PUTNEY — Over the past few weeks, I began the process of transferring my very small bank accounts from TD Bank to River Valley Credit Union. I'd been meaning to do it for some time, but I was determined to make the change when I heard that TD Bank is one of the major funders of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.
I also contacted Rep. Peter Welch and Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy, urging them to join with Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) and others in calling on President Obama to end the pipeline project and put a stop to the police brutality against unarmed, non- violent Native people and their allies at Standing Rock.
Now is a critical time to honor treaties, indigenous people, the land, and the water. For hundreds of years, the European settlers of the Americas, including my ancestors who settled in Vermont before this land was called the United States, have brutally disregarded the rights and lives of the original peoples and their communities, and they have abused their lands and their waters.
We now have, today, a brief window of time when it is possible to make a small but significant step in righting those multitudes of wrongs.
I urge you all to join the thousands of people nationwide in contacting our government and others involved. The time is now. This is what democracy looks like!