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My Mother-in-law, Aborigines, Law, and the Election
My mother-in-law Jessie is 87. Every Sunday morning at 10, my wife Gail calls her and they talk for a long time. At some point I intervene because I know that Jessie has a new joke for me..... often a bawdy one. (Why is it that elderly women enjoy telling younger (slightly) men bawdy jokes?) She has already tried out the jokes on the women at the local public library before telling me. They are very appreciative of her humor and provide her with large print thrillers which occupy approximately one third of her time. Another third is for friends, the rest, TV. Jessie is short, not as slim as she once was, a strait-ahead-shoot'm-dead kind of gal.Last week her joke was about a man with chronic ailments. He's back & forth to the doctor. It hurts here & here. Test after test. No diagnosis. The poor guy is in pain & is distraught. Until one day the doc calls him & says, I've got good news and bad news. Yeah....? Well, the good news is you've got 24 hours to live...... the bad news is I forgot to call you yesterday.
I think I'd heard it before. But I'm a tabula rasa when it comes to jokes. Perennial virgin. I laugh a lot & forget them. I'm the comedian's ideal audience. But this one stuck with me. I was thinking about our President as the doc, the sick guy as the rest of us. And the un-diagnosed illness is epidemic dishonesty infecting both the doc & the people. I don't need to say more. Kind of makes the joke more sad than funny.
But then I happened to see an Australian film called Ten Canoes that tells an Aborigine story. It's a slow folk tale within a folk tale, wise and humorous, mythic and eccentric. The central action, set in time-before-time, centers around a chief with three wives. The second wife disappears. No one knows if she was stolen by another tribe or ran away. His tribe has recently been visited by a mysterious stranger, and they think this may be a bad omen. The chief-without-his-second-wife stews. He wants revenge. He jumps to conclusions and kills a man who had nothing to do with his missing wife. The dead man's tribe confronts him. The chief admits his deed.
He knows that he must now submit to justice. He says that if he doesn't there will be bad blood between the two tribes & they may fight a war which would hurt many innocent people. The prescribed form of justice has the guilty man standing about 40 yards from 10 or so of the aggrieved tribe's warriors. They have lots of spears with stone points and are empowered by their law to heave them at the man. As they rain down on the chief, he is allowed to dance from side to side, much like a modern defendant dodging a prosecutor's arguments, but, inevitably, one pierces his side --- coincidentally, just about the same spot where a Roman soldier jabbed the crucified Jesus. If he hadn't been hit at all, or if he recovers from his wound, he is a free man. But after a long bout with infection and after performing his own painful, dignified death dance, he dies.
Although I've made the film sound heavily didactic, it isn't. It's patient and amusing, with sweet sexual hi-jinks. Especially, though, it is forgiving. It can afford to be forgiving because in spite of the murder and the death of the guilty chief, in spite of the long grieving by the chief's wives and tribe members, everyone knows that justice has been done, their laws have been followed, and that they are free to blunder ahead with clear consciences. Forgiveness only follows and provides closure when it is preceded by justice.
The chief deserved his final dignity because he admitted his mistake and embraced the solemn importance of good law to preserve good community and peace. He embraced his punishment. He needed neither handcuffs, nor prison. His tribe respected him. He gave them the gift of his integrity. We might call him a good sport. Good sports preserve the integrity of the game. The characters in the film are all members of hunter-gatherer societies. Harmony with nature is their essential reality. They have no legal scholars, no money, no scientists, no clothes. And they possess the deepest and simplest wisdom --- if we would preserve the health of the community, we must play by our rules. This is a wisdom that the chiefs in our civilization have learned to avoid. And it is why they have no dignity nor deserve any respect. And it is why they cannot and should not be forgiven.
The law is a curious creature: a loyal dog preserving life and community when it is good, a monster ripping apart community when it is bad. Bad law is written by special interests for their own entitlement, justifying their preservation and enrichment at the expense of others. Chiefs who use their power to re-write law to save themselves when they have broken it, destroy community. They, the powerful, the entitled, are essentially cowards, and use their criminal power to persuade the people to be complicit in their hypocrisy. The powerful who consolidate their power by lying must necessarily make the wisdom in the law illegal, marginalize truth tellers to fenced in "free speech zones", prosecute the honest as subversives.
Our community, our country, is destroyed now. We don't have to wait trembling for climate change or terrorists to blindside us. It's already a done deed by our chiefs who have trashed the law. They have turned the law into a many faceted mirror, legislated tiny holes for themselves to crawl through and then mock us from the other side. You might think of wisdom as the gravity that holds our system in balance like planets around the sun. Our chiefs have legalized anti-gravity and cast us wobbling into the outer dark. All they had to do was make a mockery of our Constitution with lies and signing statements. An aborigine chief would long ago have given himself up to the law to save his community.
What's crucial about this election is that none of the candidates left standing (except for Cynthia McKinney of the Greens) has demanded that the law be upheld and truth be told. No orbit, no balance, no sanity will hold if we allow a president (in this case, a war criminal) to lie to the people to start a war, betray their patriotism, their children, their wealth, their future and not be held accountable. If the candidates for his office do not insist on accountability, they also have no respect for the law. They prefer to take their chances wobbling further off into the cold and outer dark. How many times have we heard the old piety about learning our history so as not to repeat it? Our history teaches us that every war, every military incursion, by the United States since WW II has been illegal, a violation of the Constitution and generally promoted by presidential lies. It would seem that what the powerful learn from history is that immoral ends justify illegal acts and that hired spin masters will tell the heroic story. It's a curious anomaly that the U.S., the most ostentatiously religious country in the world, sold its soul many years ago.
Remember the man with 24 hours to live? The doctor can't cure him. But he can be saved. He needs something his civilization no longer requires of him: dignity, integrity, wisdom. He simply needs to embrace his Constitution. He simply needs to love his community more than himself. One can regain one's soul by demanding to be the object of justice.
Robert Shetterly has painted the portrait series Americans Who Tell the Truth, www.americanswhotellthetruth.org He lives in Brooksville, Maine and can be reached at rshetterly@prexar.com
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13 Comments so far
Show AllCynthia McKinney is not likely going to be elected for many reasons, some of which might even be her in-advance rhetoric.
I believe enough in Obama's integrity that I am more than willing to tolerate his more-vague rhetoric now (in order to get elected) so we may benefit from better governmental wisdom after he is there. The notion that candidates must articulate positions (even if true) that end up guaranteeing their defeat is worse than silly. Al Gore, for instance, would probably have been president with less self-foot-shooting on gun control.
I'm reminded of another joke. A man jumps out an eight story building and on his way down looks into the window on each floor and proclaims, 'Well, so far so good.'
The progressive peace and justice movement has lost this election. We have already jumped all the building, yet instead want to focus on the positive (Obama is good, Hillary is good) instead of where we are obviously heading (Hillary, Obama, McCain will all lead us to the same place, a resounding crash at our expense).
What is it going to take to change course? Evidently the current evidence of the corporate militaristic effects on society is not enough.
Unfortunately enough folks aren't convinved that our actions (supporting mainstream candidates that are selected by the corporate machine) will be detrimental to our well being. It may already be too late to change the outcome of more war, more corporate greed, and less peace and justice.
If the democratic party only had a heart, a brain, and a little courage. http://www.wordsareimportant.com/democraticparty.htm
so it goes...
Not One More__I think some of you posters are ridulous to say that it makes no difference if we elect one of the Dems or McCain. We had a country during eight years of Dems in the White House that was at least functioning, unlike what we have now after seven years of Bushit.
I believe it was quite an accomplishment during Clintons eight years to turn a deficit into a surplus and keep our country on solid footing. Our government agengy`s were not gutted then as they are now, because the rich were allowed to help pay for needed services.
If all of the Dem bashers here want more of what we have now, just keep on saying it makes no difference who gets in, and kiss your country goodby if the Repubs make it this time.
Someone coined the term the 'politics of the consumate fact', a provincial condition - in a province of the mind informed by dynamics that rationalize greed through fear of scarcity, thus creating the conditions it initially projects as concepts. Competition as a model denies that it can exist only through the existance of cooperation. Capital?: Yesterday it is announced Merck settled a $671 whistleblower suit while saying it admits no wrongdoing.
Latin origin of the word 'province': ...a duty...'that which offers itself at first sight', to the Roman mind meant literally 'a sphere of duty', and was an administrative, not a geographical fact...and only obliquely began to apply to the latter(OED)
Robert Shetterly has written a beautiful and poignant piece that should accompany the Constitution/Founding Fathers spiel in school curriculum.Perhaps even at a distance from the hand on the heart,flag veneration,eyeglazing declarations every morning,which becomes about as meaningful as the brand of cereal they had for breakfast.
Words like honour,ethics,truthfulness,commitment,honesty, et al, have to mean what they say.The Australian aborigines practised and lived these principles,yet "cultures"thousands of years later,under the "leadership" of wealthy men and women, can't even come close to these virtues.
Last night my family and I listened to a speech, JFK's Commencement Address at American University on June 10, 1963 and for a brief time my wife and I were transported to a time from our childhood when our nation and all of it's citizens - whether they were politicians, corporate officers, news reporters or parents - could not afford to play games with the future because they knew what a real war and a decent life entailed. In their day if you brought a monopoly board to a chess match your adversary or for that matter the American people would put you right where you belonged. My wife and daughter were both amazed by the language, articulation, conviction, sincerity and unarguable logic that JFK and his cabinet brought to bear on the difficulties they faced and the dreams that they shared. Personally I found myself in a simultaneous state of awe and rage, for which I don't think I need to go into the details. Do a search for the speech, many sites include a streaming audio, listen to it carefully and then listen to it one more time but the second time replace the "Soviet Union" with "Al-Qaeda" or "Iraq" and most importantly replace "For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." with "Disney World" and then you will realize that as George Carlin said recently to his audience "They don't give a sh_t about you!" I feel that of the candidates Barack Obama does care and so I will vote for him and hope that he will work for all of us.
I believe that in aboriginal societies, it is women who mete out justice.
Thank you for a very interesting, well written piece. No justice, no peace. This probably is the most progressive article I've read here today. I wonder why there hasn't been more comments. McKinney and Kucinich have at least voiced accountability for the current administration. So much of the commentary expressed over many months points out the failure of Pelosi, for not placing impeachment on the table, as well as other democrat sell outs. What's the big debate? Is Obama really just playing coy and will pursue justice when all he talks about is compromise and uniting everyone, and let the past be forgotten?
Between Riel rebellions, Louis Riel exiled himself to the United States and became an American citizen. He taught school in Montana, became a supporter of the Republican party and even accused the Democrats of rigging the election before returning to Canada to participate in another rebellion against the Canadian government.
February 18th is the first ever Louis Riel Day - the new (and much needed) statutory holiday in Manitoba.
Louis Riel is known as a great Metis leader and the founding father of Manitoba - though those from Ontario still look at him as "that crazy man who had to be stopped." While he was awaiting hanging, he wrote a poem to his jailer, whom he counted as a friend.
Let's see Jessie beat that!
Blood laws were exercised differently in Indigenous Societies. In some, if a person killed a member of the tribe that person had to become a member of the dead persons family to replace the one that was killed. Another method involved taking retribution upon the person who did the killing by killing him. These beliefs were exercised to keep to a minimum differences that would result in death. They were enforced rigorously.
In some Indigenous Societies there existed Peace Towns where the Chief was not a War Chief (Red Chief), but instead an Administrative Chief (White Chief) who ran the towns during peacetime. Often persons who were forcibly expelled from their tribe could find refuge in the Peace Towns. Even white people on the run were often accepted in the Peace Towns. It was there that they were re-socialized and given a second chance. It is similar to the western understanding of the idea of sanctuary.
The primaries are the place to force a change in course. The people who could have done that are gone, cast away by the people. Now, we have no choice but to pick the best of what the people have to offer and live with it. For better or for worse, every body gets to vote and the people have spoken. No Gravel,Kucinich,Paul,Nader, or McKinney. Not even Edwards. That is the will of the people. Obama it is until the people mature, if ever.
Bush is too much of a coward to submit to any kind of justice.
A great story...very nice.