By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor.
In a shameful and terrible scene reminiscent of police attacks against civil rights advocates and union busting of the 1920’s, the Dakota Access pipeline company dispatched its “goon squad” which unleashed attack dogs and pepper spray, injuring several Native American protesters. What began as a peaceful protest deteriorated into a new and shameful moment in today’s America, symbolized quite fittingly with images of Native Americans’ blood in the teeth of Corporate America’s attack dogs.
The latest outrage against Native Americans reportedly occurred on Saturday when the Dakota Access Pipeline Company attacked protesters opposed to construction of the $3.8 billion dollar pipeline linking North Dakota’s Bakken Oilfield to Illinois.
Democracy Now! provided on the ground footage of the confrontation that injured several and shows to many a telling picture of how Dakota Access (a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners) approaches those who object to its corporate interests.
The demonstration began with a gathering of perhaps a hundred or more demonstrators advocating their opposition to the pipeline, standing at a road adjacent to a line of bulldozers clearing earth for future construction. Many of those in attendance expressed their surprise at how suddenly construction began, considering the pending legal challenges facing the project. The firm hired security guards and even went so far as to have a helicopter circling the vicinity.
When a few of the demonstrators crossed over a barbed wire fence, members of the construction team/security contacted them. Then matters took a turn for the worse.
A few men in hard hats began talking to some who crossed over but, as shown in the below video, one of the construction workers threw a demonstrator to the ground–sparking a confrontation.
Later, the bulldozers pulled back but the company’s “security team” called in reinforcements armed with attack dogs and pepper spray to intimidate and push back the demonstrators. This led to many being bitten and sprayed. One person reported the dogs were so out of control, that even some of the construction workers were bitten.
In the end, the Native American demonstrators succeeded in stopping the construction efforts but paid a price with their own blood. That’s apparently how Dakota Access, LLC seems in my view seems an acceptable way of punishing anyone seeking to protect water quality and livelihoods who stands in their way.
What’s next Dakota Access, rubber bullets and water cannon?
The very use of attack dogs against demonstrators shocks many, returning us shamefully to the worst days of the civil rights movement in the United States. Although then it was local governments letting slip the attack dogs, today in this case it is corporations.
Congress should take note of this outrage and forestall any further use of attack dogs against demonstrators through legislation, that is obvious. But in the present I believe executive action by the presidency is necessary to halt operations on this pipeline to protect the public from goon squads such as this. In fact, I suspect there is good cause to investigate and possibly charge Dakota Access for crimes committed against these demonstrators. The civil case is obvious. The company not only allegedly injured these people, but recklessly exposed them to blood-borne pathogens by allowing their dogs to bite multiple individuals.
The opposition to this pipeline among Native Americans and others resulted in what is described to be the largest Native American convergence in more than a century, as reported by TheRealNews.com.
By Darren Smith
Sources:
Democracy Now! (Photo credit included)
TheRealNews.com
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Terrible to watch. I felt sad for the security “goons” too. I mean, it’s a demeaning and degrading job defending corporate overlords’ looting of the commons.
I agree. This is false consciousness personified. It was clear that some of these people acted sadistically and enjoyed harming others. But even those people do not understand their essential expandability in the eyes of Kelcey Warren and other oligarchs. If they did, they could not act as they did (unless they are so far gone as to be true sadists and nothing more).
What is saddening about the oligarchy draining every last drop of fossil fuel from the earth, while polluting the land, water and air, is the completely unnecessary nature of what they are doing. While the US public is told many times over that alternative energy is simply not an option for us, enclaves of wealthy people are popping up in the US and other nations. These enclaves are removed from google maps. Google even jams GPS so that they will not show up on these devices. The enclaves have their own water and use various methods of alternative energy, making them completely free of our crumbling power grid.
Further, the DOD understands something about fossil fuels as well. While they are the primary consumer of them in the US, they are simultaneously moving rapidly to alternative energy. The actions of the oligarchy tell us exactly what they really think of fossil fuels and the important of hooking into alternative energy in their place. We should heed this warning.
We could have full employment now just by using alternative energy and fixing the grid to accept it, even if that means several localized grids instead of one large, now crumbling one. We could provide much needed jobs and wealth in environmental clean up. We could stop doing damage to this earth and its creatures while making a whole sh*% load of money for the oligarchy and the other 99% of the population.
It is a mystery to me why the powerful will not open the hearts and minds to what they are doing. It is difficult to believe that as children they hoped only to do great harm to the earth and to other people. Surely, at one time in their life, they wanted something much more.
Both the protesters and the corporation are at fault. However, the government is the most at fault for not providing the necessary separation between the two sides. Where are the police protecting both the corporation’s rights and the protester’s rights? The rights of Native Americans, the issues of pollution, and the freedom to make a buck are all things that need to be addressed in the courts and if necessary through protest and other actions by the people. In this case the protesters overstepped their boundaries and approached/threatened the workers and the workers, instead of leaving and arranging for police protection, used dogs and mace in a most despicable manner. Both sides wrong, government at fault.
In response to the comment that the protesters were trespassing on private property. What about fracking underneath the protesters’ property which poisons their well water for drinking and evidence that fracking causes earthquakes?
When the U.S. Department of Justice starts criminally prosecuting officials that violate legal constitutional exercises it will create a deterrent for other constitutional law breakers.
Currently Americans really don’t have a watchdog agency that does that effectively. Maybe we need to create one or incentivize the DOJ to enforce federal “color of law” criminal statutes.
Here is some info about Kelcey Warren. Contrast him with the people you see in this video.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-05-19/pipeline-billionaire-kelcy-warren-is-having-fun-in-the-oil-bust
Jerry, Thanks for posting this video yesterday and than you so much Darren for writing this column about the protest. ETP is also currently destroying one of the most delicate ecosystems in TX. The Trans-Pecos Pipeline was railroaded in place, again as the Federal Govt. stood by and let it happen. Kelcey Warren, the CEO in charge of doing in the earth via both pipelines, fancies himself quite the supporter of folk singers, an ironic self image given that most folk songs are about protecting the land and the people from oligarchs such as himself.
Here is a very worrying fact about ETP: from macroaxis
Based on latest financial disclosure Energy Transfer Partners LP has Probability Of Bankruptcy of 48.0%. This is 3.29% higher than that of the Basic Materials …
This company will have its money. When the pipeline breaks and pollutes the water and the land, who will be picking up that tab? Will it even be taken care of at all? Doubtful.
These people are incredibly brave and astute. They clearly have each other’s backs. They are committed to saving the land and the water.
ETP has the full faith and credit of the corrupt USG on its side against the people. Corporations use both govt. spying apparatus and their own private security to monitor and attack the people. I am so grateful to these men and women for having such great courage and strong commitment on behalf of the earth and its life.
Thank-you to those who took the time and effort to protest on behalf of everyone else. LIke Bill McKibbon said, fossil fuel facilitation keeps popping up like a Whack-a-mole game. Even after fossil fuel use is known to be a dangerous anachronism, fossil fuel projects keep rising from the dead like zombies.
The American Indians have been Pillaged and Plundered by and for self-righteous greed for far too long. They need the support of the People of the US now more than ever. We have reached the Point in the US where we will destroy this country for the benefit of a few or the people will prove who really owns the United States of America. A gaggle of Attornies could do more to stop this and protect the Constitution if they don’t we are doomed to be controlled by money lining the pockets of Politicians.
The callous insensitivity by this corporation is inexcusable. Was a meeting ever held with the tribe to honor Native Americans and obtain an agreement as to the pipeline route?
What Prarie Rose wrote!
Darren writes, “Congress should take note of this outrage and forestall any further use of attack dogs against demonstrators through legislation . . .” Amen. It’s abuse of the victim and the dog. Sniffing out drugs is one thing, but dogs can be injured or killed attacking or being sent into any situation the police officer is using the dog to avoid.
The photo of the dog biting near the appendix of a demonstrator whose arms are down in submission and who appears to be braced for the abuse is difficult to look at. What a brave and devout man!
Of course, CNN will probably get sartorial on us:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZarqVSBC1pA
Thanks for posting this, Darren!
Dakota Access may have won the battle, but it looks to be a Pyrrhic victory.
Local laws are pretty clear about dogs attacking humans – I cannot sic my dogs on a trespasser without immense civil consequences and risking my dogs being put down.
These are civilian dogs with few of the protections offered police dogs.
I suspect that next time some of those demonstrators will exercise their Second Amendment rights.
That’s how the white man reacts whenever any minority protests. If these were white tea party demonstrators Fox News, hannity and bill O’Reilly would be clapping and supporting the protests against government overreach and the Obama administration.
So glad you are covering this, Darren.
A lot of litigation is going on here.
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe vs Army Crop of Engineers will be back in Wash DC federal court this Friday, September 9, 2016 for a ruling. U.S. District Judge James E. Boarsberge will make the ruling.
“ON SATURDAY, DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE AND ENERGY TRANSFER PARTNERS BRAZENLY USED BULLDOZERS TO DESTROY OUR BURIAL SITES, PRAYER SITES AND CULTURALLY SIGNIFICANT ARTIFACTS,” TRIBAL CHAIRMAN DAVID ARCHAMBAULT II SAID. “THEY DID THIS ON A HOLIDAY WEEKEND, ONE DAY AFTER WE FILED COURT PAPERS IDENTIFYING THESE SACRED SITES. THE DESECRATION OF THESE ANCIENT PLACES HAS ALREADY CAUSED THE STANDING ROCK SIOUX IRREPARABLE HARM. WE’RE ASKING THE COURT TO HALT THIS PATH OF DESTRUCTION.”
The motion seeks to prevent additional construction work on an area two miles west of North Dakota Highway 1806, and within 20 miles of Lake Oahe until a judge rules on the Tribe’s previous motion to stop construction.
That motion is based on the Standing Rock Sioux’s assertion that it was not properly consulted before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fast-tracked approval of the pipeline project.
A decision on the case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is expected by September 9, 2016.
Here is a video of Dave Archambault, President of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in Wash DC after first court hearing. Judge James E. Boarsberge said he needed time to think about this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBRQ6UIgfOM
I hope that the goons are put away for a long time.
Would be nice if their masters were as well.
Reblogged this on Matthews' Blog.
The guards need to be shot from a distance with bow and arrows. The dogs should be ignored and not attacked. Black Labradors Lives Matter.
I’m trying to locate a source to determine whether or not the dogs and pepper spray were used when the protesters trespassed on private property. In any case, seems to be an excessive use of force, and a PR nightmare. Calling the police to have the trespassers removed might have played better than dog bites.
Yeah, where is Obama on this issue? Reminds me of the Pinkerton attacks on coal miners. Corporations are becoming stronger than states and that is a serious problem.