La Plaza: Is Elon Musk Coming to New Mexico?

Photo copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

So much news, so little time.

Our governor is currently in talks on two big issues, both of which could have big benefits for our state. Sadly, she also felt the need last week to appeal to the lowest common denominator of her party and its Reagan-worshiping base by playing the great GOP superhero, Line-Item Veto Woman. And of course, the line items that were struck were, disproportionately, programs and initiatives to help people of color and members of other underrepresented and underserved populations.

Those will get covered in a separate edition. For now, we've actually got something promising to discuss.

The big economic news in New Mexico right now is the fact that we seem to be short-listed for the proposed Tesla plant. The plant would not manufacture cars, but rather, the lithium-ion batteries that power Tesla's electric vehicles. 

Scars Upon Sacred Land VI: 2013 Snapshot of Indigenous Action

Indigenous protestors in Ecuador, November, 2013.
Photo credit Chevron's Dirty Hand Campaign; all rights reserved.

Author's Note:  This piece first appeared at Daily Kos as part of my series "This Week In American Indian News" on September 30, 2013, hence the references in the introductory section. It is posted here with minor edits as a component of my regular Scars Upon Sacred Land series. My original intent was to post a brand-new entry in the series today, as well — an entry planned for yesterday as part of the Daily Kos blogathon to promote the final days of the public comment period prior to the Obama Administration's decision regarding the Keystone XL Pipeline. Life intervened and while there will be no post related to the blogathon, but there will be many more entries upcoming in this series. 
Today, we have a special environmental edition. 

On several occasions over the last few weeks, I've had to make last-minute revisions to accommodate developing stories. The result is that stories sometimes get bumped for a week or more. Last week, I realized that we were reaching a critical mass of stories addressing environmental issues affecting American Indians, and so I elected to hold some of them for this week for an edition dedicated exclusively to such topics.

Yes, there's a great deal of new and important Indian news out there, not least of which are last week's [as of this posting, last September's] developments in the Baby Veronica story. But with our news, each story deserves to be covered in a manner that addresses the issues properly within their cultural and historical contexts — accuracy is often better served by a short delay that permits proper coverage than by trying to be first out of the gate with a given story. We'll get to them, never fear. But this week, the stories that are ripe for covering are environmental ones. And while this week's edition is, as a result, unusually lengthy, it is by no means comprehensive. There are many more environmental issues in Indian Country that have yet to be covered, and they will be.

Over the last few years, I've written an intermittent series of diaries under the title Scars Upon Sacred Land. They're diaries that focus on environmental issues in Indian Country. Some focus on infliction of new scars on the body of Mother Earth; others, upon attempts to prevent them; and still others, upon rehabilitation and reclamation afterward.

This week's edition explores the latest in scars upon sacred land.

Scars Upon Sacred Land (and Air and Water and Sky) V: Climate Change SOS for Indian Country

Photo copyright Wings, 2003, 2014; all rights reserved.

Author's Note: This piece first appeared at Daily Kos on August 24, 2012, as an entry in the site's "Climate Change SOS" Blogathon. It is reposted here with very minor edits as part of my Scars Upon Sacred Land series. Sadly, in the nearly two years since, conditions have only worsened.

Just over a year ago, in July, 2011, the National Wildlife Federation issued a report, largely ignored by most of the rest of the country. Even I didn't know about it at the time of release; like many other people, I was consumed with the immediate danger posed by the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and my focus was directed toward fighting that threat.

That was a mistake on my part - and on the part of every other environmental activist who didn't pay attention, but especially for those of us who belong to indigenous cultures.

Called FACING THE STORM: Indian Tribes, Climate-Induced Weather Extremes, and the Future for Indian Country, the report is actually fairly brief: a mere 28 pages, including covers and graphics. But it packs a hell of a punch, and it complements a whole body of work being done by tribes and allied partners in recent years that goes too often unknown, unremarked, and unheeded.

One thing FACING THE STORM does really well — exceptionally so, considering that it's published by a non-Indian organization — is to refrain from telling Indians what they "must do," instead urging the rest of our society to listen to and heed the millennia worth of wisdom of our ancestors and elders. It also places the deadly threats posed by climate change to the continent's indigenous peoples and lifeways squarely within the context of our nation's tortured and torturous treatment of tribal sovereignty issues. And that's a topic that needs to be pursued, but it's far too complex for this diary. Also, please note that while I'm painfully aware of this year's terrible heatwaves, drought, and storms that have affected much of the country as a whole, that is also beyond the scope of this diary. Many other diaries in this week's series have addressed those issues, and addressed them well. My focus today - in now way comprehensive; merely the briefest of snapshots - is on the myriad threats, direct and indirect, that climate change poses to Indian Country specifically, and to our peoples' cultural and physical survival.

Scars Upon Sacred Land IV: "A Slow Industrial Genocide"

Author's Note: This piece first appeared at Daily Kos on August 19, 2011, as an entry in the site's "Stop Tar Sands" Blogathon. It is reposted here with minor edits as part of my Scars Upon Sacred Land series. Data and dates refer, of course, to the situation as it stood in 2011, but not much has changed, and indeed, the final public comment period is about to close this Friday night.

I opened the first in my series, Scars Upon Sacred Land, this way:

There is a reason why we refer to the earth as our mother.
The land lives;  it is animated by Spirit.  It sustains us:  physically, spiritually. We are the land, and it is us - and any injury to it injures us all.

Many — perhaps most — of our traditional stories and lessons are tied inextricably to the land. Historical, humorous, educational, cautionary; stories of earth and air, fire and water, plants and animals and every living thing; our history, our languages, our cultural and political and spiritual traditions all are bound up with Akii, our Mother Earth, and her children.

And so is our future.

If, that is, we actually have a future.

If the North American tar sands projects are allowed to go forward, the possibility of any future - for the entire planet - is gravely in doubt.

But for the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, it is genocide.  

Scars Upon Sacred Land II: Apache Leap and BHP Billiton/Rio Tinto

Apache Leap.  Photo credit unknown.

Author's Note: This piece first appeared as part of the now-defunct EcoJustice series at Daily Kos on October 4, 2010. It is reposted here with minor edits.

Welcome to Apache Leap. The elders tell of a time when invading U.S. soldiers sought to abduct the Apache people, herd them onto reservations, and steal their land. The people fought valiantly, but were woefully outnumbered. When the end came, the Apache warriors chose to retain their honor rather than surrender to thieves and thugs: They leapt off the peak to their deaths below, joining the spirits of their ancestors and depriving the Army of prize captives.

At the base of the formation, a nearly-translucent brown-black obsidian is found. The stones are called Apache tears, and as the story goes, when the surviving women found the bodies of their men at the base of the leap, they mourned so deeply and bitterly that Spirit turned their tears to beautifully, lethally sharp stone, so that no one would forget the crime against the people that had happened in that place.

Now, John McCain, Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, and other greedy pols want to turn this sacred space over to an even greedier consortium of foreign corporations - to desecrate it further and dishonor the memories of those warriors and their survivors.

Scars Upon Sacred Land I: Uranium Mining Begins at the Grand Canyon

The Arizona 1 Mine. Image credit: StopUraniumMining.org. 

Author's Note: This post first appeared, in two slightly different incarnations, at Daily Kos, first on February 26, 2010, and again as part of the DK Greenroots series on March 7, 2010. It is reposted here as the first in my ongoing environmental series of the last four years, Scars Upon Sacred Land, and appears with very minor edits.

There is a reason why we refer to the earth as our mother.

The land lives; it is animated by Spirit. It sustains us: physically, spiritually. We are the land, and it is us — and any injury to it injures us all.

Scars Upon Sacred Land

Photo copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

Over the last four years, I've written an intermittent environmental series at Daily Kos that I entitled Scars Upon Sacred Land. 

The original impetus for the title was the emergence of several renewed threats of mining on or adjacent to tribal lands. Over time, I think it became clear to readers that the scars were no less real even when they involved other forms of environmental damage, and that to use, the affected land was no less sacred for having long since been stolen and handed over to others.

I'm going to begin re-running that series here. Yes, there's a reason: If all goes as planned, there'll be a brand new entry in the series on Friday. But for context, I'm going to run each of the first six in the series, in order, here. 

Now, these posts are all anywhere from six months to four years old. I'll be running each with a note at the top indicating its original posting date. The information in some of them is no doubt outdated, at least in the details. But the broader risk that each represents still stands, and not one of the land areas discussed in them is yet safe. 

The first entry will post later today. When you read it, keep in mind that it's from 2010. Also keep in mind that the risks have not abated, nor has the damage already done been remediated.

And keep your eyes open for more entries every day this week, with a brand-new one at the end of the week.


Copyright Ajijaakwe, 2014; all rights reserved.

Coming Up:

Photo copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

Later today, I'll have another entry — this one a local-ish one — in my Strong Women series.

This week, watch for more on Indian issues; more New Mexico topics; more on the environment; and another post for someone (known to many of you) who needs our help. Lots to cover this week, in a very small amount of spare time.

And as always, much as I hate it, if you'd like to support coverage of these topics, you know what to do.