On Silos and Pet Causes

Tonight was political caucus night in Minnesota. People gathered in their precincts and wards by party, and we went to ward 12-3 for the DFL. Beyond the chaos, poor crowd management, crappy accessibility, worse communication, our ward did little for racial and economic justice.

Several resolutions were put forward by constituents (including one about animal traps and another about supporting without question the power of public service unions) and most passed without comment. But when one person put forward a resolution banning sulfide mining in northern Minnesota, I knew I had to speak.

I live in the People's Republic of South Minneapolis. As we headed toward Super Tuesday, I saw exactly one Hillary sign, and no bumper stickers for her, in my neighborhood. But there were lots and lots of Bernie signs and stickers and buttons and flags and I Felt the Bern. You can't turn around and not hit an environmentalist socialist lefty.

I'm one of them. Sort of.

My heart finds its home in the woods of northern Minnesota. Liz and I had our honeymoon in Ely and we've been there several times. We love the North Shore too, and don't want anything to harm that landscape. I'm also moved to be against sulfide mining because of the damage it will do in Native American communities.

And I don't support a ban on sulfide mining without a hard look at the economics of leaving an entire region out of opportunities for prosperity.

So I spoke in opposition to the resolution. I wanted it to say that we also would work to support the poor and working class people of the area in finding other ways to make a living wage.

I heard some verbal affirmation for what I was saying but the woman who put forth the original resolution refused my friendly amendment.

After the caucus closed, a neighbor named Bob (because you caucus with your neighbors) came up to me to try to convince me that eco-tourism could be a solution to the economic woes of the Iron Range by telling me a story about 20 people birding in Costa Rica who had each paid $100 to go on that particular tour.

Here are a few of the problems with relying on eco-tourism to be the sole support of a community. I take my experience from observing how Grand Marais, MN has become a booming eco-tourist town.

1) There's little cash in the community for investing in the infrastructure for eco-tourism, which requires housing, food, and culture for wealthy people who expect high-end accommodations and dining and arts. People who pay $100 to see a loon won't come if they can't have their creature comforts.

2) When a community can attract investors to create said infrastructure, much less of the money from those $100 tours stays in the community, and instead makes the outside investors more wealthy.

3) Wealth stays out of the community because the people who pay the workers who clean the toilets and wash the dishes don't willingly pay them more than the minimum wage, which isn't a livable wage.

4) It's expensive to live in or near an eco-tourist spot because as traveling there becomes more coveted, property values go up, and taxes go up, and housing costs go up. Kindergarten teachers in Grand Marais work summers as wait staff to make ends meet. Few people who live there have only one job.

5) Any wealth created leaves out communities of color and often exploits them, especially Native Americans.

6) There often aren't enough people living in remote areas to support an eco-tourist economy so migrant workers are brought in to fill menial positions. They get paid the lowest wages, and their money often doesn't stay in the community because they send money back to their families.

7) Remote areas don't have good road or other transportation access, or fast internet, keeping out other kinds of businesses that could support eco-tourism or even other kinds of businesses like manufacturing.

When I told him about these things, he said "it's a separate issue."

I'm tired of the silos of issues. We need to work intersectionally because if we only ban sulfide mining and do nothing about the economic issues in the area up there, we will be throwing poor and working class people under the bus. The DFL needs to get a clue about intersectional work.

The results are in, and Minnesotans love Bernie Sanders way more than Hillary Clinton. Our state loves economic justice. But there are many long-time DFLers who refuse to see how important that issue is, and how important it is to work with poor and working class people on economic justice. The DFL establishment overwhelmingly supported Clinton. The masses contradicted them. That's my evidence.

If we want to ban sulfide mining, we need to work side-by-side with the people on the Iron Range and in the Native American communities to come up with solutions to the economic crisis that's getting them to support sulfide mining. If we ban it without doing that, we'll be pushing them out of the voting booth, on our side at least.

Dear DFL establishment, stop being the way the Right paints us as elitists who care only about our pet causes. Let's figure out how to bring everyone into the environmentalist movement.