I'm creating this thread to make everyone aware (if you aren't already) of the movement of No Dakota Access Pipeline #NoDAPL. In essence, this (underground) pipeline is proposed to be built 100 feet away from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, and to cross the Mississippi river. Led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, First Nations have come together from all across the country to protest. The last number I saw was 60 tribes were represented on their land protesting this, with close to 2,000 people camping out right now. In some ways, the message is simple: Keep it in the soil, you can't drink oil. Water is life, Mni Wchoni. In some ways, the message is more deep. If you know anything about Native American spirituality (in a broad sense), it is more of a way of life than a religion, a way of life that has such deep, passionate, emotional connections to Mother Earth. What I've gathered from a few first-hand experiences is that Mother Earth is hurting badly from what capitalism and mineral extraction has done to Her. I feel very strongly connected to this movement because of a number of reasons. First, acknowledging our spiritual connection to the Earth and how we treat it is an absolute no-brainer to me. Second, it has been easy for me to see the negative effects of capitalism and why we can't live in such an extreme economy. Third, understanding how Native Americans have been marginalized throughout the past 500 years has been also very straightforward, and I have seen a need to recenter them. To see a movement led by Native Peoples, fighting the idea of a potentially disastrous pipeline to go near Native land, underneath the largest river in the USA - I believe in this movement. I didn't start this thread with any intention except to make all of you aware of the movement. If you want to read more about this, I'll provide links. If you want to discuss something else related to this, that's fine too. Dakota Access Pipeline Threat: What You Need to Know Dakota Access Ruling Postponed in DC as Archambault Lauds 'Powerful Precedent' Important Message from Keeper of Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Rewrite: the Protests at Standing Rock
The problem here isn't capitalism. The problem is the erosion of private property rights in favor of eminent domain. Eminent domain used to be limited strictly to government buildings like schools, courthouses, and military bases. Since a recent Supreme Court ruling, a person's private property can be taken from them and a Costco store built on the land if it's determined that a Costco store would be in "the public interest". If you want to stop these kinds of projects from happening, you're better off advocating for stronger property rights and a public reevaluation of eminent domain. It's more likely to gain support for your cause than bashing capitalism.
@revgen IMO, Imminent Domain had it's place in the late 1800s / early 1900s. A railroad going through a land-owners property (think of someone with 500 acres). Didn't make sense for the railroad to go all the way around that land when they can cut right through and put some money in the land owners pocket. But today, I believe it's unnecessary and comes down to how powerful the the owner of Costco, Mall, or 7-11 is. And it's further stripping citizens of their rights.
The Capitalism is evil argument is something I've never truly understood. Capitalism has flaws like any other economic ideology, but at least to me it still provides the most opportunities for the most amount of people. Obviously Capitalism has been and continues to be twisted and exploited, but isn't that true for every other economic mode as well? And (at least in my opinion) it's less dangerous than many other ways of doing business (Socialism and Communism among them). As for its bearing on this pipeline, like revgen said: it's not really about Capitalism per se. It's about Imminent Domain and the other dangers we face as citizens from our own government.
so it's not on their land, but they don't want it crossing the river? It seems to be escalating, but I'm hearing conflicting accounts.
It's close upriver on the river that is the main source of water for their reservation, so it effects them WHEN the water gets polluted from the oil and it's transport (and it inevitably will).
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a48596/dakota-pipeline-wisconsin-couple/ It's not just the indigenous people who are victims of this misuse of eminent domain. Farmers, ranchers, and other landowners are also feeling the pinch and fighting back.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-th...american-dakota-oil-pipeline-blockade/5542793 As the Lakota Sioux continue their peaceful blockade of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline, the story’s absence from the national media narrative is palpable. Considering the corporate media’s chronic quest for controversial stories on government versus public standoffs, you’d think this situation would garner the typical media frenzy invoked during a right-wing militia occupation of a federal building, for example, or a tense standoff between the Black Lives Matter movement and police. But it’s not. As of late, the media has faced criticism for its selective coverage of certain events — like, say, focusing on single terror attacks in Western Europe that garner thousands of headlines while basically ignoring similar or worse attacks that occur on a constant basis in Muslim-majority countries. But the confrontation unfolding in North Dakota, in particular, is strikingly similar to the recent standoff at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, which involved a right-wing militia advocating land rights against the federal government. The militia was led by the controversial Bundy family, which previously drew sensationalized coverage during a similar standoff in Nevada in 2014. So why were these stories covered extensively while the other — also centered around land rights — has been mostly ignored? The first point is actually very simple: Native Americans standing up for themselves is not polarizing. In an age of institutionalized media divisiveness and hyper-partisanship, the story of Native Americans in North Dakota fighting for land and water rights just doesn’t fit the script of deep, societal divides plaguing the nation’s law and order, nor does it fit in with the left-right paradigm. People from both sides of the political spectrum pretty much agree that Native Americans have been screwed by the U.S. government and resource-snatching corporations long enough. Considering this sentiment, there’s really no exploitable controversy on this issue from the mainstream media perspective, which inherently drives topical, superficial news narratives. It’s easy to create a controversy out of right-wing white nationalist militias occupying an obscure federal wildlife preserve building (if that sounds petty and not exactly newsworthy, that’s because it was petty and not exactly newsworthy). I witnessed liberals so incensed by the Oregon occupiers they were calling for the FBI to literally gun them down. Meanwhile, the alt-right movement hailed them as heroes and harbingers of the second American Revolution. It made for a great, divisive controversy. But in the end, nothing was accomplished. It was topical. It was superficial. It was essentially meaningless — and the media loved it so much it dedicated a month’s worth of prime time TV coverage to it. In contrast, the only thing the mainstream media would accomplish by publicizing the growing tribal opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline would be to effectively kill the prospects of the pipeline. Providing ongoing coverage would likely inspire national outrage toward the oil company, Dakota Access LLC, and the government agencies currently trying to evict the indigenous people from their own ancestral lands. It’s important to understand that the media doesn’t always cover certain stories just because they’re actually newsworthy. Often, the media’s coverage is intended to promote and drive narratives, and the divisive flavor has been a top seller for a long time. This coverage has accomplished at least one thing in the United States: the country is now the most divided it’s been in a very long time. Maybe that has been the media’s intention all along. The second and more obvious reason why mainstream outlets have not focused on the situation in North Dakota is money — oil money, to be exact. The corporate media in the United States is deeply in bed with oil interests. From fracking advertisements on MSNBC to individuals on Big Oil’s payroll literally working for Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, the ties cannot be understated. Why would mainstream media publicize a standoff that could potentially kill an oil pipeline when their own financial interests would be negatively affected? The answer is they wouldn’t. And there you have it. That’s why right-wing militias pointlessly occupying a wildlife refuge is one of the biggest stories of the century but Native Americans stopping the construction of a multibillion-dollar pipeline isn’t worth a single headline on CNN.
Wait, clarification: so the pipeline is not actually cutting through their land, right? Just next to it, and upstream the Mississippi that could potentially contaminate the water?
This is why YOU CAN NOT AUTOMATICALLY BELIEVE IT when you hear about protesters being violent. It is a well known and very real tactic employed by those against any protest to plant people inside the protest that are only there to incite a riot, destroy property, and generally give the police a reason to move against what would otherwise be known as peaceful protesters:
There is so much misinformation and damage control out there, it's like listening to the election all over again. If they went south to protect someone else's water supply, but don't give a rip about theirs? That's just deplorable and indefensible.
