Why My Tribe Must Stand With Standing Rock

I am the member of a Tribe, but I am neither Native American nor Canadian First Nations. I am not an Indigenous or Aboriginal person. I have no homeland to call my own, because I am the proverbial 'Wandering Jew'. My people wander the earth, immortal in our ability to transmit our culture through generations, but without a homeland or place to rest until the end of time.

I was raised in a Conservative Jewish home, I went to Hebrew School, I went to synagogue with my family. We celebrated Jewish holidays, practised ancient traditions, ate some pretty impressive food, and remembered our people's history. My family is descended on both sides from the Tribes of Y'israel, not the most holy Cohen Tribe. You might know something of the Cohen Tribe, Leonard Nimoy of Star Trek fame introduced a very critical piece of Jewish religiosity in the symbol of the Vulcan Salute. He first noted this hand gesture as a child when in temple with his family, whose Cohen roots called for special observances, one of which was making the hand signal presenting the Hebrew letter Shin (ש meaning Shaddai, another name for g-d) during the most high holidays, such as Yom Kippur. The point is, the Jewish people have a Tribal history rich and vibrant as any Indigenous culture, and we share one more thing, a history of brutality and genocide against our people.

To me the Jewish practice of Tikkun Olam, a concept defined by acts of kindness performed to perfect or repair the world, is my guiding principle.

I am a survivor too, not just from general anti-semitism, but because I am descended of an orphan of the Holocaust. My ancestors were driven from their homeland to place to yet another place, facing religious and ethnic persecution at every turn. My maternal grandfather (may his memory be but a blessing) was the youngest of his family of 8 brothers and sisters living in Mezerich, in what is now the Ukraine. He was the only one not yet married, and the only one without children. His parents were aged, and he was sponsored to come to Canada in the early thirties by a Canadian family, where he first worked in a lumber camp in Manitoba, but later settled in what is now Thunder Bay, Ontario. My grandfather never turned a hungry man away from his home, when he was married and settled he often had young Jewish refugees to Canada join his family for meals on the Sabbath, sharing what little they had. He also worked in his tiny Jewish community, preparing burial clothes without knots in the stitching so the soul can freely leave the body. Like many Indigenous groups, we have very important ways of honoring and remembering our dead.

When my Zaida went back to Poland, to the Shtetl to visit his family, on what would be his final time, he sailed the oceans for weeks. At a time when you travelled long voyages on ships, you planned to stay for more than a few days. When he arrived, his family knew what was coming for them, the Nazi party had risen to power in Germany, and they were fearful he might not be allowed to leave. He left as soon as it could be arranged. On his return to Canada's safe embrace, he wrote letter after letter to the dozens upon dozens of family and friends he left behind by no choice of his own. No letter ever got through. They were all returned to his empty hands and heart.

We now know the entire town was rounded up and shot into a mass grave nearby. Women, children, the elderly, each and every person were slaughtered for no other reason than being who they were, born into a different set of beliefs, but still so very human, so entitled to live a life free of tyranny and violence. He had only one cousin, a fragile and gentle woman, who survived under the care of her resourceful husband and his connections with a network of Polish farmers who hid them in holes dug deep into the earth under withering fields for years. She had a serious mental breakdown during her time in the freezing ground, she never got over the loss of her family, not ever, and her luck in making it to the US after the war, to live in Detroit, Michigan was the only thing that saved her.

My maternal grandmother had wanted to be a nurse, but was dissuaded as it wasn't something nice Jewish girls did. She instead volunteered her spare time to work in a local hospital for the mentally ill. She was one of the first in her large family born in Canada, and had remarkable progressive parents. On occasions they even let her eat non-kosher food if she chose to do so, as she was the one in control of her own person. I know that my mother is the product of their influence and modelling, and I followed in kind. I am the Nurse my grandmother was not allowed to be, and it is a connection to her I will always treasure.

I am no longer religious, I choose to call myself spiritual; I believe in something that connects and surrounds us all, a power in people and in nature and the universe that is magical and wondrous and continues on and on. To me the Jewish practice of Tikkun Olam, a concept defined by acts of kindness performed to perfect or repair the world, is my guiding principle. The phrase is found in the Mishnah, a body of classical rabbinic teachings, is often used when discussing issues of social policy, insuring a safeguard to those who may be at a disadvantage. It is the very basis of my essence, a belief in Social Justice, Human Rights, and Civil Rights for each and every being on this planet. We will gain more from the lifting up of others than we can ever learn from dividing and labeling. We have richer lives through embracing our diversity and commonality than by fighting it.

My views on the State of Israel are conflicted, and not really something I generally care to discuss. I do however find the ongoing war against innocent Palestinians to be the most shameful aspect of Israeli politics, and as I am Ashkenazi (European) as opposed to Sephardic (Middle-Eastern) I do not see Israel as my homeland, certainly not as it exists today. But I have hope. We must recognize that the 'Jewish State' is currently at war with another Indigenous population, and I cannot condone it.

But what has this got to do with the Indigenous Peoples of North and South Dakota, the Lakota and Sioux Nations? It is very simple. They have historically faced the same religious violence, forced migration, and outright genocide in even greater numbers than the Jewish people. Religion aside, it is wrong, it was wrong in Nazi occupied Europe, and it is wrong in every other part of the world where the First Nations and Aboriginal people face ongoing abuses to this day, and it is wrong at Standing Rock.

We may have spread far and wide, but when you look at our DNA, we are all family, we are all of the same Tribe, we are humanity itself.

We must come together as Tribal peoples, Jews (religious or not) and Native Americans share a similar tragic history. Our strength of culture and will to survive in the face of the most heinous treatment is the same. Our desire to connect to each other, to the land, to educate our own children to be able to face the harsh realities in the world mirror each other. Memory is important to us, our history is our shared legacy to our children. But most importantly, we cannot rest on our promise to never let it happen again. The Jewish people, though fewer in numbers, scattered across the globe, and divided by different adherence to religious and spiritual beliefs, have managed to bring the world's attention to our history, we are visible - but most importantly, we can also move with a degree of invisibility as a minority. Financially, the successes of our people have given us a voice and a presence that, although under greater anti-semitic threat that in previous eras, allows us to demand protection from governments and the United Nations. Indigenous peoples have less visibility, less mainstream voices, and therefore they are often set aside or misunderstood by those who refuse to acknowledge their shattering history.

The First Nations people I know personally are some of the most spiritually self-actualized people of my acquaintance. The have an innate ability to take the abuses they have faced and move through them with dignity and a grace I will never accomplish. I cannot speak for every single individual, and in every group, even my own, there are those whose actions I cannot condone. But I see so much common ground, so many echoes with my own history, that I cannot help but feel connected to the Water Protectors and every other person who is standing up and speaking out about the ongoing indignities being perpetrated against Native Americans. Their sovereign lands, their religious and spiritual places, their life sustaining resources are being destroyed in the name of greed, and it is unconscionable.

If my 'Hebrew' Tribe cannot see that we are connected to every other Tribe and every other oppressed group facing government interventions meant to steal vital resources and sacred lands, then we have learned nothing. We have learned nothing from our own history, and nothing from the values intellectuals and scientists who are telling us that we have already passed the point of no return on Climate Change. If we do not "Stand with Standing Rock" now, then we will have the blood of future generations on our hands, because together, we can stop this history from repeating.

When they burned down our Synagogues, destroyed our cemeteries and used our ancestors headstones to pave their roads, we were horrified. We wondered why the world was ignoring our plight, We prayed that it would end, that life would return to normal, that we could travel and practise our religion openly and with pride. We saw the desecration of our most sacred places, we were fed scraps and treated like animals housed in blocks behind barbed wire. We were witness to the ashes of our friends, families, neighbors, and communities being blown in great grey clouds over our living dead bodies, mere shells of bodies too weak and terrorized to think or protest.

We are seeing people tossed into prisons, their Human Rights violated, terrorized, numbered, and separated from their fellow Protectors.

Now we see the razor wire going up around Turtle Island, a sacred burial and prayer site. We see the militarized 'Oil Police' committing war crimes upon an unarmed, peaceful group of Water Protectors. We see people tossed into prisons, their Human Rights violated, terrorized, numbered, and separated from their fellow Protectors. We see misinformation moving through the media, propaganda from Energy Transfer Partners and North Dakota Governor Dalrymple. We see threats of restrictions on food, water, building supplies, and necessities of life being moved to the Oceti Sakowin Camp. The government of North Dakota is literally trying to 'Concentrate' the population of Protectors, remove all non-Native residents, and actively jam and block access to the media and communication with the outside world. The jailing and maiming of Journalists trying to cover the events and pass the story on to people outside of Standing Rock has been a hallmark of this movement. We have seen the denial of Emergency Services, medication for arrested individuals being withheld, and growing aggression from Dakota Access Pipeline builders and contractors. We have leaders that remain silent at this critical moment in history. Does this not strike anyone else as an echo of the Holocaust we swore we would never forget? I cannot be the only one to see the irony of Bankers and Politicians (some of them of Jewish heritage) perpetuating and participating in these Human Rights abuses on the most oppressed peoples in the United States today.

We must stand up, we must stand together. We all are descended of the same genome, the same ancient ancestors. We may have spread far and wide, but when you look at our DNA, we are all family, we are all of the same Tribe, we are humanity itself. I will forever stand beside those who face the kinds of oppression my ancestry has known through the ages. My heart is with the Water Protectors who have not only faced such a history, but still have managed to stay connected to the land, and still understand the connection between humans and the environment. It is the Indigenous peoples ability to see into the future that makes them so remarkable, for they can see something many of us cannot. We have one planet, one place to live, all of us share in it's ability to heal and thrive and flourish, and we will all share in it's destruction if we don't make this course correction now.

Education For All

Those who still see socialism as an image of 'cold war' Soviet Union era government corruption haven't gotten the memo.  In the early eighties we saw images on our televisions of people lining up to buy scarce resources like toilet paper. We confuse socialism' with 'Communism', a regime that was corrupt, closed off from the rest of the world, and hopelessly lacking in all social supports. Real socialism is not about the suppression of capitalism, isolationist nationalism, and it isn't about state controlled media. Nor is socialism it about everyone going without, particularly everyone who is not part of an elite and controlling government regime.

The so-called 'Socialism' seen in the former Soviet Union, North Korea, or Cuba is not the same socialist democracy that US Senator Bernie Sanders has been speaking of as he successfully spread his message of ensuring all member of society to have access to basic Human Rights. Bernie speaks of socialism in terms of some of the most successful social programs in US history.  The right to a living wage, the right to Universal Healthcare, Social Security, the right to a livable environment, and the right to have equal access to education.

Today I want to discuss the notion of Education as a social institution, something that we find perfectly acceptable for the nation's children, but many seem to think must end after public high-school.  Why this arbitrary cut-off occurs as young adults are poised to either continue with higher education, or enter the workforce is telling. Those without post-secondary education are most likely to work in dead-end service jobs, find little to no room for advancement, and are equipped with fewer tools for carving out small business endeavors. This is a widely known connection, I am not telling anyone anything new. So why do we end the socialist education program we credit with making America an educated super-power at the arbitrary cut-off point of high-school?

While Republicans, Regressionists, and Centrist Democrats fail to see the Progressive movement as more than just pie-in-the-sky load of 'free stuff'' for moochers, and laugh off Progressive concepts as more than 'unicorns' and 'rainbow' dreams, no one has discussed the fact that by creating taxpayers and tax-paying jobs, you create a self-funding system. It may take time, but a self-sustaining post-secondary education system is just one of the many benefits of taxpayer funded education initiatives.

Bernie Sanders clarified the issue with no-nonsense practical language. In April 2015, Sanders stated his position thusly, "higher education should be a right".  If an individual is qualified, willing, and able to achieve higher education, that person should have a path to achieve certification or a degree without having to dive into a sea of debt to do it.  No one is suggesting that all applicants should be given a cost-free Ivy League education, but state-run colleges and universities should remain accessible to those willing to put in the time and effort, and that education needs to be of a competitive quality.  This is what socialism really is about, giving everyone the same opportunity to advance, the same empowerment and chance of success, without being penalized for lacking the financial means to do so.

There will always be the cost of administration fees, reading materials, education tools, housing, and food for the socialist post-secondary student. What we need to ensure is that any fees are reasonable, that they are competitive, and that they don't penalize an individual and threaten their future well being by saddling them with endless student debt.

The more educated a person is, the more able they are to participate in the workforce, the more likely they are to have a positive effect on the economy. Other countries, such as Finland, fully cover all education costs for their citizens, and as a result have higher rates of innovation, quality of life, and stable economies. No country has reached the perfect balance of funding all social programs while keeping more money in taxpayer pockets, but there is a great argument to be made that the net gains will always outweigh any losses. Over time, a well educated and engaged population can find ways to better manage the allocation of social resources to eliminate redundancy, and to further improve outcomes. It takes a whole lot of guts to flip the system on it's head and offer more social services to those who have been left out or left behind. It may seem like a losing idea, but Bernie Sanders and other progressive voices are paving the way for enough people to take the 'socialist' plunge.

Why Universal Healthcare?

In December 2012, the United Nations adopted what was termed a 'momentous' resolution on Universal Healthcare. Support came from across the globe, including the US, but the reality almost four years later still falls woefully short for many individuals and families. The idea that any family is one illness, one accident, away from bankruptcy is absolutely the antithesis of the Universal Healthcare concept, and deeply troubling from an ethical perspective.

 

Living in Canada, I have been the benefactor of a country wide, provincially directed healthcare system. I have been both a lifelong patient, and a nurse working within the system, and there is nothing so comforting as knowing that when I seek quality health care, that I can access it the same way anyone of lesser or greater financial means could.  My family is not in severe debt over health care bills compounding interest year upon year, I have excellent doctors, and I have the ability to seek second opinions or switch caregivers if I deem it necessary.

As a nurse, I don't have to count the number of supplies I use when caring for my clients. I do not have any indication in their records of their financial health, nor whether or not they carry additional coverage for prescriptions, dental and eye care. It means I can give the best care to my patients and not have to give a second thought to whether or not they can cover the cost of that care.  

A colleague of mine opted to practice in the US shortly after we both graduated from University in the late 1990s. She was courted by a US based medical staffing agency with promises of great hours, high pay, and housing allowances.  When she returned from the states, Texas to be specific, she seemed to be entirely disenchanted with Nursing. We spoke about what it was like to work in the states, at that point long before 'Obamacare' had been introduced.

My colleague, who I will refer to as Jane, was most upset by what she could not do for her patients as opposed to what she could.  Patients would arrive at hospital in a variety of ways, but before she even began her nursing assessments, Jane could see it clearly marked on the client charts whether or not they had any health insurance. The point was constantly driven home to her by her supervisors, if the patient had no coverage, they were to receive an absolute minimum of care and be discharged at the soonest possible moment. Conversely, if a patient was admitted who had full coverage and insurance, the staff was encouraged to run any and all diagnostic tests, to slow-track discharge, and to use a heavy hand with supplies and treatments, involving as many members of the Health Care Team.

Jane spoke of other issues, particularly those related to undocumented immigrants, frequently unaddressed language barriers, and the number of patients that arrived at acute care settings long after they should have, often delaying care until a situation was dire.  Once a serious condition or injury has progressed past a certain point, getting it managed and/or healed is often an entirely uphill battle. Contrast this situation to one where a small wound is cared for at a walk-in clinic or physician's office before it reaches the critical point where far more expensive and extensive interventions are required.

Is this story anecdotal and possibly out of date, absolutely. However, it has always remained with me for a very simple reason. I don't want to know my patient's financial circumstance, I don't want it to alter the excellent care I provide in any way, nor do I want to feel pressured to do more or less based on something so far removed from what I believe Nursing is meant to be. Jane almost left the Nursing profession entirely, and likely would have had she not returned to Canada and our taxpayer funded Universal Healthcare System.

Speaking purely as a patient, I wouldn't want to seek care had I no insurance and lived in the US. If I knew I could barely afford food and housing for my family, a strange lump in my breast tissue or persistent infection in my lungs might well be relegated to the bottom of my priorities list. This would be the case particularly if I knew it would bring not only a financial burden, but prevent me from working in a market where full-time employment is scarce. 

Is there any better argument for Universal Healthcare? It costs the system more, not less, to care for an advanced illness. It costs society more, not less, when a taxpaying fully employed citizen is struck down with a catastrophic illness as opposed to a small treatable condition.  It smacks of hypocrisy to suggest that all people can receive equal quality care in a pay-to-play system. It also highlights the growing inequity between those who can and cannot afford health insurance.  Obamacare, and indeed all government directed health programs are never perfect for everyone, but if they benefit the most people in the most humane and cost-effective way, we become healthier as nations and as a society. When you support Universal Healthcare you are saying that the health of your citizens is just as important, if not more important, than the wealth of your citizens. It is just one issue to be addressed on the Progressive dinner plate, but in my view, it is the one staple that all the others require to succeed.