We Stand With Standing Rock

There has been a huge media blackout about this, and Bernie Sanders is the only prominent politician (along with Jill Stein and Winonna LaDuke) who is talking about it.  The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota has been peacefully but fiercely protesting a proposed oil pipeline, the Dakota Access Pipeline, that would run very close to their reservation and dangerously close to their water supply, nevermind though their sacred burial ground as well.  All to carry fracked oil from North Dakota to Illinois.  And the increasingly militarized police have been violently suppressing their protests.  The irony of Thanksgiving (or is it Thankstaking or Thankskilling?) notwithstanding.

The TSAP supports Standing Rock and opposes the construction of this dangerous and treaty-violating (and therefore illegal) pipeline in or anywhere near their reservation, water supply, and/or sacred lands.  We call upon President Obama to pass an executive order to halt immediately and indefinitely any further construction on the pipeline, at least until the controversial section can be re-routed to a safe distance far away from the area in question.  And while we're at it, we need to put a moratorium on fracking and promote renewable energy sources.  Our lives, and indeed the entire biosphere, literally depend on it.

Native Americans / First Nations have, along with other Indigenous peoples worldwide, been royally screwed over and brutally genocided by white folks for centuries.  It needs to end yesterday.  Full stop.  The song "Beds Are Burning" by Midnight Oil comes to mind.  Same problem, different continent.