Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Please note I have a new phone number...

512-517-2708

Alan Maki

Alan Maki
Doing research at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

A program for real change...

http://peaceandsocialjustice.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-progressive-program-for-real-change.html


What we need is a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity" which would make it a mandatory requirement that the president and Congress attain and maintain full employment.


"Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens"

- Ben Franklin

Let's talk...

Let's talk...

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Will the hypocrisy of environmentalists and greed and corruption of the Indian Gaming Industry bring ruin to the Penokee Hills in northern Wisconsin?

There is so much hypocrisy in the environmental movement which is headed up by muddle-headed middle class intellectuals who make their livings from foundation grants and who have no concern for working people.

The fact of the matter is, these "philanthropists" who contribute to the foundations which are funding most of the environmental organizations like Save the Waters Edge are the very robber barons who derive their profits exploiting workers and raping Mother Nature as they lord over the mining, forestry and power generating industries along with the Indian Gaming Industry.

Take a look at the environmental movement underway to save the Penokee Hills in northern Wisconsin.

A very noble effort is being made to protect the environment and ecosystem from destruction by an iron ore mining project.

What I don't understand is why the same scientific methodology, logic, reasoning, facts and empirical evidence don't apply to the second-hand smoke and noise levels in the casinos in the Indian Gaming Industry like the Bad River Casino at the base of the Penokee Hills where workers are forced to work for poverty wages and without any rights especially when the solutions are so simple:

1. Put up "No Smoking" signs. (Cost: $50.00 for "No Smoking" signs.)

2. Turn down the volume. (Cost: $0.00. Just turn down the volume controls.)

It seems where profits are at stake, being the mining industry or the Indian Gaming Industry, profits always come before human health and the environment.

Does the environment in the workplace matter to environmentalists?

Does it make any sense to protect people from the predicted pending environmental catastrophe this iron ore mining would supposedly pose to human health and the environment only to kill the very people being protected from iron ore mining in smoke-filled casinos?

Does it make any difference if a worker goes deaf because of loud noises in a casino or working on a crusher?

I predict the environmentalists will fail to halt the iron ore mining in northern Wisconsin's Penokee Hills because their own hypocrisy will be used by the proponents of iron ore mining to discredit them.

I spend a lot of time fly-fishing the trout streams of the Penokee Hills but how could I possibly work with these "environmentalists" whose leader is a Green Party politician--- Frank Koehn--- who is in the pocket of the Indian Gaming Industry, and other such hypocrites who have no concern for the health of workers in the Indian Gaming Industry?

The epitome of this hypocrisy is Mike Wiggins, Jr. who is the Chair of the Bad River Indian Nation who says he is concerned that iron ore mining in the Penokee Hills will adversely affect air and water quality when he is the one responsible for subjecting casino workers to second-hand smoke and the sewage problem resulting from the waste created from the casino is polluting the rivers and lakes because he is too cheap to put in the proper sewage system.

Everyone knows the only reason Mike Wiggins, Jr. is opposing the iron ore mining is because the union wages paid to iron ore miners would force Wiggins to pay casino workers a higher wage... Wiggins obviously doesn't care about clean air or clean water or else he would clean up his own act.

I guess I'll have to find a new place to fish... the poor fish are going to die just like casino workers.

The environmentalists are already crying for the fish without shedding any tears for casino workers dying from second-hand smoke created cancers, heart and lung diseases and complications second-hand smoke causes to people suffering from diabetes.

Mike Wiggins, Jr. says he is concerned for future generations should iron ore mining take place in the Penokee Hills. Wiggins can't be all that concerned about future generations because most of the workers employed in the Bad River Casino are young women of child-bearing years and science has proven second-hand smoke is very hazardous to the health of pregnant women, unborn children and nursing mothers and their infants.

Will the hypocrisy of environmentalists and greed and corruption of the Indian Gaming Industry bring ruin to the Penokee Hills in northern Wisconsin?