And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: "T. Hall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> This is an op-ed article from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune 1/1/99 Counterpoint: Not too late to revise plans for Hwy. 55 Bruce Shoemaker Gov. Arne Carlson, in trying to justify his brutal raid against the nonviolent community of Native Americans and community activists occupying the proposed Hwy. 55 reroute site, claims he acted because the protesters were "outside the law." However, it is the Carlson administration, the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the city of Minneapolis that are engaged in the real crime. State and federal laws on the completion of supplemental environmental impact statements are being blatantly disregarded. New understanding of the importance the lands south of 54th Street -- including the oak savanna area and the historic Camp Coldwater Spring -- play in Minnesota history require that the impacts of the proposed highway be comprehensively examined. The Department of Transportation continues to point to the endorsement of the reroute by the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, even though the council has retracted its earlier support based on new information. Rather than sincerely addressing concerns over these issues, the department has tried to hide behind a "statute of limitations" defense, claiming it is too late for community groups to raise such concerns. Even worse, federal and state laws and treaty commitments with the Mendota Mdewakanton tribe are being disregarded. These are serious laws and commitments and the state and the city Minneapolis are going to be forced to abide by them. If they continue in ignoring environmental law and trampling on the rights of native people to protect and reclaim their ancestral lands, Minnesota and Minneapolis may be headed for a major national embarrassment. Will Minnesota become a late 1990s version of Mississippi in the 1960s -- dragged kicking and screaming into the civil rights era through federal intervention? The refusal of state and city leaders to meet with federal mediators in advance of their massive raid on the Minnehaha camp is reminiscent of the entrenched racist arrogance of power of an earlier era, one we might have expected of George Wallace's Alabama in the early 1960s. What is especially appalling is how our local DFL politicians, in particular, Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton, fell over each other in cooperating with and endorsing our lame-duck Republican governor's use of force. What will the mayor be endorsing next -- Philadelphia-style SWAT team aerial fire bombings like the MOVE raid? Many highway opponents are past supporters of the mayor. They voted for her and were impressed with her sensible and inclusive style of managing the city. Her hard-line defense of the reroute, which appears to willfully violate many of the basic principles central to her past political life, is extremely puzzling and is alienating her from a significant block of her constituents. It is unfortunate that so few of our DFL representatives have had the guts to come out and say publicly what many of them increasingly admit privately: The Hwy. 55 reroute is an enormous ill-conceived fiasco that would never be approved if they were "doing it all over again." But like the Republican impeachment initiative, the reroute now has a momentum of its own and can't seem to be stopped even though most people know it is a bad idea. For the New Year we need some new initiatives by our political representatives at the federal, state and local levels to creatively end this embarrassing and divisive situation and come up with a revised plan for Hwy. 55 -- one upon which broader consensus can be reached, one that meets both the spirit and letter of applicable laws, one with which we all can live. Let's do it ourselves, before the feds force us to live up to the principles we claim to believe in. -- Bruce Shoemaker, Minneapolis. Copyright 1999 Star Tribune. All rights reserved. <<<<=-=-=FREE LEONARD PELTIER=-=-=>>>> If you think you are too small to make a difference; try sleeping in a closed room with a mosquito.... African Proverb <<<<=-=http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ =-=>>>> IF it says: "PASS THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW...." Please Check it before you send it at: http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/library/blhoax.htm
