BY ED FELIEN
We won a tremendous victory at Standing Rock.
Probably because of tremendous popular pressure, Obama ordered the Corps of Engineers not to approve the permit to allow the pipeline to cross the Missouri River at the location they intended.
The pipeline company is confident that Trump will approve a permit for them anywhere they want. So, the matter is not yet settled.
But that was a great victory for us.
The greater victory is that Native people from all over the country came together to protect the water. Bernie Sanders came. Radical environmentalists came. The support system was instantaneous and unanimous.
“Oh, they’ll go away by winter.”
The demonstrations did not take place on land owned and controlled by the Standing Rock Reservation. No permanent buildings were allowed to be constructed on those properties. We could only put up tents, tarps against the North Dakota wind chill. And, then, deputies shot water cannons at us in freezing weather. But we grew stronger.
And, then, the Cavalry came.
“The Cavalry?”
“But this time, the Cavalry was on our side.”
Naomi Klein, “This Changes Everything,” came with Tulsi Gabbard, member of Congress, major in the Army Reserve. More than 2,000 veterans came to talk to local law enforcement authorities and to pray in peace with the demonstration.
The pipeline was stopped.
The people who fought us have money and power enough to fight us again. They will wait for the new President.
They will grow stronger.
We will grow stronger.
We will set up barricades to talk to them.
Do they know what they’re doing?
Do they know what the Dakota Access Pipe Line is? Shale oil from North Dakota. It’s like the tar sands oil in Ontario. It’s not cost-efficient to process it right now with price of oil so low. They’ve stopped production. There are no jobs. There is no oil. So, they don’t really need the pipeline. And if there were oil, it would go down to Texas to be refined probably by the Koch Brothers and then shipped abroad. It’s for export.
“Meanwhile some 1,100 miles south of the protest site, in a Dallas office building, is the company that stands to benefit the most from the pipeline: Energy Transfer Partners, a 21-year-old company co-founded by current Chairman and CEO Kelcy Warren.”
http://www.salon.com/2016/11/04/who-is-yesdapl-meet-the-texas-billionaire-and-company-behind-the-dakota-access-pipeline/.
Kelcy Warren is gambling with the lives of seven generations. He is saying his right to make money running an oil pipeline to Texas across the Missouri River, the source of drinking water for millions, is worth more than our lives and our children’s children. His pointless and immoral speculation and greed must be exposed.
We need to talk about this with everybody.
