Let's talk about the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Protests

Great Debates
1

There is a lot of debate about the Dakota Access Pipeline. It has reached from social media to the office of the President.

My Facebook feed is filled with stories about peaceful Native American protesters being attacked with much more force than seems necessary.

However social media is prone to hyperbole. What’s actually happening there? What are the protesters trying to achieve? What’s at stake for them? Are they being attacked by law enforcement or private security? Is this really a case of a big oil company brutalizing children and pregnant women?

I only saw one thread here and it was a General Question specific to dogs that may or may not have been police dogs and may or may not have been killed by protesters who may or may not have been justified in defending themselves.

So what’s the Straight Dope on what is happening there?

2

Oh wow I came here because I just KNEW there would be sensible talk about all this but two days with no comments!? I have a lot of liberal friends who post nonstop about it and I wanted to know the dope. What’s truth and what’s hysteria? It’s true I don’t see much real info on the mainstream news sites. Just yeah they’re protesting and yeah the police are spraying them with water because they’re trying to break through barriers.

Are the protesters just grasping on to a trend or do they have legitimate concerns that should be addressed?

3

I don’t talk about it because 1) non-partisan information is sparse - there’s a real madonna/whore complex with how each side is being portrayed. And 2) because it makes me seethe with rage. There’s very little way to be civil about it.

4

From what I’ve seen, it’s exactly the sort of stupidity you’d expect from your average protesters, but YMMV.

5

I favor their cause, and know some personally. I fear for them, I think they should prepare a dignified retreat, they are out-gunned, out-moneyed and out-lawyered. And the escalation is already apparent. Nothing wrong with a symbolic protest, it can and has awakened slumbering conscience. But not at the cost of casualties.

Sometimes, giving voice is the only victory that can be had. I would not have any of them injured or even killed for symbolism.

6

Let me give this a shot:

OIL COMPANIES: We are building this pipeline near your land. Please stand back and observe the wonders of modern engineering.

LAKOTA NATIVE AMERICANS: Um… we can’t help but notice that this pipeline is going to contain oil someday, and, also, it’s crossing the river upstream from our land. If it breaks, we are just a bit concerned about what will happen to our fresh water.

OIL COMPANIES: Not to worry, my friends. We have asked the Army Corps of Engineers to assess the dangers.

ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: Yup, everything’s fine.

LAKOTA: Aren’t you the guys that said the levees in New Orleans were just fine?

ARMY CORPS: (hurt look)

OIL COMPANIES: Well, it doesn’t matter. We are building the pipeline on easements we got from landowners, and you can’t stop us.

LAKOTA: Would it be entirely out of line to point out that those people are “landowners” of land that our tribe once owned by treaty with the United States, and then the United States just cancelled the treaty and handed us a new one with less land?

OIL COMPANIES: That was, like, 100 years ago! And you got some money for it.

LAKOTA: Yes, money which we cannot even spend, and which is held “in trust” for us by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and for which we can’t even get an accounting, even though we sued them twenty years ago. Is that the money you mean? Because, honestly, it sort of feels like we never really got a fair hearing on losing that land.

OIL COMPANIES: Not our fault. Ask the Department of Interior.

DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR: You have reached the Department of Interior. Your call is very important to us. Listen carefully as menu options may have changed.

LAKOTA: Look, this is all apparently legal, but it feels like we’re getting screwed. Again.

OIL COMPANIES: Yawn.

LAKOTA: I believe we shall protest.

7

I support the protesters. Bricker summarized their case quite clearly. The protesters themselves are the only people being harmed by their actions. I need to find a way to help them.

8

standingrock.org … my band donated toward lawyer costs a nice amount but they also have lists for food, shelter and medical costs.

I haven’t been on FB much since my pc died so have not been able to follow the feeds but I have noticed that Main Stream Media
have slowly been adding a story here and there.

The latest info on MSM is the the Corps of Engineers is telling the water protectors to get off their lands ( which is ironic doubled since those are public lands and treaty broken lands).

9

Oh come on, oil pipelines crossing rivers that supply drinking water are nothing to be concerned about whatsoever. You can just trust the oil companies to make sure that spills won’t occur, and even if they do they won’t get into the water supply.

10

The Native American’s have every right to protect their drinking water. I wish this were getting more coverage from the MSM.

11

they had 13 months to challenge it and waited until the construction was on top of them. It’s not their land, they’re not engineers, and it’s already cost $100 million in delays.

A great deal of planning and approval went into this and the tribe/protestors should be held liable for the financial losses they’re causing.

12

The structure of your post implies that these are relevant points.

It doesn’t seem that the length of time that was previously available somehow reduces the risk to the drinking water.

It doesn’t seem that the identity of the owners of the land reduces the risk to the drinking water.

It doesn’t seem that the professions of “they” reduces the risk to the drinking water.

Is your argument suitably paraphrased as, “Too bad, so sad”?

13

All a head-fake anyway. By the time they finish it, we won’t want Canada’s oil any more, we’ll want their water.

14

I wonder how many of the protesters drove a fossil fueled powered vehicle to the protest site.

15

Oh, shit, the liberal hypocrisy card! We lose again.

16

Poor lil liberals! You mean to tell me you can’t see the preposterousness of consuming a product while fighting the infrastructure to supply it? Do these fools think train cars or trucks full of oil are going to be safer or better for the environment?

17

So anything goes, then, as long as we consume one morsel of food or a single product that was not locally made, lest it be hypocrisy?

Besides which, this isn’t a nebulous worldwide, or even national, issue these people are protesting; it is, ironically, about as local as you can get. How are they supposed to depend on local resources if they’re getting fucked up by outside interests?

18

No. But people take this nonsense to an extreme and then you can’t get power plants built etc.

I got a train track near my house and it makes a ton of noise. There is a potential for a derailment. I have an interstate near my house and there is potential for hazardous waste in a truck crashing. I have pipelines near my house. There’s an airport in the town. I could avoid all that by living pretty darn far in the woods or jungle but surprisingly enough I like all the stuff that this infrastructure brings.

Natural gas for heating and cooking? But it needs pipes. Food to eat? Need trucks and rail. Amazon Prime goodies? Needs airports. Electricity? Need power lines. So I don’t have much patience with unreasonable obstruction of infrastructure that will be useful.

Of course reasonable efforts should be made for safety. But reflexively obstructing infrastructure that the same protesters use directly or indirectly is hypocritical.

19

Cite? Serious question: The list of broken treaties, massacres and agreements forced at gunpoint is so long that I’m not sure why that particular land is no longer Siouan. Do you base your claim on right of conquest (Wounded Knee Massacre)? Not the Act of February 28, 1877 (overturned in 1979 by a federal court), I guess — even that theft still left the Sioux in full position of the Standing Rock area.

No, I don’t think anyone seriously expects the U.S. to honor its treaty obligations, but the sheer arrogance of your “It’s not their land” ( :smack: ) demanded some comment.

ETA: But I agree. The Lakota people should wait until their water actually is contaminated and then continue to wait patiently, tails between legs, for a judge to order drinking water for them, like the less uppity citizens of Flint have done.

20

They’re not fighting for the environment in general, they’re fighting to prevent a risk to their drinking water. Whatever vehicles they use don’t present a risk to their drinking water like the pipeline might.