The article said they had a hearing on Dec 10th. Anyone know how that went?
here's a link:
http://www.hcpress.com/news/eustace-conway-of-turtle-island-speaks-before-nc-building-code-council-members-direct-staff-to-find-good-solution.html BTW -- I smell a land grab here. Shut the guy down, and then force him to auction the land off. Beautiful, pristine utterly virgin land for pennies on the dollar.
Bastards.
I don't know that he has any REAL connections with Native Americans, but regardless of his linneage, I would think that from a purely legal standpoint, the real hotshot lawyers who currently represent US triibal interests (many of them tribal members themselves) might wanna get a look at this oine. This Turlte Island situation strikes me as being similar to the way tribes of the past were forced off their lands --espeically the Shinecock Tribe in Long Island.
As background, I lived in Long Islasnd for a couple years, and I recall the Shinecock case as it was unfolding. Long Island is essentially two counties (three if you wanna count Queens, but no one in New York culture ever calls Queens part of Long Island even though it is geographically on the land mass called Long Island). The two counties are Nassau County (the Dutch settlement from 400 years ago) and Suffolk County (the British settlement from 400 years ago). The British at first thought they had a good thing by taking the eastern half of the island because it has a nice rocky point jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean which looks like it'd make an awesome sea port. WRONG!! Beneath the water's surface, there is a huge circular area radiating out from the eastern point of Long Island which is just riddled with a vast underwater plain of sharp pointy rocks jutting upward just beneath the water's surface.
In that era, it was a mariner's nightmare to try and naviagte anywhere around the eastern point of Long Island. A smart sailor who wanted to get to New Amsterdam (now called New York City) would either sail northward up along the coast of Connnecticut and hug the Connecticut shoreline, or go down to New Jersey and sail up the Hudson -- either way, staying as far away from the shores of Long Island as possible.
The British back inn the late 1500's found little military or nautical use for Long Island, and because Long island is so hilly and rocky, building roads was a real bitch. So they gave the undesireable eastern half of Suffolk County to the Shinecock tribe, promisinng them they could keep it. What few white setllements existed in Suffolk County consisted of potato farmers.
Then in the 1800's, the railroads were invented, and the first true American millionaires came on the scene in New York City, looking for marvelous lands on which to build their fantasy palaces of might and power where they could pretend they were actual members of royalty. And so the eastern half of Long Island -- with beautiful views of the ocean, rolling hills, and an utter LACK of modern buildings (just tribal housing) became a very desireable place to take hold of 200 or 300 acres at a shot and build a dream mansion. So the Shincocks were told "Sorry, but we're taking it." And US troops arriived, rounded up whole villages, and they were kicked out for good. The likes of Rockefeller, Roosevelt, and Carnegie built their play houses there. And that's where the expression "Summering in the Hamptons" came from. If you were a member of New York's high society back in the late 1800's, you of course had a magnificent penthouse apartment on Park Avenue, or a brownstone in Washington Square Park, But you ALSO had a "summer home in the Hamptons" (eastern Long Island). All the "beautiful people" from New York's high society had a summer home in the Hamptons.
One of the greatest America novels ever written
The Great Gatsby centers around life in Long Island in the Hamptons.
The Shinecock's have since launched a class action lawsuit demanding either a) give us back our land, or b) pay us 150 years worth of back-rent, or c) pay us an 1875 fair market price of the land PLUS 150 YEARS WORTH OF INTEREST.
Anyway ...
This Turle Island situation strikes me as a case of "Same gov't-backed thievery, different victim." So I truly think a tribal lawyer could take this one on.
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