NoDAPL roundup.

Courtesy Dallas Goldtooth/Indigenous Environmental Network A line of prayers and police facing off at construction site of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The takeaway: Stay peaceful, and stand firm.

Courtesy Dallas Goldtooth/Indigenous Environmental Network
A line of prayers and police facing off at construction site of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The takeaway: Stay peaceful, and stand firm.

A Turbulent Week on Front Lines at DAPL.

The mass arrest of 127 water protectors on Saturday, October 22 led to the resulting Oceti Sakowin reclamation of 1851 and 1863 Fort Laramie Treaty land in the path of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Heightened tensions in the days that followed culminated in an even more violent clash between militarized law enforcement officers and unarmed water protectors on Thursday, October 27. In the aftermath of that confrontation, in which 141 more people were arrested, protectors at the camps know it is critical now more than ever to remain focused and calm.

Water protectors continue to hold their ground at the Sacred Stone Camp, Oceti Sakowin. They hold their ground in the name of spiritual commitment to ancestors, future generations, water and Mother Earth. …

There’s been a call for more people to come to the camps, people who are willing to be arrested. We will be back out this week, carrying more firewood. If I happen to go absent for a day or three, well…

Courtesy Karen Pomer. A delegation from Labor For Standing Rock, comprised of rank-and-file workers and union members to mobilize growing labor support for the First Nation's fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock camp the weekend of October 29.

Courtesy Karen Pomer.
A delegation from Labor For Standing Rock, comprised of rank-and-file workers and union members to mobilize growing labor support for the First Nation’s fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock camp the weekend of October 29.

Rank-and-File Union Members Speak-Out at Standing Rock Camp, Challenge AFL-CIO Leadership’s Support for Pipeline.

Despite escalating police violence and AFL-CIO leadership of pipeline, a delegation of union members from around the U.S. are spending the weekend of October 29 at Standing Rock camp to join Sioux water protectors against Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL.)

The delegation from Labor For Standing Rock (LSR), comprised of rank-and-file union members and working people.

Liam Cain, Union Laborer at LIUNA Local 1271 Cheyenne, WY and a LSR spokesperson, over years worked on numerous heavy construction sites and pipeline construction spreads. “To the union laborers working on these projects I would just implore you to listen to what regular folks are saying,” Cain said. “Don’t just listen to the bosses, and not to just the echo-chambers on the spread.

“Listen to the water protectors, listen to folks talking about just transition, a view of the future, involving good paying union jobs, involving many of your skill-sets. Just generating energy in a much more environmentally sustainable manner, rather than just gross over reliance on fossil fuels, that we currently engage in. As the saying goes, ‘there’s no jobs on a dead planet’.” …

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© C. Ford.

Society of Indian Psychologists’ Response to Pipeline Protest.

…Psychological scholarship has demonstrated the importance of land and water to American Indian and Alaska Native communities. Psychological and spiritual well-being are inextricably linked to traditional lands sacred to Native people. In the instance of the events at Standing Rock, the proposed pipeline is designed to violate sacred space that includes a traditional burial ground. For American Indian and Alaska Native people, threats to the natural environment are a continuation of historical trauma contributing to current health disparities. The proposed project threatens the well-being of our relatives directly affected and indeed all U.S. citizens. The specter of genocide is continued in the pipeline yet to be built.

Finally, the treatment of the Indigenous people in this protest is a chilling repeat of a pattern of dismissal, disrespect and dehumanization. The pipeline was not placed near Bismarck, North Dakota, because of danger to the citizens there. Yet, contaminating Indian Country was considered acceptable. For American Indigenous Nations, the energy and spirits of water, earth, air, the standing ones (trees), winged ones, crawling ones, four leggeds, and life in all expressions, are composed of the same root spirit – hence, all are related. Yet in Western society, few speak for these relatives. The Standing Rock People steadfastly remain our principal spokespersons. The Standing Rock Dakota and Lakota have withstood degradation of their water, lands and their own bodies with resilience and strength over many generations, with the most recent being the unprovoked use of attack dogs and mace on peaceful protesters. Health equity for all citizens can never be achieved without first acknowledging and respecting basic human rights and dignity, including that due to the land and water on which life depends.

Water is life, and without respect for water, its source in the land, or the human need for water, not only are Indigenous rights violated, so are the rights to humanness and human life. Land is a part of our people’s psychological wellbeing. When our land and water are threatened, it is an unimaginable spiritual, physical and mental burden not just for Native people but for all residents of the United States and the world. This protest is essentially in support of humanity. Native people leave no one out. All are welcome to the well.

Jailed protesters say they were temporarily kept in cages that felt like ‘dog kennels’, but officials say the allegations of poor treatment are untrue. Photograph: Morton County Correctional Center

Jailed protesters say they were temporarily kept in cages that felt like ‘dog kennels’, but officials say the allegations of poor treatment are untrue. Photograph: Morton County Correctional Center.

Dakota Access pipeline protests: UN group investigates human rights abuses.

BOOM.

Flames shoot into the sky from a gas line explosion in western Shelby County, Alabama, U.S., October 31, 2016. REUTERS/Marvin Gentry.

Flames shoot into the sky from a gas line explosion in western Shelby County, Alabama, U.S., October 31, 2016. REUTERS/Marvin Gentry.

While cops are playing soldier with military equipment, snipers nested in hills, and busy writing numbers on the arms of those arrested, and white Ndakotans are busy yelling slurs, making fun of the dumb Indians, and oil companies continue to insist all this pipeline stuff is just so darn safe…LEAKA LEAKA BOOM LEAKA. Unfortunately, it’s Alabama who sees this explosion, with fatalities, injuries, fires, and of course, gasoline everywhere. Some of us in Ndakota aren’t too keen on this happening here. Oh, and my heart goes out to the family and friends of the person who died. People are doing this work because it’s work, and well paid work in areas which don’t have much of that going on. No one should end up dead because they wanted to make a living wage.

Colonial Pipeline Co shut down its main gasoline and distillates pipelines on Monday after an explosion and fire in Shelby, Alabama, killing a worker and sending five to the hospital – the second time in two months it had to close the crucial supply line to the U.S. East Coast.

A nine-man crew was conducting work on the Colonial pipeline system at the time of the explosion, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley told a briefing. Seven of the crew members were injured, with two evacuated by air.

The explosion occurred when a contract crew hit the gasoline pipeline (Line 1) with a trackhoe, igniting gasoline, Colonial said an e-mailed statement late on Monday.

One worker died at the scene and five individuals were taken to Birmingham-area hospitals for treatment, the company said.

 

[…]

A segment of pipeline was undergoing maintenance on Monday afternoon when it exploded. The fire had been contained as of around 9 p.m. (0100 GMT on Tuesday), according to local media reports.

Crews built a 8-foot (2-meter) tall dirt dam to contain burning fuel, Bentley said on Twitter late on Monday.

The explosion sparked wildfires, burning 32 acres, the governor said.

 

[…]

Bentley’s office said on Twitter the site was about a mile west of a massive leak last month that closed the gasoline pipeline for over 12 days. A 3-mile (4.8-km) area around the site had been evacuated, the governor said. … Colonial was working to restart a section of pipeline damaged after its biggest leak of gasoline in nearly two decades on Sept. 9, which released as much as 8,000 barrels (336,000 gallons) of gasoline in Shelby County. The restart was planned for mid-November after removal of a bypass line installed after the September leak.

[…]

The 5,500-mile (8,850-km) Colonial Pipeline is the largest U.S. refined products pipeline system and transports gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from the U.S. Gulf Coast to the New York Harbor area. The pipelines that shut run from Houston to Greensboro, North Carolina.

It has already had five spills reported in Alabama in 2016, including the one in September, according to PHMSA data.

Gosh, it would be great if people could figure out that pipelines are not safe, they are not just short term destructive, they are long time destructive, they will see this planet dead, and then what? As Mark Trahant has been at pains to point out, decisions could be made right now, which would not only turn things around, make Ndakota a leader in clean energy, but be a large, and permanent economic boost. That isn’t happening because KKKJack is so damn deep in oil’s pockets, he’ll lose everything if he doesn’t push this through, and he’s a known bigot who thinks there would be no loss if all us Indians dropped dead. The Ndakota cops, such as they are, have been sold to DA and ETP, paid thugs for oil, all for the price of getting to play soldier with shiny toys.

That’s really the key in North Dakota — and beyond. Starting the transition by saying that Dakota Access Pipeline represents our past and a mistake. And as part of a managed decline, major fossil fuel infrastructure projects — this pipeline — are no more.

But what about the jobs? What will this do to North Dakota? Actually it could be a great thing. Data from Stanford researchers shows that the transition to clean energy could happen faster than projected — and benefit a state almost immediately. In North Dakota the Solutions Project says an transformation “plan pays for itself in as little as 2 years from air pollution and climate cost savings alone.” Two years? Imagine the intellectual activity, the construction, the jobs, the fresh investment, all that would come together to make that so. It would be mind-blowing.  The Stanford data says such a transition would create 8,574 permanent operations jobs and 21,744 construction jobs.

Doesn’t that sound good? Sounds good to me. But no, better to force this fucking destruction through, and hey, if Ndakota happens to go happily Hitlerian genocidal, well, it’s just a buncha Injuns, right?

Full story here.

No DAPL and Indigenous News Roundup.

Unicorn Riot/Vimeo Officers liberally douse water protectors with pepper spray at the front lines of the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Unicorn Riot/Vimeo
Officers liberally douse water protectors with pepper spray at the front lines of the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Trigger Warning: Disturbing Video of DAPL Confrontation.

This video, taken directly from the front lines of the October 27 police crackdown on the camp established in the pipeline’s path on treaty-protected indigenous land, contains disturbing images. Police douse protectors with mace as if squirting water from a hose, shoot them with tasers and throw them to the ground, all in the name of building a pipeline. Those against the project say they are there solely to protect the water.

[Read more…]

Sunday Facepalm.

Grant Stinchfield.

Grant Stinchfield.

NRA TV. There’s something that is unneeded as an extra hole in the head. The host of NRA TV is Grant Stinchfield, pro-Trump, and quite the conspiracy fan. There are times I miss television, and there are times I’m very grateful I decided I could live without it. This is definitely the latter.

Grant Stinchfield, the host of a new venture from the National Rifle Association called NRATV, has written on social media that minorities should be blamed for gun violence and promoted conspiracy theories that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered and that “maybe Israelis” shot down a Russian passenger aircraft.

Launched earlier this month, NRATV plays material from the NRA’s video archive 24 hours a day, with Stinchfield breaking in to give live updates. Many of the updates involve promoting the candidacy of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and are branded with a graphic that says, “ELECTION COUNTDOWN: SAVE THE 2ND.” (Though Stinchfield, a conservative Texas-based radio host and former Republican candidate for Congress, previously authored a column in which he said he regretted voting for Trump during the GOP primary.)

Media Matters has the full story, along with an assortment of Stinchfield’s conspiracy tweets.

NO DAPL: Water Protectors Needed!

Courtesy Rob Wilson Photography.

Courtesy Rob Wilson Photography.

Sarah Sunshine Manning highlights and details the need for more water protectors to make their way to the camps.

On October 18, water protectors called for reinforcements as the Dakota Access construction is quickly closing in on the Missouri River in North Dakota.

Water protectors, skilled in non-violent direct action, should plan to make their way to Standing Rock as quickly as you can get here.

This massive call-to-action is endorsed by more than 10 groups, including the Indigenous Peoples Power Project (IP3), The Ruckus Society, the Indigenous Environmental Network, Honor The Earth, the Oceti Sakowin Camp, the Sacred Stone Camp, West Coast Women Warriors Media Cooperative, Ancestral Pride, Digital Smoke Signals, Greenpeace USA, and The Other98.

“If we’re going to beat the pipeline, we’re going to need more people,” Nick Tilsen, Oglala Lakota, and co-founder of the Indigenous Peoples Power Project, told me.

An informational video was released in accompaniment with the joint-statement made by the groups with the title, “Warriors Wanted.”

“We’re asking for reinforcements to come stand with us, to pray, and to protect,” Tilsen said. “Of all the times to take action, the time is now.”

On October 22, water protectors in the camps reported that Dakota Access construction was just a few miles from the camp, and approximately 5 miles from the Missouri River.

[…]

In another Facebook video posted by Mark K. Tilsen, Oglala Lakota from Porcupine, South Dakota, Tilsen delivered a poignant message to allies across the globe:

“I’m asking you to come to Standing Rock,” he said. “Follow local leadership, but you will be given autonomy to choose your actions, and how you choose to creatively stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Please. Come to Standing Rock.”

Mark Tilsen has been stationed at the Oceti Sakowin camp for the past two months, also assisting in non-violent direct action trainings.

“We need help. We need bodies on the ground,” said Tilsen. “We need people here who are dedicated and willing. This is not a tourist action. This is not a party. We’re here to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Thank you.”

There’s much more here, including a video about strip searching protesters who were arrested for disorderly conduct. This is an obvious tactic on the part of the Keystone cops here to humiliate those who dare to protect the earth and water. Even Chairman Archambault was subjected to this.

In other NO DAPL news:

[Read more…]

Renee Davis, Killed by Cops.

Native single mom Renee Davis was five months pregnant when she was killed by deputies on Friday (Facebook.com)

Native single mom Renee Davis was five months pregnant when she was killed by deputies on Friday (Facebook.com)

Renee Davis was five months pregnant when she was fatally shot by King County sheriff’s deputies checking on her welfare Friday night, according to her foster sister, Danielle Bargala.

Davis, 23, had struggled with depression, and had texted someone earlier that night to say she was in a bad way, according to Bargala. That person had alerted law enforcement, leading the deputies to arrive at Davis’ house on Muckleshoot tribal lands shortly after 6:30 p.m.

Bargala, a Seattle University law student, said Saturday that she and other family members have a lot of questions about what happened next. The sheriff’s office declined to comment Saturday beyond what it said Friday night — that the deputies, investigating a report of someone suicidal, found a young woman with a handgun and two small children in the house.

The children were Davis’, ages 2 and 3, according to Bargala. The single mother had a third child, 5, who was at the home of a family friend Friday.

Yesterday, I posted about Native Lives Matter, and an article about the high percentage of Native people who die at the hands of cops. More Indigenous people are killed by cops than any other group. The complete lack of interest in that post was not in the least unexpected, but it left me with a bitter, burning sadness I can’t begin to describe. Yesterday, three people were good enough to actually click over and read the article linked, and one kind person shared the post. I don’t know who you are, but I thank you, from the depth of my heart.

On Friday, Renee Davis was gunned down by cops who were supposedly there to do a wellness check. Obviously, nothing good happened to Ms. Davis. It’s doubtful that any judgment will go against the cops, they seldom do, and yet another Native person is dead at the hands of cops.

Via The Seattle Times.

Reno Truck Assault: Driver Charged.

Courtesy Louis Magriel/Reno Gazette-Journal.

Courtesy Louis Magriel/Reno Gazette-Journal.

The 18-year-old man who drove through a crowd of 40 protestors was charged Friday with provoking assault and released on a $1,000 bond, police said.

Five people were injured when Nick Mahaffey rammed his white Nissan pickup truck into a group of Columbus Day protestors in Reno, Nevada, last week.

Police also charged two protesters involved in the incident. James Fletcher and Samuel Harry were both charged with simple battery, CBS News reported.

ICTMN has the full story.

Native Lives Matter.

I have mentioned, often, that in uStates, the highest percentage of extrajudicial killings are of Indigenous people. To say this isn’t well known would be quite the understatement. It isn’t known at all, and when people do find out, they don’t much care. The Guardian has kept track, along with all the other groups of people who are consistently killed by cops. Very few of these murders get any press at all. The murder of Loreal Tsingine got a little bit, and so did the murder of John T. Williams. Those people who read Indian publications are aware of most of the others, but they don’t get any write up at all. Indigenous people also have the highest rates of dying in captivity, and cops casually toss off excuses like “hey, she overdosed on meth”, as they did in the case of Sarah Lee Circle Bear, who was only 24 years old. The cops neglected to explain how she could have died from a meth overdose while in custody for two days. Sarah’s case, and that of so many others, has been a cause of deep outrage in Indigenous circles, but once again, if you aren’t reading native publications, you aren’t likely to know about any of them.

Chase Iron Eyes started NLM in 2014, but once again, it’s been a slow take because about the only people who care about native lives are natives. In These Times has a very good article about Native deaths at the hands of law enforcement, and the bigotry Natives face every single day. Please, go read. Please, share. I thank you.

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The Police Killings No One Is Talking About.

How Cops Get Away With Murder.

former-cop-guns-3x2

GQ has an in-depth interview with Raeford Davis, a former South Carolina cop (until 2006). It’s good reading, I recommend it. Just a bit here:

When you first became a police officer, what sort of training did you get for de-escalating a potentially violent encounter?

Very little. My academy manual was approximately 1,500 pages long. Of that, maybe 10-20 pages cover effective communication and verbal de-escalation techniques. It wasn’t really until you got out with your field training officer that they would say, “Look you’ve got to talk to people and settle things without getting worked up.” In a lot of ways, when you got on the street you were unlearning a lot of the worst case scenario training that you learned at the academy.

I don’t think the disgrace of so-called police training here in uStates is much of a mystery to most people anymore, but I really wonder if any cops are actually unlearning that garbage anymore.

Were there any mechanisms in place to weed out people who weren’t suited for the job?

Most people wash out based on academic issues and obvious physical issues, like a bad knee, that would prevent them from performing their duties than anything else. As far as spotting over-aggressive or mentally unstable red flags, no, I didn’t see where that would come up and it certainly didn’t with my group. How people washed out from the academy beyond that would be off-campus problems, like getting a DUI or, as happened to one guy, getting into a road rage incident and flashing his badge and gun at people. But it’s the barrel that’s bad, regardless of the apples.

So, what are some of the things you learned about how to behave in those worst case scenarios?

We have this “use of force” continuum. It changes depending on the agency, but there’s a basic format. You can increase your level of response based on the reaction of the individual. You start off with your mere presence, then you have verbal commands, and if that doesn’t work you can put your hands on someone. If they pull back, then you can maybe use a pressure point technique. If they take a swing at you, then you can escalate to a baton. The main takeaway I got from my training concerning individuals armed with a knife or similar weapon was the “21 foot rule.” Basically if you confront anyone with a knife and they get within 21 feet, you can shoot them.

The full interview is at GQ.  Via Black Lives Matter.

Do Not Resist.

(AFP Photo/Justin Sullivan).

(AFP Photo/Justin Sullivan).

Officers with assault rifles, backed by a huge armored grenade launcher, square up to a crowd furiously denouncing the killing of a young black neighbor.

It is a scene which could have been taken from archive footage of Mogadishu in 1990s Somalia or countless other battles, but this conflict is closer to home — the streets of small-town America.

The images, captured in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, open “Do Not Resist” — a disturbing documentary charting the transformation of police across the US into forces that look like military units.

The explosive film is set to fuel an already bitter debate raging in America over heavy-handed law enforcement, following a litany of police killings of black men that have sparked protests from Ferguson and Charlotte to Chicago.

Director Craig Atkinson, whose movie is opening across the US having won best documentary feature at the Tribeca Film Festival, says the American law enforcement ethos has changed “from a mentality of peacekeepers to that of an occupying army.”

Another eye-opening scene shows officers in black fatigues firing volley after volley of automatic rounds at cardboard targets, as if they were preparing for war rather than to “protect and serve.”

A khaki-clad instructor explains that security forces must prepare for all kinds of attacks, “including the Islamic State.”

MRAPs, the armored trucks that protect troops from roadside bombs planted along the dusty roads of Iraq and Afghanistan, are now ubiquitous across the US.

[…]

In another shocking scene, a SWAT team arrives in an MRAP at a tree-lined street in Columbia, South Carolina, to execute a search warrant in a drug case.

The officers, whose equipment looks barely distinguishable from that of an infantry division, end up badly damaging a family home in a raid that nets a small amount of loose cannabis.

Atkinson’s father, a retired policeman from Detroit, Michigan, spent over a decade in one such SWAT team, the New York-based filmmaker explains.

“In his time, his team intervened 29 times in 13 years. Now they are taking part in 200 raids a year,” Atkinson tells AFP.

[…]

Campaigners against police militarization accept that SWAT teams and their heavy-duty hardware have a vital role in combatting the rare instances of terrorism in the US.

But they point out that, due to prolonged mission creep, this is no longer how these resources are used.

Peter Kraska, a criminology professor at the University of Eastern Kentucky, says there are now at least 50,000 SWAT raids a year, up from 3,000 in the 1980s.

Most of the activities of these highly specialized units have little to do with the reasons for their inception, such as dealing with hostage situations, terrorist attacks and drug cartels.

According to Atkinson, one of the architects of the “warrior culture” is a hugely successful police trainer named Dave Grossman, head of a consulting firm called the Killology Research Group.

“We are at war and you are the frontline troops in this war. What do you fight violence with? Superior violence,” Grossman hollers at an audience of mesmerized police in one session filmed for the documentary.

The retired army lieutenant colonel has lectured throughout the US, according to his website, and Atkinson believes his influence has spread to every American law enforcement agency.

For those who are woke, none of this will come as a surprise, but I’d say this is necessary viewing for us all, and this ongoing militarization not only must be stopped, it needs to be revoked. It’s time to take all those shiny toys away from all the bully boys out there. If cops want to continue playing military, I suggest they quit being a cop, and join up.

Via Raw 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.