I've already commented on how absolutely lousy this country is to Native Aboriginal/Indigenous people.
Indeed, if there is any people who may know the wretchedness of America even more than Blacks and Arabs, it would be them! For months, Native Indigenous activists - many who've refereed to themselves as 'Water Protectors' - have been under vicious assault by virtually all manners of law enforcement. The past month has been especially brutal - very much akin to how Palestinians are routinely treated by their Zionist occupiers. Since April 2016, Native water protectors have been engaged in entrenched protests in North Dakota, in opposition to a massive oil pipeline project. The Dakota Access Pipe Line or Bakken pipeline aims to deliver crude oil from the Bakken oil fields in N. Dakota through the Midwestern U.S. to be sold on the international market. The DAPL project is extremely controversial, its very necessity in question, its potential negative impact on climate change and the environment: off the charts.
The construction of DAPL also threatens to destroy ancient Native lands and burial sites. All this is why Indigenous people from various tribes across the States have taken up cause of opposing this project. Anti-DAPL actions have been completely peaceful. Many women, children, and elders have taken part. Much of the protests have consisted of prayers, ceremonies, and civil disobedience in general. Activists have been met with levels of authoritarian violence that have been shocking, to say the least. Hundreds of cops from various departments/out-of-state and federal agents have swarmed upon the region. Even the N.D. National Guard has been deployed to aid in "security". The police response has been highly militarized. The results have been inhumane. Tear gas, helicopters, attack dogs, etc. have been used against peaceful protesters. Drones used by the activists in order to record the Gestapo's criminal actions have been shot down. There have been mass arrests of hundreds of non-violent activists, with police thugs assaulting and shooting at innocent people in an unchecked orgy of police-state violence.
On Thursday October 27th, a group of right-wing "patriots" who had taken over a wildlife reserves in rural Oregon back in January 2016, were all acquitted of the charges against them in federal court here in Portland. This group of mostly men - all White - had traveled to the Malheur National wildlife Refuge in rural OR (Harney County) on January 2nd 2016. Led by Ammon Bundy, They seized the refuge headquarters by force and held an armed occupation there until Feb. 11th when the last holdouts had been arrested by federal authorities. Admittedly (and surprisingly), this armed occupation of federal land was almost completely free of bloodshed, other than one of the militants having been shot and killed by police in late Jan. following a traffic stop gone bad.
there are many details involving this case and I cannot get down to them all here. Chances are you're already familiar with the Bundy occupation in general - especially if you live here in OR. Many details can be sorted out in the links I provide.
The Bundy group and much of what they stand for is laudable. Their main beef seems to be with the American govt. - a very legitimate cause to bare. Nobody truly is fond of the govt-state and how it does things, other than shills, whores, and agents. But we are also talking about a group of folks who're mostly social conservatives, very popular amongst the Alternative Right, and take up many right-wing causes. They also benefit greatly from their White Male Privilege (The Bundy occupation here in Oregon, as well as the 2014 stand-off with fed. agents in Nevada both saw all law enforcement involved on their best behavior. By contrast, the 2011 Occupy movement, BLM movement, and Native DAPL activists have typically been met with brutal force by police/govt. agents.)
The steep imbalance in how law enforcement treats White militia/far-right nationalist types, and how it treats progressive social justice movements comprised largely of People of Color, has not been at all lost of many. While the Bundy gang relishes in its legal victory, Indigenous water protectors on N.D. are being gassed, beaten, and arrested. Of course, this is nothing new. During the 1950's/60's era, the FBI file on terrorist group the KKK was barely a footnote. While the FBI (led by virulent on-the-record racist J. Edgar Hoover) put all of its weight and resources into destroying the Black Panthers and undermining the greater Civil Rights revolution. Members of Don't Shoot Portland most certainly took notice of such imbalances, and justly so. Of Friday October 28th, DSP, in solidarity with BLM, burned an American flag outside the federal courthouse in down town Portland. This was the same courthouse in which the Bundy-led occupiers were acquitted of their federal criminal charges the day prior.
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