Pitchforks and Torches Time.

Yesterday, we took a look at the frightening views of Trump fanatics, who believe absolutely that every single journalism source is lying, that voter fraud is not just for real, but happening before any voting, and these believers are happily talking about assassination and bloodshed. This is a continuation of that story. Now that singular ass Sheriff Dave Clarke is on board, hollering for a mob. I am feeling physically stunned at this point, as if someone whacked me with a bat, attempting to recover my wits and make sense of the scene in front of me. How in the hell can most of us just be sitting here, an audience to this absolute insanity happening in front of our faces? No, I don’t know what to do either, but I am frightened. I grew up in the counter-culture, in a tumultuous time of great change, but for the most part, it was change for the better. The better of all people. The same cannot be said now. We have people who want to go backwards, and indulge in full scale colonial assault, again.

Most of the grumblings and musings of rebellion have come from everyday Trump voters, but on Saturday, Trump surrogate and Milwaukee Sheriff David A. Clarke, an elected law official, tweeted that it’s “pitchforks and torches time” with a (stock) photo of an angry mob.

I guess Clarke figures he’ll be one of the “good negroes” who will be happily accepted by Trump and the mob he’s trying to incite. A Sheriff calling for riots. Are we sure this isn’t 1984?

Via ThinkProgress.

From the Dakotas to the Desert.

A youthful supporter of the campaign to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. cool revolution via Flickr.

A youthful supporter of the campaign to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. cool revolution via Flickr.

Chris Clarke has an excellent article at ICTMN, covering the broad scope of how Indigenous people pay when energy enters the picture. To be truly mindful, you need to understand the big picture, and you also need to be able to see and understand when cleaner and greener energy is as much of a problem as the dirty type.

Commentary: An energy company plans a project that would destroy land Native people hold as sacred. Despite Native protests, neither state nor federal agencies intervene to protect those cultural sites. The project proceeds. The land is forever altered. Hundreds of Native people and their supporters converge on the site to protest and to grieve their loss.

Given recent news, not to mention the choice of photo at the top of this story, you could be forgiven for assuming I’m describing current events at the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota. That’s where the company Energy Transfer Partners is trying to push the new Dakota Access Pipeline through burial grounds and medicine wheels sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The project has already destroyed important sacred sites, and threatens to pollute the Missouri River and local groundwater if it’s built and the inevitable spills ensue.

But I’m actually describing a gathering four years ago in the southernmost parts of the California desert. There, near the little desert town of Ocotillo, hundreds of Native people from across the southwestern United States gathered on June 24, 2014. They were there to mark the destruction of ancient cremation sites, ceremonial locations and other important cultural resources by Pattern Energy, which built the Ocotillo Express wind power facility in Imperial County.

Click on over to ICTMN to read the full story.

Solidarity: 19 Cities Say No DAPL.

Nineteen cities stand in solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux in opposing the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Nineteen cities stand in solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux in opposing the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Although more than 300 tribes have rallied in support of the Standing Rock Sioux’s stance against the routing of the Dakota Access oil pipeline under the Missouri River near their reservation, the support has not all been Native.

Nineteen U.S. city governments have passed resolutions or written letters opposing construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said in a statement on October 13.

From Seattle to Saint Paul and Minneapolis, to Cleveland, to Portland, Oregon, and all over Turtle Island, the resolutions have been streaming in for weeks. In California the cities of Berkeley, Santa Barbara and Oakland have sent in resolutions. So have Asheville, North Carolina; Sitka, Alaska, and Urbana, Illinois, the latter one of the four states that the pipeline will pass through.

The myriad resolutions being passed by city and municipal councils around the United States express solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux and Indigenous Peoples in general. They reference everything from treaty rights and broken promises, to the common need for drinking water and the burgeoning of distrust in oil companies’ ability to ensure the safety of their pipelines.

This is good news, and I’m thankful to have such allies. Full story at ICTMN.

Pine Nuts.

Johnny Bob, a spiritual leader from Yomba Shoshone Tribe, gathering pine cones in a mountain valley in central Nevada. (Photo by Joseph Zummo).

Johnny Bob, a spiritual leader from Yomba Shoshone Tribe, gathering pine cones in a mountain valley in central Nevada. (Photo by Joseph Zummo).

There’s a very good article at ICTMN about the Western Shoshone tribes and a staple of their diet, pine nuts. A staple, which is considered sacred, and is healthy, it also treated with utter disregard by non-natives, who have been using any excuse to destroy the trees.

“Everything depends on the water and the trees,” said spiritual leader Johnny Bob, from the Yomba Shoshone Tribe, as he prayed for the start of a Western Shoshone pine-nut gathering. In September, members of several bands came together in a steep-walled mountain valley in central Nevada to collect the protein- and nutrient-rich nuts that were once the mainstay of their diet.

Some people took hold of long sticks and began to knock the sticky green cones off the tops of the pinyon trees. Others gathered fallen branches to chop up for the fire in which they would later roast the cones to release the sweet, creamy nuts. These can be eaten out of hand, added to soups and stews or parched and ground for gravy or mush.

“As we collect, we are pruning the trees to ensure there are even more cones next year. We are also cleaning the forest,” explained Joseph Holley, former chairman and now council member of the Battle Mountain Band of Te-Moak Western Shoshone.

[…]

This critical food source, along with game living in the forest, began to disappear during the late 19th century, as newly arrived settlers chopped down trees for fuel over many square miles around towns and mining operations. Starting in the 20th century, these losses were amplified by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service, which together have uprooted more than 3 million acres of pinyon-plus-juniper woodlands.

To destroy the forests, the federal agencies use tractors to drag gargantuan chains through them, ripping up everything in their path. The ruined landscapes look like the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Sometimes, the agencies eliminate woodlands in order to increase rangeland for grazing, an activity that further damages the fragile arid lands where pinyons flourish. Scientists estimate that soil in an erosion-prone “chained” landscape may take 10,000 years to recover.

The full story is at ICTMN.

Amy Goodman Charged with Engaging in a Riot.

Amy Goodman.

Amy Goodman.

Just a few posts ago, I mentioned how embarrassing Ndakota has been lately. Apparently, the state I live in isn’t finished in the quest to scrape the bottom of the barrel, when it comes to stupid, ignorant, embarrassing, cringe-worthy, asshole antics. I do not take any pride in being surrounded by ignorant assholes who proudly wallow in bigotry and willful ignorance.

Bismarck, North Dakota–October 15, 2016 — A North Dakota state prosecutor has sought to charge award-winning journalist Amy Goodman with participating in a “riot” for filming an attack on Native American-led anti-pipeline protesters. The new charge comes after the prosecutor dropped criminal trespassing charges.

State’s Attorney Ladd R Erickson filed the new charges on Friday before District Judge John Grinsteiner who will decide on Monday (October 17) whether probable cause exists for the riot charge.

Goodman has travelled to North Dakota to face the charges and will appear at Morton County court on Monday at 1:30 pm local time (CDT) if the charges are approved.

“I came back to North Dakota to fight a trespass charge. They saw that they could never make that charge stick, so now they want to charge me with rioting, ” said Goodman. “I wasn’t trespassing, I wasn’t engaging in a riot, I was doing my job as a journalist by covering a violent attack on Native American protesters.”

In an e-mail to Goodman’s attorney Tom Dickson on October 12, State’s Attorney Erickson admitted that there were “legal issues with proving the notice of trespassing requirements in the statute.” In an earlier email on October 12, Erickson wrote that Goodman “was not acting as a journalist,” despite that fact that the state’s criminal complaint recognized that, “Amy Goodman can be seen on the video …interviewing protesters.” In that email Erikson justified his quote in the Bismarck Tribune in which he had said that “She’s [Amy Goodman] a protester, basically. Everything she reported on was from the position of justifying the protest actions.” The First Amendment, of course, applies irrespective of the content of a reporter’s story.

The charge in State of North Dakota v. Amy Goodman, stems from Democracy Now!’s coverage of the protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. On Saturday, September 3, Democracy Now! filmed security guards working for the pipeline company attacking protesters. The report showed guards unleashing dogs and using pepper spray and featured people with bite injuries and a dog with blood dripping from its mouth and nose.

Well, Mr. Erickson, thanks ever for helping to paint a picture of my state as one full of shit-for-brains bigots. Christ, I feel like I should just find a cave to hide in.

Via Democracy Now.

The Battle of Cable Street.

Antisemitic literature, 1923. Click for full size.

Antisemitic literature, 1923. Click for full size.

The Battle of Cable Street happened eighty years ago. If all you know about Cable Street is what Terry Pratchett wrote in Nightwatch, it would be good to click over to HOPE not hate’s website about this particular bit of history. Knowing this history is more important than ever, when you look at where Britain, the U.S., and other countries are going, speeding down a spiral of hatred, fear, bigotry, and misogyny. Too many countries are eagerly wanting to go backwards, and it is terrifying to note that not all that much has changed over the last 80 years, especially with so many people advocating open hatred and bigotry once again. Look at the propaganda sheet above, from 1923. It doesn’t read all that different from what people are saying right here and now in 2016, does it?  We do not need another Cable Street, and more to the point, no one should want another Cable Street. Unfortunately, many of us find ourselves surrounded by people who are more than ready to embrace the ugliest of human behaviours. Have a look at this post of Mano’s, if you need to refresh yourself on just how dire things happen to be right now. I can’t even begin to express just how good it would be if people would not only read history, but learn from it. So, please, read. And learn. We need to be well armed in the fight against willful ignorance and blind hatred, we need knowledge to fuel the flame, so we can all be blazing candles in the dark.

It is 80 years since the Jewish community of East London and its allies blocked the streets in order to prevent Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists marching through.

The Fascists were subjected to a humiliating defeat as the police found themselves unable to clear a path.

The Battle of Cable Street, as it has become known, is the most popular anti-fascist victory to have taken place on British soil.

This multimedia website looks at the history of 4 October 1936 and its subsequent commemoration. In order to do this we have used a variety of primary and secondary sources, including interviews with those involved.

HOPE not hate brings you this small resource not just to inform of an interesting historical episode but to allow visitors to draw some of the timeless lessons that can be learnt from it, and how the HOPE not hate campaign links to our shared heritage of Cable Street.

Via HOPE not hate. Hat tip to Daz for this one. Some good additional reading: 10 Points of Facism, and How Facism Takes Over.

Beautiful Cave Art.

Garate looka at cave paintings representing horses in the Atxurra cave, above. Researchers will continue to explore Atxurra over the next few years, and the cave will remain closed to the public in hopes to preserve the findings.

Garate looks at cave paintings representing horses in the Atxurra cave, above. Researchers will continue to explore Atxurra over the next few years, and the cave will remain closed to the public in hopes to preserve the findings.

Rock paintings dating back 14,000 years have been found in a cave in a Spanish seaside resort town.

Around 50 paintings depicting horses, bisons and lions were found in a cave located under a building in the centre of Lekeitio, a village in the Basque country.

The Armintxe cave is ‘extremely difficult to access’ and located under a residential building in the centre of Lekeitio in the Basque country, senior local official Andoni Iturbe said.

Cave specialists and archaeologists have examined the paintings found in May and declared them to be the most ‘spectacular and striking’ of their kind ever found in the Iberian peninsula.

The paintings measure up to 150 centimetres (60 inches), say the research team.

They also confirmed that the cave would not be opened to the public both to preserve the paintings and because it is difficult to access.

I am always in awe of artists who took the time to draw, paint, and engrave scenes from their every day life. I’m also beyond thankful, for all the artists going back into the mists of time, for making sure there would always be windows into their world.

Daily Mail has the full story, with many more images. Hat tip to rq for this one!

Facebook, Oh Facebook XII.

The alt-right movement – known for white supremacist views and its overtly racist ideology – has gained traction during the divisive US presidential race. Photograph: Erik S Lesser/EPA

The alt-right movement – known for white supremacist views and its overtly racist ideology – has gained traction during the divisive US presidential race. Photograph: Erik S Lesser/EPA.

A Nazi-themed Facebook group that called for the “execution” of Jews and African Americans has led to the expulsion of five Boulder, Colorado, high school students in an unusual case of “alt-right” hate speech spreading to teens in a liberal city.

About 15 students participated in a “4th Reich’s Official Group Chat” on Facebook, according to a Boulder police report, which said members discussed “killing all Jews and [N-words]” and encouraged each other to “recruit more members so they can complete their ‘mission’.”

Members wrote messages championing “WHITE POWER!”, posted pictures of guns, called a firearm a “[N-word] BLASTER”, used derogatory terms for gay people, joked about “rape memes”, declared that they “must lynch the [N-words]”, and mocked Mexicans, copies of the group’s chats showed.

[…]

The Facebook group, first reported by the local Daily Camera newspaper, was discovered after one of its leaders allegedly committed suicide, reportedly to “show his allegiance to the [Nazi] party and the killing of Jewish people”, a police report said. Officers were also investigating reports that a Boulder Prep high school student was being “threatened and harassed” by classmates.

Participants gave themselves Nazi-themed nicknames, including the Fuhrer, Gruppenfuhrer and Sturmbannführer. They wrote of “the final solution” and the goal to “eradicate all lessers [sic]”, with some writing, “Let’s have fun killing jews” and “You can hang Jews on trees, shoot them right in the knees. Gas as many as you please.”

The students come from a number of local schools. Officials from Boulder Prep, a charter school, told police they had expelled five participants. Most of the students’ names were redacted in the report, except for three who are 18 years old.

Police ultimately decided not to press charges after determining that “there is no evidence or documentation to support there being any credible threat to any students”, officers wrote.

[…]

At least one student attempted to play down the seriousness of the group, with an officer saying “he informed me that the whole thing was ‘funny’ and he would not actually ever do any of those things”, the report said.

One mother was “visibly shaken by the conduct of her own son”, the report added.

It is unclear how long the Facebook group was running, whether other users ever reported the nature of group or whether the group was known to the social media company. Under Facebook’s community standards, “hate speech” is banned, including content that “attacks people” based on race, ethnicity, gender or other factors.

Facebook representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Everyone who is surprised by FB’s response, raise your hand! It’s no surprise that Germany is looking into making FB financially responsible for all the hate speech they allow to fester. All countries should do the same, as FB never stops talking about how they don’t condone this, don’t condone that, and never do one fucking thing. One of the 18 year olds involved said:

“They’re sorry that it got to this point,” Reynolds said. “They didn’t mean to hurt anybody’s feelings, it was just a joke that turned sour.”

No, they are not sorry it got to any point. Pretty sure they are sorry they got caught. This sort of open, hateful bigotry is not a game, and it is most certainly not a joke. It’s not fun. It’s young assholes like you who end up not having the spine to stand up and do right, so you just follow along in the wake of evil, being willingly led by the nose. FFS.

Via The Guardian and Atlanta Black Star.

Standing Rock: Winter Wish List.

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Oct 14, 2016 — Winter is approaching fast here in North Dakota – and we’re not going anywhere. Dakota Access may think that they can simply wait us out, but we are here for the long haul.

That being said, we need supplies and support to survive here at camp. Dakota winters are no joke! We have created an Amazon wishlist with all sorts of gear for sleeping, staying warm, lighting our camp, and organizing our group. We’re hoping for tents, lanterns, phones for communicating between groups, and more. Take a look and see if there’s anything you can purchase and send to help us out: http://amzn.to/2dLiG1G

Thank you as always for your generosity!

Anna, Bobbi, and the Oceti Sakowin Youth.

Via Change.org. I will add my thank you thank you thank you to anyone who can help out. As usual, I’ll say that you don’t need money to help – spreading the word and signal boosting is incredibly important, so if you’re a social media person, please, pass this on, with all my gratitude.

The Senators Standing with Standing Rock.

Bernie Sanders (Good Morning America).

Bernie Sanders (Good Morning America).

Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and four other senators on Thursday called on President Barack Obama to order a comprehensive environmental review of a pipeline project that has stirred widespread opposition from Native Americans and environmental activists.

After a U.S. appeals court on Sunday night denied a request to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, the senators asked Obama to direct the Army Corps of Engineers to complete a full environmental impact statement for a contested part of the route that includes stronger tribal consultation.

“The project’s current permits should be suspended and all construction stopped until a complete environmental and cultural review has been completed for the entire project,” said the letter by Sanders and Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein, Ed Markey, Patrick Leahy and Benjamin Cardin.

In recent weeks, protests against the Dakota Access pipeline led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota drew international attention, prompting the U.S. government to temporarily block its construction on federal land.

[…]

On Tuesday, anti-pipeline activists in four states closed pipeline valves to halt the flow of crude through arteries transporting 15 percent of U.S. oil consumption..

When fully connected, the 1,100-mile (1,770 km) pipeline would be the first to carry crude directly to the U.S. Gulf from the Bakken shale, a vast oil formation in North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada.

The $3.7 billion project is being built by the Dakota Access subsidiary of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP, which has vowed to complete construction.

“There must be a serious consideration of the full potential climate impacts of this pipeline prior to the Army Corps of Engineers approving any permits or easements for the Dakota Access pipeline,” the senators said.

Experts say that the full environmental review requested by the senators could take several months.

The U.S. appeal court’s ruling was the second time the federal judiciary rejected the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s request to halt construction of the pipeline. On Sept. 9, a U.S. judge rejected a similar request.

Oh, so scrutiny would take a couple of months, golly, the agony for those poor, poor billionaires. Cry me a river, oil wašichu, cry me a river of clean, untainted water. Once again, we see just how much, and how easily Indigenous concerns are brushed aside, and treaties broken, again. And again. And again. My thanks to Senators Sanders, Feinstein, Markey, Leahy, and Cardin. Please, please keep the pressure on. I think everyone should remind the President of his visit to Standing Rock two years ago. How can it possibly be, in any way, to turn away from people who keep asking for justice? How long for people to wake the fuck up to all the lies, all the crimes committed by DA and Energy Transfer Partners? Remember when they swore up and down that the oil running through this travesty of a pipeline was “sweet and light”? The only people pointing out that that was a lie were Indigenous people who live in the Dakotas. I posted about that, and heard arguments and “oh no, you’re wrong.” No, we aren’t wrong. Oil lies, and it would be great if people would wake up to that fact, and stay woke. This is a disaster waiting to happen, to all of us.

Via Raw Story.

Reno Truck Assault On Protesters: Update.

https://youtu.be/x0D-BgU82jI

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Detectives are preparing legal documents for possible criminal charges after an 18-year-old man drove a pickup truck through a crowd of protesters rallying in support of Native American rights in downtown Reno, Police Chief Jason Soto said Wednesday.

Soto made his remarks to the Reno City Council as a parade of American Indians, local clergy and others expressed their outrage over the fact no one’s been arrested after five protesters were struck Monday night by the truck on the street beneath the city’s famous arch with the slogan, “Biggest Little City in the World.”

Soto said an affidavit is in the works that could lead to prosecution. But he said he won’t discuss the possible charges or any other details because the investigation is ongoing.

In a different article, Soto was making noises about the protesters being in the street, rather than on the sidewalk, heavily implying they deserved to be run over, because street. It has been stated that people gathered in this spot to take photographs. It’s more than obvious that the police chief does not want to press charges in this case, and it’s also obvious he doesn’t think much of anything done was wrong. I’d like to see the Mayor address that little problem.

The Rev. Luther DuPree, an African-American bishop who oversees the Northern Nevada Churches of God in Christ, questioned whether the driver remains free because he is white.

“If it was any other culture, I believe an immediate arrest would have been made,” he said.

Kitty Colbert, 59, the most seriously injured woman who remained hospitalized Wednesday, was accompanied at the rally by her grandchildren who “saw her run over like a bag of beans,” said Ray Valdez, who was drumming and leading the group in prayer just before the incident.

Soto said the activists did not have a permit to protest in the street, but some had gathered in the travel lanes of Virginia Street on the main casino drag.

Jessica White, a local artist, said the activists were gathering in the crosswalk for a group photograph when “the driver began honking and revving his truck’s engine in an obvious attempt to frighten us.”

“I saw a driver purposely drive into a group of people and continue until there were injuries and terror,” she said Wednesday.

Tara Tran said the driver and passenger were yelling “racist” remarks before she was struck by the truck.

“I’ve heard a lot of people say the protesters deserved it… they were blocking traffic,” Tran told the council. “We were not blocking their direction. They were following us. They were not scared. I looked into their eyes. It was not a look of fear. It was a look that they were having fun.”

Grace Potorti, ex-leader of the Nevada Conservation League, said she was driving the opposite direction on Virginia Street when she saw the truck “plow into people, stop and — while people were lying on the road — continue to run over them.”

“This happened under the very symbol of Reno,” she said. “It happened under the arch!”

Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve said in a statement Tuesday Reno police “will hold anyone responsible accountable for their actions once the investigation has concluded.”

“The city does not condone hate,” she said Wednesday.

Full story at The Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Shailene Woodley Released.

Courtesy Morton County Sheriff's Office Shailene Woodley, charged with criminal trespass during peaceful civil action against the Dakota Access oil.

Courtesy Morton County Sheriff’s Office
Shailene Woodley, charged with criminal trespass during peaceful civil action against the Dakota Access oil.

Celebrity support flooded in for the actress after her arrest on Monday October 10 with other water protectors at a Dakota Access oil pipeline (DAPL) construction site. She paid a $500 fine and prepared for an October 24 court date, according to USA Today.

“Shailene Woodley has been released from the Morton County Jail in North Dakota,” her spokesperson told Us Weekly in a statement on Tuesday. “She appreciates the outpouring of support, not only for her, but more importantly, for the continued fight against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.”

The star of Snowden, Divergent and The Descendants, among other films, was among 28 unarmed people arrested by riot police for peacefully demonstrating at the site where Energy Transfer Partners is working on the 1,172-mile-long, $3.8 billion pipeline set to wend its way through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois, carrying as many as 550,000 barrels of crude daily from the Bakken oil fields. She livestreamed the arrest on Facebook.

Actor Mark Ruffalo also spoke out in support of Woodley, as did Maggie Q, her costar in the Divergent series.

“I stand with @shailenewoodley for standing with the Standing Rock Water Protectors. #NoDAPL,” tweeted Ruffalo, who is outspoken against climate change and walked with Indigenous Peoples alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2014 People’s Climate March in New York City.

“You can arrest someone but you CANNOT silence them,” wrote Maggie Q on Twitter.

Mainstream media picked up on the arrest and mentioned the pipeline controversy. But MSNBC commentator Lawrence O’Donnell took it a step further by noting the irony of date of the arrests, including Woodley’s, on criminal trespassing charges. It was for many (though not for all) a celebration of Christopher Columbus, who he dubbed “the greatest trespasser in human history.”

Via ICTMN.

The Fight for Tosawihi.

Photo by Joseph Zummo Tosawihi Complex, a contemporary Native cultural landscape with roots in the deep past.

Photo by Joseph Zummo
Tosawihi Complex, a contemporary Native cultural landscape with roots in the deep past.

As I have mentioned so many times before, Indigenous people all over the world face the constant destruction, or threat of destruction to their homelands, and to sacred places. This is a difficult issue to get across to most Americans, who have no sense which is at all similar to that of Natives, and perspectives are so very different. (For a bit on that, read the excerpt from one of John Trudell’s essays, in the comments here.) Anyroad, there is an in-depth article and photo essay about the fight the Western Shoshone are facing over the spiritual heart of their traditional homeland. As is often seen in such cases, the destruction is well beyond what was necessary, such in the swathes cut for telephone poles, which was much wider and destructive than was close to needed. This contempt is almost always seen in such cases. Non-natives rarely have any care for what natives view as sacred, because all they see is land they can ravage or make money from. They don’t see or understand the sacred, and they know nothing, and seldom care about the history which is there. You all know we have seen that here already in Ndakota, with the contempt from DA and Energy Transfer, then being locked out of the survey of our own sacred sites. All this and more is happening in Nevada right now. Just a very small excerpt here, please go and read the whole article.

[…] The place is ancient, but the fight to protect it is contemporary. Decades of mining have left scars. Like 83 percent of Nevada, Tosawihi sits on federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an Interior Department agency. The BLM, which issues mining permits, calls Western Shoshone accusations of mining-related destruction the product of a “different worldview.” Tribal members say that if the BLM followed federal law, including historic-preservation and environmental regulations, damage could be avoided.

In June, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to stay construction for a mining-related power line in Tosawihi until a way could be found to save the ancestral healer’s trail, which had been determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The Band appealed the ruling. Despite the issue still being before the courts, employees of Carlin Resources, part of an international consortium that owned an open-pit gold mine in Tosawihi, fired up their yellow bulldozer. They plowed a rough, nearly 12-mile-long road, along with 50-foot-wide gashes for the bases of the utility poles. They gouged a trench into the side of a nearby hill used for vision quests.

They obliterated much of the healer’s trail, along with the natural pharmacy he cultivated alongside it. Tanya Reynolds, an official of the South Fork Band of the Te-Moak Western Shoshone, called the destruction “beyond words, beyond what is possible to fix.”

“They’re after money and will literally move mountains to get it,” said Murray Sope, from the Shoshone-Paiute Tribe. “But these places are also very valuable to us for teaching our children.”

Demolition of irreplaceable ancient artifacts usually merits outrage, or at least notice. The Islamic State, or ISIS, was widely condemned when it released footage of a yellow bulldozer demolishing the Gates of Ninevah, in the remains of an ancient city in Iraq. Major media outlets reported shock worldwide when ISIS smashed museum exhibits and when the Taliban blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan, in Afghanistan.

In contrast, portions of Tosawihi have simply vanished in a national, and international, blind spot. “We don’t understand their need to destroy,” said Joe Holley, former chairman and now councilman of the Battle Mountain Band of the Te-Moak Western Shoshone. “We are realistic. We know we can’t stop them entirely, but we want them to partner with us. They need to listen when we flag endangered cultural resources. They need to follow their own laws.”

Federal authorities have permitted destruction of Native sites nationwide. In September, more than 1,200 museum directors and scholars condemned the builders of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) for destroying Sioux burial grounds in North Dakota with apparent U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorization. The Obama administration asked the builders, Energy Transfer Partners, to halt work until it could scrutinize tribal-consultation policies, including how they had been applied in the DAPL process.

That did not necessarily signal a policy change, though. A few weeks later, under a permit issued on behalf of President Obama by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the same company bulldozed ancient Native sites in Texas, turning them into a sea of mud.

In Tosawihi, the BLM-authorized power line stoked fears of more aggressive mining to come, said Reggie Sope, the healer from Shoshone-Paiute Tribe who ran the sweat lodge ceremony.

“Work began yesterday,” confirmed John Seaberg, senior vice president of the gold mine’s new owner, Klondex, which bought the operation on October 4. Depending on the results of exploratory testing, the company may install another ramp (inclined mining tunnel), Seaberg said. He called tribes “key stakeholders” in the process but refused to comment on ongoing lawsuits. They include Carlin’s suit against the Battle Mountain Band, which the Band has asked the courts to dismiss.

The full 3 page article is at ICTMN.