Pipeline Monologue Project

Monologue #1: From the Movie: Splash to Making a Splash in “Dirty Oil”!

Daryl Hannah’s Internal Thoughts:

Daryl Hannah is an actress. She’s acted in many movies, we’ve seen in the movie theaters through out the nation. Today, she was arrested because she wouldn’t move out of the way for the police to get through, so her and a couple of her other companions were arrested and taken to the slammer. In the main holding cell, Daryl is accumulating more anger for the pipeline and realizes she has to keep her protest for what she knows is right!

“No to the Keystone pipeline!” was the last thing I shouted to my fellow protestors to keep their faith and continue protesting as more were taken a long with me. With that one cry for change, the U.S Park Police zip-tied a nylon cuff restraint onto my writs and threw me into the back of the car and I was brought to the slammer. Surprisingly, it’s quite bright in the back of the car because as I was driving away, I saw all of the posters, signs, and banners everyone made for the sit in. They all had pictures that held exactly eight million words. The same amount of barrels of dirty crude oil that will be transferred through out part of Canada and across the great plains of America. On other banners there was this familiar pipe, the “Keystone Pipeline”, this one pipe would pollute all the water, plains, and skies surrounding it. All it costs to build is a mere thirteen billion dollars, coming out of our back pocket. Now that’s just peachy.

When I entered the musky, humid holding cell, the police men gave us nothing but quiet time to use our imagination, imagine the dents the government were making if this proposal was past in a few weeks…harmful dents stretching from Hardisty, Alberta to Port Arthur, Texas. Also in between parts of Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and so many other states. I pulled out a picture of a group of ranchers, their kids, and I standing on their crop ranch back in the summer of 2009. The owners of the ranch being close friends of my parents, I've been going there ever since I was a little girl. The ranch has been passed down from generation to generation but now the ranch is sitting on top of the place where the pipeline is going to be.

Their ranch,…my second home…is slowly being taken away from us. I’ve been to breath-taking lands and have seen it all, but what about the future generations? Have the politicians even thought about them and the toll this pipeline will take on them? No, because these politicians have the audacity to build a pipe, demolishing not only the lustrous grasslands residing there but also because the natives living there to experience the leaks and pollution the pipes will cause.

The current Keystone pipeline running from Hardisty, Alberta to Patoka, Illinois has leaked about twelve times throughout the year. The proposed pipeline is supposed to stretch from Hardisty, Alberta to Port Arthur, Texas. So why does no one pay mind to the harm the pollution will do to our future generations? Although the politicians aren't pay mind, many people worldwide have been working hard to reduce CO2 levels but they are still climbing. Even though we know how to stop and reduce the rates, we cannot put a dent in the CO2 levels unless the number of people working to lower it increases!

Monologue #2: “Stay in School, Kids”

Pipe Liner: Zack Saunders: Internal Thoughts:

 Zack Saunders is a pipe liner living in Hadisty, Alberta. As any pipe liner, Zack has to leave his home in order to make a living for his family of four, including himself. He doesn’t know what to do. Should he stay and kill the environment on a high salary or should he make a dent in the pollution levels and help his kids. 

            I haven’t always been like this. Thinking about two angels every day for the past two weeks and giving everything up for them. I always thought that I had the best job out there in this tough economy. But now…I’m like what…what am I doing? I’m holding a wrench in one hand and a screw in the other, slowly and painfully building the pollution for my two daughters and the whole future generation to come.

            This wrench was holding me from going home to them: my kids, my wife, and my home. Pipe liners have to move to where they are building the pipe and find housing there. This wrench was helping my crew and I build a pipe through out the country. The pipe that would cause so much pollution to everyone and everything around it. This wrench, I could be using to fix Emily and Oscar’s leaky pipe in their bathroom, their race car-princess bathroom. Those two can never agree on anything. And this screw was put into place to hold together the pipe. To hold together what everyone sitting in front of that white and all around the world is trying to change. This screw and many other screws that would soon allow the pipe to leak and burst out oil like Old Faithful, the geyser itself. The screw I could be using to fix my wife’s swivel chair. But with out me there, the chair was never fixed, so a new one was bought and the pipes still get leaky. The leaky water is slowly peeling off their racecar – princess wallpaper. An example of what could happen if we -I mean with my help also- build the thirteen billion dollar pipeline running across the great plains of our land.

            You’d have to be the worst dad in the world to be doing this. But, I can’t go home. This is the only fine paying job offered to a high school dropout and it sucks. But what can I do about it? Sulk as I work? I already do that. I can’t leave my job to go protest because no one would pay for the bills, pay for the clothes my family wears. I can’t protest if I’m the one helping build this monstrosity! No one would pay for the Twinkle Toes Sketchers Emily want. No one would pay for there’s nothing left to do but to let the President Obama end my torture, hopefully. He can say no to this and then I can go home to my country, to my family, to my house, to my happiness.

Monologue #3: “Taking Our Land, Once Again!”

Mark Mountainpeak’s Internal Thoughts:

Mark is a Native American living in South Dakota on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. His homes are one of many that are being in the thought process of being demolished by Big Corps for the Keystone Pipeline XL. With him today is an interviewer.

My hands were beet red, veins popping out of my arms, and my voice box close to exploding into a million pieces. The reporter didn’t know what to do next because she didn’t know whether I was going to go off at another question. But after a few seconds, I fixed my posture, loosened my grip on my cup of apple juice, and gave her a reassuring look.

“How does the pipeline affect you and your home?” she said with friendly smile.

Wait…why is she smiling!? It’s not her house…is she stupid?! My home, our reservation, my family…we’re loosing everything and here she sits and asks!? She isn’t living on some money loving Corp’s pipeline. She’s not being asked to move even though, her property WAS PROMISED TO HER. No, this isn’t happening to her so she doesn’t give two shits about…wait, I had to do something…what was it? I looked up at her with her intensive eyes and she nods her head for an answer.

Oh yes, I have to answer this idiotic question: “My home is sitting on top of what you people call the next big money maker. My home is going to be knocked down because Big Corps can come in and steal our things. My home, should stay! It also not only affects my home but who would want to wake up to a pipe next door every day. Especially, if it is constantly leaking dirty oil into our drinking waters and polluting everything and anything around it. I don’t want anything to change on the Res. WE DON’T WANT THE PIPE LINE. Why are they---”

My…anger…is…before I could finish that thought the reporter obviously sees my rage and concludes the interview.

Monologue #4: Losing My Dad, Life, and Past:

Janey’s inner thoughts:

            Janey has too move because her mom doesn’t want to live near the pipeline and Janey has to face losing her past and her most cherished memories!

Montana, mountains, lakes, clear skies. And I’m leaving them, my mountainside view of the lake and the clear skies reflecting off of it. My mom says to pack what ever I want to bring to the new house. We cant live here anymore. I have to leave my friends, school, and the life I was making for the past 16 years in Montana.

I know you never talk back and all you do is keep us shaded every year but hear me out. We’re going to have to leave you soon. We’re going somewhere very far away, far way from you too. I remember when daddy and I planted you here, Bruce. You were just a small gingko tree and now look what 10 years has come and done to you. Daddy and I planted you. Now daddy isn’t here anymore and we have to leave you behind.

You probably wont last that long with out us unless you can absorb dirty oil and chemicals like you do to water. I mean you could get water but you’re going to have to play tug a war with the amount of clean water you get. Mommy was googling about the pipeline and I think it’s a bunch of baloney. I mean what is an extra couple thousand of jobs going to do for this broken economy? Nothing, so why build a pipeline right next door to our home. The way big corps are treating the environment isn’t fair. We need the environment to stand strong for us to walk upon in. Mommy says that the pipeline is bad because all of the pollution and CO2 that is going into the atmosphere. She says we already have too much.

I tried to argue back saying we’re leaving you, our view of everything, and our memories but she coldly said: “It won’t be here when the pipeline moves in. The pipe liners have to clear off everything. Everything will be gone but we’ll soon be gone before it.”

At that last line Janey cries into Bruce, the tree.