DAVID SMITH-FERRI – At a gathering in Redwood Valley, California, on November 6th, I listened while a Native American activist told us that opposition to DAPL shouldn’t be about moving the pipeline off-rez. It should be about an end to pipelines. It should be about the shift we need to make to alternative energy. No doubt nationwide support of the protest at Standing Rock is a complex, multi-faceted reaction. And no doubt it has something to do with the courage of Native people who are standing up to “big petroleum” in an era of growing consciousness and fear of climate change. Maybe we are, at long last, witnessing a dawning consciousness that there is something crucial to be learned from First Nations, a spark of recognition that the people who occupied this continent for twelve or fourteen thousand years without harming it may just have something to teach us about living well on this planet.