Wednesday, September 08, 2004

Save Sipayik, Save the Passamaquoddy Way of Life

Ntulankeyutmonen Nkihtaqmikon
(We take care of the homeland)
Without a doubt, LNG does not bode well with far-too-many-to-ignore Passamaquoddy.
An Opinion Piece by Vera Francis , Sipayik, ME 04667 (207-853-4052 or 506-476-0395)

For the Passamaquoddy, the root of contemporary economic failures lies in generations of oppression and misguided promises. What appears, on the surface, to be a struggle over open and fair process and hastening the “will of the people” is, at its most basic level, a battle over historical responsibility.

Understanding the debate over the proposed Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal within Passamaquoddy territorial waters and tribal land requires at least a basic appreciation of the historical legacy of centuries of social, cultural, and economic upheaval, and conflicting interests of indigenous people, the State of Maine (formerly Massachusetts), and the Maritimes.

On June 22, 2004 Maine’s governor leveraged his political power by sending his emissaries, comprised of top cabinet members, to personally deliver a message to members of Sipayik that LNG is not only good for “Indians”, it’s good for Maine. Later he says, “if Passamaquoddys don’t want it, I don’t want it.” Which is it? On Friday, August 13, 2004 members of Sipayik received notice in a local newsletter that the Passamaquoddy Governor and Tribal Council would hold a special referendum the following Tuesday, August 17, 2004. Even with all the media coverage, only one indigenous leader within all of Wabanaki territory, Passamaquoddy Traditional Sakom, Huge Akagi, has expressed concern. In agreement with Akagi’s position, hastening and manipulating an internal tribal process -- less than the 90-days promised on the evening of August 3, 2004 at Sipayik-- on an issue bearing such magnitude (LNG in Passamaquoddy Territory) evidences no process.

Despite the fiery pace and LNG public information deficit, Passamaquoddy people are clearly not united on the issue of LNG. Like Sipayik’s tribal council’s 4-3 vote on August 3, 2004 calling for a non-binding referendum, the referendum on Tuesday defies any misconceptions that Sipayik members are wholeheartedly committed to the prospects of a LNG terminal. Like other coastal communities of Maine, Tuesday’s vote proved once again there’s community division, and not unanimity.

While a few individuals may believe that inviting LNG into Passamaquoddy territory is about heroics, there is absolutely nothing bold about internalized oppression, and nor is disenfranchising indigenous people from exercising their right to cultural survival an indicator for progress. LNG is hideous, dangerous, and undesirable, and does not comport with Passamaquoddy cultural tradition. Those of us willing to take our responsibility to preserve what little we have left have expressed our will to protect the homeland.

Don’t wait until the costs for the security-infrastructure necessary for a LNG terminal is revealed to wonder who is also going to have to pay the price for LNG’s corporate malfeasance. Passamaquoddys are not the only ones being bamboozled on this deal. If Maine’s people remain silent too long, the oppression continues and another misguided promise will prevail.

It’s time to speak out against those who are willing to sacrifice a pristine environment and the lives of indigenous people for corporate greed. It’s time to take action – call Maine’s governor and tell him to stop his policies of environmental racism and interference with indigenous independence.

LNG TERROR/Richard CLarke


Book details LNG terror risk
Former counterterrorism chief says threat of massive LNG incident in Boston Harbor was considered in wake of Sept. 11 attacks
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
By BEN RAINES
Staff Reporter
Prior to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, senior Bush Administration officials knew "that al Qaeda operatives had been infiltrating Boston by coming in on liquid natural gas tankers from Algeria," according to a new book by former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke.

The book further states "we had also learned that had one of the giant tankers blown up in the harbor, it would have wiped out downtown Boston."

The Mobile Register has also discovered that LNG tanker simulator programs available for sale on the Internet are designed to instruct crews in every facet of the operation of LNG tankers.

Terrorists who used these programs would be tutored in all aspects of running the vessels, including controlling the valves and gauges that regulate temperature and other critical factors that govern the integrity of LNG storage containers on the ships.

Federal and industry officials who have made presentations in support of building LNG terminals near residential areas on Mobile Bay have said that it is unlikely such a facility would become a terrorist target.

But that view is challenged in Clarke's new book. Clarke served as terrorism chief under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, until resigning in March 2003. He served in other national security posts under both President Reagan and the first President Bush.

Both his assertions appear to directly contradict statements top Bush Administration officials made to members of Congress and public safety officials in Boston regarding security issues at the Distrigas LNG terminal located near Boston.

He indicates in the book that shutting down Boston Harbor was one of the administration's first priorities after the terrorist-commandeered planes hit the Twin Towers. He states that government officials learned that al-Qaida operatives were entering the country on LNG tankers "after the Millennium Terrorist Alert" in 2000.

Register reporters were unable to obtain comments from the White House late Tuesday.

But federal officials have confirmed that LNG tankers sailing from Algeria were banned from Boston Harbor prior to Sept. 11, according to a report this week by the Boston Globe. Tankers sailing from Algeria still arrive at an LNG terminal in Cove Point, Md., which is three miles downriver from a nuclear power plant.

Federal security officials told the Globe that they have taken steps to prevent stowaways on board the LNG ships.

Simulators designed to teach all aspects of LNG tanker ship operation are widely available over the Internet. One such simulator provides instruction on driving the vessel as well as "the layout of the tanks, pipelines, valves and cargo handling machinery ... and cargo handling facilities in normal and emergency modes."

Scientists contacted by the paper said a terrorist armed with such information would have a tremendous advantage in terms of using an LNG ship to cause a catastrophic accident.

James Fay, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Insti tute of Technology and one of the fathers of modern LNG science, said he could imagine several scenarios in which terrorists armed with detailed operational data provided by the simulation programs could sabotage an LNG vessel.

"It certainly doesn't seem like a good idea to have this sort of information just sitting out there on the Internet," Fay said.

Clarke's statement about the devastation a terror attack on an LNG tanker might cause in downtown Boston runs counter to numerous statements from officials with the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission about the dangers such a fire might pose.

A controversial study performed by a company called Quest Consultants Inc. and commissioned by the DOE after the 2001 terror attacks suggests that such an LNG fire would be about 475 feet wide. Federal officials have used that Quest study in numerous public presentations, federal safety documents and reports to Congress.

That Quest prediction stands in contrast to nearly all of the existing scientific literature -- including many studies conducted by government agencies such as FERC, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Several leading LNG scientists familiar with these government analyses said that a successful terror attack on an LNG tanker could ultimately cause a fire more than a mile wide and so hot that it would severely burn people two miles away.

But it was the controversial study with the much smaller fire size predictions that the Bush Administration used in the days immediately after Sept. 11 to show that it was safe to reopen the Boston LNG terminal. The terminal was reopened by the end of October 2001 over the objections of Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and that city's fire and police chiefs, none of whom had heard of the possible al-Qaida connection, according to the Tuesday report in the Boston Globe.

Subsequently, DOE officials used the controversial Quest study in presentations around the country as part of a concerted effort to encourage new LNG terminals near numerous coastal cities.

Recently, the author of the study informed the Department of Energy that it had "misused" his work. The Register reported previously that the controversial study never actually examined what would happen if terrorists attacked an LNG tanker.

"Quite frankly, we wondered why in the hell they didn't talk about terrorism," said a DOE official in Washington, who discussed the study in a December interview with the Register. The official spoke on condition that he not be identified.

Since then, both the DOE and FERC initiated broader investigations into the fire hazards posed by LNG tankers. The results of those efforts are expected soon, though it is unclear if they will ever be released to the public.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass, a senior member of the U.S. House Select Committee on Homeland Security, said Tuesday that he had written letters to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and other administration officials demanding to know why he and other decision-makers were not informed of the known LNG threats in the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In the new letters, he points out that he had repeatedly asked about the exact nature of any known threats against the Boston LNG facility.

In a letter to Transportation Secretary Norman Minetta, Markey wrote, "I asked whether there had 'ever been any verified terrorist threat against an LNG facility either in the U.S. or abroad.' In response you stated, 'Not to our knowledge.' I asked you whether LNG shipments to (Boston Harbor) had been suspended due to any specific threats to the (Boston) facility, and you told me that 'the order (to suspend shipments after Sept. 11) was given in response to concerns raised by state and local officials, not a specific security threat.'"

Markey concludes, "If al Qaeda terrorists infiltrating into the country on an LNG tanker coming into the Port of Boston does not constitute a specific security threat, what does?"

In a letter to Secretary Ridge, Markey reminds Ridge that the congressman asked specifically about threats to the LNG facility over the course of several years, both as a senior member of the House homeland security panel and because the Boston terminal is in his home district.

He wrote on Tuesday that it appears, "that the Department was not telling me everything that it knew about the full nature of the potential al Qaeda threat to this LNG facility and the tanker ships that supply it."

In a prepared statement released Tuesday, Markey said, "If Clarke's assertions are true, the Bush Administration has ill-informed the Congress, state and local officials in Massachusetts, and the public about the risks that liquefied natural gas tankers and shipments pose."

The status of two LNG terminals proposed for Mobile Bay remains uncertain. ExxonMobil Corp. has said it has put a facility planned for Hollingers Island, two miles south of the city limits, "on the back burner," but has not ruled out the possibility of eventually building there.

Officials with Texas-based Cheniere Inc. have also said they would be interested in building another LNG terminal at Pinto Island, about a half mile from downtown Mobile, but have not yet presented a formal proposal.




Copyright 2004 al.com. All Rights Reserved.

Casualties of War

Mark Morford Speaks





www.sfgate.com Return to regular view
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apocalypse Bush!
Why care for the planet when the End Times are almost here? Vote Bush and hop on the salvation train!
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, September 8, 2004

This is the great thing about rabid fundamentalism. You really just don't have to give a damn.

Take the environment. I mean, isn't it just a little pointless to care so damn deeply about the air and the soil and the water and the stupid little disposable animals on this silly spinning ball of expendable rock when the Second Coming is imminent and a blood-soaked fire-breathin' Jesus who looks remarkably like Mel Gibson will return very soon to smite the heathens and the gays and the vegetarians and the Francophiles, and who will rescue all those who worship patriarchy and country music and blue-chip oil portfolios? You're goddamn right it is.

Look. This much has become clear. Bush is, more than anything else, an extreme fundamentalist Christian. He is widely regarded as the most openly pious and sanctimonioous president in modern American history. He actually preaches the GOP screed in evangelical churches across America. He panders so slavishly to the anti-choicers and the Bible-thumpers and the homophobes it makes Jerry Falwell swoon and giggle.

And Bush actually says, out loud, that God speaks through him, and that God is on our side we bomb the living crap out of Afghanistan and Iraq and that it is the Almighty's wish that we take control of these angry pip-squeak nations and in so doing kill thousands of civilians and tens of thousands of young Iraqi soldiers, as over 1,000 American soldiers are now dead over a makeshift cause that never really existed. God wanted it this way, that's why.

Bush has called Jesus his "favorite philosopher." He has claimed that the act of being "born-again" saved him from a long, sad life of vaguely homoerotic frat parties and repetitive binge drinking and going AWOL from the National Guard, all so he could turn his full attention to righteously ruining multiple businesses and then making Texas the most murderous and polluted state in the union.

But, you know, why stop there?

God, of course, isn't just about the current Iraqi war. Bush understands this. Nor is God just about slamming gays or creating nasty, isolationist foreign policy. God is not merely about setting those gul-dang Muslim heathens straight about who is the supreme big-daddy all-powerful mega-righteous SUV-drivin' American-flag-wavin' God and who is just a dimestore wannabe false idol scruffy Allah.

Because above all, God is nothing if not all about putting a quick and fiery stop to all this Earthly nonsense ASAP. He is nothing if not all about the coming apocalypse. And He is nothing if not all about saving those who believe, as Bush does, that he is among the chosen to be saved.

This is the fundamentalist truth. And this is the BushCo maxim. The End Times provide the ultimate meaning, the final straw, the only thing worth caring about, because it defines the BushCo worldview like nothing else except maybe embarrassing grammar and crushing deficits and a secret craving for gin. You can see it in his sad, vacant eyes: Bush is absolutely convinced that God is a Republican. Why else would He create all those cool M-1 tanks and oil refineries and those neat deer-antler chandeliers? Exactly.

Do you see? Do you get it? If not, you haven't been reading nearly enough of those silly pulpy sociopathic gazillion-selling "Left Behind" doomsday books so frighteningly adored by the Christian Right. It's simple, really: The world is gonna end real soon. The End Times are comin'. All the signs are in place -- famine, war, disease, sodomy, fires, hurricanes, Avril Lavigne -- and Bush, by instigating holy wars and inciting more terrorism and burning through the planet's natural resources as fast as humanly possible, is merely hastening the blessedly inevitable. As his fellow fundamentalists say, God bless him.

Hey, it explains a lot, this view. It explain how Bush can just smirk and mumble and, with one big, heartless shrug, dismiss the complete lack of WMD and the loss of 1.6 million U.S. jobs and the nation's staggering $422 billion budget deficit. Pay down the national debt? Bah. Planet's going to hell anyway, people. Stock up on nuclear missiles and get yourself an escape pod. Can't afford one? Whatta shame.

It surely explains the general GOP hatred of gay marriage, of open-hearted sex, of those wicked, sin-inducing vaginas (that harlot Eve is gonna pay, dammit), of environmentalism, of caring about air quality and water quality and the EPA and organic foods and homeopathic medicine and resource management and the Alaska Wildlife Refuge and the U.N. and any country that doesn't have a McDonald's and a Starbucks and a decent strip club for lonely gin-soaked Republican expats.

And it explains not only the outright contempt for any view other than Bush's own, but the willingness to legislate that hatred, codify it, to make it outright illegal to think or feel or love otherwise.

Look at it this way: When you have an angry, patriotic God and the red-hot promise of the juicy apocalypse on your side, there is no such thing as a counter-argument. There is no such thing as competition. There is no such thing as giving a damn what anyone else thinks.

How else do you explain it? How else can you understand the most aggressive, war-hungry, abusive, nature-loathing, isolationist administration in American history? How else can you explain BushCo's overall "F" grade from every environmental organization in the world? How can you explain his mauling of long-term Social Security planning? The decimation of the idea of universal health care? A pre-emptive, attack-first-ask-questions-never, warmongering policy that creates more anti-U.S. hatred by the minute?

How can you explain the fact that every human rights organization on the planet is appalled by Bush's actions? Guantanamo Bay to Abu Ghraib to John Ashcroft to the Patriot Act to gutting funding for international women's health care. Hey, if God had wanted us to care about other viewpoints, He would've made everyone speak English. Can I get a "hell yeah?"

This lust for apocalyptica, then, is perhaps the best way we have to at least partially understand the shamelessness of this administration's policies and its blatant disregard for international law, its open hatred of any nation that disagrees with us and the deep, profound concern only for nations that either cower in our God-flexin' presence and/or have resources that Bush's corporate pals are salivating to exploit.

And it is the perhaps ultimate explanation for the Right's final cattle call, its bitter war cry of a message, its exact parallel to every pseudo-religious evangelical scam artist on late-night cable TV.

Listen, good people of America. If you just send your money to the party and give up all that careful, nuanced thinking, if you just quite questioning our decisions and load up on blind faith, it will all be OK and you can have all the guns and fast food you want and those terrifying gays will leave you alone because BushCo will take care of you and God will reserve your seat on the glory train to salvation. Deal? Praise Jesus! Praise Bush/Cheney! Hallelujah you are saved! Even as we are, you know, doomed.

Isn't bogus salvation fun?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thoughts for the author? E-mail him.

Mark's column archives are here
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. Subscribe to this column at sfgate.com/newsletters.


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2004/09/08/notes090804.DTL


http://www.savepassamaquoddybay.org
http://penbay.org/sipakyik/

Mark Morford Speaks





www.sfgate.com Return to regular view
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apocalypse Bush!
Why care for the planet when the End Times are almost here? Vote Bush and hop on the salvation train!
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, September 8, 2004

This is the great thing about rabid fundamentalism. You really just don't have to give a damn.

Take the environment. I mean, isn't it just a little pointless to care so damn deeply about the air and the soil and the water and the stupid little disposable animals on this silly spinning ball of expendable rock when the Second Coming is imminent and a blood-soaked fire-breathin' Jesus who looks remarkably like Mel Gibson will return very soon to smite the heathens and the gays and the vegetarians and the Francophiles, and who will rescue all those who worship patriarchy and country music and blue-chip oil portfolios? You're goddamn right it is.

Look. This much has become clear. Bush is, more than anything else, an extreme fundamentalist Christian. He is widely regarded as the most openly pious and sanctimonioous president in modern American history. He actually preaches the GOP screed in evangelical churches across America. He panders so slavishly to the anti-choicers and the Bible-thumpers and the homophobes it makes Jerry Falwell swoon and giggle.

And Bush actually says, out loud, that God speaks through him, and that God is on our side we bomb the living crap out of Afghanistan and Iraq and that it is the Almighty's wish that we take control of these angry pip-squeak nations and in so doing kill thousands of civilians and tens of thousands of young Iraqi soldiers, as over 1,000 American soldiers are now dead over a makeshift cause that never really existed. God wanted it this way, that's why.

Bush has called Jesus his "favorite philosopher." He has claimed that the act of being "born-again" saved him from a long, sad life of vaguely homoerotic frat parties and repetitive binge drinking and going AWOL from the National Guard, all so he could turn his full attention to righteously ruining multiple businesses and then making Texas the most murderous and polluted state in the union.

But, you know, why stop there?

God, of course, isn't just about the current Iraqi war. Bush understands this. Nor is God just about slamming gays or creating nasty, isolationist foreign policy. God is not merely about setting those gul-dang Muslim heathens straight about who is the supreme big-daddy all-powerful mega-righteous SUV-drivin' American-flag-wavin' God and who is just a dimestore wannabe false idol scruffy Allah.

Because above all, God is nothing if not all about putting a quick and fiery stop to all this Earthly nonsense ASAP. He is nothing if not all about the coming apocalypse. And He is nothing if not all about saving those who believe, as Bush does, that he is among the chosen to be saved.

This is the fundamentalist truth. And this is the BushCo maxim. The End Times provide the ultimate meaning, the final straw, the only thing worth caring about, because it defines the BushCo worldview like nothing else except maybe embarrassing grammar and crushing deficits and a secret craving for gin. You can see it in his sad, vacant eyes: Bush is absolutely convinced that God is a Republican. Why else would He create all those cool M-1 tanks and oil refineries and those neat deer-antler chandeliers? Exactly.

Do you see? Do you get it? If not, you haven't been reading nearly enough of those silly pulpy sociopathic gazillion-selling "Left Behind" doomsday books so frighteningly adored by the Christian Right. It's simple, really: The world is gonna end real soon. The End Times are comin'. All the signs are in place -- famine, war, disease, sodomy, fires, hurricanes, Avril Lavigne -- and Bush, by instigating holy wars and inciting more terrorism and burning through the planet's natural resources as fast as humanly possible, is merely hastening the blessedly inevitable. As his fellow fundamentalists say, God bless him.

Hey, it explains a lot, this view. It explain how Bush can just smirk and mumble and, with one big, heartless shrug, dismiss the complete lack of WMD and the loss of 1.6 million U.S. jobs and the nation's staggering $422 billion budget deficit. Pay down the national debt? Bah. Planet's going to hell anyway, people. Stock up on nuclear missiles and get yourself an escape pod. Can't afford one? Whatta shame.

It surely explains the general GOP hatred of gay marriage, of open-hearted sex, of those wicked, sin-inducing vaginas (that harlot Eve is gonna pay, dammit), of environmentalism, of caring about air quality and water quality and the EPA and organic foods and homeopathic medicine and resource management and the Alaska Wildlife Refuge and the U.N. and any country that doesn't have a McDonald's and a Starbucks and a decent strip club for lonely gin-soaked Republican expats.

And it explains not only the outright contempt for any view other than Bush's own, but the willingness to legislate that hatred, codify it, to make it outright illegal to think or feel or love otherwise.

Look at it this way: When you have an angry, patriotic God and the red-hot promise of the juicy apocalypse on your side, there is no such thing as a counter-argument. There is no such thing as competition. There is no such thing as giving a damn what anyone else thinks.

How else do you explain it? How else can you understand the most aggressive, war-hungry, abusive, nature-loathing, isolationist administration in American history? How else can you explain BushCo's overall "F" grade from every environmental organization in the world? How can you explain his mauling of long-term Social Security planning? The decimation of the idea of universal health care? A pre-emptive, attack-first-ask-questions-never, warmongering policy that creates more anti-U.S. hatred by the minute?

How can you explain the fact that every human rights organization on the planet is appalled by Bush's actions? Guantanamo Bay to Abu Ghraib to John Ashcroft to the Patriot Act to gutting funding for international women's health care. Hey, if God had wanted us to care about other viewpoints, He would've made everyone speak English. Can I get a "hell yeah?"

This lust for apocalyptica, then, is perhaps the best way we have to at least partially understand the shamelessness of this administration's policies and its blatant disregard for international law, its open hatred of any nation that disagrees with us and the deep, profound concern only for nations that either cower in our God-flexin' presence and/or have resources that Bush's corporate pals are salivating to exploit.

And it is the perhaps ultimate explanation for the Right's final cattle call, its bitter war cry of a message, its exact parallel to every pseudo-religious evangelical scam artist on late-night cable TV.

Listen, good people of America. If you just send your money to the party and give up all that careful, nuanced thinking, if you just quite questioning our decisions and load up on blind faith, it will all be OK and you can have all the guns and fast food you want and those terrifying gays will leave you alone because BushCo will take care of you and God will reserve your seat on the glory train to salvation. Deal? Praise Jesus! Praise Bush/Cheney! Hallelujah you are saved! Even as we are, you know, doomed.

Isn't bogus salvation fun?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thoughts for the author? E-mail him.

Mark's column archives are here
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. Subscribe to this column at sfgate.com/newsletters.


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2004/09/08/notes090804.DTL


http://www.savepassamaquoddybay.org
http://penbay.org/sipakyik/

Save Passamaquoddy Bay From LNG Tankers...

this site is worth visiting

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