Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Winter Comes... to Oceti Sakowin Camp near Cannon Ball, ND

Standing Rock ministry stands resolutely with Sioux Nation’s cause

By Mary Frances Schjonberg | November 28, 2016

Editor’s note: Updated Nov. 29, 2016, at 10 a.m. EST with details about a lawsuit against local law enforcement and about a mandatory evacuation order issued by the North Dakota governor.

[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church’s solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Nation remains resolute after nine days of emotional events in the ongoing effort to protect the tribe’s land and water supply.

The latest string of events began Nov. 20 when some of the hundreds of people who tried to remove burned-out vehicles blocking the Backwater Bridge on Highway 1806 on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota were hit with rubber bullets and doused with fire hoses in sub-freezing temperatures. The bridge had been blockaded since an Oct. 27 confrontation.

Seven students from the Austin, Texas-based Seminary of the Southwest, who were on a pilgrimage to Standing Rock Reservation, witnessed to the confrontation and wrote about it on social media.

“Here is what we witnessed tonight,” wrote Matt Stone on his Facebook page. “3 water cannons, tear gas, a concussion grenade and rubber bullets fired at nonviolent protectors. This is the most grave injustice I have ever witnessed.”

On Nov. 28, the Water Protector Legal Collective, a National Lawyers Guild group, filed a lawsuit against Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier and other law enforcement agencies for using excessive force during that confrontation. The suit asks that the U.S. District Court in Bismarck prevent future use of those tactics.

A few days earlier, on Nov. 25, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers imposed a Dec. 5 deadline for emptying the Oceti Sakowin Camp. Two days after that, the Corps said it would not forcibly evict water protectors and supporters from the camp on the banks of the Cannonball River.

Then, on Nov. 28, North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple announced he was imposing a mandatory evacuation of the camp, citing the harsh winter storm that was blanketing the area with heavy, wet snow. The storm rolled over North Dakota the evening of Nov. 27 and the reservation area could get a foot or more of snow from the storm that is predicted to last through Nov. 30. Daytime temperatures Nov. 28 were just below freezing with winds gusting to 40 mph, making it the first real test of the camps under typical North Dakota winter conditions.

Contacted at his home in Bismarck on Nov. 28, the Rev. John Floberg, supervising priest of the Episcopal churches on the North Dakota side of Standing Rock, told Episcopal News Service that he and other Episcopalians are continuing to provide support to the water protectors.

“My first concern is always for the safety of those who have come to support Standing Rock and the danger that the militarized police presence places them in,” he said.

“The Episcopal Church continues to stand where it has always stood,” Floberg said. “We are in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe as allies who are prayerful, peaceful, nonviolent and lawful.”

Floberg stressed the last quality of lawfulness, citing as an example a protest outside the Corps’ office in Bismarck, the North Dakota capital about an hour north of the reservation. Because the organizers had not obtained the required city permit for the action, “I chose to refrain from involvement,” Floberg said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has set Dec. 5 as the deadline for water protectors to leave the Oceti Sakowin camp.

The Episcopal Church began supporting the protection effort since shortly after it began in earnest in August. That support the Executive Council request that law-enforcement officials “de-escalate military and police provocation in and near the campsites of peaceful protest and witness of the Dakota Access Pipeline project.”

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Omaha District Commander Col. John W. Henderson told Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II in a Nov. 25 letter that the decision to close the Oceti Sakowin camp on Dec. 5 was necessary to protect the public from what he called violent confrontations between those at the camp and law enforcement officials “and to prevent death, illness, or serious injury to inhabitants of encampments due to the harsh North Dakota winter conditions.”

Henderson said that emergency, fire, medical, law enforcement and “sustainable facilities” cannot be adequately provided in the areas north of the river.

Henderson accused people in the camp of violating federal regulations by camping on the land, lighting fires, improperly disposing of waste and building unauthorized structures.

He told Archambault that a “free speech zone” had been established south of the Cannonball River inside the Standing Rock Reservation and he asked the chairman to encourage tribal members and their non-Sioux supporters to “immediately and peacefully move to the free speech zone south of the Cannonball River or to a more sustainable location for the winter.”

Henderson’s letter was not publically released, although the Standing Rock Sioux Nation posted it on its Facebook page.

Dakota Access Pipeline protesters have formed the Oceti Sakowin campground north of the Cannonball River and near the town of Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

At least four groups of water protectors replied that day saying they would not leave. Noting that the Dec. 5 deadline is the birthday of Gen. George Armstrong Custer, the groups said the Corps does not authority to evict them because they were reclaiming land taken from indigenous people.

“Our water protectors are not trespassers and can never be trespassers. The Army Corps also has no authority to diminish our right to free speech – where in the Constitution does it establish zones for the right to free speech?” the statement said. “Do corporations now decide whether the Constitution applies? We are not moving, and we will not be silenced.”

Two days later in a public statement, the Omaha District office said the Corps had no plans for forcible removal and was “seeking a peaceful and orderly transition to a safer location.” Those who remain after Dec. 5 “will be considered unauthorized and may be subject to citation under federal, state, or local laws,” according to the statement.

“Unfortunately, it is apparent that more dangerous groups have joined this protest and are provoking conflict in spite of the public pleas from tribal leaders,” Henderson said in the statement. “I am very concerned for the safety and well-being of all citizens at these encampments on Corps-managed federal land, and we want to make sure people are in a safe place for the winter. We fully support the rights of all Americans to exercise free speech and peacefully assemble, and we ask that they do it in a way that does not also endanger themselves or others, or infringe on others’ rights.”

The Oceti Sakowin camp is the overflow from smaller private and permitted protest sites nearby and began growing in August. The Corps said it had not been able to issue a permit for the Oceti Sakowin camp because it sprang up on Corps land that had been leased to a local rancher. It’s been called the largest gathering of Native American tribes in a century, according to the Associated Press.

Floberg, echoing a statement made Archambault, said “the move that would be most helpful by the Corps of Engineers is to deny to the pipeline its permit to go under the Missouri River at this point.”

Plans were already afoot to construct a winter camp on reservation land. The Sioux tribal council voted Oct. 19 to invite the campers in the Oceti Sakowin camp to come to reservation land two miles south of the current location and near St. James’ Episcopal Church in Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Floberg told ENS Nov. 28 that members of the Arikara Nation have been at work on the site. They have broken ground for three earth lodges, he said. St. James’ support and pastoral care of the water protectors will likely increase if that camp, originally planned to accommodate 500 people, does become populated, Floberg has said.

The Corps’ Dec. 5 deadline will come during a Dec. 4-7 planned “deployment” on the reservation by U.S. military veterans as a show of support. More than 2,200 veterans are anticipated.

The Standing Rock Sioux Nation asked for chaplains to be present and the Rev. Michael Pipkin, a former Navy chaplain on the Minnesota diocesan staff, is coordinating a response. Twenty-three chaplains have joined the effort as of Nov. 27, including both Christians and Buddhists. Those chaplains, who must have training and experience in trauma care, will be present for the veterans and not as protestors, Pipkin, who was on Standing Rock Nov. 3 for a clergy action, told ENS.

“This time is about making sure the veterans who are there are supported,” he said. “We’re going to be there for them.”

The worry, Pipkin said, was that veterans, who might have experienced trauma in the past, will be converging on a place that has experienced its own kind of trauma.

Trained chaplains who want to join the effort can contact Pipkin at michael.p@episcopalmn.org

Another kind of clergy gathering will take place just before the Corps’ deadline. Chief Arvol Looking Horse, keeper of the white buffalo calf pipe bundle, issued a call for clergy to come to Standing Rock Dec. 4 for what he called an interfaith day of prayer. That call is not connected to the Episcopal Church’s ministry on the reservation, according to Floberg.

Opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline began this summer and intensified in the fall, attracting unprecedented support from close to 300 indigenous tribes as well as nontribal members and many celebrities. Thousands of people have been camping at various locations along the local waterways, and there have been numerous clashes and arrests with law enforcement.

Media reports said there were as many as 10,000 people in the camp but Floberg said he did not have an exact count. “They were straining the limits of the camp the other day,” he said.

The current pipeline construction route would run just north of the reservation boundary and under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe, which is the Sioux Nation’s water supply, and over its treaty lands and through sacred areas.

In September, federal officials stopped construction of the pipeline on lands bordering and under Lake Oahe that belong to the Corps of Engineers, the federal agency responsible for issuing permits for such construction on public lands and waterways. Construction on that river crossing has been on hold pending further analysis and conversations concerning the project’s potential impact on water quality and damage to sacred tribal sites near the reservation.

The disputed 1,154-mile pipeline will run from the Bakken oil fields in northwest North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois, carrying as much as 570,000 barrels of oil a day. Energy Transfer Partners, the Dallas-based company building the pipeline, says construction will create 8,000 to 12,000 local jobs, while the AFL-CIO has pegged the number at 4,500. The construction company also says the pipeline will provide a “more direct, cost-effective, safer and environmentally responsible” way to transport oil and reduce the current use of rail and truck transportation.

 – The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is an editor and reporter for the Episcopal News Service.



Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Veterans Draw a Non-Violent "Line in the Sand" Before Eviction


 Literally Too Many Veterans Have Signed Up to Join DAPL Protests

November 28, 2016  |  Carey Wedler

(ANTIMEDIA) Last week, the newly formed group “Veterans Stand for Standing Rock” called on veterans to nonviolently stand up to militarized law enforcement at the site of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. Since its initial call to action, the veterans’ movement has grown exponentially.

Last week, the Facebook event, which was launched by Army veteran Wesley Clark Jr. and former Marine and Baltimore cop-turned-reformist, Michael A. Wood Jr., received widespread media attention. This boost helped increase the number of attendees from a couple hundred veterans to their maximum capacity of 2,000.

A standard email response from the group (as of Saturday) reads:


“We are happy to announce our small campaign has grown to 2,000 Veterans from every corner of the US [and] will be joining us to stand in peace with our brothers and sisters in Standing Rock.”

Their event page states they have over 2,100 veterans signed up and are exploring options for a second trip.

The group has a strict no weapons policy but is stocking up on body armor and protective gear like gas masks to withstand potential attacks from the heavily militarized police, who have arrested at least 400 of protesters so far. According to on-site medics, hundreds of protesters have also been injured. Last week, a 21-year-old woman was reportedly hit with a concussion grenade, leading to a severe injury that may require her arm to be amputated. Though police have blamed protesters for what happened to her, at least one witness claims law enforcement’s version of events is untruthful.

Outrage against incidents like these, as well as attacks on journalists via tasers, rubber bullets, and felony charges has made the ongoing situation ripe for outside intervention.

“This country is repressing our people,” Wood Jr. said last week. “If we’re going to be heroes, if we’re really going to be those veterans that this country praises, well, then we need to do the things that we actually said we’re going to do when we took the oath to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic.”

With 2,100 veterans signed up to make a stand, it appears police will be forced to reconcile their aggressive behavior with the nonviolent show of veterans, who intend to march toward police on site.

The group has gained substantial financial backing since word of their mission spread. According to their GoFundMe page, they have already raised over $500,000 to fund their trip, which is planned for December 4 to December 7.

Their goal is currently set at $750,000, an increase from the $100,000 — and then $200,000 — requested last week.

“I increased the goal because I was wrong,” Wood Jr. said, according to Task and Purpose. “I was giving a ballpark number that we could get 500 people there without feeling like I was asking much of the public. In a short period of two days, the picture changed dramatically. As long as we’re increasing in size, I have to ask for more funds. And as long as we have more funds, we will increase in size.”

He added:

“This is already way beyond transportation. So the additional funds will go toward protective equipment, infrastructure, lodging, food, medical supplies, and stuff to help deal with the elements of nature.”

The funds will also go toward bailing out members of the group who are arrested during their demonstration.

As the cash and volunteers continue to roll in, the group’s resolve in its self-described “deployment” is only increasing.

“We’ve grown to the point where we have an actual chain of command now,”
Wood Jr. said. “Emails are hundreds a day, if not thousands.”

Anti-Media spoke to one Navy veteran, Jake Bagwell, who heard about the event last week through social media and is now scheduled to head to Standing Rock, pending his request for time off from work.

“I figured if any demographic would have a big enough impact to wake people up, it’s vets. Especially when it comes to standing up to the government,” he said.

He added:

“Nothing about what the ‘authorities’ are doing makes sense. Water cannons in subfreezing temperatures? Are you serious?”

Another veteran, Sam Deering, posted on Facebook about his decision to join Vets Stand for Standing Rock:

Three years ago I took off my Navy uniform and told myself that I would never put it back on. I decided I wanted to live peacefully, and do what I could to allow the same for those around me. But now the day has come to put that kit back on, and head to Cannonball, North Dakota, and stand between the water protectors and the police, working illegally to protect the Energy Transfer Partners drilling of the Missouri River. Watching events unfold around the Dakota Access Pipeline has been mortifying and humiliating, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared.

If it sounds like I'm looking for public approval, or an ego boost, or just a bunch of likes and comments; I am. The notion of putting my uniform back on, just to face off with other uniformed Americans looking to do me harm is honestly terrifying. The actions of the police from around the country who have answered the call of ETP, and other private interests like them, to stop the people from demonstrating or disturbing progress is terrible. But the media and public silence on the gross violation of human rights, treaty rights, and our environment is what truly disturbs me.

I'm going to Cannonball with the group, Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, from December 4-7, and expect to be one of hundreds if not over a thousand veterans coming from all over the country to stand up to these storm trooper cowards. If you're a veteran, please join us, I don't have to remind you of the oath we took, and what it means to face a foreign and a domestic enemy. If you're not a vet, you're still welcome. Either way, our communities need to be sending more people to North Dakota to resist this blatant insult to a modern world.

If you can't make it, donate! Veterans Stand for Standing Rock has a gofundme link for those of us vets who are broke but want to help. Also, http://sacredstonecamp.org, the camp itself housing a huge group of Native American tribes and other humans from the US and abroad, is in serious need of financial and material assets. You can help.

Please help.

"In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
Dr. King


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the land where protesters are camped out, issued a notice last week warning them to evacuate by December 5. Reuters reports the agency has said it has no plans to forcibly remove protesters, but on Monday, North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple issued a separate mandatory order to evacuate the area.

Anti-Media has reached out to Veterans Stand for Standing Rock to learn how they plan to respond to these demands and will update this story if they respond.

This article (Literally Too Many Veterans Have Signed Up to Join DAPL Protests) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Carey Wedler and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.

Source: http://theantimedia.org/2000-veterans-dapl/


Monday, November 28, 2016

Water Protectors Stand United Against Black Snake of Big Oil...

11/26/16 Press Conference at Oceti Sakowin Camp

After A Month of Conflict, Mass Media Arrives in Force at Standing Rock

Jenni Monet - 11/27/16

STANDING ROCK, ND — A circle had formed around a long table at the top of Media Hill, the gentle perch where wireless communication thrives in the mostly digitally challenged Oceti Sakowin Camp. Seated at the table before a crowd of cameras and microphones were various activists and tribal leaders. A press conference was underway. It was streaming on Facebook LIVE. The gathering of media at such an international scale represented one of the most organized events like it since the movement here began.

“Thank you for seeing us,” said Eryn Wise. “A lot of people don’t.” The Jicarilla-Apache/Laguna Pueblo water protector was among five panelists addressing dozens of members of the media on Saturday, November 26. The group included a smattering of advocacy bloggers, freelance journalists, and staff reporters with such elite publications as Vogue and The Washington Post. The day before, Wise was posting Facebook LIVE events from the encampment on behalf of The New York Times.

Since April, when the movement to try and stop construction of the $3.8 billion dollar Dakota Access Pipeline began, media presence at Standing Rock has mostly consisted of activists with cell phones streaming Facebook testimonies to their friends and followers.

Their voices have helped galvanize the movement, and on Sunday, November 20, it shined an essential light on what brand-name media has mostly ignored: mounting tension, a violent and militarized police force, and prayer actions by demonstrators who insist they are unarmed.

On the night of the 20th about 400 demonstrators were hosed down with water in sub-freezing temperatures by Morton County Sheriffs deputies. Water protectors on the front lines opposite police say concussion grenades were also used. During the stand-off, which lasted for as long as six hours, major media attention was starkly absent. Instead, Facebook LIVE feeds broadcasted the unfolding drama, where at one point a quarter-million people had tuned in to watch what has largely been described by many as warfare.

The day’s mass gathering on Media Hill suddenly represented a critical new shift in the anti-pipeline occupation: exposure.

“It’s been overnight that it’s come to this,” said Dave Archambault II. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman has grown a mustache and a light goatee. On this day, he also wore a baseball hat ; an altogether different look from the suit-wearing persona Archambault presented during his October media-blitz in New York.

“We’re not violating any laws,” said Archambault. That message was among his primary points to address at the press event. In less than a month, the struggle at Standing Rock has intensified, in large part, under a media blackout.

Three weeks ago, on October 27, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department along with a coalition of out-of-state deputies and soldiers with the North Dakota National Guard performed a militarized sweep on water protectors at the 1851 Treaty Camp north of the Oceti Sakowin Camp. Since then, dramatic clashes with police have evolved into a routine theater of arrests—more than 520 since August—along with police shooting water protectors with rubber bullets, tear-gas, mace, and ironically, water, the very resource that the activists have vowed to defend.

The Missouri River remains the primary focus of the growing movement. The ribbon of water is the tribe’s primary supply along with millions of others downstream. The tribe worries the pipeline will rupture eventually and contaminate the river. Energy Transfer Partners, operator of the pipeline, has refuted these claims, saying they are unfounded.

On this day, the press conference focused conversation on Friday’s eviction notice issued by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. The federal agency was rescinding its permit to the thousands camped out at the Oceti Sakowin camps. As of Saturday, there’s believed to be as many as 10,000 people living in the community of teepees, RV’s and winterized tents and yurts.

“Suggested forced removal and state oppression; this is nothing new to Native peoples,” said Dallas Goldtooth, a lead organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network.

“This is where our people have been for thousands of years,” added Nick Tilson, another movement organizer with the Indigenous Peoples Power Project. “We’re not going to move unless it’s on our own terms ‘cause this is our Treaty land…pure love for our land; pure love for our people. And so there’s no place for fear.”

The messages conveyed at the top of Media Hill on Saturday were a deliberate attempt to craft a narrative that has been covered, in large part, by smaller publications for months, including Indian Country Today. It was also a direct attempt to dispel a storyline repeatedly crafted by Morton County, that some of the water protectors are violent criminals.

“While the violent faction within the protest group is a minority, it is a real threat to law enforcement,” read a statement released on Saturday by Morton County Commissioner Cody Schulz. “

“The hostile actions law enforcement have endured include being shot at, having molotov cocktails, rocks, sticks, bottles, cans, and feces thrown at them, having buffalo stampeded at them, being spit on, and being verbally assaulted,” the statement read.

In the battle over the Dakota Access pipeline, fought on the ground and in the courts, it’s also been one waged by all sides— the tribal nation, the police, the energy companies, and the government —in the court of public opinion.

As time turns towards the transition of power in the United States, the focus now has become one focused on federal involvement. Morton County has called on U.S. Marshals to assist in the encampment eviction on Army Corps land. Water protectors continue to repeat calls for President Obama to intervene.

“President Obama, when you came here [in 2014] you promised you would protect tribal sovereignty and spiritual belief,” said Thomas Lopez, Jr. a Standing Rock tribal member and organizer with the International Indigenous Youth Council.

“You promised you would protect our sacred way of life. And here we are protecting that sacred way of life. And where are you?”

“You are in silence.”

Silence has mostly veiled this historic moment at Standing Rock. Whether elite media remains interested in the struggle could determine its outcome.


Sunday, November 27, 2016

Vision for Lantern Shire Commons... in the Hearthstone Village!


During Session 4 of the Immersion Program at Sirius Community in the Autumn of 2015, I did a hypothetical illustration of how a "Householder Cottage" in the Hearthstone Village of Shutesbury, Massachusetts near this Intentional Community, founded in 1978, might appear...

~ A Rendering in India Ink and Watercolor by Joseph H. Bryan-Royster ~



This real estate property (across the road from Sirius Community in Shutesbury, MA) has been on the market since that time and the broker held an Open House on Sunday, November 27th from 1 -3 pm, whereas I walked through the interior of both buildings to imagine their potential as a Householder Cottage with an Art/Sculpture Gallery in the Village... ~ JDHWB-R

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Eviction Deadline for Overflow Camp At Standing Rock: Dec. 5



Corps gives eviction notice to protest camp

By Lauren Donovan ~ Bismarck Tribune


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has set a deadline of Dec. 5 for those living in the Oceti Sakowin protest camp to vacate the corps-owned land. Anyone remaining after that date will be subject to trespassing charges.

In an email sent Friday to Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II, Col. John Henderson, Omaha district commander, said the corps is establishing a free speech zone on the south side of the Cannonball River; but the main overflow camp on the north side must be disbanded.

"Our tribe is deeply disappointed in this decision by the United States, but our resolve to protect our water is stronger than ever," said Archambault, who is asking pipeline opponents to continue to fight the pipeline's permitting process.

Dallas Goldtooth, an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, said about 5,000 to 7,000 people are in the camp. That's a substantial increase since Sunday, when a confrontation between protesters and law enforcement led to many being treated for hypothermia after being sprayed with fire hoses. Others sought emergency hospital care, including a woman who suffered a serious arm injury and now is reportedly in satisfactory condition at a Minneapolis hospital.

The overflow camp was established in August, after the Dakota Access Pipeline crew moved toward its Missouri River/Lake Oahe crossing site just north of the reservation. The tribe is in federal court, claiming the corps failed to follow federal law and properly consult the tribe amid concerns the 570,000-barrel capacity pipeline could break and pollute a primary source of drinking water.

Goldtooth said there’s not enough land on the south side of the river where many are already camping; and a planned winter camp on 50 acres of reservation land near Cannon Ball is not yet ready, with groundbreaking set for next week.

“There’s no other space that can take people right now. This is a stupid, foolish act by the corps. I’m fairly sure that law enforcement would be just as concerned,” Goldtooth said.

People in the camp are living without electricity or running water in an array of teepees, tents, yurts and other structures.

Goldtooth said the eviction deadline is the day after more than 2,000 American war veterans are scheduled to arrive at the camp to stand in solidarity with Standing Rock.

Henderson said the decision was necessary to protect the general public from confrontations between protesters and law enforcement, and to prevent death or serious injuries to the protesters. He said the Oceti Sakowin camp is also on land leased for grazing.

“To be clear, this means that no member of the general public, to include Dakota Access Pipeline protesters, can be on these lands," said Henderson, who urged Archambault to encourage tribal members and supporters to move to the free speech zone or a more sustainable location for the winter.

“I am genuinely concerned for the safety and well-being of both the members of your tribe and the general public located at these encampments,” Henderson told the chairman.

The corps has been under pressure from state officials to move the protesters off its land.

Goldtooth said if the corps wants to “wash its hands” of the issue, it would be better to deny the easement for Dakota Access that’s currently preventing the company from boring underneath the Missouri River/Lake Oahe to connect the pipeline that’s mostly completed otherwise.

“They should deny the easement and look at the facts and order a full environmental impact statement. It’s ridiculous to order the eviction of 5,000 to 7,000 people who have moral and treaty rights to be there,” Goldtooth said.

Source: http://bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/corps-gives-eviction-notice-to-protest-camp/article_0ec9c215-df59-51bb-bffd-fd174ae45208.html

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
CORPS OF ENGINEERS, OMAHA DISTRICT

1616 CAPITOL AVENUE
OMAHA NE 68102-4901

November 25, 2016

District Commander

Chairman Dave Archambault II
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
Bldg. #1, North Standing Rock Avenue
P.O. Box D

Fort Yates, North Dakota 58538

Dear Chairman Archambault:

Pursuant to 36 C.F.R. § 327.12, I am closing the portion of the Corps-managed federal  property north of the Cannonball River to all public use and access effective December 5, 2016. This decision is necessary to protect the general public from the violent confrontations between  protestors and law enforcement officials that have occurred in this area, and to prevent death, illness, or serious injury to inhabitants of encampments due to the harsh North Dakota winter conditions. The necessary emergency, medical, and fire response services, law enforcement, or sustainable facilities to protect people from these conditions on this property cannot be provided. I do not take this action lightly, but have decided that it is required due to the concern for public safety and the fact that much of this land is leased to private persons for grazing and/or haying purposes as part of the Corps’ land management practices. To be clear, this means that no member of the general public, to include Dakota Access pipeline protestors, can be on these Corps’ lands.

The Corps of Engineers has established a free speech zone on land south of the Cannonball River for anyone wishing to peaceably protest the Dakota Access pipeline project, subject to the rules of 36 C.F.R. Part 327. In these areas, jurisdiction for police, fire, and medical response is  better defined making it a more sustainable area for visitors to endure the harsh North Dakota winter. For your reference, please find enclosed a map, marked as Exhibit A, which delineates this free speech zone area, as well as shows the Corps’ lands north of the Cannonball River that will be prohibited from public use. Any person found to be on the Corps’ lands north of the Cannonball River after December 5, 2016, will be considered trespassing and may be subject to  prosecution under federal, state, and local laws. Furthermore, any person who chooses to stay on these Corps’ lands north of the Cannonball River does so at their own risk, and assumes any and all corresponding liabilities for their unlawful presence and occupation of such lands. There currently are many Title 36 violations occurring on the Corps lands north of the Cannonball River, including, but not limited to, unauthorized structures, fires, improper disposal of waste, and camping. Additionally, any tribal government that sponsors such illegal activity is assuming the risk for those persons who remain on these lands.

See 36 C.F.R. § 327. As I have publically stated, I am asking you, as a Tribal leader, to encourage members of your Tribe, as well as any non-members who support you who are located in the encampments north of the Cannonball River on Corps’ lands to immediately and peacefully move to the free speech zone south of the Cannonball River or to a more sustainable location for the winter. I am genuinely concerned for the safety and well-being of both the members of your Tribe and the general public located at these encampments. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns regarding this information.

Sincerely, John W. Henderson, P.E. Colonel, Corps of Engineers District Commander

Source: https://www.scribd.com/document/332302365/Army-Corps-evicting-everyone-from-Standing-Rock-on-December-5#from_embed


Video Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K04Jop7Xuo

Synchronized prayer at 3 pm Central Standard Time on November 26th, 2016 for one hour (Check local time zones; 4 pm Eastern Standard Time at the Sirius Stone Circle Sanctuary in Shutesbury, Massachusetts USA) in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. ~ JDHWB-R ~

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Common Unity Switchboard is Cooperative Anarchy in Action...


We Are the One People of Earth!

The Common Unity Switchboard interface is designed to serve many local communities from a decentralized Hub within each community and create an inter-active Watchdog component for monitoring elected representatives.

Each Switchboard Hub requires only a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer with Internet access for online telecommunication (person-to-person and group conference calls) plus ear buds/headset audio with microphone if needed. Members within each local intentional community interface is connected by their Switchboard Hub through an electronic online bulletin board program with individual posts (i.e work offered or needed, inter-communal ride caravans, meet-ups, food and material exchanges, etc). Then amateur "ham" radio operators plus CB (Citizens Band) "walkie talkie" communications would augment the Internet-based network in event of "signal jamming" and/or the failure of parts or all of the global electrical grid and/or telecommunications networks ( i.e. an Earth-facing Coronal Mass Ejection). A worldwide project is designed to replicate within each localized intentional community having many decentralized locations for Motherboard Hubs which are fluid, and will include the participation of every existing and forming Intentional Community, membership willing. Media plug-in for this project is the Internet, beginning with the alternative media, and then going viral via social networks and word-of-mouth, to eventually reach mainstream media outlets.

Inter-linked Switchboard hubs on the Internet (each one acting as an intentional community seed) connect for larger projects involving multiple intentional communities (i.e. for free energy projects and transportation co-operatives; work/share arrangements plus pooling of human and material resources to realize goals in common. Many hands in many locations make this project sustainable. Information resources are always available on the subject of individual Sovereignty, the full responsibility and liability of every participating human being teaching that every decision made is to be in synchronicity with the well-being of the whole of humanity. This means total cooperative decentralization of governance at the individual level shared with everyone who affected by this process: i.e. the members within an intentional community and interfaces between two or more intentional communities achieving common goals. The Creative Commons (free sharing of ideas) backed by the proverbial “Golden Rule” of human interaction is KEY to success.

This project is designed to foster unity of the One People of Earth on a local and global scale, through transcendence of all systems of contrast (hierarchy/inequality). Anyone everywhere has the option of participation via connection to any local Switchboard Hub seated within any particular local community. There would be zero discrimination with regard to ethnic, cultural, religious/spiritual, economic, or sexual orientation of any human being is inherent application of the Golden Rule, which is collectively recognized through mediated local consensus of the One People, who are Absent Limits.

Crowdfunding platforms, such as Indiegogo and GoFundMe, are to be augmented by local fund-raising options within each geographic area where local intentional communities are seeded through local Switchboard Hubs, using combinations of national fiat currencies, local currencies, and/or alternative value exchange media (i.e. time banking systems).

Twin Avenues of Participation: Being in Service (Giving) and Being in Commitment (Receiving)

Every human being creates a Comprehensive Life Skills Set for the Resource Pool to Initiate His or Her Participation within the Common Unity Switchboard interface of localized Switchboard Hubs in each local community.

Moving through Stages of Service (Giving) and Commitment (Receiving), every participating human being seeks to achieve  Balance within their Avenues of Participation in the Common Unity Switchboard interface.

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/commonunityswitchboard/

Common Unity Switchboard interface is in synchronicity with InfiniteTrees Project

#NotMyPresident? #DrainTheSwamp?
The REAL Revolution Is Already Here

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Beyond the Gift of Leeloo: All That Is Physical Is Not The End...


 Welcome to the terrestrial home of the Silver Legion

What is the Silver Legion?

We are an organization of mostly-non-physical Lightwarriors, based out of a higher-layered realm. We are dedicated to helping further the cause of freedom across the multiverse, and dedicated to defending and protecting others so that they can follow their own paths free of those who would dominate or control them.

Please note, we are not associated with or affiliated with any terrestrial organization known as the Silver Legion, including gaming guilds or political organizations. The Silver Legion has no terrestrial, physical headquarters and does not perform its operations on the current, 3-dimensional Earth.

​The Silver Legion was founded by a being who spent many lives incarnated as a human on Earth, and who wished to become involved in the Ascension process. Our founder discovered that humanity on Earth was not free, that the people of Earth were unknowingly being dominated by non-human forces that were manipulating human society for their own purposes. She was by no means the only person aware of this situation, nor was she the only person who decided to do something about it. Humanity's allies are many.

Our founder was not a rich or powerful person, nor was she a channel, nor did she have contact with extraterrestrial allies in other dimensions. Nevertheless, she wanted to help humanity free itself from the hidden masters. One area she did have expertise in was the higher-layered realms and a good knowledge of how the multiverse works. She was also a Lightwarrior - a subset of Lightworker devoted to protection and guardianship. She put that knowledge and expertise to use by recruiting other Lightwarriors into an organized society, which took the Silver Legion as their name.

Most of the members of the Silver Legion have been recruited from various levels of higher-layered realities, and even some from neighbouring universes in our multiverse. Some have been recruited from the ranks of embodied, spiritually aware Lightwarriors currently alive on Earth. However, because the Silver Legion has not advertised its presence, there are not as many humans as we would like.

Earth is not the only realm in which we have been active. The Silver Legion has been actively working against tyranny and oppression experienced by other races and cultures in other places - on various levels of the other planes and in other dimensions. We come in under request and perform a variety of functions from peacekeeping and mediation between warring factions to defense and protection of noncombatants and the innocent. In the years before we were ready to contribute to the defense of Earth, we strengthened and trained ourselves by helping out elsewhere. Long after Earth is free, we will continue to help others throughout the multiverse in the same way. There are many other peoples in the same situation that Earth humans have been in.

The Silver Legion is a sovereign entity in itself and is not organized under any nation, planet, species, or other political or racial lines. We do not accept the authority of any entity over our collective organization - whether that authority derives from a claim to divinity or stems from another source. Remember that authority is only valid over you if you accept it.

Due to differences in approach and opinion, we are no longer willing to count on the Andromeda Council as allies. That said, we remain committed to helping liberate this planet and do maintain a number of allies who are similarly united in this intent.

Source: http://www.silverlegion.org/

One People Round Table 22 Nov 2016
Detaching from the Construct

 
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvxPWCF1Sy8

 Is the Wake up Alarm going off?
 

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

IN-Community Tour... 2nd Road Trip to Maine, New Hampshire


Stops at Zero Foundation, Star Teaching Society, & Last Breath Farm

First stop, and operating base for the Road Trip was Zero Foundation at Avalon, located in Lyman, Maine where bio-digesting equipment and permaculture farming applications were discussed over the weekend starting Friday, November 18th. Attendance at a Nova Tea held by the Star Teaching Society in Brookline, New Hampshire  on Saturday proved to be a catalyst for understanding how we collectively reach critical mass for triggering The Event, otherwise known as the global Awakeniing of Humanity. Sunday brought us northward to Last Breath Farm in Norridgewock, Maine. A former festival site ripe for re-purposing as an Intentional Community, is being considered within the context of networking for local sustainability as part of creating solidarity economics in the Northeastern United States. A key component for synthesis in this project is interfacing with The Transition, a program for individual and collective entry into a New Paradigm as the One People of Earth in synchronicity. ~ JDHWB-R

~ Avalon in Lyman, Maine during a pre-Tour Road Trip in January, 2016 ~

Relevant link: Common Unity Switchboard

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Reality Inversion... Alice Through the Looking Glass Revisited?


After about 3 minutes discussion on the current political fuckery, Donald Trump, and the "Purple Revolution", we took the rabbit hole less travelled and went through the looking glass....

This may be the strangest One People show yet as we struggled to explain the energetic work being done by so many around the world in order to end this ‘game’ we call the matrix/construct. Communicating concepts that the english language has no words for is sometimes a rather frustrating thing, lol.

d
One People 15 Nov 2016: Through the looking glass
(Removing the Shackles)


Text Source: http://removingtheshackles.blogspot.com.mt/2016/11/one-people-15-nov-2016-through-looking.html

Image Source: http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/wp-content/uploads/2book3.jpg

Video Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe_oPupQWKs

Monday, November 14, 2016

Collective Dark Night of the Soul: Macrocosm and Microcosm...


Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. ~ Psalm 23:4


Top Video ~ Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker (Lyric)

Bottom Video  ~ For Who the Bell Trolls - Exposing Internet Parasites

Saturday, November 12, 2016

KING HENRY I OF THE UNITED STATES... IN 1786?


Proposal for King of the United States

In 1786 either Nathaniel Gorham, then-President of the Continental Congress, or Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, the Prussian general who served in the Continental Army, suggested to Alexander Hamilton that Henry should become President or King of the United States, but the offer was revoked before the prince could make a reply.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Henry_of_Prussia_(1726%E2%80%931802)

No coronation for Hillary in the general election, but she hasn't given up at all. ~ JDHWB-R

The Clintons And Soros Launch America's Purple Revolution

Defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is not about to "go quietly into that good night." On the morning after her surprising and unanticipated defeat at the hands of Republican Party upstart Donald Trump, Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, entered the ball room of the art-deco New Yorker hotel in midtown Manhattan and were both adorned in purple attire. The press immediately noticed the color and asked what it represented. Clinton spokespeople claimed it was to represent the coming together of Democratic "Blue America" and Republican "Red America" into a united purple blend. This statement was a complete ruse as is known by citizens of countries targeted in the past by the vile political operations of international hedge fund tycoon George Soros.

The Clintons, who both have received millions of dollars in campaign contributions and Clinton Foundation donations from Soros, were, in fact, helping to launch Soros’s "Purple Revolution" in America. The Purple Revolution will resist all efforts by the Trump administration to push back against the globalist policies of the Clintons and soon-to-be ex-President Barack Obama. The Purple Revolution will also seek to make the Trump administration a short one through Soros-style street protests and political disruption.

It is doubtful that President Trump’s aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care. However, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he will continue hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress on Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and Mrs. Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin. President Trump should not allow himself to be distracted by these efforts. Chaffetz was not one of Trump’s most loyal supporters.

America’s globalists and interventionists are already pushing the meme that because so many establishment and entrenched national security and military «experts» opposed Trump’s candidacy, Trump is "required" to call on them to join his administration because there are not enough such "experts" among Trump’s inner circle of advisers. Discredited neo-conservatives from George W. Bush’s White House, such as Iraq war co-conspirator Stephen Hadley, are being mentioned as someone Trump should have join his National Security Council and other senior positions. George H. W. Bush’s Secretary of State James Baker, a die-hard Bush loyalist, is also being proffered as a member of Trump’s White House team. There is absolutely no reason for Trump to seek the advice from old Republican fossils like Baker, Hadley, former Secretaries of State Rice and Powell, the lunatic former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and others. There are plenty of Trump supporters who have a wealth of experience in foreign and national security matters, including those of African, Haitian, Hispanic, and Arab descent and who are not neocons, who can fill Trump’s senior- and middle-level positions.

Trump must distance himself from sudden well-wishing neocons, adventurists, militarists, and interventionists and not permit them to infest his administration. If Mrs. Clinton had won the presidency, an article on the incoming administration would have read as follows:

"Based on the militarism and foreign adventurism of her term as Secretary of State and her husband Bill Clinton’s two terms as president, the world is in store for major American military aggression on multiple fronts around the world. President-elect Hillary Clinton has made no secret of her desire to confront Russia militarily, diplomatically, and economically in the Middle East, on Russia’s very doorstep in eastern Europe, and even within the borders of the Russian Federation. Mrs. Clinton has dusted off the long-discredited ‘containment’ policy ushered into effect by Professor George F. Kennan in the aftermath of World War. Mrs. Clinton’s administration will likely promote the most strident neo-Cold Warriors of the Barack Obama administration, including Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, a personal favorite of Clinton."

President-elect Trump cannot afford to permit those who are in the same web as Nuland, Hadley, Bolton, and others to join his administration where they would metastasize like an aggressive form of cancer. These individuals would not carry out Trump’s policies but seek to continue to damage America’s relations with Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and other nations.

Not only must Trump have to deal with Republican neocons trying to worm their way into his administration, but he must deal with the attempt by Soros to disrupt his presidency and the United States with a Purple Revolution

No sooner had Trump been declared the 45th president of the United States, Soros-funded political operations launched their activities to disrupt Trump during Obama’s lame-duck period and thereafter. The swiftness of the Purple Revolution is reminiscent of the speed at which protesters hit the streets of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in two Orange Revolutions sponsored by Soros, one in 2004 and the other, ten years later, in 2014.

As the Clintons were embracing purple in New York, street demonstrations, some violent, all coordinated by the Soros-funded Moveon.org and "Black Lives Matter", broke out in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Oakland, Nashville, Cleveland, Washington, Austin, Seattle, Philadelphia, Richmond, St. Paul, Kansas City, Omaha, San Francisco, and some 200 other cities across the United States.

The Soros-financed Russian singing group "Pussy Riot" released on YouTube an anti-Trump music video titled "Make America Great Again." The video went "viral" on the Internet. The video, which is profane and filled with violent acts, portrays a dystopian Trump presidency. Following the George Soros/Gene Sharp script to a tee, Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova called for anti-Trump Americans to turn their anger into art, particularly music and visual art. The use of political graffiti is a popular Sharp tactic. The street protests and anti-Trump music and art were the first phase of Soros’s Purple Revolution in America.

President-elect Trump is facing a two-pronged attack by his opponents. One, led by entrenched neo-con bureaucrats, including former Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and Bush family loyalists are seeking to call the shots on who Trump appoints to senior national security, intelligence, foreign policy, and defense positions in his administration. These neo-Cold Warriors are trying to convince Trump that he must maintain the Obama aggressiveness and militancy toward Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries. The second front arrayed against Trump is from Soros-funded political groups and media. This second line of attack is a propaganda war, utilizing hundreds of anti-Trump newspapers, web sites, and broadcasters, that will seek to undermine public confidence in the Trump administration from its outset.

One of Trump’s political advertisements, released just prior to Election Day, stated that George Soros, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, and Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein, are all part of "a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities". Soros and his minions immediately and ridiculously attacked the ad as "anti-Semitic". President Trump should be on guard against those who his campaign called out in the ad and their colleagues. Soros’s son, Alexander Soros, called on Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, to publicly disavow Trump. Soros’s tactics not only seek to split apart nations but also families. Trump must be on guard against the current and future machinations of George Soros, including his Purple Revolution.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

OCCUPY ELECTORAL POLITICS IN THE UNITED STATES


Stein/Baraka Campaign Calls for Immediate Resistance to Trump and the Failed Two-Party System

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - November 9, 2016

The Stein/Baraka campaign calls for sustained and organized resistance to president-elect Donald Trump and the rise of right-wing extremism in the United States. They expressed their solidarity and empathy with those who are traumatized by the election results, and called for an honest and sober reckoning of the collusion between the political establishment and corporate media that led to Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.

"A New York Times poll reveals that 82% of Americans are literally ‘disgusted’ by this election," said Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate. “This election is a reaction to what voters see as a toxic and corrupt political establishment and represents a wholesale rejection of it. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) sabotaged Bernie Sanders, who by all accounts would have easily trounced Donald Trump. Because of Wikileaks, we also know that the DNC actively colluded with corporate media to elevate Donald Trump as a ‘Pied Piper Candidate’ to encourage the most extreme elements of the Republican party,” she said.

She continued, “The DNC’s cynical political calculations, as well as the public’s mistrust and rejection of Clinton’s policies of endless wars for oil, disastrous trade deals, and support for Wall Street deregulation that crashed the economy and devastated the lives of millions -- all this together has resulted in horrific blowback that puts us all in danger.”

“We stand in solidarity with the communities that have suffered from harassment, voter suppression, and now the trauma of a Donald Trump victory and what it represents,” said Ajamu Baraka, Green Party vice-presidential candidate. “We must build alternative power. We need principled and strong social movements that express and agitate for the needs of the American people, and a political party to represent that movement at the ballot box. Over one million people voted for the Green Party ticket. We are the electoral arm of that social movement.”

Green Party activists are hitting the ground running the day after the election. The Green Party calls for direct actions against the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the lame duck session, and is co-organizing for “Occupy Inauguration” demonstrations on January 20 and 21 (also the anniversary of Citizens United).

The party also commends several state-level victories for institutional reform in this election, including the passage of ranked-choice voting in Maine.  Ranked Choice Voting would end the role of fear-voting in elections by allowing voters to rank their choices for president  (or other single winner offices) - knowing that if one’s first choice loses, their vote is automatically reassigned to their second choice. In addition, the Stein/Baraka campaign praised resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate constitutional rights and the concept of money as speech in Washington and California.

“Don’t mourn, organize,” said David Cobb, Stein/Baraka campaign manager. “This government is premised upon the concept of ‘consent of the governed.’ We do not consent to Donald Trump and right wing rule. We do not consent to the establishment of corporate rule. We do not consent to Empire. We call for a peaceful, non-violent revolution by the ordinary people who were shut out of this terrible election by the leadership of both corporate political parties. The Green Party is prepared to be an instrument for popular power, and a new politics of integrity that must rise up and replace this rotten two-party system,” he said.



Thank You to All Who Voted Green!