This diary is not appropriate for Oklahoma High School students and references locations considered Haraam by corporations. Two sites have been targeted for destruction, one in West Virginia and another in Arizona. They memorialize events which do not please the ruling elites. There obliteration will show who is in charge and whose history can be flushed down the memory hole.
"Blair Mountain Fighting" by Charleston Gazette -Battle of Blair Mountain
Noel Altaha: Is a member of the White Mountain Apache tribe in Eastern AZ (Eagle ‘tugain’ born of the White Water people). She’s a recent graduate of Fort Lewis College in Durango Colorado. She graduated in April 2013 with a BA in Psychology and a minor in Native American & Indigenous Studies. She also completed a two year undergraduate research grant funded through the National Institute of Health (NIH) called the MARC U STAR (Minority Access to Research Careers).
Please visit Noel Altaha's excellent commentary at Last Real Indians - Stop the Land Grab
A recent Daily Kos diary by Mother Mags explains the threat to Oak Flats or as it is often called Apache Leap location.
Another reference: Apache Leap history
Why you should care below.
Redneck was first used to describe the union members who fought a major battle in 1921 to defend the rights of miners to organize and improve wages and working conditions. It culminated in a large battle in southern West Virginia at Blair Mountain. Union members tied red bandanas around their necks to identify themselves. Fifty to one hundred union supporters were killed by company thugs supported by the National Guard and bombs from private planes.
The site of the battle has been slated for mountain top mining. The Los Angles Times described the pending destruction of this site in this article:
If American labor had holy sites, Blair Mountain would be among them (as would Ludlow, Colo., scene of the infamous 1914 Ludlow Massacre, part of a coal strike that involved some of the same actors in the West Virginia coal battles). But coal mining is still done in West Virginia, and Blair Mountain is on mining companies’ list of targets.
The lawsuit to stop the action had a minor victory last September when the Court of Appeals overturned a lower court decision that those trying to protect the site had no standing to file a suit. But this still leaves the decision to remove Blair Mountain from the National Register of Historic Places making it vulnerable to strip mining. In the
decision the majority said:
The Battle of Blair Mountain is the largest armed labor conflict in our nation’s history. In late August 1921, after years of tension between coal miners and coal companies, more than 5,000 West Virginia coal miners began a march to Logan and Mingo Counties, West Virginia. They aimed to unionize and liberate fellow miners living under martial law. When they reached Blair Mountain, a 1,600-acre area in Logan County, they encountered roughly 3,000 armed men. Those men, mostly hired by coal companies, manned a ten-mile defensive line across Spruce Fork Ridge, including Blair Mountain. They dug trenches, mounted machine guns, and dropped homemade bombs. The miners responded with gunfire of their own. The Battle endured for several days, causing numerous casualties. President Harding sent federal troops to quell the fighting, and the coal miners surrendered. Recently, various environmental and historical preservation organizations, recognizing Blair Mountain Battlefield’s historical significance, have sought to gain protection for the Battlefield from surface coal mining. This case arises from their efforts to obtain the Battlefield’s listing in the National Register of Historic Places. After several unsuccessful nominations for its inclusion in the Register, the Battlefield gained listing in 2009. Its stay in the Register was short-lived. Within days, the Keeper of the Register removed the Battlefield upon determining that the wishes of area property owners had not been accurately captured in the nomination process. The organizations then brought an action in federal court challenging the Battlefield’s removal from the Register. The district court granted summary judgment against them, holding that they lack standing because they fail to demonstrate the requisite injury, causation, or redressability. We disagree and conclude that they have standing to challenge the Keeper’s decision.
Like Blair Mountain, Oak Flat is an area slated for
destruction for not fitting into approved American ideology. It is not sufficient to kill and demonize their foes. History must be cleansed.
When the Apaches were forced to a mountain top like the Yazidis in Iraq men, women and children choose to leap from cliffs rather than submit. It is a sacred site. No less important than the one described in these words:
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow, this ground – The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.
The destruction of these sites is the desecration of American history and an insult to American Peoples. Shame Shame Shame.
Off topic aside: Does anyone know what happened to the Holy Snowball sent from Heaven to Senator Inhofe to prove there is no Global Warming?