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Struggle escalates against Dakota Access pipeline
September 9, 2016 - 9:35am
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Just to be clear. This is the same oil, from the same Bakken field, which killed 47 people in Lac Mégantic.
North Dakota calls in National Guard ahead of Bakken oil pipeline ruling
Bakken Pipeline Resistance Coalition
Here's a pretty good brief introduction picked up by the G&M from Reuters:
Standing Rock standoff: How North Dakota’s native protest became an American movement
Canadian banks fund Dakota Access pipeline companies: investigation
Three Canadian banks are among the more than two dozen financial institutions identified as backers of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline and its associated companies. The pipeline has been the focus of intense opposition from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota, who fear that a spill would poison their water supply, as well as from other Native Americans, Indigenous peoples in Canada, and environmentalists....
US consulate in Montreal faces anti-Dakota pipeline protest
The Standing Rock Sioux anti-pipeline protests are inspiring Indigenous activists all over the world.
But not everyone can flock to North Dakota, no matter how much they’d like to go.
On Thursday, members of Montreal’s Indigenous community organized a local demonstration to show their solidarity with the Sioux.
BREAKING NEWS:
1. The court ruled that construction can proceed; BUT
2. The U.S. government then asked the company to voluntary "pause" construction.
U.S. government seeks to halt North Dakota pipeline construction
Meanwhile:
Native American Activist Winona LaDuke at Standing Rock: It's Time to Move On from Fossil Fuels
quote:
WINONA LADUKE: It’s time to end the fossil fuel infrastructure. I mean, these people on this reservation, they don’t have adequate infrastructure for their houses. They don’t have adequate energy infrastructure. They don’t have adequate highway infrastructure. And yet they’re looking at a $3.9 billion pipeline that will not help them. It will only help oil companies. And so that’s why we’re here. You know, we’re here to protect this land.
quote:
AMY GOODMAN: For people who are watching in New York and Louisiana, in California and India, China and South Africa, why does this matter to them?
WINONA LADUKE: This matters because it’s time to move on from fossil fuels. You know, this is the same battle that they have everywhere else. You know, each day or each week, there’s some new leak, there’s some new catastrophe in the fossil fuel industry, as well as the ongoing and growing catastrophe of climate change. The fact that there is no rain in Syria has directly to do with these fossil fuel companies. You know, all of the catastrophes that are happening elsewhere in the world has to do with the fact that North America is retooling its infrastructure and going after the dirtiest oil in the world—the tar sands oil and the oil out of North Dakota, the fracked oil—rather than—you know, they were working with Venezuela’s—it also has to do with crushing Venezuela, because Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. And rather than do business with Venezuela, they were bound and determined to take oil from places that did not want to give it up, and create this filthy infrastructure. So, this carbon—this oil is very heavy in carbon and will add hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 to the environment, if these pipelines are allowed through. So, that is—you know, it affects everybody.
Vancouver TD bank occupied to protest ties with Dakota Access Pipeline
The movement against the Dakota Access pipeline is spreading to Canada. Just after 9 a.m. PDT this morning, a group of activists occupied a branch of TD Canada Trust in downtown Vancouver.
“We are protecting the same things here — land and water — as Standing Rock is down south. We are coming together to remind everyone that water is life and that we have to take an urgent stand against the devastation that pipeline companies are causing to mother earth. This impacts not only Indigenous communities but all communities,” stated Jerilyn Webster, one of the participants in the TD Bank occupation, in a press release.
Today’s direct action is in response to revelations that TD is one of several Canadian financial institutions backing the DAPL and its associated companies. The pipeline, which is to carry oil from the Bakken Fields to Illinois, has met fierce opposition from the Standing Rock Sioux and a growing alliance led by Indigenous nations.
Close to 2,000 people, including members of over 100 Native American tribes, have converged at a spirit camp near Cannon Ball, North Dakota....
Palestinians back Standing Rock Sioux in “struggle for all humanity”
Palestinians are expressing support for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in their months-long resistance to the US government’s plan to install an oil pipeline on their land.
“The people of Palestine supports you and all those standing with you right now in North Dakota to protect your tribal lands and resist the desecration and destruction of your sacred burial sites at the hands of the Energy Transfer Partners corporation and the Dakota Access Pipeline they are building,” the Palestinian BDS National Committee said on Friday....
Arrests After #KeepItInTheGround Activists Occupy Interior Department
More than 40 Indigenous activists, Gulf Coast residents, and other climate leaders have reportedly occupied the U.S. Department of the Interior, demanding no new fossil fuel leases on public lands and waters. Several arrests have also been reported. The protesters entered the lobby of the department chanting, "Keep it in the ground!"
The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that is taking part in the events, said the action represented an escalation of the Keep It In The Ground campaign and continues the message of a demonstration last month in which four people were arrested while protesting fossil fuel lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico.
It is also a gesture of solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux in their resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline....
Nurses Union Slams AFL-CIO's Endorsement of Dakota Access Pipeline
video
The National Nurses United a member of the AFL-CIO, strongly rebuked the AFL's decision to endorse the Dakota Access Pipeline.
13 Protestors Removed from Dept. of Interior in Latest Pipeline Protest
video
The action comes as part of the ongoing movement against the North Dakota Access Pipeline
Federal Judge Dissolves DAPL's Injunction Against Water Protectors
North Dakota U.S. District Court Judge Daniel L. Hovland today dissolved a temporary restraining order against Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II and a number of named and unnamed participants in protests against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Dakota Access LLP, the consortium building the DAPL, applied for the restraining order on an ex parte basis on August 15, citing demonstrations earlier in August that effectively shut down construction near the Oahe Crossing in North Dakota, where the DAPL is planned to cross the Missouri River and a dammed portion of the river known as Lake Oahe. The federal court granted the ex parte restraining order the following day, enjoining Mr. Archambault and others, including Standing Rock Sioux Tribe members Valerie Wolf Necklace and Clifton Verle Howell, from “unlawfully interfering in any way” with pipeline construction....
..includes a video
Bernie Sanders Leads Major Rally Against Oil Pipeline Project in Front of the White House
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was one of hundreds who came out in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline yesterday, headlining a rally Tuesday night at the White House. Sanders, Van Jones, Tara Houska and other native leaders from the camp at Standing Rock all spoke at the rally, one of over 100 events taking place nationally as part of a solidarity action with the camp in North Dakota.
"It is vitally important that we show our solidarity with the Native American people of this country," Sanders began after he took the microphone.
Sanders called an end to the exploitation of the Native American people the number-one issue of the day.
"The second issue of global consequence is that we need to understand that the future of energy in this country is not more oil, it is not more pipelines and it's not more carbon emissions," Sanders continued. "It is the transformation of our energy system away from oil and away from pipelines and away from carbon."
Sanders explained why he believes climate change is a global issue that deserves everyone's attention.
"The debate is over," Sanders said. "The scientific community is 100 percent clear, climate change is real and it's caused by human activity and if we don't get our act together, the planet that we will be leaving our children and grandchildren will not be a habitable or a livable planet."
"We must not allow that to happen," Sanders said. He then turned to reasons for stopping the Dakota Access Pipeline.
"The group Oil Change International, which is a group deeply concerned about the future of our planet, found Dakota Access Pipeline will have the same impact on our planet as adding 21 million more cars to our roads. It would have the same impact as adding 30 new coal plants. This is crazy stuff. This pipeline must be stopped," Sanders said...
The Struggle to Defeat Dakota Access Pipeline Goes Global
Progress on the Dakota Access Pipeline was again disrupted on Tuesday and Wednesday as protestors stood in the way of bulldozers and other equipment, resulting in over 20 arrests. Events on the ground in North Dakota this week converged with Tuesdays Global Day of Action for which demonstrations in Japan, New Zealand, Canada, and across Europe raised awareness to defeat the pipeline....
At least 40 arrested during pipeline protest near Montrose
More than 150 Dakota Access oil pipeline protesters gathered at the entrance to a work site on Mississippi River Road Saturday afternoon, and about 40 were arrested.
After receiving warnings from private security and Lee County Sheriff deputies, the protesters continued to walk through a line of local law enforcement officers who were blocking the drive. They subsequently were handcuffed and placed inside police vehicles to be taken to jail.
Burlington resident Erica Slough was one of those arrested. She became interested in the pipeline after watching Native American protesters temporarily shut down work on the project in North Dakota.
“Then I found out (the pipeline) was coming through my neck of the woods, through my area where I live. Right under the Mississippi. If that pipeline breaks, that is going to contaminate our water here,” she said.
Slough never was involved with a protest before, and being arrested was a new experience. However, she said protesting the pipeline was worth being arrested.
“I follow quite a few issues, but this one is in my hometown, and I’m not going to let it happen. Not on my watch,” she said....
Powerful words from Van Jones on why we need to transform our energy system: "What did you think was going to happen when you started digging up all this death?" #NoDAPL
video
UN wants Dakota Access Pipeline construction halted
The United Nations is getting involved in the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy.
A UN Special Envoy for Indigenous Peoples is formally asking the United States to halt construction on the four-state pipeline.
The UN's Victoria Tauli-Corpuz says the pipeline "poses a significant risk to the drinking water of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe." In a written statement, the envoy says the tribe was denied access to information and excluded from consultations.
Tauli-Corpuz says the federal government should "undertake a thorough review of compliance with international standards" and obtain the tribe's "free and informed consent."
....
Standing Rock Sioux Takes Pipeline Fight to UN Human Rights Council in Geneva
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe took its fight to stop construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday in a bid to gather international opposition to the project.
Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II addressed the 49-member Council in a brief two-minute testimony where he called "upon all parties to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline."
Archambault said the U.S. government had failed to abide by signed treaties with the tribe — referring to the 1851 Treaty of Traverse de Sioux and 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, two legally-binding treaties ratified by the U.S. Senate that recognize the Sioux's national sovereignty.
"The oil companies and the government of the United States have failed to respect our sovereign rights," Archambault said....
UN wants Dakota Access Pipeline construction halted
The United Nations is getting involved in the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy....
...thanks for this...yes this may be a game changer, especially considering that hundreds of Indigenous Nations are engaged now in support...so my first question which ought to be in another thread...why doesn't the Treaty 8 Peoples take up the challenge...is the UBCIC considering this, as Stewart Phillip was at the Dakota protests and made an address!
Surely a call out to the UN Special rapporteur for Indigenous North America to be present at the site C is an urgency?
A Subzero Winter Is Coming to Standing Rock—Here’s Their Plan
On a Saturday in mid-September, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard ambles through the Sacred Stone Camp, which she founded on her family’s land this spring to stop the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. The camp started small, but as media attention—and support—grew over the summer, it swelled by the end of August beyond its physical capacity into overflow camps. The population of the largest one, Oceti Sakowin, now numbers in the thousands.
Allard, who is the Standing Rock Sioux’s director of Tribal Tourism, a position that covers historic and cultural preservation, is both inspired and overwhelmed by this outpouring, but she’s careful not to let it distract her. Cold weather is rapidly approaching, and if the water protectors, as they call themselves, are going to make it through winter on the northern Plains, they need to prepare.
She sits behind her black SUV, enjoying a moment of tranquility away from people who might want her opinion on the dozens of tasks that need to be completed. She has tasks of her own to do, and on this afternoon she prepares corn by removing the kernels from the cob so that they can dry and be rehydrated months later. “I don’t know why,” she says, “but dehydrated corn is so much sweeter.”
Every year she prepares for the five-month winter as the Lakota have done for thousands of years, but this year is different. She is surrounded by a mountain of bottled water, food, toilet paper, blankets, and other winter clothing. Many people have come and gone as work and other obligations have allowed, but every day Allard is confronted with the overwhelming logistics of building a community from scratch. A recent cold snap only heightened the sense of urgency, and with a recent court decision temporarily halting construction within 20 miles of the Missouri River at Lake Oahe, the enthusiasm is palpable, while much attention has turned to preparing for North Dakota’s legendary winter....
Over 1200 Archeologists & Museum Directors just sent a letter to President Obama demanding a halt to Dakota Access Pipeline destruction of cultural sites!
In an amazing act of solidarity, over 1200 archaeologists, anthropologists, historians and museum directors sent a letter to President Obama, urging the White House administration to halt construction on the Dakota Access pipeline to prevent the destruction of cultural resources.
It is unusual for museums to engage in this type of advocacy, but speaks to the critical natural of this issue. The significance of the cultural artifacts along the proposed route is simply too great to sacrifice for a crude oil pipeline.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is currently suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is the primary federal agency that granted permits needed for the pipeline to be constructed. The focus of the lawsuit is that the Army Corps took an illegally narrow view of its responsibilities to protect and engage the Tribe when it granted the permits. The lawsuit alleges that the Corps violated multiple federal statutes, including the Clean Water Act, National Historic Protection Act, and National Environmental Policy Act, when it issued the permits. Of primary focus for the tribe is the potential destruction of cultural and sacred sites, impacts on the drinking water and overall environmental impacts caused by pipeline construction.
These concerns were validated with the Sept 3rd bulldozing of burial sites by the Dakota Access pipeline company.
We continue to ask for the Obama administration to revoke all permits granted under the authority of the US Army Corps of Engineers permit process titled Nationwide Permit 12. Furthermore we demand the Corps should exercise its discretion to order a full EIS be conducted on the entire project.
The group letter and press release can be read below!...
Caravan from Standing Rock Shuts Down Two DAPL Constructions Sties
by West Coast Women Warriors Media Cooperative, September 26, 2016
The latest in a series of escalating actions to stop the continued construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline saw hundreds of Indigenous Land Defenders, Water Protectors and Warriors leave camp on Sunday in a 70 car caravan to conduct ceremony on the still active construction sites.
Hundreds gathered to shut down and take over 2 active construction sites, that despite the Obama administration’s previous intervention, hailed as a victory for the encampment, continue to lay down and weld the pipelines on the route. As the warriors approached the first site, singing, drumming and war crying, the private security firm hastily packed up and left the site, allowing the group to conduct a powerful ceremony for the Water and its protection. This ceremony was conducted at both active construction sites, with prayer ties and trees planted in the direct route of the pipeline. The police watched the actions and ceremonies at a distance but no arrests were made as men, women and children witnessed and participated in the prayers.
This latest action and ancient ceremony was a powerful one and called on the spirits of Crazy Horse and Red Cloud, all ancestors were joined as one with the encampment. This display of unity and strength is to show the world that our will is one and that the ongoing construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline will not be accepted by our Peoples. This is a camp of thousands from all four directions united in their power and their strength, in their simple wish to protect their Lands and Waters, to protect all Lands and Waters from the greed and destruction of industry and colonization....
Military-Style Raid Ends Native Prayer Against Dakota Pipeline
North Dakota police with military-style equipment surrounded Native Americans gathered in prayer against the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline on Wednesday, disrupting their plan to cross sacred and treaty-protected land in protest of a project they fear will destroy their livelihood.
“ND authorities deploy armed personnel with shotguns and assault rifles, military vehicles, and aerial spray on peaceful Water Protectors gathered in prayer,” wrote the Sacred Stone Camp, in a Facebook post.
Officers with military-style armored vehicles and shotguns threatened the protesters, who call themselves “water protectors” for defending the Missouri River from imminent pollution, reported Unicorn Riot. Up to 21 were arrested, the channel reported.
Witnesses filmed the crackdown but said their access their Facebook was blocked. One participant, Thomas H. Joseph II, posted a chilling video narrating the mobilization and his getaway. Helicopters are heard as he says that tear gas is being dropped, and an officer loads his gun as protesters, some on horseback, chant, "We have no guns."....
Climate justice meets racism: Standing Rock was decades in the making
Attack dogs and waves of arrests by police in riot gear could look like isolated incidents of overreaction to the activism stemming from the Standing Rock reservation. But for the Lakota Sioux who live in these marginalized hillsides, the escalated militarization behind their battle against the Dakota Access pipeline is a situation decades in the making.
North Dakota is not the whitest state in America, but it’s arguably the most segregated. More than 60 percent of its largest minority population, Native Americans, lives on or near reservations. Native men are incarcerated or unemployed at some of the highest rates in the country. Poverty levels for families of the Standing Rock tribe are five times that of residents living in the capital city, Bismarck. In Cannon Ball, the heart of the tribal community, there are rows of weathered government homes, but no grocery store. Tucked behind a lonely highway, this is where mostly white farmers and ranchers shuttle to and from homesteads once belonging to the Sioux.
Add to that a contempt that many Native Americans say they feel from North Dakotans and particularly from police, and many people of Standing Rock are not surprised by the extreme response of law enforcement against activists.
“We’ve run on empty for a number of generations,” said Phyllis Young, a former tribal councilwoman for the Standing Rock Sioux, the community that’s vowed to stop the pipeline in its path. “But now we’re taking a stand. We are reaching a pinnacle, a peak.”....
1,000 Lakota Sioux Youth to Descend Upon Dakota Pipeline Protest Site
1,000 Young Native Americans from the Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribe are raising $100,000 to pay for the transport, tents, sleeping bags, and food needed for them to reach the pipeline protest site, according to One Spirit Native Progress.
The Standing Rock Lakota Sioux are taking a stand to protect the water, the land, and their heritage threatened by the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The construction led by Energy Transfer Inc. has already destroyed ancient burial sites, prayer grounds, and sacred artifacts. The Standing Rock Lakota have been joined by members of 280 other tribes, and the youth from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation want to join their elders and stand with them....
What are the Ties Between Dakota Access Pipeline Company & North Dakota's Attorney General?
quote:
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to shift gears a bit, Lisa. You have been looking at the Koch brothers for quite some time, looking at all the oil politics in this country. Close to a hundred scientists have signed onto a letter decrying inadequate environmental and cultural impact assessments for the Dakota Access pipeline, calling for a halt to construction until such tests have been carried out as requested by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. This is the Dakota Access pipeline, $3.8 billion pipeline, being built in North Dakota that’s being vehemently protested by not only the Standing Rock Sioux of the area, but hundreds of Native American tribes from Latin America, the United States and Canada. What do you know about the politics here and the connection between the private company, the Dakota Access pipeline company, and the government of North Dakota?
LISA GRAVES: Well, what we know is that there is a tremendous amount of influence by oil industry on the Republican Attorneys General Association. And so, what we have disclosed through our open records requests and through other investigations is the incredible role of oil companies, including Exxon, but other companies, in basically getting influence with these attorneys general. The attorney general of North Dakota has been the AG for more than 15 years. He’s the top law enforcement officer of that state, yet he’s been part of a pay-to-play operation that is the Republican Attorneys General Association, where they raise money for this group. The money—this group, RAGA, then helps fund those campaigns of those attorneys general.
Meanwhile, corporations are getting special access to attorneys general to push their agenda. And they’ve used that access in a number of ways. We’ve only been documenting part of it. But this goes back for more than a decade, the role of RAGA and these Republican AGs with these energy industry companies. So, we don’t know the full story yet, but we know undoubtedly that the fossil fuel industry has a disproportionate role within RAGA, and it has used that role, for example, to attack the Clean Power Plan and any other measure that tries to put democratic restraints on oil—on the oil and gas industry.
Ladonna Bravebull Allard Urges UN to Halt Dakota Access Pipeline
Ladonna Bravebull Allard:
Greetings distinguished representatives,
I greet you with a good heart today. I am Ta Maka Waste Win, an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe I am speaking regarding the participation of the over 300 million Indigenous Peoples of Unci Maka Mother Earth. Within the United Nations system, we the Indigenous peoples request that our participation be granted at the highest possible level and that our representatives be legitimate and elected by Indigenous Nations and organizations in each region. This will secure that our participation and contributions on issues that affect us are addressed in a legitimate manner. Lack of this legitimate representation and contributions on issues that affect us are resulting in violations of our equal and inalienable rights as members of the human family. As such is the current and urgent situation of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, my home, where the Dakota Access Pipeline has blatantly violated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, ILO 169, the Laramie Treaty of 1868, unresolved Ihunktonwana Land Claim Docket 74A and most importantly our Mother Earth.
The organization hereby invokes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, ILO 169 to be enforced and brought to life to put an immediate stop to the Dakota Access Pipeline. We request that an observer and media team be sent immediately and permanently to Standing Rock until this issue is resolved to protect the water. This situation with Dakota Access has been going on for 6 months now. It has endured Spring, Summer, Fall and heads into Winter as we protect and defend our right to water. We demand immediate assistance and protection for our Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota sisters and brothers. Today we are here to formally denounce terrorism from transnationals agaisnt Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth, as such is our situation in Standing Rock and also the urgent situation of our Indigenous sisters and brothers in the Amazon and many other parts of the world.
The organization remains committed to solving the challenges faced by our generation which is to protect life and clean water for the future generations and so that all that exists can continue to exist. The Indigenous Traditional Knowledge is the only path remaining to heal the unsustainable pattern of production and consumption that is destroying our lives and the world around us. Agenda 2030, without our legitimate representatives and inclusion of Indigenous Peoples Traditional Knowledge will fail. Our knowledge can help heal Mother Earth. Without it, great and irreparable damage will lead us to destruction. We must unite to protect the Water and our Mother Earth. We, the Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth walk to the future in the footprints of our ancestors.
UN Permanent Forum Rebukes U.S. for Ignoring Standing Rock and Other Tribal Nations
The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has agreed with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the nearly 200 other tribes that say the Dakota Access oil pipeline’s route was mapped out without adequate consultation.
“The project was proposed and planned without any consultation with the Standing Rock Sioux or others that will be affected by this major project,” said Chairman Alvaro Pop Ac, in a joint statement with Forum members Dalee Dorough and Chief Edward John.
The U.N. body went on to outline the $3.8 billion project’s parameters and the threat to security and drinking-water access for not only the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe but also for millions of people living downstream from the Missouri River, which the pipeline would cross.
“Given these circumstances, we call on the government of the United States to comply with the provisions recognized in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and ensure the right of the Sioux to participate in decision-making, considering that the construction of this pipeline will affect their rights, lives and territory,” the statement said, quoting Article 19 of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. “States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.” .....
..some great pics.
Standing Rock - Buffalo Heart Images
From Toledo to Standing Rock
Early last month, in anticipation of a federal court ruling on the Dakota Access oil pipeline, the governor of North Dakota called up the National Guard. “The Guardsmen will not be going to the actual protest site,” the state National Guard clarified, referring to the Standing Rock encampment, but added that “[t]he governor also placed additional Guardsmen on standby alert in the event they are needed to support law enforcement response efforts.”
The showdown didn’t materialize. The Obama administration, facing heightened pressure to nix the pipeline, requested that the pipeline company stop construction around the burgeoning occupation.
But the governor’s actions raised the specter of a forcible, wide-ranging crackdown, instantly conjuring up memories of National Guard–led repression throughout US history.
One of the most notable instances of such repression came more than eighty years ago, when the National Guard was deployed to the streets of Toledo, Ohio. Like the resisters at Standing Rock, the workers of Toledo sought dignity and sovereignty. Arrayed against them were the National Guard, state and private police, and the forces of exploitation.
quote:
An Ongoing Struggle
Throughout American history, the National Guard has been used to reinforce state and corporate power at the expense of popular democracy. Far from safeguarding the citizenry, the Guard has simply repressed its radical elements.
While the Guard hasn’t marched on Standing Rock, on at least two occasions, private security guards and state law enforcement have stepped in to dragoon and arrest those blocking construction. Protesters have had dogs sicced on them and guns trained on them. Yet the encampment shows no signs of dying out, even with the harsh North Dakota winter ahead and the ever-present threat of state violence.
Throughout the history of colonialism, global capitalism, and neoliberalism, indigenous people have fought efforts to destroy and dispossess. Those resisting in North Dakota are part of that long, ongoing struggle, forcing themselves into a discussion that was designed to leave them out.