Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Canada's Aboriginal Show and Tell

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Canada's Aboriginal Show and Tell

by Martin Lukacs from Counterpunch.

Ever-sensitive about their reputation as a land of the fair-minded, Canada's Olympic planners [corporations and major developers] have gone to lengths to showcase the nation's respect for aboriginals. They made an Inuit design the official logo. They ran the torch-relay through scores of reservations. And they bought the support and participation of local First Nations with a few million in bonds, business ventures and gleaming buildings. An absolute bargain, if this aboriginal gilding can blind Canadians and the world to the country's secret shame: the true state of its Indigenous peoples.