So you authorities think members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe have some nerve demonstrating against his majesty, Emperor Oil.
I suppose you law enforcers consider the tribe anti-religious because they haven’t bowed and acquiesced to having their sacred land endangered by the substance you regard as the most holy on earth–oil.
I guess you wonder what on earth is wrong with them. You probably regard their demonstrations as uncivilized. Indecent. Un-American, even though they’re the original Americans and you’re placing your filthy pipeline across their sacred land.
You probably believe that oil is the religion we should all worship? Who cares if it potentially threatens the environment? So what if it might destroy their Native American burial sites, sacred prayer sites and artifacts . . . endanger their water supply? So who’s indecent and uncivilized here? Maybe it’s you!
Perhaps it’s you who are wrong for thinking the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe should feel fortunate to have an oil pipeline stretching royally across their land. What’s wrong about their reservation straddling the border between North Dakota and South Dakota in the crosshairs of the projected path of the pipeline?
To you oil is the Holy Grail, the life blood of civilization, the milk and honey of our time. You want the tribe to get addicted to it like the rest of us.
How about this as a strategy to assuage their ignorant opposition? Build a pipeline across St. Peter’s Square in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, the papal enclave inside Rome. Wouldn’t the Pope bless it, maybe enshrine it and millions of pilgrims of the pipe come to see it?
Or let’s run a pipeline across Mecca as surely the Islamic world wouldn’t mind or along the banks of the holy river Ganga in India, where Hindis would get a kick out of it or better yet erect one at the foot of the Temple Mount in Israel.
You believe oil outranks all religious sites, so what’s the big deal if the pipeline should despoil a few sacred sites or rupture and contaminate a tribe’s drinking water. Are these Native Americans any better than the people of Flint?
So you oil worshippers wonder why are demonstrators so vehemently picketing the $3.7 billion pipeline and arousing all this controversy over something we all need and are willing to pay any price for, even if it means starting wars in the Middle East, sending our sons and daughters into harm’s way.
Isn’t oil worth any price, you ask?
You wonder why a court decision allowing construction of the oil pipeline across four states hasn’t dampened demonstrators’ furor over the project.
Maybe It’s because this tribe doesn’t necessarily believe as you do that legally correct makes everything right from a moral standpoint!
Yes the high and mighty developer has hailed this pipeline as an economic boon that will make the US less dependent on imported oil. You oil worshippers probably regard these protesters as nothing but a bunch of spoiled oil infidels who need to be taught a lesson.
You wonder why they’re blind to the fact that this pipeline carrying crude from North Dakota could be an economic boon for their region.
Yet rather than look for alternative and renewable sources of energy, you prefer replacing creed with greed and forcing your way onto their land and let the tribe’s sacred sites and water supplies take the risk of a ruptured pipeline.
And for this recklessness disregard of the rights of Native Americans, one day you will have to answer.
Photos: North Dakota oil pipeline protests
Tribe members make their way back to the camp on Saturday, October 29. The Dakota Access Pipeline is a $3.7 billion project that would cross four states and change the landscape of the US crude oil supply. Construction of the pipeline will “destroy our burial sites, prayer sites and culturally significant artifacts,” the Standing Rock Sioux tribe said.