| Grijalva steps up to the plate and goes to bat against another Bush Interior “midnight regulation” aimed at looting sacred water for the Peabody Western Coal Company while tribes perform spiritual ceremonies.
Dang, if you listen close – that sounds like a John Prine endorsement to me ! |
At least it’s serendipitous…
Grijalva weighs in on these practices – what academics call “environmental racism” – and insensitivity to tribal ceremony and public input at Interior demanding that Kempthorne suspend the threatening mine :
“The Interior Department and OSM are moving forward on this project to try to approve it before the end of the year,” said Grijalva. “During a time of sacred religious ceremonies on Hopi, OSM is expecting the Hopi people to understand a complicated legal process to approve mining without a functioning tribal council to represent them. The Secretary needs to suspend this process until the tribal council is once again functional and spiritual ceremonies have concluded. Doing otherwise ignores the important obligations the federal government has toward tribes.
More background – Federal officials listen but reject tribal members’ concerns about aquifer use – Indian Country Today
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From the article:
“Mining at Black Mesa has caused springs on Hopi lands to dry up and jeopardized the sole source of drinking water for many Hopis and Navajos,” stated Grijalva. “The Secretary, as the trustee for Native American tribes, must ensure that mining is done responsibly on tribal lands and that tribes actually want mining to occur. This project does not meet that test.”
Now THIS is a leader — who cares about people.
WHAT, pray tell, are the other names floated for Interior doing right now? Polishing their cowboy boots? Stroking their gold coins from lobbyist fees? Figuring out what B. L. M. stands for?
Now we can all sing along…
When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there’s a backwards old town that’s often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.
Chorus:
And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away
Well, sometimes we’d travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we’d shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.
Repeat Chorus:
Then the coal company came with the world’s largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.
Repeat Chorus:
When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I’ll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin’
Just five miles away from wherever I am.
Ahhh..music in the morning.
Grijalva continues to do his job while the rest of the candidates are busy trying to line them up. Hey. Obama and the Transition Team…WAKE UP!!