Fire UP! Work Crew to Black Mesa '06

Fire UPDATES from our Frontlines

2006-10-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

For regular FireUP news, check out our UPDATES blog... This will be updated as we travel with pictures, videos, and information about our presentations.

FireUPDATES from Our Frontlines

Fire UP! Goals

2005-12-30T19:14:00.000-08:00

Education: To share information about indigenous struggles in the Black Mesa region. Including connecting the dots between Black Mesa and other dynamic struggles around the world.

Action: We will be working on Black Mesa for two weeks, sharing in a
valuable exchange with Navajo elders and families as they resist being driven from their ancestral homes.

Media: We will document our efforts and create a short documentary summarizing the current situation on Black Mesa, to be used for outreach.

Community Building: Both on Black Mesa and in route we will build understanding and alliances between individuals and organizations, in an attempt to strengthen the network of progressive thinkers and link related issues.

Fundrasing: We are FUNDRAISING $ 3000 to cover our expenses. We are aiming to raise $ 6000 altogether, donating the money exceding our costs to Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) for the ongoing struggle.

FireUPDATES / FireUP! Home

2005-12-01T20:38:00.000-08:00

Click on any of the images to enlarge and download for printing... etc...
2 of the graphics are from the art section of the Wemoons Army webpage.

Fire UP! Work Crew

2005-11-30T19:18:00.000-08:00

who is the FireUP! Work Crew?

We are all long time activists with a deep dedication to active engagement that creates social and environmental change. Though we have worked individual on many diverse projects we understand that all of our issues are rooted in the same system of oppression. Members of FIRE UP! have worked with groups such as: Common Ground Hurricane relief center in New Orleans, Harm Reduction ATL - Needle Exchange, Benchpress Burlesque, Reclaiming Pagan Cluster, PMS Media, Social Detox, Sri Lanka Tsunami support, Mountain Justice Summer mountaintop removal, Rising Tide, Atlanta ACT UP, NYC Indy Media, Books through Bars, Guerilla Griots, Drumlin Farm, Save the Peaks, Root Activist Network of Trainers, International Solidarity Movement Israel/Palestine and many more.

Sylvia B. Rose - a.k.a. 'skunkrising'
Director of P.M.S. Media, Martial ARTist, Anarchist Organizer, Eco-feminist-Witch-Punk, Soccer Mom.

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Charles
A vagabond and nomad I travel the land, A thinker and tinker I offer a hand. Working with friends is always a blast, thought maintain the veggie bus is one of my tasks. I bring to the work a lifetime of eclectic skills.

Devyn Clover
I am a Tap-Clog CounterCultural Revolutionary Media Geek Organizer. I am committed to deconstructing oppression and nourishing healthy relationships with my environment (social, political, bioregional, etc...)

Julian Drix
Playwrite, winged messenger, romantic radical, and closet intellectual. i dance with patterns, connect dots and follow the moon. i want to stab a spear through the sick heart of whiteness and tear apart the structures of colonialism - inside and out. and i like to sleep in trees.

Sandy
when i'm not joining the struggle with freedom fighters in New Orleans or companer@s in Mexico, i've been learning to grow my own food, make my own fuel, and build community with my friends at the farm in Madison.

Parys Flytrap
Parys Flytrap has spent the last twenty years expressing her feminist, anti-authoritarian stance through radical performance art, teaching punks carpentry, grassroots activism, and spiritual seeking. She is an aging punk rock dyke who feels great about it.

My name's evan
My life lately's been about learning plants, riding trains, meeting people, being in the woods, reading south american magical realist fiction, and going on dates.

Kevin
An aspiring tinkerer and a rover I'm intereseted in learning from people who have been there on the front lines of resistance and discovering creative and sustainable ways to live. Wrapped up in a whirwind.

Jenny
Our temporary FireUP racecar driver who joined us for a fast paced weekend of events in Chicago & Madison. Jenny is a punkrock artist / musician who brought creative new energy to the fireUP workcrew.

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Brief History of Black Mesa

2005-10-30T19:08:00.000-08:00

In 1974 the U.S. Congress passed Public Law 93-531 allegedly to settle a so-called land dispute between the Dineh and their Hopi neighbors. This law required the forced relocation of well over 14,000 Dineh and a hundred plus Hopi from their ancestral homelands. The "dispute" being settled by PL 93-531 was, in reality, fabricated by the US government as a way to obtain easier access to strip-mine one of the largest coal reserves in North America. The land known as Black Mesa is home to thousands of traditional sheepherders, weavers, silversmiths and farmers. For hundreds of years before Europeans came to the Americas the Dineh and Hopi existed in balance with each other and with Mother Earth.

The genocide on Black Mesa has been recognized internationally. In the late 1980's the United Nations described the case of the forced relocation as one of the most flagrant violations of indigenous peoples' human rights in this hemisphere. More recently, this is the first time the United Nations ever formally investigated the United States for the violation of religious freedom.

On Black Mesa Peabody Coal Company mines over three million gallons a day, and 1.4 billion gallons a year of pristine, potable groundwater used to slurry coal. It's the only source of drinking water for the Hopi and the western Navajo people. According to data compiled by the Department of Interior, Peabody's operations appear to be causing or contributing significantly to a range of groundwater-related problems, with profound environmental, cultural, and religious implications for the region's tribal communities.(source National Resource Defense Council) Peabody Coal Company in the Black Mesa region operates a 103-square mile mine. The largest privately-owned coal mine in the world.

These native peoples, their cemeteries, their burial & sacred sites, religious structures and Anasazi ruins have been destroyed at Black Mesa to make way for coal mining. People are not only restricted from access to sacred sites, but many religious sites, burial grounds and homes stand threatened with destruction.

Many families on Black Mesa are now in their third decade of resisting relocation, attempting to continue their traditional lifestyles. As a result of their resistance the U.S. government is waging a covert war against the people and the land. This includes bulldozing homes and ceremonial structures, impounding sheep, horses, and cattle, destroying water wells, restricting wood gathering, disallowing the construction or renovation of homesites, restricting ceremonies, restricting medicinal herb gathering, ongoing surveillance and intimidation by police and federal agents, and harassment by low flying military aircraft.

The Dineh believe that the rich coal reserves underneath this sacred land is Mother Earths' liver and must not be destroyed. However, these beliefs fall on deaf ears to Peabody Coal Company, which sees the coal as simply a way in which to produce large amounts of capital. For over a quarter of a century this extremely powerful corporation has mined the 103 square miles around the mesa area leaving behind a wake of devastation. A land that was once so rich in natural beauty is now left barren and dead. The mine has displaced thousands of traditional families and their homes, destroyed an estimated 4,000 ancient ruins, burial sites, sacred land formations, and prayer sites. In order to further the development of the mine, Peabody bulldozes important plants and trees used by the Native peoples for food and medicine.

Many people believe that today much of the mine operates illegally and without regulation. This mine uses a coal slurry pipeline to transport its coal over 200 miles to the Mojave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nevada. There, it is converted into electricity for the use of Nevada, California, and central Arizona, while many of the Dineh who live at Black Mesa and in most areas of the reservation have no electricity. The coal slurry pipeline uses billions of gallons of water to move the coal. Water is pumped from the precious desert aquifer under Black Mesa, used solely for mining purposes, while only a few miles from the mine families have to haul water for themselves and their livestock, from up to 20 miles away to survive. Countless springs and wells have gone dry, grazing land has been dried up and depleted, and crops have begun to fail. Peabody makes billions of dollars annually from the mine, while the traditional peoples living on the land being mined, or who have been relocated because of it never see a cent of the profits made from the land.

What happens to the people when they relocate? The federal government has relocated many of the Dineh to the "New Lands" at Sanders, AZ. This land is contaminated by the worst radioactive waste spill in North America. (It is downstream from the disaster at Church Rock, New Mexico, 1979) Some people living there have died from cancer or are dying from it now. The birth defect rate is outstanding. And many of the traditional ways are gone. People live in tiny trailers side by side, hundreds of miles away from their families, with no sheep, no sacred sites, no cornfields, no ceremonies. Many people who relocate find themselves with nothing to live for, their sacred way stolen from them. The suicide rate is outstanding as well. A special report concerning Navajo relocation issued from the Navajo-Hopi Land Commission Office over ten years ago testifies that they've "seen hundreds of Navajo families become practically homeless. They left their ancestral homes on the Hopi-Partitioned Land in order to comply with the federal governments' directive. These families, the so-called Navajo "refugees", have drifted from place to place for many years. Some live in shacks, some live in vehicles, while the lucky ones squeeze in with other family members." Others found themselves having to pay for water, heat, food, electricity, taxes, things they never had to deal with before. Many of the elders speak little or no English - people who had no experience with a cash economy have been moved to border towns. These Navajos were warehoused in substandard housing. They received little or no counseling to help them make the radical changes that federal law required. And while the relocation law required the federal government to provide community facilities and services and to minimize the adverse social, cultural, and economic effects of relocation, that promise remains unfulfilled almost two decades later. Many find it impossible to get jobs, and they are forced into homelessness. The genocide is complete.

SUPPORT is Requested!

There are still Dineh families on Black Mesa who are resisting relocation and do not wish to sign an Accommodation Agreement. There are many families struggling to keep their livestock. Despite years of lawsuits against the federal government to repeal the relocation law, the United States continues to deny the Dineh the right to live on their homeland and preserve their traditional way of life. The resisters of Black Mesa have requested outside support in their struggle. Most of the relocation resisters are elders, many of whose children have been relocated or otherwise forced to leave their homeland. As a result many elders live alone and it is difficult for them to continue their daily lifestyles while also going to court and dealing with the everyday harassment from U.S. and tribal governments.

For more information and media on Black Mesa, check out Black Mesa Indigenous Support.

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Fire UP! Calendar 2006

2005-09-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

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We will be traveling on a veggie oil powered bus to Black Mesa, AZ. While en route we will be raising funds, gathering tools, collecting veggie oil to power the bus and presenting the FireUP ‘Apocalyptic’ Pep talk. See our UPdates for more information...

Oct 29th – Ithaca, NY
Nov 2nd – Yellow Springs, OH
Nov 3rd – Chicago, IL
Nov 4th – Madison, WI
Nov 6th – St. Louis, MO
Nov 9th – Flagstaff, AZ: orientation and supply stop.
Nov 10th - 24th – WORK with local Dineh (Navajo) out on Black Mesa, AZ.
Nov 25th - 29th – Fire Up! will visit Flagstaff, Prescott and Tucson.
Nov 30th – Closing Circle.

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Wishlist & Donations

2005-08-30T19:25:00.000-07:00

We estimate this month of service to cost about $3000 and would like to raise an additional $3000 to support the continued resistance to Peabody Coal Company and unjust policies that force relocation of native people from ancestral homelands.

If you are able and would like to support us financially you can make checks to:
Charles Williams
HC 2 Box 109
Bunker, MO 63629

~Or~

For a Tax deductible donation makes checks to:
Alliance for Community Trainers
1405 Hillmont St.
Austin, TX 78704
With Fire Up! in the item line

~Or~

Paypal (also Tax deductible) at http://rantcollective.com/article.php?id=29

If you would like to donate supplies, here is our Wish list;

Shovels, axes, hatchets, work gloves, warm socks made with wool or cotton, blankets in good condition made with natural fibers, nails, crow bar.

Thank you for your support.
Fire up! out there,

Wild and Free,
Charles and all the members of Fire Up!

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