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When
I was a teenager, after being wished a Happy Father’s Day, my father would say
(with a drily humorous look), “Every day is Father’s Day.” It sounded like
a quip, yet there was a humble truth to it . . . true respect and love for
someone is an everyday experience.
So
here it is, umpteen years later on another Mother Earth Day and, well you
can guess what’s next . . . every day is Mother Earth Day. If you’re a Settler,
the first ‘official’ Earth Day was 1970, whereas for Indigenous
Peoples the first was umpteen to the Nth years ago. While it
is helpful to have such days to raise awareness and provide a focus for
activities, part of the day needs to be a reminder of every day.
Much
of the capitalist economy revolves around holidays, some of the biggest being
Halloween, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, and the seemingly eternal
purchasing-and-gift-giving fest known as Christmas. Nowadays, even Mother Earth
Day runs the risk of being co-opted for ‘green sales’ with chain-stores and
corporations doing ‘nice’ things to help the environment . . . that they or
their suppliers have probably helped pollute.
What’s
lacking, though ever more surfacing in mass consciousness, is the realization
of where all the gifts come from: the cost of the extractions. Too often, this
means the rape of Mother Earth. It’s not just the dollar cost, but the cost to
the environment, quality of life in general, and preservation of land, air, and
water, as well as the typically slave labor that is part of the extraction-to-product
equation, the sad math of a toxic legacy.
Adding
to all that is the war zone that protecting Mother Earth has become:
“In the years between 2002 and 2013, at
least 908 people were killed defending environmental and land rights, according
to a new report, Deadly Environment,
put forth by the human rights group Global Witness.”1
Mother Earth Is Keeping Score
The
scope of wins, losses, and decisions in progress is vast so the examples herein
are meant to give a glimpse of what’s happening.
In
the victories department:
“In
a vote cheered as a victory for democracy, one community in British Columbia
has given a flat rejection to a proposed tar sands pipeline. Over 58 percent of
voters who headed to the polls in the North Coast municipality of Kitimat on
Saturday said ‘no’ to Enbridge's Northern Gateway project.2
“‘We
do not, we will not, allow this pipeline,’ Peter Erickson, a hereditary chief
of the Nak’azdli First Nation, told the six federal bureaucrats. ‘We’re going
to send the message today to the federal government and to the company itself:
Their pipeline is dead. Under no circumstances will that proposal be allowed.
Their pipeline is now a pipe dream.’ . . . The Yinka Dene have spearheaded a
petition against the pipeline that has been signed by 160 First Nations groups
in B.C. – most not located near the proposed pipeline route.”3
Still pending . . .
“Bold Nebraska is a grass-roots movement of families,
farmers, cowboys, Indians and community members standing up to the energy
extraction industry, resisting the Keystone Pipeline and protecting the Earth
and the People using creative and imaginative tactics . . .
“A group of ranchers, farmers and tribal communities from
along the Keystone XL tarsands pipeline route, called the Cowboy and Indian
Alliance, will, on April 22nd [Mother Earth Day], ride into
Washington DC on horseback and set up camp near the White House to tell
President Obama to reject the pipeline. Reject and Protect is the name of this
action. Reject the pipeline; protect the Earth and the People . . .
“Four days later, on Saturday April 26th at 11 AM,
thousands of people will join them on the National Mall (between 7th and 9th
Streets) to stand together for a final message that the Keystone XL pipeline
and the tar sands must be rejected to protect this, and future generations. Tribes,
farmers and ranchers are all people of the land, who consider it their duty as
stewards to conserve the land and protect the water for future generations.”4
So “the land”,
aka Mother Earth, is bringing people together, like how a Mother wants all
siblings to get along.
On the front lines of stopping the KXL
pipeline are tipi spiritual camps, the Rosebud Lakota Shielding the People
Spiritual Camp5 (also see “Moccasins on the Ground”6) and Pte Ospiye Spiritual Camp.7
Already
taking direct action, the “Rosebud Sioux Tribe
in South Dakota halted its first megaload and directed its businesses to
prohibit the purchase of fuel to anything that transports material affiliated
with the TransCanada XL tarsands pipeline!”8
In Minnesota, “Honor the Earth filed
its Memorandum of Law in Support of its motion to dismiss the application by
Enbridge for the Sandpiper [Pipeline Project] route permit.”9
And,
“MN 350, the Sierra Club, Honor the
Earth and others are fighting Enbridge Energy of Canada before the Public
Utilities Commission . . . Enbridge
seeks to increase its enormous oil transport system using its existing Alberta
Clipper Pipeline through Minnesota, increasing the barrels per day of tar sands
crude oil from 450,000 to 800,000 piped from Alberta, Canada, to Superior,
Wis.”10
Pumped Up
In
the chapter “Pipelineistan” in his book Globalistan (2006), Pepe Escobar
writes:
“Thus the ‘war on terror’ was never
about a ‘clash of civilizations’ between Islam and the West, much less
‘terrorism.’ The name of the game from the beginning has been Pipelineistan:
monster oil Corporatistan profits to be made by controlling Central
Asia-Caspian sea oil and gas, bypassing both Russia and Iran, and exerting
extra pressure on China.”
Following
that geo-political logic, one can assume that the current pseudo Cold War with
Russia/ Ukraine/Crimea/US-NATO is predominantly about access to and
availability of natural gas and oil. In Russia, think Gazprom, the “largest extractor of natural gas and one of the largest
companies in the world.”11
No
surprise either that, like an additive, the military is mixed in with the oil. As
Escobar also notes, with regard to the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) pipeline, “. .
. it’s not a coincidence that the pipeline ends right next door to the massive
American airbase at Incirlik.”
In
his book Vulture’s Picnic, Greg Palast highlights, among other things, the geo-political-military-oil-riggings
of Azeribaijan/BP (British Petroleum) and affiliates; as the book’s subtitle
states, In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates, and High-Finance Carnivores.
Palast also explains how PIGs (Pipeline Inspection Gauges) can be rigged so that
oil companies can save face as well as dollars. His recent article “Lap
Dancers, the CIA, Pay-offs and BP’s Deepwater Horizon” shows trans-national
shenanigans at its finest. As example, “. . . the
U.S. Department of the Interior gave BP a new contract to drill in the Gulf of
Mexico––right next to where the Deepwater Horizon went down.”12
Losses
but Still Playing
The following headline sampler further
accentuates the need for an every day is Mother Earth Day consciousness:
“US Fracking Boom Creating Crisis of
Illegal Toxic Dumping”13
“Report:
One fifth of China’s soil contaminated”14
“Death
of the Bees: Two-Thirds of European Honeybee Pollen Contaminated By Dozens of
Pesticides”15
People and Pipes
Going
by the recent number of oil spills and tanker transport explosions, it’s clear
that many of these pipeline corporations are as trustworthy as a two-year-old running
across a white carpet with a glass of grape juice; the two-year-old is,
however, good-natured.
According
to “Shield The People - Oyate Wahacanka”:
“The
XL pipeline is the current leading threat to the survival of the planet and
these spiritual tipi camps are our best opportunity to stop it. Lakota men and
women are putting their lives on the line for all of us, and they need your
help.”16
In
a world of fiber-optics and wireless transmissions it is ironic that world
affairs and perhaps the well-being of humanity is riding on the transport of
liquids and gases through pipelines.
However
complicated geo-political-military affairs may be and however entangled the web
of mainstream-media lies, the simplicity of my father’s words remain a lodestar
for virtually any occasion, issue, or holiday: the true test is living every
day and caring for whatever and whomever you are drawn to.
While
oil, natural gas, and other extracted commodities have a shelf life, Mother
Earth is here for the long haul – will you join forces with Her, or will you
just fill up the tank and drive off into the sunset of your own satisfaction?
PS
For a powerful
documentary on the dangers of pipelines and what’s at stake, watch “Sacred Spirit Of Water”
---------
Mankh (Walter E. Harris III) is an essayist and resident poet on Axis
of Logic. In addition to his work as a writer, he is a small press publisher
and Turtle Islander. His new book is “On Behalf of Those Who Speak Different
Languages.” He also hosts an audio show "Between the Lines:
listening to literature online." You can contact him
via his literary website.
READ MORE POETRY AND
ESSAYS BY MANKH ON AXIS OF LOGIC
NOTES:
1. “Dying in Defense of Earth:
Eco-Activist Murders Skyrocket”
2. “In Small Canadian Town Democracy Wins,
Tar Sands Loses”
3. “Four Dene clans officially reject Northern Gateway
pipeline“
4. "Bold Nebraska: Black Snake
Pipelines Bring Heartland Uprising"
9.
“Honor The Earth Moves Forward to Stop Sandpiper Pipeline Project”
10.
“A Pipe Driven Through the Heart of Minnesota”
11.
Gazprom
12.
“Lap
Dancers, the CIA, Pay-offs and BP’s Deepwater Horizon”
13.
“US Fracking Boom Creating Crisis of Illegal Toxic Dumping”
14. “Report: One fifth of China’s soil
contaminated”
15. “Death of the Bees: Two-Thirds of European
Honeybee Pollen Contaminated By Dozens of Pesticides”
16.
“Shield The People”
© Copyright 2014 by AxisofLogic.com
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