Yahtaeo, Understood

Where is Yahtaeo? Geographically less so - more so temporally; spatially in our consciousness.

Yahtaeo is where the path untaken at the great fork in this nation's history led to. When notions of this nation's possibility as an independent society were being formulated, there was one clear option - and one option obscured. This nation chose at that time the clear option - the option to attempt to create a better Europe, a better Britain, a better Commonwealth. A path that led through Roman law, Christian philosophy, and English socio-political theory... cobbled together to attempt to create a system that would (finally) work. A system done right, in lieu of the many perceived failures that lay in the wake of European ships racing westward to disgorge their human payloads onto the continent.

But the obscured option. What of that? When the thought leaders, innovators and movers coalesced around the desirability of independence, why did they choose not to also sever their ties with the metaphysics, philosophies and social artifacts that they felt had failed them in their exercise in the real (as subjects of the British constitutional monarchy)? Around and amongst them were a myriad of models well and truly removed from the taint of history - the taint of tyranny - the taint of failed utopian dreams turned to human misery.

Imagine a national mentality that had concluded two hundred fifty years ago that the root of the problem was not merely political independence; that it was truly cultural independence that would set them free. One that had turned to integrate the perspectives and sociocultural norms of the First Peoples into the Great Experiment, instead of seeking their continued genocide and defilement.

What a turn would be there! How radically redefined would have been the historical development of Those United States of America. Or perhaps Tribes? Or Compacts? What sort of land would this be now? What sort of world would resulted from the impact of such a choice?

The Federal Republic constructed by this nation to govern the country is reaching a crossroads inevitable to every Republic in European civilization. They are inherently unstable creatures that seem to thrive on empire more in its acquisition than its administration. Redefining the political realities of this nation though place us back at that crossroads that others faced two hundred and fifty years ago. Build on the known, or look to the novel?

Perhaps if this nation has any real future, then it may very well lay on the path untrodden. Instead of These United States of America, perhaps instead there is a new name yet to unfold. A new story taken from an old one unwritten.

Yahtaeo?

-Three Feather