“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’ “
Isaac Asimov, “A Cult of Ignorance” January 21, 1980
This past year we all watched the media portray a white land owner well within his right, to shoot & kill a young Aboriginal youth, for reasons the white landowner was protecting his land from a trespasser.
It’s ironic, that today the media plays out another portrayal; Aboriginal land owners, protecting ancestral, traditional land being forcibly removed by heavily armed military and tactical units. The same whites who thought it was ok that the white farmer was well within his right to kill for his land, want the government to forcibly remove, and even kill Aboriginals for protecting their land.
On January 7th, 2019 a team of tactical RCMP were deployed in Wet'suwet'en territory, where they forcibly removed Gitdum'ten people and supporters from their land in order to facilitate the construction of the TransCanada Coastal Gaslink Pipeline.
Last year when the RCMP was called out, they had permission for “lethal overwatch” (SNIPERS!).
Now they are back. This time they don’t want the eyes of the world on the RCMP. So they have a twenty km “exclusion zone” keeping reporters and citizens out.
“These decisions should not ever be tied to a corporate construction schedule, such as Coastal Gas Link.
“There needs to be time and space set aside for a very thorough adjudication of the Common Law and the Wet'suwet'en Law and all aspects and dimensions of this very complicated issue.
“We have to just stop relying on these low level Interlocutory Injunctions and sending in the RCMP as if somehow they represent the corporate 7th Cavalry. It’s just absolutely reckless and irresponsible, and may cause serious injury or loss of life.”
—Grand Chief Stewart Phillip Union of BC Indian Chiefs Press Conference
Settlers like me might not get the “7th Cavalry” reference. Those were the people responsible for Custer’s Last Stand.
I’m probably shouting into the void here (Do I even have followers who aren’t bots? Signs point to no…) but Lord of the Rings is never far from my mind and I’ve been having a few thoughts about Bree that I wanted to try to get down.
What strikes me is just how unique Bree-land seems to be when you compare it to other places in Middle-earth. It’s not a kingdom or a formalised realm with a named ruler like Gondor, Rohan, Lórien, or the Woodland Realm in Mirkwood, and it’s not a kind of city-state under the authority of a mayor or a master either, like Laketown. Nor do it’s people fit into another category often found in Tolkien, that of the wandering band of exiles (Beren, Thorin & Co., theRangers of the North).
It was a part of Arnor, of course, and becomes part of the Reunited Kingdom during the Fourth but inbetween there doesn’t seem to be much central authority or government at all. Is there a mayor or some kind of council of town worthies we don’t see? Presumably somebody has to organise the watch on the gates that Harry Goatleaf is part of. And do the outlying villages such as Combe and Archet have their own laws and governance? We just don’t know!
The thing that I think is most interesting about Bree-land though is that it’s the only place, at least that I can think of, where you have two different races living side-by-side: men and hobbits. There are obviously plenty of examples of co-operation between races, particularly elves and men, going right back to the First Age. But none these examples actually involve elves and men or dwarves living together in the same settlements. Which makes sense, given longstanding feuds between elves and dwarves and different lifespans etc.
By contrast though there seems to be a lot of intermingling in Bree. I think there are some villages which are said to be predominantly populated by either men or hobbits, but it’s implied that the two populations live together without any major problems. The Prancing Pony, for example, has rooms built specially for the use of hobbits and hobbits work there. Barliman Butterbur seems to know quite a bit about about the lifestyle and preferences of hobbits.
To be honest I don’t really have much of a point here but I just think Bree has a lot of interesting wordbuilding potential and I feel like it should get more attention from the fandom!
