Members of local Native American groups spoke and led chants or songs in their native languages, emphasizing the importance of cultural traditions and access to basic necessities, like clean water, for the community in North Dakota. The Episcopal Church is helping in the effort. “Not only by the people who attend this event, but by Obama himself”.
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“It was an absolute privilege”, Smith said. “I may just be washing dishes at the camp. I was there representing my whole congregation”. “It’s coming from the black ops security infiltrators who have come in to start violence so that the pipeline company and the police can point at us and say it’s our fault”.
“It’s not about Standing Rock”.
Alongside the issues seen with the Dakota Access Pipeline, Michigan has had its own problems with water, including the recent Flint water crisis and locally with Enbridge Line 5 running through the Straits of Mackinac.
Supporters say DAPL would runs parallel to an already existing pipeline, the Northern Border Pipeline, that was built back in 1982, and it would strengthen the state’s economy and budget.
By early August, the Standing Rock “spirit camp”, which had been set up by a couple of tribal members in April on reservation land overlooking the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball Rivers, was attracting tribes from not only the Great Plains but all across the country.
The proposed pipeline will extend from Montana to southern IL. She said she believes there is too much risk of the pipeline rupturing and contaminating the water supply.
The two members of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas joined more than 500 ministers and religious leaders November 4 for a day of prayer and conversation in south central North Dakota to confront what they contend is an ecological disaster waiting to happen. “They have what they consider money in the ground”.
“Reform rabbis have called for climate justice repeatedly over the decades, most recently in 2015, and have long supported the rights of Native American Indians and particularly expressed sensitivity for their burial sites”, a statement by the CCAR reads. “It’s going to affect every one of our children, every one of our grandchildren”, Shasta Heart, a protestor from Redding, said. There they were met by heavily armed police, Carmona said. They were fed sack lunches made by community members and learned about peaceful resistance.
“Indigenous people were pepper sprayed and shot with rubber bullets”, she wrote.
Logistically, Lindsay said, Regina is a good rest stop for many people travelling to or from the camp.
The oppression, theft, murder, and assault of white people is always a breaking news story and cover of the New York Times, but when Native Americans are the victims–well, that’s just not that sexy of a story for our media. In the end, neither were arrested. For some time now, protestors have been camping on the site in tepees, gathered together to protest the project by prayer.
Two weeks ago, as pipeline construction deadlines neared, the county sheriff organized militarized police from seven different states to confront the people there.
An oil spill at Standing Rock would also impact an estimated 17 million people located down stream from the river, according to Richard Kuprewicz of Accufacts, Inc., a consulting firm that advises government agencies and industry about pipelines.
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“It’s because those banks are funding in and have invested in these pipelines”, said Myka Burning, one of the organizers.
