indigenous

I'm feeling a little insecure because I know you really want to hear more about Maple. Not this crap about me. But when I'm done being insecure, I think, tough, it's partly my website after all. Maple is fine. She's fun, she is sweet and entertaining and likes to say, "This is fucking rad!" and "Mom, you're my favorite ever!" And then she gives me a big hug.

Here's what I'm thinking about -- this is from one of my personal heroes, Jerry Mander:

"There’s a great and tragic paradox here: the very reason that native people have become such targets for corporate resource exploration is exactly because indigenous peoples have been so successful over millenia in maintaining traditions, cultures, economies, philosophies and practices that are not built upon some ideology of rapid expansion, economic growth or short-term profit-seeking or the gaining of individual personal wealth.

"Generally speaking, intact indigenous cultures have not sought to mine every last square inch of the natural world where they live; nor do they ship mountains of resources like logs or oil across oceans to foreign markets. Indigenous peoples, even when generally very different from each other, have all tended toward philosophies and economic formulas that include such primary values as these:

• The central importance of community values, collective ownership, collective governance, above individualistic values and personal acquisition;
• Integration, rather than alienation from the natural world;
• Reciprocal relations with nature, economies of limits and balance.

"Those traditional indigenous values and others are diametrically opposite to those of the dominant society – so even after millennia of living in one place, nature’s resources are still there. But to global corporate players these resources call like sirens as corporate existence depends upon them."