As Dena Jensen reports, William Honea, Skagit County senior deputy prosecuting attorney –in justifying the CERA anti-Indian workshop in Mount Vernon, Washington on May 20–falsely attributed an incendiary quote to Swinomish tribal chairman and president of the National Congress of American Indians, Brian Cladoosby. Given that Mr. Honea–like CERA celebrity Elaine Willman–was given a platform on KGMI radio to promote racist resentment, it is perhaps a good time for human rights activists and moral authorities to pursue having Saturday Morning Live removed from its programming.
After four years of hosting anti-Indian racists on her show, it’s time for KGMI to pull the plug on Tea Party leader, Kris Halterman.
As reported at Noisy Waters Northwest, CERA–the “Ku Klux Klan of Indian country”–made their appearance in Skagit County four years after the CERA anti-Indian conference in Whatcom County. The 2013 CERA gathering targeted Lummi Nation, while the 2017 workshop targeted Swinomish Tribal Community. The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians–Lummi and Swinomish included–oppose fossil fuel export on the Salish Sea, providing an opportunity for promoters of interracial discord to cash in on the carbon corridor conflict.
You can read more on the anti-Indian movement revival in the Salish Sea region here.
As the Indian Law and Policy Center reports, termination of Indian tribes as sovereign political entities is endemic in the current presidential administration. Taken as a whole, the agenda of key cabinet appointees and advisors is to finalize assimilation of tribes into the American system of corporate institutional dominance.
In essence, this agenda’s goal is the de facto abrogation of treaties made between tribes and the United States. Indeed, remarks made by the newly-appointed U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Zinke come right out of the CERA Anti-Indian playbook.
In response to the Totem Pole Journey – a sacred act of diplomacy by Lummi Nation in 2015, the Unitarian Universalist Association held a national conference of support in Portland, Oregon. This holy Public Witness, however, has not been accompanied by any ‘right action’ from the Earth Ministry interfaith alliance in Seattle, of which they are a participating religious body.
To date, none of the progressive churches in the Pacific Northwest has confronted the “portentous movements intent on promoting interracial discord and a growing politics of fear” targeting the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians. None of these institutionalized religions have opposed the ongoing, anti-Indian, hate radio programs, or any other forms of mainstream media racism.
If people of faith want to help defeat White Power on the Salish Sea, they need to call out the promoters of this interracial discord. Otherwise, they become yet another instance of white people assuaging their guilt over the institutionalized mistreatment of Native Americans by indulging in the consumption of Indian acts of spiritual generosity, without committing themselves to acts of reciprocity.
As Lummi elder Jewell Praying Wolf James remarked at St. Philip Neri Catholic Church in Portland, “Talk’s good, but action’s better”.
To illustrate the horizontal integration of the Anti-Indian Movement, Chet Dow, secretary/treasurer of the Whatcom chapter of Citizens Alliance for Property Rights, is also a board member of the Northwest Business Club–a Whatcom Republican Party affiliate–and is listed as an officer on the PDC registration for the Anti-Indian PACs, SaveWhatcom and WhatcomFirst. As noted in A Tea Party by Any Other Name, Dow is a director of Common Threads Northwest, the successor to the Whatcom Tea Party, which spawned these PACs.
Additionally, Dow was an executive board member of the Whatcom Republican party. As a Whatcom County Charter Review Commissioner in 2015, Dow demonized environmentalists for opposing the Gateway Pacific coal export proposal. As noted by Sandy Robson, in 2013, the Gateway Pacific coal export consortium contributed $149,000 to the Anti-Indian PACs.
The timeline White Power on the Salish Sea puts Dow’s abhorrent conduct in context.
As reported in this March 2017 expose by Sandy Robson, the Whatcom Tea Party changed its name to Common Threads Northwest. That marketing move mirrors the November 2017 deceptive campaign mailer sent out by Whatcom Republican candidates claiming to be non-partisan.
In the March story, Robson reveals two new players in Whatcom politics–the husband and wife team of James and Laura McKinney–who assumed key positions in the Anti-Indian, Tea Party network: James as Executive Director of Common Threads Northwest, and Laura as Director of Operations and Communications for the Whatcom Business Alliance–an advocacy organization in support of fossil fuel export at Cherry Point.
James McKinney is known for comparing environmentalists to communists. Laura was elected to the Blaine School Board in November 2017.
This is how the Tea Party became a powerhouse. They run candidates for school board, which makes their name familiar, then run them for state and county offices.
It’s an apprenticeship program that trains Christian Right candidates to avoid exposure.
Allied with real estate developers–that spend a lot of advertising money in local media–they essentially get a free ride for their racism.
As reported at The Intercept, fascists in the Whatcom County Prosecutor’s office have declared war on political dissent, in particular by tribal human rights activists.
The library is dedicated to the memory of Secwepemc Chief George Manuel (1921-1989), to the nations of the Fourth World and to the elders and generations to come.
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