Standing Rock: Cops Continue to Lie.

Courtesy Sacred Stone Camp Police raise weapons and approach unarmed water protectors at a peaceful action on September 28, 2016

Courtesy Sacred Stone Camp
Police raise weapons and approach unarmed water protectors at a peaceful action on September 28, 2016

 

A police officer raises his weapon at unarmed water protector. Courtesy Leland Dick.

A police officer raises his weapon at unarmed water protector. Courtesy Leland Dick.

 

Women plant willow tree seedlings in the path of Dakota Access construction on September 25. Courtesy Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN).

Women plant willow tree seedlings in the path of Dakota Access construction on September 25. Courtesy Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN).

As I wrote in this post, cops are getting increasingly worrisome here in Ndakota. Sarah Sunshine Manning has a column up at ICTMN, please go read, and more importantly, share! We need help getting the truth out, and countering the increasing amount of lies coming from cops and oil corps.

Last week, water protectors from the camps near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, engaged in peaceful non-violent direct action at three different Dakota Access Construction sites. And despite the peaceful and prayerful atmosphere at all three sites, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department quickly released a statement alleging that the demonstration turned violent, and that one unidentified Dakota Access security worker was assaulted by “protestors” as knives and guns were wielded.

Water protectors on the ground vehemently refute this claim, and they contend that the allegations of the Morton County Sheriff’s Department are completely fabricated.

Still, just days later on September 28, police confronted water protectors with armored police vehicles blocking the road, and with shotguns drawn, as water protectors gathered for another peaceful action.

The unarmed water protectors reported being terrified, and many made frantic and fearful pleas over social media calling for support and help.

“Please share and make everyone aware!” Linda Black Elk posted on Facebook. “COPS WITH GUNS DRAWN APPROACHING UNARMED PEACEFUL PROTECTORS.”

For many water protectors, social media has become a means of documenting actions in order to counter the continued false narratives of the Morton County Sheriff’s Department.

The tactics of the Morton County Sheriff’s Department and Dakota Access continue a tragically predictable pattern of villainizing peaceful protests in order to justify excessive police, security and military presence.

It is critical that the voices of water protectors on the ground be elevated.

Nick Tilsen, an organizer and executive director for Thunder Valley CDC, was among those present at the prayerful action Sunday as well as the action where the alleged violence occurred; the same alleged violence that prompted excessive police force later in the week.

In an interview with Sonali Kolhatkar of the show “Rising Up with Sonali,” Tilsen said of the accusations of violence and the attack on a security worker “is 100-percent wrong. This false accusation is totally made up.”

Tilsen said the allegations were nothing more than propaganda.

“By the time we got to the construction site, all of the workers had packed up and left, because they saw us walking for a quarter of a mile,” Tilsen said. “We actually didn’t have interaction with the security guards or interaction with the workers that day.”

According to water protectors and journalists on the ground, all actions that day were peaceful. Additionally, women, children and elders continue to be among those standing in prayer for water and life.

The first peaceful action on September 25 took place much earlier than the action where the alleged violence took place. This earlier action was at a Dakota Access construction site in South Dakota, where a handful of water protectors gathered before daylight and strung over a thousand small prayer ties across Dakota Access machinery.

The full article, and more images is here. If you are able, please, please share, get this news out, get it everywhere, we need help with this.

The Box.

box

Ron Amato has a kickstarter for his project, a book called The Box.

Focused on themes of isolation, desire, conflict and empowerment, Ron Amato’s photographic series and upcoming book, The Box, speaks to human experiences of self-discovery and community building. Using a series of boxes to create visual metaphors, Ron echoes his development from adolescence to adulthood through over 100 color, and black and white photographs. Evoking first his youth in Brooklyn, New York during the 1960s and 1970s, moving through his coming out as a gay man and to his present position as a respected professional photographer and teacher, Ron creates a vivid portrait of struggle and triumph.

Individually the photographs evoke powerful responses. However, they achieve the scope of their power only in relation to each other.

Reflecting the square of the boxes in the photographs, this 96-page book is designed in a 10-inch square format. It has a hard cover and dust jacket. It is available with an embossed, cloth covered slipcase at specific pledge levels. The printing will be of the highest quality from a renowned Italian printing house.

You can read and see more here. Ron Amato’s website: http://www.ronamato.com/

Britain: Human Rights, Just Vexatious Claims.

British Prime Minister Theresa May. AFP.

British Prime Minister Theresa May. AFP.

London (dpa) – The British government on Tuesday announced measures to end “vexatious” claims against its troops, saying it planned to remove the application of European human rights law to future conflicts.

“Over the past decade a series of court judgments have extended the extra-territorial jurisdiction of the European Convention on Human Rights to the battlefield,” the government said in a statement.

Exempting British troops from the human rights convention will protect them “from the kind of persistent legal claims that have followed recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on an industrial scale,” it said.

“It will help to protect our troops from vexatious claims, ensuring they can confidently take difficult decisions on the battlefield,” Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said.

Fallon said the change will allow Britain “to spend more of our growing defence budget on equipment for them rather than fees for lawyers.”

“Combined with the biggest defence budget in Europe, the action we are laying out today means we will continue to play our part on the world stage, protecting UK interests across the globe,” Prime Minister Theresa May said.

Opting out of human rights during war. Why is this an “opt out” situation? Soldiers, regardless of what side of anything they find themselves on, often commit despicable acts, that’s hardly any sort of secret. There has to be some way to stop full scale despicable acts, at the very least, acknowledging that everyone on a field is human, and has fundamental rights is one small way to keep people accountable, but now it’s opt out. I am appalled.

Via Raw Story.

How Not to Stop Police Violence.

Dash camera footage shows violent arrest of Sandra Bland. CREDIT: Associated Press

Dash camera footage shows violent arrest of Sandra Bland. CREDIT: Associated Press.

As the fight to end police violence rages on across the country, a state senator in Texas wants high schoolers to learn how to communicate with law enforcement during traffic stops. But the proposed curriculum assumes that the people targeted during those stops are the problem— not the officers.

Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston) is currently eyeing legislation that would require schools to teach ninth graders about encounters with police on the road. Noting that there’s a deep-seated mistrust of police, he wants the Texas Board of Education to ensure that young people learn what their rights are early on. But Whitmire, who says his idea was inspired by Sandra Bland’s violent arrest and subsequent death in custody, also wants students to learn how they should behave around officers who pull them over.

“Ms. Bland’s tragedy is a huge motivation for me to hold the officer accountable and also assist the public in some of the better practices when they encounter law enforcement,” he told the Texas Tribune. “[If] Ms. Bland and the officer would have taken a deep breath, I don’t believe she would have been taken to jail, where she ultimately met her fate, unfortunately because she was not treated right when she got to jail.”

She wasn’t treated right? She was murdered, Senator. Dead, never coming back. That’s more than not being “treated right”, we aren’t talking about cops being rude.

As for teenagers in Texas, it’s impossible to know if officers will shoot them during traffic stops — even if they’re obeying orders and expressing their rights in a respectful way. While Whitmire said that officers should also let go of the “‘I caught you’ mentality,” his proposal still puts the responsibility of de-escalation on teenagers, rather than the adults hired to serve and protect them.

Local police officers included in conversations about the proposed legislation agree that the responsibility to reduce tension during a stop shouldn’t fall on officers’ shoulders.

“On the side of the street is not the place to litigate what you believe the officer is doing is wrong or what the officer believes you are doing wrong,” Executive Director Kevin Lawrence of the Texas Municipal Police Association explained to the Tribune. “It needs to be a better understanding by our general citizenry of what law enforcement is expecting of them. They need to understand that when they’re being contacted by a law enforcement officer — we’ll just take a traffic stop as an example — they need to think about that stop from the officer’s point of view, not their own.”

There isn’t enough fuck you, and fuck that in the universe for this continued idiocy. No, cops need to be accountable, and the responsibility for not escalating anything at all should be firmly on the shoulders of every single cop. You want to swagger around, weighed down by weapons, playing lord of the universe, you fucking take responsibility. I can’t even express how much I hate this shit, that it’s on me and every other person out there to prevent our own murder, especially as cops seem to be very keen on murdering people who are not only fully complying and have their hands up, they are now seen as a threat after they have been tased, for fuck’s sake! No, cops, go fuck yourself, you are all wrong, wrong, wrong. You stand up, and take responsibility. You stand up and do the right thing. You stand up for your community, because you are a part of that community. You point the finger at the bigots, the violent morons in uniform standing next to you. You point the finger at all the bullies. You refuse to work with them, you refuse to work at all unless there are goddamn standards put in place. Point the finger at all those upstanding people in blue who go home at night and beat the shit out of their partners and kids, then wander around with weapons the next day. Clean up your own houses, put that focus on policing yourselves. There isn’t a person anywhere who can trust a fucking cop.

While well-intentioned, Whitmire isn’t the first lawmaker to offer advice about how to behave around cops. And not all of that advice has been positive.

Following the shooting death of Jamar Clark in Minnesota, Rep. Tony Cornish (R) wrote an op-ed about how to “reduce the use of force by police.” In it, he wrote, “Don’t be a thug and lead a life of crime so that you come into frequent contact with police,” and “Don’t make furtive movements or keep your hands in your pockets if told to take them out.”

This year alone, police have shot multiple people who had their hands raised.

Full story at Think Progress.

Ride Against the Current of the Oil.

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Honorearth.org

Honorearth.org

Ride for Our Sacred Water – STOP Dakota Access!

From October 8-13, Honor the Earth is proud to join forces with the Wounded Knee Memorial Riders, the Dakota 38 and Big Foot riders, and many horse nation societies, in a spiritual horse ride to protect our sacred waters from the Dakota Access pipeline and all the black snakes that threaten our lands.

Thousands have come together in a historic gathering of tribes at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers, where Dakota Access threatens a concentration sacred sites and the water source of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, as well as the 18 million people downstream.

This is our moment. Tribes and First Nations are standing up and standing together to demand an end to the desecration of our lands and the poisoning of our sacred waters…to demand a better future for our people. We are the river, and the river is us.

On October 8th we will gather at the Standing Rock encampment, and ride against the current of the oil.

Please stand with us. We need your support.  For more info, visit www.honorearth.org/mniwiconi

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about that Standing Rock to Tioga, it means Tioga, ND, which styles itself as ‘The Oil Capital of North Dakota’.

This reminds me of another embarrassing white person moment at the camps last week. The Dakota 38 were expected, and we were hoping to see them. A white woman laughed and shrugged, saying “I mean, I don’t even know what that is. What is the Dakota 38.” Yeah, okay, I know the ‘history’ taught in uStates is a whitewashed mess, but still…

Even if you’re just a solidarity tourist, try to not only be respectful, but try to learn. Aaaand, this is the internet age, how hard is it? The Dakota 38, the largest mass execution in the history of the United States. A criminal injustice, perpetrated in Mankato, Minnesota.

20101222_dakota-hanging1_33

Tipi-hdo-niche, Forbids His Dwelling

Wyata-tonwan, His People

Taju-xa, Red Otter

Hinhan-shoon-koyag-mani, Walks Clothed in an Owl’s Tail

Maza-bomidu, Iron Blower

Wapa-duta, Scarlet Leaf

Wahena, translation unknown

Sna-mani, Tinkling Walker

Radapinyanke, Rattling Runner

Dowan niye, The Singer

Xunka ska, White Dog

Hepan, family name for a second son

Tunkan icha ta mani, Walks With His Grandfather

Ite duta, Scarlet Face

Amdacha, Broken to Pieces

Hepidan, family name for a third son

Marpiya te najin, Stands on a Cloud (Cut Nose)

Henry Milord (French mixed-blood)

Dan Little, Chaska dan, family name for a first son (this may be We-chank-wash-ta-don-pee, who had been pardoned and was mistakenly executed when he answered to a call for “Chaska,” reference to a first son; fabric artist Gwen Westerman did a quilt called “Caske’s Pardon” based on him.

Baptiste Campbell, (French mixed-blood)

Tate kage, Wind Maker

Hapinkpa, Tip of the Horn

Hypolite Auge (French mixed-blood)

Nape shuha, Does Not Flee

Wakan tanka, Great Spirit

Tunkan koyag I najin, Stands Clothed with His Grandfather

Maka te najin, Stands Upon Earth

Pazi kuta mani, Walks Prepared to Shoot

Tate hdo dan, Wind Comes Back

Waxicun na, Little Whiteman (this young white man, adopted by the Dakota at an early age and who was acquitted, was hanged, according to the Minnesota Historical Society U.S.-Dakota War website).

Aichaga, To Grow Upon

Ho tan inku, Voice Heard in Returning

Cetan hunka, The Parent Hawk

Had hin hda, To Make a Rattling Noise

Chanka hdo, Near the Woods

Oyate tonwan, The Coming People

Mehu we mea, He Comes for Me

Wakinyan na, Little Thunder

Wakanozanzan and Shakopee: These two chiefs who fled north after the war, were kidnapped from Canada in January 1864 and were tried and convicted in November that year and their executions were approved by President Andrew Johnson (after Lincoln’s assassination) and they were hanged November 11, 1865.

You can read more about the Dakota 38 + 2 here and here. Also, here.

Amnesty International Smacks Kirchmeier.

Via Facebook.

Via Facebook.

Amnesty International has turned their attention to Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, an incompetent bigot who has repeatedly run to media with reports of pipe bombs, guns, knives, and violence in the camps at Standing Rock, and has been proven wrong every time, but he continues to do this. With the last peaceful direct action being met with armored vehicles, cops in armored riot gear and wielding assault rifles at people who were planting corn and willow, he once again shows his plain desire to rain down violence and destruction on peaceful people. He managed to restrain himself to arresting 21 people. I have mentioned our surprise at seeing a monstrous, shiny, new mobile command center hulking behind silos, last week on our way into camp. Kirchmeier has all the shiny, militarized goodies, and it’s apparent that he’s just aching to use them. Not once has he or his force bothered to protect the Standing Rock Protectors, he refused to stop the attack and assault by private goons, but instead chose to run to the media with stories of those poor, beset upon goons and their vicious animals. Indians? Oh, who cares about them?

Kirchmeier has been trying, every day, to amp things up, and it’s getting very worrying now, because all it will take is one moment, one loss of control, one bullet fired. Ndakota doesn’t offer much opportunity for “action”, the kind of action a strutting chicken like Kirchmeier would like to see. I get the feeling he sees this as one chance for some of that glorious cop action, a story to end his days on. This man is dangerous because he is weak, and too in love with those shiny, militarized toys.

Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier
Morton County Sheriff’s Department

28 September 2016

Dear Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier:

Following the protests that took place at a Dakota Access Pipeline construction site on 3 September, we are writing to ask you to investigate the use of force by private contractors, remove blockades and discontinue the use of riot gear by Morton County Sheriff’s deputies when policing protests in order to facilitate the right to peaceful protests in accordance with international law and standards.

[Read more…]

40.

Ronald Reagan. Whitehouse.gov

Ronald Reagan. Whitehouse.gov

With just eight months to go before the end of his two-term presidency, Ronald Wilson Reagan declared that the United States might have “made a mistake” in humoring the Indians.

His audience was a group of students and faculty at Moscow State University in May 1988. His speech was delivered nearly 5,000 miles from Washington, D.C., yet a group of Native Americans reportedly had traveled to the Soviet Union for a chance to bend the President’s ear.

When questioned about his failure to connect with the Indians on home soil, Reagan opined about the state of Indian affairs—and in the process revealed a gaping hole in his own understanding.

“Let me tell you just a little something about the American Indian in our land,” he began. “We have provided millions of acres of land” for reservations, and “they, from the beginning, announced that they wanted to maintain their way of life.”

The government set up reservations, established a Bureau of Indian Affairs and provided education for the Indians, Reagan said. Yet some still preferred “that early way of life” over becoming mainstream American citizens.

“We’ve done everything we can to meet their demands as to how they want to live,” he said. “Maybe we made a mistake. Maybe we should not have humored them in that wanting to stay in that kind of primitive lifestyle. Maybe we should have said, no, come join us; be citizens along with the rest of us.”

[Read more…]

Stand with Standing Rock.

43

Winona LaDuke has an excellent column up at ICTMN, and an excellent article in Yes! too, What Would Sitting Bull Do? 

Excerpts here, please, click and read the full stories.

[…] There is more than just a $3.9 billion pipeline at stake here. This is about constitutional rights, and human rights. This time, instead of the Seventh Cavalry, or Indian police dispatched to assassinate Sitting Bull, Governor Dalrymple seeks to spend over $7.8 million militarizing the state to put down the Lakota and their allies. This is not going to happen. We are a strong and principled people. As of today, 69 people have been arrested, including Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II and Councilmember Dana Yellowfat. The people have physically stopped construction for weeks. And the battle is just beginning. I am watching history repeat itself, and wondering how badly Dalrymple really wants that pipeline.

[…]

This is our plan: Three of Honor the Earth’s primary staff have essentially moved to Standing Rock to support the frontlines and ensure a multi-dimensional campaign. We continue to provide legal strategies and counsel, and campaign coordination. And we continue to work on the future. This tribe does not need a new pipeline, they need energy infrastructure that actually serves its people. After all, three years ago Debbie Dogskin, a Standing Rock resident, froze to death because she could not pay her propane bill. That is the reality here.

With an 85% drop in active oil rigs in the Bakken oil fields, there is no need for this pipeline. It is a pipeline from nowhere. Here’s what true energy independence would look like: With $3.9 billion equally divided, we could install 65,000 typical 5kw residential rooftop PV systems, each supplying about half of the home’s electricity needs; install 325 2MW utility scale wind towers that would generate over 3.5 billion kwh per year; and provide 160,000 homes with $8000 efficiency retrofit packages, saving $300/yr/home. That would produce jobs, most of them local.

We are supporting Standing Rock as they fight this pipeline, but we are also helping to create a new future. We plan to install 20 solar thermal panels on tribal houses at Standing Rock, beginning to address fuel poverty on the reservation.

Via ICTMN.

Bigotry and Violence: Hey, It’s for the Laughs!

via WCPO.

via WCPO.

he small town of Aurora, Indiana is in an uproar after a local man entered a float in the annual Farmers Fair Parade depicting Hillary Clinton sitting in an electric chair with rival Donald Trump about to pull the switch.

According the creator of the float, which also featured a grim reaper and an Easter Island moai head in blackface labeled “Obama,” he entered it in an effort to get laughs, reports WCPO.

“It definitely was all for laughter. We’ve always had floats for laughter,” explained 76-year-old Frank Linkmeyer. “There’s never been anything else but that,” while denying there was anything racist about his creation.

Okay, fine, leave the racism out, Mr. Linkmeyer. The violence and misogyny, that’s funny? I’m amazed you made it to 76 years old without learning one damn thing.

According to one woman who was marching in the parade with her daughter’s Girl Scout group, she didn’t find anything about it funny.

“For us to be in 2016 and have our president depicted as an Easter Island statue in blackface, which doesn’t even make any sense, but it’s just racist as can be,” explained Jackie Reynolds. ““But knowing that we are marching alongside displays like this really makes me question whether or not we will be participating next year.”

Said local Penny Britton, who didn’t attend the parade but saw pictures of the float after they were posted to Facebook, it was “disgusting.”

“It instantly turned my stomach,” Britton stated. “One of the pictures shows children seeing the float go by and staring at it.”

In a statement from the Lions Club, which approves the floats, officials kept their distance stating, “the parade is a public venue which does not reflect the views of the Aurora Lions Club. As a member of a worldwide service organization, we are proud and standby our record of service to this community.”

As for float designer Linkmeyer, he said he could have reversed Trump and Clinton, saying, “I could’ve taken and put Donald Trump in that float and had Hillary pull the handle. Nevertheless, I would have never pleased everybody and it was definitely all for laughter.”

Linkmeyer did not explain how that would have meshed with the Trump/Pence or hand-written signs listing so-called Clinton “scandals.”

As for the Obama statue in blackface, “We were getting ready to get in that parade and this thing was sittin’ in front of this gentleman’s building down there and they said, ‘Let’s put that on there,’ and I didn’t give it a thought,” he attempted to explain.

Didn’t give it any thought. Gee, I think we’ve diagnosed your problem, you vile bigot – you don’t think.

The float was part of the Aurora Farmers Fair Parade Saturday morning in the small Ohio River town 35 miles west of Cincinnati. It’s sponsored by the Aurora Lions Club, according to its website, and touted as Indiana’s oldest street festival. The theme of the parade was “Celebrating the Past, Embracing the Future.”

According to the Rules & Regulation on the website, Fair officials “reserve the right to reject or evict any entry from the parade line-up that they deem unsuitable.”

So, this inhumanity float got by everyone as suitable. For someone who commented (See WCPO) that it was no big deal, there are good and bad people, and as long as you don’t hang out with racists, it’s all good. To that person, I’m just going to point out that you are hanging out with racists. Another person wanted to know where the racism and sexism was in the picture. Some days, I just don’t have much hope.

Via WCPO and Raw Story.