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Rielpolitik & Métis Resistance (Pt. I): Mâhtâw-Askiy feat. Laihall
🕑 Added 2024-01-31 21:49:43 +0000 UTCWow, we're so lucky. Today on PPM, we're joined by Laihall, who is running point on this charge into the windswept Manitoban past, as we unpack the equal parts remarkable, tragic, & hopeful history of the visionary poet & indigenous resistance leader Louis Riel, organizer of the Red River Rebellion & a primary player in the North West Rebellion after it.
In this first part, we lay some of the necessary groundwork in preparation for weaving this multi-decade saga of righteous armed resistance against Anglo-Canadian settler colonialism. We discuss the forces of capitalist extraction; the paramilitaries such as the Orange Order that have so often served as the imperial pawns on the frontier, linking the power structure of the colonial system; the secret societies such as freemasonry which are hierarchically a step above & which manipulate groups like the Orangemen as their farm leagues or feeder schools...
In this 1st installment, we learn about Métis culture & life ways; Laihall teaches us about the ethnogenerative process that gave rise to the rich & wholly unique Métis ethnicity & culture, formed from the unions of Cree, Ojibwe, & Algonquian women and French, Anglo, & Scottish fur traders; we talk French voyageurs; we learn about how Métis men frequently contracted with the Hudson's Bay Company or American competitors as fur trappers, connecting this investigation to our "Fur Connection" series; we learn how Louis Riel, Sr. opposed the HBC's monopoly in Rupert's Land—or to be even more accurate, that he brought about the monopoly's death knells through his savvy organizing & legal advocacy, an economic history that prefigures his son's rebellious organizing; we learn about Louis's early life; his vast family; some of Laihall's Métis lineage & his unique vantage point into this saga; we talk about Louis Riel the volcel seminarian; we throw coldwater on the shitcoat of Louis Riel-as-mental patient;...
We begin to assemble the array of adversarial forces that would attempt to quash the Métis self-determination (and, if need be, annexation to America) movement; this brings into view some of our primary villains, such as Canada's first prime minister John A. Macdonald, who facilitated the purchase of Rupert's Land (what would become the Northwest Territory) from the HBC & who set in motion the involuntary surveys of Métis land that served as a flashpoint; we introduce John Christian Schultz, the founder of the Canada First movement & party, who sought to create a Nazi-esque, Anglo majority, frostbitten nation on the high plains and who founded the very first Masonic lodge in the NW; we talk about his crony, Thomas Scott, the Ichabod Crane looking m'fer & Orangeman (meaning a member of the Protestant & Northern Irish paramilitary that served as a cudgel for British imperialism); and we conclude the first part of our Riel narrative w/ the surveyors who have been sent to annex & prepare the way for the displacement of Métis peoples on behalf of their Anglo-Canadian overlords getting run off...
And then, before we sign off, we enjoy a brief coda where we tie in Laihall's Qs & Clues prompt and pose a challenge to all ParaPower Mappers who will heed the call: to aid us in a mapping of the sus Surrealist networks that included figures like Andre Breton & various Canadian "Indian agents" who misappropriated sacred Coast Salish regalia intended for potlatch ceremonies. This leads us to an extended riff on "Gollum Klonny" & the dangers of parapolitical "nugget" covetousness.
Songs:
| Jon Maytwayashing - "Orange Blossom Special" |
| "Kispi Kisagitin" |
| Gordon McGilvery - "Cree Round Dance Song" |
