Thanks for your service Ed.
REH From: futurework-boun...@lists.uwaterloo.ca [mailto:futurework-boun...@lists.uwaterloo.ca] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2013 10:01 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] They came for the Children and other ecological hubris Yes indeed there was a Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP for short), and I did some work for it. Ed _____ From: Ray Harrell <mc...@nyc.rr.com> To: "'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'" <futurework@lists.uwaterloo.ca> Sent: Saturday, June 1, 2013 5:44:17 PM Subject: Re: [Futurework] They came for the Children and other ecological hubris It seems there was an earlier Report by a Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. 1991 Page seven of that report is very interesting: It also puts the lie to the propaganda about our civilizations being tribal hunter gatherers. Here's the page. https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100013497/1100100013637 >From pg. 7 of Archived highlights from the Report of the Royal Commission on >Aboriginal Peoples: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The ghosts take the form of dishonoured treaties, theft of Aboriginal lands, suppression of Aboriginal cultures, abduction of Aboriginal children, impoverishment and disempowerment of Aboriginal peoples. Yet at the beginning, no one could have predicted these results, for the theme of early relations was, for the most part, co-operation. The relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people evolved through four stages: • There was a time when Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people lived on separate continents and knew nothing of one another. • Following the years of first contact, fragile relations of peace, friendship and rough equality were given the force of law in treaties. • Then power tilted toward non-Aboriginal people and governments. They moved Aboriginal people off much of their land and took steps to 'civilize' and teach them European ways. • Finally, we reached the present stage - a time of recovery for Aboriginal people and cultures, a time for critical review of our relationship, and a time for its renegotiation and renewal. Many of today's malfunctioning laws and institutions - the Indian Act and the break-up of nations into bands, to name just two - are remnants of the third stage of our history. But there was honour in history, too; indeed, the foundations of a fair and equitable relationship were laid in our early interaction. Stage 1: SEPARATE WORLDS Before 1500, Aboriginal societies in the Americas and non-Aboriginal societies in Europe developed along separate paths, in ignorance of one another. The variety in their languages, cultures and social traditions was enormous. Yet on both sides of the Atlantic, independent peoples with evolving systems of government - though smaller and simpler than the nations and governments we know today - flourished and grew. America, separated from Europe by a wide ocean, was inhabited by a distinct people, divided into separate nations, independent of each other and the rest of the world, having institutions of their own, and governing themselves by their own laws. It is difficult to comprehend... that the discovery of either by the other should give the discoverer rights in the country discovered which annulled the previous rights of its ancient possessors. Chief Justice John Marshall United States Supreme Court Worcester v. Georgia (1832) In the southeastern region of North America, the Cherokee were organized into a confederacy of some 30 cities - the greatest of which was nearly as large as imperial London when English explorers first set eyes on it. Further south, in Central and South America, Indigenous peoples had carved grand empires out of the mountains and jungles long before Cortez arrived. The forging and maintaining of these confederacies are evidence of great political skill... Bruce Trigger referring to the Huron [Wendat] Confederacy in The Children of Aataentsic In northern North America, Aboriginal cultures were shaped by environment and the evolution of technology: • The plentiful resources of sea and forest enabled west coast peoples to build societies of wealth and sophistication. • On the prairies and northern tundra, Aboriginal peoples lived in close harmony with vast, migrating herds of buffalo and caribou. • In the forests of central Canada, Aboriginal peoples harvested wild rice from the marshes and grew corn, squash and beans beside the river banks, supplementing their crops by fishing, hunting and gathering. • On the east coast and in the far north, the bounty of the sea and land - and their own ingenuity - enabled Aboriginal peoples to survive in harsh conditions. The Americas were not, as the Europeans told themselves when they arrived, terra nullius - empty land. REH From: futurework-boun...@lists.uwaterloo.ca [mailto:futurework-boun...@lists.uwaterloo.ca] On Behalf Of Ray Harrell Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2013 11:57 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] They came for the Children and other ecological hubris Thank you Natalia for your care in this. This report that you mentioned is the report by Kevin Annett and the Independent Commission that broke the dam on the public blockade of information. That report is the Foundation for the official government and First Nation's Commission that Mike and I worked with and who produced the report. There will more reports from this "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" as the information grows. I hope the work that Mike and I did on the future of the relationship between Canada and the First Nations will also finally come out. It's been a long time that I've spent learning about Canada and her relationship with the First Nations. Early on I thought Canada had done better than America and maybe she did but the US had more local tribal control of the government schools earlier than Canada. I was stunned to understand the late dates on the schools in Canada. In 1980 when I went to Canada naively coming from the release of our religion by the Congressional Freedom of Religion Act of 1978 and the first open Sun Dances at Green Grass and Rosebud reservations, I had a much more "genteel" belief about what had happened to Indian People in Canada. As I traveled to Canada that summer I very quickly realized that the non-Indian's lack of information and assumptions about culture, substance abuse and native potential was inaccurate. I was used to the books of Rupert Ross and had assumed that native people had access to all of the wonderful services and culture that made Canada and the Canadian Arts Council so admired by those of us down South. The medical plan, the welfare, etc. I was unprepared for the chauvinism and paternalism that I encountered and I very quickly had to shut my mouth since I was traveling on peanuts and could see my support network dissolve and my being abandoned in a foreign country with little resources of my own at the time. I also had a pregnant wife traveling with me. There are still amazing things in Canada and amazing people. The lectures, the people on this list. My colleagues and friends and my writing partner. Nunavut, the First Nation's Network, tremendous people I've met in my work and through the Indian Telegraph. The incredible beauty and the rugged honesty now showing its face in these reports. Wonderful musicians and singers from all over the world. A general civility and loyalty to each other and to Canada. The Massey Lectures, the schools, etc. but then there is this other side, just as there is to the US. Forgiveness and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome requires respect given and the willingness to change. It also requires equality and the recognition of how much each side has taken from the other in the important things like discoveries, models, systems, families, etc. Those things that cannot be recovered as simple property and that constitute one's identity as a real person. It's not about deserving what you have or who you are but about the self destruction that comes from a person's inability to handle their own prejudices, envy, jealousy, venality to the point where they cannot give their own selves permission to be a real human being. One loses for themselves what they cannot give to another, unless they are "damaged." REH From: futurework-boun...@lists.uwaterloo.ca [mailto:futurework-boun...@lists.uwaterloo.ca] On Behalf Of D & N Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2013 2:37 PM To: futurework@lists.uwaterloo.ca Subject: Re: [Futurework] They came for the Children and other ecological hubris Ray, I thought I had a copy, but it turns out my thick blue binder is called: Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust and it's penned by The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada. Cover to cover first hand reports; letters that are so painful you can barely control your stomach. The ignorance and cruelty of the abusers, and the positions of trust and authority they held is so completely shocking that I cannot see anyone who either went through this hell or read through this report able to trust government, church or educational systems again. Well, they were all just badly raised abusers, but it will still take a few more generations of weeding out, and we're only talking about those exposed to sentient and empathetic educational and social environments. Natalia On 30/05/2013 10:31 AM, Ray Harrell wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/opinion/ecology-lessons-from-the-cold-war.html?hp If you read the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission with its conclusions about the tenets of cultural warfare and the innocence of the ignorant general population then you will see that Charles Elton must have been or been influenced by First Nations philosophies and religion since the preservation of the eco-system and diversity is called the "Way of Right Relationship" and is the old traditional method of agricultural technology and spirituality of the First Nation's Peoples before the Canadian schools destroyed the processes. What I find interesting is that the general population is either incapable of reading or they just don't want to know about this since it has stirred no conversation and no response from anywhere except an occasional congratulations on being a part of the project. Thanks to Ed who has been there, but doesn't it matter otherwise and merit some kind of comment? REH _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list Futurework@lists.uwaterloo.ca https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list Futurework@lists.uwaterloo.ca https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
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