So this morning Unpresident Trump signed executive orders that will move construction forward on the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines. Because of course he did.
But the fight is far from over. If you would like to support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and others who have stood up against the pipelines, in the face of ferocious and sometimes frankly shocking police violence, there are many good options.
Go to Stand With Standing Rock, the official site of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, to donate money, to find opportunities for activism, or to simply learn more about the issue.
Go to the website of the Camp of the Sacred Stones, founded by the Standing Rock Lakota Nation and other Lakota, Nakota, & Dakota citizens, to offer donations or other kinds of help.
Go to DefundDAPL.org to support an effort to get banks to divest from the pipeline projects.
You can find a number of other suggestions for activism at the end of this post.
The independent media website Unicorn Riot offers extensive coverage of the #NoDAPL movement.
Writer and activist Rebecca Solnit’s wrote a thoughtful and inspiring report on the #NoDAPL movement for The Guardian last September.
Follow Ruth Hopkins on Twitter to keep up with what’s going on.
https://twitter.com/RuthHHopkins
H/T — @herbivorous
I was worried about Standing Rock before he was “elected”, but now ? Holy shit. I really, really hope it becomes America’s very own Tiananmen…
Fuck, EDIT : I meant I hope it doesn’t become America’s Tiananmen, obviously. This is what happens when you rethink your phrasing mid-sentence but forget to make sure it’s right.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
An oil pipeline burst in Saskatchewan, spilling 200,000 litres of oil into a reserve. Happened on Friday and I’m just hearing about it now – they kept it quiet apparently.
http://pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw4412-918.gif
Coupled with Trump wanting to ’empower’ police, this does not bode well. Oh, not to mention the “it’s okay if you kill a protester” bill.
@Scildfreja Unnýðnes: I heard about it yesterday, actually, on CBC radio 2. So they definitely kept it quiet over the weekend, but that was reported in the morning yesterday. I was going to say that they told the First Nation’s Chief on Friday (when it was discovered) but based on the article you linked, it seems like someone living near there told her about it.
I’m going to have to look into the pipelines thing here. I’m not in Alberta, but I can still do things federally.
David, perhaps some links for the Canadians in the house? I believe Scildfreja put them in a recent post.
So, if anyone is watching the press conference, MSNBC just had a reporter call out the voter fraud bullshit just as it is, and it was glorious.
Yeah, apparently it was made public on Monday and I just saw the Reuters article today. Woops! I guess I was too sand-blasted by the Trumpocalypse to the south to notice.
Rona Ambrose is my rep. I’m going to have to call and give her a piece of my mind. Probably the angry piece.
This goes beyond just Cheeto Mop. Remember how many roadblocks President Obama had when all he wanted was to give more poor citizens healthcare? Including a government shutdown in December 2013?
Meanwhile, Troompa Loompa is passing one executive order after another in less than a full week! The GOP has had it all ready for him. They always wanted to do this!
Yeah, none of these Executive Orders or bills are actually Trump’s idea. They’re all just the things he’s been given. That’s basically how he operates – find something that’s popular with the group he wants to exploit, then leech off of it and take credit for any successes while refuting anything bad. It’s how he “saved” jobs at Carrier and at that steel mill, or wherever it was. Also, how he won the presidency.
He’ll sign anything that they put under his nose provided that they let him be the figurehead and accept the acclaim. The man’s an empty suit, a vacuum of a man, greedily sucking in all of the praise and acclaim he can, because he knows that he’s got none of his own. Always has been. He’s a name, nothing more.
I came here specifically to ask about the best way of supporting Standing Rock because of this BS. Thank you, David.
Tangent issues need to be adressed as well as they’re gonna affect Standing Rock, like militarization. A fucking Avenger missile launcher is pointed at the Water Protectors right now, because “it’s cheaper” to use that thing’s surveillance arrays rather than an Apache’s.
It’s intimidation, nothing else.
That’s like mounting a camera on a shotgun and then pointing the whole damn thing at you, saying it’s only to film.
This just can’t stand. They need to “monitor” anything, they can rip the surveillance system off the goddamn weapon for all I care – you just don’t bring a fucking missile platform to intimidate protesters.
As someone who works in Cultural Resources, this action terrifies me.
Most Cultural Resource people – historians and archaeologists, looked at the original EIS and said that not enough was done to consult with the tribes and I believe the environmental impact statement was tossed back for not being good enough. They were supposed to be starting the consultation process over.
This is not United States land, this is tribal land, not ours to build on. So
This coupled with Trump announcing he wants to get rid of 75% or more regulations, is terrifying. I work in a large field to STOP these things from happening. If he pulls regulations and compliance law – there are thousands of us that will lose our jobs.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the PIRG (public interest research group) family of orgs take up the issue. They do a lot of environmental issues. The national group is US PIRG bit a lot of states have their own. The MN one, MPIRG has opposed the pipeline not the past. They do a lot of canvassing so they’re a good group to give to for community outreach on these issues.
Just out of curiosity: how are native Americans/Indians (I’ve read that some prefer that name?) seen in the USA? By the ”progressive” community? I read an awful lot about black people and their situation/rights (and rightly so!) but close to nothing about native Americans/Indians.* Don’t they still have massive social issues?
*do tell me if there’s a more appropriate term, I’ve been googling about them in what I guess are ”good” terms such as native American, but as I’m not from the USA, I might’ve missed out on a term that many ”native” people actually prefer. I don’t want to accidentally use racist words or anything.
(it’s also kind of disappointing how little there is about tribes’ lifestyle etc online. I was interested from a anthropological viewpoint, as in, how do/did they live, survive, what were people’s family structures like etc, but info’s sparse)
There’s a lot of racism towards indigenous people across North America (Canada too). Due to treaties creating long term segregation from society as a while, there’s an awful lot of “Out of sight, out of mind” that happens even among progressives.
It doesn’t help that many of the treaties have terms which grant native groups certain exemptions from broader laws regarding hunting/fishing (which are often at odds with environmental groups), and tax exemptions. Both of which give a lot of people the perception of special privileges while hiding the grinding poverty, isolation and lack of opportunities from living on treaty lands.
@Margot
Generally they are referred to as Native Americans as a demographic or by the name of a specific tribe depending on the circumstances. Older people sometimes prefer Indian (older black people sometimes prefer negro. It’s what they grew up with *shrug*). There are hip, new terms like Aboriginal or Indigenous, but aren’t widely used. Default to Native, and nobody should get too mad at you 🙂
By most Muricans? As caricatures. The ‘noble savage’, the ‘wise shaman’, the ‘bad guys in those cowboy movies’. They tend not to be singled out for racist abuse these days, but the neglect, IMO, is just as bad
By ‘progressives’? More or less the same. There’s a lot of ‘cultural tourism’ (that anthropologic interest you mentioned) which is sorta problematic. Basically, they put up with bullshit from all sides. ‘Liberals’ will at least stand up for em tho. But only if there’s a big corporation to oppose. They’re less interested when it’s society as a whole fucking over the tribes…
I’ve been using ‘First Nations’, which I think includes all tribes within Canada, except for the Inuit people, who are referred to typically as ‘Inuit’. I know there’s another group up north who are not Inuit though, and that’s where I get fuzzy on which term to use.
This might be a Canadian specific term, but it is what is used in the citizenship package that new citizens study so it’s what the government uses.
I haven’t seen anything saying that people *dislike* it, so… Hopefully it’s respectful.
I know there are a lot of problems on reserves* here in Canada. Poor water, and a suicide crisis being the first two that come to mind.
*Should I refer to those as ‘Treaty land’? I like that better, since it sounds much more respectful, reinforces that it is their land by treaty.
@Axe
Ironically, the folks at Standing Rock certainly live up to the “wise” stereotype. There’s a damn lot needs to be learnt from them in our own French ZADs. Though I reckon we too might have a few tips for them. Especially now that y’all are under an increasingly unhinged dictatorship tightly backed by a foreign government. We got lots of experience in that field.
@Margot
I am a historian, and not an archaeologist, but work adjacent to Native American cultural resources. Generally, they prefer to be referred to as Native American, or by their specific tribal name. Although some have taken back the term Indian, and some prefer just Native.
The rest of your question is incredibly wide-reaching. There are currently over 500 federally recognized Native American tribes within the United States, each with their own set of history, language, culture, and beliefs. Throughout the history of the United States, Native Americans have generally been treated like crap, with little legal recourse. These include being killed, forced off their land, and forced to assimilate and forget their native cultural and language. Each tribe has a different story that outlines the struggle to retain their history and heritage.
Some Native Americans live on tribal land, which is their in sovereignty, and not exactly United States land. Others, hold their land in a trust, and do not claim tribal land. Tribes can make money a variety of ways but the most well-known, is the construction and running of casinos (fun fact, most casinos in Wisconsin are on tribal land, and therefore do not have to follow the ban on smoking indoors).
Many tribes have been displaced and their land is not actually within the area historically associated with their people. Under numerous federal laws, such as the National Preservation Act of 1966 and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act they have the ability to consult over projects that take place on their historic tribal land. It is under the National Preservation Act of 1966 that the current DAPL is being contested.
So, there really isn’t a great overview of Native peoples in America, since they are incredibly diverse. I would suggest choosing one or two at a time to research and read about.
@Rhuu
That’s basically the gameplan, yeah 🙂
@Dan
Or 5 at once!
It looks like the missiles at Standing Rock have been relocated, but not removed.
@ Margot, @ Dan Hoan
I got a bit of a deja vu from this… took me back to a record album from the early ’70s, “Custer Died For Your Sins” by Floyd Red Crow Westerman… had a song named “Here Come The Anthro’s”. Also some darn good resistance music! Hard as hell to find, tho!!
p.s., Margot, don’t take this as an attack, it’s not, just that your comment reminded me if this.
It looks like the missiles at Standing Rock have been relocated, but not removed.
@ Margot, @ Dan Hoan
I got a bit of a deja vu from this… took me back to a record album from the early ’70s, “Custer Died For Your Sins” by Floyd Red Crow Westerman… had a song named “Here Come The Anthro’s”. Also some darn good resistance music! Hard as hell to find, tho!!
p.s., Margot, don’t take this as an attack, it’s not, just that your comment reminded me if this.
@Axe: omg omg I always always think of this:
I feel as if we’re going to be seeing this a lot….
@Rhuu
Ha!
For anyone interested in the Haudenosaunee:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79RApCgwZFw
and