❝ High on a hill overlooking the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers, Dave Archambault II knelt and touched a stone that bears a handprint worn into it by thousands of his ancestors who have done the same for centuries.
There, the leader of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said a prayer for peace.
❝ Below, Archambault can see Native Americans from across North America gathered at an encampment a half-mile away, joining his tribe’s growing protest against a $3.8 billion four-state oil pipeline that will cross the Missouri River nearby. It’s a project they fear will disturb sacred sites and impact drinking water for thousands of tribal members on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and millions further downstream.
“Our cause is just,” the laconic, soft-spoken 45-year-old said. “What we do today will make a difference for future generations.”
❝ His contemporaries say he’s the right person at the right time to lead the fight, which has led to the arrests of about 30 people, Archambault included, for interfering with construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.
❝ Since becoming the leader of about 9,000 people in 2013, Archambault has sought to improve housing, health care, employment, education and other grim realities that his 2.3 million-acre reservation that straddles the North and South Dakota border and reservations nationwide face.
Now, he’s dealing with added pressure of the pipeline, which he has called yet another “historic wrong“ involving tribal sovereignty and land rights.
RTFA. Decide which part of history deserves your support: short term profits including construction jobs for a couple of years – or long-term civil rights and sovereignty for a Native American nation simply trying to live in peace.
Eideard 
“View of the slain body of ‘Chief Big Foot’, Native American, Miniconjou Lakota Sioux, propped up in the snow on the Wounded Knee battleground, Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. December 29th, 1890” See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_Elk
Free Leonard Peltier. Send the FBI to prison!
“Army Corps backs restraining order against Dakota Access Pipeline” Monday, September 5, 2016 http://www.indianz.com/News/2016/09/05/army-corps-backs-restraining-order-again.asp
“In a sign of solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, the Obama administration is supporting an emergency temporary restraining order against the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline. The two tribes called for the temporary restraining order in response to the destruction of sacred sites and burial grounds in the path of the pipeline. They each filed their motions on Sunday, highlighting the emergency nature of their requests.
“I do not believe that the timing of this construction was an accident or coincidence. Based on my observations, the nearest area of construction in the right of way west of Highway 1806 is around 20 miles away,” Tim Mentz Sr., the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s former longtime historic preservation officer, stated in a sworn declaration on Sunday. “It appears that DAPL drove the bulldozers approximately 20 miles of uncleared right of way to access the precise area that we surveyed and described in my declaration. The work started very early in the morning and they were accompanied by private security with dogs and with a helicopter overhead, indicating that the work was planned with care and that controversy was expected.”
And even though Monday is federal holiday Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order to hear the tribes’ motions. The hearing will take place at 3pm on Tuesday in Courtroom 19 of the federal courthouse in Washington D.C.” (see links)
“G4S Admits It Guards Dakota Pipeline as Protesters Get Attacked” http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/G4S-Admits-It-Guards-Dakota-Pipeline-as-Protesters-Get-Attacked-20160906-0036.html “Wherever governments can’t—or won’t—maintain order, from oil fields in Africa to airports in Britain and nuclear facilities in America, the London-based “global security” behemoth G4S has been filling the void. It is the world’s third-largest private-sector employer and commands a force three times the size of the British military. (Vanity Fair, 2014) http://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2014/04/g4s-global-security-company See also “Orlando Shooter Wasn’t the First Murderer Employed By Global Mercenary Firm” https://theintercept.com/2016/06/14/orlando-shooter-wasnt-the-first-murderer-employed-by-global-mercenary-firm/ G4S clients include U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Enbridge Inc. has agreed to purchase fellow pipeline line owner Spectra Energy Corp. for $28 billion in stock. The largest-ever foreign purchase by a Canadian company, the combination will create the biggest energy pipeline and storage operator in North America. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-06/enbridge-and-spectra-energy-to-combine-in-stock-for-stock-deal “We’ll be the FedEx” of the pipeline business, Greg Ebel, Houston-based Spectra’s chief executive officer, said in an interview. “We ship, we pick up, we store product,” said Ebel, who will become non-executive chairman at Enbridge. A month ago, Enbridge announced it was partnering with Marathon Petroleum and buying a $1.5 billion stake in the Bakken Pipeline System, which includes the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. Note the company’s map of their map of their “Combined Infrastructure Asset Base” indicates that pipeline is a done deal https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*CocAdcChpTv84VFkJjNCeg.png
☐ “Enbridge’s agreement to buy Houston-based Spectra Energy Corp. in a US$28-billion cross-border deal immediately gives the Canadian company the world’s largest network of oil and natural gas pipelines, with no new construction required. As oil and natural gas production has fallen along with prices, the companies that transport the commodities are struggling, spurring global consolidation within the industry. In Canada, where pipeline builders increasingly face local opposition, that means looking to a mature U.S. industry. TransCanada Corp. got the ball rolling in March, buying Houston’s Columbia Pipeline Group Inc. for US$10.2 billion. Now, Enbridge is set to boost a record US$57.2 billion in cross-border spending by Canadian companies this year, roughly five times the previous record of $10.1 billion through Sept. 7, 2014, according to data collected by Bloomberg. http://calgaryherald.com/business/energy/lure-of-growth-draws-canadian-energy-companies-south-of-the-border
☐ “Trump’s Connection to Dakota Access Pipeline” http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-dakota-access-pipeline-1998966014.html “Continental Resources – the company founded and led by CEO Harold Hamm, energy adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and potential U.S. Secretary of Energy under a Trump presidency – has announced to investors that oil it obtains via fracking from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale basin is destined for transport through the hotly-contested Dakota Access Pipeline.” {see links} “Previously, Harold Hamm was as an outspoken supporter of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, deploying the lobbying group he founded named the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance to advocate for KXL and a Bakken on-ramp which would connect to it. Hamm was also an energy adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.
☐ “N.D. governor asks for National Guard assistance in pipeline protest” (9/8/16) http://www.inforum.com/news/north-dakota/4110814-north-dakota-governor-asks-national-guard-assistance-pipeline-protest
☐ “FULL Exclusive Report: Dakota Access Pipeline Co. Attacks Native Americans with Dogs & Pepper Spray” (Democracy Now 9/6/16) http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/6/full_exclusive_report_dakota_access_pipeline (includes video)
Big business is diving into the fight over the Dakota Access pipeline. http://grist.org/briefly/big-business-is-diving-into-the-fight-over-the-dakota-access-pipeline/ Two pro-development lobbying groups, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, have teamed up to launch a seven-figure ad campaign urging the Obama administration to support completion of the pipeline.