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Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Monday, December 12, 2016

Red Fawnn - to be continued

What a stroke of good luck - and enraging glimpse of blatant injustice - we are in court when Red Fawn is attending the pretrial for her felony arrest.

Again, I will not say too much about the details of the case but I will say this: what a bunch a racist, macho, sexist, violent bull shit piled on top of her.

Do you know that police targeted her that day she was arrested? The AFT asshole (one who happened to be in the prison when we were arrested and refused to identify himself) actually even proudly outlined how Red Fawn was a leader and called her an 'agitator' and police were waiting for her to be separated from the rest of the Water Protectors in order to pounce on her and arrest her.

Red Fawn, an amazing, courageous, fierce warrior, has been detained in jail since the huge arrests of October 27th, when over 170 Water Protectors were arrested at the behest of DAPL.

The fuckin amazing Water Protectors

If you haven't experienced how total strangers can come together to work on building community, from absent or nothing to thriving, then it might be hard to clearly see how amazing some humans are and how grateful I am for them in my life.

Everyone, every Water Protector, has their shining abilities and strengths to lend to such a creation of community but here I want to talk specifically about two groups of Water Protectors: the Legal team and the Medic team!

Today, the amazing volunteers of the legal collective showed up in court for us, took notes, met with us afterwards, and told us they are going to find us a lawyer who is excited about our case, to support us through the whole trial, and to meet our needs anyway they can.

These Water Protectors are fabulous, sincere, dedicated humans that I want to give a huge shout out to - for without their support, knowledge and hard work, getting arrested, going to jail, and then going to trial would be soooooooo much more difficult.

And they just show up and appear when you need them!

I also want to again acknowledge the Medics - what special humans, risking their safety if not their lives to run out onto the front lines, to grab injured folks and move them to safety while treating their injuries and calming their pain and panic.

Both legal and medics just appear, summoned as if by magic, to take care of us and support us! THANK YOU!!!

Federal Court in North Dakota, Bismarck to be exact

There are 6 of us who were arrested attempting to get the message to Obama and the Federal Government to honor the treaties of the 1800's made with the Sioux, to immediately halt construction on the DAPL, the respect and honor the Sioux Tribal Council, and to get EPT the hell off of unceded Native territory.

Today we were arraigned in Federal Court. I cannot say too many specific details about the arrest and our defense but I can say that we all plead not guilty and requested both a jury trial and a public defender.

Because we are charged with the lowest misdemeanor possible Class C, (only infractions are lower) and the feds are not seeking jail time for us if we're found guilty - just a fine that they've already cut in half - we are not entitled to a public defender nor to a jury trial. Tearz...

We all wanted the chance to raise the consciousness of a jury of our peers. The judge compared our ticket to that of a traffic ticket and I'm sure he and the federal attorney was hoping - naively - that we would jump at the reduced fine, pay it, and leave North Dakota over $600 each richer - that's $3600!!! FAT CHANCE!

The judge, an older white smiling Santa Clausie type of fellow, seemed decent enough and even friendly as he took a lot of time to explain our rights to us and really make sure we didn't do any missteps that could harm our case.

He was a huge difference from the Municipal judge who arraigned us while we were still in custody last month.

The judge accepted our pleas and set our trial date - in front of him - for April 11th & 12th!

Back to fuckin North Dakota in the spring - but then we'll be able to help with camp clean-up and support.




forked tongue of white men

Rumor vs fact: just quickly, as I'm on my way to court, know that the Standing Rock Water Protectors have NOT left the land and have no intention of leaving - as ETP has also said - until the Black Snake has been vanquished.

No one here has been fooled by the forked-tongue of white men.