Rolling The Dice Against Casinos

I am not used to being against the plans of progressive Democrats, but I am against Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's plans for casinos in Massachusetts. And I am happy that MA Republicans and some Democrats (I imagine) have put an end to it for now.

While I am someone who would go to a casino and have fun at one, but I would prefer that casinos did not exist. Patrick's claims that they will help the Massachusetts economy is so Faustian it's ridiculous. Casinos foster addictions of all kinds, add to crime, add to spirals of social disorganization in hyper ghetto environments, and fundamentally hustle poor and middle class people out of money. It's one of the most regressive ideas I've ever heard for boosting an economy and I am happy that it's not happening in Massachusetts.

But to complicate matters, some say Native Americans may be building casinos on reservations in Massachusetts and they already have in Connecticut. One part of me is so sad that Native Americans have had their cultures so broken that the only way that they can rebuild is by letting themselves be co-opted by the White Man's culture. But another part of me, and here's where I'm very contradictory takes schadenfreude in the phenomenon on Indian casinos. The reason: because American Indians deserve the entire United States back. Something that will not happen. The White Man used genocidal tactics (small pox, etc) to get rid of their culture and a countless number of their lives. It gives me a satisfying sense of schadenfreude that they are now fighting the White Man on the White Man's weaknesses. Casinos are bad for the United States. They are, despite my willingness to go to them, fundamentally rotten things. So let Indians use them to help bring us down a little. I mean, we owe them more than we can ever give them in return. So let them help gut our culture from the inside. It's their right.

At the same time, I'm not inclined to believe that my schadenfreude will be productive in the end for Indians (who will continue to get more necessary attention from Congress now that some have money) or for the rest of us. My anger at the White Man's culture really leads to nowhere but Hell on Earth and that's something that I do not want. So rather than my acting on this anger and saying, "go ahead tribes: kill us off with our own poisons" there must be a better way toward healing. After all, remember what Gandhi said about an eye for an eye.

On a lighter note, Lindsay Lohan may or may not have been involved in the production of a sex tape. Kind of makes the cultural genocide and takeover of the United States worth it just so we can catch a web video of that piece of ass. Oh yeah.*

*irate sarcasm