You remember Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar, right? He’s the Republican dweeb who thought Cliven Bundy’s skirmish against the feds was so important that he caravaned to the Nevada compound with a gaggle of other Arizona nitwits to support the criminals.
Gosar had time to make the long drive to Nevada, but when Pope Francis addressed a joint session of Congress last year, the climate-denying congressman did not have time for that audience. Because, you see, Francis is a flaming environmentalist in Gosar’s alleged mind, so he boycotted the event, being the good Catholic that he is.
On Monday in Kingman, Arizona, Congressman Gosar will host a public meeting, which he is calling “Government Land Grab: Exposing the Truth.” The gathering of Sagebrush Rebellion pinheads is in response to fellow Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva’s recent attempt to create the Grand Canyon National Heritage Monument. Grijalva’s bill, which was written with the tribes who call Grand Canyon their sacred home (Havasupai, Hualapai, Navajo, Hopi), as well as local environmental groups, would protect 1.7 million acres on the south and north sides of the giant gorge by prohibiting further mining.
“[The bill] permanently protects the Grand Canyon from new uranium mining claims; protects tribal sacred cultural sites; promotes a more collaborative regional approach between tribal nations and federal land managers; protects commercial and recreational hunting; preserves grazing and water rights; and conserves the Grand Canyon watershed."
As Phoenix New Times points out, even though 80 percent of Arizonans support Rep. Grijalva’s bill, the measure is unlikely to pass the Senate, so the pressure is on President Obama to create the monument with the stroke of his pen, which he can do under the 1906 Antiquities Act. That’s the same Act that President Theodore Roosevelt used in 1908 to set aside the original Grand Canyon boundaries.
To no one’s surprise, when TR signed that legislation, many Arizona politicians, as well as mining, ranching and timber companies, went bonkers, as did the chambers of commerce who represent them. (They’re the same groups who will be at Gosar’s public meeting.) Over a hundred years ago they accused the president of killing jobs, just like Rep. Gosar is today, which is so, so wrong!
Extraction jobs are few, often short-term, ecologically harmful, and the profits benefit international conglomerates, not local economies. Whereas a protected Grand Canyon, one of the most visited national parks in the country, has provided many more jobs for much longer—while preserving the majestic landscape and helping local businesses. A recent study, in fact, says that Rep. Grijalva’s proposed national monument would bring in $51 million to northern Arizona alone.
Congressman Gosar should look in the mirror before complaining about “land grabs.” Shit, he was a leading voice clamoring for the controversial Oak Flats exchange, which turned over 2,400 acres of sacred and sensitive land in Arizona’s magnificent Tonto National Forest to a foreign mining company. Last month Congressman Gosar told the Apaches and other indigenous peoples who continue to oppose the deal that Oak Flats was never sacred land. Apparently this official, whose campaign war chest is stuffed with mining industry cash, knows the tribes' histories and traditions better than the former chairman of the San Carlos Apache Nation, Wendsler Nosie, Sr.:
“Oak Flat, known to us Chi’chil Bildagoteel, has always been our connection to our Mother, our right to exist, a central part of our prayers, songs, stories and spiritual practices. It is from here that we emerged. It is who we are.”