Standing Rock: Camp Story, Part 5.

Picking up where we left off in Part 4, twilight was descending, and people were lining up for buffalo, squash, and hominy stew and wojapi. Word had rippled through camp that Jill Stein had been up at the construction site where the protectors were, and was coming to the camp to speak. The council fire was stoked to a blaze. The clouds were beautiful.

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Jill Stein didn’t say anything new, she spoke of the need to break our dependence on oil, the need to focus on other forms of energy, and called on our President to speak up, speak out, and to stand with Standing Rock. Some people might not know that President Obama and the First Lady visited the people of Standing Rock in 2014, and greatly enjoyed that visit, so it has been a bitter hurt, the silence emanating from the Capitol. That is not all the silence. The silence echoes from every point. As I noted earlier in comments:

As for Jill Stein, she was at the construction site where the protectors are during Tuesday afternoon, and she came to speak at the camp that evening, I was there. Think I got pictures, too. People can say whatever they want about her, and I know there’s bad things, but she’s the only one to show up.

And to add, Indian Country everywhere has a long history of voting democrat (yeah, there are a few repubs), but people are losing faith almost completely in democrats, because none of them will stand up, none of them stand with us. The president remains silent. The Clintons? Silent. Tim Kaine? He needs more info.

Bernie Sanders made noises of support, but he hasn’t been here. We have elders in their 80s who are making very long journeys to come and stand. What’s the excuse of all our so-called representatives?

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Standing Rock: Camp Story, Part 4.

Picking up from where we left off at Camp Story 3 (Remember, starting with this post, all these events being related are happening on one day, Tuesday, September 6th, 2016. I’ll get to Wednesday eventually. The Osage Delegation from Oklahoma arrived. They spoke with great pain, grief, and anger over the cost to their people, in blood, of many lives, in their fight against oil. A prayer was sung, and the Osage flag took its place among the many.

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Delegations from the Pit River Indians and Winnemem Wintu arrived. The Winnemem Wintu are a tribe that have been brutally crushed under the steamroller of U.S. government, yet refuse to give in, refuse to fade away. They stand strong, and they continue to fight. Like too many other tribes, vast amounts of lands were stolen by means of dam building and flooding the land. The Pit River Indians are also fighting, for their rights, their land, and for the salmon, too. They are also threatened by the black snake of oil. If hasn’t occurred to you yet, ask yourself why all the risk of oil is being placed on Indian land, from one state to the next here in uStates, and why it’s the land of Indigenous peoples in other countries who are facing similar threat and loss.*  The colonial mindset is alive and well, and Indigenous people are still the ones expected to pay for everyone else’s convenience and greed. And yes, a whole lot of Indians and other indigenous people drive cars, and use modern things, just like everyone else. There’s little choice, is there? We aren’t exactly set up for horses anymore, and most employers wouldn’t care to accommodate the time of travel. Is there money being poured into sustainable infrastructure, such as mass, public transport? No. As you should be able to tell from photos, the Dakotas are a place where you’re far away from everything else. The camps at Standing Rock, map wise, aren’t terribly far from us, but it’s a long drive.

*In the comments, Lofty highlights this ongoing problem:

Meanwhile South Australians have their own battle against Big Oil. BP want to drill in a pristine marine reserve in the Great Australian Bight, an important whale breeding area and clean fishing resource. In the event of a spill, BP won’t have any resources available to fix anything. Time to make waves.

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Breaking: National Guard Called In.

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Chairman Archambault II spoke with the governor this morning and was notified of action by the National Guard to ensure safety of all citizens. The National Guard has been called in to assist state and county police in notifying drivers on Highway 1806 traveling south that there may be pedestrians on the road and cars may be parked on the side of the road. This is intended to keep all drivers and pedestrians safe. The National Guard will not enter the camp.

This was appended to a media statement, an appeal for peace in advance of the ruling tomorrow. I don’t think anyone needs to be told what an unnecessary, chickenshit move this was by Governor Dalrymple, oil’s best friend and investor. I suspect this was not in anticipation of the ruling tomorrow, but a favour to oil, whose propaganda has suffered a bit lately, after the move with the savage dogs and handlers attacking the protectors. We hold fast, we hold strong, we hold in peace.

Standing Rock: Camp Story, Part 3.

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Standing Rock had filed an for an emergency TRO, after the desecration and destruction the construction company did over the holiday weekend. (See here and here). The decision came in early afternoon, around 2 p.m. At that time, spirits were high, people were happy. The judge denied the order. There was a crushing wave of disappointment, but not much surprise. We were reminded of our gathered strength, of how government has always been allied against Indians, how we never stopped, never backed down, continued to fight for our rights, and for what was right. Dennis Banks spoke of the early days of AIM, when he and Russel Means were sued, and they looked at the court papers, where it read:  The United States of America vs Dennis Banks and Russel Means. They won that fight. The judge was appalled by the actions of The United States of America, and said so, in scathing terms. Dennis reminded us that this fight is not impossible, and it is not over. We need to stand, we need to stand together, we need to be an unbreakable chain. Others began to speak, when we were interrupted by the often heard “wave to the plane, everyone!”

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Everyone waved at the latest surveillance plane. They even fly over in the middle of the night, as if they’ll unearth nefarious schemes being plotted. The plane disappeared, and everyone settled in to listen to Arvol Looking Horse, the 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe, and always a voice for our earth.

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Standing Rock: Camp Story.

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Oh, I wish I was a writer. Where to start? Right now, I’m back home in Almont for a day, and it feels wrong, I’m homesick. For camp. Tuesday morning, we tossed some supplies in our van, made sure all the critters had access to food and water and took off. The first photo here is about an hour into the journey. Like everyone else, we avoided the barricaded 1806, taking 21 then 6 straight into the No DAPL camp. The sight as we crested the hill was overwhelming, tents, tipis, people, cars, and horses everywhere, stretched as far as you could see. We turned in, and as it was our first time, had a brief security check (looking in the cooler, basically), because of people trying to bring in alcohol and drugs. No problems, and we were waved off to camp as we chose. Every other car had their windows covered with “Standing With Standing Rock!” or similar, and often tribal names. We were humbled, and in awe by the flags lining the main road into camp. There are over one hundred of them, and flags dot the landscape at campsites all over the land. There seems to be one posthole digger though, as calls for it to show to plant another flag were heard regularly. :D

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We parked in the Oglala camp, then made our way to the council area, the large communal area set up for all the camps:

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That isn’t a great photo of the area, it’s much larger than this, and the kitchen pictured in the previous post is to the other end of this area. Rick couldn’t wait to talk or see anything, he wanted to head to the kitchen to cook, and as soon as we walked up from our camp, the call was put out for volunteers to help cook frybread. Rick was off like a shot:

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He did a great job of it, too. Everyone did, and everyone working in the kitchen performed amazing service, and worked their butts off, too. First it was frybread, then hot dogs, hamburgers, corn, buffalo, squash and hominy stew, and wojapi. When the camps were smaller, Standing Rock had requested a water truck and a couple other necessities from the state health department, and they obliged. That didn’t last long, as the cops ordered those necessities removed. It’s a bit silly to try that strong arm tactic against a sovereign nation.

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There’s EMS, Rez security, two huge refrigerated trucks, water tanks, water washing stations, and ranks of port-a-loos. There are tents filled with donations from people, clothing, blankets, school supplies, and sundries. No one goes in need of anything. Children play all over the place, running and laughing, many of them clutching soccer-sized balls donated by the Nez Perce Tribe. As I was wandering about with a camera, I had to check in to the media tent, and get my pass. That done, I wandered back to the communal area, looking to settle in, and was in time to hear a description of one Rob, from KFYR, described, and that security was looking for him, and he was forever banned from Standing Rock. I still haven’t heard what that was about, maybe when I’m back, if I remember to ask. People were gathering to listen, talk, meet, take photos, and do all the things people do when gathered together.

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The council fire was always kept going, and there was always someone in the main administration tent, talking, telling stories, or relaying news. Much of the time, there was an open mic, for anyone who wanted to sing or tell a story. The representatives of the Episcopal diocese in Bismarck, who had signed on to the cause early on were in the camp, reaffirming their support, and bringing donations.

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As that was going on, the Quinault Tribe started rolling in with their canoes, they planned a 3 day paddle trip to Bismarck.

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I should explain that the main road is constantly busy, people coming, going, coming back, bringing in supplies, people walking to and from, the warriors on horseback going to the construction site and coming back, and so on. It’s never still. Kind of like water.

Dennis Banks was there! Eeeeeeeeeee. And, the day before, he had been in the hospital, having had a heart attack. He spoke frequently, and greeted people. He spoke strongly and eloquently after the disappointing decision came down.

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There was so much joy, unity. People from all over were at the camps, with one notable exception – North Dakotans. I kept talking to so many people who were excited than any Ndakotans were there at all. If I could say anything at this point, it would be to urge all Dakotans, if you can, to come to camps. You don’t have to settle in for the long term, you don’t even have to stay the night, just come, meet people, talk with them, listen. Okay, I’m barely into the first two, three hours at camp, so I’ll split this story up. I’ll grab some tea, and start the next part while you all look and read.

Click photos for full size. © C. Ford, all rights reserved.

Camp.

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We’re heading out to the camps today, should be back on Thursday. If we end up gassed, dog bit, or arrested, might be a bit longer. Hopefully, there will be much to share on our return. I already know I’m not going to want to come back home. Sometimes, having dependent pets is kind of a drag. The Daily Bird is scheduled for the next few days, and that’s as exciting as things will be, I’m not set up for live blogging and all that jazz, and no electricity, because camping.

The Whitestone Massacre.

LaDonna Bravebull Allard at Sacred Stones camp along the banks of the Cannonball River. Courtesy Kat Eng.

LaDonna Bravebull Allard at Sacred Stones camp along the banks of the Cannonball River. Courtesy Kat Eng.

On this day, [September 3rd] 153 years ago, my great-great-grandmother Nape Hote Win (Mary Big Moccasin) survived the bloodiest conflict between the Sioux Nations and the U.S. Army ever on North Dakota soil. An estimated 300 to 400 of our people were killed in the Inyan Ska (Whitestone) Massacre, far more than at Wounded Knee. But very few know the story.

As we struggle for our lives today against the Dakota Access pipeline, I remember her. We cannot forget our stories of survival.

Just 50 miles east of here, in 1863, nearly 4,000 Yanktonais, Isanti (Santee), and Hunkpapa gathered alongside a lake in southeastern North Dakota, near present-day Ellendale, for an intertribal buffalo hunt to prepare for winter. It was a time of celebration and ceremony—a time to pray for the coming year, meet relatives, arrange marriages, and make plans for winter camps. Many refugees from the 1862 uprising in Minnesota, mostly women and children, had been taken in as family. Mary’s father, Oyate Tawa, was one of the 38 Dah’kotah hung in Mankato, Minesota, less than a year earlier, in the largest mass execution in the country’s history. Brigadier General Alfred Sully and soldiers came to Dakota Territory looking for the Santee who had fled the uprising. This was part of a broader U.S. military expedition to promote white settlement in the eastern Dakotas and protect access to the Montana gold fields via the Missouri River.

As my great-great-grandmother Mary Big Moccasin told the story, the attack came the day after the big hunt, when spirits were high. The sun was setting and everyone was sharing an evening meal when Sully’s soldiers surrounded the camp on Whitestone Hill. In the chaos that ensued, people tied their children to their horses and dogs and fled. Mary was 9 years old. As she ran, she was shot in the hip and went down. She laid there until morning, when a soldier found her. As he loaded her into a wagon, she heard her relatives moaning and crying on the battlefield. She was taken to a prisoner of war camp in Crow Creek where she stayed until her release in 1870.

Where the Cannonball River joins the Missouri River, at the site of our camp today to stop the Dakota Access pipeline, there used to be a whirlpool that created large, spherical sandstone formations. The river’s true name is Inyan Wakangapi Wakpa, River that Makes the Sacred Stones, and we have named the site of our resistance on my family’s land the Sacred Stone Camp. The stones are not created anymore, ever since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredged the mouth of the Cannonball River and flooded the area in the late 1950s as they finished the Oahe dam. They killed a portion of our sacred river.

I was a young girl when the floods came and desecrated our burial sites and Sundance grounds. Our people are in that water.

This river holds the story of my entire life.

There is much more to this story, which you can read here.

Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.

Holiday Desecration and Destruction. Updated.

Credit: Natalie Hand.

Credit: Natalie Hand.

I wanted this to be a day of no tears. Just one day. Didn’t happen.

Sacred places containing ancient burial sites, places of prayer and other significant cultural artifacts of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe were destroyed on Saturday September 3 by Energy Transfer Partners, Tribal Chairman David Archambault II said.

On Friday, the Tribe filed court documents identifying the area as home to significant Native artifacts and sacred sites.

“This demolition is devastating,” Archambault said. “These grounds are the resting places of our ancestors. The ancient cairns and stone prayer rings there cannot be replaced. In one day, our sacred land has been turned into hollow ground.”

Construction crews removed topsoil across an area about 150 feet wide stretching for two miles, northwest of the confluence of the Cannon Ball and Missouri Rivers.

“I surveyed this land, and we confirmed multiple graves and specific prayer sites,” said Tim Mentz, the Standing Rock Sioux’s former tribal historic preservation officer. “Portions, and possibly complete sites, have been taken out entirely.”

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“We’re days away from getting a resolution on the legal issues, and they came in on a holiday weekend and destroyed the site,” said Jan Hasselman, attorney for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. “What they have done is absolutely outrageous.”

Full story here.

Just in, from ICTMN: What Dakota Access Destroyed: Standing Rock Former Historic Preservation Officer Explains What Was Lost [Video].

This interview was recorded on September 3, 2016. Former Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Tim Mentz explains the destruction of burial grounds and sacred sites by Dakota Access Pipeline LLC. This sacred site is what people were trying to protect when Energy Transfer Partners brought in aggressive dogs to attack unarmed people.

“This demolition is devastating,” said Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman David Archambault II. “These grounds are the resting places of our ancestors. The ancient cairns and stone prayer rings cannot be replaced. In one day, our sacred land has been turned into hollow ground.”

https://youtu.be/9EAWpI5L_Bc

Bullet Imagery Is Not Violent!

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The GOP leaders, however, are standing by the image, which they hand-delivered to Kirkpatrick’s campaign office and posted online. Matthew Specht with the Arizona Republican Party told the Arizona Daily Star that “no one” connected the poster’s bullet imagery with violence “until the Kirkpatrick campaign tried to use it as a way to distract the media from Ann Kirkpatrick’s absence from the campaign trail.”

Mmmhmm. Those bullet holes are just purely decorative, I’m sure.

Full story at Think Progress.

Trump Tweet Bait.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto (Screen cap).

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto (Screen cap).

“A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.”

So said Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during this year’s DNC, and it turns out she was being prophetic.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Donald Trump changed his speech on immigration at the last minute to include references to Mexico paying for his proposed border wall.

The reason that Trump decided to make this change? Because he was apparently furious that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto just posted a tweet insisting that his country would never, under any circumstances, pay for the wall.

Full story here.

Dakota Access: Stand Up!

(Photo: Melinda Lee)

(Photo: Melinda Lee)

Where Movements Meet: Black Lives Matter Organizers Visit #NoDAPL.

 

UN body says Sioux must have say in pipeline project.

 
Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.

Twitter, Oh Twitter V.

White supremacists (Twitter).

White supremacists (Twitter).

White nationalists and self-identified Nazi sympathizers located mostly in the United States use Twitter with “relative impunity” and often have far more followers than militant Islamists, a study being released on Thursday found.

Eighteen prominent white nationalist accounts examined in the study, including the American Nazi Party, have seen a sharp increase in Twitter followers to a total of more than 25,000, up from about 3,500 in 2012, according to the study by George Washington University’s Program on Extremism that was seen by Reuters.

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Berger said in an interview that Twitter and other companies such as Facebook Inc faced added difficulties in enforcing standards against white nationalist groups because they are less cohesive than Islamic State networks and present greater free speech complications.

Oh really. Hmmm. Interesting how there aren’t any greater free speech complications when it comes to stomping on Islamic extremism, but boy oh boy, does it ever get complicated when it’s white extremists. Sure.

The data collected, which included analysis of tweets of selected accounts and their followers, represents a fraction of the white nationalist presence on Twitter and was insufficient to estimate the overall online size of the groups, the report said.

Accounts examined in the study possessed a strong affinity for U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, a prolific Twitter user who has been accused of retweeting accounts associated with white nationalism dozens of times.

Three of the top 10 hashtags used most frequently by the data set of users studied were related to Trump, according to the report, entitled “Nazis vs. ISIS on Twitter.” Only #whitegenocide was more popular than Trump-related hashtags, the report said.

Yeah, there’s shocking news. I’ll try to work up a shocked expression or something.

Full story here.