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Syndicate
Not only that, I have it on good authority that you are, in fact, somewhere beyond puerile. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
Actually I'm quite grateful to you for engaging me this way, because I need to learn to deal with this kind of shit in a constructive way if I'm going to be able to effectively deal in the real world. I've come to consider you a virtual exercise. I admit I'm broken and immature sometimes and have a hard time admitting foolishness, but when I respond to you because I thought your point had merit, you go for the jugular.
I saw your point. Gloating is cheap and simple but it's real. Sure I get hissy and pissy and stupid sometimes, and I'm in awe of you who are so beyond such pettiness, but sometimes I'm simply a miserable fuck, so what can I say. I think you are just mean.
[ 30 January 2007: Message edited by: Makwa ]
While I reserve judgment on that particular pun, you should feel free to cree-ate more humourous posts - ignore dene-sayers who'll say it can't be done. And if they persist, sioux be it - huron the right track.
If a lease has not been renewed in 12 years most likely it is not going to be, someone would be pretty mired in delusion to think otherwise, and as I stated they knew since last May control of the property would be reverting back to the Chippawa.
What has happened scout, what really has happened that you keep implying that I feel satisfaction over? Again lack of sympathy is NOT feeling satisifaction. I am still awaiting your examples of my tittering and glouting? Though now you have lessened it to accusing me of "feeling satisfaction".
Why are you bringing the May thread into this one BTW? Not too progressive now is it? Pot calling kettle me thinks. If you have a issue with what I said on the May thread deal with it there. Needless to say, there is no compare, as neither of May's anti-choice anti-feminist talks were actually printed, they were voice, where one can actually HEAR intonal inflections and add them to the words used to garner full implication and intent.
[ 30 January 2007: Message edited by: Makwa ]
Okay.
I also think this thread is salvageable, and I think a FN person should be moderator. But no amount of bribery or flattery will get Stargazer to take it on. [img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img]
Any perceived lack of sympathy and empathy, in this new edited thread, or outright obvious lack of sympathy and empathy, reflects both the poster and the postee.
Cottage country is stolen land, people!
I don't own a cottage, but I have visited and rented them when I want to get away from the big city. It's a contradiction for sure, as the land is not mine to rent, or to own.
Analogies are problematic, but what the hell, I'll give it a try. Yse, the white cottagers feel hard-done by, in the same way as getting a scratch on your new BMW sucks. It's not nice, but it's a fucking luxurious problem that, when we reflect on issues like no drinkable water on reserves, unemployment, lack of opportunity, lost and broken families, kinda fades into the background, hmm?
Yes, it's still not great, that scratch in the shiny red paint job! It's just that, in this forum, we may want to focus on more prevalent issues. This story is one small victory for FN people in Canada.
their cottage. I realize that this was leased land, but if the landowners received their lease payments, what would entitle them to any structure on the land that was not there when the lease was originally signed.
[ 30 January 2007: Message edited by: Duck ]
However, they haven't been wronged in any way. Building improvements on leased land is rather foolish, regardless of noble intentions. It's like renovating a rented apartment. Sympathy in such a situation is the more gracious response, but "What did you expect?" is the more reasonable one.
As for their personal belongings, I'm certain they don't go with the cottage. The landlord would be required to ensure that the former tenant gets them, which it sounds like they are doing.
It would depend on what was agreed to in the lease documents. In this case, though I haven't seen them in person, the cottages would be considered nothing more then improvements to the land and thus not retreivable...just as someone pointed out like if you renovate a apartment. One chooses to do it with the foreknowledge that their is no guarantee of keeping it forever and ever. This is what happened here.
If there is anyone that the cottagers should be upset with here it should be the government and not the landlords. They were acting as the go-between and up until the final letters arrived appeared to be saying to many of the cottagers...no problem...don't worry...it'll work out while I expect they knew or at least suspected it was not the case.
Also, and I'm afraid this is only hersay from talking to someone in the area that any chance of individual cottagers negotiating individual leases...like one human being to another...was squashed by the government telling individuals not even to try because it would 'affect' relations ie: the governments with the band. The cottagers were assured that they would look after it. As time progressed, tensions developed between the band and the Government over the issue and what might have worked for some became an impossibility. The government again has proven how inept it is with dealing with anything FNs.
And if I'm sounding a bit harsh it's because I've just returned from Kanhestaton (Caledonia) after hearing and reading the bollycock Department of Justice response to the land reclamation, listening and watching white supremist yahoos and dealing with the absolutely childish antics of the townspeople over flags and whatever else they feel like complaining about.
Beautifully, and concisely, stated, Draco.
(Note to anyone concerned: I only used the pejorative term "red man" to attempt to invoke a more particular possible cottager mindset. I don't endorse anybody ACTUALLY using it to describe FN people.)
Like Oldgoat, I have fallen in love with the Bruce, and I have taken my kids there, and spent a week last summer aquainting yet another young child with the wildlife and... words fail me.
Do you know how much I love the Bruce? Last week, I was watching a documentary on Alexander Selkirk. Although there was some stock footage of Robinson Crusoe Island, I KNEW the close ups with the actor were shot on the Bruce. I know the rock. I know the texture and clarity of water. At the end, I watched the credits and they confirmed what I knew at a glance.
But, when I go I know I am a visitor, and because I want the Bruce to be there, I do my best to pump my tourist dollars to everyone, including FN business.
If not for divorce, I guess I would be in an economic position to buy a retirement cottage on the Bruce. Maybe one day, I still will.
But since I was a young man with such hopes, I knew I wouldn't buy a cottage without researching native land claims, and communicating with native people in the same way I'd communicate with the local white population to determine if I would be welcome.
For peace, the law is not enough. To live with people, you need justice, and the law is deaf, dumb and blind in that respect.
The original leases probably dealt with the removal of property upon lease expiration. And the reason leases are so long is that no bank will give mortgages on short term leasehold interests. Designations are required in order to consent to take the land out of normal reserve operation so as to be able to grant leasehold interests in the land to non FN members. It was very irresponsible of everyone to allow the land to remain in limbo for so long.
I wonder if the cottage owners had an association organized who would’ve been on top of this. know that there is so much more to this story.
Personally, I believe the idea of (presumably) affluent (again, presumably) mostly white persons getting kicked off land that never belonged to them has a certain poetic justice to it, given the history of indigenous land claims here in Ontari-ari-ario...
I suppose that you think that if something terrible happened to the German people, then that, too, would be "poetic justice" given what the Germans did to the rest of Europe a generation ago?
The decision of the FN has nothing to do with "poetic justice". The FN people living today have legal rights and they are simply exercising them, as it is their right to do. It's nothing more and nothing less than that.
edited 'cause I can't spell benefitting
[ 02 February 2007: Message edited by: Le Tйlйspectateur ]
Your first paragraph...sigh, sigh, sigh...I'm still shaking my head, mentally, and about all I'm gonna say about that is: It all depends on the nature of the calamity that were to befall these hypothetical Germans, I suppose. No sane person likes to see bad things happen to good people, but if the SAME Germans responsible for the Holocaust suffered some terrible fate, then yes, I believe there would be a certain amount of poetic justice in that.
It's a topic best discussed in another forum, however.
I DO agree that the Chippewa are properly exercising their legal rights. I'm not laughing, or being mean about anything, here. Irony being rather subjective, however, I believe I am entitled to my own sense of it.
I also wonder about the reasonable-ness of these people (both cottagers and Chippewa), since it HAS been 12 years. I haven't read anyhing else regarding this lease, so I have no idea what the Chippewa want to do with their land - perhaps there was just no deal that could be worked out...
[ 02 February 2007: Message edited by: Village Idiot ]
I still think it's a fair comparison. There are families (and individuals) who are still suffering the wounds caused by the Germans, with murdered spouses, brothers, parents, sisters and with complete loss of property. The "poetic justice" would be that the German people would suffer because they caused so much suffering to others (others who are still suffering), regardless of whether or not the Germans are benefitting from their past conduct. And, in both cases, one has to believe in the concept of collective guilt and sin.
I’m a ten million per cent supporter of Aboriginal redress and independence (including land claims) in order to help rebuild their economies and societies damaged by colonial capitalism.
I think the band has the right to evict the cottagers, as unpleasant as that is, since their agreement—as in legally binding contract they signed—says that is an option.
But a goofy move is a goofy move. My sympathies aren’t so much with the cottagers as they are with fair treatment and due process—something First Nations have been denied too much in history.
Can’t folks here see just how undemocratic and unjust that is? It’s similar to the same type of shit that has been pulled on many Aboriginal nations for so long.
The band owns the land—and that’s as it should be. It has the right not to renew the lease and tell the cottagers to move in a reasonable time if it wants to. No question.
But where does the band council think it’s within its right to simply take what it has never considered its own in the first place? If the band wants to use the land for something else, that’s fine. So why not just give the cottagers a reasonable amount of time to remove their things and buildings, and if they fail to meet the deadline, the band has them removed at the cottagers’ expense?
If the ban want to keep the cottage building intact, why can’t they buy them off the cottagers or at least hurl them a generally accepted local market rate for them as compensation?
Maybe some of them do, and that’s too bad for them. The band should still issue a call to vacate the premises and give them some time to do so. That would give the out-of-county ones a chance to get back here and do what they need to do or make arrangements for someone to do it for them. If they don’t comply then they can go cry elsewhere.
Maybe so. But does that give the band council the right to play dictatorial mean-spirited landlord? It’s exactly these types of practices that the Aboriginal activists I know and work with tell me much of their movement is dedicated to fighting, and rightly so. Curtailing the power of ruthless landlords has been a key part of the struggle for social justice in just about every part of the world.
This is the case. The band rightfully controls the land. The lease expired long ago, and the band gave the cottagers an extra decade grace. Now the band has issued a call to end the conditions of the lease and, since it is a government unto itself, rezone the land for other purposes. The council obviously has other important things to deal with besides over-lording. Why not just give them the standard allotted time to vacate the premises and their stuff (including taking down the buildings, if needed)? What could it hurt?
Why anyone would think that the Chippawa would not want this incredibly beautiful land back ASAP, when it came back into their control/possession is beyond me. They have been watching others enjoy their land for 52 years, with nothing they could do about it.
How much do you think they actually received for this land use btw? If it is anything like the lease holds here, it was peanuts.
When you make lease hold improvements on an apartment, or a house, when you move you leave those lease hold improvements behind. This is no different at all. Even if you leave stuff in your rental apartment or house after rental agreement is up, it no longer belongs to you.
Well, maybe they should have. Obviously, for some reason, they didn't. Perhaps they were in debate over whether to renew the lease or not or whether to develop the land, etc. I don't know, since the article doesn't say. But those kinds of disagreements can last for years.
The fact is now they have just as much right to do this as they did then. So fine. The question is why they have to play heavy-dude and start making claims on people's personal belongings that aren't part of the lease.
You yourself suggested that the band council could cut some sort of compensation deal if they want to keep the cottages. that sounds good to me (although I don't know why they would keep them. There's better quality houses that can be built than cottages).