CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

The New “Rape of the West”

Coal mine blasting, BLM lands, northern Arizona. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Exactly 50 years ago lauded University of Montana professor and historian K. Ross Toole published The Rape of the Great Plains — Northwest America, Cattle and Coal.  As he wrote: “A pitched battle is being fought over the fate of 250,000 square miles of unspoiled wilderness in Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota. In pursuit of “Project Independence” (American energy self sufficiency), powerful coal-mining and utility interests are preparing to strip mine the Northern Great Plains into a desert; impassioned citizens of these states are fighting back. The outcome will have crucial implications for the entire American landscape. The issues are many and complex, and have long been obfuscated by the ‘developers’.”

If that sounds eerily familiar to the current desecration and rape of the West, there are very good reasons for that perception. The Trump administration is on a non-sensical anti-environmental crusade across every acre of undeveloped land left — and the West contains most of what remains undeveloped, putting Montana, once again, squarely in the crosshairs of the raper scrapers.

One need not look too hard to see what we’re facing. You can start with the “drill, baby, drill” mantra that is........

© CounterPunch