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| Uh ... The first Thanksgiving was not like this painting. |
THE POPULAR MYTH of Thanksgiving was that in 1621, the Pilgrim's invited the Native Americans to a feast for a successful harvest. We now know there's more to the story but Native Americans still have reason to regret their welcoming attitude to the undocumented aliens in their land.
A year ago, Native Americans and environmentalists were at Standing Rock, South Dakota trying to prevent the construction of the oil pipeline across their land out of fear of contamination of their water source.
In November that year, when officials became agitated with the ongoing presence of the protestors, the demonstrators were sprayed with water and tear gas in freezing cold weather. That same fall, security dogs reportedly bit protesters on multiple occasions.
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| Thanksgiving last year at Standing Rock included police tear-gassing the protestors. |
Donald Trump's oil-friendly administration removed any environmental or legal barriers to the pipeline last February, opening the way for the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The dire warnings of environmental danger came true last week when more than 200,000 gallons of crude oil leaked out of the South Dakota pipeline, a leak that engineers said wouldn't happen.
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TransCanada confirmed that on Nov. 17, that the leak, the largest in the state to date, follows another leak in April from the Dakota Access Pipeline that tainted the land with nearly 17,000 gallons.
"It is a below-ground pipeline, but some oil has surfaced above ground to the grass," Walsh said of the most recent environmental setback. "It will be a few days until they can excavate and get in borings to see if there is groundwater contamination."
We're tempted to say, "We told you so," but that won't stop the oil industry from lobbying for more pipelines, more oil and -- despite the industry's assurances -- we can expect with certainty, more oil spills.
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| Tnanksgiving 2017: The Dakota of 200,000 gallons of oil last week is leaching into the ground and threatens the water supply .__________________________________________________________________________________________________ |
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