On the heels of ‘Strike-tober’, more than 100,000 workers in the so called “United States” either participated in or prepared for strikes in one of the largest increases of organized labor in the twenty-first century. Striketober began amidst the Great Resignation, when people started to quit jobs due to low wages and oppressive working conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic, which some economists described as a general strike.

In response, we share one water protector’s reflections from the frontlines of the Stop Line 3 movement, as they discuss how labor organizing is vital to our movements, like LandBack, Climate Justice, and Prison & Police Abolition.

Their story from a direct action is a beautiful allegory for how we can collaborate, strategize & care for each other - on the frontlines and in our daily lives - as we continue to navigate the very real daily, personal challenges amidst the pandemic, economic & climate crises collectively.

Here is our complete interview with Jaike Spotted Wolf, who we met on Anishnaabe land, and who you heard snippets of on our episode called The People are a River.

Jaike discusses the significance of Line 3 across Turtle Island - from the summer heat domes of the Pacific Northwest to polar cap ice melting in Alaska - the need for indigenous leadership and land stewardship, strengthening cross-movement solidarity, and how this movement effects all of us.

If you are just learning about Line 3, here is some context...
Line 3 is a pipeline expansion project that will process tar sands from Alberta, Canada and carry the refined oil across Anishnaabe treaty land in Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin. Enbridge Corporation, the Canadian pipeline construction company, is responsible for the largest oil spill in the U.S. in 1991, Grand Rapids, MN. They’ve been permitted by the state of Minnesota to remove 5 billion gallons of water from the Mississippi headwaters to complete this project, which has already wreaked havoc on the land, water, and water protectors: the Mississippi headwaters have dropped 10 feet since April 2021, there have already been 28 drilling spills in the wetlands, and over 700 water protectors have been arrested by local sheriff departments, which are being paid off by Enbridge. The situation is dire, worse by some accounts than the Dakota Access Pipeline, as this pipeline will cross over 227 waterways, including the Mississippi twice. The project’s destruction and violence perpetuates climate catastrophe, and the brutalization of indigenous people, the vital wild rice, the animals, and land.

JOIN THE MOVEMENT: stopline3.org

This episode offers our full conversation with Ember Phoenix & Ben Joselyn, water protectors on Anishnaabe land, building community & protecting the sacred.

For more on the movement to Stop Line 3, you can listen to We Rise episode 32 (called Have you heard of Line 3?), 35 - The People are a River, and 37, our full interview with water protector Jaike Spotted Wolf.

ABOUT LINE 3:
Line 3 is a pipeline expansion project that will process tar sands from Alberta, Canada and carry the refined oil across Anishnaabe treaty land in Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin. Enbridge Corporation, the Canadian pipeline construction company, is responsible for the largest oil spill in the U.S. in 1991, Grand Rapids, MN. They’ve been permitted by the state of Minnesota to remove 5 billion gallons of water from the Mississippi headwaters to complete this project, which has already wreaked havoc on the land, water, and water protectors: the Mississippi headwaters have dropped 10 feet since April 2021, there have already been 28 drilling spills in the wetlands, and over 700 water protectors have been arrested by local sheriff departments, which are being paid off by Enbridge. The situation is dire, worse by some accounts than the Dakota Access Pipeline, as this pipeline will cross over 227 waterways, including the Mississippi twice. The project’s destruction and violence perpetuates climate catastrophe, and the brutalization of indigenous people, the vital wild rice, the animals, and land.

As we continue to experience climate emergency after emergency, we have so much to learn from the struggle against Line 3. Despite the ongoing violence and destruction to people, land, and water, mainstream media is not picking up this narrative. While the Biden administration canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, they continue to support the Line 3 pipeline.

JOIN THE MOVEMENT: stopline3.org

ABOUT THE EPISODE:
A small group of artists from We Rise Production went to the Mississippi headwaters in July 2021 and - with permission - gathered stories and sound. On this episode you’ll hear directly from people who have been on Anishnaabe land in Minnesota for months. What have they been doing there? Rising up against the construction of a tar sands pipeline called Line 3.

As we continue to experience climate emergency after emergency, we have so much to learn from the struggle against Line 3. Despite the ongoing violence and destruction to people, land, and water, mainstream media is not picking up this narrative. While the Biden administration canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, they continue to support the Line 3 pipeline.

On this episode, we learn about Line 3 and how it relates to our survival. You’ll hear water protectors - people taking action against these pipelines - talk about the pain of the devastation to the land and people - and - the joy of building community as an act of healing and resistance.

ABOUT LINE 3:
Line 3 is a pipeline expansion project that will process tar sands from Alberta, Canada and carry the refined oil across Anishnaabe treaty land in Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin. Enbridge Corporation, the Canadian pipeline construction company, is responsible for the largest oil spill in the U.S. in 1991, Grand Rapids, MN. They’ve been permitted by the state of Minnesota to remove 5 billion gallons of water from the Mississippi headwaters to complete this project, which has already wreaked havoc on the land, water, and water protectors: the Mississippi headwaters have dropped 10 feet since April 2021, there have already been 28 drilling spills in the wetlands, and over 700 water protectors have been arrested by local sheriff departments, which are being paid off by Enbridge. The situation is dire, worse by some accounts than the Dakota Access Pipeline, as this pipeline will cross over 227 waterways, including the Mississippi twice. The project’s destruction and violence perpetuates climate catastrophe, and the brutalization of indigenous people, the vital wild rice, the animals, and land.

JOIN THE MOVEMENT: stopline3.org

TRANSCRIPT: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hTV8xsSPajPo8kz7nJ2sPqc34d8jRKr0kME9jBL9bh4/edit?usp=sharing

"What you are about to hear comes from youth from across Turtle Island - from occupied Ohlone land in the San Francisco Bay Area to Shawnee territory in Louisville, Kentucky. As we learn and explore media making, we bring you the wisdom we carry in our voices… and the seeds of our vision for the future..."

This episode of We Rise was co-created by youth from our Telling Our Stories: Re-Envisioning the Future⁠ initiative with Bioneers, Mycelium Youth Network, & Acclimatewest. In this 4 month series of workshops, frontline youth explored writing, audio & video production, and social media to learn various ways to share stories of climate resilience, resistance, regeneration and sovereignty, while raising up issues that matter to them.

Featuring:
Kyler Williams
Sabreen Ahmed
Helen Xin
Sol Armstrong
Becca Kaelin
Daydrianna Jeffries
Solyana Mesfin
Ataijah Burrus

Music shared with Creative Commons permission:
Flute Fleet by Podington Bear
Sounds Piano by Reed Blue
Respiration by Podington Bear
Slow Water by Serge Quadrado
Saudade by Digi G’Alessio

We Rise theme song by Pink Panther Sorority, Inc. Mixed by DiaspoRADiCAL.

This episode contains 9 speeches by organizers of the event: From The Shellmounds to Sheikh Jarrah: Call to Honor Those We Have Lost to Colonialism, held on Memorial Day 2021. We share their memories, visions & voices with utmost care & consent.

A few times, speakers explain that they are going to share a prayer, but the prayer is not in this podcast. That’s because these prayers are sacred & We Rise does not record or share without explicit consent. We encourage you to listen deeply to the speakers’ words, and sense any prayers or longings their words evoke for you.

Listen to this episode in order, in one sitting, or come back to it again & again. Let it be meditative & moving. Inspiring bold vision & courageous action.

Thank you to all who showed up & spoke at this event, in active solidarity, for our collective liberation.

From the event description:
This Memorial Day, please join us at safe distance as we gather in prayer and solidarity with all those who struggle to protect sacred land and life from colonial destruction and desecration.
We call to honor the lives of those lost to the ongoing colonial terror and devastation that is presently being suffered by those in Palestine, Columbia, India, Okinawa, and here on Ohlone lands.

We invite all to come honor the ancestors and remember those who have passed by leaving messages, prayer ties, artwork, flowers, and blessings at the West Berkeley Shellmound – the sacred Ohlone cultural and village site that is now fenced-off with razor-wire at ‘1900 Fourth Street’ in so-called Berkeley, CA.

We further welcome and invite all to make and leave offerings, prayers, and blessings at the shellmound throughout the entire weekend (Sat & Sun May 29-30) in advance of our gathering (Mon. May 31).

Photo from Palestinian Youth Movement

Do you know about Line 3? Maybe you’ve heard of Keystone XL or DAPL (the Dakota Access Pipeline)? Many of us haven’t heard about Line 3… yet. Even though it is the biggest tar sands pipeline project in global human history. Enbridge Corporation is reconstructing a pipeline on Anishnaabe land in occupied Minnesota, and we must rise to stop it - to protect the clean waters, for the wild rice, to show up in solidarity with the indigenous people who live there, & for our collective future.

The songs, speakers, and prayers you’ll hear on this episode come from Treaty People Gathering (TPG), a mass mobilization of native folks & accomplices to Stop Line 3 in early June 2021. In order, you’ll hear voices from TPG’s introductory video, a welcome from Winona LaDuke, Anishnaabe of Honor the Earth, and speeches from Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, native youth Silas, famed actress & activist Jane Fonda, and Winona LaDuke once more.

Credit & gratitude to Keri Pickett of Honor the Earth, Morgan Brings Plenty of Indigenous Environmental Network, RISE Coalition, Allyson Woodard with Sunrise Movement, and TPG movement media, for gathering & sharing the vital footage featured on this episode.

The call is urgent for allies & accomplices to join water protectors on the front lines this summer to put an end to Line 3. Learn more & take action at stopline3.org.

Photo credit Ron Turney of Indigenous Environmental Network

Part three of the Free Palestine! series features voices from Yelamu Ohlone land commonly known as San Francisco, California.

We begin with Mama Tiny of Poor Magazine offering a warrior call & prayer. Then, Zeyad of Palestinian Youth Movement speaks to us on May 15th, Nakba Day, where nearly 10,000 people, families, children, and allies took to the streets that day in solidarity with the people of Palestine, and against the on-going Israeli settler-colonialism and violence. As Palestinians of the diaspora had been preparing to commemorate the 73rd year of the Palestinian catastrophe, Al Nakba, Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah began to experience an increase of violent dispossession.

This episode also features voices from the protests held in front of the Israhelli Consulate in Yelamu Ohlone Land – San Francisco – May 18th, as Palestinians and allies participated in a general strike and day of action from Jerusalem, across colonized Palestine, and the world. Organizers of the Palestinian Youth Movement and Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) share history about successful strikes & boycotts in solidarity with Palestine and leave us with a call to action: Block The Boat.

Learn more: https://blocktheboat.org/

As of now, that boat has been delayed for over a week and is currently treading the waters outside the San Francisco bay.

5/27/2021 update: "We've delayed ZIM - Our readiness to mobilize to the Port of Oakland is working! The Israeli ZIM-operated "Volans" ship was scheduled to dock this morning, but hasn't done so in fear of facing our protest. For every hour its cargo isn't unloaded, the Apartheid state of Israel loses enormous amounts money. Our action is sending a clear message that Israel's occupation of Palestine will come with a heavy price. Stay tuned, as ZIM-operated ships are still on the schedule for the Port of Oakland. Let's keep up the momentum and keep
apartheid-profiteering out of the Bay Area!" -AROC

Stay tuned for transcripts...

http://palestinianyouthmovement.com
http://araborganizing.org/

May 15 is Nakba Day. Catastrophe. Remembering May 15, 1948 when Palestinians were violently forced to leave their land, their homes by the settler colonial nation state of Israel.

73 years later, the violence has not stopped. Voices have not faltered. The call to return remains.

Part two of Free Palestine! series is the second half of Center for Study & Preservation of Palestine's Nakba Day rally on Chinook land, known by settlers as Portland, Oregon. On this hot Saturday afternoon, listen, as Palestinians share stories of the 1948 Nakba as well as stories of the ongoing experience of ‘The Catastrophe,' standing in solidarity with their people in the homeland resisting ethnic cleansing by the Zionist occupation state.

The live event had ASL interpretation. Stay tuned for transcripts!

Featured music is Dammi Falastini by Mohammad Asaaf

May 15 is Nakba Day. Catastrophe. Remembering May 15, 1948 when Palestinians were violently forced to leave their land, their homes by the settler colonial nation state of Israel.

73 years later, the violence has not stopped. Voices have not faltered. The call to return remains.

Part one of Free Palestine! series comes from the Center for Study & Preservation of Palestine's Nakba Day rally on Chinook land, known by settlers as Portland, Oregon. On this hot Saturday afternoon, Palestinians shared stories of the 1948 Nakba as well as stories of the ongoing experience of ‘The Catastrophe,' standing in solidarity with their people in the homeland resisting ethnic cleansing by the Zionist occupation state.

The live event had ASL interpretation. Stay tuned for transcripts! Please note the last speech in this episode is in Arabic and was not translated. The speaker's words & voice are immensely powerful, whether you understand Arabic, or not.