by Linda Rodriguez
You may not be aware of the fact that
over 3,000 people from over 50 Native tribes have been gathered at a
site on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in South Dakota where the
Dakota Access Pipeline was illegally trying to cross their land and
run an oil pipeline that will eventually be 1,000 miles long (just in
the United States) under the Missouri River, source of drinking water
for the Standing Rock Sioux and millions of other people (including
me and my family down in Kansas City, Missouri). One reason you may
not be aware of this, unless you are on my Facebook or Twitter feed,
is because the U.S. mainstream media has pretty much ignored this,
although it's been going on for weeks. The BBC, the British
newspapers, Reuters, al-Jazeera, and many other international news
sources have featured continuous coverage of it, but in this country,
it's been pretty much only Democracy Now, NPR, one article (late) in
the New York Times, and a brief mention on Laurence O'Donnell's TV
news show.
The #NoDAPL coalition has taken the
company behind the pipeline (owned in part by the Koch brothers) to
court, pointing out that there were sacred sites, burial sites, and
archaeological sites in the path to be dug up, and the pipeline and
state did not consult with the tribe, as they're legally required to
do, before going ahead with this dig. The court handed down an
injunction, forcing the digging to stop until after the case could be
heard in court later this week. Amnesty International, the ACLU, and
the UN have all weighed in on the side of the protesters—as have
four U.S. government agencies. Things looked good for some legal
redress.
Saturday, the company sent workers out
to start digging on a burial site with three bulldozers, against the
court's injunction. When the protesters told them this was not legal
and they must stop, private security contractors hired by the company
(not in any uniforms) and armed with Mace and attack dogs disrupted
all cell phone reception and attacked the peaceful protesters,
including pregnant women and children. Six people were bitten, one
hospitalized from being bitten in the face. Many were Maced and
needed medical treatment. The protesters stood firm, and finally the
workers and security people gave up and left (most likely because of
unexpected television cameras). The photo above shows one of the
security contractors and her attack dog with bloody mouth taken at
the scene. Democracy Now's Amy Goodman was on the scene interviewing
the protesters when these attacks took place and filmed it.
This whole scene reminded me of the
days of the robber barons when miners and other laborers were
organizing and striking against unsafe conditions, child labor, other
abuses of the time, and for the 40-hour week, paid holidays, and sick
leave. In those days, the billionaires who owned these companies
hired private armies of thugs to attack the workers—and in some
cases, kill them. So this whole event seemed appropriate, in a
bizarre way, for Labor Day weekend. Billionaire-owned companies with
private thugs (on the sly, behind the back and against the orders of
the court) attacking people defending their land and everyone's
water—this all sounded terribly familiar, in a way I would have
hoped not to see in 2016, as opposed to 1916.
Once again, however, the courage and
strength of ordinary people triumphed, as it did 100 years ago to
give us the labor laws we've come to rely on in this country—and
Labor Day. May it continue to be so.
I have little doubt that we have, in many ways, cycled back around to the point where special financial interests are permitted to trample the rights (and lives) of many people and follow only those laws they find convenient. This is a good example of the "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission" attitude some major companies exhibit.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteA couple of weeks ago, some of my journalism friends (of the few remaining) were discussing this story and the decline in national coverage of important stories like it. One guy likened the media to a forest dominated by TV networks and big newspapers that smothered small competitors and, in doing so, killed off the sources that used to alert them to the important stuff happening at a local level. I think that's ONE of the problems in journalism in general today and I worry about what the continued decline in the field means for the future.
good analogy. The eastern side of the Cincinnati suburbs is threatened by installation of a new natural gas pipeline. All three proposed routes will have elementary schools, day care centers, and heavily populated areas within the blast radius. And the reason why we "need" the pipeline keeps changing.
ReplyDeleteKM, yes. The security contractors had brought tech that blocked all cell phone reception, so they thought they could do it with impunity and no one any the wiser--since they could always claim the protesters were lying. What they didn't count on was that Amy Goodman and Democracy Now cameramen were interviewing protesters when it happened, so they caught the whole thing on camera.
ReplyDeleteJulie, I've been appalled at the lack of coverage of this situation. That single NYT article came about because a Native journalist begged a former editor who'd moved to the NYT to get something. The national media have been so transfixed by Trump's constant spectacle that they don't seem capable of covering any other news in the country.
ReplyDeleteMargaret, when they took the pipeline company to court, it turned out that they didn't even have the necessary permits from the Corps of Engineers to do this, but they think they should be allowed to go ahead, no matter what the courts or regulations say. When (not if) the pipeline breaks and leaks into the Missouri River, drinking water will be ruined for millions of people.
ReplyDeleteI think I heard a brief report of this on NPR, but although I have it on much of the day, sometimes I'm in another room. This is horrible, and I can only figure out the lack of coverage is because so much news coverage today if on the Presidential election coming up. I haven't seen it in my local newspaper, but then it leans right considerably, and I watch very little TV. I think this is horrible, and hope they're taken to court and fined for this, and maybe those who used attack dogs will face jail time. I know my grandfather worked for the mines in PA when all those attacks were going on, and it's one of the reasons my father was a strong union supporter.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you wrote this. I have heard bits and pieces about it on the foreign news services that I receive as part of my news feed, but little to zip in the US feeds. This is an atrocity and I hope that the deep pockets of the interlopers do not triumph! Thank you, Linda. Important stuff and so well suited to Labor Day.
ReplyDeleteUtterly disgraceful, criminal actions. I can't understand why these people are not in jail.
ReplyDeleteI'm with KM and Julie. I feel that we are moving backwards on so many important issues, and that a major cause is the death of journalism. I basically rely on the BBC for my news. I'm tired of being alternately patronized and infuriated by mainstream broadcast news - pinging between latest viral cat video and the Trump news of the day. This pipeline is a disaster. Just like fracking - the increase in seismic activity in Oklahoma is beyond alarming and I can't imagine why these things are allowed to happen. Oh, wait, I forgot. It's all about money.
Gloria, the media is starting to pay a little more attention since these attacks, but basically to interview the sheriff (who wasn't there) who gave false information that the security people were attacked and they and their dogs were seriously injured and the protesters were violent. The video taken by Amy Goodman and Democracy Now as it happened (linked in the blog) shows that all to be lies.
ReplyDeleteKait, yes. Though our MSM have not covered it, the rest of the world is watching.
ReplyDeleteShari, this is why the robber baron age came to mind for me. It almost seems to me as if we're moving back to that time of ostentatious display of extreme wealth, along with disregard for human life and well-being.
ReplyDeleteSo much of the "news" is covered in partisan ways that it is hard to find reliable information. Big corporations are trying to control things as basic as water.
ReplyDeleteWarren, you're right. It's easier than ever to find out about something--if you know it's going on. But we relay on the news media to let us know what important things are going on, and they don't all, too often. They have their own ideas of what we should focus on, usually things that will bring them money and make their advertisers happy, and they ignore everything else.
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