in all humility, only posting it here after messaging a couple Kossacks and getting positive feedback. This is a letter I wrote to the President a few days after being out there and sums up pretty well feelings I still have. This thing CAN be stopped, and needs to be stopped, not just as some kind of “favor” to the people of Standing Rock (although, frankly, that would be nice), but because our own futures rely upon understanding: Water is life.
10/27/2016
Dear President Obama,
Last night I listened to a North Dakota police official say he is losing patience with the Dakota Access protesters now occupying the easement for the pipeline. He said the “rule of law” must be upheld.
I don't think he saw any irony in saying this to Indian people. Of course if this nation were genuinely about the rule of law, the Black Hills would be returned to the Lakota people tomorrow. Except they wouldn't have been stolen in the first place. There wouldn't be a vacancy on the Supreme Court today. Corporations wouldn't be considered to be people. Money wouldn't be free speech. Presidential candidates wouldn't say they may or may not accept the results of an election. And so on.
I drove 1000 miles last Friday and Saturday to camp at the protest site near Cannon Ball. I had an intense desire to pray there at sunrise on the 23rd, my 64th birthday. This was personal for me on several levels. I'd had a similar desire to be at the Occupy Wall Street camp five years earlier, not because I thought my personal presence would be important in any way, but because I wanted to link my personal experience to what I thought was the best part of my culture trying to change things from the inside. Not long after that the Occupy movement, it seemed to me, was simply crushed. It left its mark, but things haven't changed.
Also, I have been going out to the Standing Rock Reservation every year since 2008, attending portions of the Rock Creek Powwow held in Bullhead, South Dakota. Bullhead is named for the Indian police officer who shot and killed Sitting Bull before being shot and killed himself. This happened on the Grand River, not far from the present site of the village, on December 15th, 1890. It started a series of events which culminated at Wounded Knee on the 29th.
Despite going out there for years I claim no personal connection with the people or culture of Standing Rock. I simply believe it is sacred country and that the Lakota people have something that is sacred as well.
So on the morning of the 23rd, well before sunrise, the camp was awakened by a leader calling over the loudspeakers for the people to rise up and act. 81 people had been arrested the day before. Over the next couple hours there were prayers and songs and speeches, mainly intimating that this was an important day for the movement and a day of change.
Some time after first light we headed off to the site of the pipeline. Some drove there. I walked with a group of, I would guess, 100 or more. A plane had been flying over the camp before we left and it was now joined by a helicopter circling over us.
When we got to the site there was an extended period of singing and praying. Then a speaker said that this was the day to take a stand, to make a camp on the easement itself. This was electrifying to me. Occupy Wall Street never got past occupying a small park in the shadow of the skyscrapers. It was also criticized for not having a specific goal. Now the Dakota Access movement would be occupying the proposed pipeline site itself. And I don't think its basic position could be more clear: Water is life.
I don't know if the people camping on the site now are willing to sacrifice their lives before moving, but I believe that would be a righteous position to take. I don't think this is about the rule of law. I don't even think it is about the few billions of dollars involved. There are individual Americans who could buy off the whole project to date and not even feel it financially. I believe it is about whether or not in 2016 we are willing to honestly look at and change our relationship with the earth and each other.
I count myself among your biggest admirers. I hope and pray you will do something to honor the values and goals of the people of Standing Rock.
John Poff,
Mio, MI
