What can I say? Really what is there left to say at this point? If you’ve been following events at Standing Rock there’s nothing to share because you’ve seen and heard it all via social media and alternative press–with a few blips on mainstream media when it’s convenient or a ‘filler’ report is needed or they’ve been hounded into coverage by celebrities. It’s down to the wire as to what President Obama and the Army Corps of Engineers will or will not do regarding the Dakota Access Pipelene that no one wants except Energy Transfer Partners. What can I say? What would Obama do if they wanted to run that pipe down the Mall in DC?
What can I say?
That racism still runs rampant in North Dakota just as it did when the region was part of the Dakota Territory before state-hood?
That Big Oil Companies continue to ravage the land and water without check in the United States of Corporate Owned America?
That the militarized state of the American police is on full view at Standing Rock–and mainstream media doesn’t want to touch it with a hundred yard pole and the President is steadfastly unwilling to address it?
What self-respecting journalist would NOT want to cover what’s going at Standing Rock where unarmed Water Protectors are going up against an Armed Police presence which serves only the interests of Big Oil while getting to give vent to its own home-grown racism? It’s the kind of story journalists have wet dreams about. Or they used to. Or maybe only the likes of Sinclair Lewis and Edward Morrow did. (I write that last with FULL respect for all the independent journalists doing their best on the ground at Standing Rock.)
If there were hundreds of pretty blue-eyed blondes facing off with police anywhere have no doubt the mainstream media would zero in on them like a heat seeking missile and never let go until it drank the story cup to its driest dredges. Journalists would be swarming all over those attacks with pepper spray, batons, strip searches, dog kennels, rubber bullets, grave descerations, arrests of independent journalists, violations of civil and human rights like flies on a slice of cheese on a hot summer day.
Maybe that’s what’s required–thousands of white people going toe to toe with Morton County Police aka ETP/DAPL’s security force–a police force which ironically is now at least $10 Million in debt for playing toady to the oil business (according to one local news report Morton county thinks the feds will ante up for their security efforts. Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out for them.)
Or maybe not. I think the problem runs even deeper than skin color and culture and language to core values.
That’s where the crux of the problem lies: The values of corporate mainstream media, Big Business, the President of the United (sort of) States, the Army Corps of Engineers and the dominant culture are in direct conflict, 180 opposition to the values of the Standing Rock Lakota, their Indigenous and Non-native allies and everyone else who loves the Earth –with or without humans running amok on it.
Rampant capitalism, greed, exploitation of the Earth’s resources without a care beyond the goddamned almighty profit margin VERSUS honoring the Earth and all other living beings it supports; a formerly perfect planet with a formerly perfect ecosystem for supporting an immense diversity of life.
It’s Death versus Life.
It’s Oil versus Water.
It’s the value system which claims Earth is a but a resource for non-stop consumption versus the value system which claims Earth is our Mother which allows us the ability to live and thrive as long as we Honor and Cherish it by living in harmony and balance with our environment and non-human relatives.
It’s the illusion of control and dominance of Nature versus graciously living in our place in the web of life.
But, hey, you probably already have thought all this out.
So–what’s next?
What will happen when ETP/DAPL lays pipe under the Missouri River? Does anyone really think an acting without a permit fine will stop them? In our more idealistic moments we like to think so in a fair game. But this is not a fair game played by nice players willing to obey a set of rules. The oil industry is not bluffing, it really is an absolutely ruthless business run by people perfectly willing to LIE endlessly about the reality of Climate Change and make no apologies for it. Exxon, Chevron, Shell–all you have to is check their histories in the Amazon, Niger Delta and in the Gulf of Mexico to get the point–if you don’t have it already. These people do NOT play fair. They do what they please–until it blows up–literally–in their faces. And even then they go right back to business as usual.
Oh wait, if the pipeline isn’t laid at Standing Rock and gets rerouted elsewhere is not the same problem still on the books for potential contamination of the soil and water?
Change is in order.
Climate Change is coming one way or another.
Ask Mother Nature what’s on her agenda. Perhaps her answer is on the winter wind so cold it hurts to breathe. Perhaps a touch of global warming would be welcome at Standing Rock, North Dakota where the cold freezes bones and ices the air it sucks from your lungs. Ask the buffalo what they prefer.
#NoDAPL
#WaterIsLife
#HonortheEarth
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om mani padme hum jewel in the lotus wahupa qi prana universal life energy
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