(Getty Images)
Note: By 2018 this protest was better known as just Standing Rock.
#NoDAPL (2016- ), rhymes with apple, is the Twitter name for the protests that started in April 2016 against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The Standing Rock Sioux Reservation says the oil pipeline threatens its sacred lands and its water supply, the Missouri River.
Water protectors: Over 8,000 protesters have gathered at Standing Rock. Among them are green activists, military veterans (unarmed) – and over 320 First Nations from throughout the Americas, the largest such gathering since at least the 1970s, if not the 1800s.
Crackdown: The heavy-handed crackdown by DAPL security, police and the National Guard on unarmed, largely peaceful protesters has featured attack dogs, tear gas, pepper spray, water cannons (even in freezing weather!), sound cannons, rubber bullets and concussion grenades. Hundreds have been injured, hundreds have been arrested (Amy Goodman of Democracy Now among them).
The United Nations on the crackdown:
“The use of violence by some protesters should not be used as a justification to nullify the peaceful assembly rights of everyone else.”
“Marking people with numbers and detaining them in overcrowded cages, on the bare concrete floor, without being provided with medical care, amounts to inhuman and degrading treatment.”
Environmental racism: The pipeline was to cross the Missouri River just north of White-majority Bismarck. Bismarck raised concerns that the pipeline would poison their water supply. So the pipeline was rerouted, guess where, just north of an Indian reservation, under the Lake Oahe part of the Missouri River – without even so much as an Environmental Impact Statement! On top of that, it crosses sacred lands and burial grounds without the agreement of Standing Rock – which is against the law. But the courts approved it anyway.
Standing Rock objected to the pipeline, but the pipeline company, backed by the courts and the police, blew them off. Thus the protests. (Standing Rock was the reservation of Sitting Bull and Vine Deloria, Jr)
The pipeline crosses four states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. It is 87% complete. Just the bit near Standing Rock is left. That bit is to cross land and water claimed by both Standing Rock and the US Army.
On December 4th 2016, on the eve of what promised to be an ugly showdown between protesters and state police, the US Army Corps of Engineers said it would not approve the pipeline crossing, that the matter needed further study to determine the safest river crossing. That could take months to years.
Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) and Sunoco Logistics, who are building the pipeline, still say they:
“fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting in and around Lake Oahe”.
Enter Donald Trump: Trump, soon to become the US president, has come out in favour of the pipeline. In 2015 he had money in ETP and in Phillips 66, which owns a fourth of the pipeline. Kelcy Warren, the head of ETP, gave Trump money to run for president. Those close to Trump say he will review the matter in January.
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
- Welcome to Native American Heritage Month 2016
- Donald Trump
- protesters:
- The Sioux today
- Standing Rock
- Vine Deloria Jr
- Conquest Masquerading as Law – the courts and Native Americans
- The Whiteness of American history
- Flint Water Crisis
- The Occupation of Alcatraz
541
Abagond 
Reblogged this on League of Bloggers For a Better World.
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It ain’t over until it is over.
This win appears to be for the individuals who are protesting.
What will the Donald do with this project.
Most comments I have read are against this project based on fear and a play on Corporate greed against the little man.
What is the true story?
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@ Allen Shaw
“What is the true story?”
It all depends on whose land you think it is and whether you believe Native people should have any say over what happens to their sacred sites and burial grounds.
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Solitaire: U do not understand.
I do not have a position. I ask a question
U came back with a question.
I suppose U believe what U believe; however it does not make it so.
What is the position U take on the thousands of other laws that have been passed. Are they all illegal or just those that U think are illegal.
By the way, I have enjoyed the ranting and raging that has been taking place on this site over the last few weeks as every one struggles to realize that Mr. Trump is going to be President.
Every type of comment except the disaster that has fallen upon all of us.
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@Abagond…“The pipeline was to cross the Missouri River just north of White-majority Bismarck. Bismarck raised concerns that the pipeline would poison their water supply. So the pipeline was rerouted, guess where, just north of an Indian reservation, under the Lake Oahe part of the Missouri River “
THAT is the point that screams the continued NIMBY racism and white privilege that continues to thrive here in America. {SMDH}
“You can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge!”
Yeah, I’m a sucker for that old, Dr. Phil adage I heard a long time ago when I thought his ass wasn’t a self-promoting, bourgeois-Jerry-Springer, carnival barker but hey — it IS true!
That said — (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do441aJdY3g&w=560&h=315) — Thoughts Family?
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@ Allen Shaw
I didn’t come back with a question but with a statement. Read it again.
“What is the position U take on the thousands of other laws that have been passed. Are they all illegal or just those that U think are illegal.”
Looks like you also need to reread this part of Abagond’s post: “On top of that, it crosses sacred lands and burial grounds without the agreement of Standing Rock – which is against the law.”
Against the law = illegal.
What the federal and corporate entities did by rerouting the pipeline without obtaining agreement is illegal.
Not illegal in my opinion, but illegal according to the rule of law established in and by this nation.
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Part of the legal issue deals with the concept of eminent domain and public service companies rights to private property for the public good in regards to power, water ect. In this case it is a private Oil company not a public service company that is claiming eminate domain over private properties in the area. In this pay for play senerio the government is granting eminate domain privilages to a private company that wants to ship oil to Mexico.
http://m.democracynow.org/stories/16596
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Wait a minute! You mean to tell me that one group of people can sail the open seas for months at a time, land at a destination that wasn’t even planned, overthrow, slaughtered untold scores of millions through violence and the introduction of diseases, immolation, forced to march half way across the country, decapitation, pillaged, raped and enslaved the remainder of those who were lucky enough to escaped the swinging of swords and the discharging of musket rifles.
Additionally, when Native American women became pregnant, white settlers violently hurled them against the rocks. Psalm 137:9 “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. This was just another demonic method of population control. (smh)
Unsurprisingly, the Bible says a certain group of people never was apportioned any land to begin with and therefore, would be somewhat of a homeless wanderer. Genesis 4:12: “When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.”
Fast forward to December 2016. And now, approximately 400 years after a certain group of people took this land through force and chicanery, are at it again. This time, with militarized police units, Pepper spray, Pit Bulls, German Shepherds and tear gas canisters and the framing of cartoonish laws to commit further theft of land in order to build an oil pipeline for economic purposes and benefit a few greedy, cigar smoking, tobacco chewing white settlers.
I’m afraid I do not have enough space and time to list that over 500 treaties have been broken by the U.S. government and countless wars fought between the Native Americans and white settlers.
You white people ought to be ashamed of yourselves considering your collective behavior against people of color over the past few millennial! Personally, I’m not that surprised because this is how mutants behave. On one hand, they should be ashamed, but on the other hand, I understand that collectively, they’re incapable of displaying emotions towards the original HUE-MAN.
Psalm 94:20-21 Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law? They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.
http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/09/hearing-ordered-standing-rock-sioux-tribe-reports-destruction-sacred-sites/
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What you are saying is all hearsay. The land was removed from the Reservation in 1944 by law.
My question again is what laws do we follow?
Everyone will believe what they will believe; however the primary concern that the residence have is “is it safe to go under the river with an oil pipe line.
The public has no say, I have no say and you have no say. The current President must believe he wants to stop it and the new President says he wants it.
Stand by:
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@Blakkslage: I would suggest you study the history of the people of Northern Africa, the Middle East, southern and northern Europe and Russia before you act surprised at what actions people will take.
Before they arrived in the Americas they have slaughters millions and millions of people and they have continued through out history up until the mass slaughter taking place in the Middle East currently.
Why do people think anything is going to change?
Idealism is what caused the election of the current President Elect.
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@ Allen Shaw
It doesn’t matter whether the land is on a reservation or not. There is a federal law, the National Historic Preservation Act, which makes it illegal to knowingly destroy a tribal sacred site.
The federal government and the corporations know there are tribal sacred sites on the land in question. They can’t claim ignorance. This is a violation of federal law.
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@ Solitaire Hearsay. You only know what you are reading and what you choose to believe.
If this were your business you would want people to stay out of it, yet you express your thoughts as though you are the wises of the sages.
Let the courts handle this matter.
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@ Allen Shaw
“Hearsay. You only know what you are reading and what you choose to believe.”
Today I learned that reading federal law = hearsay. Who woulda thunk?
“If this were your business you would want people to stay out of it”
Not necessarily. If the federal government, the state government, local law enforcement, and private corporations were trying to desecrate my grandmother’s grave, and I was trying to prevent it as a lone citizen, you better believe I would want and welcome as much help as I could get from like-minded individuals, activist organizations, and the press.
Allen Shaw, what do you think the Native Americans of Standing Rock ought to do? Roll over and let yet another piece of their heritage be ripped away from them without a murmur?
You don’t like us discussing these issues and you don’t like Abagond writing about them. Should we instead be talking about the Pie in the Sky and the Big Rock Candy Mountain?
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@Solitaire: You can’t hold a conversation without attempting to insult the person you are communicating with.
My suggestion is let he courts handle the matter, as I stated in my last comment.
Unless you have studied a lot of law yourself you are repeating what some one said. If the law was as clear as you think it is there would be no dispute.
Do not bother to respond with another negative comment as I will be out of here.
Perhaps you might comment on some of the President Elect’s action instead of attempting to get involved in matters that are political and beyond your control.
D-Day – 47.
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@ Allen Shaw
Where did I insult you?
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@ Solitaire,
I just read all your comments. I did not see a single insult or negative comment. Actually, all quite positive. Only this one seemed a bit sarcastic:
And I would love to see some posts on that. 😛
Anyhow, I did notice that Mr. Shaw changed his position rather quickly, ie,
to (a stated position on whether people should hold a position)
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2016/12/05/nodapl/#comment-360267
which basically says that no one should have a position on this, that it is nobody’s business.
From a common law perspective, it should be everyone’s business.
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When responding to Blakksage, Allen Shaw said: “Why do people think anything is going to change? Idealism is what caused the election of the current President Elect.”
Allen, I understand your level of frustration. I also see that you’re incapable of either refuting, counter-argue or contradict what I’ve posted. What you’ve posted is sheer ad hominem and attempting to shift the subject to the presidential election is not going to work here. Therefore, I’ll respond in a more meaningful manner when you post something of substance.
Have a great day Allen, and make sure your next cup of coffee is decaf!
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I’ve been meaning to spend some time studying the treaty and other issues concerning the challenged stretch of pipeline, but have not had the chance. Lots of misinformation out there, though, such as the bit about the pipeline being first NIMBY’d by Bismark. There was a Bismark route that was considered initially but it presented more risks than the current route in terms of crossing multiple tributaries and wetlands, crossing multiple roads, passing nearby to many residences, etc.
As currently routed, the DAPL will cross the Missouri River twice. The first crossing is upstream from Bismark. There is no protest taking place with respect to that crossing. It would have been possible to route it westward, around the Missouri, avoiding any crossing at all, but that would have added many miles to the pipeline and increased its cost by a large number. It would also have routed the line through an area of many lakes, tributaries and wetlands, increasing by many times the risk of polluting the ecosystem.
The controversial stretch of the DAPL follows an existing natural gas pipeline that already runs through the same area and was built decades ago. It is not uncommon to route pipelines through the same corridor because the right of way is already owned.
Moving oil by pipeline is way safer from an ecological perspective than other alternatives, mainly moving it overland by truck or rail. The volume of spills and number of accidents via overland transportation is a lot higher than via pipeline.
The regulatory framework and process that gives rise to this dispute is complicated, on purpose. The concept of regulatory capture is at play here. Regulatory capture is where a regulated industry learns to manipulate the regulatory process for its own benefit. The oil bizz is a master of this. The planning for this pipeline has been going on for years, but the protests are cropping up only now, after all of the dirty backroom stuff has been done.
The oil industry is famous for routing oil lines through waterways that put populations at risk. There is currently an old, rusty, beyond-its-safe-life line running north/south between Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas, under the boundary between Lakes Michigan and Huron, next to the Mackinaw Bridge. A rupture of that line, which is a real risk, would affect the largest clean freshwater supply in the world, a source of drinking water for millions of people ranging from Chicago to Milwaukee to Detroit.
Anybody commenting on this issue on a computer, using the internet, is complicit in this process. The oil biz is rich and powerful because humans consume lots of oil. We are greedy and we want to keep on buying huge quantities of the stuff, so they work hard to comply, laughing all the way to the bank. A big user is electrical generating. A big user of electricity is the internet and other electronic devices. In the last few decades the per capita use of electricity in the developed western world has increased, mainly due to computers and the internet. The oil being harvested in North Dakota is fueling that thirst.
Ironically, due to the influx of oil and other fuels from other areas, the North Dakota oil bizz has seen a significant downturn in the last year or so. Former boomtowns are turning into ghost towns. Once the pipeline is completed, the volume of oil it will transport will be a trickle compared to the volume that was in play when this pipeline was in the planning stages. In the meantime, that oil has been transported overland, resulting in multiple accidents and spills along the way, most of which would not have occurred had the pipeline been in place all along.
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Access to clean water is a basic human right. So the Native Americans and the poor people in Flint Michigan are suffering because of the evil establishment. I also feel that their sacred ground should be respected and not disturbed.
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Protectors, not protestors
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Protectors, not protesters
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@ Jefe
Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it. Yes, that part was somewhat sarcastic but also serious because Mr. Shaw frequently criticizes the topics Abagond chooses as being too negative or about stuff that we can’t affect anyway so why talk about it?
“From a common law perspective, it should be everyone’s business.”
Exactly, thank you!
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@Blanc2
“Anybody commenting on this issue on a computer, using the internet, is complicit in this process. The oil biz is rich and powerful because humans consume lots of oil. We are greedy and we want to keep on buying huge quantities of the stuff, so they work hard to comply, laughing all the way to the bank.”
Yes, humans consume lots of oil. However, we don’t consume oil entirely by choice. There are safer, renewable alternatives such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and wave that have been systematically sidelined by those very same oil companies and their political servants.
There is also the issue of taxpayer subsidies for the fossil fuel extractors. Those subsidies advantage oil and gas, etc. and disadvantage renewables. Finally there is the issue of endless wars that siphon tax dollars away from socially useful needs like education, healthcare and housing. Some of those war funds land in the pockets of the fossil fuel extractors.
So the fossil fuel providers get a payday not only from consumers, but also through subsidies and war contracts. That is the real reason they are laughing all the way to the bank; not because of our “greed” but theirs.
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Afrofem: All true and good points, and certainly tax subsidies of the petroleum industry have been a vector in creating our infrastructure that relies so much on its use (that was on purpose — US economic policy post-WWII was propelled in large part by supporting the automobile as the basis for a way of life, thus creating a large manufacturing sector with lots of blue collar jobs), yet the amount of energy consumed by humans could not be supplied by solar, wind, etc. In fact, fossil energy is solar energy. It was created by the sun, shining on vegetation that died and decayed, or was eaten by animals that died and decayed, over millions of years. It is the cumulative solar energy from millions of years of sunshine, stored in fossil form. This is why such small amounts of the stuff can now release such giant amounts of energy. There is not enough sunshine in one year to produce the electricity that humans use in that same year via solar/wind (wind being yet another form of solar energy — wind currents are generated by heating and cooling of the sun).
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@Blanc2
Tax subsidies of fossil fuel extractors are a waste of taxpayer money. Oil companies are among the most profitable corporations on the planet. They did not need subsidies in the past and they certainly do not need them now. Subsidies represent another way fossil fuel extractors divert funds from the national treasury to their own pockets. The subsidies exist because of their ability to purchase politicians.
Renewable sources of energy such as sun, wind and geothermal are perfectly capable of meeting global energy demands. Recent energy storage technology in the form of batteries are making one hundred percent energy conversion to renewables feasible. According to Eco Watch:
http://www.ecowatch.com/how-better-battery-storage-will-expedite-renewable-energy-1882097909.html/
” fossil energy is solar energy. It was created by the sun, shining on vegetation that died and decayed, or was eaten by animals that died and decayed, over millions of years. It is the cumulative solar energy from millions of years of sunshine, stored in fossil form.”
The fossil energy is solar energy argument is specious. In other words, it sounds reasonable, but is false. Fossil energy comes from stored carbon. Human extraction and burning of that stored carbon has caused an imbalance, an excess of carbon, methane and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, oceans and polar ice caps. That excess is driving climate change and threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. Burning fossil fuels is not a sustainable energy solution for humans or the planet.
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Well everything said about this subject may be correct; however the entire world today is geared to use oil.
Everything I read indicated all new work environments are using modern methods such as windmills, solar or nuclear.
It will be a very long time before the use of oil is not needed because of the lifespan of of the current means of production.
When it is no longer profitable for oil it will be abandoned.
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@Allen Shaw
Nuclear power is not a clean renewable energy source. The technology is dangerous and storing the toxic waste products is a major hazard.
Fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal could have been abandoned long ago. They are still around because the suppliers have great sway over their paid political servants.
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@Scribh
At least he is showing his true intentions right out of the gate. Both moves were expected.
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[…] #NoDAPL […]
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Just read an Intercept report based on leaked documents on how Energy Transfer Partners used the services of a military mercenary firm called TigerSwan to oppose the NoDAPL protestors.
The private firm worked in conjunction with the police forces of more than five states to shut down the peaceful protests of Standing Rock. According to the article:
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/27/leaked-documents-reveal-security-firms-counterterrorism-tactics-at-standing-rock-to-defeat-pipeline-insurgencies/
This shows how energy dinosaurs are resorting to extreme measures to keep an unsustainable business model alive. Unarmed, peaceful protestors in an occupying encampment are compared to a ” jihadist insurgency model” operating on a “battlefield”. This is true not only in the energy sector, but also in other corporate and government sectors. Ordinary citizens non-violently asserting their rights are labeled and treated like berserk soldiers on a battlefield.
Abraham Maslow made a good point in 1966 when he wrote, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” Sometimes hammers hurt the hands that use them.
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Red Fawn Fallis (Oglala Lakota) has been sentenced to almost 5 years in prison for firing a weapon at the protest, which may actually have been an accidental discharge.
This was a plea bargain; she originally was charged with attempted murder.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/api/amp/indiancountrytoday/news/red-fawn-fallis-sentenced-to-57-months-in-dapl-case-bDMvjx0aiU-Fq7QTCjnN1Q/
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The gun belonged to an activist who was secretly an FBI informant. That is what the quote in the first article refers to, about an informant who tried to talk protesters into arming themselves.
https://theintercept.com/2017/12/11/standing-rock-dakota-access-pipeline-fbi-informant-red-fawn-fallis/
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“Among the hundreds of people arrested in North Dakota for protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, Native Americans faced the most serious charges.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thinkprogress.org/native-americans-who-protested-dakota-access-get-handed-the-longest-prison-sentences-e7510ca5f2d7/amp/
Meanwhile, the white ranchers who set fire to public lands in order to cover up their game violations were pardoned by Trump and flown home on a private jet owned by a Pence donor.
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@Solitaire…“Meanwhile, the white ranchers who set fire to public lands in order to cover up their game violations were pardoned by Trump and flown home on a private jet owned by a Pence donor.”
My first thought as I began to read your comment!!! SMDH
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