~~ posted for dmorista and introduction by dmorista ~~
"SCIENCE SHOWS WE MUST STOP PIPELINES: THIS IS HOW WE DO IT",
Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG.
September 6, 2021
at < Science Shows We Must Stop Pipelines: This Is How We Do It - PopularResistance.Org >
Introduction by dmorista:
The main focus in most reports on pipeline and other environmental protection struggles during this recent period has been on the indigenous people. But nobody will escape the consequences of a warming Earth, that have been occurring much faster than the most dire predictions of the Intergovernental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or even than the warnings of more activist scientists. No other political or socioeconomic issues will matter if we make the planet uninhabitable for humans and their relatively fragile “civilization(s)”. The activist interviewed here is not a member of any Indian Tribe; but she takes the warnings about the consequences of the sort of Global Warming we will see if we don't quit using fossil fuels seriously. The U.S. currently has over 1,250 active pipelines and the Fossil Fuel interests are busy building more and enlarging existing pipelines. That is a sure guarantee of a ride into a hellish world with more droughts, more fires, more extreme storms, more flooding, and reduced food production. Wave of millions or even billions of climate refugees will dwarf the flows we see now. This can probably still be averted, the discussion in this podcast addresses these issues. Global Warming is certainly not the only environmental issue we face as a species, but it is the most acute and plays a role in making other environmental problems even more severe in their impacts. We must act and soon. Left to Governments and Capitalist Coporations these issues will not be addressed until it is far too late, the demand for change must come from the common people, as usual.
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“Shot with Rubber Bullets, Hospitalized, Jailed: Line 3 Protester Tara Houska Decries Police Attack', August 4, 2021, Democracy Now!, at
< https://www.democracynow.org/
At least 20 water protectors were brutally arrested in Minnesota as resistance to the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline continues, and they say state and local police have escalated their use of excessive force, using tear gas, rubber and pepper bullets to repress opposition to Line 3, which, if completed, would carry Canadian tar sands oil across Indigenous land and fragile ecosystems. “The level of brutality that was unleashed on us was very extreme,” says Indigenous lawyer and activist Tara Houska, who suffered bloody welts after she was shot with rubber bullets, then arrested and held in Pennington County Jail over the weekend, where several water protectors say they were denied medical care for their injuries, denied proper food and some reportedly held in solitary confinement.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We end today’s show in Minnesota, where at least 20 water protectors were brutally arrested over the weekend as resistance to the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline continues. Water protectors say state and local police have escalated their use of excessive force, using tear gas, rubber and pepper bullets to repress Line 3 protesters. On Sunday, Indigenous lawyer and activist Tara Houska published photos of herself on social media with bloodied welts on her arms after she was shot with rubber bullets during an action last week. Houska and 19 others were held in Pennington County Jail over the weekend, where several water protectors say they were denied medical care for their injuries, were denied proper food, and some were reportedly held in solitary confinement.
Well, Tara Houska joins us now for more from the Namewag Camp in Minnesota, founder of the Giniw Collective and is Ojibwe from Couchiching First Nation.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Tara. Can you describe what happened when you were arrested and the escalation of force that the police are using against you?
TARA HOUSKA: Good morning.
Yeah, so, in a situation in which there were a number of shutdowns of various drilling operations across several rivers here in northern Minnesota, this would have been the fifth drill shutdown in as many days. And the attempt by water protectors, including myself, to engage in those processes and attempt to protect the river was met with extreme force.
We were under smoky skies and a red sun due to the wildfires that are raging in Ontario, just north of us and west of us, and next to a drought-stricken river, so a very, very deeply harmed river, and a gigantic drill in the background drilling through, attempting to put in a tar sands pipeline through that drought-stricken river.
And the level of brutality that was unleashed on us was very extreme. People were shot in their faces, in their bodies, in their upper torsos. I saw a young woman’s head get split open right in front of me. It was a really, really brutal scene. And the arrests in person were also quite brutal, throwing people face down in the dirt and being extremely violent in a situation in which we were outnumbered by police at least two to one, and many, many, many counties present protecting this one place, and which also happens to be a county where a murderer, an actual murderer, is still on the loose, has not been caught, but there were somehow over 50 police officers in that one place watching water protectors.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Tara, could you talk about this increasing cooperation and partnership between Minnesota state and local police and Enbridge?
TARA HOUSKA: When I was sitting on the side of a police vehicle with several others waiting to be brought to jail, I overheard several of the police officers talking about how they were going to get bonus time for this brutality they had unleashed upon us. It’s, at this point, a pretty known thing that police officers are reimbursed for any costs associated with Enbridge Line 3 protests, and it seems like they welcome the opportunity. One police officer was actually grinning and smiling and said he had a great time and couldn’t wait for us to come again.
They’ve billed over $1.7 million to the Public Safety Escrow Trust, in which Enbridge is dumping millions of dollars to incentivize and encourage police officers to repress, suppress and surveil, harass Indigenous people and our allies that are helping us try to stop this pipeline from happening in our treaty territory. It is a very clear pattern of aggression and of cooperation, that’s also being enabled by things like the Energy Security Act that has just passed through the House very recently. So, it’s a precedent that is very dangerous, and everyone should be afraid of this, regardless of whether or not they’re engaged in pipeline protest.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the latest protest on the Red River came as another spill was reported on the Mississippi River headwaters, where Enbridge has continued to drill despite a temporary halt buffer zone issued by White Earth Nation. What’s the latest on the construction of the pipeline and other actions?
TARA HOUSKA: Construction is 24 hours a day. Enbridge is working as fast as it possibly can. I’m guessing after police were harming Indigenous people, using rubber bullets paid for by the Enbridge company, that there’s probably even more of a push to get this done as quickly as possible, before the Army Corps intervenes, if that’s indeed what they choose to do. There is an ongoing call out to the Army Corps, to the Biden administration intervene before more people are hurt, before more frac-outs happen at the Mississippi River headwaters, the place where the Mississippi River, one of the biggest river systems in the world, begins. There have been a number of spills just in that one location and several others along the 200 water bodies that are proposed to be impacted by Line 3, the 800 wetlands that this project wants to go through.
AMY GOODMAN: Tara, we just showed the images that you put out, just even of yourself with the rubber bullet welts on your arms. If you could describe why you’re doing this? I mean, we’re seeing progressives in Congress. They’re fighting hard. You are putting your bodies on the line. And what message do you have for Washington now as they fight over this infrastructure bill, these two bills, what you’re doing, what you want them to know about Minnesota, about the Giniw Collective Camp, and how you’ve been blockaded there by the police?
TARA HOUSKA: I began my own professional career in Washington, D.C., and understand a lot of how the dynamics of Capitol Hill work. I worked in various offices, including the White House, when I was out there. And it is so clear to me and to the many young people who are part of not just this movement, but movements across the globe, the Indigenous people who are leading struggle to protect the last beautiful sacred places, that it is simply not working fast enough.
In the conversations and arguments, that are very based in status quo, in this idea that we will continue on in the way that we have always done things, and that it is simply a matter of transitioning into another form of energy economy, that is not reflective of what is actually happening. We should understand that, as the last time I spoke with you, there was an entire city that had been burned to the ground from wildfires that are directly related to climate crisis. The climate crisis is happening.
And for myself, if it takes seeing Indigenous bodies being brutalized to understand what is really occurring in real time, what is happening to the people as we are defending these last places, that’s what I’m willing to do. And that’s what many, many others are willing to do. I was just one of many people who were hurt. I was put in solitary confinement. I was denied medical care, after being hospitalized when I got brought in. We, as human beings, have to decide what we’re going to do. And some of us are pushing as hard as we can with everything that we can.
AMY GOODMAN: Tara Houska, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Indigenous lawyer and activist, founder of the Giniw Collective, Ojibwe from Couchiching First Nation, speaking to us from Minnesota, where she was just recently arrested, hospitalized, put in solitary confinement, and now out, brutalized with police shooting rubber bullets at her.
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“Just Out of Jail, Winona LaDuke Decries Militarized Crackdown on Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline Protests”, July 23, 2021, Democracy Now!, at
< https://www.democracynow.org/
Nearly 600 water protectors have been arrested during ongoing protests in Minnesota against the construction of the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline at the Shell River, which the partially completed pipeline is set to cross in five places. On Monday, authorities arrested Indigenous leader Winona LaDuke and at least six others. She was just released from jail yesterday and joins us after three nights in jail. LaDuke describes how the Canadian multinational corporation Enbridge, which is building the pipeline, has funded more than 40 police squads from around the state to crack down on protests, saying, “It is a civil crisis when a Canadian multinational controls your police force.” LaDuke is executive director of Honor the Earth. She says Enbridge’s efforts to finish construction come as investors are increasingly pulling out of the fossil fuels sector. “Who wants to have the last tar sands pipeline? It’s the end of the party.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman.
We look now at the ongoing resistance to construction of the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline in Minnesota along the Shell River, which the partially completed pipeline is set to cross in five places. Nearly 600 water protectors have been arrested during protests against the pipeline so far.
On Monday, authorities arrested Indigenous leader Winona LaDuke and at least six others. She was just released from jail yesterday and joins us now after three nights in jail. She’s executive director of Honor the Earth, her latest book, To Be a Water Protector, joining us from her home on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota.
Winona, welcome back to Democracy Now! Why were you arrested?
WINONA LADUKE: I was arrested because I wanted to stop Enbridge’s Line 3 from crossing the Shell River. I’ve been appointed guardian ad litem for Shell River by the 1855 Treaty Commission and by my tribe. And Enbridge is trying to finish this line. And along with — it’s now 600 people have been arrested. But we stood there in front of the police for quite a while with our people and, you know, our horses and our children. And they arrested seven of us.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain who owns Enbridge Line 3 and why you want it shut down.
WINONA LADUKE: Well, Enbridge Line 3 is owned by the Enbridge Corporation, the Canadian multinational that also owns the pipe under the Straits of Mackinac. And, you know, it’s a really risky Canadian corporation, 225 subsidiaries, with all the money kept in Canada. And they’re shoving this pipeline down our throat.
And about a month ago, the Minnesota DNR, which is probably the most corrupt agency in the state of Minnesota, allocated 5 billion gallons of water to Enbridge in the middle of a drought. They knew about the appropriation request in November. In December, they began under — studying it. And they didn’t even notify the tribes until May. And then they issued the permit in June — 5 billion gallons in the worst drought in history. You know, our rivers are down 50%, 75%, and yet this pipeline is marching ahead in the middle of this drought.
And, you know, ironically, you’re looking here, and, like, more and more money is being divested from the tar sands. I mean, the Saudi sovereign fund, you know, divested like $3 billion from the tar sands. And Chevron and a New York pension fund and Royal Dutch Shell, they’re all looking at doing this. It’s like the last tar sands pipeline, and Enbridge wants to shove it down our throats. And our Anishinaabe people and water protectors have been standing strong. And you’ve got to say, like, “Who wants to be the last — have the last tar sands pipeline?” It’s the end of the party.
But the Enbridge way seems to be to keep pushing ahead. They’ve — I think it’s called regulatory capture, when they take over your regulatory system and your police, because I think, as you know, Amy, the majority of the — Enbridge has been required by law to pay for the police forces in northern Minnesota required to put in their pipeline. And, you know, one has to ask, “If it was such a good idea, why do you need so many police?” But many, many —
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about the police. The Intercept reported Thursday that Minnesota police expected the Line 3 pipeline to help boost their budget to fund new weapons. The article reveals that a few weeks before Line 3 was approved for construction, Aitkin County Sheriff’s Deputy Aaron Cook bought a new assault rifle that cost $725. In a November 2020 email, Cook wrote to the gun seller, quote, “Our budget took a hit last week, so that’s all we will be ordering for now. … I’m hoping the pipeline will give us an extra boost to next year’s budget, which should make it easy for me to propose an upgrade/trade to your rifles rather than a rebuild of our 8 Bushmasters” — referencing another assault rifle. Your response, Winona?
WINONA LADUKE: That’s exactly right. They’ve been bankrolling the northern police departments. Some of the police departments, like Aitkin County, were saddened by COVID, because they had to let people out of prison or out of jail there and losing money on their budgets in that dysfunctional system. And so, you know, at this point, Enbridge has been financing all these northern police departments. And so you’re seeing 40 different squads show up from counties throughout the state to repress water protectors, who are just trying to protect the water in northern Minnesota, and arrest hundreds of us.
And, you know, it begins — it’s a civil crisis when a Canadian multinational controls your police force. You know, I thought the police were supposed to work for the people and not for the Canadian multinational, but that’s not what’s happening up here. A Canadian multinational has taken our civil rights, clearly, you know, myself, among many, being put in jail. I mean, that’s the Enbridge way: control the police of the state of Minnesota and shove your pipeline through. You know, it’s so wrong from every aspect.
AMY GOODMAN: Winona, talk about this related to the climate emergency. We’re talking to you as there are some 80 massive wildfires burning, something larger than the city of Los Angeles, all through the West — Montana, Oregon, Washington, California. You’ve got Salt Lake, the Great Salt Lake, at its lowest level ever. You’ve got the fires raging. In China, you’ve got this massive flooding in central China, which forced to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people. How does that relate to your arrest?
WINONA LADUKE: Well, you know, Enbridge’s Line 3 is the equivalent of adding 50 new coal-fired power plants. You know, you don’t get a tiara for putting this one in. And, you know, so what’s happening is that every day now you see the haze from the Canadian wildfires. We see our rivers are parched. But yet we see Enbridge and the DNR, Minnesota DNR, guarding hoses as they suck millions of gallons of water out of our river to put in this Canadian tar sands pipeline, in the worst disaster of a drought, you know, and these massive fires that are to the north and west of us. It’s really a devastating time for all of us as climate chaos descends upon us. And then, yet you see Governor Walz decide to sell us all out, to sell out the Anishinaabe people and the people of Minnesota, so it could get 23 jobs, at the end of this, 23 jobs from a Canadian multinational. It’s really — you know, it’s so wrong. It’s so wrong.
And the Biden administration is just sitting by and watching it happen. I mean, I’m watching river after river get frac-outs on them in northern Minnesota. These are pristine river systems. You know, I’m watching things get destroyed as Enbridge ravages through our country. And then I’m watching hundreds of people get arrested trying to protect our water and to stop the climate disaster that Enbridge’s Line 3 represents.
You know, we’re looking for more divestment in that. You know, it’s a $9 billion pipeline right now, the most expensive tar sands pipeline in the world. And as I said, that’s like a great gamble at the end of the fossil fuel era, the most expensive tar sands pipeline in the world. And, you know, it’s brutal. It’s brutal out here. I didn’t like my three days in jail, but that’s the Enbridge way.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about what a frac-out is. And have there been leaks?
WINONA LADUKE: You know, this is a new pipeline project going in, but they’re crossing like 69 rivers, and 22 of them with this thing called the HDD, which is a super phallic, horrible drill system, the high direction drill — horizontal direction drill. And so, what happens is that they’re drilling like underneath the rivers, and they hit an aquifer, and they shoot out into — or they hit a seam that shoots out into the river, in some spring that they didn’t know about, and all of a sudden you’ve got a bunch of, like, toxic bentonite, all kind of crazy stuff at the bottom of the river.
And, you know, the thing is, is like the Shell River is a pristine river, crossed five times by Enbridge, hit by industrial agriculture like R.D. Offutt. And it has the largest mussel population in the Upper Mississippi River. It has this huge and beautiful mussel river, hence the name Shell River. And those guys don’t last through frac-outs, you know? Just the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Interior, you know, all of these agencies are looking aside as Biden seems to approve the tar sands pipeline. And you can’t do both.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, that’s interesting you mention —
WINONA LADUKE: You can’t be a climate president and do this.
AMY GOODMAN: — Department of Interior, because it’s a Native American — first Native American secretary of the Department of Interior, Deb Haaland. She actually was at the protest in North Dakota against DAPL. About 200 major activists, celebrities, Democratic donors and environmentalists sent a letter demanding that President Biden stop Enbridge’s pipeline project, like he did with Keystone XL, and to firmly establish the principle, they said, that we will move forward toward real climate solutions. But the Biden administration has not done this. Has Deb Haaland weighed in — not only not done this for Enbridge, but not done it for DAPL, where she was there protesting the Dakota Access pipeline?
WINONA LADUKE: Yeah, sadly, Deb Haaland has not stepped up on this. And the Biden administration certainly has chained her to their position. You know, it’s tragic. You know, there’s no federal environmental impact statement on this project. It wouldn’t pass the climate test. It’s exactly — it’s even bigger than Keystone. So, if Keystone wouldn’t pass the climate test, why would this pipeline pass the climate test, let alone the water impact? This is a fifth of the world’s water. Enbridge is in the middle of the water wealth of our territory, you know, the heartland of the water. And the Army Corps of Engineers and Department of Interior, no agency has stepped up to protect the waters of the people of Minnesota, the Anishinaabe, trust responsibility, nor any of the waters of this territory.
And, you know, it’s so disappointing that the Biden administration is throwing Indigenous people under the bus, the water under the bus — you know, there’s no new water — and that everybody is tolerating more and more arrests, as if, you know, that’s how it goes these days — we just keep arresting people because we think our project’s a great thing. You know, I’m so disappointed in the Biden administration, in Deb Haaland, you know, in every agency. I’m so disappointed that they are destroying our planet so a Canadian multinational can make a buck at the end of the tar sands era.
AMY GOODMAN: Winona LaDuke, I want to thank you for being with us, longtime Anishinaabe activist who’s been organizing for years to block the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline, executive director of Honor the Earth. Her latest book, To Be a Water Protector.
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"Lawmakers Call on Biden to Halt Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline as Police Step Up Attacks on Protesters", Aug 23, 2021, Democracy Now!, at < https://www.democracynow.org/
More than two dozen Democratic lawmakers are calling on President Biden to halt construction on the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline in northern Minnesota until a thorough environmental review is undertaken.
Meanwhile, Indigenous leaders Winona LaDuke and Tara Houska met with the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights defenders last week to share the police violence suffered by water protectors at the Line 3 construction site. Activists say law enforcement ramped up their brutal attacks last week, dislocating one person’s jaw. But land and water defenders say they will continue their resistance.
Water protector: “We really need to be all standing beside each other and behind the Indigenous leadership in this movement that is — has so much to teach us about how to really walk right on this Earth and how to move forward in a world where we actually want to raise our children and live.”
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