Chief Chad Smith of the Cherokee Nation West has pulled the Federal government out of the business of servicing Indian People and taken it on with the Cherokee government. They have a better health care system than they have ever had and in fact the white community around them is extremely jealous. (and is represented by my cousin-in-law [not my blood] Senator conservative Republican Tom Coburn). Chief Smith lured some of the best doctor's from Tulsa with better facilities and decent salaries and the promise of developing their own programs. It seems that working Doctors also like having control over the quality of the care they give compared to the nightmare with private enterprise HMOs. Senator Coburn is a doctor but has been a bust at providing health care for his own constituents. He's a totally dedicated privatizer. Coburn covers his tracks by talking about the murder of aborted children via Rowe v. Wade and government waste. Fundamentalist preachers love it and spout the talking points weekly to their congregations. The fact is that Coburn is just a really lousy representative for his constituents although they love him and can't stand that the Cherokees pulled out of his health service and have done a better job on their own. They also have casino money since that is the only thing the non-Indian government will allow Indians to really do. Those "foragers" just make great hospitality hoteliers when left to their own government institutions. But rarely does any group function well under paternalism from another group. Governments just love to dabble in other people's business. Especially non-Indian Governments.
REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 1:25 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] Arctic comparisons Thank you, Ray. Here's something else I wrote on the basis of a study of communities in northern Saskatchewan back in the early 1990's. Ed A Symbiotic Community Monday, July 13, 2009 Discussion of the problems of our aboriginal peoples with a friend prompted me to look up something I wrote many years ago while working on a project in the northern parts of one of the prairie provinces. The following is an abridged version of what I wrote. I'd suggest that it applies to many of our aboriginal communities. Undoubtedly, the community had valid economic and social reasons for existing at one time. During the fur and mission era, it serviced a largely subsistence, partly commercial (fur trapping, commercial fishing, casual labor) population that was widely dispersed on the land much of the time. The descendants of that population were drawn into town by a series of government requirements that were imposed mostly during the post WWII era: the requirement that kids attend school regularly; that the school be in the community; that health and hospital services be provided where people live (which was turned around into the requirement that people live where the health and hospital services are provided); that people be housed at national and provincial standards for Indians, and that community physical and service infrastructure exist to support that housing; that people be conveniently located so that welfare and other forms of subsidy could be administered to them; etc. It has become a symbiotic community: All of the institutions have been provided in a single place which in the administrative view is appropriate to the population and that allows government institutions to provide their services conveniently. The people, having lost their independence need the institutions. But the institutions also need the people to justify their existence in the community. Socially, the population maintains many of the values and attitudes of its land based culture. The people continue to try to be hunters, trappers, fishers and foragers, though being those things while living in the community full time is very difficult. So some of the land-based skills and attitudes have been converted to skills that allow survival in town, with foraging for money among the various bureaucracies being an especially useful skill. Such foraging makes economic sense, since the community has no industrial base. The only real income base, now and in future, is government, supplemented by occasional construction, some local business, some fishing, etc. Yet the money that the foragers obtain does not always make good sense socially. Wives often see one purpose in money - feeding the family - but husbands all too often see quite another - having a good time with their friends. This often leads to family violence. The government institutions which service the community are there not only to support and service the population, they are there to change it. They are not really support services in the sense of helping people achieve their own aspirations, they are coercive agents of social change - social engineers. When they put some of the administration of programs into local hands, they nevertheless maintain tight control to ensure that it is their objectives and not those of the local people that are met. The outcome has been a disruption and fragmentation of the community. Many people buy into the institutionally driven values, attitudes and actions, and the old ways get pushed into the background. The elders remain respected as custodians of old memories, but in reality wield little influence. They have taken on the roles of cultural icons, not much more. ----- Original Message ----- From: Ray Harrell <mailto:[email protected]> To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' <mailto:[email protected]> Cc: Steve <mailto:[email protected]> & Edith Kurtz ; Mike Hollinshead <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 10:58 AM Subject: Re: [Futurework] Arctic comparisons Bulls Eye. Ed Weick got it. Are you sure you aren't an artist? Now, what we call the "Yonegas" have messed up a "place of scarcity" (the Arctic). Now the Danes strictly control their place of scarcity "the Market" with socialism and strict regulation. They got the Gypsies to join their housing projects. I'm sure they had the believe that Inuits are Romany at heart. After all is said and done it works for commerce for them but the Inuit are people, not commerce and the Inuit have a genuine, not a made up in the mind, place of scarcity to deal with. And the Romany are really from India not the Siberian land bridge. A false syllogism perhaps? According to the Danes the Inuit would be fine if they just weren't so attached to the ways that have served them so well in that place of scarcity for 10,000 years and will again when Denmark is but a memory. Then there are the lower forty eight. Why wouldn't we expect the Laissez Faire woodsmen, who never saw a forest they couldn't either leave alone or destroy (quite a choice), to mess up a society based on the acceptance of a "Field of Plenty" as a religious tenet. Genuine forestry is out of the question, for the scarcity yonegas, just as regulation of their market (forest), as an exercise in gardening, is also out of the question. Remember, they left the Garden Forest in their creation myth. With the Danes and the Inuit, it's a conflict of successful systems of scarcity. Racist Imperialism. In the South (48) it's an oxymoron. A market of scarcity in the face of unbelievable plenty. There is still so much forest here that they can't imagine the need to nurture it. (Only we did that.) Can you imagine what the Japanese would do if they had the natural resources of Texas or California? Or even Oklahoma? It wouldn't be nice for the yonegas however. Japanese can be pretty blunt when they are on top, just like the Sooners in Oklahoma in 1900. Or just ask the Ainu. Considering we have so much plenty here, wouldn't you expect a system based on allocation of scarce resources to be a contradiction in terms? Wouldn't you need a system of sustainability and renewal to see that the "Plenty" is there as a legacy? Also the yonegas are idolaters. They worship an Invisible Hand. How do they know it exists? Because.... not going there. I'm on thin ice enough already. They don't have a prayer of dealing successfully here in the lower 48 because they can't deal with plenty. They are unhappy if they don't have scarcity to get around. (or a good war) Was there anything more pitiful than the GOP when Russia collapsed? What is it about systems that demand enemies to overcome their inertia? European "Economics" is the efficient use of scarcity. Economics can't deal with sunlight, wind or water unless they can make it scarce. But wait! Their doing it in Europe. Maybe even in Denmark. But not here. Maybe Europe isn't Yonega? Where did this come from? Scotland? A wild eyed Intellectual in London out for a walk in his intellectual toxic waste? What is it about the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act of 1978 as pointed out by Natalia? How did that happen given the theory of the market and Lassez Faire? Passed the same year they stopped sterilizing Indian women without their knowledge and gave us the right to practice our spirituality (and economics) taken away 100 years before. The Freedom of Religion Act for Native Americans of 1978. It was a busy year for complex Baptist Presidents (Jimmy Carter). What we have now are simpletons. The simplicity of provincial chauvinist' ignorance praying that they can become President and bring in the "Rapture." Incomprehensible. REH PS If this seems weird or racist or something to any of you, I would suggest you speak to the local Inuit and hear what they have to say about these patronizing chauvinists ruining their connection to the earth, their children and their ancestors. Meanwhile Ed Weick is not blind. Maybe we could adopt him. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 9:44 AM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: [Futurework] Arctic comparisons Something ancient from my notes(1996) that may be interest: Back in the 1960s and early 1970s, Greenland, which is Danish territory, was regarded by some Canadian thinkers as a model of how we should do things in our own Canadian Arctic. I visited Greenland at about that time and came away appalled at what I had seen. Under what was called the "G-60 Plan" which was supposed to both develop Greenland and make it more efficient to operate, small villages had been phased out, their people moved into large multi-story apartment complexes in Godthob (now Nuuk), Jacobshavn, and other larger centres. Some of the villagers had brought their dogs with them and had tied them up behind those huge buildings. The dogs, having nothing else to do, howled all night. The villagers' children, meanwhile, roamed the streets at all hours. I came away from Greenland marvelling both at the Danish government's penchant for efficiency and its inhumanity. I wondered why Denmark had treated its Arctic people so differently from the way we had treated our own. In discussing this with Canadian officials, I concluded that we were not trying to treat our Arctic all that differently, it's just that the Danes had succeeded where we had failed. Because of our perpetual muddle, we were incapable of doing what they had done. Meanwhile, our small Arctic villages survived and in some cases thrived largely because we were unable to focus on putting them out of business. I've always felt that there was a lesson here for the larger Canadian picture. Ed _____ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
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