The confrontation at Standing Rock intensified this week. The Army Corps of Engineers has unilaterally declared that the Sacred Stone camp will be cleared as of December 5. They seem to overlook the fact that this is Sioux land as David Archambault II, Sioux Tribal Chairman, has reminded us.
At the same time, a caravan of over 1,000 Iraqi Veterans Against the War is setting out from all over the United States to stand with
First Nations People at Standing Rock. Donate to their go-fund me campaign for travel expenses.
David Lindorff writes for Information Clearing House, re-printed
in Popular Resistance:
“It’s time for all decent Americans to take a stand in
support of the Sioux People of Standing Rock. Contact the White House at
202-456-1414 and demand that the Resident send troops to stand between Sioux
water protectors and their local law enforcement assailants, and to have
Federal Marshalls arrest those who commit acts of brutality. [AND please sign the petition.]
“The militarized response to peaceful protest at Standing
Rock should stand as a warning to all who would protest America’s slide into
totalitarianism. What the government will do to Native Americans and their Anglo
supporters today is what we can probably expect them to do to any of us who
protest in this…Trumpian America.”
In fact the current Resident managed to visit Standing Rock,
but in 2014, where he shed crocodile tears about the U.S. government‘s centuries
of abuse of native peoples, but now that the true lines of power have been
brutally exposed, this Resident has been quoted as saying, let’s just see how
things play out.
The media meanwhile continues to spin the
bankers’/petro-oligarchs' story, but any reference to riots and thugs
truthfully needs to be laid at the door of “law” enforcement, because Standing
Rock has in fact become a magnet for volunteers eager to participate in yet another
American Indian War.
Last week, we ran a photograph of a severely wounded, but unnamed
woman. She is 13-year-old Vanessa (Sioux Z), who has suffered a detached retina
from a “law” enforcement projectile hurled at her. You can go fund her retinal re-attachment.
Even more severely injured (by a concussion grenade, legally
required never to be aimed at personnel, civilian or otherwise) has shattered
the elbow of Sophia Wilansky, with injury to bone, nerve and muscle. Currently Sophia is hospitalized in Chicago
where doctors are performing repeated surgeries, attempting to save her arm. Send donations to her go-fund-me campaign.
Meantime, the mound across the river, a Sioux sacred site
and burial ground was being encircled with razor wire yesterday by employees of
Energy Transfer Partners while a long shot shows other personnel standing on
top of the burial grounds.
Imagine—for one shocking moment—a quick direct action by New
York State’s Iroquois Confederacy (the folks who gave us language for our own
“Constitution”) stringing razor wire around Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, and
riding horses into the sanctuary. Some people don’t need to build stone
cathedrals because the Earth’s magnificence is Cathedral enough. This is a time
to listen to what they have to say. It’s time to abandon confrontational ways
of thinking—and lay down lethal arms if life on the Planet is to survive.
READINGS AND BOOK
SIGNINGS
Oakland Main Public Library
125 14th Street
(510) 238-3134
Saturday, January 14, 2017 from 3 to
4:30 PM
Book Launch: Cecile Pineda's Three
Tides: Writing at the Edge of Being
Cecile Pineda touches on issues of displacement, personal, environmental and cultural, as she talks about 40 years of the writing life, the breakthroughs, the discouragements, and the daily practice. She will read and sign copies of Three Tides: Writing at the Edge of Being. Time will be set aside for questions and answers. Pineda is widely recognized as the winner of the Gold Medal from the California Commonwealth Club and nominee for the 2015 Neustadt International Prize.
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