Now this is only my opinion and I gather that there are a lot of opinions out there on this subject-piece of land, and I'm sure the Palestinians and Israelis will also tell you that land is an issue for them in a similar way.
Read here to see what the Bennett Freeze is. Basically, in the opinion of myself and others out there in Cyberspace, it was a blockade of services to Dineh (Navajo Tribe) to force them off their aboriginal land so that the Federal Government could "give" Peabody Coal Company access to the land and the water there.
Indianz.com reports that this Thursday May 15, 2008, there is a U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing to repeal Sect. 10 (f) of P.L. 93-531, which is also known as the "Bennett Freeze." Robert Bennet was head of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1966 and he is "credited" with having created this policy.
The web page, Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute, states that:
Observers at the time of this decision felt (and wrote) that it (the Bennet Freeze temporarily being removed) seems to have been influenced by the fact that the Navajo tribe could be expected to be more compliant and friendly to Peabody Coal than Hopis with newly-affirmed Navajo subsurface rights. The coal deals were the basis for the swift rise to power of long-term Navajo tribal chairman Peter MacDonald, who had been appointed (in 1963) to head Office of Navajo Economic Opportunity. MacDonald was elected to the first of his many terms as tribal chairman in 1970. MacDonald was recently released for health reasons from federal prison terms being served for convictions in 1990, 1992 and 1993 for racketeering and corruption charges in relation to land and financial dealings.
Peabody Coal was formerly a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kennecott Copper. Many mergers later, it is now part of an empire of coal, owned by a British holding company, Hanson. Not only was the Black Mesa to be strip-mined, but the Mohave power plant, 275 miles away was to be -- and is -- fed by a liquified slurry of crushed coal pumped along a pipeline that uses 3,000 gallons a minute of precious desert aquifer water, laid down in the deep rocks millions of years ago, before this land was desert. This irreplaceable water is the most valuable of the subsurface rights Peabody acquired access to, and its profligate use is the most threatening to long-term survival of the entire southwest. The water pumping all takes place near the Black Mesa mine (though it can suck water from hundreds of miles away, the entire aquifer). The Peabody Kayenta mine feeds the power plant at Page with dry coal on coal trains. But for Black Mesa, Peabody counts only the cheaper method of delivery, which maximizes its profits, not counting the cost of stolen water to all life in the southwest.
Dirty Per Caps? Keep the Natives dependent, poor, denied of basic privileges, so that you can gain the most precious resources from under their feet for the cheapest of prices. Sounds like the policy was hard hitting all over Indian Country.
"It is discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit." (think: "money & bottom line")
Related Blog Posts:
"Good Indians"
"An Ammotment of Sorts"
Showing posts with label Coal bed methane. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coal bed methane. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
An "amootment" of sorts!
Ok,
I have been following this issue on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation with some excitement. It matters because I side with those who believe that this is a matter for corporate money or dirty per caps. Dirty per caps are those that corporate people offer up to the poorest people to give the smallest amount possible to take the greatest amount from those who need it the most.
I have followed the coal bed methane issue for a while now and I am convinced that it is just as dangerous as the faulty software that predicted that the National Nuclear Waste dump would be a safe facility. The problem in that scenario was that the software only projected 50 years out. That did not endear me to the EPA when I applied for a job there out of college, but you know I really didn't care. And I still don't. If I have an opinion, then you can be assured that it has been forged from my exposure on a daily basis to those who, daily, have unmet needs the most.
So why would I form an opinion on the matter? Well, I can remember very vividly a man speaking to me about the policy for land acquisition. The position was that the government through BLM and BIA, and various other agencies, departments, cabinets, and legislation is in a position to continually keep the reservations in a poor state of affairs. The reasoning behind that was to continually keep offering the lowest deals to the people with the highest needs to gain the most beneficial returns because they are indeed the poorest people in the United States.
Beneficial was to the corporations who made the deals while the government winked an eye toward nefarious deals.
It has some history going way back. You know that the Black Hills were part of the reservation dontcha? Well very few of you will know that the generals in the army at the time were communicating with the president asking if they should wink a knowing eye toward the miners, the mining scouts, the railroad surveyors--all the people who were trespassing in the Black Hills. And we all know the results. Now the Black Hills is purported to have been bought by the Government from the Indian Nations. No money has been accepted, from some of the poorest people on this soil called the United States.
I would hope that the Northern Cheyenne people and all tribes rally behind the "supposedly ousted," legally elected Tribal President, Eugene Little Coyote. There is an interesting article on his site The New Front Line that calls all tribes to unity. There is also an article where one of our dubious leaders in the BIA, Carl Artman, seems to refute his whole argument which fueled the incident even more. He uses "mootment" as a term that seems to be serious although the result is anything but serious.
And we all here on this blog know that "results is what matters!"
I would hope that the Northern Cheyenne reach the most beneficial use of their land, no matter the cost. I won't say what the most beneficial use will be, because that really is best left to them. And the Bureau of Indian Affairs had best not make the MOOTSTAKE of interfering with the sovereignty of the Northern Cheyenne. Lets hope it works out for the best for those people and all of Indian Country.
I would encourage everybody to read up on this issue and decide for yourselves whether joining the amicus brief would be a vote for tribal sovereignty everywhere.
I have been following this issue on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation with some excitement. It matters because I side with those who believe that this is a matter for corporate money or dirty per caps. Dirty per caps are those that corporate people offer up to the poorest people to give the smallest amount possible to take the greatest amount from those who need it the most.
I have followed the coal bed methane issue for a while now and I am convinced that it is just as dangerous as the faulty software that predicted that the National Nuclear Waste dump would be a safe facility. The problem in that scenario was that the software only projected 50 years out. That did not endear me to the EPA when I applied for a job there out of college, but you know I really didn't care. And I still don't. If I have an opinion, then you can be assured that it has been forged from my exposure on a daily basis to those who, daily, have unmet needs the most.
So why would I form an opinion on the matter? Well, I can remember very vividly a man speaking to me about the policy for land acquisition. The position was that the government through BLM and BIA, and various other agencies, departments, cabinets, and legislation is in a position to continually keep the reservations in a poor state of affairs. The reasoning behind that was to continually keep offering the lowest deals to the people with the highest needs to gain the most beneficial returns because they are indeed the poorest people in the United States.
Beneficial was to the corporations who made the deals while the government winked an eye toward nefarious deals.
It has some history going way back. You know that the Black Hills were part of the reservation dontcha? Well very few of you will know that the generals in the army at the time were communicating with the president asking if they should wink a knowing eye toward the miners, the mining scouts, the railroad surveyors--all the people who were trespassing in the Black Hills. And we all know the results. Now the Black Hills is purported to have been bought by the Government from the Indian Nations. No money has been accepted, from some of the poorest people on this soil called the United States.
I would hope that the Northern Cheyenne people and all tribes rally behind the "supposedly ousted," legally elected Tribal President, Eugene Little Coyote. There is an interesting article on his site The New Front Line that calls all tribes to unity. There is also an article where one of our dubious leaders in the BIA, Carl Artman, seems to refute his whole argument which fueled the incident even more. He uses "mootment" as a term that seems to be serious although the result is anything but serious.
And we all here on this blog know that "results is what matters!"
I would hope that the Northern Cheyenne reach the most beneficial use of their land, no matter the cost. I won't say what the most beneficial use will be, because that really is best left to them. And the Bureau of Indian Affairs had best not make the MOOTSTAKE of interfering with the sovereignty of the Northern Cheyenne. Lets hope it works out for the best for those people and all of Indian Country.
I would encourage everybody to read up on this issue and decide for yourselves whether joining the amicus brief would be a vote for tribal sovereignty everywhere.
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