What causes America to stir up the Many Fires? Simply said, a company has a project to place a great oil pipeline under a great river. The company believes a grant of eminent domain allows the project to proceed. A tribe of Americans has asserted two tenets. That oil pipeline should not cross under the great river because the river is much more important than the oil. Second, a treaty grants this tribe of Americans the right to approve or disapprove what happens upon reservation land. The whole conflict at Standing Rock arises from the clash between these positions. When one cannot negotiate, litigate. Since any litigation seems to ignore treaty rights, the whole conflict escalates into the court of protest and the court of natural law.
Let's leave aside the court of natural law for now. This conflict will fester for a long time in the court of protest. It might fester forever in the court of protest, where no sentence will be able to correct the wrongs. As intrepid as the water keepers have become, the tunnelers and pipefitters are making progress. Unchecked by our federal government, which now turns a blind eye to atrocity, the pipeline will complete. The spiritual warriors who handcuff themselves to bulldozers and sing Indian chants are merely obstacles on a Gantt chart in an office trailer. And that reduction of the Many Fires to nothing angers me deeply.
Why complete a pipeline when your customers are aghast? The oil should never flow through this artery called the black snake. Tankers will handle the flow well enough. Refine the crude closer to where it arises from the ground. Get serious about solar panels and turning the kinetic energy of road ways into fuel again. Most advanced countries are tapping out of oil and coal and LNG anyways. Must we continue to lag.
What next? Pipelines through the rice lands of the Lake Superior shoreline. That's why these braves will not back down. Standing Rock has been chosen as peak oil's Waterloo. At Standing Rock, the kings of pollution and waste were delivered a Magna Carta.
I am not fit to wear the moccasins of these protestors. This country still exists as a nation thanks to what the Many Fires has shared with us. The Navajo Code Talkers are one example of how the Many Fires have sustained us when America battled for its life in World War Two. It is the easiest example. At the Grand River Valley pow wow last late summer, veterans of the American armed forces were treated with the utmost reverence. The pow wow was brought into the veterans home nearby so that even the most invalid could be revived by native dance and chant. So how dare an American company start a new war with the Many Fires when the Many Fires have made this deep a peace with the American nation?
There's more to my outrage. For example, prisoners have passed days naked in dog kennels exposed to the elements of the Dakotas. This has been done in my name and I condemn the practice. This treatment of men and women of the Many Fires is more egregious than the practices of Abu Grhaib or Guantanamo. All of the wrongs of these military prisons have seen their day in Congressional court. Standing Rock will have its Warren Commission. Standing Rock already has its court reporters.
Don't be surprised if I write you from the Dakotas.
— at Standing Rock Indian Reservation.Let's leave aside the court of natural law for now. This conflict will fester for a long time in the court of protest. It might fester forever in the court of protest, where no sentence will be able to correct the wrongs. As intrepid as the water keepers have become, the tunnelers and pipefitters are making progress. Unchecked by our federal government, which now turns a blind eye to atrocity, the pipeline will complete. The spiritual warriors who handcuff themselves to bulldozers and sing Indian chants are merely obstacles on a Gantt chart in an office trailer. And that reduction of the Many Fires to nothing angers me deeply.
Why complete a pipeline when your customers are aghast? The oil should never flow through this artery called the black snake. Tankers will handle the flow well enough. Refine the crude closer to where it arises from the ground. Get serious about solar panels and turning the kinetic energy of road ways into fuel again. Most advanced countries are tapping out of oil and coal and LNG anyways. Must we continue to lag.
What next? Pipelines through the rice lands of the Lake Superior shoreline. That's why these braves will not back down. Standing Rock has been chosen as peak oil's Waterloo. At Standing Rock, the kings of pollution and waste were delivered a Magna Carta.
I am not fit to wear the moccasins of these protestors. This country still exists as a nation thanks to what the Many Fires has shared with us. The Navajo Code Talkers are one example of how the Many Fires have sustained us when America battled for its life in World War Two. It is the easiest example. At the Grand River Valley pow wow last late summer, veterans of the American armed forces were treated with the utmost reverence. The pow wow was brought into the veterans home nearby so that even the most invalid could be revived by native dance and chant. So how dare an American company start a new war with the Many Fires when the Many Fires have made this deep a peace with the American nation?
There's more to my outrage. For example, prisoners have passed days naked in dog kennels exposed to the elements of the Dakotas. This has been done in my name and I condemn the practice. This treatment of men and women of the Many Fires is more egregious than the practices of Abu Grhaib or Guantanamo. All of the wrongs of these military prisons have seen their day in Congressional court. Standing Rock will have its Warren Commission. Standing Rock already has its court reporters.
Don't be surprised if I write you from the Dakotas.
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