Sunday, October 12, 2008

Tamarack Trys to Explain His MTV Pimp Job

The more he writes the deeper he digs the hole.

Frighteningly, the narcissitic nutter actually thinks MTV has provided him with a "vital audience." When you're a self-absorbed guru hungry for any scrap of attention from any vapid corner, we suppose that is probably true.

The Teaching Drum dramas highlighted in the special were certainly NOT the fault of the program, as Tamarack asserts, but a normal consequence of shallow whites - with more money than sense - playing Indian for $8000 a pop. If Dan Konen really thinks white settler youth are experiencing "depression, drug abuse, and suicide reaching epidemic proportions" he should see what's happening to Indigenous youth. Their rates of suicide are THREE TIMES that of whites. See this New York Times article "Indian Reservation Reeling in Wave of Youth Suicides and Attempts."

Euro-American creeps like Tamarack Song stealing Indigenous culture for his own psychological and financial gain have everything to do with the genocidal conditions prevailing at the concentration camps otherwise known as Indian reservations, no matter how blithe a spin he tries to put on his own motivations.
Greetings folks,

This is going out to everyone in my address book

Now that the hoopla's died down, I'd like to share some of my perspective on this experience. I'm told that various blogs and chat groups are abuzz trying to figure us out, with most opinions conveying either wonderment or damnation and little in between. We're either a doorway to self discovery and hope for the future or puritanical extremists/an isolationist enclave of clueless relic hippies/a lockstep guru-adoring cult. (One thing has held true from day one of the Teaching Drum: nearly everyone is stirred in some way by our reawakening focus.)

Only a minority saw through the program's media hype and personal dramas to the underlying themes. Some viewers got stuck because they took it personally and judged themselves (or felt they were being judged); while others, judging the medium, blinded themselves to the message.

So why the media hype and MTV-style format? To reach a vital audience. "This business can be challenging, " explained the program producers to me. "[We would have to] greatly simplify the Teaching Drum program [for] the young audience who is used to high-paced, overly dramatic programming while also introducing them to a lifestyle that is unique and thought provoking."

My reply: "Of course the program would have been given a different spin for a different audience. People need to be reached where they're at. No matter what the message, it does little good if it's delivered in a foreign language."

It all began with the MTV producers coming to me with a challenge: Do you think you and us can put together a program focusing on the Year-long experience that will help our lost youth see that there is more to life than they've been given? "I'm painfully aware of the audience this program would be geared for and its demographic, " I responded. "With depression, drug abuse, and suicide reaching epidemic proportions, this is a vital group to reach with the message that there are options in life. Whether or not they ever live in the wilderness, they could benefit so much from this program's underlying message that life is not just what you see, but what there is to discover."

Believe it or not, I haven't yet seen the program. While folks here went out to find a TV so they could catch it (remember we're a puritanical isolationist enclave), I took advantage of the precious quiet time to do some writing. Of course I'll watch the program eventually; to me it and whatever its content or slant is secondary -- what I most cherish is the fact that seeds were planted.

Cubbs, our ascended virtual reality avatar, says you can have your very own copy of the program via Torrent download: http://www.mininova .org/tor/1893218

Fair warning: this program was just a warm-up -- there's more to come. I'll post again soon.

Tamarack

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