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.
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Comments
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.
I don't think that option is available to the Native Americans.
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