Thank you Will and Peter! This wonderful piece is, however, missing one potentially crucial dimension of a possible path forward: mobilizing opinion around the argument that Johnson v. McIntosh and Cherokee Nation v. Georgia are as repugnant to the Constitution as were Dred Scott v. Sandford and Plessy v. Furgeson. This is a complex argument that I have made at length here:
I’d be delighted to be in conversation with you about it and potential practical implications. It builds on the Yakama Nation’s amicus brief in 2018 as well as the Cherokee Nation’s bill in 1831 (and Smith Thompson’s dissent in that case). Here’s a link to a recent podcast:
i agree that the potential for ally-ship is there and needed, yet wonder how that might play out when Natives are on 'their reservations' and Whites/non-Natives theirs; yet another factor is that ~70-80% of Native live in cities. As for the phrase "white man's reservation", kudos to Debra who did wonderful work. i got to see her speak once at a Left Forum event and her aura-energy filled the room, plus she had a good sense of humor. Also, there's Russel Means' line which was a wake-up call, but how many heard it, "Welcome to the reservation." And some years ago, one day driving into the suburban neighborhood where i live, it occurred to me that very phrase 'white man's reservation'... yet most people probably aren't aware of that b/c imho the big difference is that the Whites/Americans get more goodies, more comfy zones, which is part of the big deception that keeps them from realizing a deeper affinity with Natives and the reservation system. So that seems a key area to address so as to create stronger ally-ship. Thanks for the article for stirring that discussion.
I completely agree that it's much harder for non-Natives to realize a deeper affinity with Natives because of those goodies and comfort zone that non-Natives are afforded, Mankh. I'd love to do some writing about pointing out the less obvious ways that non-Natives have been colonized. How do you think we could create stronger ally-ship?
hi again Will, another tact is being more direct, for example, telling non-Natives, maybe not exact words here but to convey the gist... Much of your comforts come from the deprivations of the Original/Native Peoples of this land, and am not saying that to make you feel guilty rather more aware and consider what you can do you about that, what you could do to: help Natives, help protect land/waters, etc., thwart the capitalist/colonialist/empire's efforts.
Will, for creating stronger ally-ship, i'd like to say, try to meet the Natives in your area/region, yet that's too simple an answer b/c some Natives are skeptical or not trusting of non-Natives, and some Natives have lost touch with their traditional ways, so it depends on what Natives one meets and in what contexts. In general i'd say, at least try, whether it's reading a book, going to event, using social media. As for raising awareness of how non-Natives have been colonized, again not a specific answer b/c some barely know there still are Natives and some are so entrenched
in Americana. Often i hear people i know say, 'It's terrible what we did/what was done to the Natives' and i respond by saying 'yes, and it's still going on!' and i'll give an example e.g. Thacker Pass. And often the conversation just fades, like they don't want to really face the realities
happening now. There's a lot going on with your question, so i'd say that in general, 1) showing various ways that the gov't and other institutions don't have their best interest in mind while also referencing what's been done/still being done to Natives and Native Nations so the similarities can be seen. Russell Means' line "Welcome to the reservation" is a good line to help with all that. Also by pointing out the
limitations of the English language and the opposite with Native languages, people can begin to learn how their
consciousness has been colonized. For example from a Lakota friend i've learned that they don't have words for
"exclusion, domination, nature..." the latter b/c if you are a part of nature and nature is in you, then there's no need for a word reference for something 'out there.' Also, simply showing the beauty, skills, wise ways of Native cultures helps non-Natives to feel an appreciation and affinity for Natives, and perhaps helps non-Natives become aware of what they're often missing. And i'd be interested to hear some of your answer, as well.
Thanks for responding, Will, and good question! Much of my writings for many years are aimed at making non-Natives more aware and respectful, yet now getting the specific question, am not sure what to answer right away. I guess kinda like driving the neighborhood, i know it but if someone asks how to get somewhere, i can barely name the street names :). So i'll ponder and get back to you...
Will, another "less obvious" is from a fascinating book am halfway into, "Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640" by Patricia Seed. One example is the English building fences and hedges, and planting gardens and flags; when people stick a flag in their yard they are re-enacting colonization, but those are the types probably harder to talk with.
The modern nation state is centered on sovereignty. So, to speak of local sovereignty is speak of the end of the modern nation state (per Hobbes, Weber, Schmitt, etc, etc, a state without sovereignty over a territory is not a state).
So, we could do away with the modern nation state.
Short of that even, if we talked about a devolution of power (say, along strongly federalist lines), think how much better we might all get along. The federal government is so powerful and dominating over our lives, we almost can’t help but want ‘our side’ to control it. However, if it were much less powerful and places like the Navajo Nation, Seattle, Alabama, and Brown County Ohio were empowered to be as Navajo-like, Seattle-like, Alabama-like, and Brown County-like as they wished, I think we would all co-exist much better. Lots of details to work out (probably some overarching basic rights, dispute moderation authority so we don’t have inter-county civil wars, etc…), but if ‘I’ could be as much like ‘me’ as I liked and didn’t have to try to make ‘you’ be like ‘me’ to secure my ability to be ‘me’, we’d probably argue less. I think we’d even get much better at tolerating one another’s differences (because there would be so much difference from locale to locale) that we might be able to actually like and appreciate one another across quite profound cultural boundaries.
A fantastic compilation that completely explodes the myths of Sovereignty... Peter and Will presented the arguments and facts with clarity and a legal understanding.
Thank You ! for the clarity, easy read, substantiated by facts and active organizing solutions to free ourselves and Mother Earth from ecocidal-genocidal domination.
Please join me in spreading the word/work of IndIgenous Climate Action from Canada. I try to be an "in betweener" as described by Jody Wilson-Raybould in her book True Reconciliation. It's much more than buying an Orange Shirt. Thank you and your guest writers for your work.
This is a very powerful and important piece. Without understanding, we're destined to keep trying to same ineffective strategies. Thank you Will and Peter!
One of the means by which to challenge the "authority" of the federal government is to point out their own illiteracy about the system they use to effectively recruit and pay soldiers to oppress and colonize Indian and non-Indian alike. Perhaps the soldiers will not themselves be disgusted by being thought to be illiterate fools.......but...how many so called 'educated' folk (including lawyers and judges and corporate heads and community and Tribal leaders) want to be called out on this basis?
And tribes can reject the "payments" within that silly system of money as the illiteracy they represent. And that illiteracy is easily proved within the context of western colonial 'logic and math'!
If The People were fluent in abstract representation then they would know that there is no 'National Treasury' apart from themselves and their own abilities to initiate and keep records about their own activities; and the representation of all that is NOT stored up and guarded in some magical vault where the 'Creator of The Abstract Unit of Representation' works to create just the right amount of these units to keep 'the economy' going. So they would no more worry about the frat boys raiding 'the treasury' than they would be concerned that someone could hoard all the inches or that not enough had been created in the first place!!
It is our own illiteracy about abstract representation and measurement that we must fear when it gets to the point that we are afraid of frat boys stealing the discs off the abacus preventing us from being able to count!
What if most all that we wring our hands about (with regard to claims of power by the state or other entities) can be attributed to the seemingly appropriate responses that people give to the imperatives of money as presently conceived? What if that very conception is wrong?
I am writing to ask if you can take a moment to use your systems analysis capabilities and, hopefully, find that our conceptual base for money itself needs to be corrected if we are going to stop all that it produces…..
I am hoping that this conversation between Marc Gauvin and the Perplexity AI will give some clarity to the subject:
The sovereign 'authority' to spend and then tax is a trap by which The People are ensnared into militarism they do not want. An ancient strategy called out by David Graeber in his book "Debt: The First 5000 Years." Simple plan really - government declares its supreme authority to issue currency and first spends it into existence on the military. Then the self proclaimed authoritarian government (same self declared nonsense as the Divine Right Of Kings but disguised under the façade of ‘free and fair elections’) declares that The People must pay a tax with the 'coin of the realm' that the government first spent into existence with the military. (Yes, that very military industrial complex - the MIC - Eisenhower warned against.) And, wham, The People must do business with the MIC. The military needs to be fed, clothed, housed, outfitted, etc.
The soldiers are the ones at the head of the pay line of the asinine imperialist power structure. Without the soldiers the imperialist has no one to kick ass for them. From there it becomes an easy control mechanism to get the populace to support the military even if they do not want war. The feudal lord simply paid the soldiers and military folk in the coin of the realm, and the populace would then have to 'do business' with the 'military complex' (or get their asses kicked by them) in order to obtain the necessary coinage to pay taxes. There is nothing substantially different in our present system or the system in any other country.
It is precisely the framework of the operating system of authoritarian control over the creation of the economic unit of acCount that precludes democracy, ‘free’ enterprise, and peace.
But things are worse than that, because illiterate illegitimate governments handed off the 'control of money' to people who think that they now have this magical power of creation and that they can attach fees and interest to the use of this power and then lay claim to the resources of whole countries that were pledged as collateral to The Magical Money Creator People. They/We have been doing this for so long that even they and us are afraid of system collapse and are trying to hold countries and governments acCountable for their feared "losses"!! This is just one huge illiterate house of cards.
So, the first question is "What IS money?" You answer that wrong and you get what we have. We are not going to fix this with several more centuries of illiteracy.
Stanley Diamond wrote that the basis of the "state" is "census, tax, conscription":
"The aims of the emerging State were directly antagonistic to the traditional self-sufficient ways of life practiced by the collectivities. For all significant economic, social, political, and ideological functions had been discharged within and among the joint family units, on a personal, communal basis, prior to the Aladaxonou-Foy conquest, which set the State-building process in motion. This process consisted in the establishment of a census-tax-conscription system designed to wrest from the kin units as much of their authority and wealth as possible."
With a few modifications this subject is a good one to reintroduce Indian commissioner Merrill Gates statement with the same sentiment as that described by: Debra White Plume (Wioweya Najin Wina), “municipalities are the white man’s reservations. The only difference is, we know we’re on reservations.”
*Indian commissioner Merrill Gates stated: “We must make the Indian *People* more intelligently selfish before we can make him unselfishly intelligent. We need to awaken in him wants. In his dull savagery he must be touched by the wings of the divine angel of discontent. Then he begins to look forward, to reach out. The desire for property of his own may become an intense educating force. The wish for a home of his own awakens him to new efforts. Discontent with the teepee and the starving rations of the Indian camp in winter is needed to get the Indian *People* out of the blanket and into trousers — and trousers with a pocket in them, and with a pocket that aches to be filled with dollars! ”
-------
Community rights
Being involved in colorado's community rights effort was telling—being infiltrated was one of the least problems in the effort. Interestingly, yet not surprisingly: There are communities that encourage environmental degradation and zealous ideologues who are taking interest in establishing community rights that also indulge corporate ‘rights’.
“I helped Toledo residents attempt to intervene in a federal lawsuit to defend the Lake Erie Bill of Rights from corporate attack where it was ultimately struck down for exceeding municipal authority and infringing upon corporate rights."
!Jobs Jobs Jobs!
Today; one hears the south has risen again.
Respectfully: From my experience I have found Community rights to be more of a distraction.
The effort does Not address the root cause of the conundrum that is Corporate person-hood and ‘religious’ manifest destiny and of course the idea of white supremacy must be addressed first and foremost if we, as a species, want to live and dance as opposed to simply surviving by the whims of 'the man'!
I have found community rights encourages ‘special interests’ to ‘take interest’ in ‘lawful’ community sponsored corporatocracy—if you will: urban company towns—being able to lawfully impose their own form of conformity and belief system. Thus giving rise to ‘their’ ultimate and superior authority: Contemplate imposing lawful forms of segregation."
*
Compare: folks wanting 'white only' communities vs The Chicano movement.
Wikipedia/Chicano
Xicanisma acknowledges Indigenous survival after hundreds of years of colonization and the need to reclaim one's Indigenous roots while also being "committed to the struggle for liberation of all oppressed people", wrote Francesca A. López.
Chicano identity functions as a way to reclaim one's Indigenous American, and often Indigenous Mexican, ancestry—to form an identity distinct from European identity, despite some Chicanos being of partial European descent—as a way to resist and subvert colonial domination.[87] Rather than part of European American culture, Alicia Gasper de Alba referred to Chicanismo as an "alter-Native culture, an Other American culture Indigenous to the land base now known as the West and Southwest of the United States."[112] While influenced by settler-imposed systems and structures, Alba refers to Chicano culture as "not immigrant but native, not foreign but colonized, not alien but different from the overarching hegemony of white America."[112]
Thank you Will and Peter! This wonderful piece is, however, missing one potentially crucial dimension of a possible path forward: mobilizing opinion around the argument that Johnson v. McIntosh and Cherokee Nation v. Georgia are as repugnant to the Constitution as were Dred Scott v. Sandford and Plessy v. Furgeson. This is a complex argument that I have made at length here:
https://ethicspress.com/products/arguments-over-genocide/?GENOCIDE
I am in the process of seeking to simply state the argument in an essay of my own that should be completed in a few months.
I haven't read your book, Steven, but I hope to do so at some point. Thank you.
I’d be delighted to be in conversation with you about it and potential practical implications. It builds on the Yakama Nation’s amicus brief in 2018 as well as the Cherokee Nation’s bill in 1831 (and Smith Thompson’s dissent in that case). Here’s a link to a recent podcast:
https://open.substack.com/pub/steven3c6/p/new-podcast-and-into-to-my-written?r=21x2h&utm_medium=ios
Thanks for sharing, I'll check out the podcast, Steven. I'd love to connect sometime to talk about this.
i agree that the potential for ally-ship is there and needed, yet wonder how that might play out when Natives are on 'their reservations' and Whites/non-Natives theirs; yet another factor is that ~70-80% of Native live in cities. As for the phrase "white man's reservation", kudos to Debra who did wonderful work. i got to see her speak once at a Left Forum event and her aura-energy filled the room, plus she had a good sense of humor. Also, there's Russel Means' line which was a wake-up call, but how many heard it, "Welcome to the reservation." And some years ago, one day driving into the suburban neighborhood where i live, it occurred to me that very phrase 'white man's reservation'... yet most people probably aren't aware of that b/c imho the big difference is that the Whites/Americans get more goodies, more comfy zones, which is part of the big deception that keeps them from realizing a deeper affinity with Natives and the reservation system. So that seems a key area to address so as to create stronger ally-ship. Thanks for the article for stirring that discussion.
I completely agree that it's much harder for non-Natives to realize a deeper affinity with Natives because of those goodies and comfort zone that non-Natives are afforded, Mankh. I'd love to do some writing about pointing out the less obvious ways that non-Natives have been colonized. How do you think we could create stronger ally-ship?
hi again Will, another tact is being more direct, for example, telling non-Natives, maybe not exact words here but to convey the gist... Much of your comforts come from the deprivations of the Original/Native Peoples of this land, and am not saying that to make you feel guilty rather more aware and consider what you can do you about that, what you could do to: help Natives, help protect land/waters, etc., thwart the capitalist/colonialist/empire's efforts.
Will, for creating stronger ally-ship, i'd like to say, try to meet the Natives in your area/region, yet that's too simple an answer b/c some Natives are skeptical or not trusting of non-Natives, and some Natives have lost touch with their traditional ways, so it depends on what Natives one meets and in what contexts. In general i'd say, at least try, whether it's reading a book, going to event, using social media. As for raising awareness of how non-Natives have been colonized, again not a specific answer b/c some barely know there still are Natives and some are so entrenched
in Americana. Often i hear people i know say, 'It's terrible what we did/what was done to the Natives' and i respond by saying 'yes, and it's still going on!' and i'll give an example e.g. Thacker Pass. And often the conversation just fades, like they don't want to really face the realities
happening now. There's a lot going on with your question, so i'd say that in general, 1) showing various ways that the gov't and other institutions don't have their best interest in mind while also referencing what's been done/still being done to Natives and Native Nations so the similarities can be seen. Russell Means' line "Welcome to the reservation" is a good line to help with all that. Also by pointing out the
limitations of the English language and the opposite with Native languages, people can begin to learn how their
consciousness has been colonized. For example from a Lakota friend i've learned that they don't have words for
"exclusion, domination, nature..." the latter b/c if you are a part of nature and nature is in you, then there's no need for a word reference for something 'out there.' Also, simply showing the beauty, skills, wise ways of Native cultures helps non-Natives to feel an appreciation and affinity for Natives, and perhaps helps non-Natives become aware of what they're often missing. And i'd be interested to hear some of your answer, as well.
Thanks for responding, Will, and good question! Much of my writings for many years are aimed at making non-Natives more aware and respectful, yet now getting the specific question, am not sure what to answer right away. I guess kinda like driving the neighborhood, i know it but if someone asks how to get somewhere, i can barely name the street names :). So i'll ponder and get back to you...
Will, another "less obvious" is from a fascinating book am halfway into, "Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640" by Patricia Seed. One example is the English building fences and hedges, and planting gardens and flags; when people stick a flag in their yard they are re-enacting colonization, but those are the types probably harder to talk with.
This piece just keeps provoking thoughts for me.
The modern nation state is centered on sovereignty. So, to speak of local sovereignty is speak of the end of the modern nation state (per Hobbes, Weber, Schmitt, etc, etc, a state without sovereignty over a territory is not a state).
So, we could do away with the modern nation state.
Short of that even, if we talked about a devolution of power (say, along strongly federalist lines), think how much better we might all get along. The federal government is so powerful and dominating over our lives, we almost can’t help but want ‘our side’ to control it. However, if it were much less powerful and places like the Navajo Nation, Seattle, Alabama, and Brown County Ohio were empowered to be as Navajo-like, Seattle-like, Alabama-like, and Brown County-like as they wished, I think we would all co-exist much better. Lots of details to work out (probably some overarching basic rights, dispute moderation authority so we don’t have inter-county civil wars, etc…), but if ‘I’ could be as much like ‘me’ as I liked and didn’t have to try to make ‘you’ be like ‘me’ to secure my ability to be ‘me’, we’d probably argue less. I think we’d even get much better at tolerating one another’s differences (because there would be so much difference from locale to locale) that we might be able to actually like and appreciate one another across quite profound cultural boundaries.
Great points, W.D. Ultimately, I don't think any American community's sovereignty can co-exist with the American empire.
Interesting, W.D. Thanks for sharing.
A fantastic compilation that completely explodes the myths of Sovereignty... Peter and Will presented the arguments and facts with clarity and a legal understanding.
thank you for the kind words.
Thank You ! for the clarity, easy read, substantiated by facts and active organizing solutions to free ourselves and Mother Earth from ecocidal-genocidal domination.
you're welcome! I'm glad you found the piece helpful.
Please join me in spreading the word/work of IndIgenous Climate Action from Canada. I try to be an "in betweener" as described by Jody Wilson-Raybould in her book True Reconciliation. It's much more than buying an Orange Shirt. Thank you and your guest writers for your work.
https://www.indigenousclimateaction.com/entries/press-release-eriel-deranger-awarded-4-million-to-launch-new-international-indigenous-climate-justice-initiative
thanks for letting us know about this, Gail.
This is a very powerful and important piece. Without understanding, we're destined to keep trying to same ineffective strategies. Thank you Will and Peter!
Agreed, Max. Thanks for the kind words.
One of the means by which to challenge the "authority" of the federal government is to point out their own illiteracy about the system they use to effectively recruit and pay soldiers to oppress and colonize Indian and non-Indian alike. Perhaps the soldiers will not themselves be disgusted by being thought to be illiterate fools.......but...how many so called 'educated' folk (including lawyers and judges and corporate heads and community and Tribal leaders) want to be called out on this basis?
And tribes can reject the "payments" within that silly system of money as the illiteracy they represent. And that illiteracy is easily proved within the context of western colonial 'logic and math'!
If The People were fluent in abstract representation then they would know that there is no 'National Treasury' apart from themselves and their own abilities to initiate and keep records about their own activities; and the representation of all that is NOT stored up and guarded in some magical vault where the 'Creator of The Abstract Unit of Representation' works to create just the right amount of these units to keep 'the economy' going. So they would no more worry about the frat boys raiding 'the treasury' than they would be concerned that someone could hoard all the inches or that not enough had been created in the first place!!
It is our own illiteracy about abstract representation and measurement that we must fear when it gets to the point that we are afraid of frat boys stealing the discs off the abacus preventing us from being able to count!
https://bibocurrency.com/index.php/downloads-2/19-english-root/learn/300-you-have-been-served
What if most all that we wring our hands about (with regard to claims of power by the state or other entities) can be attributed to the seemingly appropriate responses that people give to the imperatives of money as presently conceived? What if that very conception is wrong?
I am writing to ask if you can take a moment to use your systems analysis capabilities and, hopefully, find that our conceptual base for money itself needs to be corrected if we are going to stop all that it produces…..
I am hoping that this conversation between Marc Gauvin and the Perplexity AI will give some clarity to the subject:
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/please-evaluate-the-following-GUmV49ufS8S.8TxEXTJfgQ
The sovereign 'authority' to spend and then tax is a trap by which The People are ensnared into militarism they do not want. An ancient strategy called out by David Graeber in his book "Debt: The First 5000 Years." Simple plan really - government declares its supreme authority to issue currency and first spends it into existence on the military. Then the self proclaimed authoritarian government (same self declared nonsense as the Divine Right Of Kings but disguised under the façade of ‘free and fair elections’) declares that The People must pay a tax with the 'coin of the realm' that the government first spent into existence with the military. (Yes, that very military industrial complex - the MIC - Eisenhower warned against.) And, wham, The People must do business with the MIC. The military needs to be fed, clothed, housed, outfitted, etc.
The soldiers are the ones at the head of the pay line of the asinine imperialist power structure. Without the soldiers the imperialist has no one to kick ass for them. From there it becomes an easy control mechanism to get the populace to support the military even if they do not want war. The feudal lord simply paid the soldiers and military folk in the coin of the realm, and the populace would then have to 'do business' with the 'military complex' (or get their asses kicked by them) in order to obtain the necessary coinage to pay taxes. There is nothing substantially different in our present system or the system in any other country.
It is precisely the framework of the operating system of authoritarian control over the creation of the economic unit of acCount that precludes democracy, ‘free’ enterprise, and peace.
But things are worse than that, because illiterate illegitimate governments handed off the 'control of money' to people who think that they now have this magical power of creation and that they can attach fees and interest to the use of this power and then lay claim to the resources of whole countries that were pledged as collateral to The Magical Money Creator People. They/We have been doing this for so long that even they and us are afraid of system collapse and are trying to hold countries and governments acCountable for their feared "losses"!! This is just one huge illiterate house of cards.
So, the first question is "What IS money?" You answer that wrong and you get what we have. We are not going to fix this with several more centuries of illiteracy.
https://bibocurrency.com/index.php/downloads-2/19-english-root/learn/283-a-tale-of-authoritative-undecidability
Stanley Diamond wrote that the basis of the "state" is "census, tax, conscription":
"The aims of the emerging State were directly antagonistic to the traditional self-sufficient ways of life practiced by the collectivities. For all significant economic, social, political, and ideological functions had been discharged within and among the joint family units, on a personal, communal basis, prior to the Aladaxonou-Foy conquest, which set the State-building process in motion. This process consisted in the establishment of a census-tax-conscription system designed to wrest from the kin units as much of their authority and wealth as possible."
Dahomey: The development of a proto-State
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00244520
With a few modifications this subject is a good one to reintroduce Indian commissioner Merrill Gates statement with the same sentiment as that described by: Debra White Plume (Wioweya Najin Wina), “municipalities are the white man’s reservations. The only difference is, we know we’re on reservations.”
*Indian commissioner Merrill Gates stated: “We must make the Indian *People* more intelligently selfish before we can make him unselfishly intelligent. We need to awaken in him wants. In his dull savagery he must be touched by the wings of the divine angel of discontent. Then he begins to look forward, to reach out. The desire for property of his own may become an intense educating force. The wish for a home of his own awakens him to new efforts. Discontent with the teepee and the starving rations of the Indian camp in winter is needed to get the Indian *People* out of the blanket and into trousers — and trousers with a pocket in them, and with a pocket that aches to be filled with dollars! ”
-------
Community rights
Being involved in colorado's community rights effort was telling—being infiltrated was one of the least problems in the effort. Interestingly, yet not surprisingly: There are communities that encourage environmental degradation and zealous ideologues who are taking interest in establishing community rights that also indulge corporate ‘rights’.
“I helped Toledo residents attempt to intervene in a federal lawsuit to defend the Lake Erie Bill of Rights from corporate attack where it was ultimately struck down for exceeding municipal authority and infringing upon corporate rights."
!Jobs Jobs Jobs!
Today; one hears the south has risen again.
Respectfully: From my experience I have found Community rights to be more of a distraction.
The effort does Not address the root cause of the conundrum that is Corporate person-hood and ‘religious’ manifest destiny and of course the idea of white supremacy must be addressed first and foremost if we, as a species, want to live and dance as opposed to simply surviving by the whims of 'the man'!
I have found community rights encourages ‘special interests’ to ‘take interest’ in ‘lawful’ community sponsored corporatocracy—if you will: urban company towns—being able to lawfully impose their own form of conformity and belief system. Thus giving rise to ‘their’ ultimate and superior authority: Contemplate imposing lawful forms of segregation."
*
Compare: folks wanting 'white only' communities vs The Chicano movement.
Wikipedia/Chicano
Xicanisma acknowledges Indigenous survival after hundreds of years of colonization and the need to reclaim one's Indigenous roots while also being "committed to the struggle for liberation of all oppressed people", wrote Francesca A. López.
Chicano identity functions as a way to reclaim one's Indigenous American, and often Indigenous Mexican, ancestry—to form an identity distinct from European identity, despite some Chicanos being of partial European descent—as a way to resist and subvert colonial domination.[87] Rather than part of European American culture, Alicia Gasper de Alba referred to Chicanismo as an "alter-Native culture, an Other American culture Indigenous to the land base now known as the West and Southwest of the United States."[112] While influenced by settler-imposed systems and structures, Alba refers to Chicano culture as "not immigrant but native, not foreign but colonized, not alien but different from the overarching hegemony of white America."[112]
a yes, Merrill Gates, president of Amherst College, bastion of 'intellect'...
as for corporate persons: my 3-part series on the topic... part 1: https://peterderrico.substack.com/p/corporate-personality-and-human-commodification