[Kzyxtalk] op-ed at Standing Rock

[sako4 at comcast.net]

ONE RESISTANCE ARMY 
There comes a time when history begins to repeat itself. The Indigenous occupation around the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation is such a time. 
While there are many differences between the occupation of Wounded Knee in the early 1970s and the Sacred Stone encampment of today, there are many common threads. Both occupations involved the theft of Native rights by corrupt officials, and both resulted in an unnecessary use of police force and infiltrators to threaten protesters. The more recent occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by a group loosely affiliated with non-governmental militias and the sovereign citizen movement also echoes the two Native movements, 
Combined, all three protests were organized to orchestrate direct action against corrupt government officials in Congress and federal agencies far away in Washington, D.C. All three protests involved issues of land use that did not take into account the needs and desires of local people. All three protests were ordained for protesters via divine inspiration. And all three protests were brutally put down by law enforcement. 
Another thing. All three protests sparked a debate in the United States on the meaning of the words "terrorist" and "militant", and on how the news media and law enforcement unfairly characterize protests involving people of different ethnicities or religions. 
What can President Obama do now? 
There are four things that President Obama can do on his way out of the White House: 1) he can find a way to withdraw the nationwide permit for Dakota Access Pipeline construction and bring it back to lawmakers for them to fix, consulting with Tribal governments in the process; 2) stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline altogether; 3) do what Bill Clinton should have done, and pardon Leonard Peltier of the Wounded Knee occupation, and 4) direct the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the cold-blooded murder of Robert "LaVoy" Finicum of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation by agents from Oregon State Police and FBI agents, and to indict and vigorously prosecute them. 
What can we do? 
White. Black. Red. Brown. We must unite. We must come together as one. We must learn to work together as one Army of Resistance. 
Big government is our common enemy. A soulless, godless government is our common enemy. A faraway government motivated by greed, and greed alone, is our common enemy. 
Let us look to the buffalo -- tantanka -- for inspiration. In the Lakota language, the word “tatanka” is translated as “buffalo” or “buffalo bull.” 
However, according to native Lakota speakers, the literal translation is something more like “He who owns us.” Lakota elder Birgil Kills Straight explains it this way: 
“The four leggeds came before the two leggeds. They are our older brother -- we came from them. Before them, we were the root people, but that was a long time ago in the beginning of the world. We more recently came from the four leggeds. We are the same thing. That is why we are spiritually related to them. We call them in our language 'Tatanka,' which means 'He Who Owns Us.' We cannot say that we own the buffalo, because he owns us." 
Meaning what? Meaning we do not owe the land that we fight to protect. The land owns us. 
And certainly -- most certainly -- corrupt government officials in Congress and federal agencies far away in Washington, D.C. do not own the land nor its buffalo. 
John Sakowicz 
KMEC Radio at the Mendocino Environmental Center 
Ukiah, CA 


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