Ed,
What's so hard about this? No one is listening. The NYTimes said that the Lacrosse Federation would not accept them as a National Team if they came with Canadian or U.S. Passports. Batesonian double bind. Or as we say "between a Rock and a Hard Place". The truth is probably that the Brits didn't want to risk losing a game to a reserve. But that is their ego problem. That type of ego problem took them into the Falklands and the U.S. to Granada. The problem here was that it was "Lieutenant Scheisskopf" all the way. Catch 22. [ You can't come without fancy passports but if you have them you can't play because you're not from a real nation.] Of course if they were from a Pacific Island Nation with representation at the UN and 400 people, would the same be true of THEIR passports? The Iroquois Confederacy is larger than Lichtenstein. More people, more land, distinct language and culture and a history older than modern France and they invented Lacrosse. But the problem is the same as for Basques of Spain or the Armenians in Turkey or the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq. How does it feel to be using the words of Sadaam Hussein talking about his "Iroquois"? "They were in the way." After 200 years they're still arguing over biological warfare here too. There is a lot more distance between the Iroquois and their neighbors than the Kurds or the Armenians were with theirs. Indian Nations in America have more population than Lichtenstein and a continuous culture, language and religion for longer. Hell there are more Muslims in America than Swiss in Switzerland. This team had plenty of creds. Britain didn't want to lose to them and besides they shouldn't give any encouragement to the Catholics in Northern Ireland or the French in Quebec. Reconciliation is really hard. It takes sacrifice and integrity. What would happen if this sovereign nation decided to take erase the Canadian/American border that runs through their nation and set up their roadblocks in and out of their country? They've done that before and they stopped traffic on a big International bride. What if they appealed to the UN and to China for development funds and set up a gaming empire? What, they've done that already too. But they have been good little Indians, a little surly but still "citizens." Can't you see the Canadians issues with taking over militarily and the U.S.? The Canadians have the French and the Scots and we have Texans:>)) The Brits, U.S. and Canada just didn't want the Indians to come and so they set up a Catch 22. This is not my first experience with this. The U.S. and Canada can talk about Reconciliation and Apologies but when the ukstaha hits the fan they either mean it or they were just "fooling around" and pretending that it was love. Under U.S. Law and the Supreme Court Indian Nations are "dependent" sovereign entities. This is just the latest skirmish that goes all the way back to the Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia Supreme Court Case that Georgia lost and they sent us on a death march anyway. More of us died than at the WTC. I saw it happen again with our article to the Reconciliation Commission in Canada, even though we were paid a good fee for the product. It was too serious and the assumptions they had were not (serious). This is the same cultural problem that David Kay spoke about when he said the problem of WMD's in Iraq was that no one really knew anything about Iraqi culture so interpreting Saddam was semiotic. Or idiotic. "Maybe culture is too much to ask here?" Those were exactly David Kay's words on C-Span. Before that it was Edward T. Hall's when the State Department hired him to teach them about culture. He failed.. Cross culture is just not a part of America's cultural image. You're all supposed to become good Englishman but not too English. As a result we have a cultural war with every culture speaking IT's English and claiming that they are the only true version. It's really simple. It's Bernard Shaw and Henry Higgins speaking for him. Some people are sitting on one side of the problematic situation and see that side but the others are sitting across on the other side from the same problem and the view's so different that it doesn't even seem the same problem. Then there are the people on the left and the right who see half of what both sides see but still think it's something else. No one seems to be willing to look for the whole. No one is willing to ask and no one is willing to give up the power their unique view affords them. So they fight. That's Lacrosse. That's the meaning of the ball as each fights for winning over the other at carrying the ball, not in their hands but in a stick. [The ball is too sacred to touch. When they are through they can sit down, ask questions, dance together and share their uniqueness with each other and come to some kind of knowledge of what the real whole happens to be. Unfortunately no one seems to really get the idea of a "Circle of Nations" or a circle of cultural identities. That's what is so wonderful about music. Everyone who performs knows that to do another culture's style or context badly means you're a pig. So they work hard to learn the other style. But that's Art and Art is of little value to the "practical world" that got us into this mess with the environment and the banks. Or is it? Maybe we just sacrificed another Indian, like in the movies, for another White man's growth or survival. Been there, done that. REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2010 3:55 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] Fw: [Ottawadissenters] Fw: More dismal stuff Easy, Ray, easy... and I don't like it anymore than you do. All I was saying is that if the Haudenosaunee really wanted to get to Britain to play lacrosse, they would have to follow the rules that would get them there even if they found those rules demeaning. If, on the other hand, they were trying to make a statement then I guess they put themselves into a position that would enable them to make it. I don't see it as a game, but the world is a crappy place and if you want to move around in it you may have to do things that you don't like. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Ray Harrell <mailto:[email protected]> To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME <mailto:[email protected]> DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2010 2:26 PM Subject: Re: [Futurework] Fw: [Ottawadissenters] Fw: More dismal stuff You're really not getting it. This is like the loggers road that was going to destroy a thousands of year old meditation run for the Yarok religion in California. All of the Anglos and the Italian Catholics on the Supreme Court said Tsk Tsk too bad but we move on, we have to have logs. Then the UN got involved and an international indigenous group got involved and put pressure on the state of California and they stopped the road. The Yarok culture is still there. To you it's a game and a game has a social purpose, to them it's a part of the religion as it is with us. It's a substitute for hostile action against those who oppress us. It's called the "Little War" and it's a lot better than going to Iraq. Would you prefer suicide bombers? These kids have a high suicide rate. How long before they realize what Islam has realized? In short. You are a smart man and this is beneath you. You should be better. There are consequences. If you guys would like I would be willing to give the list a primer instruction in this so you don't come off as brutes. REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2010 2:04 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] Fw: [Ottawadissenters] Fw: More dismal stuff It's too bad, but it's the kind of world we now live in. I used to ride a motorbike across the US border with nothing more than a driver's license as ID. I'm no longer doing that but if I were, I'd need a passport. This is the post 9/11 world. The Haudenosaunee should have known what they were getting into and should have been prepared for it. You may not respect a US or Canadian passport, but you may have to have it nevertheless. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Ray Harrell <mailto:[email protected]> To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME <mailto:[email protected]> DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2010 12:20 PM Subject: Re: [Futurework] Fw: [Ottawadissenters] Fw: More dismal stuff Speaking of Values. What's your thought on the Iroquois Nationals now that Britain has banned them? From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2010 8:08 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] Fw: [Ottawadissenters] Fw: More dismal stuff I know it's about values Ray, and values come with cultural perspectives. I spent a lot of my professional life working with and about Native people in northern Canada and have a pretty good understanding of how their values differ from ours. I recall how, back in the 1970s, people of the Mackenzie Valley first encountered the concept of land ownership. "What?" they would say, "owning the land? Nobody owns the land. It's just there." Needless to say, the guys from the oil patch who wanted to drill or build pipelines saw things differently. At the time, the Canadian government tended to side with the oil patch. It took a helluva lot of work to develop a concept of land ownership that was accepted by both sides and to bring on the land claims process. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Ray Harrell <mailto:[email protected]> To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME <mailto:[email protected]> DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 5:07 PM Subject: Re: [Futurework] Fw: [Ottawadissenters] Fw: More dismal stuff It's about values Ed. They value the wrong things. A stone or a widget or a piece of tar. Consider the value of a song? Consider a society that rethought it's values and moved away from the market ideas of Mill and Jevons. Mill should have known better. If he had not had Wordworth his life would have been spent as a failure in the mental institution after the terrible beating his father gave him. Obama is a failure with Indians because as a Black Man he missed the point completely of our history. He's a failure with economics because he bought the European model of value. Capital, is what it's all about. You have to be willing to invest it in real growth that grows people, not just is material transformation into energy that dissolves. Electricity and computers, bit rot and records. All of our visual and literary treasures caught in a machine that could disappear in a moment. Someone's values are screwy and they aren't mine. I still say it Hohokum. I've had a computer crash and lost all of my history except for what was in paper and had to redo thousands of pages and I'm one person. This place is nuts. The first solar pulse to come along and they will just disappear. REH _____ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _____ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
_______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
