PLEASE: Help Veterans Get to Standing Rock.

 Police confront protesters with a rubber bullet gun during a protest against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, U.S. November 20, 2016. Stephanie Keith/REUTERS

Police confront protesters with a rubber bullet gun during a protest against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, U.S. November 20, 2016. Stephanie Keith/REUTERS.

The cops out at Standing Rock have now managed to blow apart most of a young woman’s arm. That’s just the grisliest of the very high list of injuries. Naturally, cops are denying responsibility, which won’t surprise anyone at all. They are doing what all cops do – lie.

Our veterans want to help, and to do that, they need some help from all of you. If you can help, please, do so. If you are unable to donate, please spread the word. What is happening here is damn wrong. It’s fucking wrong, and everyone knows that, and still, there’s nothing but silence. Please help. Lila wopila.

https://www.gofundme.com/veterans-for-standing-rock-nodapl

Native What Month 2.

thanksgiving-thankstealing-marty-two-bulls

© Marty Two Bulls.

And it continues. If you don’t know about the latest atrocities, learn. All that because fucking white people want their cake and to eat it, too. Yeah, yeah, I know, lotsa good white people out there. I know. Lots of them on the front lines, I know. And it really is appreciated, know that. It’s just that it’s not helping right now, because even all the white people who signed on, who woke up, who joined the fight, you’re in the minority with us, against all the racist, greedy white people who simply do not give a fuck. They’ll be busy with their holiday, and pretending to be thankful for fuck knows what, perhaps the fact that oppressing minorities just got a whole lot easier. I can see them thanking their idiotic, bloodthirsty god for that one.

Every year, the irony of November being named “National American Indian Heritage Month” kills me a bit more (First instituted in 1990, by Bush). This year more than most, with the criminal atrocities being committed at Standing Rock. There was a demented, malign genius to choosing November, what with most people being occupied with that grand holiday, “thanksgiving”, and preoccupied with Xmas. The majority of Americans don’t have the slightest idea of there even being an NDN heritage month, and if they do, there’s a bit of lip service perhaps, but not much more. As for learning, dive into the Standing Rock Syllabus.

High Cost of Human Rights Corrodes DAPL Financing:

Government scientists have just identified the largest deposit of oil in the United States. Newsflash: It is nowhere near the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). On November 15, the U.S. Geological Survey released the largest estimate of continuous (unconventional) oil that USGS has ever assessed in the United States. The site is the Wolfcamp Shale formation in the Permian Basin of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. USGS estimates the Wolfcamp play at 20 billion barrels.

There are two bits of significance for the fight against DAPL, the Black Snake, rooted in two theories of what the DAPL might be able to move if and when it is finished. The investment banks funding the Black Snake bought into the project based the state of the oil market at the time and expert projections for production over the life of the pipeline.

The oil market has shifted in many ways since the first round of DAPL financing was anticipating rising demand and more expensive supplies.

Hey America, I’m Taking Back Thanksgiving.

Standing Rock: Native What Month?

https://www.facebook.com/john.bravebullbaker/posts/10211164522099066

I don’t have much to say. Too fucking sick at heart. What have we ever done to merit this ongoing treatment from colonial america? In John BraveBull’s account above, he mentions Charlie Plenty Wolf. It was Charlie who welcomed us to the camp our first time there. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. FUCK. It’s just a grand Native American Heritage Month, with all the people who just don’t give a shit, the continued efforts at genocide, and everyone else being all chucklefuck happy over thankstealing and good shopping deals!

Elder in Critical Condition after Going into Cardiac Arrest at Scene of DAPL Barricade Clash.

https://www.facebook.com/josuefoto/videos/1395596380452239/

I was privileged to meet Josué at the Oceti Sakowin camp, he gave me my first press pass.

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Water Cannons Fired at Water Protectors in Freezing Temperatures Injure Hundreds.

#nodapl, Simon-Moya Smith, Ruth Hopkins.

Yes, the cops are yelling “riot!” and claiming the protectors set fires. That is not true. It was another peaceful prayer circle, and some of the protectors went to move one of the burned out vehicles out of the way, when they were hit with gas grenades, batons, and water cannons.

Mainstream Media MIA as DAPL Action Is Met With Water Cannons and Mace.

“They want to kill people for clearing a road,” questioned Tara Houska, referencing police spraying people with water cannons in 26-degree weather. The national campaigns director of Honor the Earth reminded her friends and followers that November is Native American Heritage Month.

“When will our cries be heard?”

 

NO DAPL: An Urgent Request from Chairman Archambault II.

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My name is David Archambault II, and I’m the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which has long opposed the Dakota Access Pipeline project. This proposed pipeline presents a threat to our lands, our sacred sites, and our water. Current and future generations depend on our rivers and aquifer to live.

Will you stand in solidarity and urge President Obama to reject the Dakota Access Pipeline, once and for all?

Yesterday, militarized law enforcement agencies moved in with tanks and riot gear on water protectors who stand in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline—a massive pipeline project that would cut through four states, impact the water to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and violate sacred sites and ancient grounds. While native elders prayed in peace, they were attacked with pepper spray, rubber bullets, as well as sound and concussion cannons. By the end of the day, more than 140 people were arrested.1 Please, add your name and demand that President Obama reject this pipeline once and for all.

[…]

While we engage in the long legal process to curtail construction of the pipeline, Dakota Access is still poised to begin construction. Halting the construction was an unprecedented step in response to our powerful movement—and now President Obama must reject the pipeline’s permit outright.

Current and future generations depend on our rivers and aquifer to live. The Dakota Access pipeline jeopardizes the heath of our water and could affect our people, as well as countless communities who live downstream, as the pipeline would cross four states. The pipeline, as designed, would destroy ancient burial grounds, which is a violation of federal law.

Please, please, sign, and pass this on to as many people as possible. Lila wopila to all you who do so (very great thanks). If enough people do, we can get millions on this petition.

White: Not Guilty. Native, Black, Brown: Guilty.

It really pays to be white. Via here and here.

Meeting with Obama as Cops Mass Near No DAPL Camp.

Courtesy Bucky Harjo Sunset at the new water protectors' camp in the path of the Dakota Access oil pipeline (DAPL).

Courtesy Bucky Harjo
Sunset at the new water protectors’ camp in the path of the Dakota Access oil pipeline (DAPL).

While Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman Harold Frazier sat down with President Barack Obama at a private roundtable in Los Angeles on Tuesday, October 25, Morton County, N.D. Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier was calling in police reinforcements from six states to enforce Energy Transfer Partners’ demands that “trespassers” be removed from the path of the pipeline.

Authorities implied they may forcibly remove the water protectors from the new camp, which is on land recently purchased by Dakota Access LLC, the subsidiary that is building the pipeline.

“We have the resources. We could go down there at any time,” Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said, according to the Associated Press. “We’re trying not to.”

“We are here to enforce the law as needed,” Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said. “It’s private property.”

The so-called trespassers are Lakota citizens and their allies determined to stand their ground to prevent further destruction of burial grounds and cultural sites, and to protect their water supply from the pipeline. As DAPL moves forward with aggressive construction even on weekends and at night, water protectors took the bold action to declare eminent domain over their homelands last week and set up a new camp directly in the pipeline’s path.

What began with prayers and a single tipi alongside Highway 1806 quickly grew to more than a dozen tipis surrounded by tents, buses, cars and hundreds of water protectors. Some are calling it the “1851 Treaty Camp” to acknowledge their Treaty rights.

Across the road is the encroaching pipeline and a heavily militarized police force with armored vehicles, helicopters, planes, ATVs and busloads of officers. Tensions are growing as unarmed citizens worry that police will use unnecessarily harsh tactics.

In recent weeks, nearly 300 unarmed water protectors who were arrested have been subjected to pepper spray, strip-searches, delayed bail, exaggerated charges and physical violence, according to interviews with several who were taken into custody. The ACLU and National Lawyers Guild recently sent attorneys to Standing Rock to help the Red Owl Collective, a team of volunteer lawyers headed by attorney Bruce Ellison, who are representing many of those arrested.

On Wednesday, October 26, civil rights leader and Rainbow PUSH Coalition founder the Rev. Jesse Jackson arrived in Standing Rock to speak out against the multiple human and civil rights violations being perpetrated against water protectors.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks to water protectors standing against the Dakota Access oil pipeline on Wednesday October 26. (Photo: Courtesy KILI Radio)

The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks to water protectors standing against the Dakota Access oil pipeline on Wednesday October 26. (Photo: Courtesy KILI Radio)

“When will the taking stop? When will we start treating the first peoples of these lands with the respect and honor they deserve?”

The decision to change the pipeline route from north of Bismarck to its current route is “the ripest case of environmental racism I’ve seen in a long time,” Jackson said. “Bismarck residents don’t want their water threatened, so why is it okay for North Dakota to react with guns and tanks when Native Americans ask for the same right?”

Full story at ICTMN. Related news:

Mark Ruffalo in Standing Rock; Leo DiCaprio, Jesse Jackson Head to Standing Rock.

Fighting for Our Lives: #NoDAPL in Historical Context.

DAPL: Former Vice President Al Gore Supports the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Oh, just fuckin’ great.

donald-trump-now-supports-nations-worst-anti-lgbt-lawx750

Donald Trump’s close financial ties to Energy Transfer Partners, operators of the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline, have been laid bare, with the presidential candidate invested in the company and receiving more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from its chief executive.

Trump’s financial disclosure forms show the Republican nominee has between $500,000 and $1m invested in Energy Transfer Partners, with a further $500,000 to $1m holding in Phillips 66, which will have a 25% stake in the Dakota Access project once completed. The information was disclosed in Trump’s monthly filings to the Federal Election Commission, which requires candidates to disclose their campaign finance information on a regular basis.

The financial relationship runs both ways. Kelcy Warren, chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, has given $103,000 to elect Trump and handed over a further $66,800 to the Republican National Committee since the property developer secured the GOP’s presidential nomination.

On 29 June, Warren made $3,000in donations to Trump’s presidential campaign. The limit for individual contributions to a candidate is $2,700 per election and it’s unclear whether Trump returned $300 to Warren. Trump’s campaign was contacted for comment.

Warren made a further $100,000 donation to the Trump Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee among Trump’s campaign, the RNC and 11 state parties, on 29 June. A day earlier, the Energy Transfer Partners chief executive doled out $66,800 in two separatedonations to the RNC.

Full story at the Guardian. All I have right now is a lot of fucking cussing, and feeling like I’m going to vomit. Crispy fuckin’ Christ onna stick. I’m going back to work.

No DAPL: Protectors call on Justice Department.

Protestors face off with the Riot Police across the fenceline near a Dakota Access construction site. CREDIT: Facebook/Rob Wilson.

Protestors face off with the Riot Police across the fenceline near a Dakota Access construction site. CREDIT: Facebook/Rob Wilson.

Concerned and angered by the use of dogs, pepper spray, military tactics and strip searches against unarmed water protectors at the construction sites of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to step in.

“I am seeking a Justice Department investigation because I am concerned about the safety of the people,” Archambault said in a statement. “Too often these kinds of investigations take place only after some use of excessive force by the police creates a tragedy. I hope and pray that the Department will see the wisdom of acting now to prevent such an outcome.”

In a formal letter, Archambault called on U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate the alleged civil rights violations, outlining the ways in which the protectors’ safety is being compromised and their First Amendment rights jeopardized.

[…]

Archambault said protesters and tribal members have told him that “the militarization of law enforcement agencies has escalated violence at the campsite,” even as the tribe’s lawful efforts to keep the 1,172-mile-long pipeline from being routed through sacred burial sites and underneath the Missouri River a half mile from its reservation have drawn worldwide support.

“Firsthand accounts and videos filmed by participants reveal a pattern of strong-arm tactics targeting Native Americans and peaceful protestors,” the Standing Rock Sioux said in the statement. “The abuses include strip searches, violent security dog attacks, pepper-spraying of youth and intimidation by law enforcement.”

Archambault’s letter went further, describing roadblocks, checkpoints and unwarranted stops, all of which “are clearly targeted at Indian people, and are designed to intimidate free speech.”

Add to that the “constant surveillance, with low-flying planes and helicopters constantly overhead at the camps of the water protectors,” the confiscation of at least one drone and the shooting down of another, even those being used by journalists, plus the actual arrests of journalists such as Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman, add up to a “larger effort by local law enforcement to intimidate the press and to prevent the full and fair reporting of the activities of law enforcement on this matter,” Archambault’s letter said.

“Rather than seeking to keep the peace, law enforcement personnel are clearly working in tandem with private security of Dakota Access,” the chairman wrote, adding that the tactics not only evoke the civil rights movement of 50 years ago but also bring up the collective memory of the U.S. government’s “long and sad history of using military force against indigenous people.”

Via ICTMN. In related news: Justice Dept Reaffirms It Will Not Grant DAPL River-Crossing Permits Anytime Soon.

The Fuzziness of the Army Corps.

Major General Donald Jackson.

Major General Donald Jackson. Mary Annette Pember.

As with most issues between Indian country and the federal government, the important bits are steeped in legalese and long numerical references to laws and regulations. The very stuff of life and its protection, however, is referenced and hidden within these dryly-worded documents.

A set of regulations created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) called Appendix C is one such example, and it may determine the future of the Dakota Access Pipeline project as well as other projects for which the Army Corps is responsible for issuing federal permits.

It turns out that tribes have been complaining about the legality of Appendix C for a very long time, and with good reason. Appendix C spells out how the Corps will meet its obligation to fulfill Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), created to protect places of historic, architectural and/or cultural significance.

Part of the NPHA’s Section 106 requires that agencies carry out the process in consultation with Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPO) and identify and assess impacts to properties of traditional religious and cultural significance to tribes. Although all federal agencies are allowed to create their own means by which they fulfill the requirements of Section 106, the Army Corps chose to streamline the process by creating its own regulations that tribes and other federal agencies argue not only fail to meet the requirement of the NHPA’s Section 106, but are also in direct conflict with the law.

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) is an independent federal agency charged by Congress with overseeing implementation of the NHPA. The Corps contradicts several of ACHP’s regulations through use of its own process spelled out under Appendix C.

The differences between Section 106 regulations and Appendix C are substantial. Chief among these differences includes the Corps’ decision in the Standing Rock case to review each river crossing of the Dakota Access pipeline as a separate project rather than consider the entire pipeline as one project.

“This allows the Corps to dismiss the potential for effects to historic properties that may be located within the broader project area of an undertaking,” according to an August 2, 2016 letter from the ACHP to the Corps.

The full story is at 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.

Witnessing history – Thank you DAPL.

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Dave Archambault Sr. has a terrific column up at Native Sun News Today:

…Nothing much has changed for Indian Nations and their tribal members since Dee Brown’s book was written 46 years ago. Nothing – Until just recently! For some unexplainable reason, the book has miraculously come to life near a small Indian village in North Dakota, called Cannonball. In live and living color, just as the book revealed tragic treatment of Indian Nations in chapter after chapter, comes Tribal Nation after Tribal Nation announcing their arrival to the “Spirit Camp.” Here throngs of water and land protectors are gathering in a fight against corporate greed. Accounts of injustices and struggles in Indian country echoes throughout the camp and serves to strengthen the resolve to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. “I want to cheer and cry I’m so happy to see the support that arrives daily and hourly,” said Chairman of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Dave Archambault II.

The words to describe the happening are hard to find. Never in the history of the America’s has so many Tribes come together is such a unified way. This joining is about expressing solidarity in behalf of Mother Earth and to also condemn the number one enemy of Mother Earth – Greed.

It is here beside the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers, that it appears the world is watching. It is here, that the Standing Rock Sioux have drawn the line against a history of crooked dealings and disrespect for all Native rights.

[Read more…]

Standing Rock Testifies Before United Nations.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II, flanked by (left) United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Andrea Carmen, executive director of the International Indian Treaty Council, at the 33rd Session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on September 20. Courtesy Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II, flanked by (left) United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Andrea Carmen, executive director of the International Indian Treaty Council, at the 33rd Session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on September 20. Courtesy Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II called on the United Nations on Tuesday to halt construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline through tribal treaty territory and formally invited United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz to visit the reservation.

“I am here because oil companies are causing the deliberate destruction of our sacred places and burials,” he told the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva on September 20. “Dakota Access wants to build an oil pipeline under the river that is the source of our nation’s drinking water. This pipeline threatens our communities, the river and the earth. Our nation is working to protect our waters and our sacred places for the benefit of our children not yet born.”

Speaking at the 33rd Session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which runs from September 13 through 30, Archambault outlined the ways in which the pipeline and the treatment of water protectors by the company’s employees had violated the protectors’ human rights.

“Thousands have gathered peacefully in Standing Rock in solidarity against the pipeline,” he said in a statement from the tribe afterward. “And yet many water protectors have been threatened and even injured by the pipeline’s security officers. One child was bitten and injured by a guard dog. We stand in peace but have been met with violence.”

[Read more…]