Please Help Sioux In Water And Climate Change Protection!

standing-rock

When my daughter was five years old, I put three cardboard boxes one day in her bedroom. With a fat marking magic marker, I labeled one “A,” a second one “B,” and a third one “C.”

I told her that my doing this task would help her with classification skills about knowing where various items — like toys, clothes, puzzles, books and so on — should go. I told her, too, that her undertaking the action of sorting would help others, who are not as fortunate as she is since they, even youngsters like herself, don’t have many belongings.

Subsequently, “A” was for items that she wanted to give away (like outgrown clothes and playthings, etc.), “B” was for goods that she still used and “C” was for items that she may want to keep because they are very special and she may wish to pass them to any child that she may someday have even if she has no use for the objects for now.

When she was done with sorting, we happily took off to AFSC Material Aids Program in Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Material Aid and Advocacy Program | American Friends … While bringing a full car load of items, including my own which she watched me assemble into boxes for AFSC, we excitedly chatted about the people, who could use these belongings that were no longer useful to us.

It was a joyous drive wherein we discussed serving the world and with my trying to teach her the values, morals, principles, standards and ethics that fulfill our being the best that we can be as humans going forward in life to serve. Eachmile forward brought us smiles.

When we got to the center, I was shocked. I saw bag after canvas duffel bag piled precariously up against the wall away from the materials sorters, who were even putting more items in further bags. So I inquired as to the meaning.

It was that there was a lack of money to ship the bags. So I proposed that I would donate many $100’s with a matching two for one (of my dollars) grant to get the belongings shipped away.

Subsequently the money was raised and a truck was given for the venture from a Reverend Moon Church. (Someone had put in the effort to find that truck and get it donated.) Then a driver with a truck driver’s license was found.

An elderly man, the driver looked like a benign Santa Claus image. However, he scared me. There was an underlying edge to him that was quite menacing and ruthless — some embedded aspect of him that created a wary feeling. It, indeed, was palpable to anyone who could discern his inner nature and I could see that he had a struggle with himself.

Subsequently, I learned that he had undertaken terrible actions (maybe even assassinations) for the CIA for many years as an operative. Deeply regretting his missions in later years, he decided, I was told, to atone and make reparations by serving humanity in his latter years.

I still didn’t trust him as I sensed a possible underlying indifference to life, something residual in him, that he didn’t seem to be able to shake away from himself since it had been so inculcated year after year in his earlier years of missions. I supposed that was the reason that he caused me to feel mistrustful and disturbed in his presence despite his desire to proactively change in orientation.

In actuality, he seemed to me to represent the epitome of turmoil rather than the unidirectional push to serve that I was striving to achieve. So we seemed somewhat divergent.

All the same, he acted gentle in his old age. He strove to look nonthreatening and kind in body language as he gave my daughter a children’s cassette tape that he’d bought for her about peace and brotherhood with stories and songs about a magic mouse that brought uplifting goodness since he wanted to thank her for support.

She, in turn, gave him around $10 to help with his food in the journey on the truck. It was money that she’d gotten for Christmas and her birthdays, as well as for doing chores around the house.

It was a huge amount in her eyes at her age. It was almost all that she had. … I stopped her from giving all of her money away since I told her that we must save for her future.

Then he took off to South and North Dakota. He slept each night in the back of the truck on a dirt road off of the main thoroughfare. Jacking up the door at the back of the truck, he slept on bags of bedding, clothes and assorted household items. He stopped to go to the bathroom when needed and used my daughter’s money and his own to feed himself during his travels.

He eventually made it to South and North Dakota Sioux where he delivered the goods. I was so grateful for his effort: 27 h (1,877.7 mi) via I-90 W and I-94 W from Boston to North Dakota.

Yet this sort of action needs to be undertaken yet again. The Sioux are fighting the Dakota pipeline.

So I need another truck, another driver and money for gas and food for the venture. I don’t know where to find the support these days since AFSC in Cambridge only serves for now the Boston area for those in material need.

Why do I need this undertaking? My list is short:

We have to be in the mix for universal betterment for the long-haul. I don’t want to see any more trauma. We have to join together to resist the status quo. While Trump goes anti-global, the rest of us need to support each other nationally and globally. Meanwhile the Sioux are striving to serve the world in ways that improve it for us all.

We must oppose this sort of wrongful assault:

Police, National Guard Raid Dakota Access Pipeline Protest Camp, Arrest 76
by Shelley Connor

https://countercurrents.org/2017/02/03/police-national-guard-raid-dakota-access-pipeline-protest-camp-arrest-76/

With assistance from the National Guard, police raided a protest camp in Cannon Ball, North Dakota near the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) site on February 1, evicting and arresting seventy-six protesters opposed to the completion of the pipeline. At about 4 pm, a convoy of bulldozers, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, and Long Range Acoustic Device sound cannons descended upon the protests camp. The protesters were forcibly removed from the camp and arrested, and the camp was razed.

Sonic weapon – Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_weapon

Usage and deployment. Extremely high-power sound waves can disrupt or destroy the eardrums of a target and cause severe pain or disorientation. This is usually sufficient to incapacitate a person. Less powerful sound waves can cause humans to experience nausea or discomfort.

The Sioux are going to have to be in the fray for the long-haul. We are going to have to support them for the long-haul.

Are we up to it? Have you any ideas about ways that we can assist? How can I find the sort of help for my own efforts to serve the Sioux? Have you contacts? If so, please share!

I want a truck, a driver and finances for the effort. I want others , who can assist in other ways.

Frankly I’m fed up. We need to ramp up our efforts to serve as conditions get tougher, and they have been quite tough to date:

Do not look at this essay at the link unless you can tolerate graphic disturbing photos. … The more that I get angry, the more that I go out on the edge.

Something has to act to impel some people to change and sometimes rude awakenings serve. I’m actually sorry that it can get so ugly as it does — way further than being merely sorry. … The way that we can treat each other is, of course, very disturbing.

Binu Mathew, Editor of Countercurents.org wrote in his news letter:

Emily Spence writes a heart-rending article “How Do We Assist Those Not As Fortunate As Ourselves?” with a lot of shocking photographs. This is a real reflection of a world we  live in. Emily writes “All considered, many of us are relatively fortunate. It’s very obvious when we contrast our lives to the lives of others. Yet what can we do to help those who have been severely compromised to bring peace to us all? What can we do for the people, the other animals, the forests, the wetlands, meadows and so on? How can we help preserve rather than tear down the world and others around us?”

How Do We Assist Those Not As Fortunate As Ourselves?
by Emily Spence

https://countercurrents.org/2017/01/24/how-do-we-assist-those-not-as-fortunate-as-ourselves/

The environmental movement is “the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world”

Myron Ebell, US Presidential adviser

It is hard to find words to capture the fact that humans are facing the most important question in their history — whether organised human life will survive — by accelerating the disaster

Naom Chomsky

Let’s please coordinate to discover ways to move forward. Now is the time.

Emily Spence is a long-time writer for Countercurrents and lives in MA. USA

 

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