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a spiritual entity,

and that if we want

to live in this

universe in a good way,

that it was absolutely essential

that we learned how to

maintain respectful relations

with all of creation.

They made us many promises,

more than I can remember,

but they never kept but one;

they promised to take our land,

and they took it. Red Cloud

When Europeans came to this land

it was with...

such a rapacious appetite

it still has not been sated.

- They brought Christianity,

they brought colonization,

and, certainly,

they did bring civilization.

- They came in, and they

were sent with this,

commission, they felt,

apparently, to dominate the land

and it was just there for the taking --

these people would accept

beads, or just kind

of get out of the way,

and of course they had superior

firepower at that time, too.

- Right off the bat,

with Christopher Columbus

landing in the Caribbean

region on what is

today Haiti and

the Dominican Republic,

they initiated almost

immediately a genocide

down there that

depopulated most of the

nation, the Taino,

and the Arawaks.

One of the main things that

happened was the introduction

of diseases, which was

basically biological warfare.

- The smallpox was spread through

tobacco and blankets

and given to the Indian people.

So it didn't take them long to be

decimated because they were pure.

And the smallpox was vicious,

very vicious.

- When Europeans came,

much of what they

were interested in was

rapid resource exploitation.

They wanted to get

wealthy in the new world.

And as they were seeking that wealth,

they worked with indigenous

nations to undermine

traditional economies

and undermine the

relationship that indigenous

populations have with

the lands so that indigenous

peoples could then do

do the work of resource

exploitation and extraction

for the Europeans so that

they could get wealthy.

- In imposing those things

on indigenous peoples, of course,

they just destroyed indigenous

peoples and their nations and

their way of life.

Generally, indigenous peoples suffered

90% or more depopulation rate

upon having contact with Europeans.

It was a genocide, war for territory,

because the Europeans

wanted to take the resources.

- Settler society has worked to destroy

what it needs to live,

and that's suicidal.

It's a suicidal mission.

There's no way that it can be

sustainable in the long term.

Premise III

- I gave a talk in Oregon

a couple years ago,

and this guy afterwards said,

"You know, you talk a lot about

this culture being based

on violence, but I don't see it,

you know, I'm not violent".

I said, "Okay, first off,

where is your shirt made?"

He looked and it was made in Bangladesh.

I was like, "Look,

do we even need to talk about that?"

- He's f***ing faking he's dead!

- Yeah, he's breathing.

- He's faking he's f***ing dead!

- He's dead now.

- Our way of living,

industrial civilization, is based on,

requires, and would

collapse very quickly

without persistent

and widespread violence.

- A large explosion! A large explosion!

- Wow.

- I'll just take a couple eggs. How many you want?

- Two, two is good.

Okay. Now what next?

- Some ham, tomato.

- Tomato, okay,

how about that?

- Okay, some onion.

Ooh, and cheese!

- Everything, then, right, you want

everything. Okay. I understand, okay.

We'll just pop this on. Now watch!

I'm chopping the ham and veggies,

grating the cheese,

and whipping the eggs all...

...in three seconds.

The machine that just made

those smoothies for Verna and Fred,

can make an omelette.

There's not much time left to get

this beautiful hope diamond necklace,

less than 50 seconds. Gillian?

- Absolutely, John, you're going

to want to give us a call to get

this beautiful hope diamond necklace.

This is a 45.52 carat

diamond surrounded by

16 white diamonds.

It has a platinum chain

bearing 46 more diamonds.

- These are twelve four-ounce southern

barbecue chicken breasts.

These Stuffin Gourmet,

farm-fresh chicken breast;

they come from the

barnyard to your backyard.

They're wonderfully marinated

and guaranteed to be tender,

juicy, and downright delicious.

- Fine-tune those measurements,

we keep them on file.

They're saved,

they're on our computer.

Go back into the section

where you reorder,

and fine-tune those

measurements for us.

And then we'll have

a chance to send you

another pair of customized jeans

that we really believe are

going to fit perfectly.

- We're going to do a countdown,

starting from 5.

Everybody got to help me out here,

5,

4,

3,

2,

It worked!

Second, I said,

"Okay, do you pay rent?"

He's like, "Yeah..."

I said, "Why?"

He said, "Because, I don't own."

I said, "No, no, no, what would

happen if you didn't pay rent?"

He said, "Well, the sheriff

would come and evict me."

I said, "I don't know what that means.

What would happen?

He said, "Well, the sheriff would come

and he would knock on the door..."

I said, "Okay, great, what happens

if you open the door...

...and you say,

'Hey! I'm just finishing up making dinner.

You want some?'

And the sheriff sits down, you feed him,

you don't poison him.

And then, after dinner you say,

'You've been somewhat pleasant

company, but not all that pleasant,

so I would like for you to leave

my home now.' What would happen?

He said, "Well, the sheriff would

pull out his gun and say,

'I'm here to evict you,

because you didn't pay rent.'"

I said, "Ahh. So, the reason you pay

rent is because if you don't,

some guy with a gun is going

to come take you away."

He said, "I think I get it."

I said, "Well, let's try again.

What happens if you're hungry,

so you go to the grocery store

and you just start eating.

What's going to happen?"

"Someone will call the sheriff."

I said, "Yeah,

it's the same guy who's going to

come with a gun and take you away,

he's a real a**hole, isn't he?"

So, one of the reasons

we don't see a lot of the violence,

is because it's exported.

Another reason we don't see a

lot of the violence is because

we've been so metabolized

into the system

that we've bought into this

strange notion that it's okay

to have to pay to exist on the planet.

That's really, really weird.

And, if you don't pay,

then some guy with a gun is going to come

and bad things are going to happen to you.

Figure II

A few years a go,

I got a call from a friend of mine.

She's an environmental activist.

She was crying, and she said,

"This work's just killing me,

it's breaking my heart."

I said, "Yeah, I know. It'll do that."

Then she said,

"The dominant culture

hates everything, doesn't it?"

I said, "Yeah, it does. Even itself."

She said, "It has a death urge,

doesn't it?" I said, "Yeah, it does."

She said, "Unless it's stopped, it's going

to kill everything on the planet, isn't it?"

I said, "Yeah it is, unless it's stopped."

Then she said,

"We're not going to make it

to some great, new,

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