Washington, DC.

Photos and videos are flowing in from Washington DC, and the protests at the hearing there today. You can see much more at https://twitter.com/RedRoadWoman.

Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Rezpect Our Water.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition. And please, please, signal boost as much as you can, spread the word – mainstream media is still acting like nothing is going on, and I saw one new MSM article today, and it was covering the 3rd day in August! This has been going on since April, and even now, media can’t manage to be remotely current. Help them out by doing their job for them, since they can’t seem to handle it. Thank you!

Resistance: Photo Essay.

San Carlos Apache Tribe council member Wendsler Nosie Sr. embraces Standing Rock Sioux Tribe David Archambault II at the Camp of the Sacred Stones near the Standing Rock reservation, where Nosie came to offer support and prayers to those taking a stand against the Dakota Access oil pipeline. The Apache Stronghold has been fighting for more than a decade to stop the takeover of sacred Oak Flat for copper mining by Rio Tinto. Apache Stronghold is one of nearly 90 tribes that have expressed support.

San Carlos Apache Tribe council member Wendsler Nosie Sr. embraces Standing Rock Sioux Tribe David Archambault II at the Camp of the Sacred Stones near the Standing Rock reservation, where Nosie came to offer support and prayers to those taking a stand against the Dakota Access oil pipeline. The Apache Stronghold has been fighting for more than a decade to stop the takeover of sacred Oak Flat for copper mining by Rio Tinto. Apache Stronghold is one of nearly 90 tribes that have expressed support.

Riders on horseback exit the campsite and keep a watchful eye to ensure that folks stay safe and protected. Some paint their hoses in traditional designs. Thosh Collins.

Riders on horseback exit the campsite and keep a watchful eye to ensure that folks stay safe and protected. Some paint their hoses in traditional designs. Thosh Collins.

Each morning at the Cannon Ball prayer camps, participants walk and ride horse from the campsite to the construction site, about a half-mile away. Songs are sung and prayers are offered by all. (Photo: Thosh Collins)

Each morning at the Cannon Ball prayer camps, participants walk and ride horse from the campsite to the construction site, about a half-mile away. Songs are sung and prayers are offered by all. (Photo: Thosh Collins)

Veterans from tribal nations, including several bands of Lakota and Ojibwe people, carry staffs to lead the crowd toward the pipe ceremony just outside the gate of the construction site. (Photo: Thosh Collins)

Veterans from tribal nations, including several bands of Lakota and Ojibwe people, carry staffs to lead the crowd toward the pipe ceremony just outside the gate of the construction site. (Photo: Thosh Collins)

[Read more…]

Reno Nevada: Action Alert.

Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Rezpect Our Water.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.

Sadness.

Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Rezpect Our Water.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.

Los Angeles: Action Alert.

If you’re in the LA area and can make this, please, please do! Get in the face of mainstream media, ask why we aren’t worth news? We promote protection, peace, responsibility for and allegiance to our earth, the water that is our life, and the protection of all the lives which go forward from here, all the children, all the grandchildren. If we do not stand, if we do not resist, if we do not say no, then the black snake gets to devour us all, leaving us with a dying earth and poisoned water. We must not be resigned, we must care.

As for media, why is peaceful protection not worth a story? Why is an obligation to our earth boring? Why is a commitment to non-violence so non note-worthy? Why do Native lives never matter?

We can change this. Stand with us. Join us. Add your voice. Whatever can be done, please do it. We need everything. We need you.

Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Rezpect Our Water.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.

Dakota Access and The Mindset of Christendom.

Steven Newcomb (Shawnee, Lenape) has an excellent column up at ICTMN, and it’s very relevant to the state’s latest moves against the Lakota people.

You can read about that here.

Onto the column…

When I saw the news of Chairman Archambault’s arrest, it made me think of something our great Shawnee leader Tecumseh said to an audience of Native people:

“The Great Spirit in His wisdom placed you here and gave it [this land] to you and your children to defend. But ä-te-wä! [alas!] the incoming race, like a huge serpent is coiling closer and closer about you.”

Of the pipeline, Chairman Archambault says, “We don’t want this black snake within our Treaty boundaries.” He continues, “We need to stop this pipeline that threatens our water. We have said repeatedly we don’t want it here. We want the Army Corps of Engineers to honor the same rights and protections that were afforded to others, rights we were never afforded when it comes to our territories. We demand the pipeline be stopped and kept off our Treaty boundaries.”

The proposed pipeline will carry millions of barrels of crude oil. It only takes one break and a massive release of the hydrocarbons to poison sacred waters for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe with toxicity. The Standing Rock Hunkpapa know that water is the basis of life and ought to be held in the highest regard.

Ms. Taliman says the conflict is taking place in “Hunkpapa Territory near Cannon Ball.” To an extent this is what the Dakota Access pipeline project comes down to: Whose territory is it, and whose values shall prevail in that territory? The values of the American empire? Or the spiritual and ecological values of Original Nations such as the Standing Rock Sioux Nation?

[Read more…]

Coping With Cops.

Young Rita Waln led a procession of women and children who shook hands with officers at the ND Capitol after they held a demonstration to deny charges that weapons or pipe bombs were at the Lakota encampments along the Missouri River. About 200 water protectors took their message of peace to the governor that they are unarmed and peaceful.

Young Rita Waln led a procession of women and children who shook hands with officers at the ND Capitol.

Throughout the peaceful protest that water protectors are waging against the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation, rumors have swirled about potential threats to public safety—rumors that have been refuted by numerous images and accounts of what is actually happening.

It started with claims on August 17 by Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier that those standing against the pipeline were compromising safety and continued this past weekend, when North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple went so far as to declare a state of emergency across several counties in order to free up federal funds.

“They were preparing to throw pipe bombs at our line, M80s, fireworks, things of that nature, to disrupt us,” Kirchmeier told reporters. “And that in itself makes it an unlawful protest.”

Though Dalrymple stopped short of activating the National Guard, he issued an executive order implying that public safety was at risk.

[…]

With a gathering that has swelled to more than 3,000 people and counting, friction and conflict might not be out of the realm of possibility. But the opposite is in fact the case: accounts and pictures abound of police officers taking off their hats in respect for the daily morning prayers being conducted at the construction site; police shaking hands with a little girl; officers being smudged.

Here are six images of how the dynamics are really playing out on the ground, including one issued by the Bismarck Police Department itself.

Following two days of arresting protestors trying to stop an oil pipeline on Treaty lands, officers joined in morning prayers. As officers learned more about the Tribe's efforts to protect the Missouri River from oil leaks and contamination, many expressed personal support for clean water. (Photo: Courtesy No Dakota Access Pipeline).

Following two days of arresting protestors trying to stop an oil pipeline on Treaty lands, officers joined in morning prayers. As officers learned more about the Tribe’s efforts to protect the Missouri River from oil leaks and contamination, many expressed personal support for clean water. (Photo: Courtesy No Dakota Access Pipeline).

 

Officers removed their hats out of respect as a Lakota prayer song is sung as part of morning prayers at the site where construction was halted by water protectors. (Photo: Courtesy No Dakota Access Pipeline).

Officers removed their hats out of respect as a Lakota prayer song is sung as part of morning prayers at the site where construction was halted by water protectors. (Photo: Courtesy No Dakota Access Pipeline).

 

On day three, after realizing the water protectors are peacefully trying to protect their water from a Texas-based oil company, many officers chose to show respect for morning prayer songs and those who offered to smudge them. (Photo: Courtesy No Dakota Access Pipeline).

On day three, after realizing the water protectors are peacefully trying to protect their water from a Texas-based oil company, many officers chose to show respect for morning prayer songs and those who offered to smudge them. (Photo: Courtesy No Dakota Access Pipeline).

 

We Are Unarmed: After Morton Country Sheriff Kirchmeier said his agency received reports of pipe bombs and threats, Lakota women and children pushed back on those allegations with messages from elders, youth and women. (Photo: Courtesy Indigenous Environmental Network).

We Are Unarmed: After Morton Country Sheriff Kirchmeier said his agency received reports of pipe bombs and threats, Lakota women and children pushed back on those allegations with messages from elders, youth and women. (Photo: Courtesy Indigenous Environmental Network).

 

The Bismarck Police Department itself posted its own photo on Facebook after the same event, with this caption: “Demonstrators shaking hands with officers as event ends. No incidents and peaceful throughout. Thank you to all!” (Photo: Bismarck Police Department/Facebook).

The Bismarck Police Department itself posted its own photo on Facebook after the same event, with this caption: “Demonstrators shaking hands with officers as event ends. No incidents and peaceful throughout. Thank you to all!” (Photo: Bismarck Police Department/Facebook).

Full article at ICTMN.

Fucking Assholes.

Hateful fucking bigots. *spits* Oh, and the military is flying copters over the camps. Armed helicopters. *spits again*

Lakota No Access.

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© Marty Two Bulls.

HUNKPAPA TERRITORY—John Eagle Shield Sr. of Standing Rock, one of several traditionally appointed camp leaders, estimated on Sunday August 21 that about 2,500 people were peacefully gathered amongst what has grown into three separate prayer camps. The mission of those gathered is to protect Standing Rock’s water from the environmentally disastrous Dakota Access Pipeline. The campsites are clustered on the west side of the Cannonball River just north of Cannon Ball, North Dakota, along the Standing Rock reservation’s northern border, where the pipeline is slated to cross.

[Read more…]

A Tale of Two Standoffs.

UrbanNativeEra.

UrbanNativeEra.

Jacobin has a good article up:

The federal response to Lakota protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline couldn’t be more different than their reaction to this year’s Bundy occupation.

[…]

The Lakota, on other hand, are resisting a real and all too familiar danger. Their numbers grow every day. And, unlike the standoff in Oregon, almost no major national news outlets are covering the story. This too participates in a great American tradition: the true fight against oppression is the one nobody notices.

Is that ever the truth. Mainstream media is doing their damndest to ignore us, to ignore the issue. Thanks to Michael McLean at Jacobin for a very good story. Go read, please!

Via Jo-Ellen’s petition.

URGENT Petition Call and Solidarity Sings III

Stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline which endangers the water supply to Native American reservations.

 
Please, please sign – we need many, many, lots of signatures by September 14th. We are all in this together!

CqVTJ0hUkAET6rU.jpg-large

Hupa

There continue to be problems, like this:

People at Pine Ridge rez are being harassed by cops, and turned back in their attempts to travel to the camps. This has been going on a while. The concrete roadblocks remain in place here in ND, and the state is bristling with armed cops. The camps continue to grow, as more people from all roads join us, there are 3 camps now, Sacred Stone Camp, Oceti Sakowin (Seven Councils) Camp, and Red Warrior Camp. There are ways into the camps, keep coming, people, join us! The usual caveat: no feds, no guns, no alcohol. We need supplies, donations, signatures, signal boosting! Yell, talk, dance, light the cedar and sage, please, please stand up, stand with us, join us.

Dakota Access Pipeline Standoff. – Feds Grant TRO Against Standing Rock Members. – Dakota Access Protest: We’re being sued – help us fight it! – Dakota Access Standoff Calls on Obama. – Among Those Arrested… – Sacred Stone Camp: Calling Water Warriors! – Dakota Access: About That Oil… – Dakota Access Purchaser Looking Like Enron. – Standing Rock and IITC File Urgent Communication to UN. – Sacred Stone Camp. – North Dakota: State of Emergency Declared. – Solidarity Sings! – Settling into Camp – Washington DC: Action Alert – Solidarity Sings Along. – WE ARE… –

Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Rezpect Our Water.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.

Dakota Access: Democracy Now! Profiles Water Protectors at Sacred Stones Camp.

WE ARE…

Protect

Protect1

Protect3

Protect4

These are the lies oil is spreading all over about us, especially out Dickinson way. We are not radical extremists. Indians are not busy body out-of-staters. Bad news, Mr. Oil, we were here first. We are not, and have not been violent in any way. Indians can’t be violent, it would be the excuse to finish the genocide.

Out of staters are more than welcome! Everyone is welcome! (Well, no fuckin’ feds. No guns. No alcohol.) Join us! Help us! Stand with us, fight. Fight for our rights to say no. We have a right to safety, to clean water, to healthy land. We stand. We resist. Boost the signal, every and any platform. Donate if you can, supplies, a few dollars, your wireless signal for a few moments, whatever you can do. We have the ability to stand strong. We have the ability to fight for our land, our earth, our water, our people, all people, everywhere. We can stand against corporations and greed. Rise!

#MattRemle – #Honor the Earth – #ProtectorsNOTProtesters – Sacred Stone Camp – Legal Defense Fund. Want a hoodie? (Winter’s coming, stock up!)

Solidarity Sings Along.

The Chief Big Foot Riders arriving in camp to support their Hunkpapa relatives. The riders honor the memory Mniconjou Lakota Chief Bigfoot and his band of 400 people who were massacred at Wounded Knee Creek by the U.S. Army 7th Calvary. In December 1990, they began a four-year commemoration on horseback over the same trail that Chief Big Foot's band followed in 1890, paying tribute and mourning those that died 100 years ago. Credit: Thosh Collins.

The Chief Big Foot Riders arriving in camp to support their Hunkpapa relatives. The riders honor the memory Mniconjou Lakota Chief Bigfoot and his band of 400 people who were massacred at Wounded Knee Creek by the U.S. Army 7th Calvary. In December 1990, they began a four-year commemoration on horseback over the same trail that Chief Big Foot’s band followed in 1890, paying tribute and mourning those that died 100 years ago. Credit: Thosh Collins.

In Iowa, residents are also suing the government, saying that Dakota Access LLC illegally wielded eminent domain to obtain rights of way on their land. That right rests solely with utility companies, they have argued in court. A ruling is pending on that as well, according to The DesMoines Register. Construction has begun in all four states.

Dakota Access Pipeline Standoff. – Feds Grant TRO Against Standing Rock Members. – Dakota Access Protest: We’re being sued – help us fight it! – Dakota Access Standoff Calls on Obama. – Among Those Arrested… – Sacred Stone Camp: Calling Water Warriors! – Dakota Access: About That Oil… – Dakota Access Purchaser Looking Like Enron. – Standing Rock and IITC File Urgent Communication to UN. – Sacred Stone Camp. – North Dakota: State of Emergency Declared. – Solidarity Sings! – Settling into Camp – Washington DC: Action Alert – Solidarity Sings Along. –

Via ICTMN and #LastRealIndians and Simon Moya-Smith.