The Deluge, or Great Flood motif is common in cultures around the World. From ancient Mesopotamia to the Maya of Mesoamerica, history recounts again and again a remarkably similar tale of a local hero, warned by a heavenly interlocutor of an imminent, deity-created disaster and bidden to create a boat, raft, or ark to save the people.
The Cheslatta T’En of the Cheslatta T’En Carrier Nation received no such visitation before their lands were subsumed in British Columbia in 1952. They were given ten days to pack up and leave their ten thousand year-old settlement near Kitimat to make way for Alcan’s Kenney Dam.
Cast to the winds, the disintegration of the Cheslatta T’En people, described in the documentary film, No Surrender, became an abject lesson in what mega-projects gone wrong look like.
Sixty-six years later, it seems that’s a lesson not learnt by BC’s lesser political god’s who again, with a wave of the hand and flourish of a pen, in the holy name of Mammon (ahem) economic development, will sweep away all that resides in the path of its ambitions along the Peace River.
Construction of the Site C dam was greenlighted for a second time in December by a second government. And, both John Horgan’s NDP and his coalition Green Party of Andrew Weaver partner would now have their supporters surrender objections to this project, give up on the First Nations, farmers, and wildlife of the Peace Valley, and accept this project – regarded across the spectrum as an ill-conceived economic millstone – be hung about their necks and the necks of generations to come.
But, the fight isn’t over yet.
Dr. Steve Gray is Chair of the Peace Valley Solidarity Initiative. The retired, Victoria-based MD has been involved with Site C opposition for the last three years. Steve and the Solidarity Initiative will host an Accountability and Action Summit on Site C to defend the Peace in this weekend in Vancouver, and next week, January 25th and 26th here in Victoria at the First Metropolitan United Church. They say,
“We do not accept the justification offered by Premier Horgan to continue the Site C project and flood the Peace River valley.”
Dr. Steve Gray in the first half.
And; forget about Russia, it’s the People’s Republic of China posing the greatest threat to America and its partners in Western Civilization. That’s the narrative, bolstered not only by China’s newly bestowed epithet as an adversary of “rules based international order”, but by at-large billionaire, political crusader, and international intrigue gadfly, Guo Wengui; better known to readers of the paper of record in his sometime-adopted home base of New York City, as Miles Kwok. This past Sunday, The New York Times Magazine ran a lengthy and fascinating article on the man whose mission to “save China” by undermining its corrupt leadership class carries on from his Manhattan exile, one embarrassing leak at a time.
Peter Lee is a freelance journalist writing on East and South Asian affairs as they intersect with US global policy. He blogs at the Asian affairs website ChinaMatters.blogspot.com, and his China Watch report features on Newsbud.com.
Peter Lee and keeping up with the Kwok’s and the China Witch Hunt in the second half.
And; Victoria-based greentrepreneur and horticulturalist extraordinaire, Christina Nikolic will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin bringing us up to speed with some of the good things going on in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Steve Gray and demanding accountability and organizing action to reverse the Site C dam decision.
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/