Where's an environmentalist to party?

Let's begin with our assessment that today's Republican Party is, at best, despicable and reprehensible. When last we checked, not one of them had signed as a co-sponsor of Sen. Feinstein's Keep Families Together Act. For that matter, several of our least favorite Democrats were very late to get on board. Using children as hostages and/or a deterrent is unacceptable and should, if we lived in a just world, carry severe penalties. But, that's not primarily what we're concerned with at the moment.

In fact, historically, some surprising Republicans have made major contributions to environmental and conservation legislation. This time around, such sanity does not look at all promising. Furthermore, too many Democrats, including Congressman Nolan and Senators Smith and Klobuchar, are abandoning long term environmental benefits to provide windfalls to foreign corporations. We are here referring to recent efforts to use political clout to forestall due process in the courts to facilitate the start of copper-nickel-sulfide mining in Northern Minnesota in the Lake Superior watershed and, possibly as part of future efforts, in the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Several pieces of legislation passed by Minnesota's Republican-controlled legislature were signed into law by our Democratic governor. The local Sierra Club chapter's legislative scorecard as listed in the recent newsletter, lists three noteworthy losses.

Duluth Harbor, St. Louis River

Photo by J. Harrington

In the interest of full disclosure, we cannot recall a time when patience, forbearance. or tolerance have every been listed among our more sterling qualities. That no doubt helps explain why we're actively looking for an alternative to the Democratic Party. Here's the Minnesota Democrat-Farmer-Labor [DFL] party's environmental platform: [it's more readable at the linked document]

It apparently contains enough loopholes for Senators Smith and Klobuchar to feel comfortable supporting Glencore and PolyMet over local natural resource protection and assessment values that would reflect the value of the resources to be mined compared to the value of resources like the Boundary Waters and the St. Louis River that warrant protection. We're still looking for the mining project that hasn't polluted its watershed.

St. Louis River, Jay Cooke State Park

Photo by J. Harrington

We're also looking long and hard at an emerging alternative to today's DFL. There's a Movement for a People's Party. Included in it's plank on Clean Energy and Environmental Protection is this

Expand and improve public transportation and high speed rail to make commuting faster and cheaper, take cars off the road and reduce vehicle pollution. Raise clean air and clean water standards to save thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in annual medical costs. Preserve public lands and prevent resource exploitation in national parks such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

We don't want to get too nit-picky (us?) or split hairs about language use, but the Movement's language seems to us to be more straight forward than the DFL's.

We are very deeply troubled that the environment seems to have become collateral damage as the U.S. tries to win a race to the bottom, regardless of which political party prevails in any given election. We believe, more and more daily, that folks like James Hansen warrant more and better responsiveness from our governing institutions. We'll keep trying to push in that direction until we can't any more. At least those seeking asylum along our Southern border aren't looking for mining jobs, right?

Deportee
(aka. "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos")

Words by Woody Guthrie, Music by Martin Hoffman

The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They're flying 'em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"

My father's own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
And they rode the truck till they took down and died.

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract's out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, "They are just deportees"

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?

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