I knew we were fucked when I saw a bunch of needles on the lawn of my Timmys..and that was before the coof. Im not in a big city either, Im in a relatively small farming town. There was an activist on HE WHO CANNOT BE NAMED's show, Russell Means who made a documentary about 10 yrs ago basically stating that all of America(and most of the western world?) is the new reservation and that really stuck in my head. When you see the poverty demoralization addiction etc go in to turbo mode it shows me how right he is
I'm going to have to look him up. It's funny, because one of the thoughts that has been developing as I roll it around in my mind is that the "culture" that Canada has is actually one that wants to bring us all down to the bottom level, and that they are willing to use the same tactics against all Canadians as they did with natives.
One of the major programs of residential school was to make the child ashamed of who he was and his culture. Can you imagine anything more directly attacking children than critical race theory in school? You are white. White equals bad.You are straight? maybe you want to think about being gay instead as straight is bad. Male? Better to just identify as them/they and save yourself a headache. Instead of reaching out to minorities to bring them "up" to a higher level, we are wanting to break down the "privileged" and take away that perceived privilege.
Think of your ancestry. Do you retain any cultural traditions, any of the language? Where the natives had it forcibly removed through schools and policy, we gave it away willingly. And it was replaced with Canadian "culture." In many cases today, that is consumerism and saying "sorry." (Yes, I oversimplify- but it is not a deep culture that we are offered through tiktok and instagram.) Religion (one of the few places with deep cultural roots and traditions) is attacked. Its at the point where people who used to proudly declare they were Christian now only whisper it with an apology for holding those beliefs due to the scandals in the church and a sustained attack by academia.
I'm not saying that it is exactly the same. What the Canadian government did towards natives was deliberate and in the open. What is happening to our culture is due to us giving away our strength. But the end results are the same. The needles on Timmy's lawn, the bodies hanging in houses out of a desperation- the drugs and alcohol to numb the loss.
It's bleak if we do not turn this around somehow. To know that somebody else is saying that we are the new reserve makes me want to seek him out.
*I had read Chris Hedges "America: The Farewell Tour." The observations were spot on. But I believe that his conclusions on the causes were only half right. Economic devastation of multinationals and offshoring is a contributing factor. But you look at poor populations in other countries many can still be happy and optimistic. It is economic devastation with a cultural loss (or an American / Canadian culture that values money above all else) that I believe is the other half of the equation.
