“You Fly to the Edge of the Tar Sands, and ... No Life”

[rhett o rick]

“You Fly to the Edge of the Tar Sands, and ... No Life”: A Montana Professor on the Issue of Our Time

“University of Montana professor George Price on permaculture, race, and how he's standing up to tar sands extraction.”

This article is an interview of George Price, “a University of Montana professor of African American and Native American Studies ...” by Sarah van Gelder for YES! Magazine.

The article tells about the struggles of Montana Native Americans and about coal tar sands extraction.
I think this article is important to show this specific struggle, which is almost invisible in the Corp-Media, but to also show that there are more and more individual protesting happening around the country and world of peoples fighting back against the oppression of uncontrolled capitalism.

George Price explains about the organization, Indian Peoples Action:

“ It's a Montana-based organization working on multiple fronts: native rights, anti-discrimination, the unjustice in the justice system. Native people make up a little over 6 percent of the population of the state of the Montana, but over 30 percent of the incarcerated”

In this quote, George Price speaks about the terrible ecological disaster of coal tar extraction:

“Anybody, no matter how much of a brainwashed capitalist you are, can see this from the air. You fly right to edge of the tar sands and see the beautiful boreal forest and the lakes everywhere up in that northern section, and then just miles and miles of total devastation. No life. I mean anybody with any sense that nature might be a little valuable, any sense that trees are kinda nice, looks at that and gets a message—a really strong message.”

In this quote George Price IMO makes it clear that fights for racial justice must include the fight for economic justice (“let's question the whole paradigm.”).

“I'm glad you brought that up, because what I said previously about equality almost sounded like I'd abandoned racial justice. And I haven't, you know. I was on the board of the Flathead Reservation human rights organization for years, and I've been teaching race and racism. But I go a little further than a lot of the racial justice advocates to say, let's question the whole paradigm.”

Please read the complete article here: http://www.yesmagazine.org/edge-of-change/you-fly-to-the-edge-of-the-tar-sands-and-no-life-20150828?utm_source=YTW&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=20150828
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