Thanks Jess. Very insightful

Thanks Jess. Very insightful and useful. I have taken some of those actions, such as attending a small quiet Idle No More rally at the beginning of the year, which inspired me to do even more. And you've inspired me to take a few more actions. For example, I have written my MLA on issues directly effecting the large Indigenous population in my town, using my personal situation to illustrate the larger problem as expressed by Idle No More, but despite several emails and letters, he refuses to communicate with me. So, I think I will take your suggestion to write a letter to the editor of the local paper to call him out on that.

I am not Indigenous, but my brother, one of my sisters and 9 nephews and nieces are, and so I advocate on their behalf, and for all my Indigenous brothers and sisters. I also focused on Aboriginal law in law school at UBC, and worked briefly in that field in Vancouver until I became too ill to practice law, though I still 'practice' in the sense of human rights advocacy, just not for money, which is the basic distinction between a practicing and non-practicing lawyer, though other rules apply as well. In other words, I still use my legal knowledge and skills to advocate for various human rights issues I am interested in, particularly children's rights and Indigenous rights.

And I attempt to educate everyone within my admittedly small sphere of influence on the facts and realities of the lives of Indigenous people in Canada. Online I do my small part to expose and counter the myths, lies and propaganda that muddy the minds of Canadians, including members of my own family who still hold bigoted, racist views without necessarily recognizing they do. For example, this past summer I was talking to my aunt at the mall on general political issues, and she blurted out same racist nonsense about taxes and free handouts. In the past I might have ignored it, but now I call that b.s. out whenever I hear it, and that's what I did with my aunt, telling her that those were racist views that just were not true, but distortions and misrepresentations of the facts.

There is still a lot of work to do to erase racism.

Separate? We shouldn't be.

The fact that people (be they First Nations or "immigrant" Canadians) consider themselves "different" based on skin color or language/ethnicity bespeaks the level of racism that still exists in our society.

All Canadians are, metaphorically, in the same canoe. Harper at the helm (or holding the steering paddle) doesn't help our progress, but the Idle No More movement is absolutely correct that much if not all of Bill C-45 is an affront to all Canadians, not just First Nations. It is a concern to all.

Insofar as historical injustices, accidental or deliberate, litter the landscape of the aboriginal relationship to the rest of Canada, we must all struggle to understand their effects and to ameliorate their damage. The more that shared concern for the land and for human rights in general characterizes our actions, the sooner we can begin to heal as individuals and as people.

Can FN, Inuit, and Metis do as the Scotts did? It took ONE year!

Some solid suggestions, thank you.
Legislative changes do affect everyone.

Under the guise of the introduction of a new budget, Harper introduced the changes which are within his massive budgetary omnibus bills C-38 and C-45. Legislative changes do affect everyone. They are not abstract. They are simply changes, big or small details, to what is law, through the law making assembly which is our legislature.

I must say that I find the suggestions of your penultimate paragraph to be inside-out. Decolonization and self-determination are not at all abstract changes of legislation. Rather, to say you do, that they are changes in your personal relations is the abstraction.

As changes of legislation, they are concrete changes in legitimization.

Such changes in the legitimate voice of democracy should remind us of the Scotts who lost their legitimate voice of Parliament in 1707. A legitimacy they had had since the 13th century.

They took some time to regroup, and the Great Leap of decolonization in the 1960s, together with other regional acts of unity, propelled them to get talking more. So, with consent of the electorate they held a referendum in 1997, and in the next year, 1998, The Act of Scotland established the Parliament of Scotland.

There are a couple of ironies in the technicalities which reflect the circumstances of the Scott’s and First Nations to the Crown.

The first irony is that while the Scotts lost their legal voice of Parliament in 1707, it was a relatively few years later, in 1763, that Indians first gained 'First Nations' status by the Crown which had just won the seven years war against the French in North America, and gave that status to assure them of their own self-determination, that they might help defend against further French encroachment, and, to ensure less difficulty as the English wanted unfettered access the resources in North America. A sort of win-win-win.

The second irony is that, technically, in 1998, the Parliament of Scotland was established as a devolved legislature, meaning, some laws are still 'reserved' to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Many many Scots are hopping mad about that 'reservation' clause of law. Perhaps you've heard, they are the full separatists for whom having a devolved legislature just isn't enough. So it goes.

The Scott's push for a Parliament, well it can be seen to confirm the dignity of their voices in the body of a legitimate legislative assembly, it can also be seen as a step, a step back to the autonomy of determination they always had as a unique people on a unique land.

In a democracy one owes it to oneself and peoples to be alive to their place in their history.

It is not just the past. There is both a present and a future in a real Scotts and First Nations’ heart.

Democracy is strengthened by adaptation, by those who act for a just link between past and future, the rule of law, lands and peoples.

Always racism when you

Always racism when you disagree with a certain group. What a cop out. I have no 'white guilt'.

Where I live there are many immigrants who came from just as bad and worse situations and they have no sympathy or patience for the FN. Times are going to change. They are having kids were not. Once they are in charge the FN will miss the days they could guilt the whitey's..

CanadianLatitude: You are so

CanadianLatitude: You are so comfortable with your racism that you cannot see just how racist your comments are. You might be simply ignorant, but your comment is still racist. Yes, you are right, times are changing, so why not educate yourself and get on the right side of history? You might want to start with reading comprehension classes.

Right Perry.

You wonder if Canadian Latitude would feel the same way if the roles were reversed. Like he lived in the place of his ancestors and another people cam along and did to him what early colonials did to First Nations. Comparing the situation of immigrants coming here to the plight of First Nations is completely bizarre.

Secondly, I don't think FN's couldn't care a fig about whitey's guilt. That is meaningless crap. They want to protect their territories from the rapacious developers licensed by the Harper governments lust for resources to sell, and to again do to FN's people what early settlers did by pushing them onto reserves.

Any immigrant with a brain should be insulted by Canadian Latitude's remarks.

Idle No More commenters

Here is an article written for people like CanadianLatitude and his/her ilk:

Idle No More commenters could use some lessons in critical thinking

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/gutless-and-illogical-wonders-187569391.html

I have been surprised at the

I have been surprised at the racism which many acquaintances have exhibited since INM started making the headlines. My basic response has been to fire off a few facts or counter examples, which tends to shut them up, but also, I hope, stimulates some reflection on their part.

My "favourite" examples (which I hear all to frequently) are (a) misuse of resources by band councils, to which I ask what they think about Tony Clement spending millions of dollars allocated by Parliament to border security ended up in gazebos and such in his constituency, and (b) laying the persistence of lousy health and education services at the feet of band councils, to which I ask why, when FN are supposed to receive the same care as other Canadians, the Federal Government spends less per capita than is spent by provinces on non-FN (even though costs of a certain standard of services in many FN areas is higher than average)

Given the widespread ignorance of history, or the political legal system, it's hard work indeed trying to argue at a more fundamental level ....

The problem with us "whiteys".......

.....is we can ONLY see the dollars being spent. For us there is no other way of looking at the matter. We are the quintessential Flatlanders of Edwin Abbott's story of the same name.

CL, you push division, much like some of our blindest

Jess H. has pointed out various inequities between indigenous and non, and some of the origins of these differences, but she does not promote conflict, rather cooperation to improve nearly everyone's benefits, except some arrogant corporate leaders and their political lapdogs.

You, on the other hand, suggest divisions between some new immigrants supporting the Harperite corporate agenda, and First Nations, with no worthwhile resolution beyond assimilation and land theft. You are truly blind to deeper values beyond uber-Calgary and Bay street.

Look south of the line to see how your type are in decline, despite corporate influence in government and media. Blacks, Hispanics, established Asians, very few support Republican ideology beyond some moral issues.

As Jess has stated "Don't just add a snarky post to the online comments section" and more importantly pointed out, "big legislative changes like Bills C-38 and 45 affect everyone in Canada" and "We all need to realize that First Nations and non-indigenous Canadians have common goals and interests that go well beyond any one pipeline or province; they extend across the country. We need to support each other in walking the paths that will achieve our common goals."

If you can't understand that, please go and move south of the line to fight their extended civil war, guns et al.

I informed myself today.

I stopped by at an Idle No More site and picked up an info package. Harper wants to dismantle canada as we have known it.

32,000 lakes where under protection and it will drop to 97 lakes protected, that is insane.

You know I may, just may have agreed if canada was to make such vast profits for the country, but it will not help at all as Harper is getting ready to lower corparate taxes again.

Every country on earth is run by collecting taxes, even the debt Harper is putting us in will have to be repaid by collecting taxes.

In the USA they brag about having a 100 years of coal left, my God, what happens when all the fossil fuels are gone and there are 25 billion people alive.

We need to follow the Netherlands, double corparate taxes which will still be less than the USA charges.

Canada should be out of debt and Banking Trillions of Dollars, NOW...

wrong

Don't be foolish, the only thing attending those rallies will do if you are anon native is be spied on by RCMP/CSIS and have it used against you.

The rest of the suggestions are hopeless. 5 minutson every major and minor canadian news source will show what the opinion of the general public is and how desperate those in power are to keep it that way.

Covincng the vast majority of Canadians on any of the issues will fail because all they respect any more is money and obvious displays of power. Those associated with Idle no more have none of these.

The best thing Idle No More could do is ignore, or even expel the utter and complete failures that make up the Canadian activist commnity and engage in repeated, coordinated and country wide acts of the economic disruption. That is the only thing that can help their movement suceed. Not trying to convince hockey moms and dads who hate them and not wasting time begging the government and media whose interests are opposed theirs.

Are "we" having a good time,

ragging Canadian lattitude?

You may not see it as others do, but to an awfull lot of people here, it is obvious there would not be an idle no more movement if it was not about power and money!

Also what do you know about recent immigrants anyway?
My agegroup witnessed Hitlers atrocities, which by far outweighed the famous residential schools--- he had every child brainwashed 24/7 and eventually had them spy on their own parents.

More recent immigrants have other horrible tales that again equal anything the aboriginals ever encountered.

So please quit white-washing simple facts.

Stop with the stereotypes...

"[T]he most crippling issue underpinning those crises is, in my opinion, the sense of helplessness and dependency that has long dominated our communities. We have been held back by a feeling of defeat."

Speak for yourself. In the communities I've engaged with this is not the norm. Maybe it's different the further north you go? Or where there are less jobs or opportunity? I don't know and would not pretend otherwise. And I certainly wouldn't be doing so in print.

The hundreds and thousands who have been staging rallies, participating in round dances, protesting, waving signs and marching for the last several weeks do not strike me as defeated. Neither do I see these people as victims, or 'helpless' or 'dependent'. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I see strength, power, vitality and righteousness. Yes, anger and frustration, too, but for the most part, hope and optimism. So when I hear or read of people (be they Indigenous or not) attempting to paint us all with the 'Indian as victim' brush my back goes up. I take issue with such lazy thinking and feel compelled to speak up and say, well, shut up.

Yes, a lot of our people are still struggling from the genocidal fallout. Apartheid is here, alive and well and we all know it even if we don't say it. But blaming the 'victim' and their so-called 'defeatist' attitude is just pandering to gross stereotypes. You also fail to appreciate the fact our people have survived all kinds of horrible atrocities; oppression and assaults, and continue to do so, but still live to tell and still get out there and fight and stand up for what they believe in. That to me is powerful.

In order to make the change we all want to see, we have to change the way we think. Decolonize our minds, so to speak. At the same time, however, in trying to navigate a new future, we should also look to our past. Appreciate that Indigenous peoples have been fighting this same fight for 500 plus years (since Columbus). We haven't exactly been "idle". Just look at the AIM movement or how hard we had to fight just to get section 35 into the Constitution. Also realize that Indigenous nations have never relinquished their sovereignty and maintain it to this day as well as their rights to their unceded territories.

To me, Idle No More is not a new uprising; it's a continuation of the same age old struggle but with a modern slant. What is new is the way the mainstream media has sat up and taken notice. What is new is the international support we are seeing from other Indigenous nations around the globe. Because of the way the internet has connected us all, this movement has unlimited reach and scope that our past movers and shakers didn't have. It has the potential to galvanize hearts and minds in an unprecedented force that could bring lasting change to this planet, once and for all.

Congratulations, you've identified the first step.

“In order to make the change we all want to see, we have to change the way we think.”

Yes, you got that part right. However, in order to change the way you think you must understand why you think the way you do. I have my doubts.

Yes, past atrocities and oppression, and the continued stereotyping common in most mainstream thinking, whether it be media, politicians or folks on the street, have significant impacts on our thinking, but just knowing that doesn’t mean much unless you understand how your thinking has been manipulated. The corporate-controlled political world along with other powerful institutions, like the church, are not about to help you understand why you think the way you do. It’s to their advantage to keep folks uninformed; to perpetuate distortional thinking.

The internet and social media do provide new ways of connecting folks that previously didn’t exist. And they have brought about change, but it will take more than that to bring lasting change.

What’s new is the fact folks are just waking to the fact global economies are in a state of collapse, and that, in Canada in particular, the rich and powerful are building prisons and writing legislation … Harperlaw … to protect themselves from the civil unrest that accompanies the struggle to access dwindling resources.

IdleNoMore is our ecollective flagship

... in this vital movement to protect our earth-mother. Whether one agrees completely with the FN point of view or not, anyone concerned with the rape & pillage of the land and water had better make peace with Canada's first people leading the way.

Without the expertise and legal resources of FN freedom fighters, Steve The Slug is going to continue to gain ground (and water) as his trail of slime coats the country. If only we could just leave a vat of beer in his office for him to gorge on. However comforting that would be for a time, he is not the ultimate scourge. The power that is, is the corporatocracy, so we must affect change via the courts.

I don't know a whole lot of details, but several Latin American countries - Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador - have taken legal measures to counter the death grip of the 'dark side.' Canada must continue this trend because there is very little time left, if in fact there is hope, to stop this plunge to the deep, dark bottom.

FN have been going the lagal route and winning based on treaty rights for years, so it only makes sense to support them in any and every way possible. Even if, as many profess to believe, FN want more than their fair share, I would be happy to accept a common-sense regulatory system informed by traditional, indigenous land use practices over the absolute disaster that now exists.

How can anyone speak of state accountability ...

when we can see clearly for ourselves in this omnibus Bill that it doesn't even pretend any longer to represent the people?

How long before every sees that the state train is out of control and voting only perpetuates the problems, it doesn't solve them?

The small group behind the IdleNoMore movement has done more for democracy in 6 weeks than every voter in Canada has in the last 50 years.

Accountability? Geesus, what a grand idea; I sure wish there was a thread of it left.

It is much cheaper to prevent

It is much cheaper to prevent a catastrophe than to try to clean it up.

One particular side story: An object lesson
A New Year's Eve tow debacle started 2013 off with a tow-story drama.
In the links provided you can see: Is it 5 large vessels which could not prevent the loss of a small-ish tow package, an oil rig?

Backstory:
Keep in mind: An oilrig, as a tow-package, compared to oil or natural gas tankers.

The oil rig lost at sea weighed 28,000 tonnes

4 times smaller tha the mid-sized Aframax tankers @ 120,000 tonnes
10 times smaller than the Suezmax tankers @ 300,000 tonnes
11 times smaller than the VLCC tankers @ 340,000 tonnes

These 3 types of tankers are planned to be used off Canada’s west coast.

These massive oil and natural gas tankers are budgeted to be towed by small tugboats, one third the size of Shell’s giant Aiviq, which could NOT hold its small tow-package, Shell’s oil rig Kulluk.

The oil rig lost at sea is a telling story of 5 huge tow vessels failed to manage a small tow package.

Comparatively, for Canada’s west coast, company budget plans to use very very small tow vessels with mammoth tow packages, oil and natural gas tankers laden with product.

Back to the story:
Shell's oil rig, Kulluk, ran aground New Year's Eve and is now in the final stages of starting 2013 with its death at sea.

Kulluk serves as a object lesson of nature's forces meeting technological ineptitude. (Kulluk means 'servitude'). One, if learned may pre-empt an oily tragic drama on Canada's west coast.

A tinker toy tugboat tries to tow tankers where giant tugs fail

I will add a few links so you can piece together the story yourself. It is an epic story of towing a large mass in rough seas. The epic failure began a few days prior to the final scuttle, with the 4 engine tow vessel Aiviq 'losing' its tow line, then losing all 4 engines in the lurch. Four more vessels Alert, Nanuq, Guardsman, and Coast Guard cutter Alex Haley (whose mammoth power wretched the shackle off the rig-Kulluk causing the 10 inch tow line to foul its own propeller).

Short story -- five massive multi-engine tugs and tow vessels, each over 300 feet long, in pre-storm rough, but normal, seas. The oil rig had to finally be cut loose to 'save' the tow vessels and crews from danger. With the result that the oil rig ran aground on a rocky shore. And, the approaching storm, threatening to trash it, makes retrieval too dangerous to intervene.

It is a rig, a floating drill, little oil or natural gas to do damage, but the details of its demise are telling.

An oil or natural gas tanker is much much heavier, and long, creating tow hazards, both in the momentum of wave peak and trough, and the turbulence of winds -- The Kulluk's drama took place sub-artic, near Canada's waters, but free from the near-coast jostle of shallows the oil and natural gas tankers will need to navigate.

Canada’s west coast bitumen and natural gas tankers aren’t budgeted to have 300 foot tow vessels, giant 2 and 4-engine tugboats, like Shell contracted to tow the Kulluk. For Canada, company plans to budget west coast tankers with much smaller, 100 foot, and smaller 60 foot tugs – And these to tow full tankers. Small tugs, towing on a budget, the coming story will be very different: But, now we can see the drama, and the heroic failure, of towing at sea with giant tugs and tow vessels:

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/TV+Shows/The+National/ID/2322954431/
(this cbc video –calls the story an artic exploration issue, but for Canada’s west coast it is a towing safety story. The cbc says the tow-cable was lost 3 times, true, but it's more complicated than that. See the links below for details of the how the tow-package rapidly became an unmanageable tow package.

www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/12/31/178657/shell-oil-drilling-vessel-is-adrift.html (details of the tow vessel kerfuffle)

www.neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/01/shell-drill-spill.html
(the fullest account with excellent comment content, videos, charts etc.)

www.alaskadispatch.com/article/salvage-crews-await-weather-shells-grounded-arctic-drill-rig-sways-place (local paper)

Be onside INM to update the flagship: Moral grace as forgiveness

Sinking – outside the box:
Is it too obvious: The energy products, bitumen and natural gas, should go north via Mackenzie, or better, east, to be refined in Canada’s standing refineries, the better to add value to Canada, and then sold to energy hungry, eager, and captive Europeans who are otherwise hostage to dubious Russian and Arab energy providers.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/story/2012/11/26/nb-alberta-oil-saint-john-pipline.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2010/12/16/f-mackenzie-valley-pipeline-history.html

Where's the real money?
Canada's investor class is hoarding nearly one trillion dollars because they don't trust the 'market'. But that idle wealth, Minister of Finance Flarety's "dead money", could be regulated active, by the stroke of our regulator Prime Minister's pen. If he can set simple road regulations for a safe public purpose then can’t his advisors set what is safe for Canada’s economy to navigate beyond their own political Party horizons?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/canadian-energy-doesnt-need-foreign-capital/article6121306/

Being self-sufficient is better than pimping natural resources to foreign investment capital. Why ship it away, and then buy it back, at a higher price, when they've employed their labour force to add value to improve it?

Voting is your Care of Duty to invigorate democracy

Real story: Care of Duty & the Public Purpose, Who is Saved? Who is lost? Who Benefits?

Is Harper derelict of duty, lost, in accountably regulating Canada’s domestic economy within safe operational thresholds by exposing our ecologically limited raw resources to invasive ‘open for business’ global-market foreign capital (mis)allocation while simultaneously running ‘austerity’ (contrary to scrutiny of our PBO’s bookkeeping) and employing nearly half a million Temporary Foreign Workers to drive down fair living wages?
http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/The+Sunday+Edition/ID/2308494082/?page=4 (Canada’s finances according to the responsible, lucid, PBO)
http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/01/07/Canada-Migrant-Workers/

If Canada’s voters summon the courage, Canada could be an independently energy sovereign country just like the other countries who manage their own reserves, like Norway, and not like Ireland.
http://thetyee.ca/Video/2012/10/16/Norway-Oil-Ireland-Oil/

70% of proven global oil reserve holders are sovereigns – but not Canada.

The long term benefit of independently holding, and value-added refinement, –and not Norway’s mistake of too rapid overdevelopment – must get through to politicians.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2012/09/26/Norway-Oil-Mistake/

So, why does Canada not use its raw resources to be energy independent?! Why not use its own investor-class’s money?!

Loyalty to whom?
–the better to serve and benefit the public purpose of Canada’s economy in the short and long term, the better to add value to Canada’s long term security –

–the rest of the story is yours…
http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/01/07/Report-Says-Bitumen-Mining-Pollutes/

What do you want carried forward? And what do you want to be carried away?
Harper is Canada’s tinker toy tug; the giant tug is you; our combined voices as voters are that imperfect perfect storm which is the management of our democracy.

catchingupagain

While your links had me on the verge of throwingupagain as I watched/ read the disturbing content... I find your series of consecutive posts very powerful and moving - makes voting seem worthwile (eh igbymac?)

Even here in the most stable of all worldly locales, we are living in a very precarious state of existence on the planet. Thank you for catching us up!

Correct me if I'm wrong

I don't want to make any comments about the story other then to ask a question regarding first nations education. I was under the impression (from some personal experience) that any student who passed grade 12 (in BC at least) and qualified (with the appropriate percentage level) he or she would have all his university paid for (providing passing grades at the university). Correct?

Feverish, it make voting seem even more absurd

... the game is rigged. Get over it. You aren't in the game.

Your vote just keeps convincing those like yourself, the ones not quite ready to accept what is going on for exactly what it is, that it means something.

the two lenses into 'reality' of aboriginals and non-aboriginals

these comments and other comments elsewhere on ‘idle-no-more’ convince me of the need for more ‘education’ of both aboriginals and non-aboriginals as to the ‘different lenses’ through which most aboriginals (but not all) and some non-aboriginals (but not most) see the world. one example is the lens of ‘retributive justice’ of non-aboriginals and ‘restorative justice’ of the aboriginal tradition. these two lenses put people into ‘different realities’; e.g. the restorative justice lens understands the individual as the ‘community expressing itself’ while the retributive justice lens understands the individual as a local, independently-existing machine. there is more on this at ‘the aboriginal physics newsletter’, a non-aboriginal publication which nevertheless shares ideas on the ‘two lenses’ and their repercussions.

if both aboriginals and non-aboriginals could ‘come up to speed’ on these ‘dual lenses’, then the counter-claims of ‘racism’ would diminish/dissolve.

Yes igbymac the game is rigged

But the band plays on so I have a hard time accepting that a vote is not somewhat useful. Of course it will not have a profound impact, but surely it is a tool to remove the most dangerous and offensive political wing of a regime in order to lessen, or momentarily stall the immediate effects of the abuse (as the lobbyists book appointments with the new flock of ministers.)

Do you disagree that voting for a coalition of feds against Harper with the condition that electoral reform be implemented could not be an improvement to what we have currently? Or is it only delaying an inevitable return to the status quo? What about the inclusion of a ban on all monetary contribution to political parties from any organisation? Or is it that there is, in your eyes, no currency in words of politicians whatsoever?

You said "The small group behind the IdleNoMore movement has done more for democracy in 6 weeks than every voter in Canada has in the last 50 years." I agree that it is powerful and I have more hope for the continued evolution of the occupy/ INM movement in forcing the systemic change that is required. However, the opportunity to drive a stake into the murmuring hearts of the criminals currently in office will get me to the polls to vote against the GLIBS in the next provincial election. (Unless everyone else agrees to show up and NOT VOTE on election day, whenever that turns out to be :)

I support Idle No More

I have attended an Idle No More rally. It was empowering to march and dance with the First Nations people. I believe we have the same goals. We want clean air and clean water, we want the ability to feed and educate our children and to nurture our spirits. Harper is out of control and he must be stopped. The FN people are the last hope we have to save the environment in this country.
I remember Robert Dennis, chief councillor for the Huu-ay-aht telling a roomful of Forest Service employees about residential schools. His eyes fell upon each of us and he asked "How would you feel if someone came and took your children away from you, and took away their language and their traditions?" I had never thought about it before and a hushed silence fell on the group as many tried to imagine having their most precious treasures, their children, torn from their arms. There are many injustices which have been imposed on the FN, and those injustices persist today with prejudice and stereotypes. I used to wonder why FN people didn't seem to have the same 'values' as us. Now I realize that we were the ones who were misguided. Slaves to our possessions, moving away from our families, forced to work to carry ever increasing debt, polluting our land and our water. This is not living in the fullest sense. People the world over are waking up and realizing that we are all connected, the land, the water and the people. Now when I hear All My Relations, I see it as that connection with everything on the planet, past present and future.

Feverish, in reply

Zero currency with Party politicians (despite the occasional honest one with a good heart, like Libby Davies, for example).

On the fence

>"At the same time, non-indigenous Canada is complicit in this crisis, and has just as important a role to play in its resolution. To begin with, there is widespread ignorance amongst Canadians about our country's colonial history, about how First Nations live now, and about the level of support we receive."<
----
Sure I agree as a left leaning person that harper must be stopped. And these idle no more folks seem more gutsy than occupy or any other protest groups in this country. However in the comments here, and elsewhere, I always feel as if first nations people are being racist against me. Saying that as a white person I should feel some guilt, saying that white people are all conservatives and if they don't agree with all of the idle no more's peoples positions, then they might as well be with harper. My grand parents were comparatively recent immigrants, and certainly had nothing to do with the genocide in the americas in the 18th and 19th centuries. Even if they did, they are not me.

I am getting sick of this. You can have the opinion that roadblocks are just a way to piss off the common citizen, and do absolutely dick all to the politicians. And yet still agree that harpers destruction of the environment must be stopped at all costs.

I think that native peoples have simply far too much baggage to handle this sort of protest with impartiality. That may be a good thing, because it makes people more passionate. However, it can easily turn into a bad thing when things devolve into who owns what, and who "stole" what from whom. The petty bickering detracts from the larger environmental issues and can do nothing but warp peoples opinions of the debate. Even the picture atop this article has a big sign that says "racism no more". I personally think that racism in general cannot be stopped, that having different cultures all in the same place, with their own values and beliefs, is part of what makes canada strong. Some people would call that racism, acknowledging that there may be differences between races. So it can confuse, and detract from the core issues.

My advice; focus efforts on the environmental issues and keep native pride on the back burner. Because most white people will never have "native pride", because well we cant. We are not native. So you are limiting your base and possible supporters.

Ownership, by ecologic

Ownership, by ecologic standards, may well be like standing in a Heraclitan river; and while we may all live of the river, none of us live in the river.

If democracy's independence of offices – legislative, executive, and judiciary – hold us equal before the law, then the global wealth management model which invites the likes of Nafta, ChinaFIPPA, CETA, and TPP, invites with these international treaties an order of law which stands above and over all peoples, rivers, lands and laws of the land. The trade treaties enshrine tribunals, over and above democratic law, in order to protect and reward foreign state investors for indexed performance guaranteed profit flow.

Ecology, law, politics, finance, civic infrastructure and provisions are entwined. Whether sovereignty is in the people, or, in the legislature, is a debate very much alive in the UK and Scotland. Whether the First Nations, Inuit, and Metis are alive to that conversation is their choice.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/20/scottish-independence-becoming-only-option#start-of-comments (You’ll see that the writer of this article is persuading for open-mindedness, but is persuaded by the encroachment of ‘open for business’ ‘global-market state thinking in London, that democracy is better served with mindfulness to greater local content.)

We have known for some hundreds of years that the world is not flat, and, it is not at the center of the cosmos. While ethnic heritage was coloured by that place under the sun your ancestors called home for some thousands of years, Canada's political intuitions of embracing diversity and pluralism, meant cultural and ethnic 'differences' found a united home front, even some decades before biology and genetics proved that the species human is one.

Do some folks continue to believe that the world is flat and that the prejudice of race has substance?

Perhaps, just as there is present, in the ‘thinking’ that enslaves one to prejudice, lays dormant some of the conceptual tools to think otherwise, too in democracies gripped by the regulatory interests of oil and gas mega-corporations, are the votes and voices of people who can elect, like Canada did in legislating the Kyoto Accord, to greater long-term legislative effect than an ‘open for business’ scrimmage for quick bucks and a perpetuation of the leveling status quo.

http://eclecticlip.com/2013/01/18/alberta-oil-selling-at-50-percent-discount-to-world-price/

Yay! To the Hupacasath First

Yay! To the Hupacasath First Nation for filing an injunction to block ChinaFIPPA.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/01/22/pol-cp-fppa-china-bc-first-nation.html

Boo! To Caterpillar for the lack of due diligence in not detecting the fraud in China which cost them $580 million on a $793 million dollar investment made last November.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-18/caterpillar-to-take-580-million-writedown.htm

Will the out-sourcing trend continue to reverse because domestic malfeasance laws have a better reputation to stop the crooks?

Idle No More

Go to it!
Stop the Harper vampires from robbing our resources. They are selling our future to China. If you think it is hard to deal with Canadians, just wait until you begin to negotiate with China!
Get out there and demonstrate! Stop the traffic, close the borders and stop the agreement with China (FIPPA). When FIPPA goes into effect, your rights will be trumpped by fines levied from China if they don't get what they want. There are no "Natives" in China. They have "Ethnic Minorities" who are allowed to derss-up in colorful costumes, sing and dance. They have no respect for your position and will insist on a crack down from govt.
Know who your real adversary is.