I love my home, my country, and my culture dearly. I can love them and still see and name when ugliness and injustice mar them. We founded the US on two particularly unconscionable acts - slavery and the genocide/dispossession of Native Americans. The ongoing and persistent attempts to access or intrude upon remain Native lands for the transport of petroleum products or the excavation of land for the extraction of petroleum products is injustice upon injustice. Apart from environmental concerns, which are plenty and vital, the continued neglect of Native American interests in these projects, whether the Keystone Pipeline, the Cherry Point terminal, or the Dakota Access Pipeline, requires strong rebuke and concrete measures to change course.
Blocking off access to property, illegal incursions on to Native lands, misrepresenting the process, cutting off access to water for protestors, ignoring the pleas of Native American leaders, disregarding letters from the EPA and other organizations written on behalf of Native leadership, delaying responses to questions regarding route and safety...these have all happened. And it is wrong.
The image of the US Army destroying, mistreating, and degrading Native Americans is one seared into my imagination. Today, instead of a cavalry it is the US Army Corps of Engineers (which I have always held in high regard). Instead of guns they use political tactics. Instead of a railroad and white settlements, this time a pipeline is the excuse for these actions. Yet, history repeats itself. It is the same thing in a different guise.
I want to interrupt this repetition of history. Not in my name as an American will this be done.
So I say no to the Dakota Access Pipeline and I will send money and offer my voice and my time to do what I can to stop it.
For more information, visit it the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's website (http://standingrock.org/data/upfiles/media/Backgrounder%20DAPL%20SRST%20FINAL.pdf). You can also access the US Army Corps of Engineers or the DAPL website.
