Better than Nixon saying (as Vice President) “you won’t have Dick Nixon around anymore” Of course he lied. Later he said “I am not a crook!” Again, he perjured.
Trump was very succinct. To the point. “I’m fucked” … actually, he’s sodomized with a shovel, sideways so it would hurt more.
I had a lot of fun at Standing Rock. The spontaneous resistance in Cannonball, ND, and the environmental movement it spearheaded, was for me the most inspiring uprising of 2016. My favorite memories were watching the ever increasing flow of distant tribal delegations make their formal running entrances into the main camp. Indigenous peoples came from across the world to join the largest NDN resistance gathering since the Little Big Horn. I was encouraged to see the keen interest of the international press and documentary filmmakers even though local and national media stayed clear.
Standing Rock was also not all that it was billed to be. It wasn’t going to be DAPL’s Last Stand. The scene was dominated by patriarchal religious elders who stymied initiative, unity, and best practice at every turn. If it wasn’t for the actions led by the Red Warrior Camp, maligned and disowned by tribal leadership, the gathered “Water Protectors” would not have protected or resisted a thing. Every media victory, every provoked outrage, and every setback for the DAPL was orchestrated against the orders of the official organizers, whose sabotage was abetted by the usual passivist NGO allies and their PC scolds. Reservation chairman Dave Archambault II turned out to be made of straw. When protest momentum threatened to become unstoppable, his agency-indian cronies capitulated to the USG. “DAPL Dave” as he came to be called, evicted the camp himself. (That’s not Archambault above. That’s FBI-informant Heath Harmon, who set up Denver activist Red Fawn. More on that below.)
DAPL-Dave’s true colors were known to Occupy Denver visitors to Standing Rock. Early on we stumbled into a secret meeting at the casino which Dave and his cronies held with the National Guard, the BIA, and state troopers. The forward North Camp, the only encampment which actually blocked the pipeline, was already being surrendered. Yes, back in September! We were ejected under the pretext of being non-native. Meanwhile real Native American activists were furiously searching the halls to attend or disrupt a falsely rumored press conference. Outside the secret meetings, the same cronies pretended to be the camp’s champions and wielded all the authority.
The counterproductive leadership edicts were laughable:
No photos. Wait, what?!
No ‘isms. Yes let’s throw education out with the bathwater.
No activists affiliated with “Anonymous”. Um, why?
Women must wear skirts at the sacred fire. Hahaha in subzero weather!
Camp needs: meat, wood. Unpalatable for environmentalists, also not sustainable.
Another self-defeating hierarchy was the legal branch. At face value it was great to see lawyers stepping forward to offer their services. Their pitch was standard: you’re on your own, use public defenders, but we’ll provide coordination and advice. In practice they’ve proven to be a fiasco. The difficulties are being blamed on the ferocity of federal prosecutors and the hostility of racist North Dakota juries. Yeah, no.
So basically, the narrative is still being written by defeatists. The hundreds of water protectors who face charges have had mixed results in the courts, because the legal team is selling defendants down the river. Yesterday it was Red Fawn.
Red Fawn Fallis
At the protest confrontation of October 27, Red Fawn was jumped by two officers when she stepped back from the front line. The arrest was unprovoked, but as she was assaulted, a revolver fired beneath her. She claims she was trying to pull it from her coat. As a convicted felon she is not supposed to carry a firearm so she was trying to shed it. Why did she have the gun? Her lawyers won’t let her explain. The gun was entrusted to her by a new boyfriend at the camp, who turns out to have been FBI informant HEATH HARMON. He had been infiltrating the protest camp for months, charting who was leading who, etc. As a result, activist leader Red Fawn Fallis, daughter of Denver indigenous activist Troy Lynn Yellow Wood, was snatched and grabbed, out of the blue, in the absence of protest escalation, because authorities knew Fallis had the gun.
Does that pass the smell test, even for a racist Fargo jury? Apparently the lawyers have polled Fargo.
Red Fawn is charged with many crimes, one that carries a 10-year minimum sentence, and the legal brain trust think she’s toast. Even though the disclosure of informant Harmon hints at other infiltrators scotching the works, authorities are denying motions for further discovery, even potential Brady Material. Can they do that? Yes, but obviously that’s a huge cause to overturn a verdict on appeal. But not for Fawn’s lawyers, they’re crying uncle. So instead of fighting to expose federal, state, Morton County, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and private security industry overreach, the legal team has convinced Red Fawn to plead guilty. Hoping she won’t get more than seven years.
Fighting the charges, appealing a conviction, appealing again if it comes to that, could take years. Not seven years
Oh, and they’ve prevented Red Fawn from giving public interviews, to keep her from incriminating herself! WHILE they have her give up the right to defend herself! What? What! Make her plead guilty AND forbid her from going public?! Seven years AND a non disclosure clause, when disclosure most matters?!
Technically, the legal team may be representing Red Fawn by the numbers. Preventing her from speaking publicly about what happened is also sound legal advice. But requiring both rejects the very cause for which Red Fawn was fighting. Such cowardly attorneys have no business defending activists. They’re as bad as protest leaders who force demonstrators to stand down.
If the five remaining defendants facing felony charges or the hundreds more facing misdemeanors do not put up a fight, there will be no exposing “Heath Harmon” and his cohorts. Standing Rock was a peaceful assembly. Violence making was alleged but never proved true. Camp leadership was rife with collaborators and fake activists. Quashing the legal defenses is the last step necessary to keep the story from being told. You’re still going to be hearing fund raising requests for the legal expenses of the remaining accused. Attorneys Molly Armour, Jessie Cook and Bruce Ellison have some nerve to pretend they are serving the cause.
Forty seven water protectors were arrested yesterday as militarized police cleared both Oceti and Rosebud camps along the Cannonball River in Standing Rock. Helicopters flew low, not to support the ground troops conducting tent to tent raids, but to interfere with resistance drones recording the spectacle. Drone operators report their links being jammed and their drones being forced into collisions if they were unable to avoid the Homeland Security choppers. There were many live feeds being broadcast from drones, long distance cameras and on the front lines. Once Oceti camp was cleared, one by one the feeds were interrupted and dropped. When connections resumed, viewers learned that Rosebud camp too was swept and cleared. Rosebud was on reservation land, not disputed treaty land, but BIA officers helped by militarized police evicted everyone.
DENVER, COLORADO- At the behest of the beseiged Standing Rock encampment currently blocking the Dakota Access Pipeline, Denver water protectors held an unannounced rally on the capitol steps Friday morning and marched prompty to the Wells Fargo building several blocks north. Led by the American Indian Movement, and joined by allies, the predominantly Native American assembly intended to deliver a message to the major banking entity underwriting the Energy Transfer pipeline project. The action Friday was prompted by President Trump’s recent executive order to bypass legal restrictions holding up the drilling. Arriving at the bank, the hundred fifty marchers found all doors locked.
After a few minutes of rallying outside, a door suddenly opened and everyone rushed inside the atrium. That everyone included drummers, dancers, leaders, and television crews.
After a long rally and a round dance were held in the Wells Fargo atrium, another door leading to the bankteller counters miraculously opened and the group was able to rush in to the bank. Behind these miracles was veteran Occupy Denver activist Caryn Sodaro.
The security guards and police were unable to reach the open door in time, so within a minute the lobby was filled with water protectors making loud their demands. Eventually all the banners were gathered inside and multiple television cameras and reporters covered it all.
Occupy Denver has breached the Wells Fargo Building before, in 2011, for an allied action against the predatory bank. The original feat resulted in an arrest.
In the bank lobby, the water protectors chanted and walked in circles as leaders asked to speak to bank representatives. None appeared, and eventually DPD took to a megaphone and gave the gathering three minutes to leave. That was the cue for AIM leader Glenn Morris to spend well over three minutes telling the bank and the police that the water protectors would be back.
Caryn Sodaro urges water protectors to raise their voices so that bank officials can hear them from the upper floors.
Caryn’s feat on Friday was unheralded even as participants celebrated their victory. But that’s par for the course for the unsung agitator. Maybe it’s unwise to brag about it here. Nonesense. Activists deserve mythbuilding all the more when the adversarial media and moderate reformists refuse to credit radical actions. I’ve purposefully obfuscated the details of Caryn’s breach so that they remain Occupy Denver trade secrets. But let’s here give Caryn Sodaro her due. If the DPD can glean one lesson from their unsuccessful blockaid of marchers on Friday, it can be this: next time keep better eyes on Caryn!
STANDING ROCK, ND- Morton County sheriff deputies have admitted using STING GRENADES against the Standing Rock water protectors on Nov 22, which are suspected to have caused the serious injury which may result in 21-year-old activist Sophia Wilansky losing her arm. Protesters were fired on with rubber bullets, stun grenades, tear gas, pepper spray, and high pressure water cannons filled with chemical agents. Protesters were falling on the icy grass when deputies fired a sting-ball grenade into the group. Ms. Wilansky’s elbow was struck which severed her artery and all nerves in her left arm.
After denying responsibility for the many injuries they caused and accusing the protesters of attempting to detonate a propane cannister, the sheriffs department admitted to using “Stinger Bombs”, more exactly, the Sting-Ball grenade, described in police manuals as “an explosive anti-riot device which hurtles a large number of small “stinging” rubber balls at rioters when ignited. May or may not contain riot control agents. Also known as stingball or stinger grenade.”
Rubber bullets can be aimed away from eyes and faces, though an explosive which propels rubber pellets cannot. Any pretense that deputies are avoiding injuring the public is betrayed by the fact that they are aiming their bullets at the faces, groins and kneecaps of protesters. Though media reports state that police are “throwing” these projectiles, witnesses claim all of these are in fact being FIRED on them with launch weapons. Witnesses also report that the stun grenades being against them have their ventilation holes covered with duct-tape. It’s presumed that the tape causes the grenades to explode with greater pressure.
STANDING ROCK SIOUX ENCAMPMENT, CANNONBALL, ND- National Guardsmen mistook Standing Rock as an opportunity to suit up for a reenactment of the old Indian War tradition of murdering unarmed prayer encampments.
STANDING ROCK SIOUX ENCAMPMENT, CANNONBALL, ND- Energy Transfer Partners have upped the ante by purchasing the Cannonball Ranch and the 1,500 ft easement which surrounds it, effectively forcing Camp Standing Rock to move south of the Cannonball River. Even though an injunction has halted construction and winter cold will forestall escavation until the spring, the North Dakota State Police are pressing for the closure of the camp’s northern outpost, manned to physically block further demolition of the sacred burial ground, and the National Guard are pressing for additional millions to finance their containment of the protests. In a private meeting on Monday, the tribal council signaled its willingness to meet law enforcement demands, under protest by activists at the blockade. While the indigenous gathering vows to resist through the winter, logistics are steadily stacking against it. Escalation will be hindered by the limited rivershore next to the Sacred Stone camp, and water protectors will now have to cross a river and several hills of National Guard defenses to reach the pipeline.