It wasn’t about cup cakes, so it was okay

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Imagine what would happen if, without their permission and in spite of the congregation’s protests, congress told a foreign mining company that they could move into a church and start mining for whatever the foreign company needs to make money.

I am sure it would be seen as some sort of attack on religion.

But as we have seen all too often recently, the exercise of religious freedom and the respect for the beliefs of religions is a very relative and a very selective thing.

When the Cherokee were forced to Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma, they were told that the land was theirs a long as the grass grew and the rivers ran. But even as these two things continued to happen, the Native Americans found that their land was being manipulated away from them, or found out after the fact.

During my time in Oklahoma, a dam was proposed on a major river, and many people did not understand why tribes like the Cherokee had a problem with that.

Treaties had historically been broken with little recourse and with the support of the “white man’s court”, and the fear was that with the waters’ running severely curtailed, there would be attempts to cancel the original agreement on this technicality.

It wasn’t only in the movies, after all, that treaties made in good faith by the tribes were negated for convenience.

That is why what happened to the Apache is just another example of treaty violations with “justification” from those who benefit.

When the National Defense Authorization Act came up a few months ago, with members of Congress knowing few if anyone would vote against it, people like John McCain inserted a land-swap measure that would privatize national forest land sacred to Western Apache tribes without their having any say.

Oak Flat was handed over to Resolution, a private, Australian-British mining concern in a land swap that trades 5,300 acres of private parcels owned by the company to the Forest Service and gives the 2,400 acres including Oak Flat to Resolution.
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It is a place “where Apaches go to pray,” according to the San Carlos Apache tribal chairman, Terry Rambler.

It is an ancient Apache holy place, where coming-of-age ceremonies, especially for girls, have been performed for many generations.

Since 2005 when it has been a stand alone bill, the land swap was defeated, so it became imperative for those who wanted it to stick in to some bill where it would have to be passed when the must-pass bill was.

John McCain got a lot of money from the mining company, and Jeff Lake actually had contributions from it rise from $2,500 in 2010 to $183,602 in 2014, just before he and McCain slipped the provision into the defense bill at the last minute.

The 2,400 acres sits on a massive copper deposit, and is dotted with petroglyphs and historic and prehistoric sites.

The San Carlos Apache Tribe, Pascua Yaqui Tribe and Tohono O’odham Nation, along with 17 other Native American groups sent a letter to Congressional leaders, protesting the land-swap because it tramples on the religious rights of indigenous people.

Because the land would now be the possession of the mining company, it can be mined without oversight. Even the mining company admits the land would be damage since the method to be used, block-cave mining, removes a mountain of rock from underground, resulting in major subsidence, or collapse, of the land above, and will leave a two-mile wide crater.

The San Carlos Apache Tribe says its spiritual beings live within the Oak Flat area. It is where the creator, God, touched the earth.

Scott Wood, heritage program manager for the Tonto National Forest, has explained, “People need to understand that in this part of Arizona, there are a lot of significant prehistoric sites. It’s also an area that was heavily utilized and is very important, in fact sacred, to several tribes, including the Apaches. … It’s the continuing association that the area has with the Apaches that’s most significant.”

But, Hey. Not the right religious beliefs.

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