Native Americans Plead With Us to Keep America Beautiful

Last updated on: March 24, 2017 at 4:45 pm by Nancy Rockwell

Native Americans Plead With Us to Keep America Beautiful 2017-03-24T16:45:31-04:00 Nancy Rockwell

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Iron Eyes Cody became famous for his “crying Indian” role in the “Keep America Beautiful” Public Service Announcement (PSA) in the early 1970s.

It was an ecology commercial in which an Indian (Cody), canoes up the Hudson River, steps out onto the shore and then sheds a tear after some trash is thrown from a speeding car and ends up at his feet. The announcer declared: “People start pollution; people can stop it.”

President Trump is old enough to remember this ad. And yet, today, he signed a bill to allow the XL Pipeline to cross the entire length of this country, from Canada to Texas, ravaging Native American sacred lands and endangering the fragile ecosystem of wetlands, and quite likely the Missouri River, one of America’s vital water resources, under which it will pass and into which leakage may well seep.

For months now, all Americans have watched Native Americans weeping, praying, braving winter’s freezing temperatures to protest this pipeline.

Donald Trump, whose idea of scenic beauty is his name in giant gold letters, on many a skyscraper and hotel, blithely signed away the freedom from pollution the pipeline will inevitably bring.

Inevitably? Well, yes. The pipelines that exist now, in Alaska and here, so far have experienced continual, and sometimes major, leaks. Why would anyone believe this one will be different? Especially when the jobs it will create will disappear after it is built, leaving no one on guard.

Bill McKibben, climate scientist and professor at Middlebury College, founder of 350.org, and Christian activist, wrote this today, after the news came about Trump’s signing:
“It’s not a surprise, but it still feels like a punch in the gut. A punch that should get us good and angry, not knock the wind out of our sails. Seizing this moment will require more of the things that carried us through to this point: passionate organizing, committed actions, and courage on all of our parts.
Here’s how I’ve been thinking about things today, as we prepare to mobilize again:
1) The approval doesn’t mean it’s a done deal. There’s no permitted route through Nebraska; native tribes are hard at work in South Dakota; and a team of lawyers are gearing up to play their role as I write.
2) We’ve already won an awful lot. Six years times 800,000 barrels of oil a day equals a lot of carbon emissions saved. Not to mention that six years of delay has cost Transcanada a small fortune.
3) Every new pipeline, frack well and coal port is being fought and fought hard. You’ve heard of some of these fights, like the Dakota Access pipeline, but there are now hundreds of them across the world. Keystone jumpstarted a whole new phase of the movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

Native Americans, whose political power was stripped from them nearly three centuries ago, have remained iconic as defenders of the earth. Using the power of their faith, their legal rights, and their public activism, Native Americans have been able to hold back this pipeline and spare America this pollution.

Trump’s action is no wise economic decision, in a time when America’s business dollars are heavily invested in alternative energy, which sustains more job than all oil companies combined. A wise President would be investing in more alternative energy jobs.

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof . . .” Psalm 24.1 President Trump has disregarded the sanctity of the earth today. And Jesus, who often, often, described the kingdom of God as part of the earth, as a sheltering tree, as a mustard seed, as a treasure in a field, as a green pasture where the Good Shepherd leads his sheep, is standing with the Lakota Sioux at Standing Rock today.
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Image: Keep America Beautiful. 70s PSA Ad. en wikipedia.org

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