Portside

To return to the firehawks example, one way to look at this is that the scientists confirmed what the Indigenous peoples have long known about the birds’ use of fire. Or we can say that the Western scientists finally caught up with TK after several thousand years.

Records obtained through a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request reveal that the United States Army Corps of Engineers inappropriately attempted to guide the companies funding DAPL toward providing an environmental justice analysis of the pipeline that would conclude that there was no disproportionate impact on a racial minority. Internal Corps email excerpts -- received through discovery by Earthjustice -- show the decision makers behind the pipeline wearing lenses fogged with racism.

Taking land by force was not an accidental or spontaneous project or the work of a few rogue characters. The violent appropriation of Native land by white settlers was seen as an individual right in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, second only to freedom of speech.

The Trump Administration’s aggressive efforts to turn public lands over to the oil and gas industries threatens New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon, the epicenter of Puebloan civilization from 850 to 1250 AD. UNESCO termed the ancient urban ceremonial center “unlike anything constructed before or since.” The accelerated oil and gas development threatens the Native American connection to this sacred place and all our attempts to understand the mysteries of its way of life.

Cloaking its efforts in the language of civil rights, a right-wing think tank has launched a coordinated attack against the Indian Child Welfare Act, passed to protect Native American children from their forced removal from their families and tribes. The Goldwater Institute’s stated goal is to have the Supreme Court strike down the ICWA. But, tribal members say these efforts are also intended to undermine the legal foundation of Native American self-determination.

The Standing Rock activists have lit a fire on the prairie in the heart of America as a symbol of their resistance. In its ashes there is the potential for a more just future.

In response to President Donald Trump's executive order to advance construction of the stalled Dakota Access Pipeline, tribal opponents say they will fight a restart of the project in court. While President Trump issued an executive order Tuesday intended to advance construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, restarting the stalled project may not be simple.