sakaisettlersocr

milltant mural In east Los Angeles: Strident voices from some quarters have grown louder.
Photo for the Trtoune by AP
tegrated" if you will - into this specific society.
So in Amerika intra-oppressor class distinctions
have always been muted on the mass level by the fact that
the main distinction was whether you were a settler or a
subject, whether you were in the slave patrols or enslaved
in the fields, whether you were in the frontier garrison
community or imprisoned in the reservation. This was the
all-important identity, to which everything else was subordinate.
Only someone with no contact with reality can fail
to see this.
The Garrison Community
The Euro-Amerikan community is not just a conglomeration
of stores and residences. It is a physical structure
for settler life, in which the common culture of the
Empire garrison still lives on. These garrison communities
are enforcers of the oppressor nation way of life among its
citizens, demanding social conformity and ideological
regimentation. They have certain specific characteristics:
the most glaring of which is that colonial subjects are
generally barred out. Why should the settler garrison let
the "Indians" live inside the walls of the fort? There is an
arrogance but at the same time an underlying feeling of being
threatened or besieged by "those people" - which occasionally
breaks out in collective hysteria (during which
guns are flourished and the laggards rush to buy out the
local gunshops). The confining, boring and philistine way
of life of these communities is one reason Euro-Amerikan
youth "dropped out" of them in such numbers during the
1 960s.
There are, of course, different types of settler
communities, distinguished by a number of things, including
by class. The community of multi-millionaires in
Palm Springs or Aspen is very different from the communities
of Canarsie or Skokie or Charlestown. As are the
"hip-eoisie" communities of Berkeley or Greenwich
Village. On the mass level, however, a certain type oJ
supra-class Euro-Amerikan community has been
characteristic for over a century. It is a small homeowning,
small-propertied community. In it the lower middle
class, the labor aristocracy and other workers share the
tight but generally comfortable life of the settler garrison.
This is where community life is supported by the con-
151 spicuous concentration of state services - parks, garbage