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WE WERE ALL INDIGENOUS, AND CAN AGAIN BECOME . . .

by green anarchy
I did not fall from space...
However alien I may appear to this planet, this land, these people, I come from this earth. From its water, its soil, its people, its blood. It has provided me with a life, which I willingly and humbly direct. Despite all attempts by the civilized logic to separate me, to dislocate me, to destroy my connection, I am still part of this fusion of life, this deeply integrated accumulation of living beings.




I, like all of us, have direct lineage to a different way of being, to a direct experience with the world. We once lived unmediated from the earth, ate directly from the forest, drank straight from its waters, slept touching the ground, healed ourselves with its plants, made all of our decisions concerning our lives with people we loved. We are still these people, only scarred, with cold and clunky armor created for us by a culture of death that we have reluctantly accepted when and where we have grown too tired and weak. We have been tamed. We have been domesticated. But, we are still connected under this baggage, this defensiveness, this disposition.

I have been severely damaged from generation after generation of upheaval, defeat, and domestication at the hands of colonizers, and at times I did the colonizing. But this was only after I had been sufficiently separated from the earth, others, and myself. But mostly, I have been just a pawn and a tool in the ongoing war against life. I have suffered greatly: in the direct brutality inflicted upon me in my own life, through more subtle institutionalized methods, as an accumulation of my ancestors' pain, and from missing out on a penetrating and more integrated connection to the world.

I have been moved so far from where my relations once dwelled, yet I can still feel connected to place. Maybe not in the same way that my relations did to the land they were indigenous to, or the people who were/are connected to where my feet currently rest, where I inhabit. But I can still go deep into the ground, take the air into my lungs, learn from the whispers of this place, offer my respectful and modest influence to this land, and unite the world around and within me.

I have always felt dislocated within civilization. Whether the suburbs, the cities, or small towns, I have always felt suffocated, empty, and lost. Traveling from one location to the next, always over-idealizing the succeeding context. The grass always seemed greener. In this postmodern reality, dislocation is not the exception but the norm, and even the sought-after condition. We can never be whole as long as we live outside and above our surroundings, or for that matter, even view them as surroundings, and not as part of us. At some point I think it is important to find a place, a bioregion, a home (though not necessarily a sedentary location).

I have much to learn from those deeply connected to the place I call home, those who have an intimate relationship with the land, animals, plants, people, and patterns of this specific environment. I have most to learn from those who have evolved with this place; whose bodies, minds, spirits, and culture have developed alongside these mountains, birds, trees, and rivers. I do not wish to "play native" or co-opt traditions, but to tap into and learn from a physical and spiritual knowledge, so that I can live respectfully and sustainably with this particular part of earth (which is comprised of infinitely diverse forms of life).

I have much to learn from the survivors. Those who were forcibly converted to patriarchal gods. Those who were burned at the stake. Those who were given blankets with smallpox. Those who were stolen from their homes and families and chained in the bellies of ships. Those who were pushed out of their lands and herded into camps. Those who were marched and dragged down trails of tears. Those who were stripped down, re-educated, and assimilated. Those who became beasts of burden. Those who were pitted against one another. Those who were put on trains, and again, herded into camps. Those who were gassed and burned. Those who were lynched. Those who were bombed. Those who were raped. Those who were beaten. Those who have been virtually destroyed, yet continue to endure. Those who have been whipped, yet amazingly continue to thrive. Those who attempt to regain their ancestral knowledge. Those who raise healthy children. Those who burn down the suburbs. Those who reconnect with the earth. Those who remember. Those who survive. And, I have much to learn from myself. I have much to remember.

I did not create this monstrosity, this leviathan, this death culture. I am both a by-product and survivor of it. I was not the first to step out of the forest. I did not create the first separations, plant the first corn, irrigate the first field, domesticate the first animal, subjugate the first woman, support the first stratification, fabricate the first weapon, construct the first city, build the first ship, enslave the first foreigner, kill the first indian, assemble the first railroad, erect the first factory, split the first atom, plant the first flag on the moon, genetically produce the first clone, and like Al Gore, I didn't invent the internet. But I am also profoundly tied to their legacy and their innovation and expansion. And I am also the victim of their legacy of death, domination, and destruction. "Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name [civilization]. But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game."

I know in my heart and in my bones that we can live differently, that we have lived differently, and that those possibilities can come together in beautiful ways. I have no expectations within this nightmare; my/our only hope is to wake up from the confusion. There is no future in this failed experiment; all I can do is reject it. There is no possibility of readjustment; it can only be destroyed. I must find a place, people, and a way to live differently; to reconnect and to dream.

We were all indigenous to somewhere, someone, and somehow...and can become so again. The old ways are gone, but I am still going home, not necessarily where I started, but maybe somewhere I began.

Wish us luck!

This article originally appeared in #19 - Spring 2005

Print copies of Green Anarchy are available for $4 each in the U$A, $5 Canada, $6 Europe, $7 the rest of the world. Green Anarchy is free to prisoners.
P.O. Box 11331, Eugene, OR 97440
collective [at] greenanarchy.org


by No thanks
And your life expectancy was 25 years. And you had 12 children, 10 of whom died by age 2. And you were infested by parasites. And you lost all your teeth by 20 from rot and decay. And you died of infection from a simple scratch. And you worked 20 hours a day to provide enough food to fight off starvation. And when the crops failed, 80% of the village died. And you were illiterate, and superstitious. Oh yes, those were the days when we all lived in harmony with the land. It's utter rubbish. Learn some fucking history sometime before you idealize the past.
by Critical Thinker
Two great websites dealing with Green issues primarily from a nutritional standpoint in a wholly and nearly impeccably scientific way are

http://www.westonaprice.org/index.html

http://price-pottenger.org
by ooo-eee, Mr. Wisdom speaketh
It's better to die at 20 having truly lived than at 80 having lain in a womb/coffin your whole life
by snark
And that's aside from the dubious issue of how life expectancy is calculated. Many people lived to a ripe old age (past 60), but with the infant mortality (which included infanticide) rate so high, the average lifespan works out to about 27-32.

That's a fabrication about teeth; the diet of non-industrialized people tends to be really good for overall dental strength (lots of root vegetables and meat--including frequent gnawing on bones). The probable "data" used has to do with tooth wear--from those bones and hard seeds.

As for the completely stupid and false statement about infections, even animals know which plants to eat when they're sick. The tradition of plant medicine is eons old. What an immensely racist (eurocentric) thing to say! That knowledge isn't even lost. Most infections can be dealt with by applying a simple poultice of yarrow leaves (Achillea sp.)--and I do mean simple: just chew a little bit and slap it on the "scratch." Not only is yarrow rich in antimicrobial properties, but it is also a styptic (a substance that tends to stop bleeding). You don't learn about plant medicine from living in cities.

Why don't the pro-industrialist hysterics ever bother to learn some anthropology? It's a pity that what passes for discussion on such topics has to begin with the basics of factual data.
by Hallelujah!
The civilizationists are just terrified burbling babies who place security and self-absorption above everything else, including sanity. I've lived in the quiet green world, and I KNOW it's better than their zombie-filled death-pits (i.e. "cities"). How fucking unliveable does their nightmare have to get before they wake up?
by cp
actually, it really depends on the location where you're talking about.

Some of the basics of anthropology are that pre-agriculture (which came about 10,000 years ago after the most recent glacial maximum, when there was a continuous period without much climate change), people typically did not have to spend many hours a day seeking food, but were limited by the capacity of the local area to grow what they needed. So either the plants and game was there, and they had to spend a couple hours a day seeking it, or some vital item such as deer were not available. When the aztecs switched to agriculture 800 years ago, this improved the temporal risk faced in hunting of not getting enough food during one year, but their teeth in skulls from that time suddenly were really poor, and they had to spend many more hours a day maintaining crops. Also, this form of food acquisition requires property rights which always leads to stronger big property owners who try to set up an army etc.
by cp
although, I think those primitivists are being really hypocritical about considering people in cities to be doing antienvironmental living. New York city is the best city there is in terms of low impact per capita. Have you ever driven across northern Nevada or eastern Oregon? Even though there technically are about as many people in some of those towns as in some blocks in SF, you wouldn't realize it. With houses spread out over a large area and lots of agriculture, it actually looks fairly occupied. Each forest green is having quite a bit of impact. Why not let the owls and brown creepers alone and let there be some area w/o exurban people
by Greenie
cp wrote: "actually, it really depends on the location where you're talking about."

Why do people think it's sensible to live EVERYWHERE? We're built for the well-watered tropics, which makes living elsewhere either technology-intensive or kinda sucky. The refusal to ever accept rational limits on ANY front is a root cause of the crises you're citing, and civilization seems to only make people more demented this way. That refusal has made every "great innovation" in survival strategies, e.g. agriculture, a deferral and not a solution. Intensive agriculture is NOT sustainable, not really. It sure is good for making billions of doomed people, though. Apparently, we won't figure this out until we've destroyed the last bit of soil, and then we'll be going "duh, gee, what happened?" as we starve...

To make any of these solutions "real," i.e. sustainable, we needed to accept static population limits, and here too the "primitives" had their heads screwed on way tighter than the "civilized." But always some clowns would come along and "find a way." We're the end product of 500 cycles of such clowns, and as soon as the petroleum stops flowing our preposterous numbers will fly straight off a cliff. How brilliant of us.
by that toddlin' turd
"New York city is the best city there is in terms of low impact per capita."

This is propaganda churned out by NewYorkophiles, whose sanctimoniousness is exceeded only by their lunacy. It's only true if you ignore

A) that New Yorkers are environmentally apathetic pigs who have the slackest recycling ethic I've ever seen ANYWHERE

B) that half the architects of global capitalist empire, e.g. the Rockefellers, investment bankers, etc., have been and still are based there, and that these slimeballs are responsible for a HUGE percentage of worldwide environmental destruction.

C) New York is a giant resource-sucking parasite. It produces NOTHING in the way of basic commodities internally, but just takes takes takes from elsewhere, and New Yorkers can't figure this out to save their souls. It's like they think Merlin shits it out in his magic castle in New Jersey, and then it comes over on the PATH trains. Consequently they just throw shit away ($3,000.00 perfectly good washing machines, etc.) like it's nothing.

The one area in which your claim holds up is in per capita energy use. Big buildings inherently hold heat better, and people walk a lot. Other than that, New York is on the high end of the U.S. spectrum of consumption, which is already obscene overall. The "statistics" on this subject are severely flawed, and that's because New Yorkers themselves have undoubtedly cooked the books. It IS the PR capital of the world, after all, and when it comes to any criticism whatsoever of their Golden City, their vindictive assholishness really shines through.
by cp
" A) that New Yorkers are environmentally apathetic pigs who have the slackest recycling ethic I've ever seen ANYWHERE

-----------------
I'd have to disagree with that. Maybe they have a different ethic, but the state does a heck of a lot more to enforce recycling than they do here. Even in Seattle, they have mandatory recycling. My housemates in Berkeley are always throwing out all sorts of aluminum cans and glass bottles in the trash which I have to pick out for the bin, because only one of them even knows when trash day is anyway. I can't believe we always fill up the big gray trash bin too, when an ordinary person should be able to have one small bag per week or two. also, we got a compost bin for the small backyard, and only two of us will even use it and one housemate just hates it even though she leaves her dishes for days, and my landlord is really negative on it and she even paved over the dirt planting strip in the sidewalk w/o getting a permit because she hates plants
Anyway, in New York, not only do they have this cool aggressive program where meter maids put big green stickers that call the car a hygiene violation on double parkers and people who don't move their stupid car for street cleaning that you can't peel off but have to soak off with water, they have people going around writing tickets for not recycling. In Berkeley, people don't seem to have the slightest idea of what is recyclable or how to sort it even though this can be explained in one minute.
http://www.canarsiecourier.com/News/2003/1113/OtherNews/062.html
http://www.consumersunion.org/other/zero-waste/enforcement.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/89144p-81093c.html

by that toddlin' turd
"I'd have to disagree with that."

Look, guy, I KNOW this from daily first-hand experience.

First of all you're conflating New York CITY with the rest of the state, and this is a HUGE perceptual error. The two are on different planets. I grew up in Western New York -- a historic hotbed of U.S. radicalism, believe it or not -- in a very hip town where the hippy spirit lives to this day and the environmental ethic is indeed quite strong. More recently, I spent several years in Manhattan, where I became livid witnessing the environmental apathy I mentioned, which I can assure you was palpable. Like California, New York State has a bottle bill; beverage containers carry a 5-cent deposit to give people a little extra push. The only NYCers who bother with this, however, are the street people, who go around from one public garbage can to the next, fishing them out by the dozens. I have no idea where they reimburse them. Go into any grocery store -- which are required by law to accept them -- and they'll just roll their eyes when they see your bottles. This makes the whole concept unworkable. So you put your beverage bottles in the recycling, which bums rip open by default looking for bottles wether they're there or not. Then the city won't take your bags because they're ripped open. Even if they do take them, they're just as likely to get landfilled, because NOBODY in that infrastructure, from the lowest garbage grunt all the way up to the Mayor, gives the measliest fuck about recycling. This has been documented repeatedly. There really is a profound absence of environmental thought there. When the entire population of a place is totally slack about certain principles, mere laws don't stand a chance of overcoming this.

So the whole concept of recycling is broken and unworkable. Doing it right would be time-consuming and problematic, things to which NYCers on all sides of the issue are averse. Expediency is at the top of their 'likes' list. The upshot is that people just throw away everything. EV. RY. THING. You could have the most amazing thrift super-mall on the planet just from all the VERY NICE shit people throw away like it's nothing -- furniture, appliances, you name it. Not to worry, Merlin will shit out more. The Merlin psychosis is also evident in their fondness for furs. I had thought fur wasn't hip anymore until I lived in NYC. This is how divorced from the planet they are. Shit they think New York IS the planet, they really do.

"...they have people going around writing tickets for not recycling."

Like I said, I recently lived there for several years, and I have NO idea what you're talking about. I think this is actually done in my hometown, but in the Big Stinking Puke-Bucket, no way. The collectors wouldn't be able to fill a single truck in one shift, they'd be writing so many tickets -- if they can even write. Pop culture stereotypes Deep South rednecks as the most disgusting, but they're almost effete compared to New York's blue collar apes. Yes, I've lived in the South, too. Even THERE, there was a stronger recycling ethic.

In many other ways, as well, the reality of New York is totally unreconcilable with the reputation it projects. New Yorkers style themselves very hip, enlightened, etc. when actually they're super-corrupt and greedy, and thus highly conservative, almost without exception. They present themselves differently because they're delusional on this point; it's all ego, and their egos are massive. That's why they couldn't notice that Kerry was just another Bush cloaked in their own effete mirror image. They couldn't smell his same-oldness, because they're not the real thing, they're just poseurs. I tried hanging with the communists there, and they're just dullards, they can't think freely at all. They call themselves radicals, but on most issues they're centrists, chained hopelessly to conventional thinking. This is the 'pragmatism' the place enforces, and they've all been sucked into it. And New York "liberals" are REALLY gross, just evasive Republicans. It's social/moral gamesmanship, which they excel at; they never reveal what they're really thinking, i.e. show their hand. That's not how to WIN. They're so relentlessly devious this way they even have THEMSELVES fooled.

The striking differences between the reality of New York and its pop image are best explained, I think, by the fact that New York really is the main hub of the media/disinformation industry. On TV and in print, it's thus overwhelmingly spun as this dazzling glamorous cosmopolitan place, when it's really just a giant fucking tragedy, especially environmentally. It was glorious there once; now it's one of the most devastated environments on earth. For every trust-fund socialite art-collector from the Riviera, there are hundreds of broken enslaved wretches toiling away in squalid basements to make that lifestyle possible. In this respect, New York hasn't really changed much in the 97 years since Upton Sinclair wrote THE METROPOLIS, his great expose of the New York scene. Sinclair had a superb nose for classist hypocrisy. Too bad he's an extinct species of American. What's truly changed about New York is its IMAGE, and this is all smoke and mirrors, manufactured from whole cloth.

New York has always been a hellhole and still is, but Americans in general are so disinformed and delusional you almost have to live there to know this. Paradoxically, there's at least as much free-thinking going on out in the boonies -- the only place where you can come to know the Green God, for one thing.

I'm sorry to hear about Berkeley, and I totally relate to your frustration.
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