Thursday, October 13, 2016

Solidarity with Standing Rock's Pipeline Resistance

Solidarity with Standing Rock's Pipeline Resistance

by Sean Jobst
September 10, 2016




Back in late June/early July of 2010, I had the honor of being hosted two weeks on the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota reservation, which was an eye-opening and humbling experience in and of itself. During that time, I was also honored to have met in Rapid City, South Dakota, a leading activist associated with the Defenders of the Black Hills and the Teton Treaty Council. Their lands, along with other clans of the Lakota - including at Standing Rock - are directly affected by this pipeline. At the time, it was still in the planning stages but I was awoken to the reality of what was then in the works.

What I learned from her and other Lakota activists, was the extent to which the Lakota phrase Mitakuye Oyasin (We are all related) is a very pressing reality we should accept more than ever, because this is not only a Lakota issue - it goes much deeper than that. The uranium mines illegally placed within their lands by the federal government, and now with this pipeline, means the extensive river systems in the Dakotas are adversely affected - and these river systems are directly linked to all most other river systems and waterways throughout the United States. On many other spiritual and ecological levels, it goes even deeper than merely being a matter of corporate greed and profit.



I support (non-violent) Direct Action and Civil Disobedience in standing up to the ills and corruptions of the State, and this issue with the pipeline - aside from the ecological issues which directly affect all of us (Mitakuye Oyasin), brings up another reality - the nature of the State itself, which is nothing but the merger of Government with the Banking industry and Big Business. Now that the government actually outsourced PRIVATE contracting companies such as the former Blackwater (now rebranded "Academi") to VIOLENTLY crack down on the protestors, is there any more proof needed for the merger of Big Government and Big Business?

(As a side note, this is the same "Academi" whose former executive, Joseph Schmitz, who is also connected to the Neocon and staunchly Zionist think-tank Center for Security Policy which happens to be funded by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, is now a leading advisor to Donald Trump. Back when it was Blackwater, aside from their crimes abroad and their vicious exploitation of American soldiers just to make a profit from their blood, it was also involved in spying and infiltrating on opponents of Monsanto.

The extent to which uranium mines were placed illegally on Lakota lands, was the result of former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle, who after government became a lobbyist but was the favorite choice of his friend Obama to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, but the extent of his corporate ties were too much for even the corrupt gang called Congress and his nomination was withdrawn. Daschle is a supporter of Hillary Clinton, who has her own links with Monsanto. Daschle is notorious in South Dakota for his consistent record of allying with his Big Business friends against Native Americans and breaking every single treaty and promise ever made with the Lakota people. Daschle's lobbying group, Baker Donelson Bearman & Caldwell, counts among its clients Big Pharmaceutical corporations and Lockheed Martin.)

So I stand in complete solidarity and spirit with all the people on the ground right now protesting and fighting against this! "As individual fingers we can easily be broken, but all together we make a mighty fist." - Sitting Bull

 

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