Report on Standing Rock

[Copied from my post on George Takei’s fb page. This needs to be shared and understood WIDELY, and edited to make readable paragraphs]

….Please forgive the long post. I camped at Standing Rock for three weeks, mid-August to the 9th of September.

A great deal about this situation isn’t being covered by the media. Even those who are well-meaning, like Mark Ruffalo, aren’t getting the following factual information out there. The conversation keeps sliding off into the suffering of the Lakota- another subject that deserves scrutiny- but the dangers of this pipeline need to be addressed- WHY THEY ARE FIGHTING.

I suspect the story would significantly shift if more Americans understood what is at stake. SO – hence the long post.

Bakken Crude is more corrosive than other crudes. It’s also much more radioactive, and higher in methane and propane as well as poisonous compounds.

When this crude first starts travelling through the substandard, cheap-out construction, it will begin eating away at the metal. As crude travels through a pipeline, it is heated by friction and pressure. Methane and propane expand when heated.

The scale [mineral deposits] that forms on the interior of the pipe will be highly radioactive- the kind of radiation that causes cancer in bone and blood.

So WHEN the pipeline leaks or breaks- as it has already done in the places where it’s operational- its million-gallons-an-hour of toxic, radioactive sludge will spill out into the environment, poisoning earth, air , and water [edit to add: and the cleanup efforts, such as they are, will be on the taxpayers, not the corporations].

The pipeline crosses more than 2000 lakes, streams, and rivers [the Missouri, twice], and is at the headwaters of the fourth largest watershed in the world- Seventeen MILLION people get their drinking water there, and the Oglala Aquifer- irrigation source for the Breadbasket of the World- is fed from the same source.

We’re talking about a disaster that will easily rival the Exxon Valdez- but at the center of the water supply for the entire central US. Meanwhile, the crude is going to be refined in Illinois and then SHIPPED OVERSEAS. It’s been documented.

Behind the fight is a nepotistic state government whose cash cow is being threatened by these pesky brown people, after they refused to put the pipeline in in Bismarck as IT COULD THREATEN THEIR WATER SUPPLY.

And the pipeline was originally going to go through Minnesota, but got fought down there [because their regulation system isn’t a JOKE]. /thanks, again, sorry for the longgg post.” ….

“…Additionally- and equally- no, MORE- important- the Lakota have a prophecy of a Black Snake that will come in the seventh generation to destroy the world, unless the people fight it.

This is- now- the seventh generation. The people there are there because they LITERALLY BELIEVE that they must fight this thing in order to SAVE THE WORLD.

This is a deeply spiritual fight for them. They are in continual prayer and spend all of their time walking in Spirit.

The reason more than 300 tribes have joined them- from all over the world, not just the US- and are building solidarity for future endeavors, thanks be to the Divine- is that the prophecy is well-known.

This is not a small thing. This is the biggest thing that has happened in a very long time, and it is the beginning of a fundamental shift in power.