Non Covid article [I'm dragging what I can of this over from another site. I am locked out of the site apparently becuase the facebook login I was using, I'm guessing facebook has blocked the site. So I'm recreating it here. I was looking for a different rant but have been unable to use the search funtion for reasons stated above. The former site had only a handful of older whitemen on it who were not too "modern?". One in particular simply repeated the Dem Stereotype partyline without thinking about what he was writing and offered up articles from other sources without crediting the original. Plagerism basically. Anyway it is also possible they blocked me to avoid my views and citisisms of the few contributors they had. I Dunno. This writing describes events that were somewhat at the beginning of my now largely defunct "Activism"] Going to the memory cloud for this...the mist dissipates sometime on or around 1988.
Having relocated to Chicago, connections to things native were, for us, found at the Northside Indian Center. My (X)wife and I were invited there in support of Native Rights issues.
At the meeting was a group unfamiliar to me called "Witnesses for Nonviolence". The witnesses had contact with a tribe of Natives in Wisconsin. Native Casinos were coming to some reservations as a source of economic growth for natives who are statically the poorest ethnic group in the country.
With the source of economic power becoming a reality, Tribes were utilizing parts of the monies to buy back lands and enforce treaties long ago and presently violated. Though it is written into the constitution that, "Treaties are the Supreme Law of the Land", the powers that be did not and had not made the enforcement or recognition of treaty rights a priority. States and racist groups of individuals fought the treaties to keep the Native people and governments under their thumb or from realizing their rights.
First I was off to Lac Du Flambeau and a preplanning meeting of sorts. There we were given an idea of what was to be expected, or more why. There were some inspiring speeches by the local Ojibwe leaders. It didn't seem like supporting the Ojibwe would be much of an issue at the time.
Lac Du Flambeau is French for The Lake of the Flames. This is what the French first noted when visiting the area. The flames were from torches held by Natives who were fishing nightly in their ancient manner. The torches drew the fish to the surface at night where they were speared by Natives.
The wife and I arrived around the day of the newly re-recognized rights of natives to spearfish were going into effect/practice. On this day was also a parade attended by the local citizenry. It resembled many small towns, ho-hum (think of the movie scene in "Born on the 4th of July") parades. Across the street from us stood a good sized group composed of VFW members wearing their official hats/covers. We watched the various groups pass us in the parade. Then came a color guard of Native vets who also carried the Lac Du Flambeau tribal flag along with the usual array of flags.
The contingent of regular VFW members watched as the Ojibwe Native color guard approached, then the VFW assembly all turned their backs on them. It was intended to be a disrespectful, hateful, and demeaning act of hate, which it was. This was an omen of what was to come.
The area merchants had been selling "Treaty Beer". One might think it was to support treaties but it was not.
Photo credit:
Racism in a Can | Royal Ontario Museum www.rom.on.ca
The racist beer trope was instigated by Stop Treaty Abuse (STA), a racist hate group (vaguely feigning to be conservationists) who claimed that Native fishing was depleting the lake. The opposite is true as sport fishermen remove a much higher number of fish than the natives who have agreed to a quota on the fish they take.
After the parade, our group of supporters loosely assembled. We were to caravan in our vehicles to the site where the Ojibwe fishermen would depart and land for their fishing sessions. The drive to the boat landing site was revealing. Several houses had large hate signs either propped up or held by their children to openly broadcast their racist hate towards Natives. It was hard to believe that people would put their children up to these acts, to teach them racism and hatred were correct and acceptable actions.
By the time my wife and I arrived at the parking lot for the boat landings, night had fallen. Our original caravan had become scattered along the way. We began our trek on foot as a couple. Down we traveled a pathway to the landings which was barely visible through the dimming moonlight. The path was situated at the bottom of a gulley. Each side of the gulley rose upwards with brush and trees covering the sloping landscape. Out of the darkness came angry voices, shouting, cursing, and intimidating. "You Fucking Timber Niggers!"
Piece of shit Walleye Warriors!"
We'll fucking Kill you phony warriors!"
Walley Warriors my ass!" To be certain, neither my wife nor I had spoken or taken any oath or proclaimed ourselves warriors. At his point, I began wondering what I had gotten us into. Yes, fear had cracked open a door with hidden, ominous, and hateful voices echoing from it, lashing out at us like victims in a gauntlet. We began to sing softly a prayer song to each other and continued walking down the path that had become darker than the shadows passing in the trees. We could hear noise, or more a din, not too far off in the distance. If I recall correctly, the path took an upward elevated turn. We could see obscured lights ahead, some electric lights, some firelight was breaking through the brush.
Soon we emerged from the dark pathway. Bodies moved before us but more appearing as animated forms, arms, heads shoulders, muddled by the night as they moved about. I don't know how many people were there; perhaps one hundred or one hundred fifty, maybe more. The people were generally separated into two groups; one supported the Natives, the other hatefully opposed them. They hurled insults and threats at one another with the racist group being the more obnoxiously vocal.
Past the groups of supporters and haters was the shoreline where the boats of the Native fishermen would land. Bright lights from the media illuminated the shoreline. Between the shoreline and the groups of people was a very long line of police officers,
Courts affirm rights Throughout the 1900s, tribes across the U.S. took states to court, arguing that attempts to bar them from harvesting was a breach of federal treaties. The tribes won landmark cases, including:United States v. Winans (1905): A private commercial fishing company barred the Yakima people from crossing ... www.ehn.org
My wife and I silently observed the spectacle; the crowds, the hate, and the riot police. Every now and again, a boat with two or three Ojibwe fishermen would arrive at the shore from off the lake. Suddenly the White racists would try to charge the boats. The police stood fast in full riot gear and shields to hold them off.
This is how it went the rest of the evening; the same virulent White hate group, the Natives exercising their legal rights; here and there an occasional bloody nose, a fat lip, the police holding back the snarling, viciously hateful ugly mob of White men.
I don't recall any specific end to the evening or even leaving the area and heading back to Chicago. The whole memory kind of ends there in the mist of memory.
Since that time, similar scenes in similar/same places have played out. Some I attended, others I did not, but it is definite that the uncertainty and threat that comes with being Native, has not ended. A simple google search will prove this fact.
Note: NFL Hall of fame coach, Bud Grant, was in the mix somewhere I think but I don't recall details. Anyway, afterward, Grant was a ringleader in efforts to thwart Native fishing Rights in Minnesota through an organization called PERM. A few later years, my extended family and I would become one of PERMS opponents through the organization of a grassroots Native group called MAPP.
I Dip Dibbler aka other pseudonyms, reserve all rights.
One of the books I read as a Canadian kid was Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf. It made a huge impression on me. Wish more of these idiots who see wolves as a threat would read it.
yah just, thx for the update. I'm not surprised. Here's a wildlife-related completely false story some white kid (30 ish) told me a few of weeks ago.
I'll make it brief for now but there is a lot to debunk about these types of stories. I may elaborate later.
The urban young man tells me the reason white men killed off the buffalo and usually only took the hides. They left the meat carcass because it drew wolves into the areas. The wolves attacked the Natives and helped the white man kill off the Natives. In fact, the then 30 million buffalo were reduced to the range of 350 - 600 surviving due to the mass slaughter of these animals by Americans and their government.
I said nothing in reply.
Don't need to tell you these anti-spear fishing racist are still out there. They're the same assholes who think wolves would decimate their deer hunting opportunities. They're the same assholes who regularly slaughtered bald eagles because they believed they destroyed fisheries (and could carry of lambs or even human babies). I've listened to their bullshit too many times. I'm quite sure that the lakes where there is at least a portion of the waters given over to tribal control are infinitely more biodiverse and healthy than those entirely controlled by the states' own DNRs. In fact, my anecdotal observation is that waterways where tribes have some control-- with guidance from their own aquatic biologists (scientists!)-- are veritable walleye factories and produce more and more walleye all of the time in a virtuous cycle (I.E. Lake of The Woods). Meanwhile the rest of the lakes become raped out, whale-sized-carp and little shitting snake pike filled, jet-ski riven hellholes that feature floating islands of White Claw cans, cigarette butts, and dirty diapers in plastic bags (I.E. the Pettenwell flowage in WI).
Sign Me,
Not-Just-A-Little Bitter Old(er) Midwest Fisherman
mmm. I am certain in honesty, that you and many others have been of much more service to humanity than I. Also, I'm sure we're boring many with this convo. Perhaps the net is the ideal place for platonic relationships because of its inherent non-physicality.
Imagination: what is it? Plato's Sun(the good) or Plato's cave of contrived reality? We can imagine and pursue what path it is that leads to Plato's transcendent sun, the source of the good. We can imagine and pursue what path or qualities lead to or keep us imprisoned in the cave of negative reality. Virtues vs vices?
Perhaps the imagination is all-inclusive; the path of Plato's transcendent philosopher/the path to the Mystics enlightenment and also the rot of corruption and vice of the Cave; all the shades between? Relatedly, the modern-day study of ethics is equally complex and at times confusing. I'm not an expert in either field. However, perhaps suitable for talking nonsense and for telling "Fish Stories" on the internet.
I dunno, I only imagine that a spark may jump between people here that ignites the same flame in one another, and communication, teaching, or learning results. Similarly, as Kaku has spoken of electrons being placed together, vibrating together in some harmonious fashion or by some cause, continue and are compelled to experience each other's changes simultaneously regardless of distance. That may sound hair-brained or new age but science demonstrates this property. I'm only imagining this process and not preaching it as religious, just pond