an initiation ceremony for the crazed and channelling

I would like to envision, with your input, possible "initiation ceremonies" for those who are labeled crazy amongst us, and usually encouraged or coerced to seek so-called "professional help". The more creative your vision, the better. The more outlandish, the more excelling! Any other visionaries out there?

i got into this particular idea after reading the following:

"Instead of the degradation ceremonial of psychiatric examination, diagnosis and prognostication, we need, for those who are ready for it (in psychiatric terminology, often those who are about to go into a schizophrenic breakdown), an initiation ceremonial, through which the person will be guided with full social encouragement and sanction into inner space and time, by people who have been there and back again. Psychiatrically, this would appear as ex-patients helping future patients to go mad."

from:
http://www.laingsociety.org/colloquia/peaceconflict/divisions.levine.htm

There is some really good reading here. Here are some excerpts for the expected skeptics to think about:

"In the opinion of Dr. Thomas Szasz, psychiatry may be the new secular religion in an age of pseudo-science:

"The discerning reader may detect a faint note of familiarity here. Modern psychiatric ideology is an adaptation-to a scientific age-of the traditional ideology of Christian theology. Instead of being born into sin, man is born into sickness. Instead of life being a vale of tears, it is a vale of diseases. And, as in his journey from the cradle to the grave man was formerly guided by the priest, so now he is guided by the physician. In short, whereas in the Age of Faith the ideology was Christian, the technology clerical, and the expert priestly; in the Age of Madness the ideology is medical, the technology clinical, and the expert psychiatric.

"Thus psychiatry, like the nuclear family, becomes an instrumental motive force in the creation of the total social institution; through a process of mystification, both define normality and mould the individual into the one-dimensional shape of social utility. Laing calls this mystification a political act of "violence masquerading as love". "

and:

"'From the moment of birth, when the Stone Age baby confronts the twentiety-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father, and their parents and their parents before them, have been. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities, and on the whole this enterprise is successful. By the time the new human being is fifteen or so, we are left with a being like ourselves, a half-­crazed creature more or less adjusted to a mad world. This is normality in our present age.'

"Some people can adapt to this system. We call them normal. "Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal," Laing tells us. "Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years." But some cannot adapt to this imposed norma­lity. They break down. Instead, they devise a strategy to deal with their inability to hold their invalidated experience ant their sense of themselves together. As Laing puts it, "it seem to us that without exception the experience and behaviour that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation".

"Though, in [David] Cooper's phrase, the schizophrenic may look like someone whose "logic" is "ill", he is, in reality, someone, who has been made an invalid because his experience has been invalidated. For Laing and Cooper, schizophrenia is no 'something happening in a person but rather something between persons". Thus when one psychiatrist calls schizophrenia "a failure of human adaptation", Laing responds that it may as well be "a successful attempt not to adapt to pseudo-social realities". It all seems to be a matte of perspective: "Schizophrenia is a label affixed by some people to others in situations where an interpersonal disjunction of a particular kind is occurring. This is the nearest one can get at the moment to something like an 'objective' statement, so called."

"The validity of a definition is ultimately determined by the identity of the one who is defining. It is in this context that Laing argues: "There is no such 'condition' a 'schizophrenia,' but the label is a social fact and the social fact a political event." Seen from this radical perspective, all our definitions may have to be turned upside down ant inside out. "What we call 'normal' is", according to Laing "a product of repression, denial, splitting, projection, introjection and other forms. of destructive action on experience.... It is radically estranged from the structure of being." No wonder, then, that "the condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one's mind, is the condition of the normal man." On the other hand schizophrenia may be seen as an alienation from this alienation, where, "even through his profound wretchedness and disintegration", the patient may be "the hierophant of the sacred". Finally, "madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death."

"In _The Politics of Experience_, Laing describes how, in some instances, breakdown does become break-through; trans­forming the "schizophrenic experience" into a "tran­scendental experience". As depicted by Gregory Bateson, the schizophrenic embarks upon a voyage from the "outer" world of the "ego" to the "inner" world of the "self" -and back out again. He regards it as an archetypal journey that bears a close resemblance to descriptions of religious experi­ence:

"It would appear that once precipitated into psychosis the patient has a course to run. He is, as it were, embarked upon a voyage of discovery which is only completed by his return to the normal world, to which he comes back with insights different from those of the inhabitants who never embarked on such a voyage."

"Tooled by massa" political cartoon

Note, the art seems to have been blocked by blogspot.com, but if you highlight this area and then copy it into a wordperfect (or similar) program, it appears that you can actually STILL SEE the art! (Far out, huh?)

Some visionary paths towards "in-the-heart" solutions

"...Any politics we pick up and follow, they are...alien politics...[and] do not reflect the reality of who we are, but our culture and art does. ...if we are going to use [politics] then let's recognize that's what we are doing. It's a tool. It's not an identity..."--a Lakota wisdom keeper

intro:
Dear reader, I suspect that you will find this page a bit too wordy, tangent-tending, and not easy to read; I hope you will perservere, though, and at least scan/hop around for the nuggets of value which i claim are here. Composing text is not "first nature" for me...

Subheading run-down:
intellectual self-defense
informal resistance consciousness
formal organization
informal organization
the meta game
a new imagination
liberation of our desire and an obstacle
Continue alienation war, or?
understand and implement our liberatory desires?
spirit liberation, or psychological ju-jitsu
crazy people
an example
another example
the problem of institutional fear


Intellectual self-defense
Intellectual self-defense has been deeply articulated by the much despised luminary, Noam Chomsky. Basically, the method is to "undertake a course" (of self-instruction via Chomsky et al's *institutional analysis*) so that we may better understand how we are collectively manipulated via notable methods of thought control by major influence institutions: i.e. the mainstream media and the State.

Informal resistance consciousness
The still quite marginalized John Trudell articulated this idea in a very basic way in his *We Are Power* speech, shared with his fellow indigenous people in 1980. Basically, I see this way as a way of utilizing (tooling) the excellent values of formal resistance, while not letting the destructive sides of formal resistance tool us.

formal organiztion
Formal resistance, as the model lives in the popular imagination (and especially the imaginations of institutionally "well-educated" persons (a phrase to ask significant questions of)), brings into our imaginations certain camoflauged angles which we need to scrutinize more carefully if we are to see exactly when we become tooled and fooled.

Let's take ideology (or, rigid belief system) for a moment: One must subordinate the "serious" sides (at least) of their individualities to the Given ideology that formal organizations have chosen; usually, this seems to be the political route or program in which the organizational controllers/designers/planners have decided to follow as THE way (and no other way is possible, unless one is prepared to fight, tooth and nail, to have the way finally added someday--a microcosm to what the organiztion is seeking to do in seeking reform in the larger society!).

Formal organization also imposes a conventional imagination of confining concepts like "memberships" and "leaders", "dues" and "social ettiquette"; and a usually uncritical acceptance of the kind of orthodoxy which provides these models of formal, "reputable", or what is supposed to be "serious" organization in the first place. (Incidentally, this model has, over and over, proven disasterous to groups not yet allowed "a place at the table"--much less the 'right' to negotiate for their independent survival. It's probably disasterous also for individuals who have gotten stuck in believing that they are making some reformist gains, but let's save that, too, for another conversation).

(The most pointed examples of this disasterousness for groups not yet allowed "a place at the table"/social appearances of acceptance, has been the continuing havoc wreaked by legal and illegal official covert action upon formal organizations since at least the 1950s; as well as the strange, yet systematic pattern of ignorant naivity of "well-educated" organizers and leaders in these organizations. The best lessons may be gleaned from the f.b.i.'s illegal COINTEL Program; for those into reading, try the websites booklist, or explore William Kunstler's autobiography (_My Life As A Radical Lawyer_) as well as one by Philip Agee (_On The Run_); see also the anarchist critique of formal organization, via such luminaries as Feral Faun; contact the editor of a certain crucial anarchist publication at www.anarchymag.org)

Informal self-organization
Informal resistance, on the other hand, offers much more room, at least as far as the informal member's individual imagination may be "allowed" to go, either by chance, spiritual path, or error. With no one to coerce or manipulate a member's ideological conformity or keep them from going into "dangerously" independent inquiry, or even simply escaping the list of tasks given by organizational functionaries, informal resisters have much more freedom to explore areas that interest them.

This especially rings true when we see that informal resistance motions are usually made up of individuals who are oriented to working/playing on their own, or with small groups of friends or "affinity groups". They may come together in order to carry out direct actions, but most of their time is spent doing activities they, individually, are enamored to. They remain focused on the activities they're interested in, whereas in formal organizations, they may become *burnt out* by tasks which run far from their original desires (re: fund-raising, newsletter editing and mailing, and other secretarial duties). They can still take advantage of peer critique or support, when they ask, but the interaction remains much more oriented to directness, and has less of a chance to be clouded over by the need to conform ideologically, and remain "in good standing" in the formal group.

Further, when we organize ourselves informally, we are also not limited by ideological demands about what sources we may make use of. In fact, we may utilize a broad variety of resources. This is what has been called creative self-mobilization... Myself, i've found much value in insights found in methodological anarchy and situationism, as well as from Reader's Digest and other places one wouldn't normally expect to find gems. The trick is *reading between the lines* and keeping one's ability to compare and try out, intact; this comes back to critical thought and intellectual self-defense.

the meta game
Depending on how meaningfully deep one has allowed themselves to delve, one may begin to see a pattern of similarity between ALL the vast, seemingly terribly complicated and divergent views and beliefs we have as individuals. Notably, we all are similar, it's just that we've been socialized/programmed/enculturated into a seemingly huge diversity of rigid difference. This kind of realization is typically not allowed by formal, ideologically-challenged organization, which seems to need to keep a rigid dichotomy between "us" and "Them". The reason for this I haven't yet been able to put my finger on, but perhaps there is insight to be found in the *meta game* as played by the elites of every formalized group (i.e. every group articulating itself towards being better understood and seeking "reform"/assimilation or "revolution"/changing of the boss). As R.D. Laing says:

"...I discover there is a meta-road...[Society] is playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing the game."--R.D.Laing, in a biography called A Divided Self p.151 (Laing later died apparently prematurely of an apparent sudden heart-attack; was his death "wag-the-dog" style?)

We see this meta game all throughout the imagination called society and culture, and as well, formalized concepts of organization and resistance. Parents and other conscious adults play it upon persons called children. Teachers play it upon parents and kids. Administrators play it upon implementers of policy called teachers. Elite policy makers play this meta game upon elite implementers. All throughout our imagination we are neatly corralled and confined within something like Oz, though for me, a more exacting insight is to call this prevailing and imposed imagination *Is*. **The Wizards of Is** keep us "properly" subordinated, unthreatening, tooled, and mentally confined. We are modern-day peasants with neon. "Dark ages with neon glasses" as John Trudell would say.

Why this happens, why this meta game has to be played at all, probably has something to do with our "information society" being one completely subordinated to the needs and values of *propaganda* (see J. Ellul). All institutions and their public relations aparatuses utilize propaganda--manipulation--as THE method of choice for getting mass audiences/"consumers" to pay attention. Since we are basically a WAR-oriented culture, the war of propaganda comes with the territory. And thus the game that "must" be played while not speaking of the game; and those who do, being viewed as a danger because they might ruin a particular aspect of the propaganda that "MUST" rein.

a new imagination
The only way out that i can see, beyond continuing to naively strengthen that (including propaganda) which systematically attacks all of us in continually rotating ways (continually finding new differences amongst us to exploit our fears and keep us alienated and/or against each other), is by escaping the heart of the situation, and bringing forth a new imagination.

My study and experience leads me to the conclusion that FEAR, followed closely by severe alienation, is the heart of our challenge as humans at this juncture.

We need to liberate ourselves from this imagination which has been imposed upon ALL of us (including elite policy makers) from times when war was viewed as the only option (as in the history of all so-called "civilized" organization (popularly, it is also believed that pre-"civilized" groups, like the American indigenous folks, were committed to senseless violence; yet I maintain that there is a context to that which cannot be easily understood by domesticated man's severely confined imagination)).

Liberation of our desires and an obstacle
We can see already where our desires tend to want to escape to, when we think of young children of age 3 or 5. Their spirit is still full of the "spirit of discovery" and the love of life, and the misery of "Reality" has not yet been imposed upon them (via our social norms). The lucky few (those who see this anyway) that find time to walk down paths with them and notice things that otherwise would be missed, says oodles about this all too private joy, alone.

Parents have regularly spoken fondly of "being able" to "revisit childhood" through their youngchildren. Through this imagination we call "childhood" we experience a renewing of our own spirits, and this is to be celebrated; yet, at the same time, due to our alienated conditionining, this way has turned into a way which we *mine* for our own nursings, while allowing little vitality to escape to where our children may grow and become stronger.

In our single-minded, severely alienated interests, we've turned the youngpersons moving through us into objects. An object similar to what John Holt characterized, in his book _Escape From Childhood_, a "superpet". A youngperson not allowed to be viewed as fully human alongside us (thanks to the work of the convenient, and the systematically superficial analysis of the highly political, state-subordinated, social sciences).

Probably because of this value that we find in this somewhat natural time of life, the whole realm of "childhood" has become a highly sentimentalized time of all-too-escapist entertainment, aloof play, unthreatening fantasy, industry and business, keeping the very *objects* we claim to so avidly cherish and wish to "protect" locked up in a 'prison garden called childhood' (John Holt; see also: Paul Goodman: _Growing Up Absurd_ and Gerald Farson: _Birthrights_). We think nothing of this, until, for whatever reason, we finally allow ourselves to step back and look at a bigger picture. (Perhaps we are moved by youth liberationists of yesteryear or today, or remember our own feelings as kids)

Continue the war, or?
The trick, then, is to not allow our severely alienated desires to get the best of us. (Perhaps this is where the danger of "ego" crops up, though I wonder at the validity of this characterization; is it too simplified? Reducing too quickly? I prefer a word which sheds light on the context of our resorting to all shades of allegedly bad selfishness.) This is the juncture where liberation may be had, or where struggle/war may continue (even inarticulately, as we see with so many kids now being labeled "oppositionally defiant disordered" and so on).

Liberation is the situation in which people learn the value of shirking off confined imaginations about themselves and others. Liberation is when many many people start to let their imaginations freer than ever thought "possible" before. The 1960s/early 70s was such a time of liberation (called a "crisis" by the ruling war order). Quite suddenly (all too quickly for the war powers), due to the example of a heightening black civil rights and anti-war movement, all sorts of groups and individuals were starting to think that they might be able to be heard if they dared to speak up about their intutions and awareness about the plight of themselves and those they'd been moved by.

Where the 1960s/70s liberation movement went wrong, in my view, is that they got stuck up in the game that their consciously political "leaders" played. Reformist-oriented or "revolutionary", the same underlying "Us vs. Them" dichotomy was (and continues to be) as rigid and **unempathetic** as the established mindset (and this goes for all the anarchists as well, even if they are not ideologically-oriented). Of course, most of those who thought nothing of following along, didn't see this. They didn't see that they were being manipulated against each other; tooled. For the needs and interests of their even more severely alienated "leaders" and owners and puppeteers.

Spirit liberation or psychological ju-jitsu
Spirit liberation is the uniqueness of our individuality which we had in spades and flying colors when we were less programmed/socialized/conditioned/indoctrinated into imposed "Reality"/death culture/misery/severe alienation we collectively view as "Reality". That is, to come back to this again, *when we were "kids"*. The time when we still could allow ourselves to look upon the reality all around us and come up with our OWN individual ideas; and not be completely encircled by others' imaginations. "There are two ways of thinking. One can either accept current ideas and associations of ideas, just as they are or else undertake, on his own account, new associations or, what is rarer, original disassociations. The intelligence capable of such efforts is...a creative intelligence."--Remy de Gourmont (1899)

Thus, spirit liberation is the action and conscious (as well as unconscious) reverting to times when we come back under control of our own imaginations/culture/desired reality. i've talked about kids being naturals at this. Another group has not been mentioned: the "crazy" ones.

Crazy people
"Crazy" people, are, really, people whom've found a way, a self-taught folk way, to deal with their mental nilness resulting from living in the "norms" all around. The "norms" imposed and coerced by other persons so severely alienated and lost that they cannot allow the "crazy" people to explore their own path as they would like to explore it. This is saying things simplistically, but i see that it boils down to this. The more the severely alienated "carers" try to impose their designs/beliefs as an arbitrary remedey, the more the "crazy" person naturally seeks further escape--sometimes way too deep into the chaotic seas of "schizophrenia". Naturally, they tend to seek the ways that resonate with them the most.

Our severely alienated society wants them to "adjust" and "adapt" to the imposed "Norms", and anyone in their *right mind* will naturally rebell, even if they're not articulate to their rebellion!

Where the spirit liberationist can learn from "crazy" people should be obvious by now. "Craziness" is not "sick"; it is a way we can become when we must find depth. If we can become articulate and more conscious of our needs to "let things all hang out", or otherwise openly challenge social "norms" in ways not yet mapped by the political forms we can now imagine, while avoiding the pit-falls of inarticulate "craziness", we can learn to tool this folk method, just as we may learn to tool the methodology of youngpeople!

Does this make sense to you yet?

In liberating ourselves and each other so that we tap back into the ways of our original, individual selves--creating culture and community which realizes the value of such an endeavor--we merely dare to bring out the artways which we've buried (often under heavy armor) deep inside of us, or may've forgotten (and may still be remembered, via examples of informal, spontaneous realness)!

That is, for example, we tool "craziness" and "pre-socialization" ("childhood") in order to help us informally liberate ourselves from the Imposed Norms.

An example
An example of this is to enter into "an emotional break down" consciously, like I did lastnight. I was depressed and wished to *go into* my depression and take it by the horns. For years I had avoided going into its fearful depths. But i was feeling at the end of my rope. i was unsure, in a really heavy way, as to whether i wanted to continue "living" in this reality, on this planet, in this dimension. So, i took matters into my own hands (i didn't seek the alleged insight of the array of professionals around me, nor the models of "support groups"; nor the same old 'friend' interactions of 'how are you?' 'i'm fine, and you?' crap).

i feared living. And i was fearing living for too long. But i also feared death (by my own hand as well as another's). So i dared to jump into this fear almost full-throttle, via my alleged "addiction" to ganja, and kept my screaming cries muffled just enough to avoid someone calling the police from outside my home (my home is not your "normal" lifestyle at all). And then i proceeded to make calls to all those i intuit have "hearts of gold"--or, enough "gold" in their hearts that they send beautifulness off in ways that i need and want. (the "heart of gold" thing comes from a favorite country song of mine, where a father is talking about his daughter) i dared to be open and direct with everyone, to make a longer story short. i dared to say what i meant and get it across emotionally as well.

And i lived through that. And i found some stability and insight, some informal spiritual/spirit liberation. A way for me to continue on and to come back here and try finishing this composition for the possible benefit of other humans.

Notably, the forray escaped the "normal" ideological grip, in that i dared to move into "my addiction", instead of avoid it as "conventional wisdom" would pressure. The same ideas which tell us that if *things are going "bad"--i.e. "bad trip"--then it's 'best' to avoid them and continue living like "shiney happy people holding hands" (remember that from a song?)*. Fakeness. Lostness. Lack of depth. Lack of realness. Lack of sharing in time of need.

Another example
Another example would be the essay i wrote called "Good Peasant, Bad Peasant" (see at: http://www.angelfire.com/folk/crucialarts/goodpeasant.html ). Basically, it is a situation in which a group of people, such as in a neighborhood ghetto which is not being *openly* warred upon (i.e. wouldn't work in WWII Jewish ghettos), is having trouble with a "public servant" of some sort, and they decide something must be done. But, at the same time, they hold no confidence in "traditional" modes of rectifying the situation. My example was individual police officers whom are not acting with enough respect/professionalism towards people, and how we, the peasantry, can apply a type of crucial classical conditioning upon those whom are out of line yet remain regularly within the ghetto community.

This is certainly a bad seague here, but I don't have the time to rectify this: Notably, we don't completely "throw out" the wisdom learned from our ventures in the imposed, "traditional", and now dominant imagination. We utilize what we find liberating and valid, while *continuing* a critical awareness of WHEN such are most liberating and valid. At the same time, neither do we completely subordinate ourselves/society to the inexperience (in this world) and alleged chaos of persons called children or called crazy.

We seek the excellent **heart** and beautiful energy of people called children and people called crazy; not as yet another resource to commodify and exploit, but as a method or way of doing things which brings out our indepth needs and desires!

the problem of the institutional fear
Now, having said all this, there remains the test of the hardest challenge. My testing has been on myself and the observation of my fellow beings (humans, etc.) My testing has also touched on heavy situations (like direct emotional/nervous breakdown). Next to the direct imposition of the state (and all institutions, formal and informal, which automatically subordinate to it), there enters the problem of daring to articulate myself versus mindsets which do not value such, and see no form of rebellion as an option.

If pressed (or perceiving a threat), the human beings whom have subordinated their "professional" lives to the meta game of the state/ruling order, cannot allow themselves, it seems to me, to allow for too many people becoming of independent mind, and will (as history shows) work to see that such nonconformity becomes corralled in the smallest, unthreatening terms possible. Thus we have tiny academic circles exploring Polanyi, Kuhn, and Feyerabend. Or tiny, yet highly mystified, groups of cyberneticians. Or small groups of elite vanguardists keeping their 'single issue' reform measures intact at all costs (via such things as formal organization). Or 'indigenous' peoples remaining aloof from non-indigenous commonfolks.

Yet, this is the ultimate beauty of resistance consciousness. It remains informal. It remains "underground". It remains as a tool to be utilized when direct actions are desired, and can only be blocked when the whole society openly loses its freedom. The beauty of this form of resistance, also, is that it remains seeing the value of nonviolent interaction towards bridging.

But, alas, not every oppressed person (across the spectrum of left, right, center, and beyond) sees the value of nonviolent interaction *towards mutually beneficial outcomes*. This will have to be the discussion for the next section:

the crucial arts and spanarchy (forthcoming)

Deep thinking about settler society's chain-of-command imperialism at home

A response from a tribe.net post at:

http://shamanism.tribe.net/thread/17e44cfd-628d-4fee-b4ed-29ca6a0ed0bd?newpostingid=04d10046-d322-4582-b50f-4a99f06028d2#04d10046-d322-4582-b50f-4a99f06028d2

posted by Exodus entitled FOR ALL THOSE WHO WERE INDIAN IN A FORMER LIFE
My responses follow (a bit rough, so hold on):

This is an example, roughly articulated, of solidarity thought where indigenous folks, as a group, get thrown right out of the window when settler/"white" politics is viewed as being in some way "More Equal"...

I read through Andy Smith's sharing in a topical way, i'll admit, yet i think i have something to offer.

i think it is crucial to note one thing that most or a lot of indigenous challengers have apparently missed when seeking to challenge "white society"/settlers, and that is to think through the meta realities of said society, rather than attack the symptoms. Of course, there is good reason to attack the symptoms, such as in order to gain the attention of said settlers who do not see what they do. On the other hand, to challenge only in this way as a rigid way not allowing grey areas, and basically replicating the mind-set of settler alienation, well, that is obviously problematic.

Because then indigenous folks can get stuck in the perpetual war that settler society is stuck in; i.e. never seeing the bigger picture, never thinking things through, never using one's own intuitive intelligence and creativity to solve challenges via the amazing excelling styles of our being human beings!

The crucial thing that ought to be systematically challenged, instead, in my feeling, is the reality of a *chain of command* mentality throughout settler society. Then, to systematically challenge the ways that formalized (as different from informal, intuitive, and free) ways of thinking, relating, and believing fool and tool we settlers.

So the germ of truth Andy makes in discussing feminists has some truths --YET such leaves out the all-important CONTEXT to why and how!

((NOTE: sounds like Andy (like so many other native folks) lives in a rural part of the country where some truths about the most politically-known feminist community are "dragged through the coals" by "right wing" interests --such as The New American --whom don't tell you that they have, as part of their interests, the desire to put females back in a subordinate position to males; this being said, the "left wing" is hardly better, as taken as a whole it is deceitful to their real interests, such as of perpetuating domestic imperialism and formal settler hegemony over "conquered" peoples))

Like every other "rights"-oriented group in settler society (feminists being only one more amongst oodles of superficial challengers), the reality is that these groups are organized into something like military structures themselves; that's because they are groups which have usually been organized *into* structures which petition the occupation state for "A Seat At the Table" of security and freedom. This in itself is tell-tale for anyone outside of such positions. Thus, one is "free" to discuss the single issue --of feminism in this case-- but not free to go deeper than that, really.

How settlers dismiss
So, to take a little somewhat recent history (1980s) if a thing like the political import of showing solidarity with the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua shows up into the consciousness of New Age-type folks (via the media they read), solidarity with Miskito Indians will depend upon whether the feminists' trusted leadership deem it politically valuable or not, first and foremost. If, as happened, the Miskito people are deemed non-allies, then, suddenly, their voices are censored and empathy becomes unheard of. Why? Because the meta of every state-subordinated group is playing the game of not playing the game of politics/polytricks.

Of course, in this case, the Miskito thought it in their best interest to remain neutral, and in some cases openly retalitory where the Sandinistas were concerned --as they were painted with a broadbrush to be "Contras" working for the c.ia. Thus, they wouldn't play the meta game, and they were "out", to use a little parlance that Noam Chomsky uses from time to time (see his "Media Control" speech, published as a book now, for more examples, where he's talking about Iraq).

This example, of the Miskito and Sandinistas was actually a very real situation. And if you look at www.coloradoaim.org's site, they discuss this at length, and give the reader grey areas that were never tolerated in dominant feminist media. Not even Z Magazine discussed the Miskito situation thoroughly, to my knowledge. Everyone just joined in on what the orders were.

And now you can start to see why indigenous folks see right through the superficiality of feminist New Agers, or New Agers in general (those dominated by Leftist, or even Rightist ways of Telling), or euro-peons all.

Because we, as a people, are largely subordinated to chain-of-command ways of thinking and being. If our trusted leaders Tell us to think in some way, we largely go along with that. We largely do NOT challenge, nor do our "alternatives" provide adequate space and time to critically appraise topics; actually, we as a mass are seen as *incapable* of such things, for whatever reason!

So what indigenous people are getting at is that we as a general population just DON'T HAVE IT IN US to be true indigenous people! Regardless of our claims, our actions prove the truth. We still remain subordinate to the polytricks (politics) which control the thought and actions of our communities, generally. And so, in seeing this, you may now see why indigenous folks are saying that everything we touch that isn't really who we are, we pollute!

Exodus (a tribe.net poster), what do you think of this way of saying? i'm sure i could have said this much more succinctly; perhaps a better writer will take this and run with it! Good!

Further
one thing more to add as far as settler culture goes, it really is a top-down type of culture.

A few stalwarts rise to the "leadership" often after having their very authoritarian impulses heavily funded by government; in dominant feminist politics, some feminists, those called "radical feminists" like Andrea Dworkin and Cathrine MacKinnon, received crucial funding and crucial openings and support at a very curious time for very curious reasons, while other feminists, namely the truly liberatory feminists like Pat Califia and Camille Paglia (or how about Karen McElroy?), who DID NOT preach an authoritarian scenario of retaliation (and further division), were heavily marginalized and struck from what is called "normal" feminist consciousness today.

And then they dictate the culture, and the rest of the community of feminists, takes those orders and basically goes in the direction they're herded. Oh, sure, individuals mumble and sometimes openly dissent, but their non-politicized/"political naivite" (aka crucial critique) is outwardly frowned upon, and "managed". Therapy is even advised for those who "refuse" to be "progressive".

And since the politics that took over's (when the professional activists and organizers entered the movement and commandeered it) sole purpose is to assimilate, and thus reinforce the chain-of-command of the state, the values of that dominant society must be replicated. If feminists --like all assimilators (whom usually know not what they do, or believe such is *all* that is open to them, as they look upon the fate of the Black Panthers and AIM)-- don't remain "vigilant" about these values and subordination to them? Ah, then CHAOS is said to arise and the ideologues step up and tell their constituencies to STOP THE BASHERS AND ABUSERS BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!

Why do they systematically resort to such hype? Because, above all, they MUST keep their constituencies (that's what we're all reduced to, mass numbers, mass "weight") "on the proper track"; this is true if you read Edward Bernays or Walter Lippmann (and so on, social managers et al) and it's true as far as political vanguardists/leaderships are concerned. Again, Chomsky's "Media Control" speech touches on this in a pivotal way, and is worth reading.

So, yes, this is a roughshod attempt to expose the reality of polytricks/politics, and why indigenous people are *rightly* critical of such.

Unless, of course, they are themselves seeking to assimilate (there is a growing number of this in indigenous communities, thanks to milliions in b.i.a. influence strategies, and "conservative" aboriginals as well --whom likely have been just as fooled and tooled as "liberal" aboriginals)...

If this latter is the case (and there seems to be a growing pattern of this thought), then the unmentionable meta is even more sinister than before, and i personally am MOVED to say, hey, maybe it's TIME to put my safety on the line again and try to expose this further reality as well; and then be "offensive." Because if such a way of seeing gets entrenched (i.e. ideological/rigid ways of thinking used as trickery to blind righteous victims to a very narrow way of behaving and subordination to Given orders), such instilled dogmatic mind-set will continue to become even more polluting than it already is, and the challenge of autonomous thought and the original insights of indigenous great spirit? Even more lost by the wayside of ideologically-challenged beliefs!

Know what i'm sayinG?

Clearing the pollution out of Euro-peon arrogance!

Hey, i'm a non-indigenous european person and i've been having a discussion with an elder lady friend about the topic of exactly what indigenous folks were like compared with europeans, and whether there was always a shared mentality of severe alienation in both cultures, and here's what she said to me...(i'm looking for insights from others, including possible proofs or info leading us to seeing such)

My lady friend said:
>Please I don't mean to offend you.,
but the reality exists that long before europeans came to this
continent that war, starvation, incest, slavery and genocide was a
reality for the people. There has always been inhumanity in every
cultuer and indeed the natives were particularily ruthless and felt
justified by there culture.... that europeans were so capable of
overpowering thier foes had alot to do with the developement of steel
and manufacturing, but the mentality of consciousness is universal
and although the european culture was colonistic they did not/ do not
hold the strings of brutality and even within european cultures there
existed a great deal of enlightenment.... Also let us not forget the
stong hold and influence of the church which is probably much more
influencial than any european country ...
---
i replied:

Where do you get this information, S? How do you know these things for certain? How can a european know what happened long before europeans were here?

Oh, yes, you are partially indigenous; yet what does that really mean if you look only through the lens of the european way of seeing? (a way that has, by the way, systematically utilized fraud and sleight-of-hand to conceal its own history not only during conquest of the indigenous people here, but also on *every* topic after "legally" securing this land). Every topic you can think of, i bet that there is a long history of suppression of truths that simply are not allowed.

Some questions:
Where do you get the idea that the original natives practiced genocide against each other?

What does slavery really mean between varying cultures, and do severely alienated cultures like european cultures truly have similar ways of seeing these things? After all, indigenous folks never had *wage slavery* (they tended to look out for each other, realizing the value, i see and think); nor did they have all of these long lists of ways to keep some marginalized while others, via deceit, gained wealth!

Why is starvation spoken here? If a group, say the Irish, die of a "potato famine" is there a context that is deeper? How about when others, say indigenous folks began to starve? In what context, again? Perhaps because their food stores were destroyed by europeans always taking and hardly giving anything in return? And before europeans arrived? --Okay, some starved at times, just as the Irish, just as the peasants in a world dominated by feudalism.

Does incest mean the same thing in all cultures?

For instance, if there is no heavy-negative-feelings in a culture about sexuality or *bad touches* then would people have the same kind of a taboo feeling about it that a culture that *has* such heavy-feelings?

I mean, look at the European history of the state-backed church's way of aiding in the control over the masses via the prohibition and demonization of ALL sex acts except missionary-position procreation made by heteros married by the chruch! Now compare that to ways peoples free of such influence and orders might behave (of course, most of we colonized folks are so well poisoned, er, trained, that all we can imagine is what people in our society would be like as soon as the bars of the cage we live in are lifted--obviously, a berserk situation!). On the other hand, a society that has survived thousands of years and didn't have this "manifest destiny" need to conquer others and move roughshod over them at whim, would naturally have a very different approach.

So i'm wondering, are there grey area ways that make it possible to approach things which are taboo in one culture and yet not at all similarly viewed in another? (We can compare and contrast on several topics to give us light here, you know!)

So, no, i see very heavily-loaded value assumptions being thrown, blanketly, upon those labeled the "primitives" in general by you and so many others who don't seem to see what they do. i say, read some critique and demystification of anthropology (and any other usually politically-suberservient social "science") before you make your sweeping judgements (which have a curious way of making the conquering society sound so much "better", notably)! i know an author off-hand that could help you in that area...i'm trying to recall his name...um...oh yes, Theodore Roszak (spelling?) went into this in some detail in his book about the 1970s counterculture.

And i don't agree, either, on the "mentality of consciousness" as you seem to believe it was some universal. Look at indigenous medicine, look at how shamans were created and when, look at every facet of pre-colonized life and then tell me that they shared a "mentality of consciousness"! i don't see that at all!

But when the europeans arrived, a ton of shit began cropping up. Tribes were divided up and the old trick of "divide and conquer" was employed systematically (to this day); indigenous folks did not understand this. Nor did they understand the selling of lands. You read any account of old-way chiefs talking to europeans and you see that there is a QUALITIVE difference between the two cultures! Once indigenous folks were pushed into the insanity of european seeing and believing, all of these pollutions began cropping up, and peoples, seeking to remain in harmony, did what they could to get along; but systematically, they were fooled and tooled! Only now have they, as a whole people, begun to get a full understanding of we colonized peoples' mentality.

So the point i'm trying to make is that we can see, often too clearly, that indigenous society wasn't nearly as insane as european society! How?

By recalling that the waters were not polluted, the forests were not decimated, the wild animals were not decimated by hunting, nothing was wasted, and so on and so forth. Guns were not invented, not even the wheel. Alienation did not exist as we know it today, if at all; Mom nature (aka wakan tanka) was always there in everything they were and did. Animals, when killed, were prayed to (before and after death).

Even if i'm somewhat "romanticizing" the indigenous, pre-"civilized" way of life, you know you cannot help but to see the truth when comparing with european feudalistic society, right?!

The other info is interesting to me, thanks for sharing about the jewish guy who saw in his captors their lostness; do you have a title in mind? i'd like to read about that one.

As for the stronghold of the church? Back when the church ran states, okay. Yet, after they became *subordinate* to states, all they did was its bidding. We can see examples of this in movies like "At Play In The Fields of the Lord", where missionaries are tolerated to change
the indigenous peoples, but if they don't, the military will kill and terrorize them. The church (and every state-subordinate religion!) is yet only one more example of the bigger picture of the meta Chess Game being played on all diverse humans who subordinate their individualities to such a dumbed-down way of being in the world.

Do you see what i'm saying?