…was never legislation for and on behalf of the people of Wisconsin, was it? It wasn’t even for the six or seven hundred people who might have got a job. It was always the company’s bill, wasn’t it? They even let the legislators help them write it. It contained the maximum amount of restrictions the company could profitably bear, and the minimum unprofitable wait between applying to dig and digging. So the company walked away when they couldn’t get the bill past the one Republican senator the Outlaw could not influence – at least not on this issue.
Never mind. Like the load on the back of the pick-up, the ore isn’t going anywhere. Maybe they ought to write a sound piece of legislation first, and then find a buyer for the ore. And the path to sound legislation, like the course of the Bad River, runs through Ojibwe country. Unless their consent to the plan for mining the Penokee Range is obtained beforehand, my guess is, the mine will never be dug. The trumps they hold as a sovereign nation, unlike their drums, the Ojibwe have yet to play.
No comments:
Post a Comment