Fergal Schmudlach
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Fireside Chats on Turtle Island, take 1
🕑 Added 2024-08-29 02:59:48 +0000 UTCI did it, folks: I returned to the burning bouncy castle that is the small town settler entity on Turtle Island. In between fulfilling various karmic obligations and reconnecting with fellow settlers, relatives and friends on both sides of the Trump/Kamala cultic divide, I managed to do some real-life investigation of Indigenous reservations, visiting museums and cultural events, albeit in a shallow, short-term capacity. Herein I share some musings on this experience of questionable depth but with fireside vibes aplenty.
This version is a short take which I did earlier on in the visit and which got interrupted, though it’s nice and snappy and focused. A longer take done later with a bit more information and a lot more vibes will follow on the premium feed only.
Comments
Fergal Schmudlach
Yeah, I knew in the topmost steam chambers of my mind, at least, that every Indigenous community is not already a roaring engine of decolonial and working class struggle, dual power and sustainable alternative lifeways in practice currently and scalably, ready-made, but you could be forgiven for getting that impression from some of their rhetoric. Their recent interviews with the one urban reservation devastated by opioids was a bracing reality check, but I would listen the hell out of an episode like that
laihall
I’d be interested in hearing a red nation unpacking of indigenous participation in the military but I think there’s a longstanding historic participation as a means of preserving aspects of cultural life, and also the typical story of a means of escape from poverty
laihall
The feather dropping thing is different place to place and individual to individual, but I’ve found on my experience it tends to be the most hoo-ra people emphasize it in the terms of empire. Overall the read on the flag procession troop worship stuff is pretty spot on. It’s a bummer. Some cultures have a high emphasis on war deeds that pseudo translate to a military career. Overall, I think of pow wows as more like sporting events than ceremony with all the good and bad that comes with it
