Glenn Helkenn Word-Bombs Paleo Planet's EZ Board

Montana Buckskin, over at the ez board Paleo Planet, was kind enough to link to us when confronting Glenn Helkenn recently on the topic of agriculture, warriors, and the Teaching Drum. Sadly, nothing about Red Wolf Returns has changed. He is as much a mercenary now while preying on the primitive skills movement as he was when riding with the Army's Special Forces.

Here is the link to the discussion: http://tinyurl.com/2tonj3

Below is a copy of our post under the topic "Warrior Skills Anyone?":

Folks are welcome to reply to us on this site. If it does not become too cumbersome, we will try to front page any responses for ease of readability.

First, all of us at As the Teaching Drum Turns (www.astheteachingdrumturns.blogspot.com) would like to thank Montana Buckskin for linking to our site. Our traffic meter recorded many visitors from this forum, and a fair number took a lot of time to read over our experiences of Tamarack, Glenn, and the Drum in general.

First off, we want to state that we do not wish to engage in petty attacks on anyone, or disrupt the overall good spirit found here amongst long-time contributors, but we would like to point out typical patterns in Glenn Helkenn's e-board behavior.

As many of you may have already noticed, he desperately wants - like Tamarack - to position himself as your teacher. We find that horribly condescending on a site that is filled with folks who have a great deal of experience (decades apparently) with earth-way skills. When some of his posts sent your well-calibrated bs meters off the charts, he accused you of attacking him personally, thus shifting your excellent questions away from the weak spots in his personal philosophy and accountability and onto his ego-woundedness. This happens over and over again at the Teaching Drum. Would anyone really want to experience it living with them in the woods for a year?

By the way, Glenn may not make much money himself, but it costs in the thousands of dollars to attend the Drum's Yearlong program. And what will you really get from it in the end? Dare to ask them and watch the smoke start pumping! Caveat Emptor.

Our website has detailed our own experiences of that program, and any one of us would be happy to share those with you privately, if you prefer (email nemeses.united@yahoo.com), or on the site. Currently, our website is undergoing a major reconstruction with contributors being retasked according to their time constraints, personal interests, etc. Please pardon our mess. We want to make the site much more readable and more precisely focused on the issues we have with the school - from its racism and sexism - to its inability to convey the earthway skills it claims to command. You are welcome to post there, though, in the meantime.

It is very heartening to see that Glenn Helkenn, having been unable to dazzle any of you here with his encyclopedic pedagogy, is now threatening to leave in a huff. Congratulations! On board after board where we have seen him participate, that is the most effective tactic for handling the kind of immature silliness he is peddling. Tamarack and Glenn are not interested in mutual, adult relatedness and cooperation towards a more sane and healthy way of living, but in setting themselves up as your teacher, guide, guru - whatever.

When sincere people have disagreements with them, they call it a chip on the shoulder or personal attack or vendetta. Translation: You won't fawn over our knowledge accumulation so we are leaving now. They have banned several people over the years from their forum when those folks dared to question them. That smacks of cult, not caring.

All we can say to all of you here from our years of experience with these very self-absorbed, Tom Brown type folks is - keep up the good work. Nothing sends them running off like a good refusal to be impressed with a lot of hot air. Really good questions send them scurrying because questions cut through the smoke and mirrors and hold them accountable for their limitations. Evading responsibility for long-term commitment to the inherent difficulties and contradictions any philosophy presents is a key theme amongst lifestyle poseurs.

There is no need to mystify the skills with some "Indian"-esque, new agey pastiche as Tamarack so often tries to do. Any person's commitment to a natural skill will speak through her command of it. It's like Tom Brown showing up at various gatherings and not really being able to do what he claims he can. Tamarack is much the same. We don't think for all his blather about food that he can really feed anybody or show them how to feed themselves. He feeds his family through tourism, not hunting.

However, we agree with Glenn that if you can afford it, do visit the school and get a sense of the place yourself. Meet with Glenn and Lety and Tamarack and see if your bs meters still go off the charts or not. We are pretty certain that they will

A note on our internet handle "Nemeses". Some of you may remember from Greek mythology the goddess Nemesis, who was responsible for leading Narcissus to his death by causing him to fall in love with his own image to punish him for his vanity and pride. We like to think of the narcissism of Glenn and Tamarack in much the same vein. The more they talk about themselves the more they do themselves in by revealing to others what they really are.

Thank you all again for refusing to be taken in by the evasions, posturing, and whiney woundedness.

As for ourselves, we have no desire to engage in unproductive debates with those like Glenn and Tamarack, who will not be held accountable for walking their talk, so we will keep anything further we need to say about them on our own website.

Sincerely,


Nemeses.United@yahoo.com