Civilization, like everything else, IS what it DOES.  Us surviving Savages are no more favorably impressed, as cann4ing surmised a ways back, with those versions of the thing used to corral our Sisters and Brothers here on Turtle Island (Aztec and Maya, eg.) and on HummingBird Island (most notably Inca), than we are with the imported contraption that displaced them. 

Having raised questions he’s not prepared to answer, cann4ing’s latest rejoinder here seems calculated to divert us from matters of substance to those of happenstance.  That this old Indian has relatives among many different Native Nations here is really more the “norm” than the exception, and has been for many generations.  Those include Lakotah, Dinee (both north and south), Piegan and Blood, TsiTsitsas (Northern Cheyenne), “Nez perce,” Shoshoni, Taos, Hopi, and others in no particular order. 

One reason for the use of some common Lakotah terms here is that it’s been made somewhat accessible to English-speakers who will make the effort to hunt-up the books.  Also, this old Seeker has gone several times to the Paha Sapa Wakan to participate in Ceremonies and more informal get-togethers.

While it’s true many of our People have fallen-prey to the temptations laid-out like bait by those who propagate and “profit” from the civilizing process, and so have had foisted-off on them, among other equally crippling things, an IDentity (often called “tribal”), there remain those of us who’ve kept out of that trap.  So cann4ings assumptions about this Person’s ties of kinship and “geography,” though partly correct, fail considerably to cover the actual extent of either.

It would still be good to get from him some germane responses to the real “issues” raised in our exchange here….independent corroboration of his assumptions about the true nature of both Humanity and “civilization,” for instance.

HokaHey!

By TAO Walker, December 11 at 2:05 pm #

Us free wild Native Peoples, on the other hand, have been around these parts since long before civilization…

____________________________

By “these parts” you appear to be referring to the Black Hills of the Dakotas.  By “Native Peoples” did you intend to exclude your southern brothers and sisters, the Inca and Maya, who erected complex civilizations that are as old as the free and wild Lakota?

Virtually everything cann4ing thinks he “knows” about the nature and “history” of civilization he has received from sources encapsulated entirely within the framework of that same self-referential civilization….likewise with everything he “knows” about his own Human nature and its place within the Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth.  If he can cite for this old Indian a single unbiased witness (ie., a Person who is NOT a domesticated two-legged) to support his homo-centric conceits, he should do it. If he has any objective evidence at all (ie., proof NOT generated solely from inside the contraption itself) as to civilization’s origins and nature and purposes, he should offer it.

It is abundantly clear right now, though, that when it comes to civilization as such, and to Humanity both inside and outside its confines (but most especially the latter), cann4ing has no respectable claim, really, to KNOWING anything at all.  He has received-opinions and inculcated-beliefs and unconfirmed-suspicions galore, as do pretty nearly all of his co-captives, but until he actually gets outside the thing, he can only guess blindly at such things as its CONstruction, extent, current CONdition, and probable fate.

Us free wild Native Peoples, on the other hand, have been around these parts since long before civilization (Vladimir Putin-like?) “....reared (its) head….over Alaska.”  We’ve watched its “progress,” endured its depradations, learned its inherent contradictions, and come-up with beneficially effective organic responses (ie., ones we might ALL go on living with) to the lethally destructive “CONclusion” it is designed to force upon our Mother Earth and all Her Children.

So maybe a little well-deserved modesty might give cann4ing pause before he again presumes to lecture us surviving Savages on what “civilization” really is.  We’ve come by OUR knowledge of it honestly and THE-HARD-WAY….which is why we often refer to its perpetrators here as our “tormentors.”

Here’s a question for cann4ing.  If he and his loved-ones were off a beach somewhere caught in a strong riptide about to sweep them all into oblivion (which in a ceratin way they are), and they’d gotten into that predicament at least in-part by proudly ignoring the cautions of those who’d been living with the “sea” there for generations (which on-the-record they certainly have), would he haughtily tell one of these Natives offering a way to save him and his loved-ones that it was the Native who was “....miss(ing) the point” (unless, of course, “the point” is murder/suicide)?

Our friend cann4ing has his pride, which is part of why we don’t just rush into the maelstrom and drag him out by main-force.  We KNOW how he can return safely to firm “ground.”  He and his, however, must make the choices, and the effort, that’ll get ‘em here….back in Indian Country.

Good luck, Sisters and Brothers.

HokaHey!

As I stated, TAO, you confuse “civilization” with imperialism, the military-industrial complex and predatory capitalism.  It is the later which Gore Vidal takes aim at, not the former.  Thus, Vidal wrote:  “The Pentagon is like a black hole; what goes in is forever lost to us, and no new wealth is created.”

As a member of a people who were early victims to imperial conquest, I can well understand, TAO, how you could so easily confuse the so-called Western Civilization which carried out a genocidal expansion under the racist doctrine of Manifest Destiny with the concept of “civilization” itself.  But the existence of “civilization” is not inextricably linked to war, death, conquest or the unsustainable drive to pillage Mother Earth.  At the core of our present malaise, you will find the vice-into-virtue philosophy which extols as a virtue the vice of greed and inequality.

That “civilization” is co-temporal with “recorded history,” as cann4ing asserts here, is really an admission that it in-fact hasn’t been around these parts very long at all.  The particular version rampant today (for awhile called “western” but lately gone “global”), f’r instance, has been plaguing us here for only about ten-thousand-or-so years now….a blink of the eye, in the aeons-long concert/cotillion Life Herownself conducts here.  Some of its all-but-vanished (even though orders-of-magnitude more sophisticated) predecessors lasted much longer….though even they were the “historical” equivalent of some gotta-have, one-day wonder in today’s fad-driven “marketplace” of industrial waste-products. 

While his abiding faith in some as yet over-the-event-horizon benign “technologies” is as understandable as it is touching, given that cann4ing evidently has no memory-of nor any actual experience-with anything not inextricably bound-up in the civilization process, it might not be this old Indian who is “....missing the point.”  It may be his own bald-faced claim that Humans civilized theirownselfs, contrary not only to all the objective evidence of how the process works, but to plain common sense, that is way wide-of-the-mark here.

Apologists for what domestication hath wrought here all suffer from the amnesia Gore Vidal sees as particularly virulent in theamericanpeople….and their “leaders.”  That this “acumen-deficit-disorder” is one of the much-intended “by-products” of the same process that also degrades Persons into “individuals,” is of course a vital bit of knowledge completely inacessible to its subject/victims….unless brought-in from outside the contraption by some sentimental old Savage who would like to see these captives among our People finally let go “Free at last!”

The thing is, cann4ing’s hopeful(?) expectation that this latest killing-machine will just keep on doing its thing here for “thousands of years” more is doomed to disappointment.  We’re past-due for a long break from training hard-core tormentors away-from their self-glorifying lunacies. 

So get ready for some real “Ch…ch…ch…CHANGES!”

HokaHey!

I think you miss the point, TAO.  My post was not intended to “defend” civilization.  It merely reflects recognition of a basic reality.  “Civilization” is as old as recorded history.  It has been around for thousands of years and will be here long after you and I have departed.

To rail against civilization, as you do, repeatedly, is like complaining that the ocean is filled with water.  The number of individuals actually living what you describe as “free and wild” is so small as to scarcely receive recognition by the billions who do accept the benefits of civilization, and The Way, while consistent with a more balanced ecology, simply will not sustain life for the billions of people you refer to as “tame two-leggeds.”

Your statement that domestication is not a natural event in any other species ignores the basic fact that while other species are capable of congregating in herds, the only species that is capable of creating civilizations is the human species.  Civilizations are the product of their ability to divide labor, providing sub-fields of specialization so that while a segment of society is devoted to food gathering and cultivation, others are engaged in a wide range of endeavors, both cultural and scientific, within civilization.

This was true even for the 19th Century Lakota, who divided tasks between male and female.  What you condemn as “civilization” merely takes that division of labor to a more complex level.  And while you make the perfectly valid point of the harmonious relationship between the free and wild human being and nature afforded by The Way, you fail to demonstrate how The Way could be made a viable option for the billions of your “domesticated brothers and sisters” in the 21st Century.

I think you confuse “civilization” with the products of imperialism and exploitative capitalism, which blinds you to the possibility of a non-exploitative form of human relationships within a civilization that turns to environmentally sustainable technologies.

HokaHey!

The awfulness of our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq is now almost a truism. It seems kind of ridiculous to discuss them as such at this point, and yet I do think this article raises a really interesting question: how do we keep terrorist networks from proliferating on our own soil?

Futhermore, what can we do to keep weapons of mass destruction out of their hands? Talk all you want about ideology and the sowing of hate; it seems at the end of teh day, free speech will always prevail. The problem remains, though, how the Bush administration in response to 9/11 enacted policies that expanded our bioterrorism research facilities, and hence put more access to terrorists to place an informant researcher. All we need is one terrorist to get their hands on Ebola in our country (and they can) and we’re completely helpless. You can’t stop the terrorist mindset, but you can limit their access to deadly weapons.

This great story over at FLYP (http://www.flypmedia.com/issues/18/#1/1) talks about how the Bush policies—argued on the notion that we need to research deadly pathogens to make us safer from attacks that originate abroad—have only made us less safe. Check it out, it might change your idea of how we should justly and safely fight the war on terror.

(C)ann4ing’s concern for the fate of billions of tame two-legged “individuals” is no doubt as sincere as it is….well, “Much ado about nothing.”  His hopes for some institutionally and technologically benign arrangment that will afford them all the “opportunity” to realize their “individual dreams” can persist only by studiously ignoring the obviously destructive consequences already wrought upon our Living Arrangement here by ten millennia or-so of just exactly that lethal combination of motives, methods, and mis-direction.

His assumption that this old Indian’s use of the term “sub-species” is meant to suggest the domesticated peoples, as such, are inferior to us free wild Human Beings, is as gratuitous as it is mistaken.  If cann4ing has in fact been following this old Man’s offerings here as claimed, then he should know it is the CONDITION our captive Sisters and Brothers are in that is as degenerative as it is degrading to its subjects….and yes, they are a lot worse-off in that respect than we are.

Persons so thoroughly indoctrinated in the fundamental conceits of “civilization” as cann4ing seems to be, though, cannot be faulted for taking-up-for-it when these are called into question.  It is….ironic(?), nevertheless, that someone who would probably easily recognize some disease running rampant through some population for the (by-definition) abberrant and undesirable condition it would be, is unable to make that “connection” between their own adored “civilization” and the obviously sickening effects it is having not only on our Living Arrangement as a Whole, but even more severely on its Human and other inmates in-particular.  Again….no blame, just fact.

Maybe this old Savage’s working assumption here (that people caught in some kind of catastrophic combination of events and circumstances overwhelming the “safeguards” they believed were in-place to deal with such things might welcome some assistance from others not so entrapped) is overly optimistic.  Maybe cann4ing’s obsession with sheer numbers just won’t give-way to a plain statement that the “numbers” are….functionally irrelevant.  If “civilization” is not merely a process, but some kind of maybe divinely-ordained or humanly-inevitable “project,” then its “true believers” will likely prefer to go-down with it rather than concede that the whole damned contraption has been a terrible mistake.

It sure wouldn’t (and won’t) be the first time.

Sepharad may not be as deeply embedded in the virtual “world” of civilization as those who effectively worship it.  She still appears to remain, though, sufficiently confused by its habits and usages not to be able to see the inherent contradiction in a term like “wild civilization,” or the inescapable redundancy in one like “domesticated civilization.”  She does have the good fortune to live every day, anyway, with Equines still being Horses….even while having to accomodate their essential nature to the circumstance of their (at-least) semi-captivity. 

This, too, shall pass.

HokaHey!

The Freaks of Hebron

A Must See Video: Israeli Terrorist Settler Shooting Palestinians in Hebron

12.06.2008 | PalestineThinkTank.com
By Haitham Sabbah

Spread and distribute WIDELY!

“Footage filmed by Jamal Abu-Sa’ifan, a Palestinian resident of Hebron, documenting a terrorist Israeli settler shooting two members of his family.

The event occurs following the eviction settlers from a Palestinian house they occupied in Hebron. Settlers attacked the nearby house of the Abu-Se’ifan family, and during ensuing clashes, a settler fired his handgun at Hosni Abu-Se’ifan (40), who was hit in the chest and is in stable condition, and his father, ‘Abd al-Hai Abu-Sa’ifan (65) who was moderately wounded in his arm. The two were taken to a Hebron hospital. The video shows other members of the family manage to overcome the shooter, later more terrorist settlers from the nearby settlement Kiryat Arba arrives and the scene, and fires their weapon toward the Palestinian family.”

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11& ar=2194

Tao, as much as there is to admire in the Lakota people and Tiyoshpaye, I have to tell you that I am concerned there is also, in your posts, a degree of provincialism, perhaps even racist sentiments of superiority, combined with a world view that leads you to dehumanize the vast bulk of humanity, which you have, at various times, demeaned as “two-legged domesticated” types or, which, in one instance, you referred to as a “sub-species.”

Your rail against the evils of “civilization” ignoring the fact that civilization is as old as the written word.  Even among the native populations, there were the great ancient civilizations, e.g. Maya, Inca, which no doubt you, as a Lakota Medicine Man, look down upon.

You skillfully use both the internet and the English language which are both products of “civilization,” yet see no contradiction in your choice of the products of civilization as the means for communication by one who is “free and wild.”

More importantly, you have repeatedly ignored the central point of my past critiques—that “The Way” of the Lakota provided a much admired, sustainable existence for the Lakota people in the small numbers that existed in the 19th Century but would not and could not sustain the mass of humanity in the 21st Century.  While you deflected this by noting that “The Way” does not have an expiration date, you ignore the reality that of the world’s billions of peoples alive today, only a handful, perhaps some thousands, actually live free and wild.

I think the world would be better served by not only understanding what worked for the Lakota but what clean technological solutions and cooperative/equitable socioeconomic relationships can be applied to both assure a sustainable planet and the quality of life for the greatest number of individuals.  Those billions of individuals cannot be reduced to a “sub-species” or compared to domestic animals like dogs and cats.  They are living, breathing human beings, each with his or her own hopes and desires for a decent life.

Mike W’s characterizations of what our Lakotah cousins call the Tiyoshpaye Way as some sort of ethno-specific social configuration maybe reveals again the tendency of domesticated peoples to try to force everything into the CONtext of their own captivity….even though that condition accounts for a vanishingly miniscule proportion of ALL-There-Is.  This old Turtle Clan member, in other offerings here-and-there around this site, has tried (no doubt inadequately, given the “language barrier” and whatever personal limitations come into play) to show that “Tiyoshpaye” is, rather, a word some of us use to describe the organic Human FORM within the Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth.  Other Peoples have other words for it.  The English “community” would serve if it weren’t being applied so promiscuously these days to every random collection of “individuals” around, rendering it semantically devalued.

It is common among our tame Sisters and Brothers to mistake their own atomized and “individuated” two-legged SHAPE for our actual form….to believe that as “individuals” they represent the fundamental expression of Humanity here, even though not one of ‘em ever popped into existence all by their self, nevermind made it out of infancy even, or can make it through a single day all on their own self-generated devices.  Mike W is onto something though when he likens the natural Human form of Tiyoshpaye to the natural form of Wolf, which is called (but not by Wolves) a “pack.”

Mike W, like virtually all his fellow (‘n’ gal) prisoners, seems pre-disposed to insist that all “conditions” are “created equal.”  Yet few of them are unable to make the critical distinction between a pack of wild Wolves just being freely what they are, and a similarly-sized collection of “individual” Canis Lupus on-display in a Zoo.  Most people will also acknowledge that (at least from the Wolves’ point-of-view) the free wild ones, taking their chances in the ages-old Way of their kind, have by-far the much better and more desirable life.

When it comes to applying the same considerations to their own degraded estate, however, tame Two-leggeds have a real hard time getting past the programming to which they and their ancestors’ve been subject for at least five-or-six-hundred generations….no blame, just fact.  It is obviously true that all Lifeforms will, as best they can, accomodate to whatever ambient conditions they must live with.  Humans who’ve been corralled in this “civilizing” contraption go on being “consumers.”  Wolves go on being “dogs.”  Turkeys go on being “dinner.”

It is also as obvious that no “species” ever domesticates itself.  Some “alien” agency is active in such a process in every case.  Humans here have, of course, subjected quite a few of our Relatives to the degradation of taming and exploiting them for the “exclusive benefit” of their selfs….supposedly with no knowledge or understanding on the part of the “victims” as to the nature or degree of their subjugation.  It is maybe a testimony to the cleverness of our tormentors that their Human pets and livestock are every bit as clueless about their own “inferior” position in the pyramid-scheme pretending to be the “dominant paradigm” in these parts.

That’s all coming to THE END, though.  Call it what he will, Mike W will one of these Good Days find him and his “clan” back in the Tiyoshpaye Way.

HokaHey!

TAO,

At this moment, I just read a paragraph of Obama’s “Dreams from my Father”. I see a possible parallel to our discussion and your story.

He writes of his visit to Kenya, a city built by outsiders, a place where locals struggle with outside and self-discrimination, prejudices, identity, and way of life. He writes of a worker, a waiter…

“…he (the waiter) learned that the same people who controlled the land before independence still controls the same land, that he still cannot eat in the restaurants or stay in the hotels that the white man has built. He sees the money of the city swirling above his head, and the technology that spits out goods from its robot mouth. If he’s ambitious, he will do his best to learn the white man’s language and use the white man’s machines, trying to make ends meet the same way the computer repairman in Newark or the bus driver in Chicago does, with alternating spurts of enthusiasm or frustrations but mostly with resignation. And if you say to him that he’s serving the interests of neocolonialism or some other such thing, he will reply that yes, he will serve if that is what’s required. It is the lucky ones who serve; the unlucky ones drift into the murky tide of hustles and odd jobs; many will drown.”

TAO, this passage jumped out to me – strikingly similar to our very exchange of thoughts here. You, me, Bin Laden maybe, Barrack Obama, this waiter…, all beings trying to understand the true path and the correct way of life (Tiyoshpaye Way?).

My guess is that Barrack did not choose the “Tiyoshpaye Way”. He chose the path of the waiter. The path to better his family which includes “the people”. He served, serves and lives the life of the “domesticated” a “caged livestock” as you would say. He follows a path that you insinuate and indicate to mean the broken path. I suspect that Barrack Obama was not “beaten” but rather adapted to our new and evolved life system. He is finding and found his place in “The Natural Human Form”. If our Lakotah Cousins live in their specific and individual clan pack, I believe that they may have misunderstood the true Tiyoshpaye Way. But then again, I am simply still learning. I seek the true way to happiness. If I shall find it before the sun sets for good, I will consider myself to be a lucky one.

TAO,

In my last posting, my cells were altered from the liquids and music that united our different clans that night. Today, my senses slightly clearer, I see and understand that one possibly should not “give in” and abandon their way of life and personal beliefs. Hearing that you never separated from Mother Earth and that you refuse to “walk down the new trail” is comforting (but also slightly disturbing). I find it difficult to agree or disagree on this. My “clan” was transplants from Europe. The old ones brought with them their “values” and their “prejudices” too (to “their New World”). I could suppose that their ways were/are just as “sacred” as your ways and your traditions. I broke from these ways and opened my eyes and my heart to others outside “the clan”.

To embrace your “Tiyoshpaye Way”, I would again be “giving up” and “beaten” and accepting something outside my original beliefs. I lean toward “One with Nature”. This is our true roots. However, clans and family go back just as far as roots for our seed stems from “Mom and Dad.”

So, the terrorist is from within all of us TAO. It is our natural and instinctive survival abilities and traits that enable us and that proves us to be one with Nature. It could be said then that us domesticated animals struggle with our identities because we struggle with who we are. We became smart enough to be domesticated but at the same time, we have our “wild traits” that unavoidably controls our very aggressive, yet necessary, actions and behavior. I suspect you have followed your path with a certain “clan”. A clan that you believe lives free and wild, and true to man and nature. I also suppose that you may respect all and know that we are all ONE people under Mother Earth. But, you all believe that it is the other clans (not yours) that has swayed from the true path.

So, the question to myself is:
Which clan and way of life does one turn from or toward? Joining your way of life, to be free and wild and to find my way back to Mother Earth makes me “beaten” or “enlightened”? Free and wild must not mean free and passive for wild is wild. To get back to who we are, you and I must embrace our natural selves. We can not have it both ways…we are the wolves in the wild prairies…grouping in similar packs…and attacking the weaker and slower moving prey……

I wish I had the answers to a brighter day. The rising Sun brings comfort to the one who takes the time to meet Her. She rises and the day is bright. But, she leaves us and it all becomes dark, dark for us to ponder if it will be bright again soon.

This old Indian does indeed remember “Mike W” from when we were both making these “tracks” along another “trail” here.  There was sure no intention to suggest that Sepharad has nothing worthwhile to offer us.  She has plenty.  That earlier comment was meant only to illustrate how difficult it is for Persons stuck INSIDE this contraption Mike W seems to think we must all surrender-to, to see their Way at all clear of it.

Their predicament is compounded by an induced inability to even imagine there might be some of us who are not in-fact inmates of the “global” prison that appears to’ve “conquered” the world here in the waning days of the present “age.”  Mike W seems to believe that because he himself admits to having been “beaten,” so must’ve been everyone else….and so we ought to just accept that and make the-best of it.

The thing is, not all of us have been made subject to the self-declared “dominant paradigm.”  Some of us surviving free wild natural Human Beings are actually continuing to respond to its rapacious and murderous presence here according to our given organic function within the Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth.  We don’t need to “get back to (Her)” for the good reason that we’ve never been separated from Her….unlike our unfortunately domesticated Sisters and Brothers, two-legged and otherwise….who are only cut-off in their own mistaken beliefs about The Way of things here.

Anyhow, it looks like underneath his own apparent resignation, Mike W remembers it’s ALL just the neverending Song ‘n’ Dance of Life Herownself….Good Times had by all.  There is in fact a place for Humanity in this Beauty Way….filling our place with integrity contributes greatly to the health of The Whole.  Even the domesticated peoples are doing the best they can in that regard….given the extreme handicaps they’re afflicted with.  They might do even better, though, if they remembered what exactly it is they’re given to do here.

This old Savage “logs-in” here occasionally in hopes of stirring some of that “genetic” memory in those who seem presently out-of-touch with it.  No “moral” or “value” judgements of a Personal nature are intended….ever.

HokaHey!

T. Walker,

I wonder if you remember me from previous discussions on thee atheist dig here.

I hear you but do not understand your signs. I see Sepharad as a guest here and I would love to hear more and learn more from her point of view. To me, she seems to view conflicts and life in a realistic manner. I see you may run a parallel with the native americans and the palestinians but as you know the American Indians did not have a choice in their struggles with the white man. I admit that I am not too educated on the Palestinian conflict but I do realize that when one has been beat, they should give it up. So, as Sepharad mentioned in regards to Bin Laden… he should just give it up and take care of his family or at the very least, live in peace and make the most of his life, family and situation.

…if the big Guy wants to screw around, he may just end up like a couple of mangled up kids like our old friend, Saddam Hussein (and his sons).  Where did their choices get them as a family?

My redblood brother or sister, we can not get back to Mother Earth. Our worldly society needs to implode and life needs to start from scratch again. I beg you to accept life as we have it now. Stop living in a past that will not return - in your lifetime. You, Bin Laden and any other idealist of a simpler day will take that dream, with you, to your graves. It is a shame but this is reality.

Tonight, I have just returned from a restaurant outing. My wife and I unexpectively ended up in the bar area and “partied” with the band, their family members and other mixed breed patrons. T, it brought tears to my eyes as we all sang, drank, danced and laughed together. My wife is Asian, me white, band, family and friends black… Temps in the teens and snowing outside as the evening turned into morning. My friend, I am not a preacher by no means… but when all become ONE, life becomes the TRUE “natural Human form”. Today was a good day. Tomorrow, I could hope and strive for better. Death will be easier if my memory is filled with these “good” days. I wish you the same. Peace to your heart.

Ego ga han

It’s not difficult to understand why so many here latch onto this that or another feature of “the situation” in hopes it offers a “key” to some over-arching resolution.  Sepharad and the trumped-up Palestinian/Israeli “conflict,” offer us an example of that.  Inevitably, though, it is only some ideological or institutional or electro-mechanical sub-system that gets this focus….none of which are anywhere near the core of what ails the domesticated peoples.  All of that completely UN-natural “male enhancement,” in fact, is merely symptomatic of the uderlying dis-ease, which is the very process of “civilization” itself.

All the goodwill in the world will not serve for anything but “temporary relief” from some particularly destructive part of the process.  Only abandoning the death-dealing contraption and returning to the integrity of our organic form and function within the Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth offers the tame two-leggeds presently milling about in terrified confusion a viable alterNATIVE to the thing that is, by design and intent, attempting to murder them AND or Mother.

The “problem,” at its roots, is essentially biological.  A sub-species (and domesticated humans are just that) attempting to wage war on its own life-support-system is doomed.  There is no way americans or anyone else can survive such monumental and mostly self-inflicted insanity.

There is, always, the Tiyoshpaye Way, as our Lakotah Cousins call the natural Human form.  There surely isn’t any other, Sisters and Brothers.

HokaHey!

You are bascially right, Yellowbird, so you have to expect to get attacked by fake Progressives who identify with oppressive power. You have a lot of important things to say, but people could read them easier if you used paragraphs and skipped a line after every few sentences.

Yellowbird,

Your very presence here screams that you are an active participant in the corporate game. You purchase electricity, coal, natural gas, oil, all type of food and other products etc…You also pollute the air, ground and water. Your electromagnet generating hands are just as dirty as the ones you seek to expose.

“You have been around for a long, long year.
Stole many a man’s soul and faith.
You were round when Jesus Christ,
had his moment of doubt and pain.
You made damn sure that Pilate
washed his hands and sealed his fate.”
(Jagger)

Yellowbird, I suspect that you see a glass of formaldehyde half full rather than half empty. I rather have had you spent the last seven years counting your blessing and being grateful that your country (or another) did not send another attack in your direction.
Focus your energy toward the heroic efforts of those passengers that went down in that field rather than toward the building that may have been supposed to be hit.

“You held a general’s rank when the blitzkrieg rank, and the bodies stank”

“You watched with glee while your kings and queens, fought for ten decades, for the gods they made.”

“You shouted out, ‘Who killed the Kennedys’ but after all, it was you and ME”

The “men in white hats” so “busy protecting” as a “force for good” is FABRICATION folks made up on “fabricated” enemies: in reality, the women & children of not only THIS nation but every country THEY have been to with their Corps overthrowing any Gov who wants to do social good for their country or cares for the people & refuses their money: they ALWAYS put in “dictatorships” who are as corrupt & polluted as they are. Our nation is the one who trains torturers folks: they are there behind the genocides: just like they sent folks to train torturers in Mexico: who is involved in civil war since Clinton while Pres bribed THEIR Pres with $, & the USA Corps went in & took away the peoples land & water rights; Clinton did it because Bush Sr could not get it thru; HE did; So TELL ME that there is a “2 party” system in the USA: when they are in total agreement following a preset agenda AGAINST the people of the USA & the world, taking it globally cuz they have gotten away with it in the USA for so many years. Afghanistan: “women” being abused???? PLEASE! Let me explain to you: that the way this nation is run is this: CHEMICALS added to the food; foods processed CHEMICALLY to cause SICKNESS & DISEASE: making them the #1 country in killing babies. THIS is the reason for USA being #1 in infants deaths for years; Congress passed in 2 seconds flat at their request to NO LONGER HAVE TO LIST all ingredients put into FOOD. CBS.COM log onto 700 Club: eat THIS don’t eat THAT when eating out; almost 1000 to 2000 milligrams of CHEMICALLY TREATED SALT which turns to poison 15 minutes after hitting your system: now causing kidney stones rapidly: causing excrutiating & agonizing pain for CHILDREN!

oh yes: 9-11: perhaps YOU can explain how it was that the WTC 7 building had black smoke pouring out of it, & “collapsed” just like the twin towers did, & was REPORTED doing so prior to it actually happening on Corp owned ABC who works with the Gov on “telling” the “people” the news: note: THEY also had the 75 retired military men with connections to Pentagon & contractors who 6 months PRIOR to 9/11 were being trained on “how to speak” as authorities on why Saddam Hussain whom our lawless leaders had agreed to remove from power in 1996; you can also gto youtube & view “the stuff nightmares are made of” if it hasn’t already been removed showing exactly how the “men in white hats, a “force for good” combatting evil” came about: PEOPLE PERCEPTION; military terminology: perception management: by controlling what is SEEN on TV, READ in print, & misdirection, “authorities” supposedly, stating something that of course, MUST be true: when it is all a fabrication of LIES, DECEIT, & “false” reports appearing REAL. BEST RECENT EXAMPLE: melamine found in infants formula in USA. FORCED to release information by AP thru FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT: read at http://www.naturalnews.com; & of course, the FDA immediately issuing a statement saying “it is in trace amounts, will do NO HARM to infants”; of course, little RAT POISON is AOK for BABIES, ISN"T IT!!!!! and of COURSE they are TRUTHFUL: listen the REPORT: the chemicals found in the BPA is nonharmful: (written by the CHEMICAL COMPANY who MAKES IT!

Interesting article.

Yellowbird is a name of a drink. One that affects the brain’s logic system and which usually brings one, happiness.  Yellowbird could be an American Indian. One who may have difficulty moving past their ancestors’ struggles, defeats and the injustices imposed against them? 

First off, Americans and the Allies almost lost World War II. Disregarding some important players (who profited before, after and during the war), the people and most leaders were in the fight of their life. Our location, with the oceans protecting us, probably saved us from defeat. Who on this forum believes that we would still be in existence today if we have not taken the steps that we did toward victory? There was a race to the atomic bomb and the USA came in first – luckily. Do not drop the bombs and invade Japan (a country who would never have surrendered)? Is this what you truly believe Eileen Fleming? War is a monster and in 1945, we were deep in her belly.  Yes, by dropping those bombs Eileen, today you are able to have your website and freedom instead of a slumped over back, slouched over and working a godforsaken rice paddy field. Look at the land grab from the victors after the war. It has taken years for countries to regain their countries back from the Soviets. Imagine Japan and the USA fighting conventially for years after 1945. Also, imagine us losing possibly.

Now, imagine 9/11/2001. Not planes loaded with fuel and passengers but with terrorists supplied anthrax, atomic destructive energy, virus killing and infectious diseased living beings etc…You all forget too well the fear in you on that day. You would have sent your smiling grandmother to the end of the world if it would save mankind from that terror. You hooted and cheered when the first bombs were launched and you glowed with immense pride as our president outlined his expectations to the world, our attackers and their supporters.

Then came Iraq. It was a statement and an attempt to continue our way of life here in the States. I ask you to dig deep in your hearts and minds. There, if you are truly honest with yourself, you will find an ingrained and evolutionary gift. This inherent gift kept and keeps our species alive for thousands and thousands of years. Our brains try to trick and try to convince ourselves and others that our primal thoughts are a thing of the past. But, they are not gone; they are still with us. We were satisfied and felt safer when the Taliban were mercilessly slaughtered. When Saudis showed up instead of Afghans, we wondered but did not cry out loud. When Iraqis became the next targets, we no longer felt the need to attack, for our stomachs were already filled and our vengeance was already satisfied. So, we needed a little thoughts of Anthrax and WMD weapons in the hands of a crazy dictator, a dictator who pays money to suicide bomber families, so we were told, and who would certainly sell it to our enemies. If these were all lies, they may be lies for the American good. They may be lies from leaders who followed their own fears and duty to protect their people in the future.

Instinctive skills for survival – leaders with the courage to follow and act on these skills… Financially, we Americans are in trouble but we live on another year for ourselves and for our offspring to grow, seed and continue life into the future. Try to convince yourself that you do not have comfort knowing that we are close to our “enemy” in that region. Try to convince yourself that you are better than the corporate greed or military might. Try to convince yourself that you would not embrace your inner and original traits and behavior in that moment of desperate survival. You, me, them; Yes, we all are human terrorists with similar and exact genetic makeup. We should be thankful and fearful at the same exact moment. It is only when you realize this that inner peace could be achieved. The peace knowing that all man is equal to each other and also to other beasts.

Thank you so much for this wonderful, even if painful, piece. It is comforting to think that there must be many out there who think the way you do, even if we lack the talent to write it so compellingly or the historical knowledge to back it up.

When you think about it, it takes a lot more guts to be a suicide bomber than a U.S. bomber crew.  I mean, both types kill innocent civilians, but the one has demonstrated courage while the other has demonstrated technological proficiency, eh?

Chris Hedges wrote:

“The world is far more complex than our childish vision of good and evil.”

I am not sure what that nonsense means??!! I thought
the attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan were for oil and
oil pipe lines routes and for good locations for military bases.

Simply amazing!

In this one brief essay, Chris Hedges has both educated us broadly, historically, and morally, and has extended the end-of-life revelations of another great moral leader, Dr. Martin Luther King!!

In the year before Dr. King was assassinated he had greatly expanded his thoughts and teachings regarding the economic oppressions, militarist tyranny, and inhuman unfairness of the entrenched ruling empire upon the civil rights of Black Americans living in our ‘democracy’, as he recognized and spoke-out about similar injustices wrought, by the same empire, upon poor, ‘working class’ whites being forced into war against poor, ‘working class’  Vietnamese.

King’s spark of non-violent actions against the entire structure of oppressive, militarist, and sometimes murderous ruling-elite empire against all “God’s people”, on the universal basis only of class, was a revelation that was quickly extinquished with King’s murder.

In this one brief essay, Hedges has reignited a flame of real ‘hope’; in democracy against empire, that Obama would be wise to recognize as the kind of “change we can all TRULY believe in.”

In this one brief essay, Hedges has reignited and universalized the ‘hope’ that our founding American fathers recognized in rebelling against an economically oppressive and politically tyrannical British Empire that also humiliated, degraded, and oppressed our own ancestral patriots for democracy against empire.

Now, when so clearly a ruling-elite ‘corporate financial Empire’ controls our country behind the facade of its two-party, ‘Vichy’ sham of faux-democracy, prosecuting illegal and immoral imperialist wars ‘abroad’, while pauperizing our own citizens with economic oppression and looting ‘at home’, Hedges is clearly connecting with Hannah Arendt’s timeless warning that, “Empire abroad (always) entails tyranny at home”.

Chris speaks to us today, and educates us today, through the prophetic truth that both Arendt, and Dr. King, as earlier moralists and pragmatists against empire, championed for America.

Let’s hope that Obama hears these voices and truths of real democratic change against empire.

Mr. Hedges, I always learn from your eloquent essays.  Thank you.

As usual, not one word about governments (like our own in D.C.) SPONSORING, ARMING, TRAINING, FUNDING, PROTECTING known terrorists and groups. 

Ample evidence exists that this happens all the time.  However, the icons of “the left” never tread there.  Ever.  I can count on one hand the journalists who cover these issues.

It renders the rest of the article superficial, vapid, chatter.

If you won’t face the evidence of false flag attacks, protection of terrorists and the deliberate cultivating of this new “enemy”, then you really don’t have much to say.

The terror games are becoming ever more blatant, yet reams and reams of facts won’t be acknowledged (here), instead opting for a neo-lib interpretation of the ‘war on terror,’ that if honest, is woefully ignorant.

“Terror” is big business, Chris.  Terrorism has replaced Communism as the world’s boogey man.  This was by design, not from haphazard chance.

US allies by the name of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have actively created the “Al Qaeda” network and a variety of spinoffs, while being protected by CIA and a succession of white houses over several decades.  This is a grand strategy, and intentionally so.

I could easily put forth a few thousand words and l