Many people have become aware of Canada’s historic elections this past Monday, October 19th, and gushed about our new, quite frankly attractive Prime Minister in more ways than one. But one of the major historic events that occurred this election that deserves attention was the record breaking number of First Nations (Canada’s indigenous peoples) voters and elected Members of Parliament.
This is a huge deal because it has been a contentious issue among the First Nations because of a concern that if they voted in our elections, then that could mean that they’d lose any form of recognized sovereignty, because they’d be seen as participating as Canadians. Well, thanks to our previous Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the First Nations peoples had enough of our politics and came out in droves, along with a lot of vexed Canadians with them in their own record breaking numbers. 68% of eligible voters cast their ballots, not including those who registered that day, and many places had a lot higher turnouts – this is the highest its been since 1993, and a jump of more than 11.5% since the last election.
For First Nations, its projected to be the highest turnout ever with reports of 11,000 new voters, with at least six First Nations polling stations running out of election ballots, and aboriginal voting was up by as much as 20% in some ridings. The First Nation peoples really did as their community campaigns called for – They Rocked The Vote.
Many are rightly enthused by this, and have realized how much they can really impact Canadian politics with their votes. Especially since this election has resulted in the historic number of 10 elected aboriginal Members of Parliament from a record-breaking 54 indigenous candidates running for office; each having strategically run in one of the 51 swing ridings identified by Assembly of First Nations Chief Perry Bellegarde where he said the aboriginal vote could make a difference between a majority or minority government. And did it ever, to the point that the media following the election was caught by surprise with how well the Liberal government did. Leaving no doubt the First Nations voters were a key component to the Liberal win.
From Left to Right, Top to Bottom: Liberal MPs: Vance Badawey (Métis) – Niagara Centre, Ontario; Yvonne Jones (Inuit) – Labrador; Michael McLeod (Métis) – Northwest Territories; Robert-Falcon Ouellette (Cree) – Winnipeg Centre, Manitoba; Don Rusnak (Anishinaabe) – Thunder Bay-Rainy River, Ontario; Hunter Tootoo (Inuit) – Nunavut; Dan Vandal (Métis) – Saint Boniface-Saint Vital, Manitoba; Jody Wilson-Raybould (Kwakwaka’wakw) – Vancouver Granville, B.C.. NDP MPs: Georgina Jolibois (Dene) – Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River, Saskatchewan; Romeo Saganash (Cree) – Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik–Eeyou, Quebec.
While watching the “Extended: ‘Our people have spoken'” video in the CTV news report, I really liked what Grand Chief Derek Nepinak of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs had to say about it now being imperative to tackle what it means to be a Nation for First Nation peoples in order to really move forward in working between the First Nation peoples and the Canadian Government.
Left to right, Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Derek Nepinak, Grand Chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Sheila North Wilson, and Kevin Hart, Manitoba regional chief with the Assembly of First Nations, speak at the Assembly of Manitoba’s Chiefs’ office in Winnipeg, on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015.
Its an issue that isn’t so clear cut currently and I believe that this topic is at the core of a bright future for all the peoples, Canadians included. I really like the original concept of what land ownership (if you could call it that) meant before European Settlement that were at the core of the initial relations between the indigenous people and European settlers. Community management of lands where no land was the sole property of anybody, it was everybody’s land and your living space was respected as the space you occupied, but the land use was still a community concern.
Our legal system today has a lot of regulations that are progressive in having similar views in what people can do with the land they legally own under Canadian law, unlike how it was in the past. I believe there can be a balance of private rights where you have rights to manage the land you occupy as you see fit within the boundaries of the health of the ecosystem and safety, and how you have a right to not have others you do not wish on that land to be there and do what they want with it. The question becomes how much land is too much land for someone to own and not let others use it?
This can be done today so that local communities manage the land and are aided by the provincial and federal government to ensure responsible management and provide support for improving the health of the land. It would be ideal for all communities to have immediate walkable access to these public lands. As it is, most of these lands are either too far away, do not allow hunting, fishing, or gathering, or cost money. Public lands are supposed to belong to the people and our current structure is denying this human right to many people. Its a disparity that needs to be rectified.
Many feel that I have an odd stance on things. That is mostly because I question why we see things the way we do to try to understand how we’ve come to treat things the way we do. Often enough that leads to me sharing values, but going about them differently from others. That is why I often question my place in Paganism – as I’ve found myself here through affiliation rather than from self description. And don’t agree with a lot of things – and that is okay. I rather be surrounded by people who can openly disagree with me than be surrounded by people who meekly agree with everything everyone says – that sort of thing I find unhealthy. And that is what this is about – the things that I openly disagree with, and you are more than welcome to feel otherwise. And the reason why I bring it up is to encourage pondering why we see things the way we do, and you can come up with your own conclusions as to why it should continue the same way or if a change is needed.
One of the things I find myself disagreeing with is the view of Ancestors. I understand being in apt awe of our long heritage of what brings us here today and thinking of how we too would one day be part of that. But I honestly dislike the tendency to automatically attribute ancestors as worthy of respect. Some certainly are, but a great many I wouldn’t consider any less or more worthy of respect than the average living person today. That is because your living relatives are ultimately just as much like your past relatives, and do you get along with your living relatives enough to consider them worthy of great respect? Most likely not, with the odd exception of perhaps a few in every couple of families. A lot of my relatives I really don’t get along with and as I understand most people have similar experiences. On top of all this is the expectation that our ancestors would share a lot of our same values – they wouldn’t have. Having had an interest in history and fairly recently gotten even more involved by reenacting in the Society for Creative Anachronism, I’ve found that it is more likely that you wouldn’t get along with your ancestors than your living relatives. Primarily because our modern worldviews are simply so different, and essentially foreign, from our ancestor’s worldviews. Human history is chocked full of things that we would abhor today. Like the justifications for slavery, female relations as possessions, killing someone for giving an insult, and plainly killing people who disagree with you. Some of those views are still around today, but likely everyone reading this would be against them. Ancestors should receive as much scrutiny as we would give the living today, not instantly be seen as worthy of respect.
This brings me to the topic of Indigenous Peoples. One of the reasons ancestors tend to be seen as worthy of veneration is because all of our distant ancestors originally had lived more in-tune with their environment. But this doesn’t mean everything they did was worthy of veneration. Gender roles are a major component to indigenous peoples, and many of these roles are detrimental to the well being and freedom to those genders. It is a common concept that men are not permitted to do women’s work and women are not permitted to do men’s work. To most of us that is not something we’d like to be stuck with. Sure it may work for a number of people, and being raised within such a culture you’d think that that is the way things are and so wouldn’t think anything of it. But it doesn’t have to be that way. People should be able to choose what they want to do with their lives, so long as it doesn’t hurt another person. These gender roles imposed on their populace can vary from very mild segregation where its mostly just customary and breaking the custom still is socially frowned at with some social pressure to conform, but can ultimately break away from that, becoming a pariah in the community; to extreme segregation where a gender is seen as lesser than the other and thus not highly valued in their society and breaking from that social expectation results in murder. Some have used this to justify labeling Indigenous peoples as ‘primitive’. Such labels tend to speak more about the people who provide it than the people being labelled. It ultimately is up to the people themselves to decide what is a worthy way to live, as all ways of life are worthy options – so long as human rights are upheld, and I’d add the ecosystem’s integrity as well. Which brings me to the next issue relating to indigenous peoples.
It is common for people to believe that all indigenous peoples live harmoniously within their ecosystem – that is a myth. There are those that do and are very good at it, but there are also those that don’t. And to that I’ll explain with my own experiences, but to begin to explain that I need to begin with another romanticism.
Many people tend to see all Native Americans as the same group of people. They very much are not. There are hundreds of different groups that are collectively grouped as Native Americans. Each one can greatly differ from the other, and often do. Increasingly there has been a “Pan-Indian” trend partially in response to non-native people’s expectations, mostly as a way to be quickly recognized as being native (a lot of this recognitions stemming from media representations) and thus to be able to make a living based on those expectations. Such “Pan-Indian” things are Tipis, Dream Catchers, “Peace Pipes”, and massively feathered headdresses. These associations mostly arose from Wild West Shows that went from 1872 to about 1913, forming the public’s perceptions of what the indigenous peoples of North America were.
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West
The reality is these Wild West Shows were having depictions mostly based on the Plains Peoples (not having anything to do the hundreds of other peoples) and greatly exaggerated those cultural features just for show appeal. The feathered war bonnet (headdress) itself is a direct result of that – strictly a plains people’s cultural item and was greatly exaggerated by adding enormous amounts of feathers (which is frankly greatly disrespectful to the eagle and the amount of honor that is associated with the eagle feather. The Eagle Feather is not something to take lightly). In pre-European settlement contact, a large headdress wouldn’t have been a common sight. Tipis are also strictly a plain’s people’s thing, and a Peace Pipe is a very specific pipe – not one that is used for all ceremonial purposes (there is a whole variety of pipes for different purposes with different kinds and uses depending on the indigenous culture).
Dream CatchersNon-Traditional Dream Catcher
Dream Catchers originated with the Anishinaabe and were adopted by neighboring nations, being used as protective charms for infants (Very much like crib mobiles for our children with the addition of protection over their dreams and its deeper cultural meanings). There is a lot of dispute over the dream catcher’s use because as its been adopted, it has been greatly altered from its original form. Making it a misnomer to continue calling it a dream catcher in reference to its original form and purpose when it clearly isn’t one anymore. It would make more sense to call it a non-traditional Dream Catcher, or a Web Weave decoration inspired by the dream catcher – but it isn’t the Anishinaabe’s Dream Catcher, so it shouldn’t claim to be one.
Since the Wild West Shows the indigenous peoples were able to reclaim their heritage and culture and started a different kind of “Pan-Indian” show called a Pow-Wow. All over North American in summer will be Pow-Wows where the host peoples get to express their cultural identity with pride.
As a side note, when you see a blanket with items laid out on it, do not assume its a market stall. It is most likely a sacred bundle that is dear to the person sitting behind it. So please have some respect and don’t step over it or touch anything on it. Many also find it rude to query on the significance of those items – its that personal. A respectful way to go about it is to ask if it is okay to ask about the items and go from there as some love to share the story of their bundle – being an opportunity to share their culture. Photographs are also considered disrespectful in many scenarios depending on the Pow-Wow and the participants. So always ask if it is okay to touch something or take a photo first. A good guideline for photos is to ask the Master of Ceremonies if photos are permitted at that event and of what. People in regalia should be asked in a person by person basis (again, don’t touch).
But it wasn’t that long ago that Pow-Wows were not permitted by the governments, and children being taken from their families to be put in residential schools (Canada) or boarding schools (USA) to assimilate them into American & Canadian culture.
Photograph of students from Fort Albany Residential School reading in class overseen by a nun c 1945. From the Edmund Metatawabin collection at the University of Algoma.
These children were severely abused and many had died there. The last Canadian federally operated residential school was closed in 1996. The USA still has a few off-reservation boarding schools. As a result, much of their indigenous cultures have been lost. The Pow-Wows are thus a kind of revival of their culture. Many express the sense of it being a statement of, “We are here, you have not destroyed us.” Sadly, human rights abuses of indigenous peoples all over the world are still rampant.
What has resulted is a mix bag of things. Some good, others not so good. The good mostly is that people are free to express their culture and beliefs now. There is still a lot of bad, especially when it comes to land rights and the trauma that has been left behind. I would like to talk about one of the bad things that have happened. There are aspects of ‘Western’ culture that is hurting the people and the land. A sizable portion of that is purely one material – petroleum. There has been increasing news with regards to Indigenous Rights and petroleum, having to do with stopping the pipe lines from the Tar Sands,
Their rights are being abused still and they need all the support they can get. The flip side of petroleum is its proliferation in our cultural goods to the point that it is poisoning the very ceremonies that are trying to be revived. It is seen at every ceremony I’ve gone to. Feasts with plastic single use cups, plates and utensils, along with the packaging of the store bought food; Tobacco bundles that are wrapped in petroleum based fibers (Also called Synthetic fibers, such as Nylon, Modacrylic, Acrylic, Olefin, Polyester, Rayon, and Spandex) that are left behind at fasts, and put into the sacred fires to burn, creating a toxic carcinogenic fume that the fire keepers breathe in and become nauseous from; And from the garbage brought in and left behind at the ceremonial grounds, creating a day or more’s work for those who organized the ceremony – just to clean up after their own people. Not to mention the Native American owned oil and gas companies creating a rift between those who want to protect the land, and those who want to exploit it. The indigenous peoples of North America are not unanimously invested in the well being of the earth, nor are their cultures all about that.
Granted there are groups that are very much focused on these issues and walk the talk.
But Native peoples are much more complex than this persistent romanticism of being one culture that is ‘One With Nature’. Which brings me to the last set of issues – Perspectives of Nature in general.
Have you ever watched a nature video that had the eagle call into the sky, or bears roaring at each other? Well, the reality is that those footage’s were never captured that way – those sounds are voice overs. The call you normally hear in films of an Eagle, is actually a Red-tailed Hawk call.
Because an actual Bald Eagle call was thought to not be majestic enough for film. Bald Eagle calls sound more like whistles and nothing like a screech. (watch at the 34th second) https://youtu.be/PQ2uMauyBow?t=33s
Lemmings pushed off cliff in the 1958 Disney film White Wilderness
Media has portrayed Nature in all sorts of fictitious ways that have influenced how we see it. A prime example is lemmings jumping off of cliffs. If you haven’t heard of it before its based on an old Disney documentary that was trying to film Lemmings jumping off of cliffs because it was commonly understood that they do that when their populations got too big. But they weren’t able to capture any of that while they were there so they collected lemmings from elsewhere and then threw them off the cliff themselves, strategically filming it so that it looked like they were jumping of their own volition. It wasn’t until much later was it found that lemmings jumping off cliffs were a myth. So be wary of false nature films. The only ones I can comfortably recommend are those done by David Attenborough. Not only do they have integrity, but cover most every creature that can be covered when it comes to wildlife. But media has left its mark and will continue to as it is a very compelling way to share information.
Other such ways it has shared falsehoods is with natural medicinal cures, thinking that because its from Nature it must be good right? Very Wrong. Just to clear things up, all medicine is from Nature, then it gets refined for potency toward a specific ingredient for treatment to avoid undesired side effects of the other ingredients. If it hasn’t gone through rigorous peer reviewed testing, then you are ultimately taking a risk based on something that is only a claim. Sadly, many people have died based on the “Natural Cure” claim. Reality is that All good AND harmful substances are from Nature. Some of the most poisonous substances in the world (such as ricin, cyanide, arsenic, hemlock, snake venoms and mercury) are all entirely “natural”, not having been human altered from its raw form. The key is to rigorously test them to determine whether or not it is good for our health.
The same thing goes for “natural foods”. Especially those that are dubbed “super foods” that can “detox” you or “prevent cancer with antioxidants”. These detox and cancer preventing healthfood things are myths. “Detox” is a medicinal term that has been co-opted and corrupted by a greenwashing healthfood industry, creating a non-existent condition in order to convince you to buy their stuff to treat it. The reality is that “detox” in its actual medicinal use refers to treating for immediately life threatening dangerous levels of drugs, alcohol, or poisons, like heavy metals. Also known as purging an overdose. Again, there are plenty of natural things in their raw forms that are extremely deadly to humans in small doses. But absolutely everything in Nature can be toxic enough to kill you. This is called LD50 (Lethal Dosage of 50%) – essentially the point when a substance kills half the members of a tested population after a specified test duration. Even plain water can be deadly toxic in high enough doses. And I’m not talking about drowning in it, drinking it. Both the “detox” and “cancer prevention” claims are just that – claims. There is no peer reviewed study that confirms any of these claims.
“Do you know what they call alternative medicine that’s been proved to work? Medicine.” (Tim Minchin, Storm). As all medicine should be looked at with scrutiny because “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (Carl Sagan).
My point to all this can be summed up by a wonderful founding set of words, “Nullius in Verba” which translates to “Take nobody’s word for it.” The motto for the Royal Society whom explain it thus, “It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.” The Royal Society having been one of the major supporters of the then new Scientific Method. So, to all of you reading this. Question everything, even what I have written, and find out for yourself whether or not any claim is actually true. Even though it may sound right, especially if it appeals to your position. It doesn’t help anybody to unwittingly promote things that are in actuality falsehoods, and often damages a position that is otherwise a fine one to hold.
In the end, Take nobody’s word for it.
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International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is a United Nations awareness day on August 9th. It is meant to promote and protect the rights of the world’s indigenous population, and recognize the achievements and contributions that indigenous people make to improve world issues. In this article we will discuss the important issues that impact indigenous peoples and how that relates to you.
Indigenous. What does Indigenous even mean?
Considering that we are organisms that are related with every other living thing on this planet, a hard and fast dividing line is more likely than not arbitrary, especially between fellow humans when it comes to calling someone indigenous.
We All Share The Same Human Origins. Paleocraneo – Atlas, by Fernando Vicente
What really makes the distinction isn’t necessarily through genetics, but through generational livelihoods off of the land and sea. This is about peoples who have been living off of a region for many hundreds of generations if not more.
Note: Image is not completely accurate as a great many indigenous people are within the unmarked areas. Click Image To View Full Size
These peoples who have been dubbed Indigenous Peoples are all over the world, and express themselves in a great variety of ways, but all share the same root identity – the land. Everything that makes these peoples who they are is through the very land they stand on. They are born, raised, marry, and give birth to following generations on that very same land. Their stories, clothing, mannerisms, are all formed through engaging intimately with their land. They are the way they are for a reason – the land has shaped them.
Everyone should be able to agree that communities should be able to decide their future. But for some reason this freedom of choice is routinely ignored for indigenous peoples. Their livelihoods and very lives are at risk. The common threats stemming from those of resource extraction based livelihoods who want the resources on their lands. If anything there should be more say from these indigenous communities. But no. That is not the case. Peoples who have livelihoods that are resource extraction based have ended up forcing their livelihood onto them. They make the associations to the members of those land based communities derogatory terms, such as tribal or more commonly, primitive, when there really is nothing wrong with these things.
The Aché, Paraguay: in a landmark case launched in April 2014, the Aché tribe took Paraguay’s government to court over the genocide they suffered. The Aché were decimated after colonists launched killing raids, captured tribespeople and sold them as slaves during the 1950s and 60s. Photo Credit: A. Kohmann/Survival
With the emphasizing on differences, fear and hate is cultivated within the surrounding resource extraction based communities. This has led to ingrained racism, hate crimes, murder, and genocides. And it is still going on today. Indigenous peoples have had their land forcibly taken from them and in turn have lost everything that makes them who they are. They are given the message “conform or become eradicated”. This is an affront to human rights and somehow has become considered acceptable, otherwise it wouldn’t be here. How can this be happening? Sadly the answer is simple, but to change its outcome is a major challenge. It is because of all of us. Our resource extraction based society demands it. There is demand for wood, meat, grain, soy, palm oil, minerals, oil, gas, drugs, and “progress”. And as a result we have people who are willing to supply it to make their living by logging, ranching, farming, mining, drilling, traffic drugs, displace and develop. And to be able to do that they are pressured to invade and take the lands of indigenous peoples. We are causing this pressure through our commodities.
If this is not tragic enough, these same peoples have contributed to our society’s well being by sharing their knowledge. Through medicines, skills, and trade with the initial settlers. If it weren’t for those human connecting relations a great many people today would instead be suffering from illnesses they knew how to treat, be dead without those medicines or because of lack of skills to support ourselves in their region, or non-existent. Whole family lines wouldn’t have existed today if it weren’t for that initial support given to settlers throughout history and the world. My family line would have certainly perished, as it is directly connected to the trade relations between my ancestors – fur traders and first nations. And I suspect a great many reading this, possibly unbeknownst, share a similar background when looking far back enough.
So What Can You Do?
Admittedly our economy is a major part of this problem – it is set up to get as many resources as possible, from concentrated source, and make a profit from its extraction. This has caused, and still causes, slavery of the indigenous peoples and environmental destruction on their very own lands. If not straight up slavery there are no worker’s rights with scant pay that can barely support the worker themselves, let alone a family. Because its cheaper, because our society has demanded cheaper goods and have disregarded how that is done.
So in the very least you can be conscious of what you are buying and using. Keeping in mind indigenous rights, worker’s rights, and environmental regulations (follow link to find relevant questionnaire and to learn more about our resource connections). Fortunately there are organizations that are dedicated to responsible labelling of goods to show that these things are upheld. There are a lot and won’t get into them, but I will point out the major categories: Fair Trade (goods that support worker’s rights, providing a living wage), Sustainable Lumber (environmentally conscious logging), and Organic (environmentally conscious farming). All of these label categories have fallen victim to “greenwashing” where the product may have the label but it simply isn’t true. So I recommend that you look into each label you are considering to rely on before purchasing based on it.
Following that you can go to your banking institution and divest from businesses that commit these atrocities. The simplest approach is not associating with multinational corporations. A better approach is to move your banking to a Credit Union who are completely invested in your own region.
You can also support organizations that themselves fight for indigenous rights. One of the biggest ones being Survival International, who focus on supporting and fighting alongside the most endangered peoples.
Image Source: Survival International
What really needs to happen is an overhaul on our economic system that inherently encourages these atrocities. How to go about that has a lot of various propositions. Which of these are the best way is something that I think is up to each person to determine for themselves. What would be useful is a gathering of professional economists that support an overhaul to correct the problems of the current system, work together to make one, and present it to governing bodies. Especially the United Nations who had began International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.
Until this February I did not want to bother with writing about American Politics. Even as I started to encountered FAR too many people who are in complete denial about Trump’s actions and the goals of Republican leaders in the White House and Congress. Before his inauguration, just pointing out basic facts of what he did in his campaign for a historical law comparison, led to self described Political Moderates to call for censorship. Arguing that to describe how a current political figure would have been affected by ancient Celtic law had no place in a forum about ancient Celtic history. This led to the post being removed by the admin.
Then I saw the news of his first week in office and decided I had to write on everything I saw that led to this point. Then shortly into my writing, tragedy struck home. The following had thus taken weeks to bring together as there simply was so much ground to cover on the subject and near constant news to add to it.
This is an attempt to bring all this information together in an accessible way that reveals the array of occurrences that have led to now, and how society can combat them.
WHEN MODERATES ARE NOT MODERATES
When we cannot even mention basic facts that relate to a political figure, it is an expression of willful denial and political censorship.
It was clear to me and others on the forum that the problem lay with the people who felt that to mention a particular political figure was contentious in itself. They were being intolerant to anything that challenged this political figure, no matter how true it was. The stated reasoning was that the subject was being disputed – allowing credence to the disputing party because of fairness and that what I was presenting was just an opinion. Which is a fallacy known as “False-Balance“.
This was particularly strange coming from people who considered themselves Moderates. Because Moderates, out of all political stripes, should be most in favor of having no political figure be immune from facts. But it now looks to me as an excuse for not talking about politics in anyway to avoid any uncomfortable subjects – or they had an unresolved bias.
View report from Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy; analyzing news coverage during the 2016 general election here. Or an article summarizing it here. Or click image for a video summarizing the False Equivalency in the 2016 general election.
The sad things is, I believe that this whole kerfuffle would not have happened if the comparison was about Putin, Napoleon, Winston Churchill, or even if it were about George Bush. In fact, earlier last year, a then current, far more politically charged post went through without a problem. It was about Norse archaeology being censored by a previous Conservative Prime Minister of Canada. This was evidence enough to me that there was a clear American Bias and double standard when it came to talking about politics.
I have consistently come across Moderates online that are adamant about not picking sides but focusing on fixing the political system. In that, I agree the political system of the USA is very very broken,
The Death of Evidence rally made its way onto Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday, July 10, 2012. Photograph by: Jean Levac , The Ottawa Citizen
and knowing how that felt, on top of how much more fundamentalist this particular brand of conservatism is compared to the Canadian brand – I cannot, and will not standby and tolerate Americans telling me to not talk about facts in American Politics anymore.
By now it should be apparent what people have been talking about bracing for the Don Trump Presidency, was not an exaggeration. All those warnings about him following through with the worst of what he said was not just political rhetoric. He is following through with it.
At this point, if you still hold onto the idea that people should accept his presidency and just move on – you are the ultimate of willfully blind, or you are like him: fascist, racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, bigoted.
Because to ignore and censor facts about the politicians who are determined to bulldoze people’s rights is to passively support them. If you cannot see how wrong that is by now, you ought to prepare for civil strife. Because you have no right to call yourself a moderate, because you are de facto apathetic to human rights and have chosen the side of the oppressor.
Imagery and Quote from the film “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”
Anti-Intellectualism, A Fertile Ground For Fascism
“Fascism is a form of government which is a type of one-party dictatorship. Fascists are against liberal democracy. They work for a totalitarianone-party state.[1] This aims to prepare the nation for armed conflict, and to respond to economic difficulties.[2] Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government.[3] Fascism is an extreme right-wing political movement. It tends to be militaristic, and racist.”…
Many people believe that fascism would not be a terrible system if you always do your duty and you never oppose the government. However, the problem is that people can be corrupt. Everything looks good in theory, but in real life innocent people can get into serious trouble with the government when there is no guaranteed right to a fair trial.” – Fascism, Simple English Wikipedia
Republicans have fought for complete government control under the guise of Christianity. The Christian support of the Republican party over the Democratic party apparently being heavily affected by the Democrat’s support for abortion, “in order to keep Clinton from appointing liberal judges to SCOTUS [Supreme Court of the United States]”. Trump having secured endorsements from conservative Christians leaders by promising to appoint pro-life judges. Clinching that support by providing a list of 21 candidates for appointment to the court. According to New York Times, Judges on Trump’s list are also conservative on gay marriage.
This kind of isolating indoctrination are attacks against human rights of freedom – because you cannot be free if you are not permitted the option of even knowing about different worldviews.
And I do not care what group it is from, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Pagan, Atheist, Maoist, Marxist, White Supremacist, Taoist, Shintoist, Buddhist whatever – whether considered good or bad, this sort of restriction of knowledge in any expression is always bad. Because it isolates families and whole communities, causing a sense of ‘us versus them’. ‘Them’ being anyone who does not fit into their puristic definition of family or community. Resulting in a fear of this ‘other’ that leads to fighting to take over governance to protect their views and way of life from ‘them’. And that is how you get fascism.
“fascism is an idea mixed with action. It took fascism to establish Jim Crow and before that, slavery….Anti-Semitism has been around a long time but it took fascism to [make] the Holocaust….When you cross that threshold, you negate your rights to a calm, collective conversation.” – anonymous ARA (Anti-Racist Action) member
Cowards flee from encountering other beliefs, while the Courageous seek to find if their beliefs are worthy.
Venom of ‘Free Speech’
Co-existence and Tolerance has a threshold. When people are permitted to isolate themselves from facts and avoid having their beliefs and leaders questioned – be they a politician, religious leader, or deity – the public becomes complacent with the vitriolic rhetoric from those leaders and their followers. Such leaders can increase the severity toward any opposition and people feel that they can ignore the resulting intolerance and hate crime as their right to free speech. Believing it to be valid, or to avoid the leader’s and their supporter’s wrath.
Johanna Gerechter Neumann’s Father, A patriotic German and World War I veteran, “certainly thought that it could never happen in Germany”, “It did happen. Slowly, but it did happen.”
Aging survivors worry, “It is repeating itself, and it is again the inattention that people pay to real cues that one should understand,”
“it could become Weimar Germany if you have Mr. Trump here and people keep believing what he says. I think one has to speak up. And that’s the one lesson from the Holocaust: Do not be a bystander.”
Martin Weiss hears echoes of his youth, “I don’t want to make any comparison to Hitler, but believe it or not his delivery and the way he conducts himself is very similar to Hitler’s way of doing things. He discredits everybody who disagrees with him. He’s insulting. He discriminates against everybody.”
“Sooner or later, you know what happens in a case like this? That’s how Weimar Germany went to hell, because when Hitler came in, if somebody disagreed with him — guess what — he put them in prison or he had them shot or he opened the concentration camp.”
The US president calls the media “enemies of the people” – a phrase favoured by Stalin and Mao.
When that manifests in concentration camps, it is too late. The government already has full control over the populace and any speaking out is severely punished without anyone to help you. This is how Fascism takes hold over the public. This is why a truly tolerant society cannot tolerate intolerance – what is called “The Paradox Of Tolerance”.
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.“
Poem by Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). A prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.
“Kansas Secretary of State Chris Kobach, who helped write the tough immigration laws in Arizona, said today that Trump’s policies advisers are drafting — they’re discussing drafting a proposal to reinstate a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries. For immigrants from Muslim countries.”
Carl Higbie responds by citing Japanese Internment Camps As “Precedent” For Muslim Registry.
View the beginning of this interview at 18 minutes, 18 seconds,
Image Source: Justice Aaron McCartney · 24 January · “This was an experience a friend of mine had that i felt worth sharing.”
On January, 25th 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order empowering the homeland security secretary to ensure the “detention of aliens apprehended for violations of immigration law.” Hiring a force of 5,000 new border agents and 10,000 new immigration officers, and empowering local and state police to “perform the functions of immigration officers in relation to the investigation, apprehension, or detention” of undocumented immigrants. A required weekly report of “a comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens and any jurisdiction that ignored or otherwise failed to honor any detainers with respect to such aliens.” And cuts off federal funds “except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes by the Attorney General or the Secretary”, in essence punishing jurisdictions that ignore ‘detainers’ with respect to ‘such aliens’.
One of many flaws with Trump’s Muslim ban as a method of preventing Terrorists from entering the USA, is that the nations that do not have a history of Terrorism in the USA have been blocked. While nations that not only have a history of Terrorism in the USA, but also have business ties with Trump have been left off of the ban.
Holocaust survivors Aaron Elster, speaking, Fritzie Fritzshall and Ralph Rehbock at Illunois Holocaust Museum & Education Center. Feb 2. 2017. Source: Jonah Meadows / Patch.com / Donald Trump Refugee Ban Condemned By Chicago-Area Holocaust Survivors
“Rehbock warned the United States is risking repeating the mistakes of the past. Thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution were turned away, and more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans were forced into internment camps.”
“You dehumanize people, and then it’s OK to do what you want with them,” he said, noting the gradual way by which German Jews first had their citizenship revoked before being pushed together in ghettos and eventually forced into death camps.”
It has come to my attention that a Fox News tweet posted on Twitter at 12:31pm, January 30, 2017, contains false and misleading language relating to the identity of the suspect in the Quebec mosque terror attack. I have attached a copy of the tweet for your reference.
Over the course of the day, this proved to be false information. In fact, the suspect was identified as a 27 year old French Canadian – not someone of Moroccan-origin.
Sadly, this misleading information has been left to stand on the Fox News Channel’s twitter account and continued to circulate online even now.
Canada is an open, welcoming country that stands by its citizens. We are a nation of millions of immigrants and refugees, of hundreds of cultures, languages, and religions bound by one, unwavering, unshakable belief: we are stronger not in spite of our differences, but because of them.
These tweets by Fox News dishonour the memory of the six victims and their families by spreading misinformation, playing identity politics, and perpetuating fear and division within our communities.
We need to remain focused on keeping our communities safe and united instead of trying to build walls and scapegoat communities. Muslims are predominantly the greatest victims of terrorist acts around the world. To paint terrorists with a broad brush that extends to all Muslims is not just ignorant – it is irresponsible.
If we allow individuals and organizations to succeed by scaring people, we do not actually end up any safer. Fear does not make us safer. It makes us weaker. Ramping up fear and closing our borders is not a solution. It distracts from the real issues that affect people’s day to day life.
For all of these reasons, we ask that Fox News either retract or update the tweet to reflect the suspect’s actual identity.
Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.
Kate Purchase Director of Communications Office of the Prime Minister of Canada
Fox News deleted the tweet that Tuesday evening after receiving the office’s request — more than 24 hours after it was posted.
The truth of this attack is that half an hour after the shooting the police received a call from the area near the bridge to the Ile d’Orléans near the mosque. The caller told them he was involved and wanted to surrender. The caller was revealed to be 27 year old, white French Canadian, Alexandre Bissonnette.
Alexandre Bissonnette is escorted to a van after appearing in court for the deadly shooting at a mosque Monday Jan 30 2017 in Quebec City — Jacques Boissinot / CP
Alexandre Bissonnette’s online profile and school friendships revealed little interest in extremist politics until last March, when France’s far-right National Front Leader Marine Le Pen visited Quebec City.
Bissonnette was “unfortunately known to several activists in Quebec City for his pro-Le Pen and anti-feminist positions at Laval University and on social networks,” wrote the Bienvenue aux réfugié.es.
Childhood and Facebook friend, Vincent Boissoneault, a student in international relations at Laval University, said they frequently argued over politics when Mr. Bissonnette attacked refugees or expressed support for Ms. Le Pen or Mr. Trump.
Within a religious community, imams have kept an eye out for radicalization, “We would not hesitate at all in informing the agencies to do their part. As Canadians, we share the concerns. We are equally affected by any terrorism threats.” (April 22, 2013)
And yet, unlike what the Republican Leaders have alluded to and what Trump claimed as justifications for harsh punishments, the USA Murder Rate is near it’s all time low.
Meaning that USA citizens are overall less likely to murder each other, but the few that do are able to enact much more damage.
That people are more concerned about extremely rare attacks by foreign terrorists than these almost daily mass shootings by and toward Americans just boggles the mind.
Honestly, as a Canadian, the USA’s perspective on guns comes across as this weird, paranoid, masculine hyped fetish. I personally may not like guns, but its not like people can’t own and use guns in Canada, and a large portion of our population are gun owners too. But we see them as a recreation tool for hunting and target shooting – not self defense. And so we don’t see anything anywhere near what you get in the USA. Even while most illegal guns in Canada are trafficked from the USA.
But if we are going to talk about tackling extremist ideologies that lead to terrorism on US soil, then the biggest current problem is Right-Wing Extremists.
Beyond what I have already written, as of six months ago, a study revealed that Islamic State (IS) is being outperformed in everything from follower counts to number of daily tweets by white nationalists and self-identified Nazi sympathizers on Twitter. Growing more than 600 per cent in the last four years.
“It’s fair to say that if the Trump team is not listening to us directly (I assume they are), they are thinking along very similar lines. We helped get Trump get [sic] elected, and the fact of the matter is, without Alt-Right meme magick, it simply wouldn’t have happened,” the post continues. “This is absolutely a signal of favor to us.”
McDowell had known ties to white supremacist gangs from when he was in prison, and had been ranting online on his hatred of Jews and about his desire to commit an attack. Criticizing fellow white supremacists for their failure to take action, writing that they “ain’t got the heart to fight for Yahweh like dylann roof.”
The American Federal Government had made no comment on this arrest. Something that would have happened if the criminal were not a white American citizen, and would have been used to further justify severe measures the administration was planning. Just like what was attempted with the Mosque attack in Canada when the perpetrator was thought to be of Moroccan origin.
Canada is clearly not immune to this extremism. But it manifests differently here because we have laws against Hate Speech. Thus hate groups have greater difficulty to gather or promote their hatred. Something very different from what is happening in the United States where hate groups are instead protected by the police, because “Free Speech”.
Seven leaders of an armed militia who led a 41-day stand-off at a US federal wildlife refuge in Oregon have been cleared of the charges. The Oceti Sakowin Camp is a historic gathering of tribes standing in solidarity to halt the Dakota Access Pipeline.
All the while it should be these Fascists and Neo-Nazis who are afraid to exist and afraid to say their words. Anti-fascists (Antifas) are the only ones who are forcing out the White Supremacists when the Police should be.
If the USA had Hate Speech be a crime like it is in Canada, Trump would not have had a chance to even campaign. Free Speech gave him that spotlight which was tacit permission for others who share the same harmful outlooks to not only come out, but act on it. In the USA, and across borders in Canada.
Image by Rua Lupa, February 12017 H.E.
Based on history and what Holocaust Survivors have shared, it is past the point of words and only action is left – be it bureaucratic, court cases, marches, protests, sit-ins, or physical shutdowns of hate group gatherings.
Christina Hall writes, “Look the problem with these slippery slope fallacies (aka punching a nazi makes you no better than a nazi) is basically three fold as far as I can tell.
1. It implies there is an “equal” war of ideas. There is not. Believing genocide is a good thing is not equal to anything else. You can believe the sky is orange all you want but it is not equal to all of the evidence that points otherwise.
2. WWII was not won with hugs. White supremacy will not be beaten with hugs either. And demanding nonviolence from people currently getting oppressed with violence (people of color, lgbtqia people, other people nazis hate) is a really really solid form of tone policing. Fuck that.
3. Defending yourself, your family, and your community from nazi trash means a lot of things–not all of them physical violence. But ruling out violence completely by the slippery slope argument is a way to discredit a riot before it happens. It is a way to shift sympathy on individuals who have been oppressing others for years and paint the reactionary movements as being illegitimate before they even start. If a few nazis getting punched is a tragedy, what do you call 10 million+ people getting killed by nazis? Nothing. You don’t talk about THAT because if you did you wouldn’t be so morally opposed to a few people getting decked for saying that it wasn’t a tragedy at all but rather a glorious idea. (Or that it didn’t happen despite all those meticulous german records talking about how well their planned and deliberate genocide was going.)
I’m not sorry for wanting to punch a nazi. Nor am I sorry for being willing to punch a nazi. And should it happen and should I go to jail for assault I would still not be sorry because nazis are terrible human beings, and if I ruined at least one of their days on this earth it was worth it.”
Photo of Birkenau (the extermination camp at Auschwitz) following the camp’s liberation on January 27, 1945. In the foreground is the unloading ramp (the so-called Judenrampe) and in the distance Birkenau’s main gate called the “Gate of Death.”IMAGE SOURCE: (Film) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
The earliest recordings reveal the rise of an authoritarian movement that was inspired by Hitler, Mussolini, and Francisco Franco in Pre WWII Europe. In October 1936, London’s Jewish East End neighborhood witnessed 2,000 members of the British Union of Fascists march through their streets, and were met by 100,000 anti-fascists to oppose them. The melee included Jews, Irishmen, Communists, anarchists, and socialists, beating the Fascists with sticks, rocks, and sawed-off chair-legs. From overhead windows women dumped their chamber pots out of onto the Fascist’s heads. History recognizes this as the Battle of Cable Street.
In Minneapolis 1982, neo-Nazis started to appear in the city. In response, a street gang named the Baldies arose, adopting British punk fashion—bomber jackets, bald heads, boots and braces—and quite literally kicked the Nazis out of town.
In the years following, anti-fascist groups, such as Anti-Racist Action, Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice, and the Love and Rage Anarchist Federation advocated “direct action” against white supremacists. Ignoring legislative efforts in favor of physically preventing Nazis from organizing, distributing literature, and speaking in public. Their logic was that if a white-supremacist leader incited a hate crime, police couldn’t intervene until after a violent action occurred. And so Anti-fascists wouldn’t wait.
Modern groups appear ready to revive the direct-action tactics of the 1980s and ’90s in order to confront white supremacists emboldened by Trump. Such groups include the Redneck Revolt, John Brown Militia, and the Bastards Motorcycle Club. Anti-Racist Action’s 20 or so USA chapters have promised to contribute to direct-action tactics.
The day after the inauguration, ARA’s branch in Louisville, Kentucky, posted on their website:
“For decades, [white supremacists] were the face of the enemy and only a minute few dared show their true colors in public. This made them easy to dismiss, easy to ignore…However, recent events have proven that the fascist ideology has not only survived but thrived…Now, their labors of hatred have been rewarded with a sympathetic President-Elect and a federal Congress that is, at best, indifferent to their evil.
A warning to those who wish to destroy what we hold dear; We will resist you in the streets, in the poll booths and in the townhouses. Whether it’s in the bars, the concert halls, the conference centers or even City Hall, we will not allow a platform for your dangerous and divisive ideas. We will not allow history to repeat itself. We will shut you down everywhere you go. We will block your marches. We will interrupt your speeches. We will protest your legislation. We will be the thorn in your side. The glass in your bread. The pain in your ass.”
“In the video titled “The assault on me”, [Richard Spencer] said he was left with a black eye on Saturday and was going to have to start considering “operational security”. He told viewers he was recording the video from what he called a “safe space”. “I was planning to go out tomorrow during the Women’s March to do some journalism but I can’t do that anymore,” Spencer told viewers. “I have reached a stage of being a public figure where I am going to be recognised and then be attacked.”
Anti-Fascists were right in saying that beating up and kicking out white supremacists / neo-nazis makes them afraid to express their vitriol in public. Forcing them to hide their views and thereby preventing fascism from fully taking root.
Remember, Hitler came to power through a democratically elected government. And by that point the problem could not be solved with words.
Image Source Unknown – Would Love To Give Proper Credit!IMAGE SOURCE: (film) Captain America: The First Avenger
LOOK FOR THE HELPERS
AND TOGETHER #RESIST
Good news is that people are not taking this laying down, having not hesitated and fought the moment anything arose.
Along side public servant branches going rogue, Women’s March on Washingtonwas organized for January 21, 2017 to “send a bold message to our new administration on their first day in office, and to the world that women’s rights are human rights”
When Trump signed his Deportation order on January 25th, quickly followed by the Muslim Ban on January 27th, U.S. attorney general Sally Yates was prompt to order justice department lawyers not to enforce the president’s executive order. “As long as I am the acting attorney general, the department of justice will not present arguments in defense of the Executive Order.” Within hours the White House responded with a statement that accused Yates of “betraying” the justice department and being “weak on borders”, and fired her.
Democratic Party leader Senator Chuck Schumer stated that the “attorney general should be loyal and pledge fidelity to the law, not the White House. The fact that this administration doesn’t understand that is chilling”.
A rotating team of lawyers has remained at JFK Airport to help travelers caught in the crosshairs of President Trump’s ban on foreigners from seven Muslim majority countries. “We’re keeping the presence at all the different terminals,” Camille Mackler, director of legal initiatives at the New York Immigration Coalition, said Sunday night.
An emergency order was issued by federal Judge Robart that Saturday night, temporarily barring the U.S. from deporting people from nations subject to President Donald Trump’s travel ban, saying ‘travelers who had been detained had a strong argument that their legal rights had been violated.’
Early the following Sunday, a federal appeals court denied the Justice Department’s request for an immediate reinstatement of President Donald Trump’s ban.
A more thorough timeline of legal events regarding the ban can be found here.
Art work by @samscenarist
One Justice Department employee tells The Washington Post, “You’re going to see the bureaucrats using time to their advantage,” adding that “people here will resist and push back against orders they find unconscionable,” by whistle-blowing, leaking to the press, and lodging internal complaints. Other state employees are keeping contact with President Obama’s appointed officials and attending workshops on how to effectively engage in civil disobedience, and learn more about how they can undermine Trump’s agenda.
When Obama’s previous assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, Tom Malinowski, was asked how this compares to past administrations, he sarcastically replied, “Is it unusual? . . . There’s nothing unusual about the entire national security bureaucracy of the United States feeling like their commander in chief is a threat to U.S. national security. That happens all the time. It’s totally usual. Nothing to worry about.”
The State of California’s leaders are not holding back and doing all in their power to resist. Here is state governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s speech on how California is not backing down in it’s combat against climate change in direct opposition to Republican policies.
As a Naturalist who volunteers to do public education about our wonderful cosmos, I felt the need to add my art to this particular March that people can freely utilize sans profit.
March For Science Logo designed by Rua Lupa. Nonprofit use & Attribute.
And Full Frontal, with their reference points from those who have successfully snubbed Trump,
“The progressive liberal agenda isn’t about being nice. It’s about confronting evil, violence, trauma, and death. It’s about acknowledging the ways systemic power, systemic oppression, systemic evil, work in our world around us. I’m not fighting for diversity. I’m not fighting for tolerance. I’m fighting to overturn horrific systems of dehumanizing oppression.” – Tucker FitzGerald / Medium.com / Intolerant Liberals
Remember, for just his first month in office, Trump has the lowest approval ratings in US history, and more people show up to protest him than they did for his inauguration.
In sum, this whole fascist regime needs to be taken down as a whole – marking the entire current administration in both the White House and Congress as illegitimate because of the unconstitutional gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the electoral college. Make none of this administration’s actions legitimate in the eyes of the law and strike them down. All government orders and legislation should be frozen for the time being while the gerrymandering*, voter suppression, and electoral college has been washed through the courts, and then, and only then, redo the elections.
Recently my attention was brought to an image making the rounds online. Divided into two halves, the top half shows a forest and the caption “This is an antidepressant.” The bottom half is a stock photo of a bunch of random, unidentified pills and says “This is shit.” The implication is that people with mental illnesses don’t need psychiatric medications; they just need to go outside and play. It wasn’t just completely woo-woo New Agers passing this around with solemn nods, either. Some of my fellow pagans–who really ought to know better–were also sharing it unironically.
Look–as a Masters-level ecopsychologist, I am the first to bang the drum of “Nature is good for you! Look, here’s research saying so! There are tons of people with self-reported improvements!” Here’s a study, and here’s a study, and here’s another study, and oh, hey, look at this whole peer-reviewed journal! You really don’t need to convince me of the healing powers of nature.
The Mental Health Toolkit
Back when I was actively counseling I frequently suggested to my clients (the ones who were able to) to go outside on a regular basis. Here’s the thing, though: going outside was not meant to be a grand cure-all, and it certainly wasn’t meant to replace the psych meds that a lot of my clients were on. This was an inpatient addictions treatment clinic, and many clients were self-medicating with methamphetamine, heroin, alcohol and other street drugs as a way to cope with everything from depression and anxiety disorders to Borderline Personality Disorder, along with frequent trauma histories. These were not clients whose problems could be easily solved with a walk in the park.
So our in-house psychiatrists would work with the clients to find effective combinations of pharmaceuticals (for those who needed them). I and the other counselors would do both group and individual therapy with our clients, and I wove ecopsychology into my treatment a fair bit. The outdoor time clients got during daily walks and weekly field trips helped reduce symptoms and build coping skills to replace the drugs they were abusing, and the medications they took helped them to rebalance their brain chemistry so they were more able to approach and work through what drove them to self-medicate with drugs in the first place. Each client responded to the various parts of treatment–medications (if needed), individual therapy, group therapy, mindfulness work, ecotherapy, etc.–differently. There was no one size fits all treatment regimen.
When a person is dealing with a mental illness–or, hell, just a great amount of stress–they have to find the unique combination of mental health care that’s going to help them improve. There’s a whole suite of things to choose from; the following are just a few examples:
–Individual or group therapy (acute treatment/crisis intervention, coping skill coaching, talk therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, etc.)
–Medications (over the counter or prescribed)
–Physical self-care (exercise, better food, plenty of sleep and water)
–Spiritual self-care (engaging in one’s spiritual path, finding meaning in the self and/or the world around you)
–Social self-care (being around people you like and who like you, connecting with a support system online or in person)
As a therapist, I want to have a diverse toolkit available to help my clients. And as someone with a diagnosed mental illness–Generalized Anxiety Disorder–I also personally benefit from that diverse toolkit.
My GAD is not severe enough to where I need to be on medications. I’ve had the better part of three decades (and three years of graduate-level training) to figure out how to manage it day to day. I’ve learned its tricks pretty well, and I’m getting better every day at seeing through them. Being self-employed is one important piece of my mental health care, as the ability to sleep in most days, and the flexible schedule, both help me to stay relaxed and feel in control of my everyday life. I exercise fairly intensively almost every day; I run, I lift weights, I hike, and more recently I’ve joined a local dojo where I train in combat hapkido and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I really like food, and cooking food, so having tasty nourishing meals is something that both helps me manage my brain chemistry and makes me happy. And yes, I get a lot of outdoor time, even moreso now that I spend part of my time each month on the Washington coast, and just being able to look out the window onto wide, open spaces has made major improvements on my mental health.
But I would never in a million years say that what I am doing is better than SSRIs or other medications for someone who uses those as part of their treatment. Sure, maybe if they were in my position and had access to the valuable resources that I do they might respond as well as I have. But maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d need those SSRIs for the rest of their life to help them manage anxiety, or depression, or whatever they were being treated for, and that’s okay.
Mental Health and the Pagan Community
And I want to make damned sure my fellow pagans know it’s okay. As a whole, we’re more aware of mental illness than many others parts of the population. I don’t think we’re necessarily more prone to mental illnesses, but as a community we tend to be more open about taboo things.
Which is not to say we’re without ignorance. Ed Fitch’s “So You Want to Be a Gardnerian” condemns anyone “currently in psychological therapy.” I remember a number of years ago seeing a website from the Coven of the Wild Rose; the website no longer exists, but this writer captured one of their cringe-worthy comments on anyone in therapy or taking psych meds: “if you cannot function as a fully responsible adult individual in the mundane reality then you cannot function effectively in the magical/mystical realities and should not even attempt to do so until you have all your oars in the water and they are working all in proper tandem”. Ugh. Just…..ugh.
Even more recently the backlash against pagans managing their mental illnesses persists. Except the attacks are sneakily leveled at the medications some pagans take rather than the pagans themselves. See? We’re not discriminating against you, we just think you’re being poisoned by Big Pharma! Except it is discriminatory, and ignorant, and patronizing to assume that a person on SSRIs or other medications must just be the pawn of a massive corporate agenda. It’s also a big, glaring example of anti-science attitudes that still plague paganism. The people espousing these attitudes quite frequently have poor understanding of how these medicines work and show a broad mistrust of all pharmaceuticals based on misinformation and deliberate fearmongering. In doing so, they feed the harmful stigmas that are faced by people who use psych meds as part of their treatment and make it more likely that people who could really benefit from them won’t consider them an option because they’re afraid of being seen as a “sell out”, “a pawn to Big Pharma”, or just plain “crazy.”
Of the people I know who do take psych meds, overwhelmingly the thing they say is that these medications are crucial to helping them be able to function more effectively from day to day. Just like someone who takes medications for diabetes or lupus or other predominantly physical chronic illnesses, so someone with more significant depression or anxiety disorders may find medications are effective in alleviating symptoms. It’s not about weakness, and it’s not about being “broken”. It’s about making use of the diverse mental health toolkit that’s available to you.
“But they can’t possibly do spiritual work when they’re on drugs!” Phooey, and double phooey. Never mind shamans and other indigenous practitioners from cultures worldwide who use mind-altering substances as a matter of course. There’s a huge difference between showing up to circle three sheets to the wind, and remembering to take your Lexapro on time. To me, someone who is taking medications that reduce their illness’s symptoms is someone who is more likely to be able to engage in spiritual work. They’re more likely to be able to focus because they’re not as distracted, and they’re showing initiative in caring for themselves on all levels. And even if they’re struggling with symptom management, they shouldn’t be shut out from practicing their spirituality. Maybe they need to avoid active group work for a while until they get themselves settled, and do more intensive personal spiritual work as a part of that–but some pagans find that their spiritual group is able to help them more effectively manage their mental health. Again, case by case situation.
“But I took SSRIs and I was miserable on them and then I stopped taking them and I spent more time in nature and my illness went away!” Good! I’m glad you found something that worked for you and that you’re feeling better! And these other people are finding what works for them, too. Some people having bad experiences with psych meds doesn’t mean those meds are universally bad. Maybe you had the wrong combination of drugs; some people can take years to fine-tune their medication. Or maybe you just don’t do well on them and you found other things that work.
“But you don’t take drugs!” No, I don’t. I’ve been able to make enough lifestyle changes to keep myself on a relatively even keel, and, for pity’s sake, don’t forget I have a graduate-level degree in this stuff! There IS truth to the idea that psych students get into psychology because we’re trying to figure out what’s wrong with ourselves! Don’t hold me up as the gold standard. I’m just one of millions of people dealing with an anxiety disorder; I was just lucky enough to find a combination of tactics that works pretty well, and meds don’t happen to be a part of that.
Both/And, Not Either/Or
You’ll notice that in the graphic at the top of this post I made my own modifications to the original meme. I state that both nature and psych meds are “one of many tools for managing mental illness.” When it comes to living with an illness–any illness–I believe it’s important to make as many options available as possible. That means that I see the nature/meds situation as a both/and one, not either/or.
Come on, pagans. We’ve had experience with both/and. Many of us came out of heavily Christian backgrounds where we were told you were either a member of your church, or you were going to hell. And we figured out that no, it’s a both/and situation–there can be Christians and pagans and the world won’t come to a screeching halt. We’ve even found ways to include many different pagan paths in the same events–even the same rituals–and we made it work.
So we can make this both/and thing work when it comes to supporting pagans with mental illnesses in our community, and in treating our own illnesses (for those who have them.) We don’t need to shame pagans who use psych meds to make their day to day life easier to walk through. And we shouldn’t be ostracizing pagans who, even with meds and other treatment, still show symptoms of their illness. Just as it’s a really shitty thing to exclude pagans with physical disabilities or chronic illnesses, it’s also wrong to not make a place for those with long-term mental health issues.
After all, paganism can be a really effective way to get people more engaged with the healing qualities of nature. And isn’t that what you were trying to get them to do in the first place?
Some of my fellow bloggers here on the Patheos Pagan channel have been talking about their first books on paganism. One of my very first books was Animal-Speak by Ted Andrews. First published in 1993, it was already in its twelfth printing by the time I bought my copy in 1997. And today it continues to be the most popular book on animal totems out there.
It’s not surprising. Andrews, who passed away in 2009, was a prolific and talented writer, both for Llewellyn and for his own imprint, Dragonhawk. Animal-Speak is still his best-selling title, and I see it frequently in bookstores. It hit just the right combination of factors to be popular with a lot of readers: friendly and inviting writing style introducing the subject, accessible exercises to help readers get in touch with totems, and an extensive dictionary of animal totems and what Andrews thought they meant. It was clear that this was someone who had spent a lot of time in nature with various creatures and loved every minute of it–how could one not want to share in that beauty?
In the years since its publication, a lot of other books have emulated Animal-Speak and its structure. Some have tried to court readers by including ever larger and more exotic animal totem dictionaries. Others stick to what I call the BINABM: Big, Impressive North American Birds and Mammals like Bear, Eagle, Wolf, etc. Many authors have chased Ted Andrews, but none of their books have ever matched Animal-Speak‘s success.
I was inspired in a different direction. In the 2000s, I was increasingly frustrated to find that, with very little exception, the books on animal totems were basically trying to be Animal-Speak all over again, and I couldn’t find anything that didn’t pad out its page count with dictionary entries. So I ended up writing books to fill in the blanks. My first book, Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone: A Primal Guide to Animal Magic, included seven chapters, each one on a different sort of animal-based spirituality. The first, of course, was totems, but I also dedicate chapters to familiars, shapeshifting, animal parts in spirituality, and other less-observed practices. I followed it up a few years later with DIY Totemism: Your Personal Guide to Animal Totems, which went into more detail on working with these beings.
Looking back, I think I was rebelling against Animal-Speak and its runners-up. I wanted more than what was out there. I saw flaws, and anthropocentrism, and (particularly in the case of Sams and Carson’s Medicine Cards, which I reviewed here) blatant appropriation. So I tried to address the differences between what we non-indigenous people were trying to put together, and what indigenous communities have been practicing for many years. I approached the self-centered idea that just seeing an animal must mean something special to us, rather than just being a fellow being out for a walk. I encouraged people to create their own relationships with the totems without relying on formulaic “meanings” in dictionaries.
I still continue that work. I’ve been expanding my writing over the years into my work with the plants, fungi and other beings that aren’t animals. I’ve been banging the drum of environmental responsibility as a spiritual practice. And I still dislike dictionaries.
But I admit Animal-Speak will still always have a place on my bookshelf, even if it’s just to remember where my inspiration came from. One of my fondest memories was getting to meet Ted Andrews at PantheaCon 2007. I asked him to sign my copy of his book, which he obligingly did, and I gave him a copy of Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone as a thank you for sparking my interest in the first place. I’m sad I didn’t really get to know him better before he died, but I can at least count myself among the many who were touched by his work.
Paths Through The Forests
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