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INDIGENOUS LAND: Water Protectors Fight Pipeline Construction (International Briefs)

Jan. 9: Water protectors fight the construction site for an oil pipeline near Palisade, MN.

Hundreds of water protectors have been braving the harsh Minnesota winter to defend the territorial rights of Indigenous nations against Enbridge, a multi-billion-dollar pipeline company headquartered in Canada. Dozens of Indigenous activists and allies have been arrested as Enbridge attempts to push through construction of a tar sand oil pipeline, which would expose hundreds of miles of Indigenous land to toxic spills and would have a carbon cost equal to 50 coal power plants.

Enbridge has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire Minnesota state police as private goons to protect their pipeline and their profits. Oil and gas companies, with the help of the American Legislative Action Council (ALEC), are also using their money to sponsor a Minnesota law to make protesting a pipeline a federal offense. The oil tycoon Koch brothers run ALEC which funds anti-worker, anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion laws in multiple states, and was behind a similar anti-protest law in Louisiana. They practically own the Louisiana legislature.

One January 14, 3 activists halted construction on the Line 3 pipeline by locking themselves together inside a pipe segment. They demand that U.S. and Canadian governments recognize the treaty rights of Indigenous nations and immediately halt the construction of KeystoneXL, Line 3, and DAPL fossil fuel pipeline projects. Through militant action, these and other activists are standing up for us all.

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New Orleans Disgrace: A Statue Glorifying Andrew Jackson, Slave Holder, Murderer of Native Americans

Ten Reasons to Remove the Jackson Statue

1. Using his position as a colonel in the Tennessee militia, by force Jackson seized land from poor farmers to benefit slave holding plantation owners. He personally acquired over 640 acres and set up the Hermitage Plantation, owning over 300 slaves.

2. With his partner Overton they acquired land reserved for Cherokee and Chickasaw, in violation of law, to found Memphis, Tennessee.

3. Jackson whipped slaves and sent troops out to capture runaway slaves.

4. To acquire more land for slave owners he embarked on stealing land from Native American tribes across the Southeast.

5. As President he enacted the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Although the Supreme Court ruled against this policy, Jackson defied the court and ordered removal.

6. Jackson represented the slave state who voted to enact the removal policy. The southern state governments destroyed tribal governments, banned assemblies, the right to sue or testify in court, or dig gold on their own land.

7. 17,000 Cherokees were forced from their farms.

8. This came to be known as the Trail of Tears. 8,000 Cherokee and Chickasaw, 4,000 Choctaws died from brutality, hunger, exposure and disease and in prison camps.

9. While in the military Jackson invaded Florida in 1818. He carried out wars against the Seminole, Creek and Muscogee Indians. This was to acquire Florida for slave owners and to prevent runaway slaves from joining the Seminoles. Jackson burned the homes and crops of the Seminole and others.

10. Jackson was opposed to treaties calling them “an absurdity” and said “the government should simply impose its will on them.” TAKE DOWN ANDREW JACKSON PUT UP HARRIET TUBMAN & LEONARD PELTIER Take Em Down Nola, info@takemdownnola.org,

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Dennis Banks, American Indian Movement Co-Founder, Dies

By Joe Stern

Revolutionaries around the world mourned the death of Dennis Banks, legendary Anishinaabe Leader and co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM). Like many indigenous people of his generation, Banks was forced into boarding school at four years old. There he suffered beatings and other abuses in the US genocidal experiment to “kill an Indian, save the man”. These abuses included cutting the boys’ hair, refusing to let students speak their tribal languages or practice their tribal religions, and extreme physical deprivation.

In 1968, Banks co-founded AIM with Clyde Bettecourt to fight Native oppression and endemic poverty. A year later, he took part in the occupation of Alcatraz Island in California. In 1972, he helped lead AIM’s “Trail of Broken Treaties”, a caravan of numerous tribes protesting treaty violations and reservation conditions which came from across the US to Washington DC, and occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs building. In early 1973, 200 armed Lakota and members of other indigenous nations occupied Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation for 71 violence filled days.

In later years, Banks became a substance and alcohol abuse counselor. However, he remained active in the fight for socialism and women’s liberation running for Vice President on the Peace and Freedom Party. He was also active in last year’s struggle against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The indigenous peoples and all revolutionaries will long hold the memory of revolutionary activist Dennis Banks.

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Humma Ohoyo Holitopa

by Isabella Moraga-Ghazi

this land is not conquered or broken;
she is living, persisting, and thriving.
curse to the nay-sayers
for I talk to her everyday.
she dreams wildly.
so wildly, and so vividly that she sees her destruction and rebirth, emulating the resilience
of the phoenix, continuously stream in the consciousness she holds.
why do we stop her dreams?
dreams that are much more valid than me’s or you’s.
the ancestors sing through her.

in the moss, in the cypress.
in the pelicans, in the possums.
her song is quiet but strong.
if you listen closely, she says “yakoke” and “si vous plait”
to me and others like me.
but a vengeance she has.
a vengeance so strong it makes Katrina look weak.
a vengeance so strong it makes Andrew Jackson’s knees tremble.
a vengeance so strong it makes the BP oil spill look far from a disaster.
a vengeance so strong it makes Marie Laveau startled.
and that vengeance lives through me and others like me.
for the obligation we have bestowed on us is a tall order of demanding respect.
when it is quiet, tohbi ofi need be afraid.
for you shall know, that vengeance is no longer resting.
it is living, persisting, and thriving.
and it will not rest until she is doing the same.
“vee wan cee,” she says, “and do not betray me.”
she believes in us.
it is time we believe in us.
and it is time we believe in her.