The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe: The fight goes on

On June 8, 2017, the Wallace Global
Foundation awarded the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe the inaugural Henry A.
Wallace award "for its brave resistance in defending sacred
land and water against the Dakota Access Pipeline." The HAW award is given
in recognition of "extraordinary examples of courage in standing up to
abuse of corporate and government power." I highly recommend that you
check out the website and the powerful video narrated by Bill
Moyer. Standing Rock Sioux Chairman, Dave Archambault II, accepted the
$250,000 award. In addition to this award, the Foundation pledged up to one
million dollars in investments to support renewable energy projects led by the
Tribe.
On June 14, 2017 , Judge James Boasberg,
U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., wrote a 91-page decision finding that
the U. S. Corps of Army Engineers did not adequately consider the impact
of oil spills on the environment and on people. The judge did not halt the
flow of oil in the Dakota Access Pipeline, however. This decision awaits
another hearing.
The
confrontation between the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Energy Transfer
Partnership brought to light a disturbing partnership between the corporation,
law enforcement and TigerSwan, which is described by The Intercept as a
private "mercenary and security firm." Founded by Army Col. James
Reese, TigerSwan, describes itself as "an ideologically driven insurgency
with a strong religious component," according to The
Intercept. Since it is a private security company, TigerSwan is not
subject to the legal restrictions that would apply to law enforcement agencies.
In fact, during the time of the confrontation in North Dakota, TigerSwan was
not even licensed to operate in the state. Nonetheless, documents obtained
by The Intercept show that in North Dakota TigerSwan worked
closely with local law enforcement, the North Dakota Attorney General, the
North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the Department of Homeland
Security, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and
other national agencies. Then FBI Directory James Comey set up a Joint
Terrorism Task Force to investigate and interrogate water protectors and their
allies.
The
trend toward increasing the militarization of law enforcement is disturbing
enough. When we add to that the criminalization of dissent and equating protest
with terrorism it is imperative that we address questions of corporate wealth
and power and the rights of dissent from a religious and theological
perspective. When corporations are treated better than human beings, we need to
claim higher moral ground. When profits matter more than people, we
need to claim higher moral ground. On June 4, 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., spoke about "The Power of Nonviolence" to an audience in
Berkeley, California. In his address he spoke about the need to be
"maladjusted." He said, "I never intend to adjust myself to the
tragic effects of the methods of physical violence and to tragic militarism. I
call upon you to be maladjusted to such things. . . . As maladjusted as Jesus
of Nazareth who dreamed a dream of the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man [sic]. God grant that we will be so maladjusted that
we will be able to go out and change our world and our civilization."
David Phillips Hansen
No comments:
Post a Comment