DESPITE GLOBAL WARMING: Peabody Coal Pushes to Expand Occupation of Dineh & Hopi Ancestral Lands
Big Mountain, Arizona April 2008 – This news is all too familiar in that, it is that American mentality at its finest where it follows that archaic Roman notion of ‘pillage for the spoils and destroy the barbaric, indigenous inhabitants.’ Peabody Coal Company has the “illegal” and corporate upper-hand in these renewed plans where the Office of Surface Mining is intending to approve the expansion of the mine lease areas on Black Mesa in northeast Arizona. In some local communities like within the Big Mountain region, there are still traditional Dineh (Navajo) elders making attempts to instruct their younger community members to fight this new surge for coal mine expansions that will eventually intrude into the Big Mountain lands. Big Mountain peoples have also resisted federal laws of forcible relocation since the late 1970s.
Peabody’s new aggressive push to expand its occupation not only poses a genocidal threat on the regional indigenous nations, but it simply shows that the U.S. government continues to ignore all credible scientific evidence and studies that global warming is actually taking place. The traditional elders of Hopi and Dineh have endured decades of harsh U.S. Indian policies that are directed at the ancient ways of subsistence, ceremonial practices, cultural education, aboriginal land rights, and language. Now, four decades has past where federal relocation programs that are combined with Peabody exploitation of the natural resources have spent millions of tax-payers dollars to terminate the last remnants of cultural and language identity. Peabody and the federal courts have always denied the conspiracy theory that corporate interest in mineral and water resouces was the driving force behind the Indian removal Act of 1974.
What will it take for the majority of the American society to began realizing that their cultural ideas of freedom and liberty does not mean destroying other human life in order to have jobs and electricity? How can the most educated society in the world, the United States, ever accept that children of future may live in a more uncomfortable and poisonous environment due to the escalating, greenhouse gas emissions of today?
The traditional elders of Hopi and Dineh have tried to state that all the profit gains that global industries have secured for their future inheritances will be worthless when human religion and environment are completely altered or destroyed.
“When foods have become scarce, will those rich and elites begin to eat their stockpiles of cash?”
Furthermore, concerned nation and societies of the world are looking towards the U.S. to limit its burning of fossil fuel. Perhaps, American people can really bring real and true peace to the world environment by massive recalls of their dependency on unsustainable energies. Meantime, the indigenous elders of Black Mesa will continue to maintain their spiritual roles on their ancestral lands while rejecting Peabody’s alarming move to destroy the atmosphere. Conscientious organization and individuals that believe in proper and green Earth Living must began to build stronger unity and stand with the original peoples whose lands are being transform into “emissions of mass destruction.”
©Sheep Dog Nation Rocks 2008
Big Mountain, Arizona April 2008 – This news is all too familiar in that, it is that American mentality at its finest where it follows that archaic Roman notion of ‘pillage for the spoils and destroy the barbaric, indigenous inhabitants.’ Peabody Coal Company has the “illegal” and corporate upper-hand in these renewed plans where the Office of Surface Mining is intending to approve the expansion of the mine lease areas on Black Mesa in northeast Arizona. In some local communities like within the Big Mountain region, there are still traditional Dineh (Navajo) elders making attempts to instruct their younger community members to fight this new surge for coal mine expansions that will eventually intrude into the Big Mountain lands. Big Mountain peoples have also resisted federal laws of forcible relocation since the late 1970s.
Peabody’s new aggressive push to expand its occupation not only poses a genocidal threat on the regional indigenous nations, but it simply shows that the U.S. government continues to ignore all credible scientific evidence and studies that global warming is actually taking place. The traditional elders of Hopi and Dineh have endured decades of harsh U.S. Indian policies that are directed at the ancient ways of subsistence, ceremonial practices, cultural education, aboriginal land rights, and language. Now, four decades has past where federal relocation programs that are combined with Peabody exploitation of the natural resources have spent millions of tax-payers dollars to terminate the last remnants of cultural and language identity. Peabody and the federal courts have always denied the conspiracy theory that corporate interest in mineral and water resouces was the driving force behind the Indian removal Act of 1974.
What will it take for the majority of the American society to began realizing that their cultural ideas of freedom and liberty does not mean destroying other human life in order to have jobs and electricity? How can the most educated society in the world, the United States, ever accept that children of future may live in a more uncomfortable and poisonous environment due to the escalating, greenhouse gas emissions of today?
The traditional elders of Hopi and Dineh have tried to state that all the profit gains that global industries have secured for their future inheritances will be worthless when human religion and environment are completely altered or destroyed.
“When foods have become scarce, will those rich and elites begin to eat their stockpiles of cash?”
Furthermore, concerned nation and societies of the world are looking towards the U.S. to limit its burning of fossil fuel. Perhaps, American people can really bring real and true peace to the world environment by massive recalls of their dependency on unsustainable energies. Meantime, the indigenous elders of Black Mesa will continue to maintain their spiritual roles on their ancestral lands while rejecting Peabody’s alarming move to destroy the atmosphere. Conscientious organization and individuals that believe in proper and green Earth Living must began to build stronger unity and stand with the original peoples whose lands are being transform into “emissions of mass destruction.”
©Sheep Dog Nation Rocks 2008
For more information or to find out how you can help to Stop Peabody visit: http://www.blackmesais.org/
