Chapter Twenty One:     Pipeline Protest

POKEY SNOWCHILD reporting events of Saturday, August 8 --

Okay, I'm an Indian from the Salish tribe of the Great Pacific Northwest-- or a Native American, if the properly acceptable labeling means so much to you; indigenous native, Amerind, redskin , etc. So I'm into Indian politics, natch. and there's some dramatic Indian stuff going on right now, in Cushing, Oklahoma, where we just happen to be at this moment. So here's a quick history lesson to clue you in:

The Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma were originally from the Great Plains, you've probably heard about them for enduring the "Trail of Tears" in 1877, when they were forcibly moved to the Indian Territory Reservation, one of many relocations the whole tribe just barely survived. Now there are 5,330 members but at one point in the 1800s they were down to only 200 Poncas still alive. Fast forward about a century and a half to see how much better it is for them today.

Yep, If you're looking for some injustices or atrocities that our tyrannical US Government is still dishing out to indiginous Indian tribes, I got a buncha them here for you. Even tho one of the Poncas leaders, Chief Standing Bear, finally got the law on their side in 1879 and established that Indians had the same civil rights as white Americans.

And here they are today, the Poncas still pushing back against Big Corporations who still claim the God-given right to trample over everything and everyone blocking the way for them to make money by fucking over the environment some more. Like this new pipeline project.

Relax, I'm not gona step up on a soap box here and bitch about American history, it is what it is and we all know about it. Besides, I think Adam gave a better speech than I ever could anyway. I mean, the guy's a fucking Orator in his own Sasquatch culture-- and pretty much a genius with words in this culture too.

Okay, the shit-uation at Cushing, Oklhoma, is a lot like the shit-uation that went on at Standing Rock over in the Dakotas a few years back. This time there are 23 tribes involved, hundreds of Indians and maybe thousands of "white sympathizers" taking a stand against the Big Corportion bad guys.

The current problem being yet another oil pipeline running 440 miles to a refinery in Memphis, Tennessee, threatening to pollute rivers in the Eastern half of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and passing through hundreds of tribal burial grounds. Same old shit as always; foreign fucking devils coming to rape the land.

Me being a real-live native yankee redskin celebrity rock star, I'd been in Skype-contact online with a tribal officer of the Ponca Indian Nation, Shean Rainbow, who'se been involved with the pipeline protests. So of course when we drove by we planned to stop in and offer our support. We happened to arrive at a critical moment.

We could see where the line had been drawn across a highway intersection a few miles out of town; on one side, the National Guard with jeeps and APCs, lots of soldiers carrying AK-47s visible everywhere; and on the other side, a buncha civilians with beach balls, guitars and Peace signs, facing each other in two unequal rows. Everything was churning, ready to blow.

There had been shots fired the day before, no deaths yet, but several wounded. Big crowd, big drama, TV coverage, clenched fists on display.

Some of the protesters had chained themslves to 55-gallon oil drums to block passage of the worker's vehicles, pissing off some big money interests. And now a military presence was getting ready to resolve the situation with some high-tech violence.

It looked like there were thousands of protesters standing in the way of bulldozers and big trucks loaded with cylindrical pipe segments. Lots of different groups from various regions, mostly young people; teen-agers and college students, actually more whites and latinos than pureblood Indians were manning the baricades day and night. There was also an older group of military veterans answering the call to fight fight fight for the underdog.

I sorta knew some "Indian braves" like me, in a group called Water Protectors who did a lot of political demonstration stuff. I'd never met them in person, but had chatted with them online a buncha times, did some video calls with Skype: to Shean Rainbow and Steve Highhorse. We'd arranged to meet, they guided us to their big teepee by smart phone GPS. It would have otherwise been hard to find; there were a lot of teepees, mostly painted with wild colors and psychedelic texts, but no street addresses.

They were fun to meet, Shean was surprisingly young for being an Elder in the Ponca Tribal Council (mid-20s), a nice-looking Indian guy, kinda hip, bandanna for a hat and a 2 foot long ribbon-wrapped braid swinging down his back. Steve was older (mid 30s), a tweed-wearing academic who really flipped out to meet all these "legendary" musicians and beautiful babes in our band, almost like we were super heroes.

And especially Adam Leroy Forest, the mother fucking Singing Sasquatch.

Okay, and me, Pokey Also-Fucking Snowchild, a real-live & famous redskin rock star. It was almost too much. It was them who were the heroes, not us fucking musicians.

But they were nice guys and totally stunned with all the girls in our convoy, blondes, brunettes and squatchettes included, so they were double-hospitable to us. Introduced us to the other protesters, invited us to campfire-grilled dinner that evening.

Took us to one of the reservation casinos later that night. Maki and Adam and I had to excuse ourselves for not drinking the fire-water or gambling, but some of our roadies gladly took care of those social duties.

But first we went to the Information Center in the middle of the crowd, a TV van with video cameras and microphones. By popular demand the oh-so-famous Chrome Squatch Concert Tour Band agreed to play a few songs, so we got up on top of the van where they'd built a wooden platform -- a stage --just not very big. There was no room for both us and our equipment, so we could only do a half-assed acoustic set. It was ragtag, but fun, pretty girls holding the microphones for us. We did 5 songs.

Afterwards Adam was asked to say a few words, so he did: or rather, tried to. But someone tried to stop him, even as he took a microphone in hand.

Over among the ranks of the opposition we could see at least four police dogs, crisply-muscled Dobermans, obviously trained to attack protesters if given the signal. Well, someone blew a whistle and the dogs came running right at us, looking pretty fucking ferocious. Growling, slobbering, shiny teeth, all that scary stuff.

But Adam already had that microphone in hand and let out a noise that most people have never heard; what we call the Bigfoot Howl. Put it on a list with Tarzan's Ape-Call, it scares the bad guys when they hear it because they understand that the Lord of the Jungle is coming to take charge.

The dogs got it right away; they yelped and turned tail back to their masters, whimpering all the way. Except for one dog, launching itself at Adam's knee. But Adam easily plucked it out of the air before it could bite him and folded it into an embrace, without harming it. Then he looked it in the eye and made a little clucking sound. The doberman froze for a second, then started wagging his tiny stub of a tail and wiggling all over, trying to lick Adam's face, as happy dogs often do.

Adam put the dog down and gave it a nice pat on the head. It stood for another frozen second, ultra-confused, then trotted merrily back to a disgruntled cop among the rows. A big cheer went up, actually on both sides, probably from all the dog lovers.

So Adam went ahead and gave his little speech:

"Hi guys, I'm Adam Leroy Forest. Some of you may know of me, if not-- doesn't matter, this is just the opinion of an American Bigfoot addressing some American humans.

"Specifically addressing YOU, soldiers of the National Guard, local Police and Sheriff's officers, cops and SWAT teams, who have been assigned the duty of resolving this situation here today. I sympathize with you, who now have an ethical problem you must resolve in accordance to your own conscience. Because I'm sure that you also sympathize with these people standing here to protect their land from being ruined. I mean, who wouldn't?

"Okay, hah! We all know exactly WHO wouldn't sympathize: those who profit by these pipelines spreading tentacles all over this country we live in. In this particular case, the oil industry once again. It is they who have given you your orders and assignments, it is they who are exploiting the services of the National Guard-- which was never meant to be within their authority; they have simply bought the politicians who have weasled their way into the chain of command. Everybody knows this, right?

"But you soldiers have not been bought-- nor even paid. In fact, all the money has gone past you to your superiors and you will never see any of it, because your commanders are far too greedy to share their gains. You are only here to obey their orders-- that is, to be their henchmen and do their dirty work.

You will not be the heroes of this story, but the villains.

"And, years later on down the line, when punishments for what amounts to War Crimes are eventually dealt out, the blame will fall upon you men who did the deed, and did it without question or consideration for your fellow Americans. Remember Kent State?

"And yet, probably no blame will befall those who give the orders. And here today, we have several Indian Nations standing in protest to stop yet another oil pipe line that could-- and probably will --contaminate their drinking water, defile their sacred burial grounds, and so on.

"Yeah well, who cares? Those redskins are just primitive aboriginals, right? I mean, oil leaks hardly ever happen, right? Except for the one a few days ago just south of here, and the other-other one a few weeks back just north of here, other-wise it's all perfectly safe. Right?

"Well no, it's not right. Everybody here knows that oil leaks happen all the time. But the oil industry is willing to take the chance because their investors want to make more money. The risks do not threaten those investors, they don't even live anywhere near these endangered lands, so they are perfectly happy to go for it. A catastrophe will only affect the people who live here, none of whom will ever share in the profits.

"So let me ask you, soldiers, officers, patriots, defenders of the American Way of Life: what alligance do you owe these people who are destroying your own country? Yeah, you have given an oath of obedience-- but to whom?

"To the oil industry? To their investors? To white supremacists who have swept indigenous peoples from their path since before this nation was founded? If you know what they are doing is wrong, how can they expect you to back them up? Why should you be serving as thugs for private oil companies? Your job is to serve American citizens, which includes all those people born within the USA, no matter which race, no matter how rich or poor.

"You don't have to do this, nor should you. You can just go home. Let everybody go home."

We stayed there overnight. Got to sit around campfires, everybody singing the forever-relevant old Pete Seeger song This Land Is Your Land, which sounded pretty good and super-symbolic, considering.

Here are some conversational snippets I heard floating around while we were there:

"It's pretty easy to find some kinda cause that makes your blood boil if you're a Native American."

"Hey, I think it's better to be called a human rights warrior, it gets the chicks' attention, bro."

"Naw man," Steve sez, "we should call ourselves First Americans instead of some White Man's name for us." "I'm sympathetic," I butt in here to say, "but I just happen to know that the Sasquatches were here long before the red men ever crossed the Bering Strait, by thousands of years."

"Oh yeah? and just how do you know that?" Shean challenges me.

"I was told so by a Bigfoot Medicine Man, our band's guru, a squatch named Dagrolyt. They know about Atlantis, man, just ask Adam."

"Wow, bro! How cool!"

"At least it's nice and warm now, last time it was freezing and the corporation goons turned water hoses on us. Froze our balls off."

"This is THE war for safe drinking water!"

"We've had to make sure the media is with us, brothers, because the Sheriffs and cops aren't-- in fact, yesterday they were aiming rifles at us and pretending to shoot. Warming up for the real thing? The freelance TV cameras and sympathetic podcast journalists are maybe the only thing that's stopping the National Guard from killing us all offscreen."

We had to leave at 10:00 pm that same night, which was hard because we couldn't help but feel guilty for not sticking it out with the protesters. But we had contracts to fulfill, concerts to play. This protest could go on for months and we had to be in Roswell by 5:00 next afternoon, which was 540 miles away, a 9-hour drive. And after that we'll have to drive another 570 miles to make Phoenix on time, so we hadta go.

Hey, turns out that Adam's speech was recorded on video and posted on the evening news everywhere in the USA, and over the whole online world via Internet. The soldiers did not budge that evening, but they did leave the next morning, when the order came down.

Was it Adam's speech that did it? Who knows? Coulda been. If so, way ta go, Kemo Sabe.