This one is a real shocker, showing terrible photos of the environmental destruction in many nations wrought by Rio Tinto Mining of Australia, the very same corporation which got Arizona's John McCain to put in a bill to privatize the Tonto National Forest and turn much of it into North America's largest copper mine! At the request of the San Carlos Apaches, Senator Sanders jumped into this to protect the Apaches Sacred land with the Save Oak Flat Act (S2242), which is hung up in Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski's Committee, members listed in my article below.
Getting this bill out of Committee is in my opinion a vital test of Bernie Sanders' growing power and particularly of his millions of supporters. Please take the time to write to these Senators listed in the article asking them to vote Bernie's S2242 out of the committee and to the Senate floor. In the photo on our group page (Bernie Sanders: Advice and Strategies to Win!) are all of the key San Carlos Apaches and some other key Native Leaders.
Writing to Senators is quite easy: if you don't have time or don't want to look their Senate Room Numbers up from their web pages, you can always write to them, c/o United States Senate, Washington D.C. 20510
If we lose, we lose not only the West to more of this kind of depraved degradation, but we lose a looming major battle to the corporate plutocracy in general. I can't understand how the Senate, particularly John McCain, could resort to permitting something as depraved as this, a complete departure from the sanctity of public lands.
After Arizona Senator John McCain inserted the bill into the National Defense Appropriation Act, to privatize the Tonto National Forest and allow it to be turned into North America's largest new copper mine, the San Carlos Apaches were desperate. Tonto contains the sacred land of these San Carlos Apaches used for praying, spiritual rejuvenation and healing, called Oak Flat.
The San Carlos Apaches went to Washington both terrified and angry, and Bernie Sanders was the only U.S. Senator willing to step forward to help them with his Save Oak Flat Act, S2242. This in itself is a very compelling fact which shows how deep the corporate manipulations of our government have gone, with shocking, even terrifying implications.
Sanders' bill is now cosponsored by New Mexico's Senator Martin
Heinrich and Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, and needs more
co-sponsors. Please ask your Senators to co-sponsor this Act.
Their co-sponsorship is necessary because the bill is stuck in the Senate Committee chaired by Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski. These Senators below are the Republican Majority on this Committee, and of course, your letters to them should remind them of the idiocy and dangerous precedents implicit in privatizing any national forest, even if their colleague, John McCain, is the progenitor of this diabolical and bizarre corporate-manipulated plan.
Make no mistake. These nefarious plans by Senator John McCain and Rio Tinto d/b/a Resolution Mining will most certainly proceed, unless Bernie's Save Oak Flat is not passed out of the committee and approved by the Senate. Rio Tinto/Resolution has been widening the roads in the area to make way for the huge earth moving equipment they have scheduled to start ripping up Oak Flat and the Tonto National Forest].
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources:
Lisa Murkowski
Chairman, Alaska
John Barrasso
Wyoming
Jim Risch
Idaho
Mike Lee
Utah
Jeff Flake
Arizona
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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