"The resource curse, also known as the paradox of plenty, refers to the paradox that countries with an abundance of natural resources (such as fossil fuels and certain minerals), tend to have less economic growth, less democracy, and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources." (from Wikipedia so we don't know who wrote this.) It is very much softened. The bottom line is that if an area has something that a bigger and more powerful entity wants, they will be looted. Part of the looting will be the prevention and distortion of commerce and government so as to keep them "clients" of that more powerful entity. This is the curse that explains the Blackfeet reservation.
The state of Montana began with mining resources (Butte) and open range grazing before fences. First the ranchers shrank the grasslands of the rez and began fencing them. Second, the discovery of oil and gas was a crucial bait resource. Third, Marias Pass was the prize that made the Great Northern railroad possible. This was a Triple Resource Curse. Today's tribe remains a client of the federal government, which is intent on preventing sovereignty in any sense -- at least until the oil and gas is removed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Q2qNQrsAw is a link to an episode of "Pod Save America" on which Rachel Maddow joins the panel to talk about her new book, "Blowout". It is a vid, not just sound. If you have the fortitude to listen to the whole hour, it is VERY explanatory in a head-spinning time, but even they admit that there is something mysterious, a motive of Russia's that is not yet deciphered.
"Blowout" began when Maddow began thinking about Russia, which as a stand-alone, mostly land-locked, country insists on equity with Europe but has only one resource: oil and gas. They realize that they have a small military, a weak economy, but also a very big stick, which is their oil and gas resources, very much needed by Europe. Pipelines replace ports for shipping it.
Follow this line of logic, in which the next step is that only Exxon (Rex Tillerson) has the expertise and resources to extract the oil and gas in Russia, and the plot is exposed. Russia is a little tribe dependent on a big transnational corporation, which they have learned to control to some extent by corrupting -- to some extent -- the USA. Putin's motive is to remove sanctions and limits imposed by the USA by turning the USA governing power weak through chaos and dissension. Then to secure Exxon as a partner.
If you live here next to the rez as I do, this sounds familiar in terms of the tribe. In fact, because the population and education of the tribal members increase all the time, they begin to pick up ideas and connections that strengthen them beyond just sitting on oil pockets. They have already realized that their position next to the Rocky Mountains with its snow storage of water is a major resource, maybe more valuable than oil. Their major wheat flats are a resource as well as a concern because of modern ag practices. They tribal people themselves are now ranchers of beef and possibly bison if the climate becomes scourged by blizzards. I say "they" as though they were confined by a border, but tribal members are now a large fraction of all adjacent counties.
I don't know where the conversations and deal-making actually happen. Not on pods, I'm thinking. I suspect some of it is hiding behind Glacier Park which shields the Flathead Valley and Alberta, both complexes adept at intrigue and resource strategy. Mostly the dealing is through whites, I'm guessing, because the tribal people are preoccupied with things that they see in their daily lives. They don't use their computers to listen to podcasts like the one I linked.
On anti-Columbus Day, which probably gives too much importance to just one guy who was only guessing at what he was doing, one is supposed to say nice things about indigenous people and how special they are. Dream catchers and ribbon skirts and all that. If you're a political toughie, you might be raising questions about the missing and murdered women or even their sons. Borderlands are susceptible to crime because they, too, offer a "resource curse" because the gradient between the two sides can be managed to make a profit. This is true of the rez border as well as the 49th Parallel.
Out in the open and managed for the good of the "whole", this is all to the good. The danger and destruction comes from keeping the enterprise hidden, the profits limited to a few. There is also a difference between limited resources, like oil and gas or metals, versus seemingly endless water, grass, sunlight -- renewable and needing only proper management to persist.
Resources that contribute to war (gold, copper, oil and gas) bring in crime and all the damaging strategies they use, including assassination, sabotage, drugs, and social instability. Even the kidnapping or prevention of children to stop the generations. None of this comes from being indigenous.
Few people around here, no matter their ethnicity, do much reading. They get their news on television, which panders to sensation and the channel owners who have their own corruptions. Therefore, the concepts must be carried by individuals, like the panels that Narcisse Blood and Ryan Heavyhead were doing a few years ago. Opening up minds to possibility is not easy when there have been centuries of missionaries trying to convince everyone that there is only one way to see the world, and that's through white people.
Narcisse Blood
Luckily, there are vids of Narcisse. This one links to a sample but there are more. https://vimeo.com/119367676 Somewhere, maybe even right here, there are more people who think this way and aren't afraid to say so, can't be bought off.
When I came in 1961, I met the last of the people born in the 19th century, including the white mercantilists. My usefulness is based on remembering them and on reading or making my flat bottom even flatter by watching vids. There was so much I didn't realize was happening. People thought I would just go away and forget it all. But here I am and there you are.
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