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Protest: Standing Rock

Are you on Facebook? Can you spare two minutes to read this and two seconds to help with a protest?

Background
Standing Rock is a Native American reservation in North Dakota. Indigenous people from across the United States are living in camps on the reservation and protesting against the contstruction of a 1,100-mile long oil pipeline on land they claim is legally owned by them, thanks to a 155 year old treaty. So far, this peaceful protest has incorporated members of more than 300 Native north American tribes.

Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, it is claimed that attack dogs and pepper spray have been used by the authorities to quell the protest. It is also claimed that those attacks were intended to provoke a response from the protestors.

Parallels
Some people might draw parallels between what's happening at Standing Rock and what's happening at Charlton. Peaceful protests by those rightfully claiming "ownership" met by provocative, unnecessary violence. For that reason, I thought I would post this on CL to see if anyone would be interested in joining in a small act of protest.

Facebook Check In
If you're familiar with Facebook, you will know what it means to "check in" to a location. This is simply making a notification that you are at a certain, specified place. Some people "check in" at The Valley during games, others at the pub, or wherever they are...

The local police force, however, are using this status to target people at Standing Rock. Simply, those people who have checked in there can be identified by Morton County Sherriff's Department who, in turn, can plan how, where and when to target them for eviction, arrest or anything else.

However, if many people check in at Standing Rock on Facebook, this ploy will not work. Simply, if there are too many people checking in, then individual, peaceful protestors are more likely to be able to carry on without threat of intimidation.

How do you do it?
It's simple for anyone who wants to do this. Search for Standing Rock Indian Reservation and check in. Thousands of people have already done so.

This might not be everyone's cup of tea. But if you want to help out some peaceful protestors looking to secure their rights, it's easy to do. You never know when you might need help when you're protesting closer to home.

Comments

  • Fascinating,prehaps we should all check in at Eltham nick on match days.
  • Not on Facebook but if the British and Chinese can honour a 150 year old treaty then the government of the USA ought to be able to.
    The treatment of Native North Americans by us, the European settlers, is a series of crimes piled high one on another, similar to the way we treated the Aboriginal people's of Australia.
    Our white culture has even made countless entertainment western films which celebrate the genocide of Native North Americans. Land of the free and home of the brave, I don't think so.
    If there is a chance of getting something back by making the majority population pay heavily through the nose for a fucking pipeline, then the Native Americans there should squeeze the majority population with no mercy, just as our European forebears had no mercy when spreading across that continent.
  • edited October 2016
    The US has had around 210 pipeline leaks so far this year so there is also a real chance that it can ruin the Missouri River and deprive hundreds of thousands of people a clean water source in the future. And you know they will fix it double quick when you see the government response to fixing the water supply in Flint. Apparently the military were called in and had the armoured vehicles ( m-raps I think ) they used in Iraq and Afghanistan brought in just in case the locals got a bit brave.
  • edited October 2016
    seth plum said:

    Not on Facebook but if the British and Chinese can honour a 150 year old treaty then the government of the USA ought to be able to.
    The treatment of Native North Americans by us, the European settlers, is a series of crimes piled high one on another, similar to the way we treated the Aboriginal people's of Australia.
    Our white culture has even made countless entertainment western films which celebrate the genocide of Native North Americans. Land of the free and home of the brave, I don't think so.
    If there is a chance of getting something back by making the majority population pay heavily through the nose for a fucking pipeline, then the Native Americans there should squeeze the majority population with no mercy, just as our European forebears had no mercy when spreading across that continent.

    Except the treaty was with the Republic of China (informally Taiwan) and not the PRC. Also, the PRC simply ignored parts of the treaty that they did not like and would have just annexed the territories by force anyway if the British attempted to impede the handover.

    I don't think that option is available to the Native Americans.
  • Thank you so much @Chizz for sharing this.

    For more on what is happening in North Dakota, here is a timeline:
    http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/09/dakota-access-pipeline-protest-timeline-sioux-standing-rock-jill-stein
  • I heard on World Service (because I do get up that early for a commute to Belfast) that the plan was originally for the pipeline to pass close to Bismarck, but that they moved the route, because of fears of water pollution being caused by a spill. But hey, I'm sure there is nothing untoward going on....
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