Subtly Out of Control

“One very important aspect of art is that it makes people aware of what they know and don’t know that they know. Once the breakthrough is made there is permanent expansion of awareness.” — William S. Burroughs Philosophy and Psychology Graduate Practicing Chan Buddhist California Non-Binary Polysexual Editor at The Left Press He/Him, They/Them, or Comrade

[xander-dakota]

‘The Kiss Of Death’

[plaid-flannel]

Seen in the window at Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick, Maine. Photo: Bill Roorbach

[virulentblog-deactivated2023080]

Except America wasn’t an endless expanse of forest with no certain borders. At least not while human beings inhabited it. The idea that native peoples did not cultivate or shape our land and that we had no borders is white propaganda meant to dehumanize and de-legitimize native peoples.

This illustration here show Apalachee people using slash and burn methods for agriculture. Fires were set regularly to intention burn down forests and plains. Why would we do this? Well because an unregulated forest isn’t that great for people, actually. We set fires to destroy new forest growth and undergrowth, and to remove trees, allowing for easier game hunting, nutrient enriched soil, and better growth rates for crops and herbs we used in food and medicine.

Pre-Colonial New England, where my tribe the Abenaki are from, looked more like an extensive meadow or savannah with trees growing in pockets and groves. Enough woodland to support birds, deer, and moose, but not too much to make hunting difficult. We carefully shaped the land around us to suit our needs as a thriving and successful people. Slash and burn agriculture was practiced virtually everywhere in the new world, from the pacific coast to chesapeake bay, from panama to quebec. It was a highly successful way of revitalizing the land and promoting crop growth, as well as preventing massive forest fires that thrive in unregulated forests. Berries were the major source of fruit for my tribe, and we needed to burn the undergrowth so they could grow.

That changed when white people invaded, and brought with them disease. In my tribe, up to 9 in 10 people died. 90% of our people perished not from violence starvation, but from disease. Entire villages would be decimated, struck down by small pox. Suddenly, we couldn’t care for the land anymore. There weren’t enough of us to maintain a vast, carefully structured ecological system like we had for thousands of years. We didn’t have the numbers, or strength. So the trees grew back and unregulated. We couldn’t set fires anymore, and we couldn’t cultivate the land. And white people would make certain we never could again. Timber, after all, was the most important export from New England. 

Endless trees and untamed wilderness is a nice fantasy. But it’s a very white fantasy, one that erases the history of my people and of my land. One that paints native peoples are merely parasites leeching off the land, not masters of the earth who new the right balance of hunting and agriculture. It robs us of our agency as people, and takes our accomplishments from us. Moreover, it implies that only white people ever discovered the power to shape the world around them, and that mere brown people can’t possibly have had anything to do with changing our environment.

Don’t bring back untamed wilderness. Bring back my fire setters, my tree sappers, my farmers and my fishers. Bring back my people who were here first. 

Sources:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_use_of_fire#Role_of_fire_by_natives

https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsbdev3_000385.pdf

http://www.sidalc.net/repdoc/A11604i/A11604i.pdf

For those curious I recommend reading Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England. https://books.google.com/books/about/Changes_in_the_Land.html?id=AHclmuykdBQC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false

[rosslynpaladin]

O’ho. Our tribe used to do regular controlled burns in the brush in CA to prevent- guess what? Uncontrollable wildfires. (also it keeps the poison oak down and helps some plants propagate) And before yall panic these methods worked because they were sustainable. You can’t survive if you destroy your resources; tribes knew how to make sure they could come back to a harvest ground next year and harvest again. There was still plenty of wilderness and it was often healthier for a touch of human help here and there.  people used to be all over this continent. 

[lloerwyn-deactivated20201104]

This all kind of squashes the ecofascist idea that only white people are the saviours if the environment and everyone else is a polluter.

[fyeahmurraybookchin]

This 1978 speech by Murray Bookchin is strikingly relevant today

On August 24, 1978, Murray Bookchin gave a lecture at the Toward Tomorrow Fair in Amherst, Massachusetts. Also speaking at that year’s gathering were several prominent thinkers, including R. Buckminster Fuller and Ralph Nader. In his speech, Bookchin argues against the ideology of futurism and for ecological utopianism. In the Q&A session, he points out that he is not against technology itself, he is against technocracy, and he also describes, in detail, his political vision for the future.

The speech is surprisingly relevant in today’s context: it’s as if he predicted the rise of fascist ideology and lifeboat ethics in the 21st century, and it feels like a direct rebuttal of Elon Musk-esque technocratic futurism on both the right and the left.

Because his speech is so applicable today, we decided to republish it here, making it accessible to a wider audience. It has been transcribed and edited lightly for flow, brevity, and grammar, and we have divided it into sub-sections for ease of reading. The text is published with the permission of The Bookchin Trust.

[howieabel]

“All too often we are told by liberal environmentalists, and not a few deep ecologists, that it is “we” as a species or, at least, “we” as an amalgam of “anthropocentric” individuals that are responsible for the breakdown of the web of life. I remember an “environmental” presentation staged by the Museum of Natural History in New York during the 1970s in which the public was exposed to a long series of exhibits, each depicting examples of pollution and ecological disruption. The exhibit which closed the presentation carried a startling sign, “The Most Dangerous Animal on Earth.” It consisted simply of a huge mirror which reflected back the person who stood in front of it. I remember a black child standing in front of that mirror while a white school teacher tried to explain the message which this arrogant exhibit tried to convey. Mind you, there was no exhibit of corporate boards of directors planning to deforest a mountainside or of government officials acting in collusion with them.”

— Murray Bookchin

[milkboydotnet]

“Social Ecology: The notion that man must dominate nature emerges directly from the domination of man by man… But it was not until organic community relations… dissolved into market relationships that the planet itself was reduced to a resource for exploitation. This centuries-long tendency finds its most exacerbating development in modern capitalism. Owing to its inherently competitive nature, bourgeois society not only pits humans against each other, it also pits the mass of humanity against the natural world. Just as men are converted into commodities, so every aspect of nature is converted into a commodity, a resource to be manufactured and merchandised wantonly … The plundering of the human spirit by the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by capital.”

— Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism

[finita--la--commedia]

“From earliest childhood, an arrow of grief has been embedded in my heart. As long as it remains there, I am ironic — if it is drawn out, I will die.”

— Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)  in: “Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 2: Journals  NB2: 92″,  Bruce H. Kirmmse (general editor) 

[adaswordlace]

Saw an op-ed that was on the surface a complaint about kids not wanting to take on family heirlooms but read like an elegy to dying traditions. The hardest part was the anxiety without recognizing that they didn’t pave the way for the decisions they assumed their kids would make.

(This is written entirely within the dominant white/western culture - about traditions that have neglectful stewardship rather than those actively suppressed)

The anxiety makes sense. You’re seeing, too late to do anything about it, that there’s no foundation - no space - for the traditions you expected to pass on. Your kids _can’t_ take your mom’s fine china. So now instead of enjoying what you have you worry about its future.

I see a pattern in these op-eds though - a pattern in what’s left unsaid. There were responsibilities tied to these traditions. You collectively assumed they _would_ be passed along. So collectively, what did you do to ensure those traditions _could_ be passed along?

Op-eds never speak for everyone, but it’s worth acknowledging the pattern in what speech is deemed worth sharing widely.  And in this particular pattern, there’s an answer: that answer looks like “nothing.”

You want the china passed down but your kids have no room in their rentals. You want grandkids but your kids don’t have the financial stability. You want that cross-country RV neverending road trip but you’ve had decades of wanting lower taxes more than you wanted infrastructure.

The bleak outlook for traditions is a direct result of the unmaintained foundations for them. The second best time is always now - if it’s important enough to op-ed about, what are you willing to change to get it back? What will you give up or re-prioritize?

I kinda think that world-defining assumptions are always gonna break without maintenance. So rather than getting mad at whoever’s next for not carrying on the norms we didn’t do upkeep on, when it’s my turn, I hope I’m introspective enough to help instead of externalize & blame.

[greyhairedgeekgirl]

This.

The bleak outlook for traditions is a direct result of the unmaintained foundations for them. The second best time is always now - if it’s important enough to op-ed about, what are you willing to change to get it back? What will you give up or re-prioritize?

I follow a Facebook group of “Memories of …” for my hometown - a rustbelt community that has gone from a thriving hub of industry to a much-less-thriving place.

The group is a collective lament.   Decades-old pictures of well-kept churches.  Aerial shots of the main intersection downtown, lined with big cars.    Scanned advertisemetns from local stores featuring pictures of their interiors.   These alternate with the drumbeat of news:  the Catholic diocese is closing churches.  Selling them.   Tearing them down.   STores downtown are closing.   The traffic light has been replaced with a four-way-stop.

“That’s the church my parents were married in!” “How could they tear down that beautiful building.  Such memories!” “All the businesses are closing.  It must be the taxes.” ”They’ve sold the old lodge downtown.” “They’re not opening the skating rink this year.  We always used to go.”

And sometimes I chime in. 

“Do you attend that church?  Do you give? Or do you just want the building to look pretty for you? “ “Do you volunteer at that park?  Why not?” “Did you vote for that recreation bond issue?” “Are you a member of that Lodge? Why not?” “Do you shop downtown?   Or did you start shopping at Walmart and Amazon to save a few bucks?”

If you feel something is worth preserving, why do you not participate in its preservation?  

Community is not a spectator sport. 

[amarvelousplace-atempsideblog]

Community is not a spectator sport

[edwad]

The bourgeois … is tolerant. His love of people as they are stems from his hatred of what they might be.

Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia (1951)

[dankmemesforsadteens]

[socialist-syndicate]

I like this because if he doesn’t get some serotonin, he’s gonna rob the rich and redistribute it to all the other depressed underclasses. Capitalism and mental health are intracately connected, making the subtext here palpable.

[pollyjean]

yknow that one picture of the whiteboard that says “was jfk a twink?” in large letters and underneath that it says “yes”, “no,” or “twunk” with a bunch of tally marks under “twunk” and way off to the side someone has written “here’s how bernie can still win” because i honestly think about it every fucking day of my life

[reptilemary]

[real-pcys-deactivated20190118]

hot take: moms need to learn how to listen to and comfort their daughters without making everything about their own traumas

[real-pcys-deactivated20190118]

a classic example

daughter: hey this thing you do bothers me very much and i wish you wouldn’t do it

mom: well my parents abused me and im not even as bad as they were and i had to sit through it so you gotta sit through whatever i do to you too

[daeranilen]

a common variant

mom: well i’m having a really hard time right now and you know that i’m doing my best and that i didn’t mean to hurt you ergo you are in fact the asshole for asking me to consider your feelings and change my behavior during this hard hard time i’m having

[thetrekkiehasthephonebox]

least favorite

mom: fine. you’re right and i’m wrong and i’m a horrible person. there. are you happy now?

see also

mom: you can’t be mad at me. you’re not allowed to be mad at me. i can’t stand it.

[star-anise]

Yeah this is just straight-up emotional abuse. It’s not uncommon for moms to confuse “emotional closeness” with demanding their children caretake for them emotionally, or just having no boundaries. And “have you considered that you are in fact the abusive one” is bog-standard DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender).

Women also make the mistake that because we are frequent targets for abuse, we cannot be abusive ourselves. WOMEN CERTAINLY CAN BE ABUSIVE, especially towards children society has historically said we ought to have the power of life and death over, and who tradition says should be 100% subservient to us.

[berniesrevolution]

[orgy-of-nerdiness]

[cocainesocialist]

because what is freedom if it’s not getting fired from your job for doing something legal on your own time? what better indicator that right-libertarian ‘liberty’ is nothing but the freedom of bosses to control the lives of workers. 

[unpatchedglitch]

dying from easily treatable diseases to own the libs lol

[77777777777777777777222-deactiv]

[tamascotchi-deactivated20190101]

she was also anti-vax and it was the flu and meningitis that killed her (both completely routine to vaccinate for, esp in your early 20s) so here’s ur reminder to go get vaccinated and not listen to ppl who tell you otherwise!

[deegaynolds]

[socialistexan]

Europeans: “I don’t understand you Americans, if your working conditions, wages, and social safety net are so bad, why do you not simply unionize or strike?”

Americans:

[afloweroutofstone]

Also there’s literally so many restrictions on unions and strikes at this point that striking on any significant scale is nearly de facto illegal

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

WHY HAVE I NEVER HEARD ABOUT THE LUDLOW MASSACRE, WHY WASN’T I TAUGHT THIS IN CLASS

[karadin]

my grandfather who helped unionize railway workers in the 30s told me about  being shot at during strikes and union rallies.

[elvisomar]

Minneapolis is no stranger to bloody union busting. Some of my grandmother’s cousins were teamsters in Minneapolis on “Bloody Friday”when the flour mills and other businesses brought in the police armed with gatling guns. On July 20, 1934 “police took direct aim at the pickets and fired to kill. Physical safety of the police was at no time endangered. No weapons were in possession of the pickets.” Sixty-seven truck drivers and union supporters were injured, two men—Henry Ness and John Belor—were killed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_general_strike_of_1934