Why it is dangerous to use Artificial Intellegence as an editor.

While I'm not a fan of this Eurocentric colonial document, the so-called "Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms" (part of Canada Act 1982) lists as a fundamental freedom:

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

I received an automated message from Blogger (Owned by Google) indicating an article titled "Evidence suggests broadcasters like the BBC don't want our money" written in January 2015 was unpublished.

From the email:

Why was your blog post unpublished?

Your content has violated our Spam policy. Please visit our Community Guidelines page linked in this email to learn more.

 

The Blogger Community Guidelines contains the following:

Spam

Do not spam. This may include unwanted promotional or commercial content, unwanted content that is created by an automated program, unwanted repetitive content, nonsensical content, or anything that appears to be a mass solicitation.

The first paragraph is a good summary of the article I wrote:

Some copyright holders and their lobbyists claim the reason people infringe Copyright is because they don't want to pay, and that copyright infringement is the largest single problem reducing their revenue potential. Evidence I've seen in my decades involved in the copyright revision process suggested neither are true, and that barriers put up by the copyright holders are the largest incentive to infringe and the largest barrier to revenue potential.

(Full article with original links available via the Wayback Engine).

There isn't anything in that article that could remotely be considered SPAM.  Sure, there were links to the BBC and their iPlayer (pages that no longer exist), but that wasn't as a promotion of their product or service but a critique of the corporation.

To get the article back up I have done some link checking (removing broken links), and removed any links to BBC.

I don't know if it was an employee at the BBC (or a devotee of the corporation) that flagged the content for review by a Google bot, but I have a hard time understanding the potential motivations of anyone else.

First rule of BBC club is that you can't talk about BBC club?

"I am Canadian", and I engage in "Nice Racism"

I've been reading "NICE RACISM: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm" by Robin DiAngelo.

As I read, I can't help but have that "I Am Canadian" Molson slogan and commercial from a few decades ago in my mind.

 

• I'm not a lumberjack, or a fur trader, but I support unrestricted resource extraction no matter what the harm
• I don't live in an igloo, or eat blubber, or own a dogsled, and I have no concerns about the genocidal policies by Canadian Governments against the people who do. (This ramped up in the 1950's, even after Europe started to grapple with the concept of genocide in the late 1940's)
• I live under a Constitutional Monarchy, not a self-determined responsible democracy
• I believe it is perfectly reasonable to require someone to "swear (or affirm), That I will be faithful, And bear true allegiance" to a White Supremacist institution as a condition of becoming a Canadian Citizen, or to hold a wide variety of positions of authority (member of parliament, senator, etc).
  
• I partly define my identity by thinking I, as a Canadian, am better than a citizen of the United States -- That Canada is better than the United States
  
• I believe Canadians are polite people
• I believe Racism is a US and not Canadian problem
  
• I believe Canada is a "just society" and respects human rights domestically and internationally, even thought I have never read the Canadian Constitution, Canadian Charter, or the reports of any Human Rights body discussing Canada
  
• I believe all Indigenous Nations on the northern part of this continent lost a war and ceded all their land to Britain and/or Canada in some distant past (that has nothing to do with today), even though nobody can name the wars, offer dates, or provide any documentation for these alleged events
  
• I believe "We are a multicultural society"
• I believe "We pay respect to Indigenous people"
• I believe "Canada never had slavery"
• My name is Russell, and I am Canadian!!!
  

The last three (before my name as the expected finale) were taken from page 98 of "Nice Racism", in a chapter discussing the moves to innocence of White progressives.

As a generalization, Canadians think of themselves as more "progressive" than citizens of the USA. Rather than this being a reason for Canadians to believe this book by a US author has nothing to do with them, it is actually part of what makes this book (as a percentage of the population) more about Canadians than US citizens.

US citizens tend to be more loud and proud patriotic people : Canadian identity includes the belief we are more "nice" and "polite".

I could go through each of the bullets I threw in above, but the ones from the book are a good start.

We are a multicultural society?

The Dominion of Canada is a bi-colonial (Britain, France) series of institutions.

During the P.E. Trudeau era, bi-colonialism was rebranded biculturalism (meaning English and French), and then dishonestly marketed as multiculturalism.

Even the notion that Canada is a "just society" was used as a rhetorical device by the Trudeau government as part of the marketing of what was essentially racist bi-colonial policies.

Culture is narrowly defined as food, clothing/fashion, and other more superficial things which people are allowed to maintain. When it comes to less superficial things it is made clear in the new so-called "Charter of Rights and Freedoms" passed as part of Canada Act 1982 that the official languages, worldviews and laws of Canada remain British and French.

Even though this continent has been a polyglot for tens of thousands of years, with many nations and worldviews, two foreign European worldviews are aggressively imposed by the Dominion of Canada governments.

While Canadian loyalists are quick to call Quebec's Bill 96 racist, they are generally unwilling to recognize that Canada's Charter and most of the core policies of the Trudeau government are far more racist. The Charter isn't a temporary provincial bill that can easily be changed, but part of the racist Canadian legal framework that other bills (including Bill 96) are judged by.


If you have done some of the work to learn about Racism and White Supremacy (systems, not about individuals), you will notice what qualifies as "Rights and Freedoms" has a clear White racial frame that is narrowly focused on the concerns of peoples that emerged from the unique history of Western Europe (a focus on Britain and France).

We pay respect to Indigenous people?

Also during the P.E. Trudeau Era, Trudeau's Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien, tabled what ended up being called the "1969 White Paper". This was the then Liberal government's "final solution" to the so-called "Indian Problem". It would be a final "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" policy that wiped out any respect or recognition of Indigenous peoples.

The Trudeau Government tried this again in the 1980's during the so-called "patriation" of the Constitution, and required the Constitutional Express to ensure that the Trudeau's governments Racist/Genocidal ideology wasn't fully encoded in Canada Act 1982.

I mention P.E. Trudeau as many Canadians believe he was a "progressive" Prime Minister. His attitude towards Indigenous Peoples, who he regularly claimed were a conquered people and his support of many genocidal policies, is actually quite informative for understanding what qualifies as "progressive" by Canadians. The younger Trudeau uses more careful and "politically correct" language, but upholds the same general policy goals of his father's government.

I was born in 1968, the same year P.E. Trudeau first became Prime Minister. I believe that P.E. Trudeau was the most visibly racist Prime Minister during my lifetime, as the marketing of racist policies has radically changed over my lifetime even if the overall policy goals have not.


Some individuals may have stopped openly calling for "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" genocidal policies, and some believe in "Diversity, Equity & Inclusion" of Indigenous peoples into Canadian society.  They may not recognize that advocating for inclusion into colonial "Canadian" law/society is itself disrespectful, and is in fact the goal of most of Canada's "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" genocidal policies.


There are some individual Canadians who are advocating the recognition of the Right of Self-Determination of Indigenous peoples. This is a right recognized in the UN Charter that Canada has aggressively opposed starting before the (Eurocentric) League of Nations became the United Nations. Canada was one of the 4 offensive nations that voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) which also recognizes the Right of Self-Determination.

As punishment for sending a representative to the League of Nations in 1923 to have their Right of Self-Determination recognized, Canada sent in the RCMP in 1924 to forcibly depose the Haudenosaunee Confederacy -- the oldest Participatory Democracy on the Planet. Canada still refuses to recognize the right of self-determination, or allow any responsible government to be seen to represent Indigenous nations to the Canadian government under Section 35 of Canada's own constitution. Opposing democracy and responsible governments, Canada still relies on the fundamentally racist section 91(24) of Canada's Constitution to determine who to limit "consultation" of Indigenous individuals to.

Imagine for a second if Germany had a section of their constitution that granted Power to a specific level of government for "Jews, and Lands reserved for the Jews". Once you do, you can begin to understand how Racist Canada's Constitution and laws derived from it are.


Note the "s" in peoples: This isn't related to individuals or Canada's alleged multiculturalism. This involves many different nations/peoples and not some pan-Indigenous concept. Canada was one of the Eurocentric "nations" that opposed the rights of "peoples" being protected in the so-called "Universal Declaration of Human Rights", which itself constituted a rejection of the notion that UN UDHR is universal. Rights recognized in that declaration are focused on individuals.

These are basic Human Right of peoples that Canada actively denies: Canada is not respectful of Indigenous peoples or their rights, and many genocidal policies are ongoing.

Some individual Canadian genocidal policies like Residential Schools have recently (within my lifetime) ended, but the overall genocidal policy goals simply moved to the child welfare and other systems.

Most Canadians, however, believe the myth that Canada (the system, the governments, etc) are a force for good and justice in the world, and do not feel any personal responsibility for ongoing genocidal policies that these governments do in their name (and thus they DO have responsibilities, even if they are unaware of the harm from their individual action or inaction).

Canada never had slavery?

I have heard this my entire life, and even when growing up the dates never matched up in my head. I assumed, because of what I now recognize as mild autism on my part, that I was wrong and didn't understand.

In 1833 Britain started on a gradual project to abolish slavery. It was not made immediately illegal in the entire of the British Empire, and Britain even compensated so-called "owners" for this gradual policy change.

The USA claims they abolished slavery in 1865, at the end of what they called the "American Civil War", the second of such civil wars where British colonies on this continent fought each other to separate from each other.

Britain unilaterally created the Dominion of Canada in 1867: without the permission or even awareness of the vast majority of inhabitants of the lands that were alleged to be governed by "Canada" at the time. There was then the massive violent colonial expansion of Canada on this continent that happened after that date. (The gc.ca map shows the dates, but the explanations are pretty much propaganda.  Canada never legally acquired "Rupert's Land and the North Western Territory", etc).


A component of the belief Canada never had slavery is that anything that these individuals or their colonial governments did prior to the passage of the first of 11 BNA Acts doesn't count. Somehow what people in these colonies thought and did magically changed between that bill receiving Royal Assent on 29th March 1867 and going into effect 1st July 1867.


The Underground Railroad went both ways across the imaginary line drawn between colonies who remained loyal to Britain and the 13 British colonies that launched the first civil war between British colonies on this continent to separate (what the USA labels a War of Independence 1775-1783).

The primary differences between the United States, Canada, and the Confederate States was not morality, but economic: The economies of the most southern British colonies on this continent were more dependent on cheap labor (slavery is primarily an economic policy), while the more northern regions were moving into other industries.  Where the south relied on cheap labor, the north relied on cheap resources (and thus more aggressive dispossession of Indigenous jurisdiction over land from which these resources would be extracted without concern for any future consequences).

---

 

As I discuss each of these aspects of Canadian Culture, I am including myself. I have been part of and indoctrinated by Canadian Culture. It is only recently that I have become aware of and capable of questioning some of those myths.

One of the book chapters is titled "Let's talk about shame".

DiAngelo included a quote from an article by Joseph Burgo Ph.D..

Although many people use the two words "guilt" and "shame" interchangeably, from a psychological perspective, they actually refer to different experiences. Guilt and shame sometimes go hand in hand; the same action may give rise to feelings of both shame and guilt, where the former reflects how we feel about ourselves and the latter involves an awareness that our actions have injured someone else. In other words, shame relates to self; guilt to others.

DiAngelo discusses how White people are often more comfortable expressing shame than guilt as guilt suggests we are personally responsible and that they need to do something (do better, be better). Shame doesn't suggest there is anything to do -- you are what you are, and that's it.

I have realized that I don't feel shame or guilt when it comes to my Whiteness. It is possible that the way that I think might help fellow White people move away from trying to protect their personal comfort/feelings/reputation/etc and move on to helping fix structural problems.

I look at Racism and other systems/policies like I do technology.

What I am, my phenotype including my lack of melanin in my skin, is hardware. Biology is hardware.

Isms, like Capitalism, Socialism, Colonialism, Racism, Androcentrism, Anthropocentrism are software.

I personally categorize some of these systems as malware, and societies with these systems are in need of anti-virus and other anti-malware work.



I know for a FACT I'm deeply personally infected with Racism. This malware causes me to have harmed and continue to harm other people, and I have further infected other people because Racism is contagious.

I am publicly admitting I have engaged in Racist activities. For most of my life I have actively upheld Racist policies because I had not yet recognized this set of software/policies as malware.

It will take a long time, if it is even possible in my time remaining alive, to entirely rid myself of the impacts from the malware infection of Racism. That is not an excuse to do nothing, but a recognition that I must put considerable time into anti-malware work.



These systemic/software problems are not about biology/hardware, and they are not something that we are. This is all software which can (an in the case of malware, must) change.

We should not feel shame, and we should never feel like there is nothing we can do.

I am quite angry with "Canada" (A set of policies, not a place or a group of people) which not only actively spreads and enforces malware, but seeks to make it illegal to work on anti-malware strategies. There is so much funding to spread Canadian malware, including entire Canadian Federal government departments.





I Am Canadian, but not a loyal, patriotic or proud Canadian.

Reviewing "Don't Tell the Newfoundlanders", a book about colonialism.

I posted a review of the book Don't Tell the Newfoundlanders on GoodReads.



The book was informative, but not what I expected. It was frustrating to read, and I had to put it down and do something else regularly.

Imagine a book about Xinjiang (New Frontier) that spoke as if all human history on that area of land started in 1955 (When Xinjiang was made an autonomous region by PRC) and made absolutely no mention of the Uyghurs. The book would be entirely quotes and discussion of jurisdictional squabbles between individual groups of Han Chinese politicians/bureaucrats, other Chinese colonies/autonomous regions/provinces, and the central People's Republic of China (PRC) government.

This is essentially what this book about is about, but for the British imposed colony of Newfoundland. The narrative is that Newfoundland was a "responsible government" in 1832 (a British colonial occupation is somehow claimed to be an example of self-determination), this artificial British granted legal fiction designation was rescinded in 1933, and Newfoundland became a province of the (also not self-determining, also not an example of "responsible government") Dominion of Canada in 1949.


Unlike with the Uyghurs who are relatively recent peoples to that region claimed by China, the Inuit, the Innu, the Mi'kmaq, and other Indigenous peoples have stewarded various parts of the lands some wish to call "Newfoundland and Labrador" for millennia.

The underlying policy discussed in the book is merely the British Empire consolidating debt and setting up protection of its British North American interests after the WW2, and yet this book claims there is something relating to "democracy" and "responsible government" involved.

Page 62 provides a good summary in the form of a quote from Hume Wrong:

"considerable interest in the House of Commons in the status of Newfoundland, adding that there was a strong feeling that the present system of commission of government over a people of purely British stock was repugnant to a great many members."

This book helpful in understanding what White Supremacy is, and learning about individuals that remain loyal to those worldviews, policies, and institutions.

Newfoundland stands as a cautionary tale of why we should be concerned about what China is doing in what it calls Xinjiang, given how much more damage the British Empire (re-branded Commonwealth, FVEY, etc) is causing and has yet to be held to account in any way.

Monday mourning : The British Monarchy still exists.

The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, announced on September 13'th that September 19, 2022, will be a National Day of Mourning in Canada. Some Canadian provinces and some workplaces are also observing this day.

I won't be morning the death of a person, but the ongoing existence of the British Monarchy -- the symbol of the British Empire.

At its height it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913 the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 per cent of the world population at the time, and by 1920 it covered 35.5 million km2 (13.7 million sq mi), 24 per cent of the Earth's total land area. (Wikipedia)

While many other monarchies have been appropriately abolished, Britain did something entirely different which was to re-brand their monarchy and colonies to claim that they were decolonizing. The "Royal Family", as well as being a corporation protected from taxes and liabilities other corporations would not, has been actively involved in that re-branding : including using the claim that it was a "Family" and had values similar to a family. This is the ongoing existence of an institution responsible for the greatest amount of colonialism and genocide our species have ever experienced, which has never been held accountable for any of its atrocities.

There is a claim the monarchy is only ceremonial, and doesn't have any power. This is how powerful the propaganda has been:  This is a corporation whose stolen wealth is "inherited" by future members of "the firm", and which has considerable sway on the policy of many subsidiaries of the British Empire. The policy that was put in place by the Monarchy may have been signed by an individual that has been dead for centuries, but the policy and the Monarchy still exist institutionally.  The monarchy is not about individuals but institutions : and it is the same institution, with its policies still enacted and promoted globally. The constitutions of several countries would have to radically change in order to ignore a royal proclamation, even at this date - creating an international policy and constitutional vulnerability that should have been closed decades or even centuries ago.

Queen Elizabeth II was the longest-lived British monarch, and oversaw the bulk of the re-branding. Even as an individual she was not guilt free, both for what she did and for the many things she did not do which any moral individual observing the suffering caused by that institution would work to resolve.

German Reich was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. (Wikipedia). While it is discussed as having three periods, I don't hear about Germans or peoples of regions invaded by this empire celebrating it. It may be remembered that way because they lost two wars where allies from across the world were drawn in (The so-called "World Wars").  The loss of these wars is the reason for the three periods: 1871–1918, 1918–1933, 1933–1945.  The fallout of the first world war lead to the rise of nationalism in Germany and multiple elections of the Nazi  Party.

Not having lost those wars doesn't excuse the ongoing existence or celebration of the British Empire or British Monarchy. These institutions are not examples of the "good guys" winning -- for these wars and even the treatment of European Jews by European Christians, there were no "good guys", just a winner who were able to brand themselves as heroes.


See also: What does being a Canadian mean to me?

A call to action for fellow French descendants in "North America"

While my Irish and Scottish ancestors came to this continent relatively recently (1800's, only 3-5 generations ago), my French ancestors have been on this continent for much longer. How much longer I don't know, as I have not yet done the more detailed genealogy work, but I'm told the family names of Hébert, De Rainville , Payette, Beauchere have been around for a while.

As part of my antiracism learning I was led to anticolonialism, and from there became interested in the unique ways in which some settler groups see themselves and their relationship to this continent and its peoples. Some settlers go so far as to believe they are Indigenous, or victims of colonialism on this continent.

I'm told that most of my ancestors, in one way or the other, saw themselves as victims of the British Empire.

For Ireland and Scotland, the reasoning is obvious, given part of Ireland and all of Scotland is offensively still considered part of the so-called "United Kingdom". I am strongly supportive of the reunification of Ireland, and for the sovereignty of Scotland, even though I do not have citizenship or other close kinship ties to either Nation.

With my French ancestors it is more complex. While Britain and France fought several wars against each other as well as on the same side against a third party, Britain does not control any part of France. What the feeling about the British Empire come from is the colony of New France, previously part of the French Empire.

(For a quick refresher on the history, see: What does being a Canadian mean to me?)

 

Darryl Leroux is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Justice and Community Studies at Saint Mary’s University. An area of focus has been the the dynamics of racism and colonialism among fellow French descendants. His 2019 book "Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity" puts together many of the dynamics I wanted to understand. He maintains Raceshifting.com to help educate people on these issues.

While I tweeted some thoughts while reading the book, the last page contains what I feel to be a call to action to all fellow French descendants on this continent.

As French descendants, we have been told from a young age that we are the (only) victims of British colonialism, despite the fact that our ancestors colonized significant parts of what we generally call Canada and the United States for a century and a half prior to falling under British dominion. During this time, our forebears not only enslaved African and Indigenous peoples and actively displaced and dispossessed Indigenous peoples across a wide swatch of the continent, but benefited from broader French mercantilist policies that turned the French Antilles into one of the most brutally violent slave societies the world has ever known. Our belief that we are the only legitimate victims of (British) colonialism continues to be a major stumbling block to building meaningful social movements dedicated to combating French-descendant forms of racism and colonialism.

 

My wife's parents are Hindu Bengalis from India. I also believe it is incorrect for loyalists of the Mughal Empire to claim the eventual end of their occupation of India was an act of "colonialism" by the Swedish, Dutch, Danish, French, Portuguese or British colonialism. Indigenous India was the victim of all this colonialism, and all these empires were (some still are) perpetrators of colonialism. Which perpetrator "won" a given campaign/war/etc to claim to be the current colonial occupation does not make loyalists of any of the "losing" colonial powers a victim of colonialism.

Should you be upset at individual police officers who support the "Thin Blue Line" concept?

The concept of the "Thin Blue Line" comes up regularly.

I posted about this on Facebook on Dominion Day, what the P.E. Trudeau government re-branded as "Canada Day" in 1982 to help hide the truth about the Dominion.

 

I consider the Thin Blue Line to be another discussion about systems vs individuals.

The job of Law Enforcement is to enforce the law, not to interpret it or to ignore the laws the police departments or individual officers don't like. If a law is racist, then it is still their job to enforce that law.

Whether US or Canadian law supports the idea that Every Child Matters or Black Lives Matter is a matter of law and other systems, not law enforcement. This is even true if some law enforcement officers start a "Blue Lives Matter" movement in response to the feeling they are personally being targeted by the "Black Lives Matter" and other human rights and social justice movements.

Canada and the United States are founded and still exist today as an ongoing expression of the White Supremacist notion that Europeans and European systems have more of a "right" to govern over this land (Reminder: not part of Europe) than the Indigenous Nations and peoples who have governed and stewarded this continent for tens of thousands of years.

The Canadian Constitution hasn't been modified significantly since the one the British unilaterally imposed in 1867 with the first of the 11 British North America Acts. This was done without the permission of, or even notification to, a majority of inhabitants and citizens of existing nations. There have been minor changes, but not away from White Supremacy within the Canada Act 1982, and other Acts of the British Parliament.


The United States is similarly fundamentally flawed, with their constitution being one of the most outdated on the planet.

Lets use a concrete example. APTN recently did an in-depth called:
Behind the Thin Blue Line: Meet a secretive arm of the RCMP in B.C.

We could read that article and get all angry at the RCMP for this, but lets remember: they are law enforcement.

Where is the source of the conflicts with the sovereign nations in that part of Turtle Island (the name the peoples near where I live, such as the Haudenosaunee and  Anishinaabe call this continent)?

That would be the British Columbia NDP government. That is the allegedly democratic body that is in charge of these systems, and passed the laws (and unlawfully approves "development" on land they don't have jurisdiction over) which the BC RCMP is then required to enforce.

 

The BC NDP even passed a law promising to change BC's racist laws to conform with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but thus far has refused to do anything other than virtue signalling and theater. They could immediately cease the violations of human right being carried out by the RCMP, with simple changes to the injunction process on unceded lands, but refuses to do so even with their majority government.

BC (currently NDP government, allegedly the most "progressive" party that forms governments in Canada) and Canada (currently a "Liberal" government) are regularly called out by UN agencies for ongoing human rights violations. (PDF Posted by APTN, You can also go to the Treaty Body Database, limit to Canada, and look at April 29, 2022)



Note: What Canada and BC are claiming about Indian Act band councils granting them "permission" is in fact unconstitutional. Those federally created/regulated corporations administrating Canadian government services delegated to the federal government under the racist Constitution section 91(24) do not have any jurisdiction over activities outside of their reservations. They are not examples of self-determined responsible governments.

Blaming the police, and especially blaming individual police officers, is part of flawed Western worldviews which have a narrow focus on individuals rather than recognizing systems.

Police departments within "Canada" and "United States" are not law enforcement systems which contains some racist (the oddball "Bad Apples" narrative), but the enforcement arm of racist governance systems. Individual police officers are not the problem. If there are individual officers that are more overtly racially prejudiced, that can easily be understood as being the most loyal to Canadian systems (Patriotism).

What about the claim that law enforcement is the "line which keeps society from descending into violent chaos"?

First you need to recognize that Canada has a legal system, imposed by Britain based on British laws, religion and worldviews, and not a justice system. This set of systems called the Dominion of Canada have been carrying out a slow Genocide since it was imposed by the British.

Law is not the same thing as order, and sometimes laws and law enforcement itself can be the cause of violent chaos


(I have taken a course where Kim Tallbear was my professor. She is an amazing Indigenous academic who does anthropology of white peoples. )

Law enforcement in Canada is part of the ongoing colonialism project. Carrying out racist activities is in fact their job, given the laws they are required to enforce are examples of systemic racism.

 

"terra nullius" continues: British North America ("Canada"), Denmark, Russia.

A friend asked me if they heard about Canada and Denmark sharing the land border?

I immediately thought: Here we go again.

I looked it up and found a CBC article with headline: Canada and Denmark reach deal to divide uninhabited Arctic island

Google Map:  Hans Island  Google Earth: Hans Island Note that the island is nowhere near Denmark or Britain, so no legitimate reason for those governments, or their subsidiaries/derivatives, to have title claims. If you look via Google Earth and look at the earth from the North Pole, you can see how there is a claim that this has something to do with Russia.

There is that phrase: "unihabited".

This is what Europeans look for.  It is a reminder that the "Doctrine of Discovery" and "terra nullius" are still current concepts for Europeans.  This is the notion that if a thing (which until recently included people) was not already "owned" in a Roman/European sense, then it could be claimed to be owned simply through seizure.

European notions of properly grant exclusivity, but without any responsibility.  Once "owned", the thing can be harmed or even destroyed without any responsibility to others (human, non-human living things, differently animated things).

When Europeans first started to visit this continent, which the peoples near where I live call "Turtle Island", they didn't recognize the people here as civilized and had an unwillingness to even treat them as humans. When Samuel de Champlain, a subject of the French kingdom, first came across a citizen of the Haudenosaunee in 1609, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy had already been an an advanced participatory democratic league of 5 nations possibly since 1192. While the Europeans lacked evidence of their odd claim to being more advanced in social sciences, they did have more advanced weaponry.  Typical of the thinking of Empire builders, might was believed to be right. They use their savagery to claim supremacy and "civilization".



I believe continuing to use this less advanced European way of thinking in this case makes no sense.

Apparently the concern is that Russia might claim ownership through seizure, so British North America (Canada) and Denmark jointly seized the land for themselves as they already made odd claims to neighboring lands. The assumption in all this European Supremacist thinking is that it is legitimate for any European government to lay exclusivity claims based on seizure, even to lands quite distant from Europe.


Europeans are constantly feuding or at war with each other. Even though "might was believed to be right" in the European seizure of this continent, somehow Russia (also part of Europe) doing the same thing to a much smaller area currently called Ukraine that was fairly recently part of the Soviet Union is supposed to be automatically understood as wrong.

Apparently the sovereignty of Europeans we are supposed to like is good, but the sovereignty of non-Europeans we are blindly supposed to ignore.

The correct thing is for the International community to protect further land outside of Europe being claimed to be controlled by European governments based on their uncivilized notions of seizure based exclusivity. It is the people and other more-than-human relations with connections to the lands which have a motivation to steward the lands which should be protected.

What is needed is for Indigenous peoples of the polar regions to be granted sovereignty from European governments in the south (especially those operating outside of Europe).  There are agreements to disallow any foreign government to claim Antarctica, and something similar should be done with the Arctic.

In the case of what Europeans renamed "North America", it would be the beginning of allowing the True North to become Strong and Free again -- without being subjugated to European dominion.

Starting with Inuit Nunangat 

What is needed is peacekeeping to protect the land from European ideologies (whether from Eastern or Western Europe), not further land seizures by Europeans.