why I have despised McCain since the eighties:

[G_j]

Did you know that John McCain authored a bill to forcibly relocate Native Americans?
I became involved in this fight in the eighties, and wrote endless (and fruitless) letters to, you guessed it, John McCain.

from, a Short History of Big Mountain - Black Mesa
there is a lot more on this, if you want to research further.

http://www.aics.org/BM/bm.html

<snip>
1967 Peabody Coal Lease

After the leasing authority was established, a lease was quickly agreed with Peabody Coal giving them the right to mine the area. The royalty rates to the tribes were far below standard commercial rates, as John Boyden, who negotiated the leases for the Hopi, also worked for Peabody Coal! (that is - he was on their payroll as an employee) The traditional Hopi leaders filed a lawsuit opposing the lease, as the Black Mesa area is Sacred to both the Hopi and Dineh religions, and strip mining violated their traditional religions. While the Hopi demonstrated that Boyden's government acted in violation of it's own BIA-approved constitution, the U.S. courts rejected the suit because Boyden's government was recognized as a Sovereign power and thus, was immune to lawsuit in U.S. courts.
--
1974 Relocation Act

Boyden requested Congress to partition the Joint-Use area into separate Dineh and Hopi areas, so that the Hopi could obtain better access to the land traditionally inhabited by the Dineh. The 1974 Navajo-Hopi Settlement Act was pushed through Congress by a group representing the coal-fired power industry, which believed their industry would benefit by having the U.S. government finance the eviction of all the people living in an area larger than the state of Rhode Island. In their rush to promote national energy self-sufficiency, Congress never considered where the people would go or how relocation would affect their lives. Nor did they consider the wishes of the people they planned to relocate. John McCain authored this "relocation" bill.
--

~~~~~~~~~
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=389&topic_id=3079555&mesg_id=3079555
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2008/03/bahe-katenay-of-big-mountain-us.html

Friday, March 28, 2008
Bahe Katenay of Big Mountain: US orchestrated so-called Navajo Hopi Land Dispute


Navajos at Big Mountain: ‘We are still here’

By Brenda Norrell
Human rights editor
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report

PUEBLO, Colo. – The so-called “Navajo Hopi Land Dispute” was a scenario orchestrated by the United States, Congressmen and the Navajo and Hopi tribal governments, which do not represent their people, said Bahe Katenay, Navajo from Big Mountain on the Navajo Nation, during an interview on the Longest Walk.
“The tribal governments are basically a board of directors. They are not a sovereign assembly. The Navajo government does not represent the Navajo Nation and the Hopi government does not represent the Hopi Nation,” Katenay said in an interview with Longest Walk Talk Radio, www.earthcycles.net /

Katenay, one of the original Long Walkers in 1978 joined the Longest Walk 2 Northern Route in Pueblo, and described the orchestrated scenario and the so-called “Navajo Hopi Land Dispute,” which grew out of the Indian Land Claims Commission.
Katenay told how a Mormon attorney for Peabody Coal, John Boyden, came to Hopi country and attempted to form a Hopi Tribal Council for the purpose of seizing leases for coal mining.
“It failed each time because the traditional Hopi people were a sovereign people and rejected the Hopi Tribal Council. They still had power in the villages. The traditional people supported the traditional chiefs.”
Finally in 1964, Peabody’s attorney John Boyden picked Hopi people and formed a Hopi Tribal Council which was recognized by the US government. However, the Hopi Tribal Council was not recognized or given authority by traditional Hopi.
“There was never a dispute,” Katenay said of the so-called Navajo Hopi Land Dispute. He said the lands were long shared by Navajo and Hopi. “The Hopi had their trails through there.”

Katenay said the United States media created the stories of the so-called Navajo Hopi dispute, the same way the US media creates and fuels other disputes and wars.
“One of the examples of this is the Iraq war right now.” Katenay said the media claims there is a dispute in Iraq. Those US claims led to the U.S. occupying and dividing the country and the people.
“Over there it is more brutal and more horrific. But it is the same sort of thing they did in Big Mountain and Black Mesa. They divided the two tribes.”

Katenay said federal laws and proceedings complicated the issues for Navajos and Hopis and the BIA played a role. The BIA had its hand in tribal governments and federal laws. Referring to the so-called range war, Katenay said there was no range war and there is no proof that it ever existed. It was a staged scenario which Congressmen fueled.
<more>

[nichomachus]

1. I despise him because he's despicable

But thanks for this interesting update. I was unaware of this.

[indepat]

14. I despise him for there are so many despicable things he's done: McShame embodies the

pure essence of quintessential dispicableness down to the rotten core and marrow of his being and essence. Besides, the photo of his worshiping junior is nauseating. But there I go waxing poetic. :D

[Kurovski]

2. I did not know this.

Thank you for putting this out there again. K&R.

[Kurovski]

3. Kick. (nt)

[Venceremos]

4. K&R

[Kurovski]

5. Kick. (nt)

[BOHICA06]

6. WHAT???? How did he author a bill ....

in 1974 when he was still in the Navy?? Please explain .... this doesn't add up!

[G_j]

7. there is definately confusion here: Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute Settlement Act, '96

I remembered writing McCain asking him to end the relocation act, this Mother Jones article states he authored the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute Settlement Act in 1996, (after I left the movement)

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/01/fence.html

<snip>
In 1996, John McCain, Goldwater's successor as Arizona's senior senator, authored the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute Settlement Act, which ratified the accommodation agreement and set a February 2000 deadline for the feds to deliver "quiet possession" of the area into the hands of the Hopis.

"I am encouraged that the terms of this settlement, including the long-term leases to Navajo families, also will lead to a resolution of the longstanding tensions between the Hopi Tribe and those Navajo families who wish to remain on the Hopi Partitioned Lands," McCain wrote to a colleague in the months prior to the bill's passage in October 1996.

His optimism was premature.

Many Diné insist that tensions on the hopi Partitioned Land, far from being resolved, are escalating. And many are finally giving up. Of the 112 households holding 75-year leases as 1999 began, at least 50 have already relinquished their right to remain, and have asked the relocation office to move them to new housing off the HPL.

Kee Watchman, the Diné delegate to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, is himself a reluctant leaseholder. "Our human rights, our religious rights have been totally violated," he says, adding that despite the change of heart of so many leaseholders, many Diné believe they have no choice but to stay on their traditional lands, even if that means living under Hopi rule. "What they were saying is, 'I think the best thing to do is to sign the accommodation agreement so we can still sit on our lands and then we can still fight for our rights. Otherwise, if we are evicted, there's no way we can fight back.'"

Eugene Kaye, the Hopi chief of staff, bristles at the mention of Navajos' rights. "People forget that we have rights out here as well," he says. "It's our land, and on any land that's yours you should have jurisdiction. And a few people shouldn't really be upstaging what we feel is good for the Hopi people and anybody who wants to stay here under our laws."

Watchman isn't the only leaseholder who finds life under accommodation onerous. Many Diné -- who regard sheep as a gift from the Creator -- live in constant fear of having their livestock impounded by the BIA, which enforces a ceiling on the number of animals Navajos on the HPL may possess. That limit, set in stone by McCain's legislation, authorizes somewhat more sheep than the Diné were allowed before the agreement, but far fewer than they say they need for meat, wool, and ceremonial purposes.
<snip>


Yet if the government hopes to avoid making martyrs of Roberta Blackgoat and her fellow resisters, the question is how long it can put off the day of reckoning. "There has to be a transfer of those areas to the Hopi tribe, and obviously the people there in that process either sign the lease agreement or relocate," says McCain aide Peters. "There really is no in-between at this point."

The resisters' supporters would seem to agree with the last point, at least, which is why they say they're mobilizing to get activists to the HPL to thwart any attempt at physical eviction. Blackgoat and Whitesinger, meanwhile, await the knock on the door, singing and praying that they may live out their lives as Diné on Big Mountain.

"I don't see why he doesn't like Indians -- he's living on Indian dust," Blackgoat says of McCain, whom she blames for pressing the relocation deadline. "Like I mentioned to a Hopi man came up to me and said, 'This is not your land.' But now how can it be that it's not my land when my great-great-great-ancestors been born here, and they've been buried here and they're over here where I live. And you could see in all these graveyard sites, all the bodies have turned to dust. Our great-ancestors' dust is right here. Their prayer is still here, their holy song is still here. It's been carried on, on, on, and it's still here. So this is what is holding us tight here."

Sometime soon, under the law, the song must end

[BOHICA06]

8. Okay ...begs the question

What did he do in the 80's to incur your despising?

[G_j]

9. His refusal to address the situation humanely

and call for an end to the forced relocation.

from another sourse,
http://www.blackmesais.org/relocatethisupdated0512.htm


Arizona Senator and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs John McCain is the main sponsor of the Senate Bill 1003, The Navajo- Hopi Land Settlement Act of 1974 Amendments. This bill puts a renewed emphasis on forced relocation of Navajo families and represents a denial by the federal government of continuing responsibility to the people relocated. In addition to the problems faced by all Dineh, the people in the New Lands or in other places do face additional burdens related to this devastatingly and abysmally managed process.

Read or listen to the transcripts regarding S. 1003, The Navajo- Hopi Land Settlement Act of 1974 Amendments. In 2000, McCain denied knowledge & evaded questions on the relocation issue. He was the main sponsor of a similar bill in 1996. Accommodation Agreement (P.L. 104-301). He talks rhetoric about honoring 'Indian Treaties' while sponsoring racist genocidal policies and violating human rights in his 'home state'. Read his position in reply to a student letter during the presidential campaign.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~







John McCain was elected as a Republican in 1982 to the Ninety-eighth Congress; reelected to the Ninety-ninth Congress in 1984 and served from January 3, 1983, to January 3, 1987; elected to the United States Senate in 1986; reelected in 1992, 1998 and in 2004 for the term ending January 3, 2011; chair, Committee on Indian Affairs (One Hundred Fourth Congress; One Hundred Ninth Congress), Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation (One Hundred Fourth through One Hundred Sixth Congresses, One Hundred Seventh Congress , One Hundred Eighth Congress); unsuccessful candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. (Source.)

[SpiralHawk]

10. Big Mountain - Black Mesa: The Holy Center of Turtle Island (North America)

This is interesting - scroll down for the part about Big Mountain - Black Mesa.
http://www.8thfire.net/Day_177.html

[G_j]

13. and irony of ironies

from what I was told, the uranium used to obliterate Hiroshima and Nagasaki came from Hopi-land.
(gourds filled with ashes)

[scarletwoman]

11. Many thanks to you for bringing this up! McCain loved to paint himself as a friend to the indigenous

people of this country, but the truth was and is that he works for the big money interests, period.

The fictitious "Hopi-Dinè" dispute was brought about by the same kind of evil people who engineered the "Sunni-Shia" split in Iraq. It's the classic colonialist method of misdirection.

[Thickasabrick]

12. Great information - thanks for posting this - kick nt

[Fireweed247]

15. Thanks for the info

I hope when he loses the presidency we can kick him out of the Senate too...

www.peacecandidates.com