Standing Rock Water Protectors Showed Us How It’s Done

The chief lesson from Standing Rock is this: “When people stand together, we win.”

 

When we allow politics, “isms” and “phobias”(sexism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia) to divide us into warring camps, we lose.

 

Tribes across the nation united as one at Standing Rock. For months. Military veterans united and arrived in droves to put themselves between the water protectors and rubber bullets, water cannons, dog kennels, and tasers.

 

Every creed, color and nation  united at Standing Rock to proclaim, “Not again. Never again. We are at a crossroads. Save the earth.”

 

Never again. Whenever fresh water and the future of our environment and progeny are at stake, we must unite, stand, protest, pray, and say, “Not this time!”

 

The Paris environmental accords were meant to ensure the habitability of our planet to future generations. They weren’t just words on a page to pacify environmentalists. They were hammered out because climate change is real and what’s driving it is the wanton rapacity of the present energy industry executives and the elected officials, oligarchs and plutocrats who care only about how big a bite they can take before everything falls to shit.

 

At Standing Rock the people united to say, “No more. Never again.”

 

If the reprieve is only temporary, we must all unite again in even greater numbers and demand that alternative sources of energy (ones that don’t risk ruining the environment) be developed with all deliberate speed (no matter how badly this pisses off the oil and gas barons) and that all pipelines not already constructed be stopped. Take that development money–if you must and if you truly want to create jobs  and not just gouge and wound us further–and replace the pipelines that are bursting at breakneck speed and polluting our planet.

 

The first action of a first responder is often “Stop the bleeding. Find the major cause of the crisis and address it.”

 

We’ve found the cause of our troubles: The greed of the 1%.  They have enough of our precious blood and resources. It’s time to cut their umbilical cords and demand that they find another way to get by, other than sucking their essence from us. We’re done being wet nurses to their hunger for more, more, more…always more!

 

P.S. And we’ve had it, too, with mainstream media calling people who stand up against rapacious policies “protesters.” They are “Protectors.”

Always have been–always will be. Get your heads out of your asses, stop spouting your corporations’ propaganda, and think about your children’s children! Your complicity has to stop.