We should all be Idle No More

 FROM RIVERA SUN
              OF
RISING SUN DANCE THEATER
WITH THANKS

Catch this folks: that Indian rights movement, Idle No More? It’s not about deporting non-natives back to   wherever we came from.

 The indigenous are rising up because a greed-motivated, ignorant government broke laws and treaties to poison the air, water and land, and tried to force a fossil fuel pipeline across their land.
You are in the same position.
No one should be idle at this time. No one should sit at home silent as climate change sets temperature records, and worldwide species diversity diminishes. It is time for those of us who are immigrants to follow the example of our indigenous neighbors and get busy on behalf of equal rights, sustainability, and respect of the people by our government. Idle No More began with a First Nations tribe in Canada who faced some serious treaty violations done by the Canadian government, involving the Tars Sands Pipeline. This was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, and indigenous rights groups worldwide rose up in protest.
It is not just the indigenous that corporate powers disregard.
A government that disrespects one minority will disrespect them all. Environmentalists have long been scorned and ignored. The lower classes are continuously abused. Rural populaces have been ‘walked over’ by corporate and governmental powers for so long, we’ve grown disillusioned about that notion called democracy. In the U.S., the wealthy one percent show respect to only one minority group: themselves.


It’s time for us to eat humble pie and get to work.
The indigenous groups have long been treated abominably by our government. The sharp edge of authoritarian disrespect is now slicing US citizens as well. Politicians and corporations wield a level of power matched only by the lawless days of the Wild West. (And ask our indigenous neighbors how it felt to be at the other end of that ‘glorious time’.) Corporate powers hold the reins of the United States and should ordinary citizens stand in their way, they will have little compunction about trampling us.
Unless we rise up.

“We must live life unusual, and get ready for the adventure of a lifetime.”

Governments by the people, for the people were never intended to describe corporations that have no blood to spill, no hearts to break, or tears to weep. We can no longer be idle while human and natural life is being increasingly endangered by irresponsibility and ignorance. Climate change is real. It is man-made. It will lead to the end of the human species if left unchecked at this time. We must come together to enact substantial change to move toward renewable and sustainable societies.
“There can be no more life as usual. We must live life unusual and get ready for the adventure of a lifetime.”
Let Idle No More be an example to all of us. We cannot be idle at this time. There is too much life to lose.

Rivera Sun
Rivera Sun has red hair, a twin sister, and a fondness for esoteric mystics. She went to Bennington College to study writing as a Harcourt Scholar and graduated with a degree in dance. She founded Rising Sun Dance & Theater, which tours a series of much-loved plays throughout the USA. She lives in an earthship house in New Mexico, where she grows tomatoes, bakes sourdough bread, and writes poetry, plays, and novels on the side. Rivera has been an aerial dancer, a bike messenger, and a gung-fu tea server. Everything else about her -except her writing- is perfectly ordinary.