Tulalip News

The grassroots battle against Big Oil

Activists with Tar Sands Blockade lock themselves to equipment used to build the Keystone XL pipeline, near Nacogdoches, Texas, November 19, 2012. Photo: Elizabeth Brossa

Activists in Texas are connecting the fight against the Keystone pipeline with the struggle for environmental justice.

By Wen Stephenson, The Nation

One morning in mid-July, I drove north out of Houston at the crack of dawn, three hours up Highway 59 into the cleaner air and dense, piney woods of deep East Texas. It was Sunday, and I was on my way to church.

I’d been up that way before: my father was born and raised in northeast Texas—in fact, my whole family is from Texas—and I’m no stranger to Bible Belt Christianity. But I’d never been to a church like the one where I was headed that morning: the small, progressive Austin Heights Baptist Church in Nacogdoches, which meets in an unassuming building on the edge of town.

Austin Heights was formed as a breakaway congregation in the charged atmosphere of 1968, when its founders could no longer accept the dominant Southern Baptist line on issues of race and war, and it established a lasting fellowship with the leading African-American church in Nacogdoches, Zion Hill First Baptist. The first morning I was there, the Rev. Kyle Childress, Austin Heights’ pastor since 1989 (and the only white member of the local black ministers’ alliance), preached on the Old Testament prophet Amos, who, he noted, was among the favorites of Martin Luther King Jr. Childress began his sermon by reminding us that this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the protests in Bull Connor’s Birmingham in the spring of 1963 and the March on Washington later that summer, and that one of King’s most-used lines (found, for example, in his 1963 “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream” speech) was a verse from that morning’s Scripture reading in Amos: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

The prophet Amos, Childress told us, was called to be a fierce advocate—among the Bible’s fiercest—on behalf of justice for the poor and oppressed. “Amos’s strong preaching was hard then, and it’s hard today,” Childress said. Just as in Amos’s day, when the wealthy trampled on the poor while worshiping piously in the temples, so today our “programs of care for the poor and needy” are dismantled “with a religious zeal.” Meanwhile, “giant corporations get a free ride. They can diminish people, destroy the earth, pour out climate-changing carbon, all in the interest of short-term profit, and no one can do anything about it.” But Amos knew, Childress assured us, that God is the spring of justice—and that without God, “we are unable to keep up the struggle for justice and goodness and love over the long haul.”

“God calls us to justice, to be a people who embody justice,” said Childress, himself a longtime activist on issues of race, poverty and peace. And yet, as King and all those who fought for civil rights knew, “serving and battling for justice is a long-haul kind of calling.”

Childress—deeply influenced by the likes of Wendell Berry, the late Will D. Campbell and, of course, King—is not a Bible-thumper. He doesn’t shout. Heavyset and ruddy-faced, with a whitening, close-cropped beard, he speaks with a soft, flat West Texas accent. But his voice carries real power and conviction. I would have been impressed with his sermon even if I didn’t know that his words that Sunday morning held a heightened significance for his congregation—not just because of the civil rights history, but because this little East Texas church, which can count perhaps 100 souls in its pews on a typical Sunday, is involved in a new battle. I wasn’t there just to hear the preaching.

In the past year, the Austin Heights congregation has found itself in the thick of the intense fight over the Keystone XL pipeline, specifically the southern leg of it—running from Cushing, Oklahoma, through East Texas (within twenty miles of Nacogdoches) to Gulf Coast refineries in Port Arthur and Houston—which was fast-tracked by President Obama in March 2012 and is now nearing completion, according to TransCanada, the Canadian corporation building it.

I’d reached out to Childress, and following the morning service I was scheduled to meet and interview, there at the church, several members of Tar Sands Blockade, the diverse group of mostly young, radical climate and social-justice activists (many of them Occupy veterans) who one year earlier had mounted a high-stakes, headline-grabbing campaign of nonviolent direct action—including a dramatic, eighty-five-day aerial tree blockade and numerous lockdowns at construction sites—to stop or slow the pipeline’s construction in Texas. In the process, they’ve worked with everyone from local environmentalists raising the alarm on the dangers of tar sands leaks and spills (as seen in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Mayflower, Arkansas) to conservative landowners fighting TransCanada’s use (and, they will tell you, abuse) of eminent domain. Most of those who have engaged in and supported the direct action campaign—a true grassroots uprising—have been Texans, young and old, twentysomethings and grandparents.

Last fall, a number of the young blockaders, living at an encampment on private property just outside Nacogdoches, started coming to church at Austin Heights. And though they came from all sorts of cultural and religious backgrounds, and often had no religion at all, they formed a close bond with many members of the mostly white, middle-class congregation—who welcomed them into their homes like family—and had been working with the local grassroots anti-pipeline group Nacogdoches STOP (Stop Tar-Sands Oil Permanently), co-founded by members of Austin Heights.

Since the blockaders began showing up at his church, Childress told me as we drank coffee on his back porch the next morning, people have noticed a change in his preaching. “There’s an urgency that maybe I didn’t have before. They’re reminding us that climate change is not something we’re going to fiddle-faddle around with. I mean, you’ve got to step up now.”

But there’s more to it, Childress continued: “I’m preaching to young people who are putting their lives on the line. They didn’t come down here driving a Mercedes Benz, sitting around under a shade tree eating grapes. They hitchhiked. They rode buses. And they get arrested, they get pepper-sprayed, they get some stiff penalties thrown against them.” (In January, Tar Sands Blockade and allied groups settled a lawsuit brought by TransCanada seeking $5 million in damages for construction delays, forcing them to stay off the pipeline easement and any TransCanada property.)

Childress noted that some of the blockaders, especially the Occupy veterans, refer to the corporate capitalist system as “the Machine.” “And they’re exactly right, using that kind of language,” he said. “They’re going up against the Machine in a real, clearly defined way. Not subtle—really upfront. And I’m trying to help them realize what it’s going to take to sustain the struggle.”

When it exploded onto the scene last summer and fall, Tar Sands Blockade galvanized a climate movement that was ready for escalated direct action to stop the Keystone XL and build resistance to extreme fossil fuel extraction: everything from the exploitation of tar sands, to shale oil and gas fracking, to mountaintop-removal coal mining. As several climate organizers engaged at the national level have told me, the East Texas blockade showed the movement what it looks like to stand up and fight against seemingly insurmountable odds. Now, a full year since it launched, and with the southern leg of the pipeline all but in the ground, I wanted to find out how—and even if—Tar Sands Blockade would go forward.

In some ways, the challenges it faces reflect those facing the climate movement writ large. There’s a tension, which many in the movement feel, between the sheer urgency of climate action—the kind of urgency that leads one to blockade a pipeline—and the slower, more patient work required for organizing and movement building over the long haul. I wanted to know what it will take for Tar Sands Blockade to sustain its struggle—not only what it took to get into the fight, in such dramatic fashion, but what it takes to stay in the fight.

That first Sunday at Austin Heights, I talked for several hours with four blockaders who were still living at the camp outside town. All of them had been arrested while participating in various direct actions on the southern pipeline route. One of them, a young woman in her early 20s who asked not to be identified, was an Occupy veteran who’d engaged in a high-risk tree-sit on the pipeline easement and whose legal case was still unresolved. Another, a recent MIT grad named Murtaza Nek, whose family is Pakistani-American and whose Muslim faith is central to his climate-justice activism, told me he finds a lot of common ground with Childress and the Austin Heights congregation. He was arrested while serving as support for an action near Diboll, south of Nacogdoches.

A third blockader, 42-year-old Fitzgerald Scott, also an Occupy veteran (Tampa, DC, Denver), is a former Marine who was born in Trinidad, grew up in Newark and East Orange, New Jersey, and has a master’s in urban planning from the University of Illinois at Chicago. The only African-American blockader I met, he’d recently been arrested, not once but twice, for locking down at Keystone construction sites in Oklahoma. He told me that he’d joined the blockade out of solidarity with other activists and with people in frontline communities fighting the industry, not out of any deep environmental commitment. “To me, the environmental movement was far removed from blacks,” he said.

The fourth blockader was 22-year-old Matt Almonte. In December, he and another activist named Glen Collins locked themselves to each other and two 600-pound barrels filled with concrete inside part of the pipeline that was under construction—and came close to being gravely injured when police used machinery to pull the pipe sections apart by force. Though he was charged only with misdemeanors, his bail was set at $65,000, and he spent a month in jail.

For Matt, a veteran of Occupy Tampa who grew up working-class in urban New Jersey before his family moved to a “gated suburban thing” in south Florida, the lasting impact of Tar Sands Blockade “was to show ‘ordinary people’ that it’s absolutely vital to take direct action, and that even in a community like East Texas, people are rising against the fossil fuel industry.” He emphasized that trainings and actions are being networked out across the country, in South Dakota, Oklahoma, and elsewhere along the northern pipeline route and beyond—“places that don’t typically see a lot of environmental resistance.” Matt seemed impatient for more escalated direct action, the kind that was no longer happening along the southern Keystone XL route. Shortly after we talked, he and another member of Tar Sands Blockade decided to move on.

By the time I arrived in Nacogdoches, the blockaders’ numbers had dwindled—some who had come from out of state had returned home or drifted off to join other direct-action campaigns, against Keystone and extraction projects—and the group was at something of a crossroads. Indeed, they were wrestling not only with tactics and strategy but with the very nature of the campaign, now that there was essentially nothing left, in the near term, to blockade.

But a solid core of about twenty organizers, many of them young native Texans, had regrouped in Houston and were shifting into something more like community organizing, engaging with environmental justice efforts on the city’s hard-hit, largely Latino east side. As several told me, they wanted their campaign not only to carry on the fight against Keystone and tar sands but to build a base of grassroots resistance to the fossil fuel industry right there in Texas, especially in the frontline communities—most often communities of color—that are most affected by fossil fuel pollution. The kind of places, they point out, where the climate movement has established little, if any, foothold.

Back in Houston, I sat down with several members of Tar Sands Blockade, who talked with me openly about the campaign at this pivotal moment. Kim Huynh, 26, was born in a Vietnamese refugee camp in Indonesia and immigrated with her family to Florida, where she went to the University of Florida and studied political science and sociology. A year ago, she left a job with Friends of the Earth in Washington, DC, where she’d focused on Keystone and climate, and came to Texas to join the blockade. I asked Kim if she has any trouble reconciling the urgency of climate action, as seen in the pipeline fight, with the kind of long-term commitment required for movement-building.

“I certainly feel that tension,” she told me. “A lot of folks that I’ve worked with feel that tension very strongly, feel it in their bodies. It’s an anxiety.” At the same time, she said, she also feels “a commitment to the idea that we need systemic change, like actually hacking at the roots of what climate change is and what’s created climate change.” That kind of change is a long-term thing, she acknowledged. “It isn’t going to come just from stopping the pipeline. Stopping the pipeline is a good start.”

“The challenge and struggle for TSB,” Kim said, “is to figure out how we define escalation, as a campaign that started from this extremely escalated place.”

“Personally,” she said, “I draw a lot of inspiration and lessons from the black freedom movement, the civil rights movement, thinking about groups like SNCC and the way they defined escalation as going into the most deeply segregated areas in the South and doing voter registration.” That’s a whole other kind of escalation, Kim said, “doing the organizing in the areas where it’s possibly most important to do. Maybe that strategy is less like direct action as we know it—lockdowns—and more like community organizing. But that doesn’t mean it’s any de-escalation.”

“The communities that are most impacted by these industries,” she said, “the people who are living and breathing it every day—they need to be leading the fight.”

That idea—the disproportionate impact not only of climate change but of the fossil fuel industry on hard-pressed communities that can least afford it—is at the heart of what Tar Sands Blockade means by climate justice. They want a radical movement, one that grasps the problem whole, at the roots of the system, and fights alongside those who are already on the front lines—and always have been.

When I first met Ron Seifert, we were standing outside on a sweltering early evening at Hartman Park in Houston’s Manchester neighborhood, just east of the 610 Loop along the Houston Ship Channel, across the street from a massive Valero refinery. Ron is a founding member of Tar Sands Blockade—and, at 32, also among the oldest, with the first early flecks of gray showing in his trim black beard. Having trained for years in long-distance endurance racing, his slender frame seems to conceal a reservoir of stamina. Ron grew up in Wisconsin and South Carolina and came to Texas in late 2011 from Montana, where he’d been exploring grad school in environmental science and law. He had joined the historic sit-ins at the White House in August 2011 and was one of the 1,253 people arrested protesting the Keystone XL. Later that fall, along with another activist named Tom Weis, Ron biked the full length of the pipeline route, from Montana to Texas. In the spring and summer of 2012, after Obama fast-tracked the southern leg, he helped launch Tar Sands Blockade, together with members of Rising Tide North Texas, on landowner David Daniel’s property near Winnsboro, in northeast Texas, site of the storied eighty-five-day tree blockade.

Rural and small-town East Texas is a world away from Manchester. Overwhelmingly Latino, the community is surrounded by oil refineries and other heavily polluting industrial facilities—a chemical plant, a tire plant, a car-crushing facility, a train yard and a sewage treatment plant—and sits at the intersection of two major expressways. The people who live there already breathe some of the country’s most toxic air, and they have the health statistics to prove it. Not just asthma and other respiratory problems—a recent investigation by researchers at the University of Texas School of Public Health found that children living within two miles of the Ship Channel have a 56 percent higher risk of acute lymphocytic leukemia than those living only ten miles away. Yudith Nieto, a local environmental justice organizer who grew up in Manchester, told me of her family’s health struggles, including her own childhood asthma, which improved when she moved out of the neighborhood to attend art school.

The Ship Channel and nearby refineries—along with the refineries near the poor and African-American communities of Port Arthur—are also a prime destination for the vast majority of tar sands crude that will flow from Alberta to the Texas Gulf via the Keystone XL if it’s approved, only increasing the toxic emissions in these fence-line neighborhoods.

I was there in Manchester that evening to tag along with members of Tar Sands Blockade as they canvassed the community door to door, conducting a health survey in collaboration with the local Houston group TEJAS (Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services) and letting residents know about the upcoming Healthy Manchester Festival there at the park. Later, TEJAS co-founders Juan Parras, a longtime labor and environmental justice organizer, and his son Bryan talked with me about the challenges the climate movement faces in places like Manchester, or anyplace where immediate health, economic and social pressures are paramount. Broadly speaking, Bryan Parras told me, most efforts at climate action “tend to leave the same folks that are already in bad situations in bad situations. There’s no incentive for them to get involved.” (He expanded on this and other ideas in an interview posted on my blog at TheNation.com.)

Robert Bullard, dean of the Barbara Jordan–Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University in Houston, is widely acknowledged as the father of the environmental justice movement, thanks to his pioneering work on the disproportionate impacts of pollution in African-American communities, documented in his landmark 1990 book, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality. “We could stop every pipeline being built from Canada to Texas, we could stop every fracking operation, and still not deal with the justice question—what happens in these communities,” Bullard told me. “What we’re trying to drive home with our friends and colleagues in our larger environmental movement, our larger climate movement, is to talk about these communities that are at greatest risk, put a real face on this. Make it real.”

Tar Sands Blockade is listening to what those like Parras and Bullard are saying. “Disproportionate impact is very real,” Ron said. “And what the communities that are most disproportionately affected actually look like—we need to acknowledge the reality of that, and to understand that climate justice is tied in with racial justice, with environmental justice, with class struggle.”

Ron told me that Tar Sands Blockade wants to support and amplify the work of TEJAS and other environmental justice groups in Texas, not try to commandeer it. He and his Tar Sands Blockade colleagues are highly conscious of what might be called the “parachuter syndrome,” in which outside activist groups, however well intentioned, are perceived to be pursuing their own agendas. Given that apparent tension, I asked Ron if there’s not a disconnect of sorts between the kind of urgent climate action that Tar Sands Blockade has embodied (literally) in its direct action campaign and the slower, and in some ways more difficult, work of environmental justice organizing in these communities.

Maybe, he said. But, ultimately, “it doesn’t matter.”

“Pipelines and refineries and droughts—those are not different things,” Ron continued. “Thatis climate change. The refineries are climate change. Keystone XL is climate change. Tar sands exploitation is climate change. It’s all the same thing. And we understand that these communities are bearing the brunt of this industry—which is one and the same as climate change. And it’s in their backyards.”

“We’re not there to tell them what the problem is and what to do about it,” Ron said. “It’s the same as organizing with landowners in East Texas. We’re not salespeople coming to these communities saying, ‘Time to rise up!’ People have cancer, leukemia. They have children in the neighborhood die. They understand this industry will kill you for profits.”

Over the course of multiple conversations, Ron told me that a core group of Tar Sands Blockade organizers are dedicating themselves to the kind of climate justice organizing that national environmental groups aren’t doing in Texas. From the start, Ron said, Tar Sands Blockade has shown a willingness to defy a status quo within the larger movement, in which only “winnable campaigns” are taken on—and funded. With the fight in East Texas, and by digging in now for the longer, even harder fight in Houston, “we’ve been able to say, ‘This is worth fighting no matter what, even if it looks like we can’t win.’”

“That type of real investment and commitment,” Ron said, “the idea that you have to go into where the problem is worst—like Mississippi during the civil rights era—you have to get in there and get a foothold. We hope we can empower local-led action and resistance. In Houston itself, there are literally millions of people who are being poisoned. We should be able to empower folks here to rise up and defend their own homes.”

“If the climate movement is ever going to win in a really robust way, it’s gotta come to Texas, the belly of the beast,” Ron told me. “Houston, and the Texas Gulf, is the lion’s den—the largest petrochemical complex on planet Earth. If the base isn’t there, if the communities there aren’t organized and informed, empowered to take action, the movement isn’t going to be successful when it needs to be.”

“The industry,” Ron said, “has shown every intention of escalating the climate crisis beyond certain tipping points, and people in these communities are affected by the industry right now, in desperate ways.” In a situation like this, he said, “we need to ask ourselves as organizers, ‘What does escalation look like? What could possibly be too escalated?’ Physically blockading infrastructure is a great place to start that conversation.” They may have failed to stop the construction of the southern pipeline, “but we can still build and cultivate a culture of resistance and action, capable of escalating to the point of shutting this stuff down in the future.”

I asked him what happens if Obama approves the Keystone XL and construction of the northern segment begins. Will Tar Sands Blockade still be committed to Texas? “I can guarantee you that if that segment is approved, and our friends and allies in Montana and South Dakota and Nebraska give us a call, there will be physical blockades in those areas as well, by local folks interested in that kind of resistance. But that doesn’t mean abandoning our base in Houston and East Texas. These are not mutually exclusive things.”

“There are two distinct lines of work that need to be done simultaneously,” he said. “One is to smash these systems that are oppressing us and destroying the world. The other is to build up the world that we want to see.”

“It’s a long-term commitment that we are making,” Ron said.

* * *

Before I left Nacogdoches, the blockaders gave me directions to their camp outside town. I arrived mid-morning, and the four I’d interviewed at the church were the only ones there. Murtaza showed me around. There was the small, ramshackle house that was used as a makeshift HQ and the communal outdoor kitchen under a blue plastic tarp, which had served fifty or more at one time. There was the outhouse that one of the Austin Heights members had built for them. As we walked a footpath into the woods in back, I saw the few remaining tents and an ingeniously rigged (if less than private) shower. Some climbing tackle still hung from a large tree. Nearby was a big pile of buckets and containers once used for hauling water. Murtaza thought the camp now had a vaguely post-apocalyptic look to it—or perhaps, I thought, like a guerrilla encampment after the battle shifts to new ground.

After my tour, I sat down with Fitzgerald at the picnic table by the kitchen, next to a campfire he was tending. I asked him if the “blockade,” as such, was over.

“It’s hard to define ‘over,’” he replied. “When I got here, blockading was as direct action as direct action can get. That part of TSB in Texas, I think, is done.”

What about building a deeper resistance that can go forward?

“TSB didn’t come here to create a resistance,” he said. “That resistance already existed. We partnered in that resistance, and we’re still partnering in it.”

Had Tar Sands Blockade strengthened that resistance? “Without a doubt,” he answered. “As far as resistance is concerned, we are far from done.”

Since we spoke, Fitzgerald has moved to the Beaumont–Port Arthur area, engaging in environmental justice work with the African-American communities there. But he told me that he and the others want to remain engaged with Nacogdoches. He feels close to the Austin Heights community, and he’s been reaching out to the Zion Hill congregation. “I’m trying to get the African-American community more involved,” he said, “because that’s just where I come from.”

The next weekend in Nacogdoches, I sat down again with Kyle Childress, this time in his office at the church. A portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. hangs on the wall. I told him, only half joking, that it was a little intimidating to sit there under Dr. King’s gaze.

“There’s a line in the old King James,” Childress told me, “that says the prayers of a faithful person ‘availeth much.’ One person, one small community, acting in faithfulness, can bring healing, hope, change.”

“Some of these blockaders,” he said, “were risking their lives up there in a tree trying to block that pipeline. And TransCanada has billions of dollars and says, ‘We’ll just go around you. You slowed us down for a day.’ Well, if that’s all there is, by sheer mathematics they win. But I think the prayers of a faithful person availeth much—and those blockaders are acting in fidelity to the goodness, the rightness, of God’s earth. That keeps me going. That’s my hope. And if I didn’t have hope, well, I’d probably just cash it in and go do something else for a living. I mean, you know, I’m not going to be pastor of a church without any hope.”

Indigenous nations are at the forefront of the conflict with transnational corporate power

January 9, 2013. The Idle No More protests reach Moncton (Canada), as about 200 people march on City Hall in support of First Nations rights. Photo: Stephen Downes / Flickr

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, TruthOut

On Monday, October 7, 2013, indigenous nations and their allies held 70 actions throughout the world proclaiming their sovereignty. The call to action was issued by Idle No more and Defenders of the Land to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the British Royal Proclamation of 1763, which was the first document in which an imperial nation recognized indigenous sovereignty and their right to self-determination. As we wrote last week, treaties with First Nations are not being honored, and even the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples does not adequately recognize the sovereignty of indigenous peoples.

In Canada, where the Idle No More movement was founded, an attack is being waged by the Harper government on the rights of the First Nations. A bill referred to as C-45 weakens laws that protect the land and allows transnational corporations to extract resources from First Nations’ lands without their consent. Idle No More was founded on December 10, 2012 (the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), when Chief Theresa Spence began a hunger strike to protest C-45 on an island across from the Canadian Parliament.

The Idle No More (INM) movement has grown exponentially during the past year to become a worldwide movement. At its core, the INM taps into issues that are essential to all people. INM is a struggle against transnational corporations that collude with governments to allow the exploitation of people and the planet for profit, and it is a struggle for a new economic paradigm. INM is also about facing up to the horrific history of the way that colonizers have abused and disrespected indigenous peoples so that there can be reconciliation and justice and so that the peoples of the world can coexist peacefully. And INM is about the recognition that indigenous peoples are stewards of the Earth and must lead the way to protect the Earth and teach others to do the same.

Throughout the year, there have been teach-ins, round dances, flash mobs and rallies to raise awareness of the ongoing racist and exploitative treatment of indigenous nations as well as the continued decimation of their land to extract resources. There have been long walks, rides and canoe trips to call for healing of the Earth and for the recognition of indigenous sovereignty. And there have been blockades and other nonviolent direct actions to stop further degradation of the planet. INM has already achieved some successes.

Idle No More is an indigenous-led movement, but it is not a movement exclusive to indigenous people. As Clayton Thomas-Muller, an organizer with Defenders of the Land and Idle No More, states, “We understand that the rise of the native rights-based strategic framework as an effective legal strategy supported by a social movement strategic framework is the last best effort not just for Indigenous People but for all Canadians and Americans to protect the commons … from the for-profit agenda of the neoliberal free market strategists that have taken over our governments … and indigenous peoples have been thrust into the forefront of global social movements not just because of our connection to the sacredness of Mother Earth and our traditional ecological knowledge and understanding of how to take care of the Earth as part of that sacred circle of life but also because our ancestors … made sure we had the legal instruments to be able to confront the enemies of today and that is what Idle No More is doing in the US and Canada and across the world where Indigenous People continue to live under occupation and oppression.”

Sovereignty is Fundamental in the Struggle for Global Justice

The United States and Canada are two of the wealthiest nations in the world. Much of this wealth comes from the extraction of resources on land that belongs by treaty to Native Indians. Rather than honoring these treaties, the governments of the US and Canada have a long history, which continues today, of using laws and even manipulating the process of creating the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to exterminate indigenous sovereignty.

As the extraction of resources becomes more extreme through processes such as hydro-fracking and tar sands excavation and the serious consequences this has on the health of people and the Earth become more apparent, indigenous nations have realized that their struggle for sovereignty must intensify. The INM movement is one manifestation of this effort.

One of the six core demands of the INM movement is to “Honour the spirit and intent of the historic Treaties. Officially repudiate the racist Doctrine of Discovery and the Doctrine of Terra Nullius, and abandon their use to justify the seizure of Indigenous Nations lands and wealth.” This is a particularly appropriate time to reflect on these doctrines as some in the United States celebrate Columbus Day.

Columbus used the Doctrine of Conquest to legitimize seizure of land in the Americas. This doctrine “grants invaders legal title to the lands they conquer.” Additionally, the Doctrine of Discovery from the early 1800s allowed colonizers to occupy and claim title to any lands, and their resources, that were not part of the European Christian monarchy. And the Doctrine of Terra Nullius similarly permitted colonizers to occupy and claim land that was not settled according to European standards, such as having an established township.

These doctrines continue today. The Doctrine of Discovery was codified into law by the Supreme Court decision of Johnson v. McIntosh in 1823, which left Native Indians “with the mere ‘right’ to occupy their ancestral lands, subject to U.S. dominion.” And so it is that Native Indians are subjected to policies that continue to allow corporations to extract resources and poison the air, land and water without their consent.

Although the INM movement began in Canada, it has also taken off in the US. And solidarity between Indian Nations in the US and Canada is developing. This summer, the Dakota Nation Unity Ride from Manitoba met up with the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign canoe trip in Woodstock, New York, to travel together to the United Nations in New York City. Two Row Wampum is the oldest treaty in North America between an Indian nation, the Haudenosaunee, and a European nation. This summer marked the 400th anniversary, which they highlighted with an epic canoe trip down the Hudson River.

The Two Row Wampum treaty ”outlines a mutual, three-part commitment to friendship, peace between peoples, and living in parallel forever (as long as the grass is green, as long as the rivers flow downhill and as long as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west).” The Two Row Wampum campaign seeks to uphold the treaty by creating friendship and peace between all peoples and by working together for a sustainable future, as outlined in their campaign goals. They seek recognition of their laws, the right to self-determination, including living in accordance with their culture and laws, and to be leaders in restoration and stewardship of the Earth.

The Dakota Unity Ride and the Two Row Wampum canoe trip landed in New York City on August 9, which is the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. They walked together to the United Nations building, where they met with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, representatives of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and other officials. The UN press statement describes the theme of the meeting as “Indigenous peoples building alliances: honouring treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements.”

This is a positive step, but the fight for sovereignty continues. Sylvia Mcadam, a founder of Idle No More and a professor and author, teaches that sovereignty includes “land, language and culture.” It is not just land that has been taken from indigenous peoples but also their language and culture through the forced attendance at residential schools and barriers to access their traditional foods. Mcadam states that her involvement in Idle No More began when she returned to her traditional land with her parents to do research for her current book. She was shocked to see how the land had been developed without consent of the people.

Mcadam reminds us that the First Nations are not a lawless people but that theCreator’s Laws are “expressed in everything we do.” Colonizers have a lot to learn from Native Indians – not only about caring for the Earth and living in ways that preserve resources for future generations but also about governance. Native Indians are matriarchal societies that practice deep democracy.

While indigenous people describe themselves as people who follow laws, they have suffered injustice on their lands. Last week, a panel of judges at the International Peoples Tribunal on Leonard Peltier issued an executive summary and preliminary findings following three days of testimony from Native Indians who described abuse inflicted by the US government and FBI agents. The tribunal concluded that US laws must be changed in order for FBI agents to be charged for their crimes of assault and murder on Pine Ridge Indian land in South Dakota and elsewhere. Further, the tribunal said justice is dependent on the immediate release of Leonard Peltier.

Non-indigenous groups are working in solidarity with Idle No More and other indigenous groups. For example, the Two Row Wampum campaign, led by the Onondaga Nation, works with Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation. This collaboration is particularly evident in the environmental movement.

Stewardship of the Land, Air and Water

Central to the Idle No More movement is protection of the land, air and water from corporations that steal resources without any regard for the environmental effects. Indigenous Peoples believe that many harmful substances, such as uranium and oils and gases, were put in the ground because they were meant to stay there. They oppose the extreme methods of extraction being used today.

During the past year, often with leadership from indigenous nations, the environmental movements in the US and Canada (and elsewhere around the world) have escalated their tactics to protect the Earth. Their focus has primarily been on stopping the pipelines that carry bitumen from the Alberta Tar Sands and stopping fracking for oil and gas. Throughout the summer, there were numerous direct action campaigns, including Sovereignty Summer and Fearless Summer, which collaborated to blockade roads and equipment to prevent pipeline construction.

We highlight three active campaigns that are being led by indigenous nations: The Red Nation’s efforts against an Enbridge pipeline, the Nez Perce fight to stop Megaloads from carrying humongous pieces of equipment through their lands and the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society, which evicted a fracking company, SWN Resources, from its land.

On February 28, Marty Cobenais from the Indigenous Environmental Network ledthe beginning of an occupation, which included building a sacred fire on top of a pipeline that runs across Red Lake Tribal land in Leonard, Minnesota. The pipeline carries bitumen from the Alberta Tar Sands, which is being mined and poisoning the land of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Canada without their consent. The pipeline is owned by Enbridge, and the Red Lake tribal members say that it is illegal. They understood that there was a requirement that if there were a permanent structure over the pipeline it would have to be shut down. Unfortunately, that has not happened, and in fact the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously this summer to allow the pipeline to be expanded to carry more tar sands bitumen even though hundreds attended the hearing in opposition to it.

The occupation is ongoing and is being supported by indigenous and non-indigenous environmental organizations. In October 2013, Winona LaDuke and the Indigo Girls led a weeklong Honour the Earth horseback ride along the route of the pipeline to raise awareness. They are very concerned about spills from the pipeline, which are inevitable. Enbridge has a poor safety record.

Spills have occurred already. In 2002, 48,000 gallons spilled near Cass Lake, Minnesota, and continues to pollute the water table. In 2010, more than 800,000 gallons spilled into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, and nearly 300,000 gallons remain today. And last year, 50,000 gallons spilled near Grand Marsh, Wisconsin. The pipeline runs through the Straits of Mackinac, which connect Lakes Huron and Michigan, and so it threatens to contaminate large supplies of fresh water.

A very similar battle is occurring between the Yinka Dene Alliance in British Columbia and Enbridge. There the Yinka Dene is accusing the British Columbia government of violating international law by issuing permits to Enbridge Inc. for drilling and tree removal in their territories along the proposed path for the Northern Gateway pipeline, despite their opposition and the lack of consultation on the proposed pipeline. They made the accusations in a 15-page submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Although the fight against Enbridge and the governments that collude with them have not made much progress, the Nez Perce in Idaho have won a significant victory. Last month a judge ordered the prohibition on the use of 100 miles of roadways through tribal lands to transport huge pieces of equipment, called Megaloads, made by General Electric that are used in extracting Canadian tar sands.

Tribal members filed a court case in August to prevent the Megaloads from crossing their land, something that is already illegal but wasn’t being enforced. They also blockaded the road in August to prevent passage of a Megaload. During the four-day blockade, eight of nine Nez Perce Tribal Council leaders were arrested.

The judge’s decision suspends the passage of Megaloads for now and may be lifted after an impact study is completed. However, another significant aspect of this decision is that the Nez Perce Tribal Council must be involved in future decisions to permit the Megaloads to use roads through their lands.

Another active occupation to protect tribal land is in New Brunswick, where the Elsipogtog have been taking action for months to stop a Houston-based company, SWN Resources, from exploring their land to begin fracking. Tribal members blockaded SWN work trucks throughout the early summer to prevent them from testing the land for potential fracking. In addition to blockading, some of SWN’s equipment was destroyed.

There was a temporary peace beginning in late July, when SWN Resources agreed to leave for the summer. Negotiations at that time included dropping charges against 25 of the 35 people who had been arrested. SWN did say it expected to return in September.

When SWN Resources recently attempted to return, it was met with an eviction notice and another blockade, which included a sacred fire. The Elsipogtog First Nation and Mi’kmaq Warrior Society contend that the land being explored was supposed to be held in trust for them but that the Canadian government has done such a poor job of caring for the land that the tribes are concerned whether the land will be able to support them. Along with the eviction notice, they are claiming sovereignty over the land and their responsibility to care for it.

On October 7, in solidarity with the days of action to proclaim indigenous sovereignty, activists in Houston delivered an eviction notice from the Elsipogtog to the office of SWN Resources. Office staff members refused to accept the letter, so it was left on the receptionist’s desk and copies were faxed directly to the office. The letter requested a response within 48 hours.

At present, the blockade continues. Some of the chiefs met with David Alward, premier of New Brunswick, but the talks have not been satisfactory. Alward would not allow members of the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society to attend the meetings. The Mi’kmaq Warrior Society is calling for solidarity actions October 18, when they expect SWN to serve a court injunction. The blockade has brought together tremendous support from the surrounding community and tribes across Canada.

Moving Toward Peace and a Healthy Planet for Future Generations

Also on October 7, members of Veterans for Peace and their allies held a ceremony in the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in New York City to mark the 12th anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan and to oppose all wars. As they did last year, the veterans read the names of those who were killed in wars and laid flowers at the base of the memorial. However, this year, the organizer, Tarak Kauff, began the ceremony by recognizing the 500-year war against First Nations and read the names of Native Indian warriors who were killed.

A shift seems to be happening in public awareness of the ongoing effects of colonialism on indigenous peoples and the importance of indigenous leadership in the struggle to heal and protect the Earth. During the past year, the indigenous-led movement in collaboration with non-indigenous allies has grown, and the tactics being employed to protect the land from extreme energy extraction have escalated.

Just as we must abolish imperialism abroad, we must also end it at home. To accomplish this, we must begin by understanding the ongoing 500-year war against Native Indians, and we must begin to speak about it. The Idle No More and other indigenous-led movements seek a peaceful solution that recognizes the sovereignty of indigenous peoples and their laws so that everyone can live in peace. And they understand that if we are to end the practices that are destroying the Earth, we must learn from those who are stewards of the Earth.

It is time for all of us to be Idle No More. We face common opponents – corporations that profit by exploiting people and the planet and the governments who collude with them. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, currently being negotiated, continues this global exploitation of the planet and people by transnational corporate interests. It is time to end imperialism and the neoliberal economic agenda that perpetuates this destructive behavior.

It is time for solidarity, cooperation, reconciliation and restoration of peaceful human relationships and the land, air and water. It is imperative that we act now so our children and future generations will have the opportunity for healthy lives. The future is literally in our hands.

Tense Standoff at Elsipogtog Blockade, Molotovs Thrown

Source: Earth First! Newswire

[Canada] A tense stand off is ongoing between 200 RCMP, Mi’kmaq blockaders, and about 200 supporters. According to the Stimulato r, the chief and tribal council personally blockaded gas company trucks behind barricades. Protesters have hurled rocks and a corporate news tripod at the RCMP. At the moment, RCMP are making mass arrests, SWN vehicles appear to be rolling out of the compound, and six RCMP vehicles have been set ablaze.

Molotov cocktails were thrown from the woods earlier this morning in defense of the land and peoples. The RCMP, some with long rifles, entered the woods. Shots were fired, and screaming was heard. There is an unconfirmed report that activist Steven Gould has been shot. (UPDATE: We are now receiving reports that less-than-lethal rounds have been fired at supporters, as well as tear gas. Pepper spray has been deployed against supporters attempting to get through police lines. The RCMP is currently unloading riot gear.)

Supporters broke through police lines to join the Mi’kmaq (video her e). The RCMP have erected a barrier on one side of the blockade, and appear to have the blockade surrounded. More people are coming to support with food and water.

Solidarity blockades have sprung up elsewhere in the Mi’kmaq territory. There are solidarity actions planned at the Canadian Consulate in NYC at 5pm and the Canadian Embassy in DC, as well as Vancouver and Winnipeg.

As of time of writing, arrests have been made, and there is at least one report of police brutality against Mi’kmaq warrior Suzanne Patles, an Ilnu woman and member of the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society. (UPDATE: It appears that mass arrests are currently being made.)

According to the New Brunswick, Anglophone North School District, the RCMP did not notify them of the raid as is legally required. Schools are currently on lock-down.

The Mi’kmaq are blockading Highway 132 near Rexton to halt the activity on the compound belonging to a gas company, SWN Resources Canada. SWN Resources has been illegally trying to frack the land of the Elsipogtog for months, and the tribe has been joined by other tribes of the Mi’kmaq and Wabanaki Confederacy peoples in attempts to take direct action against the gas company.

According to Ellen Gabriel of the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation, “Forcible removal of Mi’kmaq on their traditional lands, [is] an illegal act by Police who should not enforce.”

Last week, a Canadian judge issued an injunction against the blockade, but the Elsipogtog have sought peaceful negotiation. Today’s raid must be seen as a preemptive action to prevent the October 18 day of action from taking place, which was called by the Mi’kmaq Warriors Society for physical support of the SWN blockade.

The demands of the Warriors Society are the following:

Produce all Bills of Sales, Sold, Ceded, Granted and Extinguished Lands for New Brunswick.
Produce documents proving Cabot’s Doctrine of Discovery.
Produce the Treaty of Peace and Friendship 1686.
Produce Treaty of Fort Howe 1768.
Produce consents for Loyalists to land in Nova Scotia/New Brunswick.
Produce records of Townships created and consents by Chiefs to allow this.
Produce agreements or consents by all New Brunswick Chiefs who agreed to Confereration of 1867.
Produce evidence of consents to The Indian Act by all Native Tribes.
Produce records of Trust Funds.
Produce agreements for 4% of all mineral shares of finished products in Canada, except coal.
Produce all correspondence letters pertaining to Numbered Treaties (Promises).
Produce all documents creating border divisions, that divide the Wabanaki confederacy.
Produce the Orders from the Lords of Trade to the Governor of the Colonies.

‘We Draw The Line’: Coal-impacted Lummi Nation And Northern Cheyenne Unite In Solidarity

By Hannibal Rhoades, Intercontinental Cry

Offering solidarity to Indigenous Nations, last month five Carvers from the Lummi Nation House of Tears set out on a journey up the Pacific North West Coast hoping to send a message of Kwel’Hoy, or ‘We Draw The Line’ to the resource extraction industry. With them, lain carefully on the flat bed of a truck, the Lummi carried a beautifully-carved 22-foot cedar totem pole for Indigenous communities to bless along the way. Their journey gained international attention as a pilgrimage of hope, healing and determination for the embattled Indigenous Nations they visited.

The rich prairies and clear streams of Otter Creek, Montana, land of the Northern Cheyenne, were the first stop on the Totem Pole’s profound journey. Both the Lummi carvers who made the 1,200 mile trip inland and the Northern Cheyenne who received them, currently face major, interconnected threats from proposed coal mining developments. Bound by this common struggle the meeting of these Peoples resonated with a deep significance that replicated along the rest of the Lummi’s spiritual trail.

For several years now the Northern Cheyenne have been resisting Arch Coal Inc., the second largest coal producer in the U.S. In 2012, the company applied for permission to begin surface mining operations at Otter Creek spanning a vast 7,639-acre area. If the Montana State government approves of the company’s application, the impacts on public health, land, water and air quality would be significant, just as they have been elsewhere in Powder River country.

Other Indigenous Nations–including the Oglala Sioux whose traditional homelands and hunting grounds are located in southeastern Montana–have joined the Northern Cheyenne in their opposition to the proposed mine at Otter Creek. The impact of the proposed Arch Coal mine is also a concern to local ranchers, who are standing with their Northern Cheyenne neighbours. All parties are equally concerned about the likely impacts of the Tongue River Railroad Co’s proposed Tongue River railway that would serve Arch Coal’s Otter Creek mine.

Photo by Paul Anderson

In both the case of the mine and the railroad, Indigenous and other local communities have complained of a lack of fair process. They feel foresaken by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the Surface Transportation Board, the bodies charged with ensuring a fair and transparent process. Both government agencies appear to be ignoring the cultural and environmental importance of the area and the desires of its residents in order to push both projects forward.

1,200 miles away, the Lummi Nation have been fighting a battle of their own. Pacific International Terminals plans to build the largest coal port in North America known as the Gateway Pacific Terminal, at Xwe’chi’eXen, or Cherry point, a Lummi ancestral village and burial ground. The new port, jointly owned by SSA Marine and Goldman Sachs, would become a hub for exporting coal from the interior. Coal from the Powder River Basin by Peabody Energy would be hauled by trains along BNSF rail lines from Montana and Wyoming through Sandpoint, Idaho, to Spokane, down through the Columbia River Gorge, then up along the Puget Sound coast to Cherry Point.

Linking the struggles of the Lummi and Northern Cheyenne Peoples, the railroads are raising concerns about impacts to human and environmental health as well local economies. The coal port itself poses a serious threat to the local and surrounding marine ecosystems and livelihoods, not to mention and the cultural and spiritual integrity of Cherry Point itself.

Speaking at the blessing of the Totem Pole at Otter Creek, Romona Charles, a Lummi carver, summed up the incredulity and resistance of the Lummi peoples to the proposed development saying: “It (Cherry Point) was an old village and it’s a known grave site. My people are from there…There has not been one time I thought, ‘Let’s go put a coal port at Arlington Cemetery.’”

Folks on the Northern Cheyenne admire the Kwell Hoy’ totem pole. (Photo by Paul Anderson)

The reason Lummi, Northern Cheyenne and local communities in Puget Sound and Otter Creek are facing this unprecedented threat comes down to the fact that the US has begun to favour ‘new’ fossil fuels such as natural gas extracted via fracking. Gas-fired power stations are cheaper to construct and permissions are easier to obtain as, according to the authorities, natural gas has fewer environmental impacts. This domestic change of tide has left coal ‘unfashionable’ and shifted the focus of coal mining companies to exporting the mineral to Asian markets. To do this, the extractive industries require new links (the railroads) between the interior and the coast, and new export hubs (the ports) to send the coal off to the next leg of its trip across the Pacific Ocean.

The environmental cost of this change in tactics and the new infrastructure it requires is vast. At a time when anthropogenic climate change has been unequivocally proven, the exploitation of one of the dirtiest fossil fuels around–in order to generate power half way around the globe– spells even more trouble for people and planet.

United in this knowledge as well as the struggle for their lands, their sacred sites and their right to decide, about one hundred people including the Lummi and Northern Cheyenne, conservationists, ranchers and local community members met at Otter Creek for the blessing of the Totem. Sundance Priest Kenneth Medicine Bull, who conducted the ceremony, revealed the ritual’s significance as a way to find a solidarity that transcends the generations. Speaking after the ceremony, he stated, “We need to protect our way of life…I addressed the grandfathers, those who have gone before us, and I told them the reason we were here, and I asked them to hear our prayer and stand beside us.”

For those gathered, the symbolic giving of the Totem marked not only the visible unity of concerned individuals, groups and Nations, but a renewed commitment to say No to mining and destruction and Yes to the protection of life and the cultures that nurture it. This collective commitment is at the heart of the Totem’s message of Kwel’Hoy and the purpose of its journey, as Lummi master carver Jewell Praying Wolf James explained to those gathered:

“We kill the Earth as if we [have] a license to do it. We destroy life on it as if we were superior. And yet, deep inside, we know we can’t live without it. We’re all a part of creation and we have to find our spot in the circle of life…We’re concerned about protecting the environment as well as people’s health all the way from the Powder River to the West Coast… We’re traveling across the country to help unify people’s voices; it doesn’t matter who you are, where you are at or what race you are–red, black, white or yellow–we’re all in this together.”

Leaving Otter Creek and the Powder River Country and, in the following days, ritually winding their way up the Pacific North West Coast from community to community, the Lummi carvers continued to spread the key messages of one-ness and unity throughout the rest of the Totem’s journey.

On September 30, the Totem finally arrived on the lands of the Tsleil-Waututh community in North Vancouver, BC. There, in the company of those standing courageously at the forefront of the struggle against the pipelines of the Alberta Tar Sands, the people planted the Totem pole. A permanent symbol of solidarity and opposition to destruction, the Totem pole stands tall as a reminder of our sacred obligation to the Earth and each another.

Kwel Hoy’.

Photos by Paul Anderson

Upper Skagit tracks sockeye’s preferred prey

Source: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The Upper Skagit Indian Tribe is sampling zooplankton in Baker Lake and Lake Shannon to track the availability of food for juvenile sockeye salmon.

The results will let fisheries managers know whether the reservoirs can support an increase in sockeye production at Puget Sound Energy’s (PSE) Baker River hatchery. The Upper Skagit Tribe took over zooplankton monitoring from PSE two years ago, after the utility’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license was renewed.

“Sampling zooplankton, the preferred prey of sockeye, will let us know what time of year they become most abundant,” said Jon-Paul Shannahan, biologist for the tribe. “That way, we can manage the sockeye hatchery releases when the most food is available.”

Tribal natural resources staff collects zooplankton from the lakes during spring and summer, the primary growing season for sockeye salmon. The samples are sent to a lab in Idaho that identifies the types of zooplankton and calculates the abundance and biomass in the two reservoirs.

PSE’s Baker River Hydroelectric Project consists of two dams on a tributary to the Skagit River. Built in 1925, the Lower Baker Dam created Lake Shannon, and in 1959, the Upper Baker Dam enlarged and raised Baker Lake.

Recently, the Baker River hatchery increased production of sockeye salmon from 1 million to 5 million fish in Baker Lake, and began releasing 2 million fish into Lake Shannon.

“In a 2010 study of Baker Lake and Lake Shannon, there was a noticeable decline in the preferred zooplankton biomass as numbers of sockeye increased,” Shannahan said. “The tribe wants to make sure the food source will be able to sustain a larger number of fish.”

National Congress of American Indians Elects New Executive Committee, Bids Farewell To President Jefferson Keel

Source: National Congress of American Indians

Tulsa, OK – The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) elected a new Executive Committee today at the 70^th Annual Convention & Marketplace. The Executive Committee is charged with advancing the mission of NCAI to protect and advance tribal sovereignty by representing the issues and priorities of tribal nations throughout the country.

President: Brian Cladoosby, Chairman, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community

First Vice President: Michael Finley, Chairman, Colville Tribes

Recording Secretary: Robert Shepard, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate

Treasurer: Dennis Welsh, Jr., Tribal Council Member, Colorado River Indian Tribes

Regional Vice Presidents: Announced Friday, October 18th

The Executive Committee is elected by NCAI membership: the President, First Vice President, Recording Secretary, and Treasurer are elected by the entire membership; and the twelve Regional Vice Presidents are elected by each respective region. Each of these officers is a member of the NCAI board and serves a two-year term to begin Friday, October 18, 2013.

Two-term President Jefferson Keel will step down Friday, October 18^th. President Keel honored NCAI with his leadership, elevated the role of the organization, and served tribal nations well. He remains a valued and respected leader within NCAI and throughout Indian Country.

One stop diabetes shop

Diabetes day at the Tulalip Health Clinic

Tribal member Ron Anchetta takes home the broccoli he grew in the community garden at the health clinic.

By Andrew Gobin, Tulalip News

“Rather than making multiple appointments throughout the week, today we have made available every service for diabetes testing all at once,” said Bryan Cooper about the October 15^th diabetes day at the Tulalip Karen I. Fryberg Health Clinic. A day meant to inform about the disease also offers tips on diabetes prevention, healthy living, and general nutrition.

Cooper, the medical director at the clinic, made key points as to why diabetes day is a success, such as explaining the ease of diabetes testing, both for patients and staff.

“Our labs are nationally accredited. Here at the clinic, lab results are ready in 15 minutes, which is unheard of at larger clinics and hospitals.”

Although Cooper is one of the lead organizers, he emphasized the importance of the team of specialists that make diabetes day possible. “The team made themselves available, making it possible to have integrated services to streamline diabetes testing. That was one concern we kept hearing from patients, that testing was too time consuming, spanning multiple days and appointments,” said Cooper. “Today, patients can come in and get everything done at once, and it doesn’t take long to make it through each necessary station.”

Diabetes day is one aspect of a five-year plan developed last summer to create programs at the clinic geared towards community needs. Diabetes day began January of this year, and it happens 4 times a year, to allow for the convenient service for new patients, as well as those diabetic patients that need to be seen every 3 months. The staff would really like to see the clinic become a place for the community wellness center, where people could come and relax and visit, not just for medical needs.

“In addition to dental and medical, we offer alternative medicine such as acupuncture, reiki, bowen, massage, chiropractor, and traditional healing. We have a garden of traditional foods available to patients as well,” said Cooper.

Visit the clinic to learn more about upcoming events and programs, or to learn more about any of these services provided.

Inside Out: The Original Organ Show

Tulalip CEDAR and the Providence Regional Medical Center is excited to share this innovative health education program with the community. Inside Out: The Original Organ Showprovides audiences with compelling health information—presented in a truly unique way—that empowers them to make informed decisions about behaviors and lifestyle choices that impact their long-term well-being.

Inside Out: The Original Organ Show takes viewers on a fantastic voyage through the human body. Actual human organs, such as hearts, lungs, brains, livers, kidneys and aortas are shown. Some are healthy; others have been damaged by substance abuse, poor eating habits and unsafe behaviors. Through the presentation, viewers can see first-hand what really happens to their bodies when they choose harmful habits and lifestyles.

November 7, 2013 5-7PM, Tulalip Administration Building, Room 162
6406 Marine Drive, Tulalip WA

Info: Bonnie Juneau, Tulalip Tribes’ Natural & Cultural Resources, 360.716.4004

A healthy frybread option

Staff enjoyed a morning treat of warm frybread.Photo by Brandy N. Monteuil — Staff enjoyed a morning treat of warm whole wheat frybread.
Photo by Brandi N. Monteuil

By Monica Brown, Tulalip News Writer

TULALIP, Wash.-There’s something about frybread, maybe it’s that you can smell it a mile away and that scent brings back so many memories. This recipe was received as a request to test and it was surprisingly good. Since it contains mostly whole wheat flour it offers more filling fiber, which also helps to lower the net carbs of this tasty snack. The recipe indicates that it will make eight small frybread but I was able to make just over ten.

Since it is important to having slightly fluffy frybread, be sure that your baking powder is fresh. Test it by placing a tsp. into a small cup of warm or hot water, if it bubbles up immediately then it is still fresh. If not you will either need to buy more or make your own by combining, 1 tsp baking soda, 2 tsps cream of tartar and 1 tsp of corn starch (optional). Baking soda can be tested for freshness in the same manner but by placing a tsp in a small amount of vinegar.

This recipe can be found at www.diabetes.ihs.gov in the printed materials section. If you have a recipe that you would like to share please send it in to mbrown@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov. Recipe adapted from What’s cooking, Healthy in Warm Springs, Sara Lee Thomas, MS, RD and Edison Yazzie

Whole wheat Frybread

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup white flour

3 tablespoons powdered milk

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt (optional)

1 ½ cups warm water

Canola oil

Preparation:

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and gradually add water to make dough. Knead the dough until it forms a ball and comes clean from the edge of bowl. Cover with a cloth and let sit for 30 minutes.

Pour about ¾ inch of canola oil into a deep frying pan and heat on medium. Test the temperature of the oil by putting a small pinch of dough into it. If the oil is ready, the will rise immediately to the top.

Divide the dough and knead into 8 round balls. Pat and stretch or roll dough out into flat circles until the dough is ¼ to ½ inch thick. With a fork, poke a few holes in the flattened circles of dough.

Carefully slide a flattened dough round into the hot oil to avoid splashes. Slightly lift frybread to check the bottom, when it is begins to brown turn it over. When both sides are done remove from oil, drain excess oil and place on baking sheet lined with paper towels.

Nutrition Information Makes 8 frybread

240 calories, 10g Total fat, 1g Saturated fat, 220-510mg Sodium, 35g Carbohydrate, 4g fiber, 6g Protein

whole wheat frybread with homemade jam.Photo by Brandi N. Montreuil — whole wheat frybread with homemade jam.
Photo by Brandi N. Montreuil

Republicans Back Down, Ending Crisis Over Shutdown and Debt Limit

Doug Mills/The New York TimesSpeaker John A. Boehner before voting Wednesday night. He told his members to hold their heads high, go home and regroup. — Doug Mills/The New York Times
Speaker John A. Boehner before voting Wednesday night. He told his members to hold their heads high, go home and regroup.

By Jonathan Weisman and Ashley Parker, New York Times

WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans conceded defeat on Wednesday in their bitter budget fight with President Obama over the new health care law as the House and Senate approved last-minute legislation ending a disruptive 16-day government shutdown and extending federal borrowing power to avert a financial default with potentially worldwide economic repercussions.

With the Treasury Department warning that it could run out of money to pay national obligations within a day, the Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday evening, 81 to 18, to approve a proposal hammered out by the chamber’s Republican and Democratic leaders after the House on Tuesday was unable to move forward with any resolution. The House followed suit a few hours later, voting 285 to 144 to approve the Senate plan, which would fund the government through Jan. 15 and raise the debt limit through Feb. 7.

Mr. Obama signed the bill about 12:30 a.m. Thursday.

Most House Republicans opposed the bill, but 87 voted to support it. The breakdown showed that Republican leaders were willing to violate their informal rule against advancing bills that do not have majority Republican support in order to end the shutdown. All 198 Democrats voting supported the measure.

Mr. Obama, speaking shortly after the Senate vote, praised Congress, but he said he hoped the damaging standoff would not be repeated.

“We’ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis,” said Mr. Obama, who urged Congress to proceed not only with new budget negotiations, but with immigration changes and a farm bill as well. “We could get all these things done even this year, if everybody comes together in a spirit of, how are we going to move this country forward and put the last three weeks behind us?”

After the House vote, officials announced that the federal government would reopen on Thursday and that federal employees should return to work.

The result of the impasse that threatened the nation’s credit rating was a near total defeat for Republican conservatives, who had engineered the budget impasse as a way to strip the new health care law of funding even as registration for benefits opened Oct. 1 or, failing that, to win delays in putting the program into place.

The shutdown sent Republican poll ratings plunging, cost the government billions of dollars and damaged the nation’s international credibility. Mr. Obama refused to compromise, leaving Republican leaders to beg him to talk, and to fulminate when he refused. For all that, Republicans got a slight tightening of income verification rules for Americans accessing new health insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act.

“We fought the good fight,” said Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, who has struggled to control the conservative faction in the House, in an interview with a Cincinnati radio station. “We just didn’t win.”

In a brief closed session with his Republican rank and file, Mr. Boehner told members to hold their heads high, go home, get some rest and think about how they could work better as a team.

Two weeks of relative cohesion broke down into near chaos on Tuesday when Republican leaders failed twice to unite their troops behind a last-gasp effort to prevent a default on their own terms. By Wednesday, House conservatives were accusing more moderate Republicans of undercutting their position. Representative Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, a leading Republican voice for ending the fight, said Congress should have passed a bill to fund the government without policy strings attached weeks ago.

“That’s essentially what we’re doing now,” Mr. Dent said. “People can blame me all they want, but I was correct in my analysis and I’d say a lot of those folks were not correct in theirs.”

Under the agreement to reopen the government, the House and Senate are directed to hold talks and reach accord by Dec. 13 on a long-term blueprint for tax and spending policies over the next decade. Mr. Obama said consistently through the standoff that he was willing to have a wide-ranging budget negotiation once the government was reopened and the debt limit raised.

Mr. Boehner and his leadership team had long felt that they needed to allow their restive conference to pitch a battle over the president’s health care law, a fight that had been brewing almost since the law was passed in 2010. Now, they hope the fever has broken, and they can negotiate on issues where they think they have the upper hand, like spending cuts and changes to entitlement programs.

But there were no guarantees that Congress would not be at loggerheads again by mid-January, and there is deep skepticism in both parties that Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin and Senator Patty Murray of Washington, who will lead the budget negotiations, can bridge the chasm between them.

“This moves us into the next phase of the same debate,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat. “Our hope is now that Speaker Boehner and his caucus have played out their scenario with a tragic outcome, perhaps they’ll be willing to be more constructive.”

As Republican lawmakers left the closed meeting Wednesday, some were already thinking of the next fight.

“I’ll vote against it,” said Representative John C. Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, referring to the Senate plan. “But that will get us into Round 2. See, we’re going to start this all over again.”

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader who was instrumental in ending the crisis, stressed that under the deal he had negotiated with the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the across-the-board budget cuts extracted in the 2011 fiscal showdown remained in place over the objections of some Democrats, a slim reed that not even he claimed as a significant victory.

The deal, Mr. McConnell said, “is far less than many of us hoped for, quite frankly, but it’s far better than what some had sought.”

“Now it’s time for Republicans to unite behind other crucial goals,” he added.

Chastened Senate Republicans said they hoped the outcome would be a learning experience for the lawmakers in the House and the Senate who shut down the government in hopes of gutting the health law, Mr. Obama’s signature domestic achievement. Instead of using the twin issues of government funding and borrowing authority to address the drivers of the federal deficit, conservatives focused on a law they could never undo as long as Mr. Obama is president, several lawmakers said.

“Goose egg, nothing, we got nothing,” said Representative Thomas H. Massie, Republican of Kentucky.

Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina took a swipe at his fellow Republican senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, as well as House members who linked government financing to defunding the health care law, which is financed by its own designated revenues and spending cuts.

“Let’s just say sometimes learning what can’t be accomplished is an important long-term thing,” Mr. Burr said, “and hopefully for some of the members they’ve learned it’s impossible to defund mandatory programs by shutting down the federal government.”

While Mr. Cruz conceded defeat, he did not express contrition.

“Unfortunately, the Washington establishment is failing to listen to the American people,” he said as he emerged from a meeting of Senate Republicans called to ratify the agreement.

For hundreds of thousands of federal workers across the country furloughed from their jobs, the legislative deal meant an abrupt end to their forced vacation as the government comes back to life beginning Thursday.

In a statement late Wednesday, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, made the reopening official.

“Employees should expect to return to work in the morning,” she said, adding they should check news reports and the Office of Personnel Management’s Web site for updates.

For Mr. Boehner, who had failed to unite his conference around a workable plan, Wednesday’s decision to take up the Senate bill proved surprisingly free of conflict. Hard-line Republican lawmakers largely rallied around the speaker.

Representative Raúl R. Labrador of Idaho, said he was “really proud” of how Mr. Boehner had handled the situation. “I’m more upset with my Republican conference, to be honest with you,” he said.

Michael D. Shear contributed reporting.