The battle going on in North Dakota over another unnecessary pipeline has finally heated up to the point where real human damage has been done and much more serious retaliation is eminent. The latest about to join the pipeline demonstrators are a group of vets, led by a former officer named Clark. They are coming in full battle gear but carrying no weapons. You can help fund them by going to GOFUNBDME.com.
Construction permits for the pipeline have already been pulled by the Obama White House, but the greedy investors, which included Donald Trump, who own Energy Transfer Partners, have continued to construct their pipe of death even as they completed negotiations to sell it to Sonoco Logistics another major player in the poisoning of the planet. It doesn’t matter how many jobs might be created in the North Dakota oil fields and truth be know it isn’t that many. The reality is that the pipeline will carry death, to people and the atmosphere and no amount of jobs is worth that.
The Native American protests that have led to the stoppage of the pipeline have been peaceful, but the retaliation by bought and paid for local police departments, has been anything but. Local cops playing soldier, have attacked the protestors using percussion grenades, tear gas, rubber bullets and high-pressure water hoses in sub-freezing conditions. Are these yahoo assholes with badges too stupid to recognize that they are attacking and injuring fellow Americans who are trying to save the cop’s own children from the ravages of corporate greed?
The other day a young woman, Sophia Wilansky had her arm, almost blown off by a concussion grenade. The resulting damage to this 21 year-old woman extended to a compound fracture, extensive muscle, nerve and bone damage and the possibility that she still might lose the arm. Sheriff Kyle Kirchmier whose gun happy badly trained, fascist deputies led the attack was effusive in his excuses for this kind of action, but a Water Protestor hacker disclosed that local Sheriffs had communicated via email about payments from the pipeline company being in the offing.
This is a national disgrace. The President must send in the National Guard to protect these peaceful protestors before some hothead with a sniper rifle starts picking off the offending Sheriffs and their Deputies and creates an actual war zone in a place that right now looks pretty much like the real thing.
This column has dealt at length with the garbage oil that is coming out of Canada and the Dakotas. The only reason to take this poison out of the ground is corporate greed. They can’t sell it in this country so they ship it overseas to the Far East where unscrupulous governments, that care more for their bottom line than they do for the inhabitants of the planet on which they exist, burn it and poison the atmosphere.
Opponents of environmental science have long ago established the danger and stupidity of their stance. They have depended on protestor’s failed hope that their pleas would be finally heard by a sympathetic administration and something would be done about them. With the promise of the Republican government favorable to fossil fuel interests dashing those hopes completely, there is now a real danger of peaceful protests turning to something more ominous. There is a feeling running through the more radical progressive movements that; “We tried to do it right but we won’t just give up our children’s futures so some rich prick can get a second yacht.” It is a fact of history that when peaceful protest fails, radical solutions force themselves to the surface. When logical conclusions having been kicked to the curb by the forces of greed and political prosperity, there are many who will see the only solution in the wake-up call of violence. You cannot dig a trench for a pipeline when the treads have been blown off you’re your backhoe and you will not expose yourself to throw a concussion grenade at a helpless young woman when you are taking fire from an experienced sniper.
No one wants to see any of that happen but in order to prevent it, there must be those on both sides of the table who are willing to compromise. For far too long the lovers of the planet have been the only ones who were willing to do that. Now it is time for those who would destroy the planet in the name of the unholy dollar to step back and say; “We have stolen enough. We have taken enough from the earth. Now it’s time for the rest of mankind to inherit the planet.” If that doesn’t happen we are in for a very rocky road.
The refusal of the polluters to consider any kind of logical or scientific argument against their greedy crusade for more profit is so outlandish as to make their goals; at best unachievable and at worst criminal. In ignoring all scientific evidence of the unsuitability of fossil fuel usage in an age where other means are available, simply because they are already invested in oil and coal, they prove their lack of interest in the common good, a goal that has been in the forefront of constructive policy in this country since its beginning.
Greed has always been a factor in the human condition but when it reaches the point where it endangers the planet, it must be curtailed. If, as they have now, the polluters have risen to a station where they can influence government policy, it will become necessary for the public to rise up and rip that power from their grasp, then so be it. So be it, even if it needs violence to achieve those ends. Violence should always be the last alternative of any constructive movement. But, as one looks at what is going on in North Dakota, one sees violence being perpetrated against peaceful people searching for a just solution and that is not acceptable. It would be interesting to see if the local bullies with badges would be as invested in their violent approach to civil order if they had someone shooting back at them. A bully is a bully and the only way to deal with a bully is to push back strongly enough to make him back down. This is something we learn in the schoolyard and it never changes.