There is something about the Dakota access pipeline fight that is so deeply iconic to me. Images of it have the quality of deja vu. I get shivers and choke up, along with this sense of deep serenity.

If you haven’t seen much of it, I urge you to watch the seven-minute piece that Amy Goodman compiled on the DAPL fight and soak in the sights and sounds.

WATCH@democracynow cover yesterday in North Dakota as #DAPL hires private security with attack dogs and pepper sprayhttps://t.co/19kdEBxdPX — Urban Native Era (@UrbanNativeEra) September 4, 2016

There is a warrant out for the arrest of Amy just for observing and reporting on this.

It is clear, a kind of tipping point has been met over the past couple of days. The forces of light have been awoken and they are not going back to sleep.

This protest is the nexus point, where the protectors of the earth meets big oil and big banks.

Where body wisdom and inspired knowing, meets mental obfuscations and word gymnastics.

Where the valuers of life meet the valuers of money.

Where the value of water meets the value of oil.

Where the movement of love meets the politicking of fear.

Where the actual humans meet the zombie masters.

These scenes are going to awaken the big fat hollering “No” to the oncoming corporate-funded apocalypse, and a warm welcoming “Yes” to the allowance of human will taking over from psychopathic corporate will and ushering a new age of safety and abundance and health for everyone.

My hope is that these words and images and sounds seep their way onto the newsfeeds and newsstands of other indigenous populations in other lands because they are fortifying. This is medicine. This is strength. This here is where the true insurgency begins, and the sounds and sights of this protest (or, as they call it, this “protect”) are the subversive stories that the corporate-owned media are well aware they need to censor, because in these sounds and stories, there is a blast of “Yes.”

When questioned about the protests in Laos, Obama gave the strangest answer. He said “I’d have to go back to my staff and ask ‘how are we doing on this one?'”

Has no one thought this important enough to brief him? Or is he lying about that and just saying that to deflect attention?

Either way, it did not look good for the Obama administration, a president who has prided himself on his treatment of Native Americans.

U.S. Departments of Justice, Army and Interior has since put a temporary halt on construction with a hazy promise to have a “serious discussion on whether there should be nationwide reform with respect to considering tribes’ views on these types of infrastructure projects.”

In this game of cowboys and Indians, the cowboys are running away in their pick-ups, and the Indians are winning.

Again thinking of We the People and not himself. pic.twitter.com/lAnsSP4N1q — Elect Berniecrats!! (@BernieCrats1) September 12, 2016

But it’s far from over. From the same Reuters report, an investor in the pipeline project was quoted as saying officials were trying to figure out what to do next. Big money oil, business, and labor lobbying groups issued a vaguely threatening statement that said if the Obama Administration ultimately stopped the construction, it “would set a horrific precedent” and mumbled something about it being against “sound science and engineering.”

This “sound science” catchcry is a big nasty hook used to manipulate liberals and progressives. We’re easily controlled by it. It’s pretty easy to use, too; you just write your publicity so it sounds like not supporting your agenda would be not supporting “science,” and everyone goes “Oh, science! I’m a science guy,” and herd one another onto your side.

Science is the liberal equivalent of God for conservatives. Replace “God” with “science” in a Republican’s speech and you’d have a whole room of liberals nodding along with him to just about anything. Just evoking science is enough to make people believe you. Can’t go against science! You just simply need to state that science is on your side, and then point them to the bible of science, Google, in which there is a study that proves and disproves everything so they will always find evidence to support your claim, then they go and gather your evidence for you. It’s the easiest thing in the world. Like shooting fish in a barrel, only the fish come to the surface and offer to open their mouth for you to put the gun in.

Even those reading this who fall prey to such manipulations will not recognize themselves. After all, they’re science people, they’re critical thinkers, they’re evidence-based, etc. They are not fallible! As long as they follow God, I mean, scientific process, then they can’t possibly go wrong. Right?

Even that is coming into the light, though, and not so many are willing to be led by the nose because “science.” Science may be able to word-salad up a reason why the pipeline is “sound science,” but it will never be able to prove that oil is more essential to life than water.

They will try, though. They will try.

[Photo by David Zalubowski/AP Images]