American Thinker

by Geoffrey P. Hunt

    That wasn’t an original leftist thought, but perhaps her youth explains why she seems unfamiliar with Woody Guthrie’s most famous rebuke, the 1940 splenetic “This Land is Your Land.” The “stolen land” trope is one of those standard-issue protest exhortations found on Abbie Hoffman’s ubiquitous yellow legal pads, amongst the remains of his last day found at his final home in Pennsylvania, a renovated upscale turkey/chicken coop.

    Hoffman, a leading 1960s-70s rabble-rouser, prankster, and subversive provocateur, combined absurd wit with both anarchy and atrophy. Still, with a BA from Brandeis and a Psychology MA from Berkeley, Hoffman was at least literate and well-read.

    He lived modestly, primarily in New York’s East Village, and in what I would describe as the Hippie/Yippie plain style. The Hippies, of course, pretended to be aligned with stoic no frills Amish, but apart from beards, bare feet, straw hats, unpasteurized milk, and overalls, couldn’t be bothered with the physical, spiritual, and cerebral toil.

    Still, Abbie Hoffman, a mushy Jacobin, was neither a hypocrite nor a bomb thrower.

    When Hoffman wrote “Steal This Book”, the countercultural campy cookbook on living life “As You Like It” for free, he wasn’t projecting some third-person provocation. He wanted his own book in the public domain, spreading the gospel of peace, love, and egalitarianism, at his own expense.

    Now, here is Billie Eilish, moralizing behind her 12x12 timbered gate enclosing a multi-million dollar enclave, indeed on the land once occupied by a Native American Los Angeles basin tribe—Gabrielino-Tongva. Of course, Billie Eilish has no intention of laughing at her own bêtise, nor donating all her royalties to the Tongva peoples.

    No, Billie Eilish, you’re no Abbie Hoffman.

    Abbie Hoffman actually lived a principled life, despite being connected to interstate conspiracies to foment riots and hob-knobbing with alleged bombers of federal buildings. Hoffman’s reprobate life faced real consequences, unlike the elite Billie Eilish tribe, which faces no consequences for being simultaneously illiterate, stupid, vapid, and astonishingly influential to millions of fools who can vote and assault federal law enforcement officers with impunity, while protected by federal judges who disdain the oath upon which they swore.

    Of course, settler colonialists haunted by survivors’ guilt living on stolen land are everywhere—as my neighbors in downeast Maine who operate an organic apple/pear/peach orchard can attest-- obstinately transparent and obtuse as to their moral appropriation, to wit:

    Here’s their stolen land acknowledgement and contrition from their website:

    Our Land Acknowledgment:

    We acknowledge we farm on the stolen homeland of the Wabanaki people. We hold great respect and gratitude for the many generations of Indigenous peoples that have co-existed with this land we now call Maine for thousands of years and continue to do so today. We acknowledge the ongoing violation of the Wabanaki’s water, land and sacred rights to this day. We pledge to stand with the Wabanaki in their fight for tribal sovereignty and to support the many Indigenous-led food sovereignty and environmental programs that are thriving in the Wabanaki Homeland today.

    Action Plan:

Donate to the purchase of Niweskok’s Farm in the Penobscot Bay Region

Continue to write testimony in support of Wabanaki Tribal Sovereignty

Continue to show up to Indigenous-led rallies

Donate resources to Indigenous-led organizations

Continue to attend other Wabanaki Reach educational events

Continue to put in our own time and effort to learn Wabanaki’s and other Indigenous peoples’ histories

Introduce the concept and the responsibility of a “land acknowledgement” to other White-led organizations that we work with

    A while back, I wrote to my neighbors about the consequences of their confession:

    I’ve been a fan of your apples and cider, but your statement on your website about your orchards on stolen land from the Wabanaki is disingenuous.

Your action plan omits the most sincere and tangible advocacy--why not give the land and your orchard back to the Wabanaki

    Otherwise your “action plan” is merely verbal self-flagellation, an empty act of contrition, and certainly unserious.

Kind regards, Geoff Hunt

    As expected, here was their reply, a few days later:

Hi Geoff,

    Thanks for visiting our website! Kind of amazing, though, you’d take the time to parse out our Wabanaki land acknowledgement and make assumptions about what we have done or will do, and insult us in the process. That’s ok, we fully understand the phenomenon of the unearned confidence of the mediocre white man. To be fair, you do raise a valid point, one that we have discussed at length, and since we are childless cat ladies we are strongly considering donating the land when we pass. Whether we do or not, we will continue to work with Wabanaki leadership on shore access rights (we organized a great event on Naskeag a few months ago, did you make it ), tribal sovereignty, and educational events. We will also continue to work seven days a week providing fresh fruit, at a financial loss, to our community. We respect that you felt strongly enough to write us, but would request that you choose another target for your manufactured outrage.

Kind regards,

Tim and Molly

    As you might guess, my “manufactured outrage” would not be quenched, thus my retort, which, nearly two years later, has not been rebuffed:

    Dear Tim and Molly:

    Well, I didn’t need to do much parsing of your website to see your explicit dramatic public confession that you are operating your orchard on stolen land.

    Unless your confession is simply a geo-political metaphorical construct, i.e. self-aggrandizing moralizing, the only logical consequence would be for you to return the land to its rightful owner; not at some undefined future date, but now.

    Otherwise you are engaging in moral cognitive dissonance, burnishing your credentials as an agent of social justice leveraging the plight of the Wabanaki suffering at the hands of illegitimate squatters-- which just happen to be you, one more in the unbroken line of white Euro appropriators.

    Of course, how every settled population in the world would self-deport back to its original homeland, no one knows Which is precisely why you won’t give back your orchard to the Wabanaki. After all, where will you go  Assuming you are the progeny of settler-colonialists which all of us are, unless descendants of slaves, the so-called right-of-return is a fantasy.

    Moreover, and most egregiously, you are also using Wabanaki land--once again stolen land by your own admission —to operate a commercial enterprise for organic produce whether profitable or not--garnering meaningful approbations from a community with whom you take pleasure in virtuous transactions. Moral appropriation is just as unseemly as cultural appropriation.

    Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy a bountiful harvest.

Best, Geoff

    As a 12th-generation shameless descendant of settler-colonialists in Plymouth, and Salem/Amesbury, Massachusetts, the label of “settler-colonialist” is hardly an epithet, much less deserving of self-loathing.

    Stolen land  Conquered land for sure. To the conquerors go the bounties, just or otherwise. Not a boast, merely pragmatic geo-socio-politics, since recorded history commenced.

    By the way, I’m sure Billie Eilish’s music is divine, and Molly and Tim are faithful stewards of heirloom organic apple stock, worm-free, the darlings of Thursday’s local farmers’ market.