A Metaphor to Help Ease the Insanity

How you doing? How are you doing? Have you watched any of the news? I'm talking globally. I'm talking locally, nationally, regionally, whether it's our country here in Canada or southern neighbor or across the ocean. How are you doing? I'm gonna admit I'm getting seriously frustrated. I feel like I'm banging my head on the wall when I watch the latest BS that is happening. And I kind of couldn't figure out why, except for the fact that it's totally overwhelming. And then a metaphor came to mind. I was like, yep, that's it. Let's talk about it. Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River first nation in Treaty 3 territory in Northern Ontario. And yes, in case you didn't figure the little. Do the math. Figure it out. I am Anishinaabe Kwe. I am an indigenous female living within Canadian borders, which has always come with its own unique set of challenges. I did a video recently about the people that don't do politics. I guess I've mentioned it a couple of times. We've never had that choice. Being indigenous is political. So, yeah. So I like, you know what? Politics fascinates me. Running a country fascinates me. It's not an easy job. I am not interested in the opinion of the cheap seats. The people who have never led anything in their flipping life, who think they have a qualified opinion to discuss how a country should be run. That's ludicrous. But what else is ludicrous is what's going on right now. I mean, we got Trump just ended all support of financial aid to Ukraine. We have the UK stepping up to UK saying that boots on the ground or planes in the air, whatever, they need to stop Russia, which I agree with. Because if you think Russia is going to stop after taking Ukraine, you're nuts. Said totally respectfully, but you're nuts. We've got Doug Ford here in our province who just got in as the premier again. He's at PDAC right now, the mining conference, and he just announced that he is pushing that mining in the ring of fire in the northern communities, and he is promising all of these financial bonuses to the First Nation communities. He's trying to pay them off. They have concerns, they have fears. Throwing money at us doesn't help. And guess what? All it does is make Canadians hate us more. We didn't ask for the flipping money. We asked for someone to hear our concerns. So he basically stood at PDAC and Said, now, if you've watched my videos for any length of time, you've heard me refer to pushy non indigenous people as bulldozers. Well, that definitely describes Doug Ford, and now he's talking about literally bringing in the bulldozers. But you know what? Go for it. Try it. Challenge the chiefs. Because indigenous people have endured and endured and endured. We have been classified as in the way since the settlers got here. In the way on our own land. How would you feel if someone told you you were in the way in your backyard? But that's how they love to classify us. To hell with our concerns. To heck with our families, to heck with our lack of drinking water. You didn't care two beans to put a road into our communities. But if it goes by our communities to the mining sites, let's not even talk about the man camps and what happens to indigenous women and girls when there's a mining camp nearby. Do not pretend this is for the best interest of the indigenous peoples, because it has never been about our best interest. It is about getting us out of the way again. So when the tariffs just upped again, so prices are going up, it's just. So we got Trump. Well, and Putin. Putin is test. What do you call it? Toasting. Toasting the champagne. Literally. Not Putin, but one of his high advisors came out and said they are absolutely thrilled with union ass policies because it's now in line with the. The Russian policies. It's insanity. So we got Trump, we got Putin, we got Ford. Like, I was frustrated. I am frustrated. And then something popped into my head that kind of made me smile and I thought, yep, that describes it. So if you've watched my videos for any length of time, you know I live in the city of Thunder Bay in Northern Ontario, a city known nationally for its anti indigenous racism. A well earned title, by the way, for those that want to dismiss it. I have long said there were two Thunder Bays. The Thunder Bay for indigenous people filled with racism and judgment and physical assault and verbal assaults, insanity. And then we have the Thunder Bay of non indigenous people who talk about the great skiing and the great landscape. It is beautiful here. I just wish we could enjoy it peacefully as well, considering it's our traditional territories. But I digress. So I live in the city of Thunder Bay, but I didn't grow up here. I actually grew up in a way smaller northern Ontario town of then about 400 people. Way less now, I would guess. And it was what do they call, unorganized township. So we didn't have the Services of a municipality in our town. We had two tiny little grocery stores, we had post office. You could go to public school up to grade six. But then you had to bust to the next town. The hospital, the clinic, all of that was in the next town, including the police. I may or may not have taken part in parties on the main drag. Sitting on the post office steps, just saying, just putting it out there. But the metaphor or the story that came to my mind this morning thinking about this insanity that is the world these days was actually. So my next older brother is three years older than me. His. One of his good friends for some reason, I don't know how, but they. His family owned like they lived in one house and they owned this other house. I don't know if they bought it or inheritance or whatever. Irrelevant. Nobody lived in the second house. And it quickly became a party house. Now, this party, like literally. Yeah, I went there to have a party, a house party. And I guess at least you weren't tearing up someone's home anyway. We weren't tearing it up. We were just partying and listening to loud music and drinking. Anyways. It didn't have a bathroom, which wasn't unheard of. The home I grew up in didn't have indoor plumbing either. So I don't know what the girls attending the party did about that. I never stayed at the party long enough for that to be an issue. But I know what the guys did. There was the side door that was the main enter exit of the building. But there was also a back door that led onto a little step. And then you took the stairs down to the driveway. The guys would go out the back door and stand on that top step and see how far they could pee in the snow. It was a literal contest. We're going to say peeing contest. Okay, Guess what modern day politics is. Can you say egos? Can you say testosterone? Can you say insecurities? Can you say, I want your toys? It's insanity. It is absolutely insanity. And the other thing that came to mind is someone explained this to me ages ago. The Haudenosaunee in southern Ontario, traditionally they had a grandmother's council. So these are not my teachings. I'm Anishinaabe Kwe, but I can be impressed with this. The Hone Ni had a grandmother's council. And that council was tasked with choosing the leadership, choosing the chief, someone who had earned the right and had the wisdom and experience to be able to do a good job in that role. They also were the only body or person or entity that had the authority to decide if an issue was important enough for the nation to go to war. Do you know why? Because the grandmothers were the only one who could decide that if something was worth their grandson dying for. And sometimes there is, but it doesn't happen very often. Could we get maybe a global grandmother's council? I actually think there are councils of indigenous elders, but we need these guys need some guidance. Putin and Trump are peeing in the sandbox and asking us to play in it. I don't know what the solution is, but this is insanity. The tariffs are on now, the prices are up. Ukraine, I hope all of UK comes out to back Ukraine. And Trump, I don't know what's going to happen to him, but I hope something happens soon before he drags us all straight to hell. I hope you're taking care of yourself. I hope you've upped your self care game. I hope you can find a funny metaphor from your past to help you explain this insanity because I don't think it's ending anytime soon. Take care of you. I love you. Bye bye.