[Marxism] Ward Churchhill on Colonialism...

[debs4prez@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Thanks for your post, KDP. 



Personally, I found your subjects very engaging as my mom's family comes from 
the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan, one of the U.S.'s last frontiers) via 
Irish Quebec City and Indian Voyaguer Canada and my father's family comes from 
Nev York via Jewish Belarus. 



Last summer I serendipitously made a valuable friend with a Jewish Indian from 
Northern Minnesota. This summer we're planning on going on a great 
canoe/fishing/plant foraging/petroglyph viewing trek. 



Dave is a non-Indian Indian in a way that many of us here are non-Jewish 
Jews. While his brother is included as an enrolled Ojibwe, Dave is excluded 
by deadline and blood quantum, aÂsystem set up by the same U.S. government 
that committed genocide against his tribe. At the same time, Dave is probably 
more traditional than most Ojibwe in his relationship to the land, but critical 
of the narrow, corrupt practices of the tribal council. His father was also 
past President of the reservation. 



One comment that my friend Dave made in answer to a question stuck with me. I 
saw at the Mille Lacs Tribal Museum in the immediate post ww2 period that the 
Ojibwe were starving. When I asked an Ojibwe how this could be, given the 
centuries long traditions of hunting and gathering, he gave me some vague 
answer about the federal gov being focused on the transition after ww2. When 
I asked Dave, his answer made more sense. He said that prior to ww2, most of 
the tribal elders had died. Thus, by the time the tribe made it to 1947, they 
had lost the traditions of hunting and gathering in an organized, collective 
fashion. 



One valuable contribution Dave and few others like him are making is 
rediscovering and reviving traditional skills such as plant foraging, hunting, 
preserving, fishing, ricing, etc. He also helps to lead projects that 
reintroduce extinct fish species, such as the whitefish in the Minnesota St 
Lawrence tributary (must be the Jewish heritage working on the whitefish). 
Much like the Irish petit bourgeosie in the 19th century that lead a revival of 
sorts of a traditional Irish culture of sorts. 



At the same time, I was also heartened to hear from Dave that his interest in 
things Indian is not just a narrow interest in the Ojibwe, but in a pan-Indian 
movement. I encouraged him to check out Evo Morales and Bolivia, Chavez and 
Venezuela for models and contacts. 



Yours, 



Alex
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