Sioux Tribe: Keystone XL Pipeline Vote Is ‘Act Of War’

[big_dog]

The president of a South Dakota-based Native American tribe says it will be an “act of war” if Congress authorizes construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. “We are outraged by the lack of intergovernmental cooperation,” Rosebud Sioux Tribe President Cyril Scott said in a statement. “We are a sovereign nation and we are not being treated as such,” Scott said in response to Friday’s House vote to approve the project. “We will close our reservation borders to Keystone XL. Authorizing Keystone XL is an act of war against our people.”


The tribe isn’t alone in its fight to stop the construction of the pipeline, which would bring tar sands oil from Canada down to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. Members of Wica Agli, a Native American activist group, arrived in Washington, D.C., on Monday to back Scott and the Cowboy Indian Alliance, a multi-state activist organization, as the Senate prepares to vote on the project on Tuesday.

Wica Agli co-founder Aldo Seoane said his group wants to help in any way possible.

“The proposed route for the pipeline passes through the Ogallala Aquifer, which is North America’s largest fresh water aquifer,” he said. “In this and other ways, the pipeline threatens Native and non-native ways of life. Lately there seems to be more awareness of Indigenous issues in the media, but the House vote illustrates the unwillingness to acknowledge Indigenous’ treaty rights.” At last count, the Keystone bill sponsored by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) appeared one vote shy of the 60 votes needed for a final vote to pass the legislation. http://thehill.com/regulation/energy-environment/224368-tribe-keystone-vote-is-act-of-war

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. Congress cannot break treaties so all the better to veto with!

[Midnight Writer]

2. It will be interesting to see Goverment response

I expect the Sioux Nation will conduct unarmed non-violent protests to block construction on their land. They may well be joined by mostly white farmers whose land is being taken by eminent domain.

Will the Federal Marshalls and the National Guard actually be ordered to use force against American citizens to "protect" the rights of a foreign corporation (Trans-Canada) to take land away from Americans?

Where are Cliven Bundy and his armed goons when we need them? They seem to know how to get their way.

[Ampersand Unicode]

4. It happened in Rhode Island

The Narragansett tribe was selling cigarettes on "sovereign land." That land became not so sovereign when the state of Rhode Island decided they weren't getting a cut of the profits via taxes, and sent their law-enforcement goons to roughhouse the store owners in an effort to shut down the "illegal" cigarette shop. Whatever your feelings about smoking, the fact remains that this was yet another slap-in-the-face land grab by the big white "land owners" whose "eminent domain" (*cough* state revenue *cough*) supersedes the ostensible sovereignty of the native peoples who were supposed to have at least a little sliver of property given back to them.

Not surprisingly, all of the cops had the charges dropped, while the Narragansetts involved in the skirmish faced indictments for assaulting police.

Moral of the story: Property rights only matter if it's white people's property. Rich white people (or even the gentrified suburbs). If Keystone wanted to build a fucking oil refinery smack dab in the middle of the projects, you better believe our government would exercise the right of "eminent domain" to plow all of Compton to the ground. No way in hell this would be the case if they were looking to build in the Hamptons or Beverly Hills.

Unless they were to build on Will Smith's princely mansion in Bel-Air and not, say, Tom Cruise's private space pod.

[Ampersand Unicode]

3. Cons don't care about Native Americans

...or anyone who isn't a rich, elderly WASP from old money.

Next Thursday we "celebrate" the ostensible "breaking of bread" between New England "Pilgrims" and Native Americans... before we destroyed their native land under the auspices of the European notion of "property rights." Wouldn't be long before the Commonwealth theocrats started immolating people for practicing "witchcraft," based on hysterical nativist hatred of the indigenous beliefs of the peoples they stole this country from.

And I say that as a Bay Stater. I hate Thanksgiving, Columbus Day too.