Alligator Alcatraz: Some History

By Guest Author Named Jack

Editor's Note:  This is one of the commentaries selected from Robin's weekly newsletter Patriot Neighbors. If you wish to get the full edition, E-mail her at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com to get on her list, it's free.

It matters little what the place is called. President Donald Trump thinks Alligator Alcatraz to be a whimsical enough name. Even Joe Biden got used to Bidenomics.

I'll give you a few brief facts. The large, well-maintained airstrip is on the border line of Miami-Dade County that runs east, on to the Atlantic Ocean, and Collier County, that runs west to the Gulf at Naples, Florida. The isolated, uninhabited air strip has no buildings or traffic control tower or any permanent party staff or services. It was used only for occasional National Guard training exercises. When those training sessions took place, the Guard brought all their own tents and supplies and portable towers. The area is left completely clean and unoccupied for the rest of the year. Go to google maps to see what it looked like a few weeks ago, before the conversion started to make it a holding area for deporting illegal aliens.

As for the protesters who showed up, out in the middle of nowhere in this awful Florida summer heat and humidity and near daily super cell thunderstorms with vicious lightening, they are made up mainly of just mom and pop dumb heads who hate Trump (picture "no kings" sign carriers on Flag Day, June 14th.), and maybe some (Soros) hit men and antifa operatives. However, the mainstream press is focusing most of their cameras on the colorful people of a couple Indian communities that have tribal outposts within a couple hundred miles of the location. No humans live anywhere near this rarely used training site.

One tribe that most non-Floridians seem to think belong here are the Seminoles. The word Seminole means, "visitors from the north." These were different small groups of Indians from the Carolinas and above who drifted down to Florida, after the huge pre–Columbian Indian tribes began to die off after the Spanish arrived in Florida in the early 1500's. It took a couple of centuries to complete the migration and take over. 

What had started as disorganized mostly agrarian Indians from the north, congealed into what are now The Seminoles. Many were probably Cherokee who did not want to be forced to move by the US government to Oklahoma, and ran off to the south, instead of participating in the "Trail of Tears" forced march to the west. Surprise, surprise, the ancestors of most present-day Seminoles were NOT native to Florida.

The pre-Columbian tribe that was the largest and fiercest in all of Florida were the Calusa. If you would care to read their long descent from fierce to extinct, there are books written by local historians. It was a sad, sad story of many thousands of Calusa natives being reduced to a handful of hopeless and sick individuals who were mercifully moved to Cuba by bleeding heart Spanish missionaries (see NGO's).

The other tribe who has sent well costumed spokes men and women to the protest line is the Miccosukee. I have not researched much about the tribe, but they may claim birth rite to one of the other pre-Columbian tribes who lived in Florida under the thumb or slightly subservient of the mighty Calusa. The fate of all the pre-Columbian tribes was bad, with the European smallpox and Spanish oppression, followed by new tribes moving to Florida to fill the vacuum. However, some of the real original Florida Indian tribes did survive in small, isolated areas. So, be careful how much credence you give to these "native" or "indigenous" claimers when they speak of these being THEIR lands. They are probably being used by woke press to undermine Trump.

Fifth through seventh generation (and beyond) white, black and Spanish Florida settlers have been here longer than the forebears of many present Seminoles.

That is a brief synopsis of what is now called Alligator Alcatraz.

Biden Exploits Indigenous Spirituality to Appease Environmentalists

Alaskan native tribes are being deprived of oil revenue and ignored. 

By John Klar | Feb 28, 2024 @ Liberty Nation News Tags: Articles, Opinion, Politics

(Photo by Simon Bruty/Anychance/Getty Images)

A watchdog group has filed a “scientific integrity” complaint against the Biden administration for employing “Indigenous knowledge” as justification for canceling seven oil and gas leases in Alaska. The decision was allegedly a political maneuver to appease environmental groups unhappy with the administration’s earlier approval of a massive drilling operation (the Willow Project) in the Alaskan petroleum reserve. The president’s people appear to have exploited Native American spirituality to court white liberal votes while impoverishing Alaskan tribes.

Complaint of Shoddy Science

Protect the Public’s Trust wrote in their complaint that “…the Biden administration’s decision making, through the use of Indigenous Knowledge, is susceptible to manipulation without even the pretense of adhering to scientific principles….” The chief basis of the allegations is Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland’s September 6, 2023, announcement that the seven leases would be terminated:

“President Biden is delivering on the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history. The steps we are taking today further that commitment, based on the best available science and in recognition of the Indigenous Knowledge of the original stewards of this area, to safeguard our public lands for future generations.”

Indigenous Knowledge and Oil Revenues

It is not clear what Indigenous Knowledge offers to the field of climate science. And while many remote native villages still subsist on caribou, walrus, and whale, tens of thousands of Alaskan natives depend on these leases for their community services, personal incomes, and economic hopes for their future generations. The Inupiat North Slope communities and other tribes live in isolated regions where jobs are scarce. Alaska boasts a high level of energy employment, where wages trend some 50% above average national wages. Additionally, Native Americans receive distributions of oil revenue.

Following the 1968 discovery of vast Alaskan petroleum reserves, the bipartisan Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 created more than 200 Native-owned corporations, including the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC). Alaska Public Media (APM) states:

“By creating more than 200 Native-owned corporations like ASRC and seeding them with 44 million acres of land and $1 billion, the legislation was one of the most progressive land deals ever struck between the U.S. government and Indigenous people. Since its inception, ASRC has paid out more than $1 billion in dividends, with recent per-shareholder payments as high as $7,000 a year. Only people with Alaska Native heritage can own shares, with a few exceptions. … the deal helped create monetary wealth for ASRC’s 13,000 shareholders and those of dozens of other Alaska Native-owned corporations. ASRC has now been listed as Alaska’s top revenue-generating business for the past 27 years. It says it has 13,500 employees across the country and ranks among the top regional corporations in its yearly cash dividends…”

Hundreds of millions of additional dollars are generated from real estate taxes, enabling otherwise impoverished Native Alaskan communities to build grocery stores, water and sewer lines, communications infrastructure, schools (that teach native language), and health and rescue services. All of these efforts have been compromised by the Biden about-face on leases, but community leaders claim they have been completely ignored. APM reports:

“Doreen Leavitt, director of Natural Resources and Tribal Council Secretary for the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope (ICAS,) argued that the Biden administration’s actions amounted to a slight against Alaska Native villages’ right to self-determination.

“…Responsible resource extraction has, since the passage of ANCSA, become a cornerstone of the regional economy, Leavitt told the committee. Further limiting already restricted land usage threatened to further upend a fragile economic foothold for the Inupiat. The tribe would have shared these comments with the Biden administration had they ever been consulted, Leavitt said.”

Some tribes claim conservation efforts seek to “turn our homeland into one giant park,” which will undermine economic development and restrict subsistence efforts. One area resident remarked that “it’s wilderness areas and romantic notions of what the Arctic should be that continue to drive outsiders to glibly advocate for limiting resource development.” A bill – H.R. 6285, “Alaska’s Right to Produce Act” – seeks to reinstate the leases canceled by the Biden administration.

Biden Confusion

Government policies must balance competing objectives, but the scales for Biden persistently seem to tip toward self-interest and re-election. The president has recently paused emissions regulations and climate goals for EVs to appease UAW workers for November, signaling that climate urgency takes a back seat to his campaign. Similarly, breaching government oil-lease commitments to Indigenous tribes to showboat for environmentalists is justified by appeals to Native American spirituality – not to help conservation, climate, or Native Americans, but to politicize all social causes for Biden 2024.

 

Read More From John Klar