Socialist Worker: Bad River Band protests mining project

Wednesday, February 1, 2012  

"The sound of drums added to the now familiar singing and chanting in Wisconsin's state Capital rotunda on January 25, a din that periodically grew loud enough to interrupt Gov. Scott Walker's State of the State address.

The drums belonged to members of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Anishinaabe (Ojibewe/Chippewa) tribe. Drumming has been banned in the Capitol, but this did not stop the angry and defiant crowd.

Some 250 activists from across the state stayed to protest the address, after joining tribal members in a rally earlier that evening against AB 426, a bill set to ease the permitting process for new mining operations in Wisconsin's north woods. The bill paves the way for the Gogebic Taconite, a mining company, to build a $1.5 billion iron ore mine at the headwaters of the Bad River in the Penokee Range near Appleton in northern Wisconsin."

Get the Story:
Stop Gogebic Taconite's Wisconsin mining (Socialist Worker 2/1)

Mary Pember: Mine in Wisconsin threatens sacred traditions (1/24)