Tinfoil Hat Time! February 2021

 

“How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.”

– Black Hawk, Sauk Tribe, 1767-1838

Ahh, the wisdom of the Native American.  A people with an amazing culture, a storied and
ancient past, and a rock solid claim to being one of the most screwed over, ever. 

Native American history is even more interesting when coupled with the current state of industry affairs and the Bay Mills tribe.  Take Black Hawk, for example.  Some shyster tribal spokesman pretending to have the tribes best interests in mind and taking advantage of word games and the common mans’ lack of understanding of legal trickery, no doubt, managed to get a treaty signed that stole Black Hawks peoples rights and land in 1830.  Black Hawk then did what any sane person would (or should) have done, he defied the government.  He ignored the ridiculous piece of paper that was signed by false representation and acted as a free man.

In 1832 his free band of about 1,000 warriors, women, and children were confronted by the state militia and federal troops sent by Governor John Reynolds (D) as they crossed the Mississippi into Illinois.  Black Hawks community won an easy victory over their oppressors that day and what was to be known as the Black Hawk War had begun.

But before anyone starts thinking it would be cool to have a war named after them, like all other wars named after Native Americans, this one did not end well for its namesake.  Fellow tribal leader Keokuk sided with the new government, and without reinforcements and aide in that same year of 1832 the war was over.  Black Hawk surrendered, was paraded around east coast big cities in chains like a trophy, imprisoned, and then released into the custody of his freedom trading former associate Keokuk.  A final disgraceful blow to a proud man, once free.  Body, mind, and spirit.  

Lucky for native americans, flintlocks and arrows are no longer the preferred method of communication between our people.  Unlucky for Native Americans, sugar coated lies concocted by the tongues of white men and treacherous allies who side with the new government are still very much in fashion.

This is the part where it says tinfoil hat time in a different manner each month.  The exact same thing, over and over, reconstructed using the english language to be accepted as unique each and every time.  Smooth indeed is the language of the whites, and when it comes to legalese and public relations shpeels, we approach physics defying frictionless levels of smoothness.

Here’s a fine example of a superlubric quote, “We have state-licensed facilities on tribal lands, where the tribal group is essentially achieving some benefit from acting as a landlord so to speak, and taking the role of the municipality there.”  That’s MRA Director Andrew Brisbo in an article by Rick Thomspon on thesocialrevolution.org on November 14, 2020, describing the ideal relationship between his new government and the sovereign tribes of Michigan and their lands and rights.  Black Hawk’s tribal spokesman could not have said it better himself.  Now let’s see what this sounds like in plain, common, tongue.

A state regulatory agency (an unelected arm of the government with no checks or balances) wants to gain control over the lands and rights of the sovereign Native Americans in Michigan.  The Native Americans, like the ones in Bay Mills, will give up their current standing as sovereign entities that do not have to comply with MRA regulations, while this new government will then gain the power to regulate and control the businesses that are on their lands and collect taxes from sales.  In exchange for their right to fully regulate and collect all revenue from their own cannabis industry, and for the use of their tribal lands by predominantly white wealthy corporate interests, they will receive sub-authority over their own lands beneath the MRA, and a form of rent.  Turning sky is the limit, set their own regulations, pay no taxes, free autonomy into “some benefit” to the tribe, the rest to big cannabis and a government other than theirs.  So to speak.

Check out this smooth as ice Brisbo gem from the same article, “That’s an area where we need a statutory change that gives us the authority to enter into intergovernmental agreements.”  Of course, there, he is professing his clear distaste for the idea of tribes like Bay Mills maintaining their cannabis sovereignty and having the freedom to conduct business outside the MRAs big brother esque purview, while supporting the further influx of near limitless powers to his unelected position.  In the name of, you guessed it, ‘safety’. 

“We have a couple primary concerns.  At the top of that list is ensuring that products are safe.  We want to have some assurances that products were produced with similar controls and processes, as well as similar testing standards.”  Here we see Brisbo implying to a Four20post podcast audience that Native Americans are not able to safely grow, prepare, and administer a naturally occurring plant medicine on their own lands without his white government overreach.  A laboratory quality example of making right look like wrong, and wrong like right.  Maybe if the tribes are really lucky, Brisbo might even throw in some small-pox covered blankets to keep them warm and safe this winter, too.  What’s more appalling than an unelected official attempting to steal Native American sovereignty?  

Said unelected official using the same style of slick language that stole Native American sovereignty two hundred years ago while pretending like he is not.  Self proclaimed media personalities towing the line and endlessly reiterating ‘social equity’ rather than calling him out on it.  The entire echo chamber coming to one another’s defense while masquerading as ‘woke’ and sympathetic to the cause of minorities, too swept up in personal ambition and pseudo-fame to consult neither history, nor foresight.  Shape and form tricking humans into endless cycles of lies and oppression.  

One can only imagine the rhetoric and word play used against the indigenous people in this nation’s past.  Perhaps something like, ‘Well, Chief, that’s an area where we are going to need a statutory change that gives us the authority to take swift and bold action in order to empower your tribe into taking advantage of the new opportunities our government has created for you on what is a rather equitable and safe, albeit reduced so to speak, parcel of land where your tribe will achieve some benefit in the way of continuing to exist peacefully.  Now if you would please sign here, we don’t want everyone thinking you stand in the way of social progress, now do we?’.  The spider web that is the english language must have sounded like nothing short of magic spells woven by devils.

But one does not have to imagine the rhetoric and word play being used against indigenous people in the year 2021.  All one must do is listen to the MRA, or turn on a marijuana podcast.  Smiling faces spin yarns of benefits, and opportunities, knowing full well that what the MRA proposes will only transfer power and wealth away from the hands of the tribes and into the pockets of the government and a brotherhood of fat cat marijuana industrialists who seem to have exchanged their top hats and monocles for bleeding hearts. 

So what does the Bay Mills Indian Community have to say about Brisbo’s ‘Three Paths Forward’ that all converge into one?  “Bay Mills has no interest in turning over our sovereign lands to private, for-profit corporations who are regulated and taxed by the State of Michigan.”  

Ahh, the wisdom of the Native American.