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Tag: Activism

#GonzoNotes 02: Celebrate Every Victory

Posted in Creative Commons, Gonzo Notes, and Journalism

During the first meeting of Occupy Austin, the general assembly agreed that the movement would “celebrate every victory.”

It’s an idea that I’ve often returned to in the years since OWS ended, and I was thinking about it when the water protectors of Standing Rock won an unexpected but hard-fought victory last weekend.

On Sunday, the Army Corps Of Engineers refused to grant a permit for the pipeline to continue under a river that passes through sacred lands in Sioux territory, temporarily preventing completion.

As thousands of veterans streamed into Standing Rock, promising to put their bodies in between cops and Native Americans, “the power structure itself blinked in the face of our unity,” Kelly Hayes wrote, eloquently, on Monday.

#NoDAPL: Both Dakota Access Pipeline Builder & Water Protectors Refuse To Back Down

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and Lee Camp

On Sunday, the Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit to allow Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), the Dakota Access Pipeline’s builder, to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, a key step necessary for completing the pipeline through Sioux sacred lands. The Army also promised to begin a new environmental impact investigation and consider alternate routes for the pipeline.

Undeterred by the Army’s press release, ETP and their partners in fossil fuel crimes, Sunoco Logistics Partners, shot back with a fiery statement of their own on Sunday night, promising to complete the pipeline along the current path. “ETP and SXL are fully committed to ensuring that this vital project is brought to completion and fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting in and around Lake Oahe. Nothing this Administration has done today changes that in any way,” the corporate stooges wrote.

#GonzoNotes 01: Life Under President Trump

Posted in Creative Commons, Gonzo Notes, and MintPress News

Donald Trump is going to be president.

That’s fucking ugly, so I want you to just sit with it for a minute.

I know some people are working for a different outcome. I will rarely tell anyone not to act, and this includes my comrades petitioning the electoral college to reject Trump, or supporting efforts to recount the vote.

Still, fundamentally, our democracy isn’t built for this. The electoral college was never meant to serve the people, and it never will.

BDS Activists Plan Black Friday Protests Against HP’s Support For Israeli Apartheid

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Though best known for their computers and computer peripherals like printers, companies under the Hewlett-Packard umbrella are engaged in another profitable, and far more nefarious business: enabling apartheid Israel to track the movement of occupied Palestinians.

Activists from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement are calling for a week of action against HP beginning on Black Friday, the high-volume shopping day that occurs after Thanksgiving. Organized by the HP Boycott Campaign and the Palestinian BDS National Committee, a coalition of Palestinian civil society groups, 99 actions were scheduled in 18 countries around the world, including the United States, as of Monday afternoon.

The Israeli military operates checkpoints throughout the occupied West Bank. In order to pass through them, Palestinians must submit to facial and and hand recognition scanners. This biometric identification system, called the “Basel System,” is maintained by HP Enterprise Services, a company previously known as EDS Israel.

“The biometric data of nearly every Palestinian over the age of 16 is held by the Israeli authorities as part of Israel’s system of control and repression,” the Palestine Solidarity Campaign noted in an Aug. 13, 2014 post.

Green Party Senate Candidate Margaret Flowers Crashes Two-Party Debate

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Dr. Margaret Flowers, a Green Party candidate for Senate from Maryland, interrupted a televised debate to protest her exclusion from the forum on Wednesday.

“I’m a candidate on the ballot. I have a statewide campaign. I don’t understand why I’m not up here,” Flowers declared as she briefly occupied the debate stage.

Flowers is running for the seat long occupied by Democratic incumbent Barbara Mikulski, who announced her retirement earlier this year.

During the direct action, Flowers took the stage amid loud applause from the audience and shook hands with her opponents, Democratic nominee Chris Van Hollen and Republican nominee Kathy Szeliga, both of whom agreed to debate Flowers.

Over 100 Arrested In Brutal Police Crackdown On Standing Rock ‘Water Protectors’

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Law enforcement commenced a violent crackdown on Native American activists blocking construction on the Dakota Access pipeline on Thursday, resulting in over 100 arrests and multiple injuries.

At least 107 people were arrested and both Native American “water protectors” and members of the media were harmed when hundreds of militarized riot police, accompanied by armored vehicles and the National Guard, stormed a blockade on North Dakota Highway 1806 and an accompanying encampment.

Among the injured was Derrick Broze, an independent journalist reporting for MintPress News from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation this week. He was shot with pepper spray and shocked with a “less-lethal” taser. Police also took his smartphone, which he had been using to document the day’s events via Facebook Live.