Easement is a word. It is a legal term that means a right to cross or otherwise use someone else’s land for a specified purpose. There have been many easements happening since 1492, sometimes legal but mostly unlawful easements that have criss-crossed indigenous lands without consultation or consent.
It’s kind of like having a visitor to your house and mentioning “Hey, make yourself at home”. A few years later and you are living in a back yard area reserved for you and your guest has the keys to the estate.
These guests have revised history to retell the tale. They don’t like the truth, it sounds better to their ears if they aren’t guests at all and the Lakota Sioux aren’t hosts anymore, but a group.
This is an attitude fostered by Donald Trump, who was quoted as saying “They don’t look like Indians to me,” during casino hearings in 1993. He claimed that the mob was behind “Native American” casinos just like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is claiming today about the booming Six Nations tobacco industry.
There you go trying to label us, categorize us and put us in a box. Well I have a message for Mr. Trump: Don’t colonize me, bro!
Trump could very well become the American Stephen Harper. Plus there is that hair camaraderie, the solid one piece Lego hair of Harper and Trumps thin sheath of perfectly placed strands that form the yin and the yang of right-wing totalitarianism.
Not only is he president elect of the united States of America, Donald Trump was a shareholder of Energy Transfer Partners. If you’ve been paying attention to the situation in Standing Rock, that name may be familiar.
One of the strange things about corporations is that they are treated with similar rights as a person. Corporations can own other corporations. And the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is owned by Energy Transfer Partners who in turn used to be part-owned by the upcoming prez, the Donald himself.
CNBC reported that Trump sold his shares to avoid a conflict of interest as his administration may determine the final outcome of the multi-billion dollar project. Protectors are not fooled, they realize the Trumpers will push to complete the black snake oil pipeline which is being rerouted, not stopped.
Thanks to the direct action and the prayers of the water protectors, land defenders and frontline workers the united States Army Corps of Engineers have denied easement to DAPL thereby denying access to the sacred lands and waterways of the Great Sioux Nation.
Opponents of the pipelines have pointed out that this may be a temporary victory while others are demanding that the charges against 550 demonstrators be dropped.
More and more easements will be denied because these types of indigenous victories are the way of the future.
