80 Comments
User's avatar
тна Return to thread
rjt's avatar

I'm afraid I can't take this article seriously because Matt failed to offer a land acknowledgement in his opening paragraph.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

When these land acknowledgements first started, I attended an Anglican cathedral service where we had to sit through it, with eyes rolled. I seriously considered standing up in my pew and responding to the clergyman:

"Well then sell off all of your lucrative property holdings immediately and donate the money to those you claim are the real property owners. Only honest thing to do if you believe this."

There would have been dead silence. And then an usher would have shown me the door.

Expand full comment
Bobby Lime's avatar

Aren't you sorry you didn't?

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar
May 22Edited

Actually.....yes. The look on their faces would have been a memory worth a million bucks.

And I would not have allowed them to get away with false virtue.

But I am certain they would have made me (and my family) pay. Not everyone likes the truth.

Expand full comment
Bobby Lime's avatar

It isn't Anglican to be exhibitionistic. Console yourself with the recognition that it would have been almost impossible for you to overcome the years of neuroplastic impression.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

But I was not Anglican. Just there to support their choir for various reasons (they are a leftwing non-Christian church, but the high-Anglicans do produce sublime choral music).

Not that exhibitionism suits me anyway. Though it does have its uses.

Expand full comment
Bobby Lime's avatar

Then even more so: you were a guest. You have manners.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

I am a Canadian. The manners come in the DNA.

Or they used to....when we still had Canada.

Expand full comment
Bobby Lime's avatar

O Canada

Expand full comment
Jose Weto's avatar

HAHAHA!!!!!! Trudeau and his ilk aside, I'm always gonna love me some Canadians, but that was inspired, Bobby Lime.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar
May 23Edited

When I grew up in Canada, most of the women were Anne of Green Gables, and most of the men were Dudley Do-right.

And then the great Troodo scourge began, and wiped it all out.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

Many moons ago, when I was a student, I worked as a guide in some of Canada's glorious national parks. The American tourists flocked in (can't blame them).

They used to make comments during our tours about wondering whether we were "putting it on". I assured them, we were not. Putting on...what?

Expand full comment
Bobby Lime's avatar

Thank you, Jose. My parents were baseball fans. So am I. Every time we watched our team play one of the Canadian teams, my musical mother would comment wistfully that Canada had a far better national anthem than The Star Spangled Banner. She was right, of course. I'm grateful you enjoyed my moment of inspiration, and appreciate your telling me about it.

Expand full comment
C.C. 95's avatar

"You were CONQUERED. Suck it up."

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

I am not the sort who does well in the conquered state. Besides which, we cannot all just roll over and play dead with the leftwing nonsense. Can we?

Expand full comment
C.C. 95's avatar

In response to 'land acknowledgments'. All lands were conquered by some group at some point. To have to acknowledge the group you conquered (ages ago) is retarded.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar
May 23Edited

Yes, I know. I am playing devil's advocate, my friend.

Do play along.....see where this leads.

Expand full comment
Bryan's avatar

You selling tickets? IтАЩm in.

Expand full comment
CC's avatar
May 23Edited

Precisely. Our church publishes тАШland acknowledgmentsтАЩ in the Sunday program occasionally- itтАЩs so obnoxious.

Expand full comment
Steve Griffin's avatar

I have been known to leave comments like, "If you're living on stolen land, get off."

Expand full comment
Steve Griffin's avatar

I have been known to leave comments like, "If you're living on stolen land, get off."

Expand full comment
Steve Griffin's avatar

I have been known to leave comments like, "If you're living on stolen land, get off."

Expand full comment
Gym+Fritz's avatar

I am part American Indian, and when I hear land acknowledgements, I see them as something of a taunt.

To minimize the disingenuousness of such statement, there should be a fee schedule associated with making one; all tribes should have go-fund-me pages, showing the record of all payments and payees. The minimum charge for making a LandAck should be about $1,000 - LandAcks made in the vicinity of Manhattan would, of course, cost a lot more.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

But according to the indigenous peoples, land cannot be bought and sold. They cannot have it both ways.

Besides which, at the height, there were only about 200,000 Siberian descendants in North America prior to European arrival. Mainly in limited tribes.

Why would such a small number assume they and their descendants could own the entire continent? Seems greedy to me. Imagine if the early American colonists said "The door is shut...it's all ours!!"

Expand full comment
Kathycakes's avatar

If it werenтАЩt about money, presumably being here and enjoying the surroundings would be enough. I certainly feel emotionally connected to my home province, distinguishably so as compared to elsewhere. I feel protective over it but I donтАЩt then think it should be under my ownership. I do not accept this should be different based on being of a certain ethnic background.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

I have always considered this to be about money.....no matter the high-minded excuses used for the money grabs.

Expand full comment
Kathycakes's avatar

For the most part I do too. There are some in this тАШmovementтАЩ who genuinely are trying to improve the lives of some very demoralized people. I can get behind that. What is plain as the nose on my face is that the overall movement is about vast, incalculable sums of money. IMO the land acknowledgment is a form of conditioning, acclimating people to a new normal where (not sure which!) tribes will become our overall landlords. Look what D. Eby tried to sneak through with land titles. I anticipate a tax akin to property tax on private dwellings, and I guess all Crown lands would be lost. Bafflingly, many people seem to (without knowing the costs and consequences) support this concept.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

I consider the indigenous people to be in a Drama Triangle, a psychological concept Stephen Karpman most recently explained to the modern world in the 60s.

There are three roles -- victim/perpetrator/rescuer-hero.

The indigenous people will always be put into the victim role....which of course keeps them there. It is not doing anyone a favour to remain a victim. They will repeat that pattern unwittingly for life unless they consciously shake it off and gain personal agency. Heaping money on them will not change this.

Yes, I agree with you that the land acknowledgements are a normalizing of a destruction tactic. The frog in the pot of slowly boiling water,

The land-grabs are simply another form of totalitarian destruction. By the powers-that-be. Not even really about the indigenous peoples. They are being used as a vehicle. Just as women are being used as a vehicle by the feminists; it is not really about them....but they are made to think so in order to get them to jump on the bandwagon.

A large power wishes to destroy Canada, so that this power can move in and take over. That is my opinion.

Expand full comment
Kathycakes's avatar

Again, I largely agree. The frog in the pot analogy is so fitting here.

One area I would potentially diverge with you on is people being 'put into the victim role'. While I accept and agree this is certainly true, it is simultaneously often true that the 'victim' himself selects that role. I've seen that with Brits whose lives are dependent on various welfare benefits. After years of living that way they seem to have convinced even themselves of their own helplessness. I struggle to think of anything more catastrophic for an individual life.

There are so many parallel scenarios playing out, with women asserting we've been oppressed by the patriarchy chief among them. Whenever independent, financially viable western women start in on this topic with me - I'm also all those things - I bristle. It's no man's fault I'm not in a STEM profession, and frankly the misogynistic attitudes I've dealt with over the years have not been an impediment to me in any real way. Yes, it is multi-layered, but someone claiming a man calling her 'dear' at work can really do one if that's what is seen as oppression.

I'm curious - who do you think this large power is who wishes to destroy Canada? The CCP comes to mind but I don't like ascribing all western problems to that party as the super-villain. Any other ideas?

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

Just for the record, I am not and have never been a feminist. I am a well-educated woman who arrived there under my own steam, no matter how much the feminist crowd wishes to take the credit

Expand full comment
Kathycakes's avatar

Feminism: the political, economic and social equality of women with men. I'm certainly on board with that, and surely you are, too!

'Feminism' as bastardized into a cudgel where men are vilified and women enjoy power based on complaining - not so much.

Frankly, I thought we were doing pretty well. The fixation on immutable characteristics of those with comparably comfortable lives has taken us all (in the west) down a grim, joyless path. If I hear someone say 'lived experience' I basically know now what to expect.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

I am in favour of equality of opportunity for everyone who is a legitimate member of our society. I did not need feminism to tell me that. But they always wish to take the moral credit, as if no one would have figured it out without them.

The feminist movement of the 60s/70s and beyond was an arm of Neo-Marxism...social engineering plus. It was planned and instigated the same way as all of their basic tactics....for Western destruction. And it certainly achieved that. In families, through abortion, and in destruction of male/female relationships. To destroy a society, you begin there.

The Neo-Marxists worked through the Achilles Heels of the Baby Boom generation. Those kids wanted badly to be cool progressives! THAT was their vanity. So the Neo-Marxists hit them where they were weakest. They conned them into believing that be a feminist was super-cool! And morally superior. Oh....the virtue of it all...ЁЯШБ

Another one bites the dust....

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar
May 24Edited

Yes, many of the indigenous do indeed select the victim role for themselves. Whether they drank the kool-aid....the standard narrative...or whether there have been so many previous generations that did; they just follow.

The CCP do not hide any longer. It is mainly in the open these days. Then you have globalist elite throughout the West who are the handmaidens of wealth and Psychopathy. They wish to add power too. The royal houses of Britain and Europe were always elite globalists, for instance. Then you have the wealthy technocrats. And high-corporate types. See what the Huxley brothers had to say about this in the last century.

Expand full comment
Kathy Hix's avatar

I actually love that idea!

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

The logistics of all of this are brought home to a greater degree in Canada, where there are 650 ethnic indigenous groups, all claiming that they are First Nations. With treaty rights and veto over legislation.

Expand full comment
CC's avatar

Which is just one more reason Canada would make a lousy тАШstateтАЩ ЁЯШВ

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

Well....if that ever came to pass, previous legal and governing structures would crumble. If would all have to be re-made. Prior contracts null and void.

I mean, look how quickly that crumbling happened anyway under the dark Troodo regime.

Expand full comment
Mike R.'s avatar

Ho Mitakuye Oyasin ;)

Expand full comment
Gym+Fritz's avatar

Ich spreche nicht.

Expand full comment
Mike R.'s avatar

Lakota: "For all my relations."

I've been lucky to have participated in sweat lodge rituals a few times over the years. It is a saying used when entering and exiting the lodge. If you get the opportunity I recommend it.

Expand full comment
Kathycakes's avatar

Manhattan was sold by its inhabitants to the Dutch. Similar stories across our great continent.

Expand full comment
DaveL's avatar

Should do a sea acknowledgement, while weтАЩre at it.

Expand full comment
ktrip's avatar

Good one- I really want Substack to add a "Ha Ha" reaction!

Expand full comment
Lia's avatar

ЁЯдг

Expand full comment
TeeJae's avatar

Yes, but I can't figure out how to use emojis on my laptop/desktop.

Expand full comment
Mary Orlowski McFerson's avatar

I just love Substack, especially Matt and his readers.

Expand full comment
steven t koenig's avatar

Go graze your sacred cow on someone else's pasture?

Expand full comment
Running Burning Man's avatar

I read the article. Yikes!

Expand full comment
Mike R.'s avatar

N.S. Lyons is beginning to get some Youtube airplay. Give him an hour if you've got it. (It relates to this RACKET piece.)

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
May 23
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Mike R.'s avatar

Let me recommend Edward F. Edingers commentary on Jung in EGO AND ARCHETYPE and Robert Moore's old men's movement work on establishing an ego archetype/self axis. (Or for a mind bender explore Jung's view on the enantiodromia built into the Christian myth.) I like Lyons. --Stay strong. Stay clear.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar
May 23Edited

Once upon a time, Nova Scotia used to be a sensible place (apart from the relocated Colorado cultists), and Dalhousie used to be one of the top Canadian universities. By far.

Can you believe it?

Expand full comment
Running Burning Man's avatar

Hard to believe. I actually started to play the embedded video of that poor RCMP woman reading those lines. I stopped after about 5 seconds because she was obviously under duress - parents being held i9n custody to ensure her compliance or some such. God, when law enforcement is so corrupted, you really have no chance. I think all universities North and South of the border are well beyond their use-by dates.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

I am on to another excellent Substack, out of Canada. By Julius Ruechel. He is a thinker.

I will share:

https://juliusruechel.substack.com/p/artificial-nations/comments#comment-119509981

Expand full comment
Running Burning Man's avatar

Ah, well, comments paywalled.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

The comments are a bit scant on that Substack, but the essays by Mr. Ruechel are well worth the price of admission.

And I am hard to impress!

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

I would say this might be the time, then, to make good on their land acknowledgement promises by selling up.....

Expand full comment
Tardigrade's avatar

Lowlife! I should cancel my subscription immediately. But maybe I'll write a sternly worded comment first...

Expand full comment
Patrick's avatar

MLB needs to acknowledge the Colorado Rockies this year.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar
May 23Edited

Can I get a particular custom land acknowledgement? My first ancestor from Britain to the New World arrived in Massachusetts in 1650. He later had family, who eventually had a large ownership in Block Island, Rhode Island.

Then, they were deprived of their land (without payment) and sent packing northward, because post-1776 they still sided with the British Crown. As many did. They were United Empire Loyalists. The first group of Americans in a mass deportation.

Where can I send the bill....with interest? ЁЯШБ

Expand full comment
Running Burning Man's avatar

I think the rest of us would be willing to cede Providence, RI, and much of Massachusetts to you in reparation for that indignity.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

ЁЯШВ

Expand full comment
Ulrika O'Brien's avatar

Only one paragraph? Piker.

Expand full comment
pundette's avatar

Thanks for the LOL, rjt. I needed that. %-)

Expand full comment
Mike R.'s avatar

;) !!

Expand full comment
Jose Weto's avatar

I had to look up "Land Acknowledgement", then I laughed my ass off. Thank you.

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

Remember that Canada has almost 650 indigenous group First Nations, most with treaty rights and a veto on legislation. Right now in Alberta, they are attempting to stop the referendum for other Albertans on whether or not they wish to separate from Canada.

Expand full comment
Rick Mastroianni's avatar

ThatтАЩs a Canadian thing hey!

Expand full comment
A.'s avatar

You mean you in the U.S, have not had the pleasure of listening to land acknowledgements yet? You haven't lived!

The lefties in Australia use them too.

Expand full comment