I posted this as a comment in a facebook
discussion on the KXL Pipeline running from the tar sands of Alberta to
Texas and points east and west that Obama is going to approve. I think
this comment I made kind of stands on its own so I am sharing it here. If there are questions feel free to ask away; or take issue with what I have stated:
Here are a few articles on the history of the situation in northern Minnesota where I live:
http://pineislandstateforest.blogspot.com/
http://redlakewalleyefishery.blogspot.com/
http://nativeamericanindianlaborunion12.blogspot.com/
I would note there are several very important issues not being
addressed by the environmental or labor movement regarding employment
issues.
First of all, Affirmative Action has never been enforced on any of the mining, pipeline or powerline work.
Second; T.E.R.O. has not been enforced in any of the work being done on
Indian Reservations and Indian Lands. This will explain T.E.R.O. as few
people know what it is let alone understand that it is the law of the
land just like Affirmative Action:
http://www.llojibwe.com/services/dev/tero.html
I would call to everyone's attention the interview of Roger Jourdain
linked to on the right-hand side of this website. Jourdain was a
defender of worker's rights and an environmentalist who was the Chair of
the Red Lake Nation for almost thirty years until the Minnesota Indian
Gaming Association and the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party
engineered his defeat:
http://kickitupanotch1917.blogspot.com/
Employment and the environment are, as is often said, two sides of the same coin.
This thread has opened up a lot of very important information but there
is much more which needs to be addressed simply because the ongoing
genocide against Native Peoples has become very complex.
Very
few people understand the racist "Doctrine of Discovery" and the racist
United States Supreme Court decision of "Johnson versus M'Intosh" issued
in 1823 which still stands to this day and is used to run all these
pipelines, powerlines and mining operations on Indian Lands.
Complicating this even further, is the very legitimate demand being made
by many Native American Indian activists, that tribal councils should
have the right to tax all the oil, gas, electricity and the fruits of
mining from tribal lands.
And to further complicate all of this
there is Homeland Security and the FBI and local law enforcement and
county prosecutors harassing those who speak up to no end. Greg Paquin,
who was the founder of the Native American Indian Labor Union #12 whose
blog I posted above, was harassed by the FBI so severely he took his own
life last year. And this is not an isolated murder by this method;
people living on Indian Reservations can tell this same story over and
over again just the names change.
And complicating this even
further is the fact that the National, Regional and State Indian Gaming
Associations are using environmental issues to wrest concessions from
politicians on gaming issues as I documented in my blog posted above
where the Red Lake Tribal Council signed off on peat mining in exchange
for a new casino in International Falls, Minnesota where they wanted to
fleece the workers in the paper mills on both sides of the U.S.-Canada
border.
We are at the point where either we need to elect new
politicians committed to solving all of these problems in a progressive
manner putting people and the environment first; or, we need to go to
war against these huge industries whose only intent is to make maximum
super profits.
It looks to me like it will take quite a lot of
both. And we can't be strengthening the hand of the very politicians
like Obama by supporting them when we know full well we will end up
having to fight them--- like with KXL pipeline.
And if this
earnest effort isn't going to be made to stop KXL, an earnest effort has
to be made one way or another to make sure T.E.R.O. and Affirmative
Action in employment are enforced--- the two are mutually inclusive; not
exclusive but so far the environmental movement is doing no better than
organized labor in understanding this... and activists like Greg Paquin
who understood this end up getting harassed not only by the FBI and
Homeland Security, but by corrupt tribal councils and the leaders of
these environmental movements and even the leaders of their own unions.
Progressives are going to have to consider the entire big picture here.
Not all environmental activists are anti-racist and pro-labor
progressives and not all labor leaders are progressive--- some are
downright reactionary and racist, too.
There really needs to be
a full and open discussion about all of this and how all of these
issues and problems need to be considered in finding solutions.
The jobs issue is an important issue; and, if environmentalists are
going to address this issue we need to be discussing the kinds of jobs
we need in this country and how we will be paying for them--- by peace
dividends derived by ending these dirty wars and ending this insanity of
militarism.
The energy requirements of this country right now
are integrally connected to the needs of Wall Street's imperialist
agenda of world domination. One more complex issue part of this entire
equation. Where is the peace movement in all of this?
It looks
to me like we need to be thinking along the lines of an anti-monopoly
coalition all of our organizations and movements need to be plugging
into as we proceed in which we declare Wall Street our enemy and the
need to take this enemy down simply because our very survival depends on
us doing this.