Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
Last night and into this morning, police cleared out an encampment of violent protestors on privately-owned property directly in the path of the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline. Along the way, 114 people were arrested, three shots were fired at cops – stunningly, none fired in return – several rocks and Molotov cocktails hurled; four large and expensive pieces of construction equipment and at least two cars were set ablaze. This incident marked the largest escalation in the months-long protest over the 1200-mile pipeline, which will carry shale oil from North Dakota to refineries in Illinois. The encampment on private property that was broken up overnight is located just a few miles from a larger, more permanent encampment on federal lands that serves as the staging area for protests and demonstrations. For those following the story closely, last night marked a large turning point in the saga.
The most interesting thing about the story, however, has nothing to do with what’s going on in North Dakota, but rather what’s happening with the story online – where the essential confusion of the rank-and-file Leftist is being exposed with every post and response to every post linking an article related to last night’s events. Many of them seem to think President Obama has been kept unaware of what’s happening and will be Johnny-on-the-spot to tell them mean old Oil men to take a hike before joining the natives in a drum circle while the smoke of burnt sage hangs in the air; any minute now, in fact.
Yet, nothing. The silence is driving them crazier than they already were. Facebook is presently awash in deliberately misleading memes about the protest and clearing of the camp. And the “arguments” are enough to make one’s head implode.
At the heart of the matter is a knot of ancient gripes, legalities and philosophical bankruptcies. This makes is nearly impossible to even begin to have a conversation about this ongoing story with most people. Some want to argue that all of the land in the USA actually belongs to the native tribes and we have no right to any of it. Tell that to anyone of Roman, Norman or Viking ancestry living in Great Britain. Human populations have migrated across this planet since we started walking upright. Along the way, every surviving group or race of humans has done over, and been done over by, some other group or race of humans at some point. So, what happened centuries ago really doesn’t have any bearing on today.
The next “argument” they like to present is that the federal land that the pipeline is being built on as it skirts nearby – but doesn’t cross or otherwise impede use of – tribal lands, is OUR land and belongs to all of us. So, what right does the federal government have to lease it to a private company? Because, despite what you choose to believe, federal land is not “our,” land, it belongs to the federal government. The Pentagon sits on federal land, try strolling in the front door like you own the place.* The federal government is a vicious machine that runs on money. A bunch of land sitting idle nearby some native lands doesn’t generate any money for the government. Leasing it to an oil company does; plus, all the various economic activity building, maintaining and operating the pipeline will generate all-important tax revenue.
Then, of course comes the hyperbolic scare tactics. The average Lefty online is convinced the pipeline will automatically pollute the waters of the native lands it doesn’t even touch. Never mind the nation is already crossed by a spider’s web of above and below-ground pipelines. Never mind that until something groundbreaking happens and then doesn’t get killed by collusion between Big Oil and the government, we will be dependent upon fossil fuels for a long time to come. I, for one, am a little tired of this dependence requiring the ongoing deaths of people all around the world because we are forced to pump oil from beneath the feet of people who don’t like us very much. If the USA managed to become energy independent, an awful lot of violence around the world would just cease.
Obviously, the completion of this pipeline itself won’t bring about energy independence; but it is a part of that larger puzzle that will need to be completed if we’re ever to break our dependence upon foreign oil.
I’d think such would be something even the Lefties would agree with; if they weren’t so fundamentally and inherently confused about everything, that is.
*The New Mercury is not responsible for what happens to anyone dumb enough to try this.
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