February 23      At 2:09 pm today, authorities in North Dakota announced that they had “cleared” the Oceti Sakowin encampment at Standing Rock. For almost a year the Standing Rock Sioux and about 200 other Native America peoples, joined by thousands of others from across the country and around the world, courageously blocked the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). DAPL tramples treaty rights of the Standing Rock Sioux. It threatens their water, their land, and their very existence. But today, under the despicably deceitful banner of preventing an “environmental catastrophe” hundreds of heavily armed police and some National Guardsmen, monitored by a helicopter and plane circling above, moved in and arrested what news reports say were several dozen remaining protesters.

A few days after Donald Trump’s inauguration, he issued an order demanding that the Army Corps of Engineers accelerate its review and OK for DAPL. His order said this was “in the national interest”; in typical Trump speak, “making America great”. The government’s attack on the courageous resisters at Standing Rock is a crime against the people that must be opposed by anyone with a conscience. In one swoop Trump and his fascist regime intensified the centuries old persecution of Native Americans, threw the doors wide open to unrestrained contamination of the environment, and unleashed military force on peaceful demonstrators. The government’s attack on the courageous resisters at Standing Rock is a crime against the people that must be opposed by anyone with a conscience.