Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Walker Going Straight After Penokee Hills...

Clean water and the Ojibwe culture with a mountain-top-removing, lake-filling, stream-choking, acid-draining mining measure that will be the first bill of the session, his lieutenants say.

And which will die in the courts as Walker's ideological, destructive fool's gold fool's errand.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, you surely don’t have a clue about the Iron mine in northern Wisconsin. The land was originally bought from the Indians (who didn’t even own it) for the sole purpose of mining and has been owned by mining companies (and mined) since the earliest times that the land was purchased. The environmental regulations will ensure that there is no damage to the water quality or any resources related to water quality and there are no lakes which will be filled in. Total, absolute lies.

Anonymous said...

Well I understand and support your setiment, there are a few points here:

1. It should not be up to First Americans to clean up the mess caused by our dysfunctional democracy.

2. Assuming that First Americans are going to get a fair shake in state and then federal courts is not being respectful of the tragic legacy of how our courts were complicit with stealing lands and rewriting history and legal documents to seal the massive theft for all time.

3. The Wisconsin media, of which you have been a part, all actively LIED about last year's "State of the Tribes" address in Madison, proclaiming that First American leadership expressed support for environmentally responsible mining and the jobs this would create -- ad River tribal chair Michael Wiggins said NOTHING to support mining, but EVERYONE in the media misrepresented that he did.

4. Given the history of the repug multinational corporate interests behind this bill, the support they will get from the media, and the legal support they will likely get from our courts, you proclaimations ring hollow.

In fact, to some, they sound downright disrespectful and dismissive -- anyone that assumes our judicial system is going to solve problems with irresponsible mining is not paying attention.

And that is being as nice about it as I can.

Anonymous said...

To paraphrase President Obama....

regarding ignoring Ojibwa Treaty Rights......

"Please proceed Governor ignore if you wish... the courts will cleanup your mess."

Anonymous said...

anon -- courts will take years resolving this, so in that sense it may, but if you think the current judicial branch, dominated by corporatist republicans, is going to come the the rescue of the very group our judicial branch marginalized generations ago, you don't know what you are talking about.

I don't understand why anyone thinks it makes sense to talk about Federal Courts being the "knight in shiny armor" here.

Wasn't this a "reality community"?

I guess not.