Standing Rock was an example of regulatory capture, when your whole system is controlled by corporations - Winona LaDuke

As I look out there, this is the time of, you know, catastrophes of biblical proportions, if we are going to call it that. You know, to the south, you have the great floods. To the west, the entire West Coast is on fire. To the north, the ice is melting, and polar bears are eating each other.

There is, in many Indigenous teachings, a great optimism for the potential to make positive change. Change will come. As always, it is just a matter of who determines what that change will be.

Rarely is there money in the federal bureaucracy for the cultural and environmental needs of the Natives. I find it ironic however, that federal monies always miraculously appear to study and develop coal strip miners, uranium mines and nuclear waste dumps on Reservations.