[updated February 12th, 2012)
What is now called the United States was founded on occupations of Native land, and in a sort of ironic way, the urban Occupy Wall St. campers being evicted from city parks across the country are getting a first-hand experience of what’s it’s like to be violently forced off the land, out of their small dwellings, dissolving their communities. Of course the Occupy camp evictions and the police-brutality that has come with it (and preceded it), though inexcusable, is still nothing compared to the indiscriminate killing of Native Americans that occurred on this continent not too long ago, yet it would be productive to consider where similarity between the two events does exist, and what that means as far as understanding what the root cause of social-injustice really is, and what the most effective strategy against it is.
Many of the Occupy activists today seek to “evolve” the same imperial powers that committed genocide against Native Peoples around the world and have since gone on to massacre millions of other innocent women, men and children in other acts of mass-violence. They believe the existence of these governments can still actually advance liberty & justice, they believe it is just a matter of somehow making these so-called democracies actually live up to that promise, like through more protest. However, if the Occupy activists look at their nation’s history more through the eyes of Indigenous women & men, they would get a better understanding of what they are really fighting against, and therefore what their focus and plan of action should be.
In America during the past two centuries, activists have tried to reform this institution of extreme violence over and over, without understanding that this government, like all governments, not only tends to be extremely violent and destructive, it was founded on violence and destruction, and in fact continues to be violent and destructive on a daily basis, just by it’s very existence. What do I mean by that? We are actually always experiencing the violence and destruction of an ongoing eviction, an eviction from the Earth, an eviction from a natural way of life that harmonizes with Nature and each other. These current Occupy camp evictions make partly visible once again how the 99% have all been prevented from living in harmony with Nature and each other, through the existence of social-systems, and the taxes and land costs that come with those systems of human farming. Two excellent documentaries that also visually show this root injustice repeating are “Broken Rainbow” (about the Navajo in the Southwest) & “The Garden” (about community gardeners in Southcentral Los Angeles); in both you see the state bulldozing the gardens of low-income people trying to live more self-sufficiently and naturally.
By forcing us into an unnatural way of living we are also simultaneously forced to fund the military-industrial-complex; we are forced to fund wars we don’t want (and the sickening extreme cruelty that comes with them, like that which occurred in Hiroshima & Nagasaki, etc.), and we are forced to live in a way that destroys the natural environment we need to survive, and yet this is called an “advanced” society! Those deeply indoctrinated by this irrational praise of modern civilization condescendingly put the label “primitive” on the way Indigenous peoples throughout the world live now, and how all our ancestors used to live (much more in harmony with nature and each other, having little to no major impact on the ecosystem as a whole). Is that modern perspective emblematic of an advanced intelligence? Advanced ignorance is more like it. Is the never-ending pollution filling the oceans, along with extreme overfishing which has decimated not only the fish populations but with them the plankton and blue-green algae that produce the majority of oxygen on Earth (yes, more than rainforests!), a rational thing to do? Or how about conducting nuclear bomb tests and building extremely expensive and dangerous nuclear reactors (to just boil water for steam-generated electricity!) that spread radioactive material across the world which takes millions of years to decay and causes epidemics of disease? (1/3 of Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant, feel safe with that?) Is destroying the last remaining forests in order to make more top-soil depleting cattle ranches, anything but extreme stupidity? Or how about putting sodium fluoride, a neurotoxin, in our drinking water? And chlorine, another toxin put unnecessarily in our water (non-toxic sanitation methods are available), which is especially harmful to our lungs when we breathe in the chlorinated water vapor during a hot shower, how smart is that? Examples like this could fill books, and do. We are literally being poisoned and suffocated by this crazy industrial machine which runs on profit and greed, and yet many have lost perspective on where all this destruction fundamentally comes from, and that’s where the Native perspective can enlighten us.
Though there has been some post nation-forming progress in social-justice through reform, such as the end of physical slavery, has not that slavery just transformed into a more efficient form, namely monetary slavery? What Occupiers who are trying to reform this social-system need to recognize is that such systems are unnatural and unprincipled in any form. All forms are based on force (think evictions) and theft (think taxes) and so therefore are unprincipled. How is it unnatural? Is not something completely opposed to Nature, completely opposed to Mother Earth, unnatural? If something is the leading cause of environmental destruction, doesn’t that reveal the source of what the Hopi call Koyaanisqatsi, life out of balance with Nature? “No, corporations, like the commercial fishing companies, are the problem, not government,” you may object, but where do corporations come from? Governments! (They create corporations). And what caused us to become dependent on corporate goods in the 1st place? Governments! (They tax us and force us off the land which makes us $-slaves). “Well technically yes, but…” But nothing. When you ignore the root cause, irrationally believing it is somehow good, though the majority of destruction on Earth comes from that root, you are delusional if you just keep looking at the branches and think pruning those will save the day.
As the Occupy activists are being removed from living freely on the land, like Native Americans were, we glimpse at the root injustice, the injustice which allows for empires to exist and grow in the 1st place: making it illegal to live as free and natural women & men on the Earth. In order for lasting justice to be achieved, focus needs to be on these evictions, past and present, while not confusing these current occupations with imperial ones of the past; not all occupations are equal. The imperialist agenda that led the genocide of Native Americans and countless other Indigenous peoples throughout the world is of course quiet different from the agenda of today’s activists peacefully occupying parks and other public spaces; in fact the motives of each are basically opposite to one another. When activists occupy a park peacefully for the purpose of greater social-justice that obviously cannot be equated with armies massacring women, men and children for the purpose of establishing new national territory or to secure “national interests” (like oil reserves in the Mid East); the former is non-violent and non-hierarchical, while the latter is extremely violent and hierarchical.
Some object to any occupation at all based on the idea that “private property is theft,” but this perspective doesn’t make much sense as far as pointing to a harmonious way humans can live on the Earth together. If there is no private property, then it is all “communal” property, and is that really a better idea? If there is no private property than there must be an authority to regulate the property, and this leads to concentration of power, which inevitably leads to corruption, injustice and tyranny. If no one can claim and protect the land their family lives on, and must submit to so-called “community” authoritarianism, we are back to square one, a control paradigm, a social-system. Yes, “the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth” but don’t we all deserve (and need for peace & harmony) our own places wherein we can commune with our families, Nature & Spirit without the interference of others? We shouldn’t get hung up on the term “ownership” concerning land. Yes the Earth belongs to everyone, but if we don’t designate portions to people to be their “own” during their lifetime, how can we insure just distribution? We can’t. That’s why we need to be a bit more rational and accept the fact that designating a couple acres of arable land per individual/small-family is necessary, it would be a principled occupation. They can trade their land for the homestead land of someone else, but it’s not property in the sense that it equates to a monetary value, nor could any one family have more than one homestead. These sovereign homesteads would make up voluntary communities; voluntary because any social-system or claiming of territory beyond your own fair share leads inevitably to conflict, corruption and calamity. Our “tribe,” or relations that we wish to be near for mutual support and friendship, would be in nearby sovereign spaces, but not subject to forcible membership in any collective or hierarchy. We need to peacefully claim our birthright through such occupations and stop supporting unprincipled/violent social-systems, we need to stop submitting to false authority and hierarchy.
Before the police evicted the Occupy Portland camp and fenced it off, I saw a sign left behind, staked in the ground, that read “I can’t afford to be here.” Yes, we have to pay the Rent don’t we? We have to pay off those Student Loans! We can’t afford the time to do things like share food and discourse with our community and be a part some nonviolent social justice movement; we can’t afford to be the change we wish to see in the world. We are ensnared by modern techno-industrial society and lost sight of what it means to be a natural woman or man on the Earth. Through land control/cost and taxation, governments force us to be money-slaves and assimilate to an unnatural consumerist lifestyle that destroys minds, bodies and spirits. This is why the wisdom and understanding of Native Americans is so needed by this movement, without it, these activists will end up settling for some reformation of the system that will not solve the root problem to the social and ecological imbalance we see growing throughout the world. Knowledge such as what crops grow best in each bio-region and how to grow them, how to build natural dwellings, and how to approach and commune with the sacredness of the Earth; these are the kinds of knowledge needed by these industrialized activists. And in exchange the Occupy members can unite in solidarity with Native peoples to reclaim their own sovereignty and break the governmental chains that still bind them. As I pointed to years ago in my essay “Native Americans & Hemp: A Call for Reverse Colonization Through a New Sustainable Paradigm” there is the potential for Americans to side with Natives in reclaiming their land, and their right to grow what plants they want to, and not have their land further decimated by government-backed corporate destruction like coal and uranium mining. What made the Native culture decline so rapidly was their forced dependence on the corporatist social-system, the monetization of the Earth’s resources. The reason we can’t afford to live naturally is because we are forced to pay people calling themselves “officials” for “services” that we never signed a contract for; it’s an illegitimate social arrangement, it’s tyrannical. We all need a place to live, we all need food, clothing and shelter. The question is whether governance is the best means to obtain these necessities; the answer, based on an objective view of the present and past, is a definitive no.
“We must learn the homely laws of fire and water. We must feed, wash, plant, build. These are the ends of necessity, and first in the order of nature, the house of health and life.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his essay “Poetry & Imagination”
Returning to the imperial conquest of the Americas by European governments, we must also recognize what enabled this conquest in the first place: military forces. And where do military forces come from? Government. As most Americans know, the majority of their tax dollars go to the various armed forces; war and government go hand-in-hand, war would not exist if governments didn’t exist, and if it were not for social-systems of taxation and land control the 1% could not establish their hierarchical power (and military forces) in the first place. Sadly many have been propagandized into the short-sighted perspective that the government, and the military at their disposal, “protect our freedoms.” Isn’t the most fundamental freedom to live on the Earth as a sovereign human being, in relationship with loved ones, the Earth and Spirit, without being forced into subservience that you never agreed to? We are not made free by governance, we are made into unnatural slaves by it.
“We no longer see ourselves within the webs and cycles of nature. The loss of a direct relationship to the world terminates a once universal human understanding of our oneness with the natural world. The principle of relatedness is at the heart of indigenous wisdom: traditional intimacy with the world as the immanent basis of spirituality. This understanding is an essential and irreplaceable foundation of human health and meaningfulness.”
-”Twilight of the Machines” by John Zerzan“, p.124
Indigenous wisdom is desperately needed by those who think of themselves as citizens rather than humans, by those who are exploited and indoctrinated by social-systems, systems that are supposedly run by representatives who “serve” the masses. The truth is a rearranging of those letters, they don’t serve us, but sever us, from the Earth and from each other, through taxation, land control/cost, hierarchy and division of labor. Seeing through the deceitful promises of government, modern technology and industrialized society, we can reclaim our humanity and base our way of life on principle, on non-violence, equality and true freedom.
So yes, Occupy, but not to petition false masters to treat their slaves better, Occupy to break away the chains to the lie of so-called “representative” democracy. Then we can unite and harmonize with the Earth, our true nurturing parent, and reject the false parental overlords who continue to deceive the masses into believing that they are better off with their “care.”
And when these chains are broken, how exactly can harmony be achieved with Nature, each other and other species? While much of traditional Native ways of living are definitely superior to that of modern civilization, we need to think carefully about the details. First of all, many mistakenly think that hunting was historically the main means of Indigenous subsistence, and underemphasize their skills as gatherers, and especially as horticulturists. Regardless, today with the almost complete decimation of wilderness and wildlife, we can’t all rely on hunting and gathering for survival, nor should we commit violence against other species unnecessarily (that would be hypocritical). Sometimes animal-based meals are associated with a cultural tradition, but violence and slavery are certainly never what makes any culture or tradition great; having vegan versions of varying cuisines is not a loss to that culture, but a gain. Claiming the murder of animals is essential to the beauty (the arts, language, etc.) and distinctness of various cultures really doesn’t hold up to analysis, nor does claiming one’s culture is inseparable from the government alongside it. Governance, like human carnism, is also just a tradition of violence and slavery (but of humans rather than animals) that also doesn’t add to the beauty or uniqueness of various cultures (in fact governments support a corporate mono-culture that destroys cultural diversity).
The way we can be in most in harmony with Nature, other species and each other, finally end tyranny, and live in true justice & equality, (sovereign veganic homesteads), is the one way social-systems won’t allow; that’s why urban Occupy activists needs to remember the Earth beneath these concrete jungles, they need to remember those that lived here before these corporatist cities were built: our Native sisters and brothers, who can help re-educate us towards a truly intelligent and principled way of living on this amazing and beautiful planet.
