Preamble: Who are We and What Can We Become?
The time has come to end our complicity in mass murder.
Our exposure of the Canadian genocide has simultaneously indicted the social order that gave rise to it. Euro-Canadian Christian society as a whole stands condemned in the dock alongside those persons who ran the Indian residential schools, sterilized and murdered children, spread smallpox, and dug mass graves.
Despite their best efforts to ignore this fact and contain the whole matter with pseudo “apologies”, the Canadian government and its partner Catholic, Anglican and United churches now face the same kind of historical reckoning that Nazi Germany did after its defeat in 1945: an awakening to their own criminal nature.
On April 20, 2007, Canada and those churches suffered a fundamental moral defeat in Parliament, when the first cabinet minister in Canadian history publicly acknowledged that untold thousands of children had died in Christian Indian residential schools.
The extent of this defeat has yet to be appreciated by most Canadians, or even indigenous people. But its impact is nevertheless reverberating throughout every level of society and undermining the very basis of Canada ’s existence.
The question now is how to draw the larger conclusions of this defeat in order to reinvent Canada from the top down, and the bottom up, with a basic purpose: the establishment of a decolonized, secular, and genuinely democratic federation of sovereign nations: The Republic of Kanata.
Shedding the Past, Creating a Future
Canada has never been allowed to become a sovereign and democratic nation because of its historical role as a resource base and captured market for first the British and then the American empire. That dependency required that Canada remain frozen as a colonial, church-dominated, semi-feudal society: a condition that has caused the sustained genocide of indigenous peoples and the destruction of their lands, and now threatens the lives of all of us.
The two attempted democratic revolutions in our history – the abortive rebellions in 1837 in Upper and Lower Canada, and the Metis Insurrection of 1885 in the Red River basin – had as their common aim the ending of an Imperial oligarchy and the creation of a democratic Republic in which aboriginals and Europeans could co-exist equally. The crushing of both rebellions ensured that oligarchy and apartheid would remain the political norm in Canada.
And yet, the same vision of freedom that propelled these revolts had been first offered by the eastern Six Nations to the arriving Europeans through the “Two Road Wampum” Great Law of Peace, in which both cultures would share the land and not seek to dominate or conquer the other.
That offer was rejected not by Europeans as a whole, but by the religious and commercial elites who ran the foreign policy of both the French and British Empires, especially during the European Religious Wars of the formative 17th century.
Time and again, the Catholic and Protestant churches subverted peaceful relations between whites and natives, and among aboriginal nations such as the Huron and Iroquois, as part of their plan to exterminate all non-Christian peoples and take their land. In the words of the Jesuit missionary Jean Brebeuf,
“There can be no peace or parity between the savages and Christians. This is required by our Faith and the fur trade.”
Canada as we know it has arisen on the basis of this basic philosophy of Christian Superior Dominion.
There is still no equality between natives and non-natives in Canada because of an apartheid Indian Act that relegates “Indians” to a separate and inferior status, and holds most of them in a state of permanent sickness, landlessness and poverty on their own lands. Such permanent internal colonialism is required by the foreign and domestic corporate interests that run Canada as a fuel pump and watering hole.
Quite simply, in a neo-colonial regime like Canada , where “the Crown” legally owns all the land, native people must continue to be killed off, legally and methodically, for such theft to continue. A constant aboriginal death rate twenty times the national average is the deadly proof of this regime.
This genocidal reality will never change in Canada as it is presently constituted, since the maintenance of natives, and the poor generally, as a disempowered cash cow for others to exploit is an institutionalized part of Canadian society.
The nine billion dollar Indian Affairs industry requires a sick, dependent aboriginal populace, and a compliant class of collaborating native elites to administer this sickness. For the resulting totalitarian control of native people at every level is precisely what resource-hungry corporations need to take the last remnants of oil, timber, minerals and water from what is still aboriginal land.
Such a structurally criminal regime cannot be tinkered with or reformed, resting as it does on the oppression of most of the population, whether native or non-native. The existence of Canadians as “subjects of the Crown” under the ultimate authority of one person – a Governor-General accountable only to a foreign monarch – amounts to a state of legal slavery utterly repugnant to democracy and sovereignty.
“The only way to reform a colonial system is by dismantling it” said the great Irish nationalist, Bernadette Devlin. And the key to dismantling the Canadian oligarchy is to establish responsible government by severing ties with the English monarchy and creating a federated and secular Republic of sovereign indigenous nations with full public ownership of the economy, the land, and all its resources.
In short, every vestige of the system that spawned genocide in Canada needs to be abolished, if we are serious about ending its legacy and doing justice to aboriginal people and residential school survivors.
We believe that the original vision of the Two Road Wampum is still possible to enact in our land: of equality and living justice between all our nations. But to build this dream, we must first dismantle that which has prevented it.
A Program for Ending Genocide
Legal genocide in Canada has rested historically on three pillars: a colonial political oligarchy under the authority of the English Crown; a powerful, unaccountable and state-protected religious oligarchy in the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, and later, the state-created United Church; and a foreign-controlled, dependent economy.
To dismantle the root causes of genocide in Canada, we must replace all three of these systems, through a process of active de-construction and reconstruction: undoing what caused the wrong and building an altogether new political and social regime in its place.
To commence, our general aim must be the following steps of “decolonization and de-construction” in order to lay the basis for a true democratic and secular Republic:
I. Politically: Active disaffiliation from the English Crown and the Canadian state and its courts;
II. Spiritually: Disestablishment of the Roman Catholic, Anglican and United Church of Canada; and
III. Socially: De-corporatizing our economy and establishing local, self-sufficient economies under public ownership.
A real Program of Justice for all victims of genocide in Canada must restore social equality, the health of the land, and democratic sovereignty of all nations within Kanata , through these and other measures:
I. Politically:
1. Abolish the office of the Governor-General, disavow all Oaths of Allegiance to the British Crown, and issue a formal Declaration of Independence from the Crown.
2. Establish a new Constitution of the Republic of Kanata. Reconstitute Canada as a federated and secular Republic of Kanata, based on a recognition of the root title sovereignty of all indigenous nations and of the common ownership by all citizens of the economy, wealth, lands and resources of Kanata.
3. Abolish the Canadian armed forces, the Indian Act, the federal and provincial courts, the Senate, the RCMP, and the Indian and Northern Affairs department and their puppet aboriginal agencies.
4. Create a new standing army based on popular citizen militias.
5. Establish popular, indigenous courts of law.
II. Spiritually:
1. Tax the churches: Revoke the charitable tax-exempt status of the Roman Catholic, Anglican and United Church, nationalize all church property and land, audit and assess all payments owed by these churches to the people and indigenous nations since their inception, and return all lands and effects stolen by these churches from native people.
2. Revoke the legal charters and legislation governing the Roman Catholic, Anglican and United Church of Canada, and thereby end their official, legal status.
3. End diplomatic recognition of the Vatican and expel the Papal Nuncio.
4. Separate church and state: no funding for religious schools or churches, no religious oaths or functions connected to the state, no state protection for clergy or churches (ie, revoke sections 176 and 296 of the Criminal Code of Canada).
5. Establish a public, international inquiry into crimes of these churches against native people, including in Indian residential schools, with the power to subpoena, try and jail offenders.
III. Socially
A Jubilee Campaign to restore the land and economy to the people:
1. Cancel all debts and mortgages, and return all land to its original owners.
2. Place banks, money supply and credit under public ownership and control.
3. Impose a 100% tax on all wealth gained by inheritance, interest and speculation, and abolish all income tax.
4. Establish a maximum wage and redistribute all surplus income to the lower paid.
5. Collect all back taxes owed by corporations and impose a special tax on the super wealthy and on corporate profits.
6. Abolish foreign ownership of the economy.
7. Abolish all land speculation and the commercial trading in land.
8. Nationalize all resources.
9. Socialize all housing, medicine, education and transportation, and make these services freely available to all people.
10. Create Local Exchange and Trading (LET) networks across Kanata to decentralize and democratize the economy, abolish money and credit, and harmonize humanity with the earth.
A Gaia Campaign to restore the health and harmony of the land:
1. Impose a Green Tax on all privately owned vehicles in order to phase out their use.
2. Abolish nuclear power and the uranium industry.
3. Develop wind, solar and tidal energy industries.
4. Phase out petrol vehicles, and replace with non-polluting, mass-transit systems.
5. Immediately nationalize all polluting industries and abolish or eco-convert them.
6. Legally limit the size of all land ownership to no larger than 100 hectares.
7. Collectivize all farming and agriculture, and abolish all pesticides and herbicides.
8. Abolish the sale and commercialization of water: Provide free, universal access to water through the establishment of public ownership over all water resources.
Acting on this Vision and Program
These proposals are but a beginning in a long process of social and spiritual emancipation from corporate genocide.
Our purpose as a de-colonizing movement is to create a new society within the shell of the old: to bring about a parallel social order in opposition to “Canada” through a massive democratic movement from below. We can only succeed in this goal through a conscious, activated citizenry who take control of their lives and the land, and undo the legal and mental slavery foisted upon them.
Consequently, we reject any reliance on or involvement in the existing parliamentary or electoral system, which is based on an undemocratic allegiance to a foreign monarch.
Instead, we will seek to create new popular assemblies and courts through which the people can express their will freely and openly, justice can be directly enacted, and the present political system can be overturned. We will use mass civil disobedience, strikes, withholding of taxes, and other direct actions to undermine and replace Canada and its institutions with a truly democratic republic.
Without an independent land and economic base, we cannot create the Republic of Kanata. We therefore look to peoples' direct actions to secure such resources for our Republic, by helping them to withdraw their allegiance to and involvement in the existing economic system.
We call upon all those who share our vision and goals to take these three steps: a) withdraw their funds from all banks and financial institutions and reinvest them in cooperative agencies established by our movement, b) withhold all taxes and other payments from every level of government in "Canada", and c) join the Local Exchange and Trading (LET) networks established by our movement to create alternative, agricultural-based green economies.
In short, we are declaring an economic boycott of the present regime in order to build a future for our planet and all its people.
To coordinate and lead this campaign, we look to a mass revolutionary party to engender but not dominate our movement. The creation of a democratic and secular Republic of Kanata will unleash the greatest freedom and diversity among the people, who will learn through their own struggles the meaning of self-government.
Our underlying recognition is that true democracy and sovereignty cannot come into being or survive without the complete public ownership of all of Kanata by all the people. The poorest person has as equal a right to the land and its wealth as the richest, and we shall work to create a society where all class distinctions and the private ownership of the economy have been abolished.
We encourage you to share this Program and Vision, and begin to act on it, for you are Kanata, and the future.
As a first step, we call upon all people who are in agreement with this Vision and Program to take the Pledge of Allegiance to Kanata (below) and to form organizing committees in their communities to prepare for the formal launching of the Republican Party of Kanata.
We especially look to the sovereign hereditary elders and clan mothers of all indigenous nations to endorse our movement and work with us to end the oligarchical church-state regime known as "Canada".
In solidarity and hope for our common future,
The Elders and National Council of the Republican Movement of Kanata
………………………………………………………………………………
A very ambitious plan
I have added this to the forum as I believe it contains many interesting ideas. It is a very ambitious plan, for sure and I really can't see this happening but then perhaps I lack vision.
Some clarification on a few of these points would be helpful.
"Cancel all debts and mortgages, and return all land to its original owners."
Well I'm all for canceling all my debts. I am not sure what the plan would be to accomplish something like this. I am assuming 'original owners' means the aboriginal Canadians. If for example, your land reverted back to the original owners could they then kick you out of your home or would they be thinking more of a collective ownership??
"Collectivize all farming and agriculture..."
This didn't work very well in communist Russia and China - I would be interested to know what models they had in mind for making this work.
"Withholding taxes"
Nice idea in theory however, I don't think this would work. It sounds like a good way to get a lot of people thrown in prison. Perhaps they are ok with that??
"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson
What Kevin Annett is
What Kevin Annett is proposing will not work imnho. People are not going to allow the Churches to be done away with legally and stripped of their assets unless they understand why this needs to happen to prevent more of the same (genocide) in the future. For this understanding to come about, the root religious causes behind the genocide need to be exposed and explained over and over.
The notions of a “Chosen People” be they Jewish or Christian needs to be exposed for what it is; the road to evil.
The notion of a punishing God needs to be exposed for what it is too; the implementation of evil.
The whole notion of 'Laws' preventing wrong doing needs to be exposed for what it is; the justification of domination of the many by the few who then become 'above the law' and entrench the very evil they are supposed to prevent.
I could go on!
So Kevin Annett needs to focus more on the theology once the criminality has been firmly established in the public's mind. Only then can he start to propose solutions and really, I don't think it is his place to do so, anyway. Well, not any more than anybody else, that is.
Annett rightly criticises two tiers of citizenship; an apartheid. But then wants this included it in the solution. I don't think we can really restore what has been lost and that includes the opportunity to go down the “Two Wampum Road” . The road ahead has to be for everybody of good will. That is all that is necessary for inclusion: no distinctions; no discriminations.
Humans have free will so need to be self governing as much as possible. We need both individual freedom to be creative and also community. I see this best facilitated economically by a system of free enterprise (which is very different from Capitalism) but with ALL infrastructure owned collectively. So this would include banking, insurance, telecom, roads, ports, postal services, power utilities and hospitals (but not doctors). Land would be privately owned but only by residents and owner farmers; no absentee or foreign landlords.
In the meantime, we need to look to solutions that can improve the lot of everybody including, of course, native communities that do not require the existing structure to be pulled down as a prerequisite. You need something in place first to avoid chaos. We witness daily the opportunities created for the evil of mind in the chaos they deliberately engineer. Lets not help them.
We need to go around the system not through it. It needs to be creative from the start and the only destruction coming from things withering on the vine. The destructive apparatus we have in place needs our co-operation to do anything. Once this is fully realised, things will change, but only then, imho.
We have all been indoctrinated with false concepts, particularly by religions. One of these false concepts is that religious organisations 'own' God. They most definitely do not and we have no less an authority on that than Jesus himself. These false concepts need to be rigorously examined, rejected and replaced first.
Thanks for your comments James.
Thanks for you comments James. I am not sure that this was written by Annett but then I have not followed what he is doing very closely. I think it is from The Elders and National Council of the Republican Movement of Kanata.
I like this: "We need to go around the system not through it. It needs to be creative from the start and the only destruction coming from things withering on the vine. The destructive apparatus we have in place needs our co-operation to do anything. Once this is fully realised, things will change, but only then, imho."
And I agree that the people will not allow churches to be stripped of their assets unless they understand the 'whys' for doing it. Highly unlikely that is going to happen any time soon. Some withering would be nice tho.
"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson
writing while sleeping
I should have left my reply till today, McJ! Last night I read the signature at the bottom of the article -"The Elders and National Council of the Republican Movement of Kanata"
and still didn't twig that it wasn't written by Kevin Annett" OMG!!
Well that explains why it sounded more like something a committee would write rather than Mr. Annett. And if that sounds a little critical of The Elders, it's meant to. And I shall proceed to 'give them a serve' as we say in Oz. (This issue applies here, too, btw). They're confused and are not going to lead anyone anywhere good.
They're confused about inheritance for a start. They want to tax inherited wealth at 100% rate but they want the land declared their inheritance and presumably be exempt from this 100% tax. This sucker ain't gunna fly, sister!
They're confused about power. They think they have none and that the establishment has it all and should and will yield it to them. They already have all the power collectively they need if they would but organise it.They don't have to take it back; they just need to pick it up.
There is nothing stopping the native nations coming together particularly with the communications technology these days and acting in each others interests right now. Though most of them individually are poor, I'm sure, there's nothing stopping them pooling their money in a building society, for a start. They could supplement this with a nationwide LETS scheme with the credit (and debit) denoted in Canadian dollars and use it as an unlimited source of funds for trading amongst themselves. Instead of just talking about what they need, they could do this today and they need no one's permission.
Of course it's not going to be easy to organise. But so what?
They could then set up their own medical insurance fund. Develop it into clinics around the county employing their own doctors, fund the training of their own as doctors and paramedics through scholarships. They could fund small businesses in their communities at no interest, apprentice their young. Build their own houses. The establishment rules us all by keeping us separate and dissuading us from co-operating in each other's interests and from by-passing them as middle men and permission givers. Power is all about perception.
They could fund the research needed to write a complete and true history for their own people. By providing an alternative and using their history to educate and to convince their own people to have nothing to do with any of the so-called Christian churches and nothing to do with native leaders that want to negotiate with the white power structure. And nothing to do with white power itself and all their 'help'. If you don't need their money, you're almost home.
There's some "withering" for ya, McJ!
They don't need the white power structure, at all, if they band together. And that's the way to go. Just buy the land they need and put their efforts into dealing with the immediate needs of their community; health, housing, food, clothing and education; accurate education, empowering education.
Train their own legal representatives. How good would that be? Your own honest and competent lawyers! Compile all the details of present day corruption including identities. Every native's encounter with the white legal structure gets entered in the data base with all personnel cross referenced. Judges and their decisions tracked. Police tracked. Criminal rings tracked and publicised. Their own media. It just becomes endless and all without firing a shot or pleading with a politician.
Pull together and they're free. Its the depression and sense of helplessness that is the biggest enemy of aboriginal peoples, in my view. I have been in dire straits myself and what makes all the difference is people coming to selflessly help with whatever and however they can. In doing that they affirm that you are valuable and wanted. No paid professional can give you that. Something magical happens then. The native nations can do this for themselves. We can all do this for ourselves. But ironically, though the deprivation and need is greater, the native people are in a better position to do it, imnho, that is!
To address a couple of specifics, McJ, withholding taxes ain't gunna hurt the Govt. They just borrow more at interest from the banks and you paint a target on your back. But you've already said that! It would help the taxpayer, of course, but I wouldn't go advertising what they were doing! Taxes are designed fundamentally to keep you poor not fund any govt projects or whatever.
Debt and mortgages could be dealt with by the govt taking over the banks and therefore the mortgages and abolishing interest and allowing the borrowers to pay off the principal as they can. There's absolutely nothing more to it than that.
Land reverting to the original owners? Well they're all well and truly dead. Aboriginal owners generally never consider they 'own' the land, anyway. No more than an acorn says it owns the tree it fell from. They claim, as a group, exclusive use of it but not ownership as this is an arrogance and evidence of delusion. That's my understanding of it, anyway.
What the present day 'Elders' really mean is ownership (which was never claimed by their ancestors) to be acknowledged as their inheritance. But they're against inherited wealth. So would they kick people off 'their' land if they were given title to it? I wouldn't bet against it with that attitude! I'm not saying to deny native nations title of lands. But I am saying those nations don't need it to get going today and following leaders who are focusing on this issue is following leaders into more desert.
Collectivised farming? Yeah, well, you've already dealt with that one, McJ, with your question . That sort of solution appeals to people who like to direct others' lives through regulation; power seekers. And frankly, the native peoples of Canada deserve better than these Elders if this missive is in any way an accurate portrayal of their attitudes and lack of wisdom.
Re: writing while sleeping :)
Wow James - writing while sleeping - I could get so much more done if I could develop that skill!
Your comments were a big serving. I did think some of their proposals read like a lot of giving with one hand and taking away with the other.
On the withholding taxes issue - this is interesting because in Canada if you are from the First Nations Peoples and have what is called 'status', you don't pay taxes. I believe you also get a free post secondary education (free tuition). So, in their calling for the with holding of taxes they wouldn't actually have to take the risk of imprisonment that the rest of us would. At least that is how I understand it. As for the taxation they are suggesting, it wasn't clear who would get to collect the taxes - the republic, the original land owners? And where there is money to be made through taxation, there is sure to be a psychopath or two, or three...to collect it.
The land ownership issue has been ongoing in British Columbia for as long as I can remember. I believe they have claims on pretty much the entire province. One northern tribe (that I know of) settled with the government several years ago. I don't know the specifics but it was a lot of money! It is very contentious and I don't think they would have any success selling the idea of 'giving back the land'. People here are just turned off to the whole issue and it seems like a big waste of their time pursuing it. imo
Although I don't follow these issues closely, I do know hundreds of millions of dollars have gone through the Dept. of Indian Affairs. The actual people it is supposed to benefit (ie. those living on reserves etc) don't seem to have gained much from it. Many of them live in poverty (I don't know what the actual stats on this would be). I have often wondered into what hole this money goes. Is it being siphoned off by corrupt tribal leaders or those running the department, or both? I don't know. And I don't believe there has ever been any comprehensive accounting done on all these disbursements. I guess what I am saying is that I would not be inclined to hand the store over to a republic of indigenous nations considering the track record. And that is not to suggest that any of the writers of this particular piece have been involved in corruption.
You make some excellent suggestions in your comments. If only you ruled the world.
"Pull together and they're free. Its the depression and sense of helplessness that is the biggest enemy of aboriginal peoples, in my view...The native nations can do this for themselves...ironically, though the deprivation and need is greater, the native people are in a better position to do it, imnho, that is!"
This, I believe, is true. It is ironic, as you point out, that they have more opportunity (ie. in their understanding of community and in their extended family structures), inclination and need to pull together than the rest of us.
"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson
El Presidente
You make some excellent suggestions in your comments. If only you ruled the world.
Hahaha! That would not be such a good idea, believe me.
Though, there'd be free boysenberry ice-cream for everyone.
Hmmm, maybe the interminable speeches would be worth it!
You've got my vote.
You've got my vote. I'm all for free ice-cream.
"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson
Way to go.
Well, that was easy. I think i can see the way to go stretched out before me. Yes!
You are going to be using
You are going to be using real cream - right?
"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson
Real cream?
Real cream? Um . . . yeah, sure. ah . . whatever you want. Kosher, even. Yes. Just vote for me and I'll fix everything up just peachy after I'm elected. Trust me!
James - totally OT
Totally OT here, but seeing as we are talking about ice cream and you ruling the world. Are you in Tasmania? I think I remember you telling me that one time. And do you know a fellow named Alan Taylor? I think he may work or be associated with the University of Tasmania.
I trust you James ), but no petroleum bi-products or other junk in that ice cream ya hear! or I'll have to have you impeached if 'everything' is not 'peachy' enough!
"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson
Who?!
I don't know who you are talking about, officer. Never met the guy. I wasn't there and anyway, it was an accident.
No, he must live down the other end of the street, McJ
Actually, I think there is about 449,999 other people here at the end of the world. And they're either called French, Smith, House, Hodgetts or Taylor. Oh, there's also one Irish bloke with a name that sounds like shillelagh with a disposition to match (assuming you know how to pronounce that. But then you're a celt, arncha, McJ?!)
And if I'm gunna get impeached it had better be over a peach.
Dunno 'bout da gold, but will follow your links and let you know if anything occurs to this over ripe brain.
Tasmanian James', King James' and the Scottish bard
Well according to him, he knows everyone on the island.
He's in a facebook group where I post. He said he was from Tasmania so I told him I had a fellow blogger who lives in Tasmania. He asked who it was because he was sure he would know you. I said your name was James, you were very well read, highly intelligent and a heck of a nice guy and that you were Irish. (I'm gonna need lots of ice-cream for that one!) He replied that he knew four James' that fit that description and that they all pretended to be Irish! So he asked me, to ask you, if you knew him.
Do you all have that same sense of humour down under at the end of the world?
"Oh, there's also one Irish bloke with a name that sounds like shillelagh with a disposition to match (assuming you know how to pronounce that. But then you're a celt, arncha, McJ?!)"
Some days I think I need me one of them shi lay lahs (lees).
Well yes I am a Celt James and I'm half French (on my mother's side). What a combo - eh!
And speaking of el presidentes and rightful rulers ...here's a wee word from the bard himself about some poor Scots who fought for an earlier King James over in Ireland. You won't be making the same mistakes as Seamus a' chaca I trust - cuttin and runnin?
It Was A' For Our Rightfu' King
by Robert Burns
It was a' for our rightfu' King
We left fair Scotland's strand;
It was a' for our rightfu' King
We e'er saw Irish land, my dear,
We e'er saw Irish land.
Now a' is done that men can do,
And a' is done in vain;
My Love and Native Land fareweel,
For I maun cross the main, my dear,
For I maun cross the main.
He turn'd him right and round about,
Upon the Irish shore;
And gae his bridle reins a shake,
With adieu for evermore, my dear,
And adieu for evermore.
The soger frae the wars returns,
The sailor frae the main;
But I hae parted frae my Love,
Never to meet again, my dear,
Never to meet again.
When day is gane, and night is come,
And a' folk bound to sleep;
I think on him that's far awa,
The lee-lang night, and weep, my dear,
The lee-lang night, and weep.
(Battle of the Boyne between James II and William III, 11 July 1690 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne).
"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson
I see you're angling for a
I see you're angling for a double scoop, McJ. I'm sorry but there will be no extra privileges in the workers paradise where everyone works equally for my paradise!
Same sense of humour? What humour?
Well yes I am a Celt James and I'm half French (on my mother's side). What a combo – eh!
Sounds nice; like cream in your coffee. I have to do with straight black!
Looked at the gold stuff and nothing jumps off the page at me except that maybe . . . maybe . . the owners of these small central banks (if they are privately owned) are being offered gold which they will make a killing on so as to cut them in on, and gain their support for a One World Currency in the future that is nominally backed by gold but in actual fact backed by oil sales or some globally enforced World Tax such as the carbon credits were going to be. But that is a WAG (wild arsed guess).
Poor bastards are having trouble getting their OWC in though. Two failures in a row!
Double scoops - the going
Double scoops - the going price for my vote!
"Same sense of humour? What humour?"
All well, he is humorous. I can't quite put my finger on why I enjoy the way he says things and it reminds me of your sense of humour. Perhaps it's because one of my best friends here is an Aussie. It took me a while when I first met her to pick up on what she thought was funny or perhaps how she was expressing what she thought was funny. (I'm a slow learner I guess. ) Some of the stuff she comes up with I now find hilarious.
Thanks for your imput on the gold stuff and your WAG.
Oh and the Celts were settled in France long before they moved north to the British Isles - so I may be doing with straight black on the Celtic front - I'm not sure.
"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson
Celts and Humour
A few years ago I had the uncommon pleasure of going to a concert put on by a Spanish Celtic band. It was a revelation to me. Who knew!? Music was fantastic, of course.
Australian humour is hard to describe but you know it once you've heard it a few times. As you testify. It's ironic and dry and usually delivered in a dead pan manner. It is particularly good at spearing pomposity or preciousness. As you might imagine, it is difficult to get it over in print if it is particularly subtle. You may have picked up a hint of it in my early reply to Grumblebum. He wouldn't want to come out with any grizzling like that in any 'front bar' in any Australian pub I've been into, I can tell you. I fear the Great Homogenizer, Television, is diluting Oz humour, unfortunately. And if you're out there Grimblebee and stick your head up again after doing a "Madam Melba" on us, twice, you'll find out what you missed out on . And I might be allowed back in the 'front bar'! I'm copping some curry, I don't mind saying, for letting you off the hook for spitting the dummy like that. And in polite company, too!
Righto, where were we? Oh, yes, often you are trying to 'get one past' someone by leading them into accepting something ludicrous (called yarn spinning) by being matter-of-fact about it. I dare say it was used to ridicule overseers and the like without them realizing it in the very early days of the colony and it has persisted.
Another way is using the same mater-of-fact tone to mention something truly heroic but using almost outrageous understatement. It can also be a kind of code between a group of mates and often at someone else's expense (usually thoroughly deserved). If you just come out openly ridiculing someone, it is all over in a flash. Either the bunny stomps off or stomps on the ridiculer. But by using some Oz humour you can draw it out to the exquisite pleasure of the circle of mates or audience.
But, of course, if you are not initiated into it, you are going to be all at sea with. For instance, I have a couple of boating books by a wonderful (but sadly now deceased) American writer and boatbuilder/designer called Thomas Firth Jones. He described another boat designer whom he met (also sadly deceased) Australian Lock Crowther as being perhaps the greatest multihull designer of his age but also as being humourless. I'll quote a story about Lock from a boating forum and it will demonstrate what I am talking about- (the boat in question is a trimaran and falling overboard from a fast moving boat like that can sometimes get very serious very quickly)
"Lock had a very dry sense of humour.
When He and Logan Apperley came over to Canada for the World Multihull Symposium in June 1976, They sailed with my wife and I on our Buccaneer 28 No:1 in an overnight race on Lake Ontario. The next morning we were sailing along in light winds when Logan went out onto the bow of the Stbd float to hank on the spinnaker pole downhaul----and promptly fell overboard.
There was a moment or two of ghastly silence and then two sets of white knuckles showed up on the rail at the aft end of the float.
Without missing a beat Lock shouted, " Logan--stop mucking about and get back on board" I'm sure Logan will never forget that."
Um . . . we'll talk more about the scoops after the election, ok? But don't you worry, I'll see you right.
Thanks for putting it into
Thanks for putting it into words and for the story. I always say the Brits are the funniest people on the planet (because well...um...their Brits) followed closely by the Aussies and Canadians. Apologies to all my American friends, not saying your not funny as well.
"Australian humour is hard to describe but you know it once you've heard it a few times. As you testify. It's ironic and dry and usually delivered in a dead pan manner. It is particularly good at spearing pomposity or preciousness."
This is exactly what she does. She's a case room nurse (trained Australian midwife) and she is always regaling me with tales of the delivery room. I'm sure she probably off-puts a lot of the Dr's she works with being "so good at spearing pomposity or preciousness".
In Canada, it's our east coasters that tend to be the comedians, with lots coming from Newfoundland. My husband moved from the west to the east coast after high school and he says the east coasters make a sport out of 'putting one over' on the outsider. They are master yarn spinners. My neighbour is from Newfoundland and when my kids were young he'd entertain the whole neighbourbood with his stories.
I was disturbed by how Grimblebee handled his anger - dumping it on us. A polite request with an explanation and an invitation to discuss the issue would seem to be a more appropriate way to handle it imo. That, of course, was not his intent in posting. To add to that, I went to the post by Kenney that he was talking about and didn't see any comment by him condemning the post.
And about them scoops...I have me some swamp land down in Florida I'm looking to sell. I can cut you a real deal - we should talk!
"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson
My 2cents
I just read a couple of books that are on topic, I think.
William Gairdner is one of the high-thinking priests behind the Canadian Reform movement. His book "The Trouble with Canada" is a good book if you want to understand the underpinnings of the neo-con movement in Canada. If you want wealth creation, there are inviolable rules you must follow including:
Individual Freedom and Responsibility
Freedom to associate or to secede
The right to own and enjoy private property
The private corporation: A mighty engine of wealth creation
.. and so on.
Now to the natives:
"One of the most interesting requirements of any faith before economic activism can be successful relates to the people's view of the nature of God and His presence in the material world. In culture like India's, where people essentially believe that God is everywhere present in the material world, we see a reluctance to manipulate that world to material advantage. If you believe that God is present in every blade of grass, or tree, or housefly, you do not harm the grass , cut the tree or kill the fly easily. This is called "immanent-ism" by the theologians, and cultures where it is found believe that God is everywhere present ( is immanent ), or indwelling, a part of the entire universe. Such cultures (like those of many of our own North American Indian peoples) in which this belief is strong tend to remain static economically, in part for this reason. they are content with spiritual wealth, and economic activism would threaten the foundation of that spirituality by disturbing the the order of God's world. The economic lethargy this encourages is further accentuated if such people also hold beliefs such as reincarnation, or other sorts of fatalism that basically teaches them they have no control over their destiny."
'Our' faith: "An advantageous feature of such a faith [pleasing God through hard work + dominion over the earth ] is that it does not implicitly prohibit us from exercising our will upon the material world for our own betterment (environmentalists might say our ruination)."
Faith, schmaith, eh? A faith either serves wealth creation or it does not.
The other role that Native's play in the book, is as McJ points out, is as an industry. Gairdner believes about the natives, as he does the blacks in the states, that they are welfared to death. It's a huge, costly industry. But it's still cheaper than having them screwing with the basis of wealth creation on national TV.
On the other hand, William Gairdner and the Iroquois have something in common, and me too. The Iroquois developed a robust, vital democracy, according to the other book I'm reading 'The Indians of Canada' (1932). Gairdner wants plebiscites (direct democracy like the Swiss) because it will serve to weaken the behemoth of government. But I wager he only really would want plebiscites if he can frame the question within the context of wealth creation and guarantee the outcome with the help of think tanks and advertising guru's.
I want direct democracy to weaken the corporations and weaken big government because we never get their idealized forms. We get their degenerate-psychotic forms instead. But of course I only want democracy if I'm in control of the message and the frame. And with that kind of control, I can afford to be not only democratic, but charitable too.
I do support a nation modeled after the democratic model of the natives and many of their sensibilities as well. I think we could become a nation instead of the colonial branch-plant we have been since we got here. Expo 84 and the Vancouver Olympics show the world what we want the world to think, with massive tents and ornamentation, but what we actually do is what we just did to my home town which, in my mind featured a large lake and a large native population: fill it with McHouses and big box stores. What a sad, weak thing, verging on pathetic.
Hello , I from CA
Hello. I am a CA Jourist, I would share somthing here soon.