If you’re like me, you are probably feeling a deep sorrow in your heart over the news that oil will soon flow through that black snake of death, the Dakota Access Pipeline. Despite the largest gathering of tribes in over 100 years, despite the prayers and militant resistance, despite hundreds of water protectors facing trumped up felony charges, despite the[Read More…]

The Lakota, my people in spirit, fighting the Dakota pipeline know. Whatever else is best for us to do as a life aim than to serve helpfulness? Seven generation stewardship is a concept that urges the current generation of humans to live and work for the benefit of the seventh generation into the future.- From Seven generation sustainability – Wikipedia[Read More…]

Every day I write rhymes on Twitter. I get a kick out of reducing complicated ideas and events down to 140 characters. So yesterday I wrote: Powers That Be think it’s the end DAPL will now have much money to spend But Standing Rock is a rally cry Rebalance our world before we die And that is the story I[Read More…]

On Thursday, as North Dakota police moved in with a fleet of bulldozers, Humvees, and armored MRAP vehicles, Gov. Doug Burgum signed into law four bills that would bring harsher punishment for protest-related activity in the state. The bills, his press statement said, were meant to protect landowners’ rights. But for the 46 people arrested that day, their stand was[Read More…]

As the Army Corps of Engineers forcibly evicted the last of the remaining water protectors from the Oceti Sakowin protest camp on Thursday, Indigenous opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) made it clear that their expulsion would not be the end of the fight. “Our hearts are not defeated. The closing of the camp is not the end of[Read More…]

Riot police began violently arresting the remaining Dakota Access Pipeline protesters in the Oceti Sakowin Camp, following yesterday’s eviction deadline set by North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. The first arrests occurred a few hours after the 2:00 pm deadline. Police rushed and tackled unarmed protesters and independent journalists, then retreated down the road, only to rush at protesters again. Eric[Read More…]

The police came to Last Child Camp in broad daylight, with armored vehicles and guns drawn, to rip our people from our land.  Many water protectors were on prayer walks and in ceremony. We watched from the top of the hill at Oceti Oyate Camp as the troops moved in against them. We sent our prayers to those innocent and[Read More…]

The movement to stop the controversial Dakota Access pipeline through financial activism took an important step forward today, as the Seattle City Council voted 9-0 to approve a bill that terminates a valuable city contract with Wells Fargo. The bank, one of the largest in the United States, has provided more than $450 million in credit to the companies building the pipeline.

In the waning months of 2016, as the Standing Rock Sioux’s protest raged against the Dakota Access Pipeline (NODAPL), an historic Back To The Future journey was begun anew for the entire human race to ponder. This journey wasn’t just about Climate Change and how to more quickly convert the world from fossil fuels to renewable energies. It was about[Read More…]

On Tuesday, the United States Army Corps of Engineers filed documents with the US District Court in Washington, DC stating that it intends to grant an easement to Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) so that it can move forward with the completion of the Dakota Access pipeline. It also notified the Senate of its filings, stating that construction is expected to[Read More…]

When my daughter was five years old, I put three cardboard boxes one day in her bedroom. With a fat marking magic marker, I labeled one “A,” a second one “B,” and a third one “C.” I told her that my doing this task would help her with classification skills about knowing where various items — like toys, clothes, puzzles,[Read More…]

In the waning months of 2016, as the Standing Rock Sioux’s protest raged against the Dakota Access Pipeline (NODAPL), an arduous, historic Back To The Future journey was begun anew for the entire human race to ponder. This journey wasn’t just about Climate Change and how to more quickly convert the world from fossil fuels to renewable energies. It was[Read More…]

With assistance from the National Guard, police raided a protest camp in Cannon Ball, North Dakota near the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) site on February 1, evicting and arresting seventy-six protesters opposed to the completion of the pipeline. At about 4 pm, a convoy of bulldozers, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, and Long Range Acoustic Device sound cannons descended upon[Read More…]

It’s been a tumultuous few days for anyone following the ongoing battle against the Dakota Access pipeline. Within the course of just over a week, the project’s backers tried to get a judge to cancel environmental review of the project, environmental review officially began, and, on Jan. 24, President Trump issued a memorandum calling for the Army Corps of Engineers[Read More…]

The world has been shocked by North Dakota’s violent reaction to the anti-oil pipeline resistance at Standing Rock. For the better part of a year, people have watched via social media, then increasingly on conventional media outlets, as heavily armed law enforcement officers and private contractors attacked unarmed civilians with rubber bullets, mace, tear gas, batons, and water cannons in[Read More…]

Nonviolent campaigns are often dramatic and catch the attention of millions—think of Standing Rock water protectors resolute in the face of a brutal police force. All the more puzzling that the concept of a “nonviolent campaign” is little known and often ignored when people talk about how to mobilize power, for example, to prevent Donald Trump from erasing gains made[Read More…]

Before the Standing Rock Sioux’s historic protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline (NODAPL) fades from the world’s collective memory – and the next tumultuous phase begins for the world to continue to address Climate Change and how to more quickly convert from fossil fuels to renewable energies – it’s essential to pause and reconsider what exactly happened during the closing[Read More…]

A little after Thanksgiving break, I got a message from my friend Deborah Duguid-May, who is a priest at Trinity Episcopal Church here in Rochester, NY. She wanted to know if I’d join her and eight other Episcopalians (a group including three priests and two teenagers) on a trip to Standing Rock, North Dakota. We would leave on Sunday December[Read More…]

The life that we have built here has taught many how to live a large-scale sustainable, decolonized, anticapitalist lifestyle. I arrived at Standing Rock in the very last days of May, alongside some comrades, at the request of Wiyaka Eagleman, the first firekeeper at Camp of the Sacred Stones and a founding member of the Keystone XL campaign. He had[Read More…]

The Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) is yet another violent variable in the equation of environmental racism that plagues the United States, and the world—to the peril of Indigenous and low-wealth communities of color everywhere. Native lands, water, sacred sites, and sovereignty have been sacrificed to “spare” majority white areas north of Bismarck, North Dakota from the myriad risks of this[Read More…]

Over the past few months activists opposed to the Dakota Access pipeline have ramped up pressure on the pipeline company’s financiers, and now the city of Seattle is showing what kind of weight a large municipality can add as it looks at taking $3 billion in city business away from Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo is one of 38 banks offering[Read More…]

Hundreds of water protectors gathered in a solar-powered 200-foot geodesic dome nestled on the plains amid tipis and waited three hours to join a traditional Lakota dinner on Thanksgiving. Ancient tradition guided a solemn dinner initiated by prayer and a small offering of food to the spirits. Traditional Lakota protocols guide how food is prepared and served. Elders eat first,[Read More…]

Sasja Beslik, head of sustainable finance at Nordea, one of the largest banks in Europe, recently traveled to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on a fact-finding mission. Originally from Bosnia, Beslik has seen his share of war and says that the Oceti Sakowin Camp reminded him of a war zone. Beslik says Nordea’s customers pressured the bank to investigate the[Read More…]

by Frank Barat & Vidal Cuervo With the announcement that the Dakota Access Pipeline will be re-routed, the water protectors at Standing Rock might have won a battle but they have not yet won the war. Despite blizzards and deadly temperatures, they are still at the camp and many more are pouring in to help. In this interview, Eryn Wise,[Read More…]

At the Oceti Sakowin camp there were celebrations into the night when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision was announced. Fireworks lit up the sky, which is normally dominated by police searchlights, and there were songs, prayers, and dance. And tears. The decision to halt work on the Dakota Access pipeline may be the victory that the Standing Rock[Read More…]

Before the NODAPL Sioux Protest passes into the next phase of America squarely addressing the larger issue of Climate Change and how to more quickly convert from fossil fuels to renewable energies, it’s important to reflect upon what exactly happened over the past several months that the NODAPL Protest raged. President Obama is being widely-applauded for finally showing the courage[Read More…]

Over the past eight months, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North Dakota have been joined by more than 200 allied tribes and tens of thousands of non-Native activists for a nonviolent resistance campaign against Energy Transfer Partners’ (ETP) $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The pipeline, which has been projected to transport at least 470,000 barrels of oil per[Read More…]

The federal government on Sunday denied the easement needed to complete the Dakota Access pipeline’s route under the Missouri River. The announcement by the Army Corps of Engineers came as veterans streamed into the camps over the weekend in cars and buses to offer their support to the tribe in its months-long battle. The veterans event had raised more than[Read More…]

Co-Written by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers Cannon Ball, North Dakota (Oceti Sakowin or Council of the Seven Fires Camp) – Today, the people won a major victory in the fight to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The US Army Corps of Engineers sided with the Water Protectors and refused the final permit that would have allowed Energy Transfer Partners[Read More…]

Co-Written by Rachel Olivia O’Connor and Richard Martin Oxman We won’t state the obvious points about what was accomplished, or anything concerning who should be praised. Rather, below, I give you sentiments not being discussed much, if at all, related to the work to be done now that a monumental victory as been won in North Dakota at Standing Rock.[Read More…]

In a long-awaited victory for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has denied a permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline, tribal leadership announced late Sunday. The agency will not allow the pipeline to be built under Lake Oahe, a reservoir near the tribal reservation, without a full environmental impact assessment that examines alternative routes for[Read More…]

The number of veterans traveling to North Dakota to support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in its stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline has swollen to over 3,000, an astonishing show of solidarity that aims to shield the water protectors from police violence. Fellow veteran and prominent progressive Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) traveled to join the peaceful action late Friday,[Read More…]

US president-elect Donald Trump expressed his support for the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) ahead of an evacuation order, due to go into effect on Monday, against thousands of people protesting the oil pipeline project. Trump’s transition team released a statement reaffirming his support for the $3.8 billion project and claiming that this position is not related to[Read More…]

As tensions grow in North Dakota, with multiple eviction orders facing the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in their battle against the Dakota Access Pipeline, U.S. military veterans on Friday began arriving at the Oceti Sakowin protest camp. The 2,000 veterans, which include Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), plan to act as an unarmed militia and peaceful human shields to protect the[Read More…]

Even if you can’t show up at the wintry encampments, you can join water protectors in other ways: from calling the North Dakota governor to breaking up with your bank. The timing couldn’t have been more awful. The day after Thanksgiving, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told the Standing Rock Sioux tribe that people camped at the Oceti Sakowin[Read More…]

At the very end of an interview on RT News focused on the two thousand military vets who are slated to act as human shields for the protesters at Standing Rock this coming week, Erick Lizandro Marroquin, organizer of the vets’ movement in solidarity, responds to the interviewer’s question about whether the vets have a Plan B in case the militarized police[Read More…]

I write these words on what’s a cold night in my city, and a much colder night where my heart is—with my friends in Standing Rock. My writing, which typically centers movements, often sways between news and analysis. My coverage of #NoDAPL has been no exception. But this piece is neither news nor analysis, because these words are for you,[Read More…]

Dakota Access pipeline could be stranded asset in the making. Heavy snow and winter cold settled this month on thousands of Native Americans and their supporters encamped on the banks of the Cannonball River, some 30 miles south of Bismarck, North Dakota. Nearby, the Missouri River slipped past. The river’s clean waters serve as the wellspring in what has steadily[Read More…]

In this report, I will try to give you a sense of what being at Standing Rock is like. Tonight completes my third day here. The weather has been mostly cold but very sunny. The colors, the sky, but most of all the people are startlingly calm and beautiful. The Standing Rock encampment is defined as a prayer site, a[Read More…]

Standing Rock is an unpredicted history lesson for all of us. More than any moment I recall since Wounded Knee, the Vietnam War, or the time of Martin Luther King, this moment stands as a crossroads in the battle for social justice. It is also an economic issue, in a time of economic system transformation, and profoundly a question of[Read More…]

The underbelly of America’s story of empire, greed and expansion, at the constant expense of Indians, Mexicans, former Black slaves and poor whites, is the same ol’, same ol’ constant in 2016 as it was at its birth in 1776 or at any point in-between then and now. To put it more succinctly, America’s real story is an ugly tale[Read More…]

Update Nov. 28: North Dakota Gov. Dalrymple late Monday issued an immediate order for the removal of thousands of water protectors camped at #OcetiSakowin, which is on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land. This came less than a day after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it “has no plans for forcible removal.… Those who remain will be considered unauthorized[Read More…]

Another violent clash between Dakota Access Pipeline protesters and police late Sunday night led to approximately 300 injuries among the protesters, 26 of whom required professional medical attention. Some of the cases include a woman with a serious eye injury after being shot in the face by a rubber bullet, a tribe elder who lost consciousness and was revived on[Read More…]

A couple of weeks ago, as I stood before climate scientists, advocates, and world policy leaders at the COP22 in Morocco, I felt the increased importance of my message as climate denier Donald Trump was voted into office. My perspective as a young Native woman living on the Navajo reservation and studying both renewable energy engineering and Diné studies had[Read More…]

Eleven days ago, when Matt Musselwhite pulled into an encampment at Cannon Ball, North Dakota, in a 5-ton flatbed truck, he had no idea how he would unload the three tiny houses he had just hauled 1,500 miles from southwestern Oregon. Almost immediately volunteers emerged from the throngs of mostly Native Americans. Within hours, teams of 10 people were starting[Read More…]

Mr. President I am writing to you on this sad day of Thanksgiving in response to the despicable, un-American conduct of Governor Jack Dalrymple of North Dakota, North Dakota’s state police, the United States representatives for the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, North Dakota’s National Guard, your administration and you personally, as well, sir for what all is[Read More…]

Law enforcement unleashed percussion grenades, rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons in sub-freezing temperatures on peaceful water protectors battling the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota late Sunday. An activist’s drone captured the onslaught: Drone footage showing water cannons being used on water protectors At the end of the clip, they try to shoot drone w/ water cannon#NoDAPL[Read More…]

As each precious day goes by, the intensity of the confrontation grows ever more feverish and grave between the peaceful, weaponless Sioux and their allies now pitted against the imposing military forces of North Dakota & the United States Government who take their orders from Corporate America & Wall Street. As you read these words, the scandalous abuse by the[Read More…]

44 years ago this ExPat fled to Canada in search of emotional, spiritual and political solace following the election of Richard Milhous Nixon as America’s 37th President. The shocking election of Donald Trump, eight Presidents later, has once more thrust into conscious memory the many reasons why this writer chose Canada as the closest, most logical place of safety away[Read More…]

  As efforts to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline grow, communities across the country are hearing from activists on their return from North Dakota and sending off fresh teams to lend support. The author believes that part of the support for the Standing Rock protests is a dawning consciousness that Native people have something important to teach us about living[Read More…]

Less than 12 hours after Donald Trump walked onto a New York City stage as the newly elected president, the stock price for Energy Transfer Equity shot up 15 percent. Among that company’s holdings is Energy Transfer Partners, operator of the controversial Dakota Access pipeline. Protesters near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation continue to fight completion of the $3.8 billion[Read More…]

Is this the turning point for the Dakota Access Pipeline? Word spread through the camp on Friday of a discussion between the Army Corps of Engineers and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe that could mean a breakthrough. “This proves that our prayers are really strong from the Oceti Sakowin camp,” Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network told[Read More…]

Police descended on water protectors in North Dakota on Wednesday, as images on social media showed a dramatic standoff along a creek that borders a construction site for the long-opposed Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Jordan Chariton, a political reporter with The Young Turks network, posted this video dispatch after covering events just east of the main camp, where Standing Rock[Read More…]

The camp is a hive of activity, people splitting firewood, erecting a giant geodesic dome, patrolling on horseback, cooking food over wood heated stoves. At the same time, the camp is struggling to recover from trauma resulting from last Thursday’s action by a multi-state armored police force. Elders who went out to pray were hit with rubber bullets, bean bag[Read More…]

On Thursday, scores of law enforcement officers from seven different states showed up with riot gear, armored vehicles, and military weaponry to clear away Standing Rock’s newest camp, the “1851 Treaty Camp.” The camp stands directly in the path of the Dakota Access pipeline. Tipis and sweat lodges were destroyed. Vehicles were set ablaze. More than 140 protesters were arrested.[Read More…]

It’s high time to amplify the emotional and spiritual perspective of the Native Voice as it might speak to the American Voter about the woeful Indian treaty history of the United States, and all the doubletalk of its former Presidents and the next one about to be elected. What lies behind the reasons why various disparate issues in American culture[Read More…]

This morning, politics is crowded out by injustice. Every preposterous and painful image from North Dakota is another reminder of injustice: The massive military-style police occupation of Standing Rock treaty lands, the rush to protect the frantic construction schedule for the Dakota Access pipeline, and the brutal law enforcement march against people who are fighting for the simple idea that water[Read More…]

Arrests have begun at the recently erected frontline camp in the path of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), as police and military move in on Indigenous water protectors and their allies in North Dakota. With law enforcement seemingly interfering with cell signal, it is difficult to get a live feed from the ground. Some social media users were able to[Read More…]

On a hill overlooking the Sacred Stone Camp, Lakota artist Charles Rencountre has worked from sunup to sundown over the past month. His sculpture “Not Afraid to Look,” the origins of which can be traced back to early 19th century pipestone carvings, watches over the encampments bustling below. From this perch above the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri rivers,[Read More…]

The first sign that not everything is normal as you drive down Highway 1806 toward the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota is a checkpoint manned by camouflage-clad National Guard troops. The inspection on Sept. 13 was perfunctory; they simply asked if we knew “what was going on down the road” and then waved us through, even though the car[Read More…]

  As the eve of the 2016 US presidential election draws nearer, and the world inches that much closer to the edge of their seats, wondering who the winner will be to lay claim to the world’s most powerful seat for committing acts of good or evil, there is yet another David & Goliath story unfolding. It’s yet one more[Read More…]

I am a settler on this land but have spent the past couple of years supporting indigenous battles against new oil pipelines. These are the front lines of the struggle to end the desecration of Mother Earth, the catastrophes of climate change, and the ongoing genocidal occupation of Indigenous lands that makes that all possible. Across the continent, Big Oil[Read More…]

Most Americans live far from the path of the Dakota Access pipeline—they won’t be able to visit the encampments on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation where representatives of more than 200 tribes have come together in the most dramatic show of force of this environmental moment. They won’t be able to participate in the daily nonviolent battle along the Missouri[Read More…]

On a Saturday in mid-September, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard ambles through the Sacred Stone Camp, which she founded on her family’s land this spring to stop the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. The camp started small, but as media attention—and support—grew over the summer, it swelled by the end of August beyond its physical capacity into overflow camps. The[Read More…]

There are still seasons in Standing Rock – for now. The contrast with Southern California, where I live, couldn’t be starker. The grass is green and lush, the air is fresh, the smell of rain never too far away, and the river winds through the meadows and between the hills full and with great purpose. The nights are growing cold[Read More…]

Cowboys and Indians are at it again. Americans who don’t live in the West may think that the historic clash of Native Americans and pioneering settlers is long past because the Indians were, after all, defeated and now drive cars, watch television, and shop at Walmart.  Not so.  That classic American narrative is back big time, only the Indians are[Read More…]

As fate would have it, the pilgrimage’s odyssey across Turtle Island first began as a one year sojourn among the Hunkpatina people on the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation, located near the Big Bend of the Missouri River at Fort Thompson, South Dakota. The Hunkpatina at Crow Creek were the descendants of Chief Long Crow and his people who had been[Read More…]

Thousands of Native Americans resurrected the fighting spirit of their forefathers as they stood in unprecedented unity to contest an oil company’s desecration of their sacred land in North Dakota. Considering its burdened historical context, this has been one of the most moving events in recent memory. The standoff, involving 5,000-strong Native American protesters, including representatives of 200 tribes and environmental[Read More…]

This year’s massive buildup of resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline follows closely on the heels of the victory over Keystone XL pipeline, something often credited to feverish organizing by 350.org. But years before 350’s involvement, there was the Indigenous Environmental Network, which launched that movement and its “Keep It In the Ground” messaging. This time, with nearly 200 tribes[Read More…]

Major kudos go out to the Texas-based, crude oil Energy Transfer Partners and their multitude of Wall Street financiers that reads like a lineup of who’s-who from the financial world (Sunoco, Bank of America, HSBC, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, US Bank, Barclays, Wells Fargo, Bank of Nova Scotia, Citibank, Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Canada, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley,[Read More…]

An arrest warrant has been issued in North Dakota for Democracy Now! host and executive producer Amy Goodman. Goodman was charged with criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor offense. A team from Democracy Now! was in North Dakota last week to cover the Native American-led protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. On Sept. 3, Democracy Now! filmed security guards working for the[Read More…]

A series of “game-changing” developments impacting the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) battle on Friday afternoon were testament to the power of organizing. Striking a blow to the vibrant, Indigenous-led resistance movement that has sprung up against the four-state oil pipeline, a federal judge on Friday denied the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s attempt to halt its construction. Shortly afterward, however, the[Read More…]

At Cannonball, North Dakota, the people keep coming. The occupation to stop construction of the Dakota Access pipeline has become the largest gathering of the nation’s tribes in more than 100 years. It’s the first time all seven bands of the Sioux Nation have come together since the Battle of Little Bighorn. On Thursday, dozens of tribal families from throughout[Read More…]