![](http://handbill.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Facebook-Dialog-ico.png)
![Mary Anne Campbell](https://scontent.fsnc1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/c0.1.32.32/p32x32/47657_163777550332404_3769564_n.jpg?oh=163043e1a0126e50528ad39f1dcd5932&oe=58F7D083)
Ranchers and farmers there are having problems with the “Woodstock” nature of the encampment, fences cut, trucks bringing hay to animals blocked by protesters. Animals being killed or released. Their roads are blocked, their access to their livelihood in the middle of winter is even harder than usual because of folks taking their anger out on local ranchers.
Not all the protesters are country people who understand ranch life, not all of them have a recognition of the other people impacted by this situation.
So it may be that the Ace Hardware people are in support of the farmers and ranchers they share a community with.
I don’t mean to say all the ranchers are lovely human beings and we should ruin water and ignore treaties because of their dubious land rights, since they have all this white privilege….
I do mean to say we need to listen to ALL of the voices and not just assume it’s corporations doing ALL of the talking.
Not all the protesters are country people who understand ranch life, not all of them have a recognition of the other people impacted by this situation.
So it may be that the Ace Hardware people are in support of the farmers and ranchers they share a community with.
I don’t mean to say all the ranchers are lovely human beings and we should ruin water and ignore treaties because of their dubious land rights, since they have all this white privilege….
I do mean to say we need to listen to ALL of the voices and not just assume it’s corporations doing ALL of the talking.
![Gail Param Osheroff](https://scontent.fsnc1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/c0.0.24.24/p24x24/1510768_10153719337565332_2041647164_n.jpg?oh=74402ef01045d27ea023c7ffe9f7238a&oe=58B131EC)
![Mary Anne Campbell](https://scontent.fsnc1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/c0.1.24.24/p24x24/47657_163777550332404_3769564_n.jpg?oh=366d3ee0076ac075cc1f8f47a1321676&oe=58B3D3D3)
Also… most of the folks violating the ranchers and farmers ability to feed their livestock are white people enjoying being part of this thing. Not Lakota folks who know farming and ranching.
Also, they may well be concerned about the water, likely more than you can imagine as they’re drawing from wells– but they’re also concerned about their livestock dying of starvation.
So again– we have to listen to ALL THE VOICES, not just the socially attractive ones.
![Gail Param Osheroff](https://scontent.fsnc1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/c0.0.24.24/p24x24/1510768_10153719337565332_2041647164_n.jpg?oh=74402ef01045d27ea023c7ffe9f7238a&oe=58B131EC)
And unless we start listening to the community around us, we are inflicting our external sense of what’s right just as certainly as those who took the land from the first peoples did. Life is not simple or neat, but all people deserve to be recognized as worthy of respect.
These ranchers, again, most likely DO support blocking this pipeline, as it threatens their livestock.
The people organizing the protest themselves are expressing resistance to the white folks using so little cultural awareness and inserting themselves into the place. People who are using “go fund me” campaigns to raise the money to get there, instead of sending supplies to the folks already there. People who are arriving and treating it as a sort of Burning Man in the cold. The organizers themselves are saying these people are behaving inappropriately. So the fact that farmers and ranchers are being impacted likely has to do with that same element.
All of the country was indigenous land. And most of us who came here and took it fled from something dreadful back in Europe, Asia, the middle east, etcetera. .That’s been the history– one horror creates a wave of immigration which inflicts another horror.
I have no answers. But I’m doing my damndest to listen to the whole scope of the voices involved.
And by the way, there’s another pipeline going unnoticed that runs down this side of the country, bringing coal sands oil, which is even dirtier.
But no one is paying attention. There are so many voices unheard.
These ranchers, again, most likely DO support blocking this pipeline, as it threatens their livestock.
The people organizing the protest themselves are expressing resistance to the white folks using so little cultural awareness and inserting themselves into the place. People who are using “go fund me” campaigns to raise the money to get there, instead of sending supplies to the folks already there. People who are arriving and treating it as a sort of Burning Man in the cold. The organizers themselves are saying these people are behaving inappropriately. So the fact that farmers and ranchers are being impacted likely has to do with that same element.
All of the country was indigenous land. And most of us who came here and took it fled from something dreadful back in Europe, Asia, the middle east, etcetera. .That’s been the history– one horror creates a wave of immigration which inflicts another horror.
I have no answers. But I’m doing my damndest to listen to the whole scope of the voices involved.
And by the way, there’s another pipeline going unnoticed that runs down this side of the country, bringing coal sands oil, which is even dirtier.
But no one is paying attention. There are so many voices unheard.