Coal production and consumption is one of the most destructive forces on the planet. While a nation responds to Hurricane Katrina, it ignores the toxic spill prone practices of the nation’s energy producers or how much toxic waste is unleashed when the mighty Mississippi destroys attempts to channel its power through levees and dams. In my language “Mississ” is the term for stream, “mississip” a river, and “Mississippi” the great grandfather river. It has threatened every generation who has ever tried to control it, and protected and nourished those who have respected it. The great Colorado River has been rerouted 300 miles out of its natural path to the sea; the Mississippi will never allow that. Until we learn to appreciate the lessons of our ancestors we will be doomed to the same darkness that infested Western civilization before contact: economic wars, pestilence, disease and abuse.

While a nation licks its wounds, Peabody Coal has the go ahead to produce a coal mining facility 30 miles upwind of Mammoth National Caves. This is completely out of control. Non-Indians have no right to buy, sell, lease or mine our land. If nuclear families make nuclear waste, they should bury it in their own backyard, not ours. Yucca Mountain is not a garbage dump, the Wabudi Sapa are not to be exploited for the “resources,” and black Indians are no longer to be sold by half-breed Christianized fair-skinned Indians that have exploited the race game and obfuscated our history in this land for their profit. Natives still languish in the obscurity of central valley sales like migrant work to provide cheap produce for the nation, breathing poisoned air in triple digit weather. We have not forgotten. Buffalo soldiers now stand and defend land that would be as segregated as the East if not for our vigilance. We will survive and one day discard the oppressive yoke of our subservience to the East. Native America is not free; I will do all in my power to correct this injustice, and I am not alone.

Mitakuye Oyasin, Nunahe Oyasin.

Sean Nash, Yanash