Vashon Homes & Events from Go! Real Estate

Letter from Vashon Island: Glacier Mining and Civil Disobedience (cont’d.)

January 22, 2009 at 6:40 am Leave a comment

GoVashon has received a number of interesting responses to our essay on Civil Disobedience and the blockade of the Glacier Mining site several weeks ago on Vashon Island.  Today we received the following post from Swaneagle a.k.a. FrontlineMom and reprint it with permission. We hope that other interested members of the community will take the opportunity to write in and express their views on this important issue. This dialogue underlines the unique value of the Blogosphere as an unfiltered forum for free speech in the community!

“Along with an inspiring group of mostly young people, I was part of the road blockade (. . . at the entrance to the Glacier Mining site . . . ). I feel it was a sacrifice to lock down from 5:45 am to 10:30 am even tho we were not arrested. Personally, I prayed for the relief of arrest due to the pain of being locked down so long in steel tubes. Once work started, we decided our point had been made. It is important to bring attention to what we face out here on Vashon.

THIS IS A WORLD CLASS ISSUE OF DESTRUCTION FOR PROFIT THAT MUST BE ADDRESSED AS SUCH. THE PROPOSED MINE MAY BECOME THE LARGEST SAND AND GRAVEL EXTRACTION OPERATION ON EARTH.

For many years I have been working on the human rights of traditional Dine (Navajo) and Hopi impacted by the largest coal strip mine in the US. Over 16,000 people have been forcibly relocated with over half of relocatees already dying. The land is dead, barren and useless. The Dine people have not benefited from this fiasco, only corrupt officials and Peabody have profited.

Many other similar issues have been part of my work. I am willing to do all I can to stop this insane destruction. It is undisputed that our future is grim and our children will be left with a hideous situation. How can we ignore this and keep ourselves safe when they will be left with a nightmare beyond our comprehension?

Voting works for those content to live in a rapidly eroding illusion. Oh, many voted for Obama, but he supports the death penalty and as well as “clean” coal and nuclear power. If one is marginalized and voiceless in this country, no visible representation is permitted.

The Native American voices who have vested interest in the health of the Chinook salmon have not been included. Too many are ignorant of the first peoples who still have heart and spirit invested into these lands taken. Such missing perspectives must be included if we hope for any kind of real solution.

Finally, I wish to say that i am willing to do all in my power to stop Glacier’s insane destruction. Devoted to deep nonviolence, I have exercised that several times already including on the water with courageous youth and other true-hearted activists. Some of us face felony charges if we kayak into the work perimeter again. How easy it is to become a felon in these times of well protected corporations.

We must hear our hearts and act accordingly. All over the earth people are losing their lives, land, community in the name of resource extraction greed. This cannot go on. We have much more freedom to resist on Vashon than the people of the Congo, in Chiapas, Mexico and certainly those remaining resisters at Big Mountain/Black Mesa in Arizona.

Nothing less that soul force courage will do justice to the highly endangered future our children are being handed. We must do our very best to do so much better than that. It is our sacred duty.

Entry filed under: • Community, Green Events, Letters From Vashon, Living Green. Tags: Glacier Mining, Glacier Mining protest, Letter from Vashon Island.