Sorry, I am trying to look at the basic issues of the Tribe’s rights vs the pipeline company and the law, complicated by the police response, and whether the police are following legal procedures.
But I think archaeologically. When you mentioned burial grounds, that made me wonder if the hypothetical burials were Lakota, or from a previous tribe that had been genocided, possibly by the Lakota.
It was a rant that does not help the issue. Sorry.
Because if you don’t, then they can say, “Hey, we had a public comment meeting, and no one objected.”
At least if you get your comments on the record, then you can raise some public ire in the next election about not being listened to.
I bet the problem was in how they were invited. Rather than “Treaty-sovereign Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, we’d like to meet with your representatives to negotiate the pipeline route”, but more like “Hey folks of the Standing Rock area, we’re having a community get-together to talk about the pipeline”. Sovereignty is like trademarks: if you don’t defend it, you lose it, and the way the invite was worded probably meant that they couldn’t attend without diluting their sovereignty. If that was the case, it was probably deliberate on the part of the pipeline company, an un-invite.
So, of course, you erred on the side of the assumption that the corporation was in the right and the natives were in the wrong.
Not surprised.
It’s important to give the benefit of the doubt to the white right people.
Well, that is his thing, isn’t it? People who get the benefit of the doubt include cops, Trump rally attendees, corporations, and White Southerners.
People that he seems to assume are inherently less worthy of the benefit of the doubt include: women, blacks, police brutality victims, Natives, and Muslims.
Of course, it’s not like the US government doesn’t have a long history of ignoring and breaking treaties with native people in America? /s
It’s it’s NIMBY, I’d say if any group should be allowed to say that, it’s these people.
So because they’ve been treated poorly in the past, we should try to accommodate them on this issue because we feel bad?
That treatment continues. The price of fair treatment has been abandoning their language and culture. There are still serious problems with how young Native kids are treated (including cases of them being taken out of their homes and put into white homes, tantamount to kidnapping), and general refusals to respect native sovereignty. These are not issues in the past, they are ongoing issues.
Probably there’s a better takeaway from that than “because we feel bad.”
I only said “in the past” because you talked about the long history. It doesn’t really change my point though. The routing of the pipeline has nothing to do with any of the things you mentioned, does it?
…Do you really feel that this is a good faith response to what’s been said here? That breaking treaties is fair to call “poor treatment in the past”, that considering local concerns over their water supply is nothing but “accommodating” them, and that all anyone has offered to you is that one makes a good sop for the other?
Because to me, this reply looks both disingenuous (doubling down on your unfairness of using “NIMBY” to dismiss anyone’s concerns) and rude (mischaracterizing what Mindysan33 said). You can do better.
The routing of the pipeline has nothing to do with general refusals to respect native sovereignty? Really? You’re really intent on dismissing these people, huh.
I think it does, actually. It’s yet more of US/corporate interest overriding native people’s interests. Again. You may not care, but that doesn’t mean it’s yet another stomping on the interests of native people’s who have suffered at the hands of centuries long ethnic cleansing/near genocide. You may not see a connection, but they certainly do.
I thought (and I could be wrong about this) the pipeline did not cross Reservation land. As I understand it, most of the concern is about possible water contamination from a spill.
The pipeline originally ran near a predominantly white town. The residents complained, authorities listened and accommodated them. It was rerouted to run near a Reservation. The Native Americans complained, especially since they claim it disturbed burial sites. Authorities ignored them and violently cracked down on protestors. That seems to be in line with “general refusals to respect native sovereignty.”
Yeah that is basically my short retort on face book lately.
The protestors don’t want it there for the same reasons Bismark didn’t want it running north of it.
ETA - even if you 100% feel the protestors have no leg to stand on legally., their treatment is still unacceptable.
One of the best maps I’ve seen for this story was in the NYT a week ago. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth checking out: The Conflicts Along 1,172 Miles of the Dakota Access Pipeline - The New York Times
Calling Bismarck a predominantly white town suggests that race is a big factor. It’s possible this is all about hate, but I’m hoping it’s more about Bismark being 8x the size of Standing Rock population-wise. Do you think that if Bismark were 600 people rather than 60,000 people, they would have the same clout with respect to the pipeline path? I don’t.
I don’t know that I’d characterize it as “hate” so much as “400+ years of not giving a fuck about what the natives want.”
But today, when they are trying to route some infrastructure, should the concerns of 8,000 people in Standing Rock matter more than the concerns of 60000 Bismarckians (of which 3000 are Native American)?
