The standoff continues, at Sacred Stone Camp and in Bismarck. Winona LaDuke ( Anishinaabe) has an interesting column up at ICTMN, as further information comes to light.
The recent announcement of Enbridge’s purchase of the Dakota Access Pipeline came as a surprise to most of us. For the past four years, Enbridge has told the people of Minnesota that the proposed Sandpiper route (Clearbrook to Superior) was essential. It turns out that was not true. Let me try to translate what I think happened.
Oh, the KKK. Gad, they are a whiny bunch of assholes. Seems they are planning to, um, attend a Black Lives Matter Rally on Long Island this Sunday. I’m just going to include the choicer whiny bits here, and boy, are there a lot of them. Click over for the full article, including rally organizer Vanessa Vascez-Corleone’s priceless response, which includes an open invitation, as it seems the Klan’s idea of attending is to lurk in a ‘secret place’.
The Ku Klux Klan, the oldest American hate group in existence, has a message for those organizing Black Lives Matter rallies on the East End: “They should be ashamed of themselves.”
And now the KKK, with its long history of murder and violence, plans to bring members to a Black Lives Matter rally scheduled for Sunday in Westhampton Beach, according to a man identifying himself as a high-ranking KKK member. That rally is slated to begin at noon at the traffic circle near Village Hall.
Speaking Tuesday with Patch, Gary Monker, who said he is the Exalted Cyclops, or chief officer, in New York of the Loyal White Knights of the KKK, said many people have misconceptions about the organization.
“We’re the only organization right now standing up for whites, upholding the second amendment of the Constitution,” he said. “We are not a hate group. We are Christian and we’re trying to restore America back to what it used to be.”
This incredible litany of whine is rich with opportunities for mockery, so everyone, please, mock away, on every possible platform, and show these buffoons up for what they truly are: vile bigots crying crocodile tears over their inability to openly terrorize and murder at will. There’s plenty of material coming up.
Sandy Rios.
Whip out those hankies and you’ll be able to catch crocodile tears!
Christian activists’ boycott of Target hasn’t exactly been a rousing success so far, as the company this week announced that it’s spending $20 million to expand its available restroom options while at the same time remaining inclusive toward transgender people.
Right Wing Watch notices that Christian activist Sandy Rios is so scared that the boycott of Target will be a flop that she fears she’ll never be able to use a public restroom again.
“If we do not keep the pressure on Target, this will quickly — we know how major corporations are, they are scared to death of anything that isn’t politically correct — this will spread like wildfire, we will not be able to go to the bathroom anywhere,” she told Breitbart’s Alex Marlow. “What’s at stake is all the other companies around this country that will just cave, they just will.”
Oh my, it would be nice if you could figure out that this is the way the rest of us already feel. We’ve been living fear of a public lav because of people like you, Ms. Rios. If you really want to settle this, just self ban yourselves from public lavs. Unfortunately, since Breitbart’s nastiest, slimiest, sleaziest, most unethical asshole, Stephen Bannon, has hired onto the Trump campaign, Breitbart is busy whipping this all up again, into a massive frenzy of bigotry and hate.
Full story here.
Brandon Ecoffey at The Lakota Country Times has a good article up about the current fight against Dakota Access pipeline.
For many Americans the fact that the poorest people in the United States have promised to lay their lives down to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline is a bewildering experience. The shock that comes along with the realization that the Oceti Sakowin have come together once again as a united front against one of this country’s most powerful lobbies should come as no surprise for we have been fighting big industry since the arrival of colonial powers in the western hemisphere.
Native people of this country have both experienced and resisted the will of corporations for the entirety of our shared history. We saw the devastation that came with the early fur trade that began with beaver pelts that were eventually replaced by buffalo robes. We witnessed the atrocities that accompanied the powerful cotton lobby and their thirst for slave labor and cheap lands. We foresaw the arrival of settlers in the heart of Lakota Country, who came to take gold from our most sacred lands. Today, the “Horse Nations” are prepared for yet another battle against corporate powers and their allies in the United States Congress.
Most Americans have been taught to believe that the federal government and our elected officials have been put in place to protect our freedoms and way of life. For Native people the truth is the opposite. Since the inception of this republic the policies drafted regarding us have been crafted to take from us our culture or the resources we live on. For these reasons we are conditioned to question all that is offered us by both the government and big oil.
There are two promises that have been made by the oil industry that have proven to be categorically false.
Oh, so sorry to be late with this, it’s been difficult to keep up.
AHO! Sacred Stone Camp is calling on all water warriors, canoeists, kayakers, paddlers, all water warriors, bring your boats, and join us on the Missouri River, Saturday, August 20th. People are coming from all four directions to stand with us, to defend our right to say no, to defend healthy land, healthy water, healthy people, healthy animals. If you can stand for all Turtle Island, please stand with us.
Bring boats, paddles, life jackets, and banners.
Lawsuits are pending, brought by the Oceti Sakowin, but Dakota Access is aggressively pushing the pipeline anyway, not waiting for the hearings next week.
Sacred Stone Camp. Sacred Stone Camp Po. Box 1011 Ft. Yates, ND 58538 A good drop-off for supplies would be the actual camp located on the banks of the Cannonball and Missouri, north of the community of Cannon Ball. Follow the Facebook page for the most frequent updates: https://www.facebook.com/CampoftheSacredStone/
Show up, donate, signal boost, please help! Pilamayaye.
The city of Bismarck has closed off streets for a round dance.
I should add that cops have set up concrete roadblocks, and are checking license plates of all those heading into the camp, saying they are only allowing Standing Rock rez people in, but you can still get by. Be persistent, but no confrontations, and no violence – the cops are busy making up lies as it is. You can keep up with that at https://twitter.com/sacredstonecamp – so go if you can, but put your stealth on! You water warriors already have your way in, and past cops.
Shutterstock.
Twitter is pulling a “look at us, we’re doing something, we really are, look!” They are busy suspending accounts which they think are promoting extremism and terrorism.
Twitter said Thursday it has suspended 235,000 accounts as part of its crackdown on accounts that have violated policies on the promotion of extremism and terrorism over the last six months. With the latest move, the total number of suspended accounts in the past year has reached 360,000.
In February, the microblogging platform announced that 125,000 accounts had been banned for the same reasons since mid-2015. Twitter joined the fight against terrorism after it faced criticism over the level of extremist content that was detected on its network. Twitter said daily suspensions of terrorism-linked accounts have jumped 80 percent since last year and that such suspensions usually rise just after terrorist attacks.
“The world has witnessed a further wave of deadly, abhorrent terror attacks across the globe,” Twitter said in a statement. “We strongly condemn these acts and remain committed to eliminating the promotion of violence or terrorism on our platform.”
Twitter said it has expanded its teams that review reported violations, and also expanded the number of groups it works with to counter violent extremism online.
[…]
“Our work is not done,” Twitter said on its blog post, adding: “Our efforts continue to drive meaningful results, including a significant shift in this type of activity off of Twitter.”
I’ll say your work isn’t done, it isn’t even started yet. Hell, it isn’t even acknowledged. I don’t have any problem with suspending accounts which have no point except to spread hatred and violence, but I can’t help seeing this as a smoke and mirrors move on the part of Twitter execs who do not want to face the real problem – that their platform is made for, and largely supported by trolls who delight in vicious harassment. Twitter has been taken to task about this so many times now, and they always have excuses, there are always plenty of harrumphs and paragraphs of glib nothingness, but no solutions provided, no changes made. Oh yes, they banned Milo whateveritis, and while I’m sure that helped some, this still leaves just about every woman and person of colour on that platform open to vile harassment on a large scale. No one should have to be utterly exhausted at the end of each day, attempting to filter and block, just because they want to engage in some friendly banter, update, or exchange news. Twitter could be a good platform, but it would require sweeping changes, and Twitter would have to take a hit by removing their troll base, and I’m pretty sure that won’t happen.
Via Raw Story.
San Antonio Police Chief William McManus can’t meaningfully discipline his officers under current contract rules. CREDIT: AP Photo/Eric Gay.
City leaders in San Antonio will soon vote on a new union contract for police officers that contains no reforms to accountability processes for cops, because the officers’ union wanted more money before agreeing to higher standards.
Mayor Ivy Taylor brought a seven-point list of reforms to union negotiators this spring, the San Antonio Express-News reports, but none made it into the contract. If the City Council ratifies the deal on September 1, the city will continue to face tight limits on how it can discipline officers.
Any misconduct records older than two years cannot be used to justify punishment for new incidents. Short suspensions that officers do not appeal get erased and converted into simple reprimands on their records after two years.
Taylor’s seven-point wishlist would have ended each of those rules, giving the Chief of Police greater ability to punish repeat offenders and examine patterns of behavior across an officer’s full career when deciding to suspend, demote, or fire a cop.
“The (police) chief (William McManus) and I feel that it is important, but the union was not willing to consider that and they wanted to be paid for any changes in the disciplinary process,” city manager Sheryl Sculley told the Express-News.
The contract already includes a 14 percent raise over four years. The raises union officials reportedly sought in exchange for reform would have been over and above those pay bumps — something that one activist called “essentially extortion.”
Scatter Their Own Juliana Brown Eyes-Clifford and Scotti Clifford get arrested during the Dakota Access Pipeline confrontation. Photo courtesy of Arlo Iron Cloud.
Juliana Brown Eyes-Clifford and her husband, Scotti Clifford, were among the arrested on Monday at the Sacred Stone Camp.
“This is about water and land,” said Juliana Brown Eyes-Clifford who along with her husband Scotti Clifford, both from the band Scatter Their Own, were arrested. “We have to take a stand to protect the water and land for generations to come.”
Via Lakota Country Times.
ETA: The latest update from Sacred Stone Camp:
Aho ma relatives wopida dida tanka for all your support as you know many of our defenders have been arrested and the camp has grown considerably in size we are struggling to feed everyone and to get our defenders bailed out things we could not do without your support.. pls contribute in any way that you are able. prayers and donations we are very grateful for everyones help.. water is life the most sacred elder of creation without her all life stops..
If you can help, with money, signal boosting, your presence, supplies, please do.
I featured their music some time ago, and here it is again.
Scatter Their Own, Scotti Clifford and Juliana Brown Eyes-Clifford (Oglala Lakota). Scatter Their Own website.
Scatter Their Own, Taste The Time.
Scatter Their Own, Don’t Fear to Tread.
Scatter Their Own, Earth & Sky.
You can read more about Scatter Their Own here.
The Camp of the Sacred Stones has swelled from a few dozen to more than 2,500, according to Standing Rock Sioux Tribe officials. They are calling for further review of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the end of July without a full environmental assessment. Courtesy Little Redfeather Design/Honor the Earth.
Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II continued calling for peace and nonviolence as demonstrations continued at a construction site for the Dakota Access oil pipeline, a day after a federal district court in North Dakota granted a temporary restraining order against those it deemed were interfering with the work.
“As we have said from the beginning, demonstrations regarding the Dakota Access pipeline must be peaceful,” Archambault said in a statement to reporters on August 17. “There is no place for threats, violence or criminal activity. That is simply not our way. So, the Tribe will do all it can to see that participants comply with the law and maintain the peace. That was our position before the injunction, and that is our position now.”
Archambault also alluded to President Barack Obama’s 2014 visit to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, and his offer of help, noting that back then he did not ask the President for anything.
“I just showed him the reality of our lives,” Archambault said. “I believe both he and Michelle Obama were touched. So now if there’s any way he can intervene and move this pipeline off our treaty lands, I’m asking him.”
The temporary restraining order, dated August 16, prohibits the named defendants “and unidentified individuals,” designated as John and Jane Does, “from interfering with its right to construct the Dakota Access Pipeline (the “Pipeline”) in accordance with all local, state, and federal approvals it has obtained,” read Dakota Access LLC’s request to the court. Construction was halted due to “safety concerns,” the company said.
People vowing to protect the waters of the Missouri have gathered on land along the river owned by Standing Rock tribal member LaDonna Allard. The Sacred Stone Spiritual Camp, as it is called, has been occupied since April. It swelled from a few dozen a week ago to more than 2,500 by August 17, according to an estimate by tribal officials.
The court sided with Dakota Access LLC and granted the restraining order on the grounds that the permits were valid and thus give the company the right to start construction on the portion that will cross Lake Oahe, which was formed by the Oahe Dam on the Missouri River.
“Dakota Access has obtained the necessary easements and rights of way to construct the Pipeline in North Dakota and the necessary federal, state, and local permits for the Oahe Crossing,” the court said in its motion. “In accordance with the permits and approvals obtained for the Pipeline project, Dakota Access has commenced construction activities in North Dakota.”
[…]
The $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile-long pipeline would cross the Missouri River itself, in addition to the lake. Standing Rock Sioux Tribe officials say that in crossing Lake Oahe and the Missouri River, the pipeline would disturb burial grounds and sacred sites on ancestral Treaty lands. Archambault said that over the past several days he had met and spoken with everyone from demonstrators, to tribal government and spiritual leaders, to state and local law enforcement officials.
“In all of these meetings, my message has been consistent—we need to work together in peace,” he said. “And, as I continue to spread this message, I believe that the word is getting out. Standing Rock wants there to be peace.”
The chairman said he has also met over the past year with federal officials from numerous agencies “to express the Tribe’s strong opposition and to let them know that we will be heard,” and noted the upcoming hearing on the tribe’s lawsuit against the Army Corps.
“Our basic position is that the Corps of Engineers has failed to follow the law and has failed to consider the impacts of the pipeline on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe,” he said.
Also pending is a lawsuit filed by Dakota Access LLC against Archambault and several others simultaneously with the motion for a restraining order. The suit was filed after Archambault and about a dozen others were arrested during the demonstrations on August 11. Construction began on August 10.
Numerous tribes have expressed support for the Standing Rock Sioux, responding to a request for “proclamations, resolutions and/or letters of support,” the tribe said in an August 15 statement. All the tribe wants, Archambault said, is that the pipeline not be built across Treaty lands.
Sacred Rock Camp. – Rezpect Our Water. – Via ICTMN.
Stephen K. Bannon.
Not long ago, Trump announced that he was bringing Breitbart’s Stephen Bannon aboard that thing he calls a campaign. This is not a good thing, given what an absolute festering sewer Breitbart is, and a good deal of the swirling shit can be credited to Bannon. So, now there’s going to be open catering to racists of all stripes.
If any more confirmation is needed of Donald Trump’s embrace of white nationalism, look no further than his selection of Stephen K. Bannon, the head honcho of Breitbart News, as his presidential campaign’s new chief executive.
With one hire Trump dispelled the fairytale he would act more presidential, while doubling down on his hate-powered campaign by allying with a toxic dump of racists, fabulists, and conspiracists posing as a news outlet. This move is perfectly aligned with Trump’s tin-foiled conspiracies that shot him to prominence beginning with blatantly fraudulent birtherism.
Just last October, a lengthy Bloomberg News profile of Bannon pronounced him “the most dangerous political operative in America.” The site’s founder, Andrew Breitbart, admiringly told the reporter that Bannon was the “Leni Riefenstahl of the Tea Party movement,” referring to the reviled Nazi propagandist.
As for Breitbart News, the Southern Poverty Law Center, commented that under Brannon’s tenure, the website has adopted the “key tenets making up an emerging racist ideology known as the ‘Alt-Right,’” including “Racist ideas,” “Anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant ideas.” (Though given the infestation of pop-up ads on Breitbart, it’s questionable if many readers make it past the panicky headlines into the ditch of festering slander and dissembling that follows.)
Trump has handed the keys of the Republican Party to Breitbart and the Alt-Right, the inevitable conclusion to decades of right-wing race-baiting and conspiracy-peddling.
Bannon’s trade is vicious slander, and he sits so far on the fringes even Glenn Beck blasted the Breitbart executive as “a horrible despicable human being.”
[…]
If racists have found a stepping stone to respectability in Breitbart, then Breitbart sees in Trump a vehicle to broaden its influence and fatten its wallet. Toward that end, its ethics are cheaper than a copy of Sarah Palin’s memoirs. Accusations dog the privately owned Breitbart that it pimped itself to Trump for an undisclosed sum of money.
It’s a match made in an outhouse. This is the path Trump took the moment he threw his hat in the ring by attacking Mexican immigrants as rapists, drug dealers, and criminals. Breitbart eagerly joined forces with Trump as have Stephen Bannon, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Roger Ailes, Ann Coulter, and every other grasping backstabber peddling hate.
Trump’s campaign is the Large Hadron Collider of white nationalism, smashing together the elemental prejudices of the right with terrifying energies and spawning new forms of bigotry. “Trump being Trump”means he is even likelier to lose the general election to Clinton.
But Trump and his white power posse will inevitably rise out of the ashes of defeat. They have a megaphone in Breitbart, a huge fundraising network, and millions of angry followers. The movement for white nationalism that Trump has consolidated can never be accommodated. It has to be destroyed.
Those final two sentences. Whether or not Trump loses, we still have a great deal to worry about. Now that white supremacy has had a resurgence, they’ll fight like hell against being pushed back to fringes once again. And if you think all those angry, toxic people were upset about having a Black president, how do you think they will feel about a woman?
Via Raw Story.
A 2002 rally by neo-Nazi group the National Alliance (Flickr Creative Commons).
A lawyer hired by the city of Baltimore to defend police officers in court has long-standing connections to a neo-Nazi group, but insists that his “crazy ideas” do not affect his work.
The New York Daily News reported Thursday that attorney Glen Keith Allen is a longtime supporter of the National Alliance, a group the Southern Poverty Law Center calls “explicitly genocidal” and which is characterized as a hate group.
Allen admits he joined the National Alliance because, “I was in the U.S. Army from 1978 to 1982 and I had some pretty awful experiences with black people there, to be honest.”
While he is not currently involved in the Freddie Gray case, Allen has defended the Baltimore Police Department in court, notably in a current lawsuit brought by Sabein Burgess, a black man says he was wrongfully convicted and spent 19 years in prison before being released in 2014.
[…]
In spite of Allen’s insistence that he left the National Alliance in the 1980s, he was still paying membership dues in 2003. The 65-year-old attorney also attended a Holocaust-denial conference in 2007, but denies that his views affect his work for the city in any way.
“I have an unblemished record in 30 years of practicing law…I have the highest ethical standards and zealous representation of my client, and that’s what I’ve been doing for the city,” he told the Daily News.
The Anti-Defamation League said that the National Alliance “dehumanize(s) both blacks and Jews, depicting them as threats to ‘Aryan culture’ and ‘racial purity.’”
Federal Election Commission (FEC) documents show that Allen is a donating member of the American Eagle Party, a fringe right group led by a man named Merlin Miller who says that Israel planned the 9/11 attacks in cahoots with the U.S. government.
“Should I be fired from the city of Baltimore because I have crazy ideas about 9/11?” Allen said.
I think you should be relieved of your position because you’re a nazi, Mr. Allen. Apparently, this doesn’t bother the city of Baltimore or cops in the least. It would certainly bother me, but I guess cops are tossing away any pretense of a standard these days.
UPDATE: Mr. Allen has been relieved of his position with the city. You can read about it here.
Via Raw Story.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has a nice interactive map, showing all the organized hate groups by state. Check and see how surrounded you are. Two in ND. The one I knew about, because the asshole bought up a dead town not too far from us, and right on the doorstep of a rez, trying to set up a nazi town eden. It hasn’t worked out great, but they’re still there. Didn’t know about the one in Grand Forks.
https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map.
Via The Advocate.
Tatanka Iyotanka.
Given that the feds continue in their fine tradition of breaking treaties, and gleefully insisting on tearing up the earth and poisoning the water on Indian land (and poisoned water doesn’t sit still, it moves on, spreading the poison), making every effort to kill our last stand, while openly stating they don’t want to risk the water the supply in Bismarck, maybe we can get another small victory regarding names.
After a years long fight, a peak known as Hinhan Kaga to the Oglala Lakota, but known to the rest of the world, as Harney Peak, has been renamed Black Elk Peak. Gen. Harney was never near this peak, the closest he came was Blue Water Creek in Nebraska, where he was busy massacring Lakota women and children. It takes this long to remove such disrespect from the heart of Indian Country, and a great many people are still very unhappy about it.
AP’s James Nord reports South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard, in a prepared statement, expressed disappointment and said the decision would lead to “unnecessary expense and confusion. I suspect very few people know the history of either Harney or Black Elk.” The Governor added that he had heard little support for renaming the peak.
All the peoples of He Sapa know the history of Black Elk, and there’s been a lot of support for renaming the peak, but it’s hardly unusual to be “unaware” of that when you don’t look, and you don’t listen.
Now it’s time to ready for another fight, possibly this one will take years, too.
The Ft. Laramie treaties of both 1851 and 1868 created the Great Sioux Reservation, both of which included these future national forests as within the Sioux territory. These lands were later confiscated unilaterally.
Now, two national forests are sitting in a small portion of the home territories of Northern Plains Indians, including the Sioux and Cheyenne peoples. One of these forests is called Black Hills National Forest. The other one is named after yet another genocidal murderer, Custer. No one ever stops to think about all the Indian children who grow up on the rez, their home, and see the honour given to someone who was dedicated to murdering Indians, including women and children. We’d like the forests to be renamed after a true leader, a person of intelligence, dignity, bravery, and compassion, Tatanka Iyotanka, Sitting Bull.
This is about respect, and it is not a small matter. It may seem that way, but it is in no way small. This is our home, our land. It should bear a name that is proper, and respectful. It certainly should not be this:
Yes indeed. It is called Custer National Forest! And if this doesn’t strike you as a cruel irony, then I suggest that you don’t the know the history of this place, and these people.
This spiritual ‘poke in the eye’ should, and can be changed. How about ‘Sitting Bull National Forest’ instead, honoring the most respected of Sioux chiefs in his time.
If you’d like to help, please sign our petition. It’s About Respect. Sitting Bull National Forest. If you can, please boost the signal, in any way possible, we can use every voice. Pilamayaye to all those who help.