“We need help – we’re here for you”
A message that resonated across state, national, and even global boundaries just a few short weeks, months ago.
A message that brought thousands together to endure hardship, thugs with attack dogs, teargas grenades, rubber bullets, water cannons in freezing weather, and a militarized police force.
I believe that the Standing Rock tribal leaderships repeated admonitions to stand down, for the veterans to leave, was a critical error.
A call to stand down that could have easily been interpreted as we got this and probably was by some.
An error accompanied by assurances that all this would be discussed with the incoming administration, that legal avenues would be taken in the courts, as though discussions with the government or petitions to the various courts have always proven to be productive, to be just, or even Constitutionally correct when it came to the observance of treaty rights.
That would be treaty rights that the Supreme Court ruled over a hundred years ago are the “supreme law of the land”.
History has demonstrated that no law is ever supreme when it comes to the whims of legislators and the corporations they serve.
History has also demonstrated that the rape of the environment and it’s subsequent impact on the health of people is at best a distant second when it comes to greed and gluttony.
Now women stand and say we need help, we are here for you, as a male dominated Republican controlled presidency, congress, and senate ignore their voice.
A time to stand down, a time to place one’s faith in the Army Corp of Engineers who have amply demonstrated an oath to protect and serve the Constitution isn’t really binding or an administration that is not only deaf, dumb, and blind but gloating in it’s indifference?
This is a nation that has a penchant for spilling the blood of it’s own from the first people to inhabit it, to the blood on both sides from every war waged against the indigenous nations, the Civil War, the Civil Rights movement, demonstrations, and now the blood that has already been spilled at Standing Rock.
A national and localized blood letting that doesn’t take into account foreign adventurism and bogus wars predicated upon proven lies.
A national and localized blood that should it rise to the surface of the land where it lays would become a blanket covering every niche and corner of this nation.
Nothing in this world exists independently, there is an undeniable connectivity that having been ignored has brought every man, woman, and child to the brink of a national and global abyss where humanity can either hurl itself over the edge lemming like or turn back.
And in that turning back recover dignity, integrity, a balance lost long ago, and the inherent rights belonging to human beings.
Stand down or stand up? A personal choice, a decision to be made not with just an eye to the moment but to the future as well.
Today Standing Rock, tomorrow your community. In the final analysis it all comes down to what you consider will make America great, what’s in your heart – a corrupt “ conservative” ideology or people first.
Whether it’s convenient to stand up or more comfortable to stand down. I would draw your attention to the last video in the first linked article.
