centered mostly on arts, culture, inspirational testaments, and societal awareness, these stories sum up a fragment of what happened in the year that has been. 

Links on where the stories have been published are posted.

Cinemagis X awards outstanding local films

Filmmakers receive their plaques of appreciation for participating in this 10th celebration of Cinemagis Northern Mindanao Digital Short Film Festival during the awarding ceremony at SM City CDO Event Center on January 27.

Links to the story:

Xavier University website: http://www.xu.edu.ph/xavier-news/63-2017-2018/3107-cinemagis-x-awards-outstanding-local-films

MindaNews: http://www.mindanews.com/press-release/2018/01/cinemagis-x-awards-outstanding-local-films/

CDO Dev: www.cdodev.com/2018/01/29/cinemagis-x-awards-outstanding-local-films/

 Cagayan de Oro exhibit sheds light on the marginalized

INCLUSIVE ART. Guests of the 'Primal' exhibit by Artsada Kagay-an Inc (AKI) view works of art by local artists. The exhibit aims to spread awareness about the realities faced by misrepresented and marginalized sectors in society.

Link to the story:

 Rappler: https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/210949-cdo-artists-empower-communities-exhibit

CDO artists sustain local heritage through artworks

For Cagayan de Oro-based artists, crafting art is an opportunity to promote and sustain local heritage.

Link to the story:

Mindanao Press: http://www.mindanaopress.net/2018/10/27/cdo-artists-sustain-local-heritage-through-artworks/

‘Panaghugpong’ highlights CDO excellence

​Cagayan de Oro is bursting with artistic talent in dance, literature, music, visual arts, film and theater

Link to the story:

The Manila Times: https://www.manilatimes.net/panaghugpong-highlights-cdo-excellence/386780/

 Ang Pasyon ni Hesukristo

In theater, Linda Manalo’s "Ang Pasyon ni Hesukristo" takes on a localized language, but with the same narrative and themes that gave life to the Gospels. Conveying the same message, The Xavier Stage presented the play for the fifth time as part of the company’s annual tradition             during Lent. This year, performances ran from March 28 to 29 at the XU Little Theater.

Link to the story:

Xavier University website: http://www.xu.edu.ph/xavier-news/63-2017-2018/3330-ang-pasyon-ni-hesukristo-i-have-saved-you-i-have-died-for-you

Panunuluyan 2018: The Nativity as the origin of Christmas

THE NATIVITY STORY. ​Linda Manalo’s “Panunuluyan” presents the narrative based on the biblical accounts about Jesus Christ’s birth. As an annual tradition, The Xavier Stage adapts the play, as directed by TXS director Hobart Savior, every Christmas season to commemorate and celebrate the essence of the holiday.

Link to the story:

Xavier University website: http://www.xu.edu.ph/xavier-news/140-2018-2019/3813-panunuluyan-2018-the-nativity-as-the-origin-of-christmas

The Degree Holder and Licensed Educator

Jeb Bayawon has breached through social and economic barriers by pursuing education.

 Link to the story:

Rappler: https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/206092-scavenger-degree-holder-story-jeb-bayawon-msu-graduate-2018

Kagay-anon filmmaker advocates for IP rights

For Julienne Anne Ilagan, a filmmaker who hails from Cagayan de Oro City, agriculture takes its root from the indigenous communities.

Link to the story:

Sunstar: https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/1763672/Cagayan-De-Oro/Lifestyle/Kagay-anon-filmmaker-advocates-for-IP-rights-in-this-years-ToFarm-Film-Festival

CDO Spotlight Artist: Alve Aranton, The Young Adult Writer

The 23-year-old writer from Cagayan de Oro City has gained a following of young adult readers in the local community, across the country, and even, at some point, from different parts of the globe ever since her works appeared on online platforms such as​Candy Mag​,​Katha            Magazine​, and the LA and Las Vegas-based ​Cliché Magazine​.

Link to the story:

CDO Dev: http://www.cdodev.com/2018/12/21/cdo-spotlight-artist-alve-aranton-the-young-adult-writer/

 Cagayan de Oro empowers youth in local governance

Empowering the youth to lead enables more opportunities for citizen engagement and sharing of ideas. The OYDC members hope to spread this concept in other communities across the country.

Link to the story:

Rappler: https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/196291-cagayan-de-oro-youth-local-governance

Xavier Ateneo makes history with first senior high school commencement exercises

In its 84 years of existence, Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan marks a new milestone as it celebrated its first commencement exercises for senior high graduates in March at the recently-opened Xavier Ateneo Sports Centre.  

 Link to the story:

Xavier University website: http://www.xu.edu.ph/xavier-news/63-2017-2018/3289-xavier-ateneo-makes-history-with-first-senior-high-school-commencement-exercises

LGBTQ+ community takes pride to Mindanao

 Mindanao Pride opens its doors to individuals who identify themselves as lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders or queers seeking protection against violence, abuse, and subtle or direct discrimination.

Link to the story:

Rappler: https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/204479-lgbt-pride-mindanao-pride-month-2018

Pride March set to step in Oro

Following the tradition of LGBTQ communities across the globe, the pride march aims to empower, validate, and celebrate the existence and aspirations of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, and queer individuals - most of whom had been marginalized and discriminated against in society for their uniqueness in sexuality and identity.

Link to the story:

Sunstar: https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/1770437

Kadaiyahan Festival 2018 to highlight inclusivity for LGBT community in Mindanao

 Kadaiyahan highlights the possible inclusivity that can be shared by identified LGBTQ+ members and straight allies who support their cause. It took its name from the literal Bisaya translation for diversity.

Link to the story:

Rappler: https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/217974-kadaiyahan-festival-2018-highlight-inclusivity-lgbt-community-mindanao

XU Glee Club wins gold, silver prizes in Indonesian Choral Festival

Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan Glee Club wins gold and silver prizes in Indonesian Choral Festival.

Links to the story:

Xavier University website: http://www.xu.edu.ph/xavier-news/140-2018-2019/3623-xu-glee-club-wins-gold-silver-prizes-in-indonesian-choral-festival

 Sunstar: https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/1764465

Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan preserves local history through digitization

The archived documents span from the Spanish colonization of the Philippines to the American occupation, and the pre-Second World War era.

Link to the story:

Mindanao Press: http://www.mindanaopress.net/2018/10/16/xavier-university-ateneo-de-cagayan-preserves-northern-mindanao-history-through-digitization/

 Cry for Justice in the Maguindanao Massacre continues

Nine years after the brutal Maguindanao Massacre took place, media groups and families of victims still hear echoes of “calls and  demands for the Philippine government to address the ongoing case with adequate reparation and absolute justice.”

 Link to the story:

Mindanao Press: http://www.mindanaopress.net/2018/11/23/849/

Cagayan de Oro to hold first design conference in February 2019

FIRST IN CDO. The Oro Design Conference is Cagayan de Oro's first design conference patterned after similar events annually held in Manila, Cebu, and Davao. Photo courtesy of Oro Design Conference

 Link to the story:

Rappler: https://www.rappler.com/life-and-style/arts-and-culture/219204-cagayan-de-oro-design-conference-northern-mindanao-creatives-february-2019

[ntrending]

Humanity's obsession with chocolate may go back much further than we thought

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/humanitys-obsession-with-chocolate-may-go-back-much-further-than-we-thought/

Humanity's obsession with chocolate may go back much further than we thought

Halloween is tomorrow, and there will be hordes of children (and adults) stuffing their faces with chocolate of all kinds all over the place—a reminder that humans have a pretty personal relationship with this delightfully sweet candy. And now it looks like that relationship started further back then we imagined. New evidence reported in Nature Ecology & Evolution on Monday suggests that the cacao tree, from which we collect cocoa beans to make chocolate, was domesticated by humans in South America more than 1,500 years earlier than previously thought. This would push back cocoa bean domestication to 5,400 years ago, making this new discovery the oldest archeological evidence of domesticated cacao in the world, and would also peg the origin point of cocoa production to the upper Amazon of South America, not Central America as was once thought.

The new findings paint a more complicated and deeper picture of humans’ relationship with cacao, one of the world’s biggest economic crops to date. “The story of cacao is a rich story, of the history of a plant that in its domestic form is a gift to the world from the people who transformed it through generations of labor and careful tending,” says Michael Blake, an anthropologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and a coauthor of the new study. “This story can be repeated with an almost endless list of foods and materials that the world takes for granted today, but whose origins we seldom know much about and rarely appreciate.”

Cacao probably wasn’t used by those old civilizations to make edible chocolate, but tests show the indigenous populations living in the Amazon all those years ago were definitely using the cacao seed, part of the greater pod used to make chocolate itself. Spanish explorers arriving in Central America in the late 15th century found native people using cacao to make hold and cold beverages, drying and roasting and grinding the seeds into a paste to extract out the active ingredients like caffeine. By the next century, Spain and other countries were importing troves of cacao into the European continent.

Indigenous people in the Amazon today still use cacao to make fermented drinks. Yet the spread of cacao through the Americas has always been a mystery for anthropologists and plant scientists alike. Previous investigations have confirmed the cacao tree is most genetically diverse in equatorial South America.

Blake and his team his team sought to reconcile that fact with what the archeological evidence was saying, and they got lucky. The new discovery hinges on the analysis of ceramic artifacts found in the Santa Ana-La Florida archeological site in present-day Ecuador, home to some of the earliest signs of the Mayo-Chinchipe culture that lived in the area nearly 5,450 years ago. Blake and his team thought the artifacts may have been used as vessels for cocoa drinks, but nobody had ever looked into it.

The team used three lines of testing to characterize the artifacts and find evidence of cacao domestication: the presence of theobromine (a major compound in domestic cacao but not in its wild relatives, which creates similar effects to caffeine); the presence of preserved particles of starch from cacao trees; and the positive identification of old DNA fragments specific to cacao. There’s enough theobromine and ancient DNA in the samples to show cacao presence wasn’t incidental, but part of routine customs. One of the artifacts testing positive for cacao was dated to between 5,310 and 5,440 years old. “All these facts tend to demonstrate that cacao was really domesticated and used in their everyday life by Mayo Chinchipe people and not simply used opportunistically,” says Claire Lanaud, a researcher at the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development and a coauthor of the study.

According to the genetic profiles of the samples in Ecuador, people in the upper Amazon were harvesting varieties of cacao similar to ones later grown in Mexico, suggesting the use of cacao spread northwards into other parts of South America and later into Central America and southern regions in Mexico. The findings also seem to confirm an older history of cacao, supported by theobromine found in 3,100-year-old artifacts found farther south in Honduras and 3,900-year-old artifacts found on the Pacific Coast in Mexico.

Cameron McNeil, a researcher at Lehman College in New York who was not involved in the study, doesn’t think the new findings are particularly surprising, but she does find them interesting for “turning back the date of cacao use by more than a thousand years, and that they demonstrate that South Americans were using the seeds as well as the pulp. Many scholars have proposed that it was the people of lower Central America, or Mesoamerica, who first used the seeds in beverages.”

Juan Carlos Motamayor, an agricultural engineer at Universal Genetic Solutions who has previously studied cacao domestication through genetic analysis and was not involved with the study, believes the results “provide convincing evidence” that early use of cacao occurred in Ecuador. “This is extremely interesting,” he says, “because it would support the hypothesis that trading and knowledge of the cocoa bean was possible at the time to facilitate the movement to Mesoamerica where it was intensively domesticated.”

However, it’s important to recognize evidence of usage does not necessarily equate to evidence of outright domestication of cacao. “For example,” says Motamayor, “if we find residues of lingonberries in ancient pottery from Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest, does that mean that this fruit was domesticated by them? Lingonberry is still an undomesticated fruit.”

Motamayor thinks the genetic analysis used in this study to determine ancestry for the trees was a bit limited, and he hopes to see a deeper sequencing that could better verify the genetic origins of the samples found. He also notes that domestication usually means breeding a few varieties of a plant with traits of interest, bred intensively to generate crops. Over time, this creates a very unique genetic signature that differs from wild populations of the same plant. “We only find genetic evidence of this process in Criollo populations, with none of the other populations showing a similar signature,” he says. “Furthermore, the only clear trait in cacao related to domestication is self-compatibility, the ability of the trees to self-reproduce.” His group has studied this trait in over 5,000 samples of cacao, and he says they’ve yet to find genetic signs of self-compatibility from cacao plants in the upper Amazon region, which would suggest domestication probably occurred using plants located in outlier populations, away from the epicenter of cacao diversity. Further work is necessary to find other evidence that could support [the notion of] active domestication in South America.”

Blake acknowledges this limitation, and his team hopes to incorporate greater genetic analysis as a part of their follow-up investigations into other collections of excavated pottery. “It is very exciting for archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians to find the actual evidence of ancient activities and practices that help us fill in the gaps in our knowledge, more fully tracing the details of our human past,” he says. And as we cram our faces with chocolate treats this Halloween, we can take comfort in the knowledge that our species’ love of the stuff extends far back into our history.

Written By Neel V. Patel

[archy320-blog]

The Complexity of the “Complex Hunter-Gatherer”

A drawing of a “simple” hunter gatherer vs an “advanced” agriculturalist called “Against the Grain” (Golden Cosmos, 2017). 

HALT! To fully appreciate this post, read the rest of the blog first!

One of the first things that I learned about Native Americans from Washington State was that they were “hunter gatherers”. As a child, I was told that they hunted animals like deer and elk, caught fish in the Columbia River, and collected berries from the forest. However I have since learned that this is a gross oversimplification of the impressive, complex, diverse methods that Indigenous people used for obtaining food. In this post, I hope to debunk this myth of the “complex hunter-gatherer” and display the great variety of ways that Indigenous people secured food for themselves and their communities.

First, let's talk about what “complex hunter-gatherer” actually means. According to Madonna Moss, the “complex” part refers to social organization, which includes levels of social stratification/inequality, and “hunter-gatherer” is more of an economic category (2011). “Complex hunter-gatherers” are considered to be a more evolved version of hunter-gatherers, and would be more sedentary, have more advanced technology, and more trade than “simple” or traditional hunter-gatherers. The concept of a hunter-gatherer implies that the interaction of people with the environment is a one-way street; that hunter-gatherers only take from their surroundings. However, as we will see, this is not the case for the Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest.

One major critique with calling Native Americans from the Pacific Northwest “complex hunter-gatherers” is that coastal peoples were mostly fishers, not hunters. The archaeological record clearly shows the importance and prevalence of fishing via an abundance of fish remains, fishing weirs, and traps that date back as far as 6,000 years ago (Moss, 2011). For more detailed information about fishing practices of Northwest Coast Native Americans, see my post called Fishing: Practices, Tools, and Consumption. Failing to include fishing in describing the method that Indigenous peoples obtained their food (hunter-gatherer) is clearly a misrepresentation.

The “gatherer” in hunter-gatherer is also problematic, because it insinuates that Indigenous people simply found plant foods and collected them. It fails to recognize that Native peoples from the Northwest Coast manipulated their environment to maximize the resources they could utilize. Although Indigenous peoples of Washington & British Columbia did not practice traditional agriculture (including plant domestication, large-scale planting of specific crop plants, etc.), they also didn’t just wander forests aimlessly in the hopes of being able to forage wild plants. Indigenous people of the Northwest Coast are said to be in the “middle ground” between hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists. “Cultivators” can be considered in the middle-ground. Cultivation is defined as “promoting or improving the growth of a plant by labor and attention; (2) preparing and tilling the land in order to raise crops; and (3) working the earth around growing plants to loosen the soil and destroy weeds” (Smith, 2005, p. 55). To see a case study of cultivation in Indigenous people of the northwest, see my blog post called “Camas: Meadow Management & Consumption”.

So, how should we describe the food gathering activities of Native Americans from the Northwest Coast? Complex fisher-cultivators? I’m not sure that an accurate term has been thought of yet, but hopefully though reading this post, along with the rest of the posts on this blog that discuss the complex resource management strategies used by Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast, I have shown you that the term “complex hunter-gatherer” is not a sufficient descriptor of the activities that Native peoples practiced (and continue to practice) to get their food.

References:

Golden Cosmos. (2017). Against the Grain. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-case-against-civilization?mbid=social_facebook

Moss, M. L. (2011). Northwest coast: Archaeology as deep history. Washington D.C.: Society for American Archaeology.

Smith, B. D. (2005). Low-Level Food Production and the Northwest Coast. In D. Deur & N. Turner (Authors), Keeping It Living: Traditions of Plant Use and Cultivation on the Northwest Coast of North America(pp. 37-66). Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.

[dixiechikdigger]

😀 WORLD FAMILY PLAN 😀

😀 😀 1 WORLD FAMILY 😀 😀 Watch "John Lennon - Imagine (official video)" on YouTube https://youtu.be/yRhq-yO1KN8 1. FORBID and REMOVE ALL WMDs , Guns, Swords and Knives from Public Usage. INFORM the Weapons Manufacturers🔫 and Gun Shops 🔫 that the CEOs & Shop Owners will be Tried and Prosecuted for "Providing & Profitting 💸 from Accessories to Murder" if they choose to continue. 2. LIFE RIGHTS - a. 90 Years of LIFE - to be INCREASED with advanced medical care b. 14 Years of Love ❤ Care and Protection from at least 1 Primary Care-giver. A person's Childhood determines the MAJORITY of their Personality and Character Traits, because That's when their Character is Developed c. 4 Years of World SERVICE 18-21 yrs. - M / F 3. NO Physical - Audio - Visual EXPOSURE to SEXUAL Organs / Intercourse BEFORE "The Age of Consent". Such Exposure classifies as ASSAULT resulting in Lifelong Damage - Anger. 4. EVERY school child will receive Courses on : a. FAMILY b. CONFLICT RESOLUTION 5. NO Abortion, Guns / Swords / Knives / WMDs, Suicide, Starvation OR Death Penalty. 6. ALL Religions 7. SAME MONETARY Rate 💸 8. SAME TAX RATE 💸 9. SAME PAY RATE 💸 10. 1 WORLD GOVERNMENT - Democratic Socialist - Not Flawless, but the best choice. 11. REMOVE ALL National BOUNDARIES 12. ENGLISH Language for WORLD Communication - Beneficial for Education and Business. INDIGENOUS Languages at Home 13. EVERY ORIGINAL NATIVE Culture in the World must be APPRECIATED💃 / PROMOTED👳 / TAUGHT / VALUED 👲 within it's Own area, NOT just the WHITE Culture eg. African, Indian, Asian and Middle-Eastern. EACH Nation must teach EVERY one of it's PRIMARY Schoolchildren the Song, Dance, Stories and Culture of it's FIRST People. The ORIGINAL inhabitants DESERVE to feel VALUED, RECOGNIZED and RESPECTED. An Example would be Australia, Canada and the USA 1st People's CULTURE, DANCE, SONGS, HISTORY must be Taught, Promoted and Appreciated and Valued in ALL the PRIMARY Schools to EVERY child of EVERY COLOR. 14. Prisons must Become ADDITIONAL CARE ENVIRONMENTS. These Locations will be OPPORTUNITIES to receive ADDITIONAL Medical, Educational, Spiritual, and Employment Attention for the Residents. There will be 3 SEPARATE Levels : a. First-time Offenders b. Multiple Time Offenders c. Habitual Offenders These A.C.E.s will also be places where Teaching, Medical and Psychiatrist GRADUATES acquire their GRADUATE TRAINING. ALSO, the prison residents can do Supervised SERVICE for the community, Not just sit on their A€£ES All day. 15. In addition to Prison Residents performing Supervised Service to the community, WELFARE & DOLE recipients will perform SERVICE work in the community as well. 16. Additional SALES TAX 💸 added to: ALCOHOL & CIGARETTES & JUNK FOOD & SUGAR & SALT & MEAT & GLUTEN & DAIRY to COVER: a. TV Warning ADs. b. EDUCATION for Primary School Children c. GUARANTEED RESULTING ADDITIONAL GOVERNMENT FUNDED HEALTH CARE 17. PROVIDE "THAT SUGAR FILM" & Book, by Australian Damon Gameau, to EVERY Classroom. "Sugar is the NEW Nicotine." Artificial Sweeteners are ALSO a Health Risk. 18. EVERY FOOD & DRINK, MEDICATION, BUILDING MATERIAL and WMD - Weapon of Mass Destruction, must be EVALUATED for CHEMICAL CONTENT. PHARMACEUTICALS & CHEMICALS are the Cause of So much ILLNESS and DEATH. Remember Thalidomide? Apparently "BIG PHARMA" has been given a seat in the USA FDA. Is this Wise? The CANCER, AUTISM and DEMENTIA Rates in the 1st World are SKY-HIGH. WHY is that? Because of PHARMACEUTICALS 💊💉, GMOs and Agricultural Practices. EVERY Doctor KNOWS that Pharmaceuticals are LARGELY the cause of the 3 previously mentioned Illnesses, so WHY do they continue to prescribe them? One Word. 💰 MONEY💰. DOCTORS get KICKBACKS 💸💸 from the PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES every time they for Prescribe their medications. That explains why 70% of Americans are on Pills💊, and in 20 years, 40% of U.S. children will have AUTISM. Those Post WW11 Pharmaceutical companies try to say those diseases are "Genetic". Were they Genetic 70 Years ago, BEFORE WW11? 19. RWN - READING - WRITING - NOW, is a Program that would be USEFUL for some Aborigines who are too ashamed to admit that they cannot read or write. This way the problem is Solved in Private : 1 800 018 802 20. Physical and Sexual Assault are a CRIME. VERBAL Assault - BULLYING, should ALSO become a CRIME. The effects of these 3 types of Assault, Especially in the First 7 years, is LIFE-LONG. 21. The Life Expectancy is increasing. In 20 years, women are expected to live to 92 years. Medical Care is Improving. The RETIREMENT AGE can be Increased from 65 to 70 years, thus INCREASING the TAX BASE 💸. 22. The TAX FREE STATUS of Churches should be RECONSIDERED. In the USA, in the 1970's a KCIA FRONT GROUP & BIG BUSINESS 💸 Organization "PRETENDED to be a religious institution" in order to escape paying it's rightful share of TAXES on it's Very PROFITABLE 💸💸 Enterprises. 23. INCREASE the FOCUS on PRIMARY SCHOOL Teachers & Students. There Must be : a. MORE MALE teachers to be Positive Examples / Role models to the children, ESPECIALLY in Under-privileged Areas. b. SPECIALIZED TRAINING for Primary School teachers c. PAY RISES 💸 for PRIMARY School Teachers The FIRST 7 YEARS and to a lesser extent, the NEXT 7 years, are ESSENTIAL to an individual's Future lifestyle choices. School MUST be seen as a FUN 🎉 and JOYFUL 🙋 experience, ESPECIALLY for Underprivileged children. Schools can be a POSITIVE Influence for ALL children, giving them confidence to Participate fully in Society. "CHILDHOOD should be a JOY" - Dalai Lama Change from Primary Schools to Learning CENTRES Or CLUBS, as this terminology is more attractive for children. 24. POLICE Officers must become CARE Officers 25. GOVERNMENTS go from Force & Law to CARE & RESPECT 26. SENIOR CITIZENS are a RAPIDLY Growing population, with greatly improved health and lifespan. There's alot of issues to be addressed with these citizens. A Huge opportunity is now present for retired individuals to OFFER SERVICE and WORK Together with others. LEARN from EXPERIENCE You're Not Getting OLDER, You're getting BETTER 27. Have EVERY child read "A LITTLE HISTORY of the WORLD" by E.H. Gombrich. This International bestseller 📚 is written in very easy to understand English, for ALL CHILDREN to understand the HISTORY of the WORLD🌍 28. EVERY Individual Deserves at Least 14 years of Love, Care and Protection from at least 1 PRIMARY Care-giver. The First 7-14 years is where MOST of a person's character development occurs. The Majority of a person's attitudes and thinking come from their FIRST 14 YEARS, that's why psychiatrists always ask about your Childhood. 29. The Original and First Australians - Aborigines, are very similar to the African-American population. Their "Rite of Passage" is to spend time in "Lock-up" - Prison. It used to be that the White man considered them both to have 75% of the brain capacity of the White man. Why are Aborigines and African-Americans so "mis-behaved? Because one was seen as property, and the other was seen as animals who happened to inhabit one of the places that the British EMPIRE wanted to Utilize #2. 😀 INDIGENOUS PEOPLE 1. EVERY primary school child must be taught the : a. Song 🙌 b. Dance💃 c. History 📚 d. Culture 🌋 of it's INDIGENOUS Citizens. 40,000 years versus 240 years??..... The Australian and American ORIGINAL citizens need to be APPRECIATED, PROMOTED and VALUED, in order to address their issues, and to make Every other child appreciate and value them. #3. 😀 9 CAUSES 😀 Am I telling you to NOT get SCAMMED by a Predatory CULT, the MEDICAL/NURSING HOME GAME, FALSE PHARMACEUTICALS💊,GUNS🔫 or the WAR BUSINESS 💣 ? NO ! It's a FREE Country, last I checked, as Long as you know the TRUTH, the Whole TRUTH, NOTHING but the TRUTH, so help me GOD. 😇 THEN U can't BLAME anyone but your OWN SELF for YOUR Choices. I've got 9 CAUSES that are Listed below. Here they are. 😀 SCAMS : 1. PREDATORY Cults 2. DEATH RESORTS - Nursing Homes 3. PHARMACEUTICALS - BIG PHARMA 💊 4. The WAR BUSINESS 💰💰 CAUSES : 5. 3rd WORLD WOMEN 6. HEALTHY LIVING 7. GUN CONTROL 🔫 8. TRUE ISLAM 9. INDIGENOUS PEOPLE 1. PREDATORY CULTS - I have a friend who was in a Predatory Cult. They're ALL the Same. Their REAL motivation is Money 💸 & Power (and usually weird Sex). EXAMPLES are People's Temple & Children of God & Scientology & Moonies/FFWPU/Unification Church & Oneida Community & Jehovah's Witnesses Regarding "The TRUE Family of Mankind" - MOONIES - The Family of SELF-PROCLAIMED Lord of the Second Advent Sun Myung Moon - KNOW THEM BY THEIR FRUITS🍇 The APPLE DOESN'T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE 🍎 ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS 💪 DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO The THINGS People do for MONEY 💸💸💸💸 are the ROOT of ALL EVIL 🙉LEARN FROM YOUR PARENTS🙈 👏PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH👎 1. They're Usually led by a MALE, who is CONVINCED that he is a UNIQUE Voice of GOD. 2. Their MARKET is Disenfranchised, "SEARCHING" People. 3. The members are Always told that they're BETTER than others via being part of "The Master Race, God's Lineage, Chosen Skin Color, Religion, Nationality etc." 4. They get those people to do STRANGE actions such as ALL NIGHT Prayers, FASTING, Working for FREE - raising MONEY 💸💸 & Bringing in New members via the Threat "If you don't do this you WON'T Go to Heaven / be Saved OR WILL Go to Hell" 5. They're Always told to MARRY WITHIN the Cult. 6. The Cults Always say the members' REAL natural FAMILIES are "EVIL / FALLEN" in order to create SOLE "Loyalty" to the Cult 7. The Cults are ALWAYS EXPOSED /Destroyed in the END. 8. The Offspring ALWAYS Leave in DISGUST. 😉 GOOD GROUPS : 1. UCSA 2. FREEDOM OF MIND 2. DEATH RESORTS / NURSING HOMES - They are a BOOMING Business💸 now that the Baby Boomers are hitting their 70s and people are living LONGER and medical care is IMPROVING. In some nations, the Aged Care Business Participants "Are ALL in BED TOGETHER 💸💸" ALMOST Every Doctor, Psychiatrist, Nursing Home, Pharmaceutical Coy., and EVEN the COMPLAINTS Organizations 😨"Share Information together for a NON Caring Purpose" 😉 💸💸 I have a friend who TEMPORARILY spent some time in a Nursing Home due to an Injury. After a Medically Educated Individual REMOVED the Incorrect Medication that she was on, she wrote EVERYTHING Down. There was SO MUCH Verbal & Physical Abuse going on, towards Mostly 70 - 85 year old residents, with the Staff Hoping that the Residents are SO DRUGGED UP, that They wouldn't be BELIEVED by others, regarding what was REALLY Going on. After weeks of writing EVERYTHING Down, the Manager KICKED my friend out via calling / lying to the POLICE. It is ALL a SCAM YOU'RE as YOUNG AS YOU FEEL 🙌 70 is the NEW 30 🙌 LEARN from EXPERIENCE You're NOT Getting OLDER, You're getting BETTER GOOD INDIVIDUALS & GROUPS : 1. LET'S TALK 2. LYNDA SALTARELLI 3. DAVID STEWART - IRVING 3. 💊 PHARMACEUTICALS 💊 From Everything that I've read, ALL CANCER, DEMENTIA and AUTISM comes from PHARMACEUTICALS & GMOs. But the DRUG Companies try to Cover their A€£ES via LIES such as "Cancer is Genetic". Currently, 70% of Americans are on PILLS. In 20 years, 40% of USA CHILDREN will be AUTISTIC. WHY is this Happening NOW? PHARMACEUTICALS 💊 : 1. RARELY WORK 2. CAUSE GREATER PROBLEMS 3. SOMETIMES CAUSE DEATH Also, did you know that EVERY Doctor KNOWS that the Pharmaceuticals they're Prescribing cause these 3 Sometimes FATAL Illnesses? So WHY is your OWN Family Doctor doing This? One Word. 💸 MONEY 💸 EVERY DOCTOR gets PAID 💸 KICKBACKS 💸 from the PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES when they Prescribe their Drugs💊. The THINGS People do for MONEY 💸💸 are the ROOT of ALL EVIL 😈 Remember THALIDOMIDE? That was a Post WW11 Drug for "Pregnancy Pains". 1 FDA Doctor Repeatedly said that it was Already causing HUGE Problems in Europe and to STOP It Immediately. You know what that Drug Companies said? "Oooh those Bossy Bureaucrats" And the Result? DEFORMED BABIES Left and Right 👹 I am NOT a Hippie Chick who wants an Organic Lifestyle, I'm an Accountant 💸Sales Queen 💸 and I feel that IF a person makes the CHOICE to be involved with a Predatory Cult, Nursing Home, Take Pharmaceuticals, FIGHT / DIE in a War, have an UNhealthy Lifestyle, live as a 3rd World Female, participate in UNREVISED Islam, Buy MURDER WEAPONS, then FINE ! AS LONG AS YOU KNOW : "The TRUTH, the WHOLE TRUTH, NOTHING but the TRUTH, so help me GOD" 😇 Then FREELY & INTELLIGENTLY make your OWN CHOICE. GOOD INDIVIDUALS : 1. DR. BRAD McKAY 2. ROGER BEZANIS 4. The WAR BUSINESS 💸💸 - The USA is a VERY SAD Example of this one. For EVERY WAR Check : a. WHO'S at the TOP ? b. WHERE'S the MONEY 💸💸? In EVERY WAR : 1. Men (usually) RAPE 💸💸 a Country of it's Natural RESOURCES & the INDIGENOUS People get ANGRY & FIGHT BACK 😠 2. The ARMS Companies make Even MORE BIG, BIG Money 💸💸 SELLING BOMBS & GUNS to those Invading Men who want to defend themselves because of their OWN invasion, and SOMETIMES to those ANGRY INDIGENOUS People TOO!! 😂😈😂 WHENEVER there's a Inexplicable SCREW-UP in the World, ALWAYS : 💸 💸 "SHOW ME THE MONEY" ���💸 GOOD GROUPS : 1. CODE PINK 5. 3rd WORLD WOMEN - 80% of the WORLD (3rd World) sees Females as ONLY : 1. BREEDING Animals 2. Sex TOYS 3. PROPERTY The Time is Coming when the COMMON KNOWLEDGE that Females & Males are Totally EQUAL INTELLECTUALLY will be ACCEPTED WORLDWIDE. ALSO ! IF you wish to Procreate, WHO Ya gonna Call?? 😉 WOMEN are SUPERIOR, BUT! We Don't wanna Remind you... WHY? Cuz WE MADE YOU ! 😂😂😂 GOOD GROUPS : 1. IWDA 2. 50 MILLION MISSING 3. AHA FOUNDATION 4. MALALA FOUNDATION 6. HEALTHY LIVING - People need to be AWARE of the PROPER FOODS to put in their Bodies & how to beneficially MAINTAIN their Body via EXERCISE and CARE. A MAJOR problem in the 1st World is OBESITY. People Must REVISE their food intake and EXERCISE on a DAILY BASIS. 😀 ADD ADDITIONAL Sales TAX 💸💸 to ALCOHOL🍾, CIGARETTES, SUGAR🍩, SALT, MEAT, GLUTEN and DAIRY in order to Cover the GUARANTEED RESULTING ADDITIONAL HEALTHCARE & TV Ads & PRIMARY School EDUCATION COSTS 💸 GOOD GROUPS : 1. NUTRITION FORCE 2. AUTHORITY NUTRITION 7. GUN CONTROL 🔫 - It's pretty OBVIOUS WHY the USA is the ONLY 1st World Nation that STILL Allows PERSONAL OWNERSHIP of 🔫 MURDER WEAPONS 🔫. One WORD = MONEY 💸💸💸💸. GUN MASSACRES have gone from BI-weekly to WEEKLY to DAILY. The NRA has REFUSED to NOT Sell Guns to "JIHADISTS", WHAT DOES THAT SAY? The NRA Also "Strongly SUGGESTS" to EVERY GUN Company CEO to give them a BIG DONATION 💸💸💸💸 😱 EL CAPITALISTA AMERICANA 💸💸💸💸 MONEY 💸💸💸💸 vs. HUMAN LIFE 😇 8. ISLAM 🌹 - EVERY Single one of my EXCELLENT MUSLIM friends does NOT practice : a. FGM - Female Genital Mutilation - SEXUAL ASSAULT b. CHILD BRIDES & Baci Baazi - PEDOPHILIA c. FORCED MARRIAGE - DEPRIVATION of Liberty/BREEDING d. HONOR KILLINGS - MURDER e. HIJAB/BURKHA - MISOGYNY f. GANG RAPES / ACID ATTACKS - ASSAULT ALL of these "Practices" have NOTHING to do with ISLAM - Qur'an, and EVERYTHING to do with Feudal, ARCHAIC, MIDDLE AGES, PRIMITIVE 3rd WORLD Behaviour. BTW - FGM - Female Genital Mutilation is practiced by BOTH CHRISTIANS and MUSLIMS in NORTH AFRICA, HONOR KILLINGS are performed in BOTH LATIN AMERICA and MUSLIM countries, FORCED Marriage / CHILD BRIDES are performed in 80% of the WORLD - 3rd World. GOOD GROUPS : 1. MUSLIM REFORM MOVEMENT 2. FAITHFREEDOM 3. FAITH 4 FREEDOM 9. INDIGENOUS PEOPLE - 20,000 YEARS vs. 239 Years..... Hmmmm......... EVERY NATION MUST Teach About /Appreciate / Value it's FIRST PEOPLE. EVERY School Child MUST be Taught the History, Culture, Song & Dance of it's INDIGENOUS People NOT Just the WHITE Culture. GOOD INDIVIDUALS & GROUPS : 1. SUNNY REDCLOUD 2. "I'M NOT RACIST, BUT" 3. "1 MILLION INDIGENOUS" #4. 😀 DAILY HEALTH REGIME 😀 1. EAT : a. RAW Fruit & Vegetables b. STARCH - Cereal, Potatoes, Rice, NO REFINED Flour or Cereal c. PROTEIN - (Cheese, Milk, Yogurt, Eggs- but Dairy MAY be a problem - research VEGANISM) Peas, Nuts & Beans (and Fish) 2. 😠 NO 😠 CHEMICALS, NICOTINE, MEAT, ALCOHOL, SUGAR, DAIRY, GLUTEN and MINIMAL Salt 3. Minimum of 1 HOUR DAILY EXERCISE - try an Exercise Machine or a Walk or a Gym #5. 😀 SUGAR & CHEMICALS 😀 🍁 Finally 🍁 everyone knows the Damage that SUGAR can cause to your Body, but ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS are ALSO a very Big DANGER. Coca-Cola's BEST $$ International Market $$ is an Australian Aboriginal community, and in the U.S.A., some Hill-billies put it in their baby's bottles as well. As suggested before, an ADDITIONAL SALES TAX $ must be Added to JUNK FOOD, ALCOHOL, CIGARETTES and Also SUGARY & DIET SOFT DRINKS in order to Cover the GUARANTEED EXTRA COST $ of the ADDITIONAL Government Supplied MEDICAL Care + TV WARNING ADS and PRIMARY SCHOOL EDUCATION that are Necessary for these DANGEROUS substances🍁 https://youtu.be/yRhq-yO1KN8 1. FORBID and REMOVE ALL WMDs , Guns, Swords and Knives from Public Usage. INFORM the Weapons Manufacturers🔫 and Gun Shops 🔫 that the CEOs & Shop Owners will be Tried and Prosecuted for "Providing & Profitting 💸 from Accessories to Murder" if they choose to continue. 2. LIFE RIGHTS - a. 90 Years of LIFE - to be INCREASED with advanced medical care b. 14 Years of Love ❤ Care and Protection from at least 1 Primary Care-giver. A person's Childhood determines the MAJORITY of their Personality and Character Traits, because That's when their Character is Developed c. 4 Years of World SERVICE 18-21 yrs. - M / F 3. NO Physical - Audio - Visual EXPOSURE to SEXUAL Organs / Intercourse BEFORE "The Age of Consent". Such Exposure classifies as ASSAULT resulting in Lifelong Damage - Anger. 4. EVERY school child will receive Courses on : a. FAMILY b. CONFLICT RESOLUTION 5. NO Abortion, Guns / Swords / Knives / WMDs, Suicide, Starvation OR Death Penalty. 6. ALL Religions 7. SAME MONETARY Rate 💸 8. SAME TAX RATE 💸 9. SAME PAY RATE 💸 10. 1 WORLD GOVERNMENT - Democratic Socialist - Not Flawless, but the best choice. 11. REMOVE ALL National BOUNDARIES 12. ENGLISH Language for WORLD Communication - Beneficial for Education and Business. INDIGENOUS Languages at Home 13. EVERY ORIGINAL NATIVE Culture in the World must be APPRECIATED💃 / PROMOTED👳 / TAUGHT / VALUED 👲 within it's Own area, NOT just the WHITE Culture eg. African, Indian, Asian and Middle-Eastern. EACH Nation must teach EVERY one of it's PRIMARY Schoolchildren the Song, Dance, Stories and Culture of it's FIRST People. The ORIGINAL inhabitants DESERVE to feel VALUED, RECOGNIZED and RESPECTED. An Example would be Australia, Canada and the USA 1st People's CULTURE, DANCE, SONGS, HISTORY must be Taught, Promoted and Appreciated and Valued in ALL the PRIMARY Schools to EVERY child of EVERY COLOR. 14. Prisons must Become ADDITIONALCARE ENVIRONMENTS. These Locations will be OPPORTUNITIES to receive ADDITIONAL Medical, Educational, Spiritual, and Employment Attention for the Residents. There will be 3 SEPARATE Levels : a. First-time Offenders b. Multiple Time Offenders c. Habitual Offenders These A.C.E.s will also be places where Teaching, Medical and Psychiatrist GRADUATES acquire their GRADUATE TRAINING. ALSO, the prison residents can do Supervised SERVICE for the community, Not just sit on their A€£ES All day. 15. In addition to Prison Residents performing Supervised Service to the community, WELFARE & DOLE recipients will perform SERVICE work in the community as well. 16. Additional SALES TAX 💸 added to: ALCOHOL & CIGARETTES & JUNK FOOD & SUGAR & SALT & MEAT & GLUTEN & DAIRY to COVER: a. TV Warning ADs. b. EDUCATION for Primary School Children c. GUARANTEED RESULTING ADDITIONAL GOVERNMENT FUNDED HEALTH CARE 17. PROVIDE "THAT SUGAR FILM" & Book, by Australian Damon Gameau, to EVERY Classroom. "Sugar is the NEW Nicotine." Artificial Sweeteners are ALSO a Health Risk. 18. EVERY FOOD & DRINK, MEDICATION, BUILDING MATERIAL and WMD - Weapon of Mass Destruction, must be EVALUATED for CHEMICALCONTENT. PHARMACEUTICALS & CHEMICALS are the Cause of So much ILLNESS and DEATH. Remember Thalidomide? Apparently "BIG PHARMA" has been given a seat in the USA FDA. Is this Wise? The CANCER, AUTISM and DEMENTIA Rates in the 1st World are SKY-HIGH. WHY is that? Because of PHARMACEUTICALS 💊💉, GMOs and Agricultural Practices. EVERY Doctor KNOWS that Pharmaceuticals are LARGELY the cause of the 3 previously mentioned Illnesses, so WHY do they continue to prescribe them? One Word. 💰 MONEY💰. DOCTORS get KICKBACKS 💸💸 from the PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES every time they for Prescribe their medications. That explains why 70% of Americans are on Pills💊, and in 20 years, 40% of U.S. children will have AUTISM. Those Post WW11 Pharmaceutical companies try to say those diseases are "Genetic". Were they Genetic 70 Years ago, BEFORE WW11? 19. RWN - READING - WRITING - NOW, is a Program that would be USEFUL for some Aborigines who are too ashamed to admit that they cannot read or write. This way the problem is Solved in Private : 1 800 018 802 20. Physical and Sexual Assault are a CRIME. VERBAL Assault - BULLYING, should ALSO become a CRIME. The effects of these 3 types of Assault, Especially in the First 7 years, is LIFE-LONG. 21. The Life Expectancy is increasing. In 20 years, women are expected to live to 92 years. Medical Care is Improving. The RETIREMENT AGE can be Increased from 65 to 70 years, thus INCREASING the TAX BASE 💸. 22. The TAX FREE STATUS of Churches should be RECONSIDERED. In the USA, in the 1970's a KCIA FRONT GROUP & BIG BUSINESS 💸 Organization "PRETENDED to be a religious institution" in order to escape paying it's rightful share of TAXES on it's Very PROFITABLE 💸💸 Enterprises. 23. INCREASE the FOCUS on PRIMARY SCHOOL Teachers & Students. There Must be : a. MORE MALE teachers to be Positive Examples / Role models to the children, ESPECIALLY in Under-privileged Areas. b. SPECIALIZED TRAINING for Primary School teachers c. PAY RISES 💸 for PRIMARY School Teachers The FIRST 7 YEARS and to a lesser extent, the NEXT 7 years, are ESSENTIAL to an individual's Future lifestyle choices. School MUST be seen as a FUN 🎉 and JOYFUL 🙋 experience, ESPECIALLY for Underprivileged children. Schools can be a POSITIVE Influence for ALL children, giving them confidence to Participate fully in Society. "CHILDHOOD should be a JOY" - Dalai Lama Change from Primary Schools to Learning CENTRES Or CLUBS, as this terminology is more attractive for children. 24. POLICE Officers must become CARE Officers 25. GOVERNMENTS go from Force & Law to CARE & RESPECT 26. SENIOR CITIZENS are a RAPIDLY Growing population, with greatly improved health and lifespan. There's alot of issues to be addressed with these citizens. A Huge opportunity is now present for retired individuals to OFFER SERVICE and WORK Together with others. LEARN from EXPERIENCE You're Not Getting OLDER, You're getting BETTER 27. Have EVERY child read "A LITTLE HISTORY of the WORLD" by E.H. Gombrich. This International bestseller 📚 is written in very easy to understand English, for ALL CHILDREN to understand the HISTORY of the WORLD🌍 28. EVERY Individual Deserves at Least 14 years of Love, Care and Protection from at least 1 PRIMARY Care-giver. The First 7-14 years is where MOST of a person's character development occurs. The Majority of a person's attitudes and thinking come from their FIRST 14 YEARS, that's why psychiatrists always ask about your Childhood. 29. The Original and First Australians - Aborigines, are very similar to the African-American population. Their "Rite of Passage" is to spend time in "Lock-up" - Prison. It used to be that the White man considered them both to have 75% of the brain capacity of the White man. Why are Aborigines and African-Americans so "mis-behaved? Because one was seen as property, and the other was seen as animals who happened to inhabit one of the places that the British EMPIRE wanted to Utilize #2. 😀 INDIGENOUS PEOPLE 1. EVERY primary school child must be taught the : a. Song 🙌 b. Dance💃 c. History 📚 d. Culture 🌋 of it's INDIGENOUS Citizens. 40,000 years versus 240 years??..... The Australian and American ORIGINAL citizens need to be APPRECIATED, PROMOTED and VALUED, in order to address their issues, and to make Every other child appreciate and value them. #3. 😀 9 CAUSES 😀 Am I telling you to NOT get SCAMMED by a Predatory CULT, the MEDICAL/NURSING HOME GAME, FALSE PHARMACEUTICALS💊,GUNS🔫 or the WAR BUSINESS 💣 ? NO ! It's a FREE Country, last I checked, as Long as you know the TRUTH, the Whole TRUTH, NOTHING but the TRUTH, so help me GOD. 😇 THEN U can't BLAME anyone but your OWN SELF for YOUR Choices. I've got 9 CAUSES that are Listed below. Here they are. 😀 SCAMS : 1. PREDATORY Cults 2. DEATH RESORTS - Nursing Homes 3. PHARMACEUTICALS - BIG PHARMA 💊 4. The WAR BUSINESS 💰💰 CAUSES : 5. 3rd WORLD WOMEN 6. HEALTHY LIVING 7. GUN CONTROL 🔫 8. TRUE ISLAM 9. INDIGENOUS PEOPLE 1. PREDATORY CULTS - I have a friend who was in a Predatory Cult. They're ALL the Same. Their REAL motivation is Money 💸 & Power (and usually weird Sex). EXAMPLES are People's Temple & Children of God & Scientology & Moonies/FFWPU/Unification Church & Oneida Community & Jehovah's Witnesses Regarding "The TRUE Family of Mankind" - MOONIES - The Family of SELF-PROCLAIMED Lord of the Second Advent Sun Myung Moon - KNOW THEM BY THEIR FRUITS🍇 The APPLE DOESN'T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE 🍎 ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS 💪 DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO The THINGS People do for MONEY 💸💸💸💸 are the ROOT of ALL EVIL 🙉LEARN FROM YOUR PARENTS🙈 👏PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH👎 1. They're Usually led by a MALE, who is CONVINCED that he is a UNIQUE Voice of GOD. 2. Their MARKET is Disenfranchised, "SEARCHING" People. 3. The members are Always told that they're BETTER than others via being part of "The Master Race, God's Lineage, Chosen Skin Color, Religion, Nationality etc." 4. They get those people to do STRANGE actions such as ALL NIGHT Prayers, FASTING, Working for FREE - raising MONEY 💸💸 & Bringing in New members via the Threat "If you don't do this you WON'T Go to Heaven / be Saved OR WILL Go to Hell" 5. They're Always told to MARRY WITHIN the Cult. 6. The Cults Always say the members' REAL natural FAMILIES are "EVIL / FALLEN" in order to create SOLE "Loyalty" to the Cult 7. The Cults are ALWAYS EXPOSED /Destroyed in the END. 8. The Offspring ALWAYS Leave in DISGUST. 😉 GOOD GROUPS : 1. UCSA 2. FREEDOM OF MIND 2. DEATH RESORTS / NURSING HOMES - They are a BOOMING Business💸 now that the Baby Boomers are hitting their 70s and people are living LONGER and medical care is IMPROVING. In some nations, the Aged Care Business Participants "Are ALL in BED TOGETHER 💸💸" ALMOST Every Doctor, Psychiatrist, Nursing Home, Pharmaceutical Coy., and EVEN the COMPLAINTS Organizations 😨"Share Information together for a NON Caring Purpose" 😉 💸💸 I have a friend who TEMPORARILY spent some time in a Nursing Home due to an Injury. After a Medically Educated Individual REMOVED the Incorrect Medication that she was on, she wrote EVERYTHING Down. There was SO MUCH Verbal & Physical Abuse going on, towards Mostly 70 - 85 year old residents, with the Staff Hoping that the Residents are SODRUGGED UP, that They wouldn't be BELIEVED by others, regarding what was REALLY Going on. After weeks of writing EVERYTHING Down, the Manager KICKED my friend out via calling / lying to the POLICE. It is ALL a SCAM YOU'RE as YOUNG AS YOU FEEL 🙌 70 is the NEW 30 🙌 LEARN from EXPERIENCE You're NOT Getting OLDER, You're getting BETTER GOOD INDIVIDUALS & GROUPS : 1. LET'S TALK 2. LYNDA SALTARELLI 3. DAVID STEWART - IRVING 3. 💊 PHARMACEUTICALS 💊 From Everything that I've read, ALL CANCER, DEMENTIA and AUTISM comes from PHARMACEUTICALS & GMOs. But the DRUG Companies try to Cover their A€£ES via LIES such as "Cancer is Genetic". Currently, 70% of Americans are on PILLS. In 20 years, 40% of USA CHILDREN will be AUTISTIC. WHY is this Happening NOW? PHARMACEUTICALS 💊 : 1. RARELY WORK 2. CAUSE GREATER PROBLEMS 3. SOMETIMES CAUSE DEATH Also, did you know that EVERY Doctor KNOWS that the Pharmaceuticals they're Prescribing cause these 3 Sometimes FATAL Illnesses? So WHY is your OWN Family Doctor doing This? One Word. 💸 MONEY 💸 EVERY DOCTOR gets PAID 💸 KICKBACKS 💸 from the PHARMACEUTICALCOMPANIES when they Prescribe their Drugs💊. The THINGS People do for MONEY 💸💸 are the ROOT of ALL EVIL 😈 Remember THALIDOMIDE? That was a Post WW11 Drug for "Pregnancy Pains". 1 FDA Doctor Repeatedly said that it was Already causing HUGE Problems in Europe and to STOP It Immediately. You know what that Drug Companies said? "Oooh those Bossy Bureaucrats" And the Result? DEFORMED BABIES Left and Right 👹 I am NOT a Hippie Chick who wants an Organic Lifestyle, I'm an Accountant 💸Sales Queen 💸 and I feel that IF a person makes the CHOICE to be involved with a Predatory Cult, Nursing Home, Take Pharmaceuticals, FIGHT / DIE in a War, have an UNhealthy Lifestyle, live as a 3rd World Female, participate in UNREVISED Islam, Buy MURDER WEAPONS, then FINE ! AS LONG AS YOU KNOW : "The TRUTH, the WHOLE TRUTH, NOTHING but the TRUTH, so help me GOD" 😇 Then FREELY & INTELLIGENTLY make your OWN CHOICE. GOOD INDIVIDUALS : 1. DR. BRAD McKAY 2. ROGER BEZANIS 4. The WAR BUSINESS 💸💸 - The USA is a VERY SAD Example of this one. For EVERY WAR Check : a. WHO'S at the TOP ? b. WHERE'S the MONEY 💸💸? In EVERY WAR : 1. Men (usually) RAPE 💸💸 a Country of it's Natural RESOURCES & the INDIGENOUS People get ANGRY & FIGHT BACK 😠 2. The ARMS Companies make Even MORE BIG, BIG Money 💸💸 SELLING BOMBS & GUNS to those Invading Men who want to defend themselves because of their OWN invasion, and SOMETIMES to those ANGRY INDIGENOUS People TOO!! 😂😈😂 WHENEVER there's a Inexplicable SCREW-UP in the World, ALWAYS : 💸 💸 "SHOW ME THE MONEY" 💸💸 GOOD GROUPS : 1. CODE PINK 5. 3rd WORLD WOMEN - 80% of the WORLD (3rd World) sees Females as ONLY : 1. BREEDING Animals 2. Sex TOYS 3. PROPERTY The Time is Coming when the COMMON KNOWLEDGE that Females & Males are Totally EQUAL INTELLECTUALLY will be ACCEPTED WORLDWIDE. ALSO ! IF you wish to Procreate, WHO Ya gonna Call?? 😉 WOMEN are SUPERIOR, BUT! We Don't wanna Remind you... WHY? Cuz WE MADE YOU ! 😂😂😂 GOOD GROUPS : 1. IWDA 2. 50 MILLION MISSING 3. AHA FOUNDATION 4. MALALA FOUNDATION 6. HEALTHY LIVING - People need to be AWARE of the PROPER FOODS to put in their Bodies & how to beneficially MAINTAIN their Body via EXERCISE and CARE. A MAJOR problem in the 1st World is OBESITY. People Must REVISE their food intake and EXERCISE on a DAILY BASIS. 😀 ADD ADDITIONAL Sales TAX 💸💸 to ALCOHOL🍾, CIGARETTES, SUGAR🍩, SALT, MEAT, GLUTEN and DAIRY in order to Cover the GUARANTEEDRESULTING ADDITIONAL HEALTHCARE & TV Ads & PRIMARY School EDUCATION COSTS 💸 GOOD GROUPS : 1. NUTRITION FORCE 2. AUTHORITY NUTRITION 7. GUN CONTROL 🔫 - It's pretty OBVIOUS WHY the USA is the ONLY 1st World Nation that STILL Allows PERSONAL OWNERSHIP of 🔫 MURDER WEAPONS 🔫. One WORD = MONEY 💸💸💸💸. GUN MASSACRES have gone from BI-weekly to WEEKLY to DAILY. The NRA has REFUSED to NOT Sell Guns to "JIHADISTS", WHAT DOES THAT SAY? The NRA Also "Strongly SUGGESTS" to EVERY GUN Company CEO to give them a BIG DONATION 💸💸💸💸 😱 EL CAPITALISTA AMERICANA 💸💸💸💸 MONEY 💸💸💸💸 vs. HUMAN LIFE 😇 8. ISLAM 🌹 - EVERY Single one of my EXCELLENT MUSLIM friends does NOT practice : a. FGM - Female Genital Mutilation - SEXUAL ASSAULT b. CHILD BRIDES & Baci Baazi - PEDOPHILIA c. FORCED MARRIAGE - DEPRIVATION of Liberty/BREEDING d. HONOR KILLINGS - MURDER e. HIJAB/BURKHA - MISOGYNY f. GANG RAPES / ACID ATTACKS - ASSAULT ALL of these "Practices" have NOTHING to do with ISLAM - Qur'an, and EVERYTHING to do with Feudal, ARCHAIC, MIDDLE AGES, PRIMITIVE 3rd WORLD Behaviour. BTW - FGM - Female Genital Mutilation is practiced by BOTH CHRISTIANS and MUSLIMS in NORTH AFRICA, HONOR KILLINGS are performed in BOTH LATIN AMERICA and MUSLIM countries, FORCED Marriage / CHILD BRIDES are performed in 80% of the WORLD - 3rd World. GOOD GROUPS : 1. MUSLIM REFORM MOVEMENT 2. FAITHFREEDOM 3. FAITH 4 FREEDOM 9. INDIGENOUS PEOPLE - 20,000 YEARS vs. 239 Years..... Hmmmm......... EVERY NATION MUST Teach About /Appreciate / Value it's FIRST PEOPLE. EVERY School Child MUST be Taught the History, Culture, Song & Dance of it's INDIGENOUS People NOT Just the WHITE Culture. GOOD INDIVIDUALS & GROUPS : 1. SUNNY REDCLOUD 2. "I'M NOT RACIST, BUT" 3. "1 MILLION INDIGENOUS" #4. 😀 DAILY HEALTH REGIME 😀 1. EAT : a. RAW Fruit & Vegetables b. STARCH - Cereal, Potatoes, Rice, NOREFINED Flour or Cereal c. PROTEIN - (Cheese, Milk, Yogurt, Eggs- but Dairy MAY be a problem - research VEGANISM) Peas, Nuts & Beans (and Fish) 2. 😠 NO 😠 CHEMICALS, NICOTINE, MEAT, ALCOHOL, SUGAR, DAIRY, GLUTEN and MINIMAL Salt 3. Minimum of 1 HOUR DAILY EXERCISE - try an Exercise Machine or a Walk or a Gym #5. 😀 SUGAR & CHEMICALS 😀 🍁 Finally 🍁 everyone knows the Damage that SUGAR can cause to your Body, but ARTIFICIALSWEETENERS are ALSO a very Big DANGER. Coca-Cola's BEST $$ International Market $$ is an Australian Aboriginal community, and in the U.S.A., some Hill-billies put it in their baby's bottles as well. As suggested before, an ADDITIONAL SALES TAX $ must be Added to JUNK FOOD, ALCOHOL, CIGARETTES and Also SUGARY & DIET SOFT DRINKS in order to Cover the GUARANTEED EXTRA COST $ of the ADDITIONAL Government Supplied MEDICAL Care + TV WARNING ADS and PRIMARY SCHOOL EDUCATION that are Necessary for these DANGEROUS substances🍁

[fatehbaz]

A note, I guess: Sometimes I just want to share a fun thing about pre-Roman forest folklore, nature spirit lore of Nordic countries, or folk traditions in Eastern Europe, but I’m extremely wary because of the strong resurgence of ethnonationalism in Poland, Ukraine, etc. Before I reblog, I really like to double- and triple-check the original source blogs of neat posts to make sure I’m not inadvertently spreading racist/fascist stuff, especially when dealing with cute Northern European pastoral landscapes; folk horror; Viking/Nordic archaeology stuff; and Eastern European “folk tradition” content. This is because of the prevalence of stuff like neopagan-adjacent mystical fascists with an interest in Nordic history; biological essentialists and ecofascism; and colonialist and imperialist escape fantasies; etc.

This caution pertains to “ecology” content too. Something I also like to double-check is cool animal/plant/ecology photos taken by United States land management agencies, especially photos or informational contentabout ecology/landscapes in Hawaii, Micronesia, the Southwest, and the American West generally, where the “civilizing force” of American extraction and land development is very strong. Lately I’ve wanted to share more about cool plants from Hawaii and Micronesian islands like Midway, but many photos/informational content from these places are produced by US land management agencies. The US is a harsh imperial presence in the Pacific; relatively small populations of islands were relatively “easy” to subjugate and sweep under the rug, and the history of, say, atomic testing is singularly disturbing. And moreover, US land management agencies in Hawaii/the Pacific will decry loss of local biodiversity and ecosystem function, while other extensions of the US government/corporate machine continue the same industrial extraction, subjugation of Indigenous people, and unsustainable agriculture that created the problem in the first place. (I understand that there are certainly some ecologists and researchers working for US agencies that despise this injustice and feel like their hands are tied; and I’ve been one of them and lost sleep over my potential complicity in bad/unjust management.) The US obliterated the ecology of the Hawaiian islands, and for agencies to then turn around and be like “oh my goodness, these plants are endangered due to some vague, amorphous, unidentifiable, innocuous human activity” just feels ... strange. (Again, I know there are good ecologists and good people working tangentially with or technically for US agencies in the Pacific.) I wish there was more vocal criticism of why it is that US agencies are sometimes the monopoly on local management/research while Indigenous communities are standing right there. Especially since the ecological degradation is still ongoing and the US deliberately continues to impose the same practices that created the problem. And sometimes I can’t in good conscience share cute photos of reef fish from the seas near Midway produced by US agencies; it just feels weird and slightly disingenuous.

This isn’t a callout post. I appreciate looking at and learning from research/photos/content of plants, fish, landscapes, etc. produced by ethical researchers who are often put into awkward ethical positions. But I also want to be critical of what was lost and who might have hurt in order for us to see these images and learn this information.

[fatehbaz]

Im so sorry Im dumb and not understanding the desert post even though I read it a couple times. Could you resay it? Its ok if you don't want to... sorry

Thanks for the question, and please don’t feel like you have apologize to me! Firstly, I appreciate the interaction. But also, this is a really meaningful and interesting subject to discuss. Disclaimer: I’m long-winded, so I’m sorry in advance for the length of this post.I hope I don’t make the point of the quote even more confusing.

So, the title of the post we’re talking about was: ‘Even in contrast to notorious military testing and land degradation from cattle rangeland, depictions of deserts of the American Southwest as “pure, pristine, wild” can also strongly reinforce imperial/colonial/nationalist myths.’

What did it mean? So, a short answer: The author is essentially saying that the regional folklore we have, and how we think about the qualities of local ecosystems and landscapes - even when we mean well, and want to preserve them - can actually be kind of dangerous or racist, by feeding into imperialist or racist justifications for invading and colonizing lands. Even in the seemingly benign scenarios where the US government “sustainably manages lands” for “conservation,” this situation is only possible because the US has taken the land from Indigenous peoples. When well-meaning, “kind of woke,” or “liberal” conservationists want to protect this landscape and they describe the deserts of the American Southwest as “wild” or “wilderness,” this assumption actually helps to feed the idea that the land is devoid of people - erasing Indigenous peoples - and therefore the land is available for US control. So, even if a conservationist or environmental activist says they totally oppose, say, corporations or oil drilling or fracking or something, and this hypothetical conservationist truly wants to protect local ecology, they still might be supporting US imperialism by (accidentally?) feeding the idea that the US “owns” the land.

An example of Southwestern desert folklore that, in a certain way, kind of supports US imperialism: The quasi-mythological depiction of the Southwest’s deserts as a home of “alien crash sites” and “scary organized, criminal, smuggling operations hiding out in the desert” might kind of come across as innocuous folklore, but this lore can be read to imply not only that the desert is “dangerous,” but it can also be read to imply that things might be better if the US government moved-in and established “law and order,” like a “civilizing” force. The “criminals hiding in the desert” trope, in the Southwest, might be used to subtly imply that it is specifically Latin American criminals that should be feared, potentially invoking racism and in turn implying that a stronger US cultural/military presence would pacify the danger. Thinking of the desert as “barren” might be used by colonial advocates to imply that US industries should impose agriculture and irrigation and civilization, y’know? I’m a big fan of regional folklore (which I hope is obvious?), but sometimes folklore can be twisted or co-opted to reinforce dangerous nationalist mythologies.

Folklore can be really fun, but modern US lore about the desert sometimes has problematic implications.

The article as a whole is really interesting (especially if you love deserts!), and it’s mostly about how Americans perceive their own presence in the Southwest by applying fantasies, myths, or folklore to the deserts - including things like aliens, ghosts, military experiments, etc. The article also explores how most of these myths - even when well-meaning - still reinforce colonialism and were an important part of crafting how the United States still colonizes the desert to this day. You can read it here!

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To answer your question with some more detail, specifically referencing the quote I shared, the author is basically saying that there are generally 2 ways that many or most Americans think about the deserts of the Southwest, and both are based on the assumption that deserts are essentially “a wilderness” - a no-man’s land, empty, free for the taking - which erases the history and autonomy of Indigenous peoples who currently live and have lived there for thousands of years.

In the post you asked about, the author was discussing the 2 most popular ways that people in the US think about deserts: (1) The colonial/imperial view sees the desert as “wild and kind of empty” and their interest in the desert, their priority, is making money. This is a perspective enacted by industrialists, entrepreneurs, resource extraction corporations, cattle barons, etc. Since the deserts can’t easily be turned into agricultural land, you should extract mineral/oil wealth where you can and use any of the other empty land for cattle rangeland or military bases, developing it as much as possible given its limitations. And then there’s (2) the more stereotypical “liberal” or environmentalist-y view which also sees the desert as “wild and kind of empty” but their interest in the desert, their priority, is conserving it. But their interest is in conserving the Southwestern deserts for the intrinsic value of keeping plants and animals alive, or the aesthetic value, so that artists and aesthetes can “contemplate the wilderness” or recreationists can hike or go bird-watching, etc.

So the important point made in the quote/post I shared was:

Even though one of these perspectives - the environmentalist approach to “conserving the desert” - means well, it’s application in the US mostly still plays into the mythology of American empire/nationalism by assuming that not only is the desert a “wild” place, but also assuming that the US government has a right to manage the deserts of the Southwest, especially without letting Indigenous peoples lead land management decisions. The myth of the American Southwest’s deserts being utter “wilderness” assumes that there aren’t any local people there that live on and manage the land (erasing Indigenous presence) and therefore the land is available for US-sanctioned conservation management, operates on the assumption that the US “owns” that land. So, by extension, by implying that the US “owns” the desert, conservationist agencies/orgs can and often often do inadvertently play into the more-overt colonial/imperial national mythology.

So instead, the author suggests a third and more “woke” perspective, which is to consider that deserts are not empty and that Indigenous peoples have lived autonomously within that landscape for a long time.

The woke view recognizes the desert for the complex ecological and cultural landscape it is, and recognizes that deserts of the American Southwest aren’t ecologically empty because they host many unique plant and animal communities. This is kind of consistent with how conservationists think of the desert. But in an improvement over the typical American way of thinking about conservation, this woke view also recognizes that deserts of the American Southwest are not culturally empty because Indigenous peoples have lived there for thousands of years.

So, basically, the point was:

Conservation/preservation of the Southwest’s desert is good; respecting the intrinsic value of ecosystems, plants, and animals of the desert is good. But thinking of the desert as a “wild place” is also problematic; we need to acknowledge that Indigenous people have lived there and managed the land for millennia. Also, thinking of the desert as “barren” is problematic because it implies the US can or should impose agriculture or irrigation, disrupting local ecosystems. And thinking of the desert as “chaotic” or “lawless” or “the frontier” can also feed imperialism, since it implies that the US stands in an authoritative position to impose law and order and civilization.

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Thanks again for the question. :)

[fatehbaz]

I just saw your addition to that post about corn wolves and absolutely adore it. Wonderful, wonderful analysis of the geography of folklore. Just. Huge kudos to you. Being from the midwest myself, I really appreciate cultural evaluations of it. Anthropology for the win, yo.

Thank you so much for reaching-out and for the enthusiastic and supportive thoughts; I really appreciate it. It means a lot to me to know that I’m not screaming into the void.

I want to apologize in advance for hijacking your ask to expand a little bit on one of the reasons why I’m fascinated by the geography of the Midwest, despite the reputation it has in American popular culture as relatively environmentally “dull” compared to other US regions.

I am obsessed with holistic geography and how the boundaries of human cultural regions are closely dependent on the boundaries of ecoregions - even to this day, despite most countries being industrialized and extensively developed. This is part of why I am similarly fascinated with the American Midwest. Namely, because you can clearly see where cultural boundaries align with ecological boundaries. I’m sure you’ve noticed that, to that very limited extent that Americans actually discuss geography in typical conversation, one common subject of debate is which places qualify as part of the “Midwest” as a perceptual region (especially when it comes to ambiguously-Midwestern fringes like northern Oklahoma and eastern Montana). That’s a whole other conversation! But I think that there are actually some pretty clear environmental boundaries within the Midwest itself, distinctly separating vegetation zones and ecoregions. And since the Midwest’s culture and economy are closely-tied to agriculture and extensive crops, more-so than the rest of the US, local Midwestern economies are essentially determined by which crops the local vegetation/soil ecoregion allow; and then, subsequently, those distinct agricultural economies created little mini-cultural regions within the Midwest.What I find especially cool about this “environment determining the local culture” thing in the Midwest is that this whole process is very similar to how indigenous North Americans clearly delineated the boundaries between tribes and cultures depending on the local ecology. In other words, it’s amazing how even into the 21st Century - despite how media and easy transportation has “flattened” the US culturally, and despite how industrialized the country is - local ecology can still influence local culture to such an extent.

I’d say that the cultural regions of the Midwest are slightly different from the environmental regions of the Midwest. When Americans refer to “the Midwest,” it seems to me that they are referencing one of four somewhat-cryptic sub-regions of the Midwest.

Cultural sub-regions of the Midwest:

1. The Great Lakes - further broken into (1.1) “Upper Great Lakes,” the (1.2) western part of the Rust Belt, and (1.3) the Eastern Great Lakes, running from Cleveland and Erie, through Buffalo and Rochester2. The Heartland - further broken into (2.1) “The Heartland” and (2.2) “the Long-grass Prairies”3. The Great Plains - further broken into (3.1) a northern section covering the Badlands, and (3.2) a southern section covering the High Plains4. The Midlands or “Ohio River Valley cultural region” - a transition zone between Southern culture and the Midwest, which runs from Pittsburgh, through Cincinnati and Louisville, to St. Louis and Kansas City

Kind of like this:

Here are those same 8 cultural regions outlined over a map of ecological regions (potential vegetation):

Map by Kuchler, originally 1966, with many future modifications. You can find this detailed map here. This map of potential natural vegetation is my very favorite map of the US ever made. It contains so much information; I love it. I know it might be hard to see this map, and there is a lot of busy detail, but I hope it’s useful. (You can see especially clear ecological boundaries between the Upper Great Lakes - in blue - and the nearby Heartland and prairies; you can also see a clear ecological boundary between the Heartland, and the Rust Belt of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Rochester.)

Of those 8 sub-regions, I’d say that the “core” of what people perceive to be the cultural Midwest centers on just 4 of the sub-regions: Upper Great Lakes, Western Rust Belt, Long-grass Prairies, and “The Heartland.”

So, even though Midlands cultural centers like Cincinnati and St. Louis are considered part of the Midwest, they sit on the periphery and are a bit culturally ambiguous. Just as Buffalo is ambiguously both Midwestern and Northeastern. The core of the Midwest as a perceptual region might look like this (green is the “Great Lakes” cultural region, and orange is “The Heartland”):

(Here, the Great Plains region and the Midlands/Ohio River Valley region have been left-out.)

By thinking of a “Great Lakes” cultural regions as distinct and separate from “the Heartland,” we can avoid the frustration and confusion surrounding the debate as to whether the Buffalo area is part of the Midwest or the Northeast, since it would be in neither and instead in a distinct Lakes region. Also, by thinking of a “Great Plains” cultural region as separate from either the Heartland or the Great Lakes, we avoid the confusion as to whether parts of Oklahoma or Montana are really in the Midwest, since a lot of the Plains are really more what Americans would perceive as “The West.”

So, I guess my point is that: the environmental sub-regions of the Midwest and the boundaries between different Midwest ecoregions are very clearly delineated and easy to recognize, but the cultural regions of the Midwest are more ambiguous and often debated. My argument is that there actually are some pretty clear and objective boundaries between Midwestern cultural regions, which the ecological boundaries help to reinforce since so much of Midwestern culture is influenced by this differing ecology.

Anyway, I’m sorry that I hijacked your ask with more rambling. I just wanted to toss-out some more thoughts on cultural regions for anyone else who might be following, since the world needs more discussion of the uniqueness of the American Midwest.Thanks again for the support!

[dixiechikdigger]

😀 1 WORLD FAMILY PLAN 😀

😀 😀 1 WORLD FAMILY 😀 😀 Watch "John Lennon - Imagine (official video)" on YouTube https://youtu.be/yRhq-yO1KN8 1. FORBID and REMOVE ALL WMDs , Guns, Swords and Knives from Public Usage. INFORM the Weapons Manufacturers🔫 and Gun Shops 🔫 that the CEOs & Shop Owners will be Tried and Prosecuted for "Providing & Profitting 💸 from Accessories to Murder" if they choose to continue. 2. LIFE RIGHTS - a. 90 Years of LIFE - to be INCREASED with advanced medical care b. 14 Years of Love ❤ Care and Protection from at least 1 Primary Care-giver. A person's Childhood determines the MAJORITY of their Personality and Character Traits, because That's when their Character is Developed c. 4 Years of World SERVICE 18-21 yrs. - M / F 3. NO Physical - Audio - Visual EXPOSURE to SEXUAL Organs / Intercourse BEFORE "The Age of Consent". Such Exposure classifies as ASSAULT resulting in Lifelong Damage - Anger. 4. EVERY school child will receive Courses on : a. FAMILY b. CONFLICT RESOLUTION 5. NO Abortion, Guns / Swords / Knives / WMDs, Suicide, Starvation OR Death Penalty. 6. ALL Religions 7. SAME MONETARY Rate 💸 8. SAME TAX RATE 💸 9. SAME PAY RATE 💸 10. 1 WORLD GOVERNMENT - Democratic Socialist - Not Flawless, but the best choice. 11. REMOVE ALL National BOUNDARIES 12. ENGLISH Language for WORLD Communication - Beneficial for Education and Business. INDIGENOUS Languages at Home 13. EVERY ORIGINAL NATIVE Culture in the World must be APPRECIATED💃 / PROMOTED👳 / TAUGHT / VALUED 👲 within it's Own area, NOT just the WHITE Culture eg. African, Indian, Asian and Middle-Eastern. EACH Nation must teach EVERY one of it's PRIMARY Schoolchildren the Song, Dance, Stories and Culture of it's FIRST People. The ORIGINAL inhabitants DESERVE to feel VALUED, RECOGNIZED and RESPECTED. An Example would be Australia, Canada and the USA 1st People's CULTURE, DANCE, SONGS, HISTORY must be Taught, Promoted and Appreciated and Valued in ALL the PRIMARY Schools to EVERY child of EVERY COLOR. 14. Prisons must Become ADDITIONAL CARE ENVIRONMENTS. These Locations will be OPPORTUNITIES to receive ADDITIONAL Medical, Educational, Spiritual, and Employment Attention for the Residents. There will be 3 SEPARATE Levels : a. First-time Offenders b. Multiple Time Offenders c. Habitual Offenders These A.C.E.s will also be places where Teaching, Medical and Psychiatrist GRADUATES acquire their GRADUATE TRAINING. ALSO, the prison residents can do Supervised SERVICE for the community, Not just sit on their A€£ES All day. 15. In addition to Prison Residents performing Supervised Service to the community, WELFARE & DOLE recipients will perform SERVICE work in the community as well. 16. Additional SALES TAX 💸 added to: ALCOHOL & CIGARETTES & JUNK FOOD & SUGAR & SALT & MEAT & GLUTEN & DAIRY to COVER: a. TV Warning ADs. b. EDUCATION for Primary School Children c. GUARANTEED RESULTING ADDITIONAL GOVERNMENT FUNDED HEALTH CARE 17. PROVIDE "THAT SUGAR FILM" & Book, by Australian Damon Gameau, to EVERY Classroom. "Sugar is the NEW Nicotine." Artificial Sweeteners are ALSO a Health Risk. 18. EVERY FOOD & DRINK, MEDICATION, BUILDING MATERIAL and WMD - Weapon of Mass Destruction, must be EVALUATED for CHEMICAL CONTENT. PHARMACEUTICALS & CHEMICALS are the Cause of So much ILLNESS and DEATH. Remember Thalidomide? Apparently "BIG PHARMA" has been given a seat in the USA FDA. Is this Wise? The CANCER, AUTISM and DEMENTIA Rates in the 1st World are SKY-HIGH. WHY is that? Because of PHARMACEUTICALS 💊💉, GMOs and Agricultural Practices. EVERY Doctor KNOWS that Pharmaceuticals are LARGELY the cause of the 3 previously mentioned Illnesses, so WHY do they continue to prescribe them? One Word. 💰 MONEY💰. DOCTORS get KICKBACKS 💸💸 from the PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES every time they for Prescribe their medications. That explains why 70% of Americans are on Pills💊, and in 20 years, 40% of U.S. children will have AUTISM. Those Post WW11 Pharmaceutical companies try to say those diseases are "Genetic". Were they Genetic 70 Years ago, BEFORE WW11? 19. RWN - READING - WRITING - NOW, is a Program that would be USEFUL for some Aborigines who are too ashamed to admit that they cannot read or write. This way the problem is Solved in Private : 1 800 018 802 20. Physical and Sexual Assault are a CRIME. VERBAL Assault - BULLYING, should ALSO become a CRIME. The effects of these 3 types of Assault, Especially in the First 7 years, is LIFE-LONG. 21. The Life Expectancy is increasing. In 20 years, women are expected to live to 92 years. Medical Care is Improving. The RETIREMENT AGE can be Increased from 65 to 70 years, thus INCREASING the TAX BASE 💸. 22. The TAX FREE STATUS of Churches should be RECONSIDERED. In the USA, in the 1970's a KCIA FRONT GROUP & BIG BUSINESS 💸 Organization "PRETENDED to be a religious institution" in order to escape paying it's rightful share of TAXES on it's Very PROFITABLE 💸💸 Enterprises. 23. INCREASE the FOCUS on PRIMARY SCHOOL Teachers & Students. There Must be : a. MORE MALE teachers to be Positive Examples / Role models to the children, ESPECIALLY in Under-privileged Areas. b. SPECIALIZED TRAINING for Primary School teachers c. PAY RISES 💸 for PRIMARY School Teachers The FIRST 7 YEARS and to a lesser extent, the NEXT 7 years, are ESSENTIAL to an individual's Future lifestyle choices. School MUST be seen as a FUN 🎉 and JOYFUL 🙋 experience, ESPECIALLY for Underprivileged children. Schools can be a POSITIVE Influence for ALL children, giving them confidence to Participate fully in Society. "CHILDHOOD should be a JOY" - Dalai Lama Change from Primary Schools to Learning CENTRES Or CLUBS, as this terminology is more attractive for children. 24. POLICE Officers must become CARE Officers 25. GOVERNMENTS go from Force & Law to CARE & RESPECT 26. SENIOR CITIZENS are a RAPIDLY Growing population, with greatly improved health and lifespan. There's alot of issues to be addressed with these citizens. A Huge opportunity is now present for retired individuals to OFFER SERVICE and WORK Together with others. LEARN from EXPERIENCE You're Not Getting OLDER, You're getting BETTER 27. Have EVERY child read "A LITTLE HISTORY of the WORLD" by E.H. Gombrich. This International bestseller 📚 is written in very easy to understand English, for ALL CHILDREN to understand the HISTORY of the WORLD🌍 28. EVERY Individual Deserves at Least 14 years of Love, Care and Protection from at least 1 PRIMARY Care-giver. The First 7-14 years is where MOST of a person's character development occurs. The Majority of a person's attitudes and thinking come from their FIRST 14 YEARS, that's why psychiatrists always ask about your Childhood. 29. The Original and First Australians - Aborigines, are very similar to the African-American population. Their "Rite of Passage" is to spend time in "Lock-up" - Prison. It used to be that the White man considered them both to have 75% of the brain capacity of the White man. Why are Aborigines and African-Americans so "mis-behaved? Because one was seen as property, and the other was seen as animals who happened to inhabit one of the places that the British EMPIRE wanted to Utilize #2. 😀 INDIGENOUS PEOPLE 1. EVERY primary school child must be taught the : a. Song 🙌 b. Dance💃 c. History 📚 d. Culture 🌋 of it's INDIGENOUS Citizens. 40,000 years versus 240 years??..... The Australian and American ORIGINAL citizens need to be APPRECIATED, PROMOTED and VALUED, in order to address their issues, and to make Every other child appreciate and value them. #3. 😀 9 CAUSES 😀 Am I telling you to NOT get SCAMMED by a Predatory CULT, the MEDICAL/NURSING HOME GAME, FALSE PHARMACEUTICALS💊,GUNS🔫 or the WAR BUSINESS 💣 ? NO ! It's a FREE Country, last I checked, as Long as you know the TRUTH, the Whole TRUTH, NOTHING but the TRUTH, so help me GOD. 😇 THEN U can't BLAME anyone but your OWN SELF for YOUR Choices. I've got 9 CAUSES that are Listed below. Here they are. 😀 SCAMS : 1. PREDATORY Cults 2. DEATH RESORTS - Nursing Homes 3. PHARMACEUTICALS - BIG PHARMA 💊 4. The WAR BUSINESS 💰💰 CAUSES : 5. 3rd WORLD WOMEN 6. HEALTHY LIVING 7. GUN CONTROL 🔫 8. TRUE ISLAM 9. INDIGENOUS PEOPLE 1. PREDATORY CULTS - I have a friend who was in a Predatory Cult. They're ALL the Same. Their REAL motivation is Money 💸 & Power (and usually weird Sex). EXAMPLES are People's Temple & Children of God & Scientology & Moonies/FFWPU/Unification Church & Oneida Community & Jehovah's Witnesses Regarding "The TRUE Family of Mankind" - MOONIES - The Family of SELF-PROCLAIMED Lord of the Second Advent Sun Myung Moon - KNOW THEM BY THEIR FRUITS🍇 The APPLE DOESN'T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE 🍎 ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS 💪 DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO The THINGS People do for MONEY 💸💸💸💸 are the ROOT of ALL EVIL 🙉LEARN FROM YOUR PARENTS🙈 👏PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH👎 1. They're Usually led by a MALE, who is CONVINCED that he is a UNIQUE Voice of GOD. 2. Their MARKET is Disenfranchised, "SEARCHING" People. 3. The members are Always told that they're BETTER than others via being part of "The Master Race, God's Lineage, Chosen Skin Color, Religion, Nationality etc." 4. They get those people to do STRANGE actions such as ALL NIGHT Prayers, FASTING, Working for FREE - raising MONEY 💸💸 & Bringing in New members via the Threat "If you don't do this you WON'T Go to Heaven / be Saved OR WILL Go to Hell" 5. They're Always told to MARRY WITHIN the Cult. 6. The Cults Always say the members' REAL natural FAMILIES are "EVIL / FALLEN" in order to create SOLE "Loyalty" to the Cult 7. The Cults are ALWAYS EXPOSED /Destroyed in the END. 8. The Offspring ALWAYS Leave in DISGUST. 😉 GOOD GROUPS : 1. UCSA 2. FREEDOM OF MIND 2. DEATH RESORTS / NURSING HOMES - They are a BOOMING Business💸 now that the Baby Boomers are hitting their 70s and people are living LONGER and medical care is IMPROVING. In some nations, the Aged Care Business Participants "Are ALL in BED TOGETHER 💸💸" ALMOST Every Doctor, Psychiatrist, Nursing Home, Pharmaceutical Coy., and EVEN the COMPLAINTS Organizations 😨"Share Information together for a NON Caring Purpose" 😉 💸💸 I have a friend who TEMPORARILY spent some time in a Nursing Home due to an Injury. After a Medically Educated Individual REMOVED the Incorrect Medication that she was on, she wrote EVERYTHING Down. There was SO MUCH Verbal & Physical Abuse going on, towards Mostly 70 - 85 year old residents, with the Staff Hoping that the Residents are SO DRUGGED UP, that They wouldn't be BELIEVED by others, regarding what was REALLY Going on. After weeks of writing EVERYTHING Down, the Manager KICKED my friend out via calling / lying to the POLICE. It is ALL a SCAM YOU'RE as YOUNG AS YOU FEEL 🙌 70 is the NEW 30 🙌 LEARN from EXPERIENCE You're NOT Getting OLDER, You're getting BETTER GOOD INDIVIDUALS & GROUPS : 1. LET'S TALK 2. LYNDA SALTARELLI 3. DAVID STEWART - IRVING 3. 💊 PHARMACEUTICALS 💊 From Everything that I've read, ALL CANCER, DEMENTIA and AUTISM comes from PHARMACEUTICALS & GMOs. But the DRUG Companies try to Cover their A€£ES via LIES such as "Cancer is Genetic". Currently, 70% of Americans are on PILLS. In 20 years, 40% of USA CHILDREN will be AUTISTIC. WHY is this Happening NOW? PHARMACEUTICALS 💊 : 1. RARELY WORK 2. CAUSE GREATER PROBLEMS 3. SOMETIMES CAUSE DEATH Also, did you know that EVERY Doctor KNOWS that the Pharmaceuticals they're Prescribing cause these 3 Sometimes FATAL Illnesses? So WHY is your OWN Family Doctor doing This? One Word. 💸 MONEY 💸 EVERY DOCTOR gets PAID 💸 KICKBACKS 💸 from the PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES when they Prescribe their Drugs💊. The THINGS People do for MONEY 💸💸 are the ROOT of ALL EVIL 😈 Remember THALIDOMIDE? That was a Post WW11 Drug for "Pregnancy Pains". 1 FDA Doctor Repeatedly said that it was Already causing HUGE Problems in Europe and to STOP It Immediately. You know what that Drug Companies said? "Oooh those Bossy Bureaucrats" And the Result? DEFORMED BABIES Left and Right 👹 I am NOT a Hippie Chick who wants an Organic Lifestyle, I'm an Accountant 💸Sales Queen 💸 and I feel that IF a person makes the CHOICE to be involved with a Predatory Cult, Nursing Home, Take Pharmaceuticals, FIGHT / DIE in a War, have an UNhealthy Lifestyle, live as a 3rd World Female, participate in UNREVISED Islam, Buy MURDER WEAPONS, then FINE ! AS LONG AS YOU KNOW : "The TRUTH, the WHOLE TRUTH, NOTHING but the TRUTH, so help me GOD" 😇 Then FREELY & INTELLIGENTLY make your OWN CHOICE. GOOD INDIVIDUALS : 1. DR. BRAD McKAY 2. ROGER BEZANIS 4. The WAR BUSINESS 💸💸 - The USA is a VERY SAD Example of this one. For EVERY WAR Check : a. WHO'S at the TOP ? b. WHERE'S the MONEY 💸💸? In EVERY WAR : 1. Men (usually) RAPE 💸💸 a Country of it's Natural RESOURCES & the INDIGENOUS People get ANGRY & FIGHT BACK 😠 2. The ARMS Companies make Even MORE BIG, BIG Money 💸💸 SELLING BOMBS & GUNS to those Invading Men who want to defend themselves because of their OWN invasion, and SOMETIMES to those ANGRY INDIGENOUS People TOO!! 😂😈😂 WHENEVER there's a Inexplicable SCREW-UP in the World, ALWAYS : 💸 💸 "SHOW ME THE MONEY" 💸💸 GOOD GROUPS : 1. CODE PINK 5. 3rd WORLD WOMEN - 80% of the WORLD (3rd World) sees Females as ONLY : 1. BREEDING Animals 2. Sex TOYS 3. PROPERTY The Time is Coming when the COMMON KNOWLEDGE that Females & Males are Totally EQUAL INTELLECTUALLY will be ACCEPTED WORLDWIDE. ALSO ! IF you wish to Procreate, WHO Ya gonna Call?? 😉 WOMEN are SUPERIOR, BUT! We Don't wanna Remind you... WHY? Cuz WE MADE YOU ! 😂😂😂 GOOD GROUPS : 1. IWDA 2. 50 MILLION MISSING 3. AHA FOUNDATION 4. MALALA FOUNDATION 6. HEALTHY LIVING - People need to be AWARE of the PROPER FOODS to put in their Bodies & how to beneficially MAINTAIN their Body via EXERCISE and CARE. A MAJOR problem in the 1st World is OBESITY. People Must REVISE their food intake and EXERCISE on a DAILY BASIS. 😀 ADD ADDITIONAL Sales TAX 💸💸 to ALCOHOL🍾, CIGARETTES, SUGAR🍩, SALT, MEAT, GLUTEN and DAIRY in order to Cover the GUARANTEED RESULTING ADDITIONAL HEALTHCARE & TV Ads & PRIMARY School EDUCATION COSTS 💸 GOOD GROUPS : 1. NUTRITION FORCE 2. AUTHORITY NUTRITION 7. GUN CONTROL 🔫 - It's pretty OBVIOUS WHY the USA is the ONLY 1st World Nation that STILL Allows PERSONAL OWNERSHIP of 🔫 MURDER WEAPONS 🔫. One WORD = MONEY 💸💸💸💸. GUN MASSACRES have gone from BI-weekly to WEEKLY to DAILY. The NRA has REFUSED to NOT Sell Guns to "JIHADISTS", WHAT DOES THAT SAY? The NRA Also "Strongly SUGGESTS" to EVERY GUN Company CEO to give them a BIG DONATION 💸💸💸💸 😱 EL CAPITALISTA AMERICANA 💸💸💸💸 MONEY 💸💸💸💸 vs. HUMAN LIFE 😇 8. ISLAM 🌹 - EVERY Single one of my EXCELLENT MUSLIM friends does NOT practice : a. FGM - Female Genital Mutilation - SEXUAL ASSAULT b. CHILD BRIDES & Baci Baazi - PEDOPHILIA c. FORCED MARRIAGE - DEPRIVATION of Liberty/BREEDING d. HONOR KILLINGS - MURDER e. HIJAB/BURKHA - MISOGYNY f. GANG RAPES / ACID ATTACKS - ASSAULT ALL of these "Practices" have NOTHING to do with ISLAM - Qur'an, and EVERYTHING to do with Feudal, ARCHAIC, MIDDLE AGES, PRIMITIVE 3rd WORLD Behaviour. BTW - FGM - Female Genital Mutilation is practiced by BOTH CHRISTIANS and MUSLIMS in NORTH AFRICA, HONOR KILLINGS are performed in BOTH LATIN AMERICA and MUSLIM countries, FORCED Marriage / CHILD BRIDES are performed in 80% of the WORLD - 3rd World. GOOD GROUPS : 1. MUSLIM REFORM MOVEMENT 2. FAITHFREEDOM 3. FAITH 4 FREEDOM 9. INDIGENOUS PEOPLE - 20,000 YEARS vs. 239 Years..... Hmmmm......... EVERY NATION MUST Teach About /Appreciate / Value it's FIRST PEOPLE. EVERY School Child MUST be Taught the History, Culture, Song & Dance of it's INDIGENOUS People NOT Just the WHITE Culture. GOOD INDIVIDUALS & GROUPS : 1. SUNNY REDCLOUD 2. "I'M NOT RACIST, BUT" 3. "1 MILLION INDIGENOUS" #4. 😀 DAILY HEALTH REGIME 😀 1. EAT : a. RAW Fruit & Vegetables b. STARCH - Cereal, Potatoes, Rice, NO REFINED Flour or Cereal c. PROTEIN - (Cheese, Milk, Yogurt, Eggs- but Dairy MAY be a problem - research VEGANISM) Peas, Nuts & Beans (and Fish) 2. 😠 NO 😠 CHEMICALS, NICOTINE, MEAT, ALCOHOL, SUGAR, DAIRY, GLUTEN and MINIMAL Salt 3. Minimum of 1 HOUR DAILY EXERCISE - try an Exercise Machine or a Walk or a Gym #5. 😀 SUGAR & CHEMICALS 😀 🍁 Finally 🍁 everyone knows the Damage that SUGAR can cause to your Body, but ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS are ALSO a very Big DANGER. Coca-Cola's BEST $$ International Market $$ is an Australian Aboriginal community, and in the U.S.A., some Hill-billies put it in their baby's bottles as well. As suggested before, an ADDITIONAL SALES TAX $ must be Added to JUNK FOOD, ALCOHOL, CIGARETTES and Also SUGARY & DIET SOFT DRINKS in order to Cover the GUARANTEED EXTRA COST $ of the ADDITIONAL Government Supplied MEDICAL Care + TV WARNING ADS and PRIMARY SCHOOL EDUCATION that are Necessary for these DANGEROUS substances🍁 https://youtu.be/yRhq-yO1KN8 1. FORBID and REMOVE ALL WMDs , Guns, Swords and Knives from Public Usage. INFORM the Weapons Manufacturers🔫 and Gun Shops 🔫 that the CEOs & Shop Owners will be Tried and Prosecuted for "Providing & Profitting 💸 from Accessories to Murder" if they choose to continue. 2. LIFE RIGHTS - a. 90 Years of LIFE - to be INCREASED with advanced medical care b. 14 Years of Love ❤ Care and Protection from at least 1 Primary Care-giver. A person's Childhood determines the MAJORITY of their Personality and Character Traits, because That's when their Character is Developed c. 4 Years of World SERVICE 18-21 yrs. - M / F 3. NO Physical - Audio - Visual EXPOSURE to SEXUAL Organs / Intercourse BEFORE "The Age of Consent". Such Exposure classifies as ASSAULT resulting in Lifelong Damage - Anger. 4. EVERY school child will receive Courses on : a. FAMILY b. CONFLICT RESOLUTION 5. NO Abortion, Guns / Swords / Knives / WMDs, Suicide, Starvation OR Death Penalty. 6. ALL Religions 7. SAME MONETARY Rate 💸 8. SAME TAX RATE 💸 9. SAME PAY RATE 💸 10. 1 WORLD GOVERNMENT - Democratic Socialist - Not Flawless, but the best choice. 11. REMOVE ALL National BOUNDARIES 12. ENGLISH Language for WORLD Communication - Beneficial for Education and Business. INDIGENOUS Languages at Home 13. EVERY ORIGINAL NATIVE Culture in the World must be APPRECIATED💃 / PROMOTED👳 / TAUGHT / VALUED 👲 within it's Own area, NOT just the WHITE Culture eg. African, Indian, Asian and Middle-Eastern. EACH Nation must teach EVERY one of it's PRIMARY Schoolchildren the Song, Dance, Stories and Culture of it's FIRST People. The ORIGINAL inhabitants DESERVE to feel VALUED, RECOGNIZED and RESPECTED. An Example would be Australia, Canada and the USA 1st People's CULTURE, DANCE, SONGS, HISTORY must be Taught, Promoted and Appreciated and Valued in ALL the PRIMARY Schools to EVERY child of EVERY COLOR. 14. Prisons must Become ADDITIONALCARE ENVIRONMENTS. These Locations will be OPPORTUNITIES to receive ADDITIONAL Medical, Educational, Spiritual, and Employment Attention for the Residents. There will be 3 SEPARATE Levels : a. First-time Offenders b. Multiple Time Offenders c. Habitual Offenders These A.C.E.s will also be places where Teaching, Medical and Psychiatrist GRADUATES acquire their GRADUATE TRAINING. ALSO, the prison residents can do Supervised SERVICE for the community, Not just sit on their A€£ES All day. 15. In addition to Prison Residents performing Supervised Service to the community, WELFARE & DOLE recipients will perform SERVICE work in the community as well. 16. Additional SALES TAX 💸 added to: ALCOHOL & CIGARETTES & JUNK FOOD & SUGAR & SALT & MEAT & GLUTEN & DAIRY to COVER: a. TV Warning ADs. b. EDUCATION for Primary School Children c. GUARANTEED RESULTING ADDITIONAL GOVERNMENT FUNDED HEALTH CARE 17. PROVIDE "THAT SUGAR FILM" & Book, by Australian Damon Gameau, to EVERY Classroom. "Sugar is the NEW Nicotine." Artificial Sweeteners are ALSO a Health Risk. 18. EVERY FOOD & DRINK, MEDICATION, BUILDING MATERIAL and WMD - Weapon of Mass Destruction, must be EVALUATED for CHEMICALCONTENT. PHARMACEUTICALS & CHEMICALS are the Cause of So much ILLNESS and DEATH. Remember Thalidomide? Apparently "BIG PHARMA" has been given a seat in the USA FDA. Is this Wise? The CANCER, AUTISM and DEMENTIA Rates in the 1st World are SKY-HIGH. WHY is that? Because of PHARMACEUTICALS 💊💉, GMOs and Agricultural Practices. EVERY Doctor KNOWS that Pharmaceuticals are LARGELY the cause of the 3 previously mentioned Illnesses, so WHY do they continue to prescribe them? One Word. 💰 MONEY💰. DOCTORS get KICKBACKS 💸💸 from the PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES every time they for Prescribe their medications. That explains why 70% of Americans are on Pills💊, and in 20 years, 40% of U.S. children will have AUTISM. Those Post WW11 Pharmaceutical companies try to say those diseases are "Genetic". Were they Genetic 70 Years ago, BEFORE WW11? 19. RWN - READING - WRITING - NOW, is a Program that would be USEFUL for some Aborigines who are too ashamed to admit that they cannot read or write. This way the problem is Solved in Private : 1 800 018 802 20. Physical and Sexual Assault are a CRIME. VERBAL Assault - BULLYING, should ALSO become a CRIME. The effects of these 3 types of Assault, Especially in the First 7 years, is LIFE-LONG. 21. The Life Expectancy is increasing. In 20 years, women are expected to live to 92 years. Medical Care is Improving. The RETIREMENT AGE can be Increased from 65 to 70 years, thus INCREASING the TAX BASE 💸. 22. The TAX FREE STATUS of Churches should be RECONSIDERED. In the USA, in the 1970's a KCIA FRONT GROUP & BIG BUSINESS 💸 Organization "PRETENDED to be a religious institution" in order to escape paying it's rightful share of TAXES on it's Very PROFITABLE 💸💸 Enterprises. 23. INCREASE the FOCUS on PRIMARY SCHOOL Teachers & Students. There Must be : a. MORE MALE teachers to be Positive Examples / Role models to the children, ESPECIALLY in Under-privileged Areas. b. SPECIALIZED TRAINING for Primary School teachers c. PAY RISES 💸 for PRIMARY School Teachers The FIRST 7 YEARS and to a lesser extent, the NEXT 7 years, are ESSENTIAL to an individual's Future lifestyle choices. School MUST be seen as a FUN 🎉 and JOYFUL 🙋 experience, ESPECIALLY for Underprivileged children. Schools can be a POSITIVE Influence for ALL children, giving them confidence to Participate fully in Society. "CHILDHOOD should be a JOY" - Dalai Lama Change from Primary Schools to Learning CENTRES Or CLUBS, as this terminology is more attractive for children. 24. POLICE Officers must become CARE Officers 25. GOVERNMENTS go from Force & Law to CARE & RESPECT 26. SENIOR CITIZENS are a RAPIDLY Growing population, with greatly improved health and lifespan. There's alot of issues to be addressed with these citizens. A Huge opportunity is now present for retired individuals to OFFER SERVICE and WORK Together with others. LEARN from EXPERIENCE You're Not Getting OLDER, You're getting BETTER 27. Have EVERY child read "A LITTLE HISTORY of the WORLD" by E.H. Gombrich. This International bestseller 📚 is written in very easy to understand English, for ALL CHILDREN to understand the HISTORY of the WORLD🌍 28. EVERY Individual Deserves at Least 14 years of Love, Care and Protection from at least 1 PRIMARY Care-giver. The First 7-14 years is where MOST of a person's character development occurs. The Majority of a person's attitudes and thinking come from their FIRST 14 YEARS, that's why psychiatrists always ask about your Childhood. 29. The Original and First Australians - Aborigines, are very similar to the African-American population. Their "Rite of Passage" is to spend time in "Lock-up" - Prison. It used to be that the White man considered them both to have 75% of the brain capacity of the White man. Why are Aborigines and African-Americans so "mis-behaved? Because one was seen as property, and the other was seen as animals who happened to inhabit one of the places that the British EMPIRE wanted to Utilize #2. 😀 INDIGENOUS PEOPLE 1. EVERY primary school child must be taught the : a. Song 🙌 b. Dance💃 c. History 📚 d. Culture 🌋 of it's INDIGENOUS Citizens. 40,000 years versus 240 years??..... The Australian and American ORIGINAL citizens need to be APPRECIATED, PROMOTED and VALUED, in order to address their issues, and to make Every other child appreciate and value them. #3. 😀 9 CAUSES 😀 Am I telling you to NOT get SCAMMED by a Predatory CULT, the MEDICAL/NURSING HOME GAME, FALSE PHARMACEUTICALS💊,GUNS🔫 or the WAR BUSINESS 💣 ? NO ! It's a FREE Country, last I checked, as Long as you know the TRUTH, the Whole TRUTH, NOTHING but the TRUTH, so help me GOD. 😇 THEN U can't BLAME anyone but your OWN SELF for YOUR Choices. I've got 9 CAUSES that are Listed below. Here they are. 😀 SCAMS : 1. PREDATORY Cults 2. DEATH RESORTS - Nursing Homes 3. PHARMACEUTICALS - BIG PHARMA 💊 4. The WAR BUSINESS 💰💰 CAUSES : 5. 3rd WORLD WOMEN 6. HEALTHY LIVING 7. GUN CONTROL 🔫 8. TRUE ISLAM 9. INDIGENOUS PEOPLE 1. PREDATORY CULTS - I have a friend who was in a Predatory Cult. They're ALL the Same. Their REAL motivation is Money 💸 & Power (and usually weird Sex). EXAMPLES are People's Temple & Children of God & Scientology & Moonies/FFWPU/Unification Church & Oneida Community & Jehovah's Witnesses Regarding "The TRUE Family of Mankind" - MOONIES - The Family of SELF-PROCLAIMED Lord of the Second Advent Sun Myung Moon - KNOW THEM BY THEIR FRUITS🍇 The APPLE DOESN'T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE 🍎 ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS 💪 DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO The THINGS People do for MONEY 💸💸💸💸 are the ROOT of ALL EVIL 🙉LEARN FROM YOUR PARENTS🙈 👏PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH👎 1. They're Usually led by a MALE, who is CONVINCED that he is a UNIQUE Voice of GOD. 2. Their MARKET is Disenfranchised, "SEARCHING" People. 3. The members are Always told that they're BETTER than others via being part of "The Master Race, God's Lineage, Chosen Skin Color, Religion, Nationality etc." 4. They get those people to do STRANGE actions such as ALL NIGHT Prayers, FASTING, Working for FREE - raising MONEY 💸💸 & Bringing in New members via the Threat "If you don't do this you WON'T Go to Heaven / be Saved OR WILL Go to Hell" 5. They're Always told to MARRY WITHIN the Cult. 6. The Cults Always say the members' REAL natural FAMILIES are "EVIL / FALLEN" in order to create SOLE "Loyalty" to the Cult 7. The Cults are ALWAYS EXPOSED /Destroyed in the END. 8. The Offspring ALWAYS Leave in DISGUST. 😉 GOOD GROUPS : 1. UCSA 2. FREEDOM OF MIND 2. DEATH RESORTS / NURSING HOMES - They are a BOOMING Business💸 now that the Baby Boomers are hitting their 70s and people are living LONGER and medical care is IMPROVING. In some nations, the Aged Care Business Participants "Are ALL in BED TOGETHER 💸💸" ALMOST Every Doctor, Psychiatrist, Nursing Home, Pharmaceutical Coy., and EVEN the COMPLAINTS Organizations 😨"Share Information together for a NON Caring Purpose" 😉 💸💸 I have a friend who TEMPORARILY spent some time in a Nursing Home due to an Injury. After a Medically Educated Individual REMOVED the Incorrect Medication that she was on, she wrote EVERYTHING Down. There was SO MUCH Verbal & Physical Abuse going on, towards Mostly 70 - 85 year old residents, with the Staff Hoping that the Residents are SODRUGGED UP, that They wouldn't be BELIEVED by others, regarding what was REALLY Going on. After weeks of writing EVERYTHING Down, the Manager KICKED my friend out via calling / lying to the POLICE. It is ALL a SCAM YOU'RE as YOUNG AS YOU FEEL 🙌 70 is the NEW 30 🙌 LEARN from EXPERIENCE You're NOT Getting OLDER, You're getting BETTER GOOD INDIVIDUALS & GROUPS : 1. LET'S TALK 2. LYNDA SALTARELLI 3. DAVID STEWART - IRVING 3. 💊 PHARMACEUTICALS 💊 From Everything that I've read, ALL CANCER, DEMENTIA and AUTISM comes from PHARMACEUTICALS & GMOs. But the DRUG Companies try to Cover their A€£ES via LIES such as "Cancer is Genetic". Currently, 70% of Americans are on PILLS. In 20 years, 40% of USA CHILDREN will be AUTISTIC. WHY is this Happening NOW? PHARMACEUTICALS 💊 : 1. RARELY WORK 2. CAUSE GREATER PROBLEMS 3. SOMETIMES CAUSE DEATH Also, did you know that EVERY Doctor KNOWS that the Pharmaceuticals they're Prescribing cause these 3 Sometimes FATAL Illnesses? So WHY is your OWN Family Doctor doing This? One Word. 💸 MONEY 💸 EVERY DOCTOR gets PAID 💸 KICKBACKS 💸 from the PHARMACEUTICALCOMPANIES when they Prescribe their Drugs💊. The THINGS People do for MONEY 💸💸 are the ROOT of ALL EVIL 😈 Remember THALIDOMIDE? That was a Post WW11 Drug for "Pregnancy Pains". 1 FDA Doctor Repeatedly said that it was Already causing HUGE Problems in Europe and to STOP It Immediately. You know what that Drug Companies said? "Oooh those Bossy Bureaucrats" And the Result? DEFORMED BABIES Left and Right 👹 I am NOT a Hippie Chick who wants an Organic Lifestyle, I'm an Accountant 💸Sales Queen 💸 and I feel that IF a person makes the CHOICE to be involved with a Predatory Cult, Nursing Home, Take Pharmaceuticals, FIGHT / DIE in a War, have an UNhealthy Lifestyle, live as a 3rd World Female, participate in UNREVISED Islam, Buy MURDER WEAPONS, then FINE ! AS LONG AS YOU KNOW : "The TRUTH, the WHOLE TRUTH, NOTHING but the TRUTH, so help me GOD" 😇 Then FREELY & INTELLIGENTLY make your OWN CHOICE. GOOD INDIVIDUALS : 1. DR. BRAD McKAY 2. ROGER BEZANIS 4. The WAR BUSINESS 💸💸 - The USA is a VERY SAD Example of this one. For EVERY WAR Check : a. WHO'S at the TOP ? b. WHERE'S the MONEY 💸💸? In EVERY WAR : 1. Men (usually) RAPE 💸💸 a Country of it's Natural RESOURCES & the INDIGENOUS People get ANGRY & FIGHT BACK 😠 2. The ARMS Companies make Even MORE BIG, BIG Money 💸💸 SELLING BOMBS & GUNS to those Invading Men who want to defend themselves because of their OWN invasion, and SOMETIMES to those ANGRY INDIGENOUS People TOO!! 😂😈😂 WHENEVER there's a Inexplicable SCREW-UP in the World, ALWAYS : 💸 💸 "SHOW ME THE MONEY" 💸💸 GOOD GROUPS : 1. CODE PINK 5. 3rd WORLD WOMEN - 80% of the WORLD (3rd World) sees Females as ONLY : 1. BREEDING Animals 2. Sex TOYS 3. PROPERTY The Time is Coming when the COMMON KNOWLEDGE that Females & Males are Totally EQUAL INTELLECTUALLY will be ACCEPTED WORLDWIDE. ALSO ! IF you wish to Procreate, WHO Ya gonna Call?? 😉 WOMEN are SUPERIOR, BUT! We Don't wanna Remind you... WHY? Cuz WE MADE YOU ! 😂😂😂 GOOD GROUPS : 1. IWDA 2. 50 MILLION MISSING 3. AHA FOUNDATION 4. MALALA FOUNDATION 6. HEALTHY LIVING - People need to be AWARE of the PROPER FOODS to put in their Bodies & how to beneficially MAINTAIN their Body via EXERCISE and CARE. A MAJOR problem in the 1st World is OBESITY. People Must REVISE their food intake and EXERCISE on a DAILY BASIS. 😀 ADD ADDITIONAL Sales TAX 💸💸 to ALCOHOL🍾, CIGARETTES, SUGAR🍩, SALT, MEAT, GLUTEN and DAIRY in order to Cover the GUARANTEEDRESULTING ADDITIONAL HEALTHCARE & TV Ads & PRIMARY School EDUCATION COSTS 💸 GOOD GROUPS : 1. NUTRITION FORCE 2. AUTHORITY NUTRITION 7. GUN CONTROL 🔫 - It's pretty OBVIOUS WHY the USA is the ONLY 1st World Nation that STILL Allows PERSONAL OWNERSHIP of 🔫 MURDER WEAPONS 🔫. One WORD = MONEY 💸💸💸💸. GUN MASSACRES have gone from BI-weekly to WEEKLY to DAILY. The NRA has REFUSED to NOT Sell Guns to "JIHADISTS", WHAT DOES THAT SAY? The NRA Also "Strongly SUGGESTS" to EVERY GUN Company CEO to give them a BIG DONATION 💸💸💸💸 😱 EL CAPITALISTA AMERICANA 💸💸💸💸 MONEY 💸💸💸💸 vs. HUMAN LIFE 😇 8. ISLAM 🌹 - EVERY Single one of my EXCELLENT MUSLIM friends does NOT practice : a. FGM - Female Genital Mutilation - SEXUAL ASSAULT b. CHILD BRIDES & Baci Baazi - PEDOPHILIA c. FORCED MARRIAGE - DEPRIVATION of Liberty/BREEDING d. HONOR KILLINGS - MURDER e. HIJAB/BURKHA - MISOGYNY f. GANG RAPES / ACID ATTACKS - ASSAULT ALL of these "Practices" have NOTHING to do with ISLAM - Qur'an, and EVERYTHING to do with Feudal, ARCHAIC, MIDDLE AGES, PRIMITIVE 3rd WORLD Behaviour. BTW - FGM - Female Genital Mutilation is practiced by BOTH CHRISTIANS and MUSLIMS in NORTH AFRICA, HONOR KILLINGS are performed in BOTH LATIN AMERICA and MUSLIM countries, FORCED Marriage / CHILD BRIDES are performed in 80% of the WORLD - 3rd World. GOOD GROUPS : 1. MUSLIM REFORM MOVEMENT 2. FAITHFREEDOM 3. FAITH 4 FREEDOM 9. INDIGENOUS PEOPLE - 20,000 YEARS vs. 239 Years..... Hmmmm......... EVERY NATION MUST Teach About /Appreciate / Value it's FIRST PEOPLE. EVERY School Child MUST be Taught the History, Culture, Song & Dance of it's INDIGENOUS People NOT Just the WHITE Culture. GOOD INDIVIDUALS & GROUPS : 1. SUNNY REDCLOUD 2. "I'M NOT RACIST, BUT" 3. "1 MILLION INDIGENOUS" #4. 😀 DAILY HEALTH REGIME 😀 1. EAT : a. RAW Fruit & Vegetables b. STARCH - Cereal, Potatoes, Rice, NOREFINED Flour or Cereal c. PROTEIN - (Cheese, Milk, Yogurt, Eggs- but Dairy MAY be a problem - research VEGANISM) Peas, Nuts & Beans (and Fish) 2. 😠 NO 😠 CHEMICALS, NICOTINE, MEAT, ALCOHOL, SUGAR, DAIRY, GLUTEN and MINIMAL Salt 3. Minimum of 1 HOUR DAILY EXERCISE - try an Exercise Machine or a Walk or a Gym #5. 😀 SUGAR & CHEMICALS 😀 🍁 Finally 🍁 everyone knows the Damage that SUGAR can cause to your Body, but ARTIFICIALSWEETENERS are ALSO a very Big DANGER. Coca-Cola's BEST $$ International Market $$ is an Australian Aboriginal community, and in the U.S.A., some Hill-billies put it in their baby's bottles as well. As suggested before, an ADDITIONAL SALES TAX $ must be Added to JUNK FOOD, ALCOHOL, CIGARETTES and Also SUGARY & DIET SOFT DRINKS in order to Cover the GUARANTEED EXTRA COST $ of the ADDITIONAL Government Supplied MEDICAL Care + TV WARNING ADS and PRIMARY SCHOOL EDUCATION that are Necessary for these DANGEROUS substances🍁