Please check out poopdogcomedy's Thursday's post about the fight to save Oak Flat/Apache Leap.
The Apache Stronghold Caravan will conclude next week. Representative Grijalva a sane member of the Arizona congressional delegation will speak Wednesday at the final protest at the Capital.
Washington, D.C. – Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva will speak next Wednesday, July 22, at a Capitol Hill gathering of the San Carlos Apache Nation and other parties on his bill to reverse the unjust Resolution Copper land giveaway included in last year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). His bill, the Save Oak Flat Act, would cancel the mandated land swap that threatens the sacred Apache Leap site with environmental damage from nearby high-risk copper mining.
The San Carlos Apache will hold a two-day gathering next Tuesday and Wednesday on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol to protest the land swap, which was included in the NDAA with the support of Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake after it was twice pulled from consideration in the House as a standalone measure. The swap transfers a U.S. Forest Service land parcel in eastern Arizona known as Oak Flat – which was withdrawn from mining consideration by President Dwight Eisenhower – for land previously held by Resolution Copper, which is co-owned by international mining conglomerates Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton
The remaining schedule for the
caravan is:
July 20th-travel
July 21st- July 22th- Washington, D.C. Apache Stronghold resistance rally to protect sacred Oak Flat
21st. Meet at Rock Creek Park –Sacred Run on 16th ST NW , ending at Lafayette Square in front of White House, march down the green to the Capital Building. Protest is on lawn in front of the Capital.
22nd-protest at Capital
The voices of the San Carlos people are on this link.
https://youtu.be/...
This video explains what will be lost.
https://youtu.be/...
Gladys Hinton, an Apache tribal elder said this of the site in the Arizona Silver Belt:
“Each time I go to Oak Flat and Apache Leap, I am drawn to the holy ground site for I know the prayers that have been extended there are far too memorable to leave behind.”
“I treasure my time at Apache Leap and Oak Flat, when I am there, because I am an Apache and I am in my elder years now and I appreciate all the battles that have been fought for us, for our identity and preservation of what we have today, our culture and our Apache way of life.”
Below the orange - A modest proposal to save the area.
During the four hour long trips between Safford Arizona and Phoenix I remember my father pointing out the cliffs near Superior as a place where Apaches jumped off the cliffs fleeing from US cavalry. For a child raised on Western movies. and the long ranger it was shocking to think mothers would take their children and leap to their deaths to avoid American troops. Their bodies were left scattered on the escarpment. Some still remain.
It would be an insult to the Apache people, a destruction of a rare remaining desert riparian environment, and an obliteration of an historical site which marks the end of a three hundred year campaign to bring Native Americans under US government control to mine this area.
The two video's linked above lay out the issues very well without the snark below.
However the Resolution Copper Company has acquired the rights to mine in the area through a land swap deal. They need to be compensated for their loss.
In Pearl Harbor Hawaii there is 32 thousand tons of easily accessible scrap metal sitting on unused potentially extremely lucrative real estate. This fortuitously is also called Arizona. This rusting hulk still leaks oil into the beautiful waters of the harbor.
Currently the potential value of the land is wasted with a small structure which doesn't even charge an entrance fee. It adds little to the local tourist travel as events which put it there are fading into distant history. Visitors go only as a side trip to vacations to other attractions which already drew them there.
This area could be turned into a world class casino. The rights to the area could be swapped for the Oak Flat mineral rights of Resolution Copper.
The finances in building the casino would be greatly aided by $60,000,000+ value of the recovered metal, not to mention the money that could be made off of selling souvenirs made from the USS Arizona.
The pollutants in the bay would be reduced and the remains of the sailors could be recovered and given a dignified final burial.
America's great deal maker could be enlisted to design and promote the casino. It might be helpful to draw the large ethnic Japanese population in Hawaii and to draw wealty foreign tourists to give it name honoring a historically important individual to Hawaii. The name Trump Isoroku Yamamoto Towers would be appropriate. The acronym TIYT could be used a double entendre in advertisements featuring young female models.
A win - win.
Final Note: Screaming Geronimo when jumping off something is really disturbing.