The forces of capital and state power carried out a huge terrorist operation on Thursday against the nonviolent protesters defending the lands of the Standing Rock Dakota Sioux Tribe.
For months, Native Americans and their allies have been preventing the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline on native lands. The pipeline, an environmental and social disgrace, will not only destroy the land’s water supply and sustainability, but will also ensure a deepening of the worldwide climate crisis that threatens us all.
Those in power, specifically the police force and Hillary Clinton, are well aware of the situation – and they actively choose to turn a blind eye. I urge you to see the menace behind the actions of these power-players that are opposing centuries of the largest genocide in human history.
When the small army of militarized police-thugs were sent in on Thursday to forcibly remove the protesters, they employed massive sound cannons, rubber bullets, mace and bean bags against women, children and the elderly. More than 140 protesters were arrested and are being held without bail.
If you believe this despicable country has any good left in it, then I urge you to support these protesters through money, supplies, political pressure and/or traveling to North Dakota yourself. Might I remind you that our “great” country simultaneously has a team in the World Series with a red-faced mascot, while our “heroic” police terrorize Native American children for defending their water supply from an oil company.
So what is our first problem here? Easy. The police are not who we think they are. They are not the valiant crime fighters that television and movies have indoctrinated us into believing.
The police, as an institution, is an extension of the monopoly on force the state possesses — it is a form of legalized aggression.
Furthermore, the state uses this power to protect the interests of itself, business and capital accumulation. This is why is the police are openly and legally attacking the protestors at Standing Rock. Another sole function of American police departments is to terrorize minority communities. This is why the police expel homeless people when the Super Bowl comes to a city.
This is why the police shoot mentally ill people for no good reason. This is why the police assist the profits of private prison companies by arresting millions of black, Latinx and native citizens.
I don’t care how good of a person your Uncle Steve the Cop is at Thanksgiving; when he puts on that uniform, he is assuming the role of an agent of a white supremacist, totalitarian, capitalist state. For these reasons, the institution of the police as we know it, with perhaps the sole exception of detectives that hunt down murderers and rapists, should be abolished in this country.
The police simply do not serve the interests of the vast majority of the population.
Briefly, I must also criticize Clinton’s disgusting response to the Standing Rock crisis. Her campaign said in a statement, “From the beginning of this campaign, Secretary Clinton has been clear that she thinks all voices should be heard and all views considered in federal infrastructure projects.
Now, all of the parties involved ... need to find a path forward that serves the broadest public interest.”
With these words, Clinton affirms that she is 100 percent human slime. This response is nothing more than euphemistically saying the following to Native Americans: “Sign the treaty.”
We must not only financially and politically support the Standing Rock Tribe, but also oppose Clinton’s malice towards them as well by denying her our votes.
luwrobin@umail.iu.edu
