Dehumanization;
it is the first step to war. Long before the tanks roll onto ships,
or planes fly overhead, propaganda strips the enemy of their
humanity. The simplest way to dehumanize is to demonize. The Morton
County Sheriff and local press are knowingly and calculatingly taking
aim at the safety of the Standing Rock Water Protectors
by slowly tainting the perception of their character and stripping
them of their humanity.
On
October 16, the Morton County Sheriff published on their Facebook
page an article from Inforum.com with the headline “Butchered and
missing livestock reported near Dakota Access Pipeline protest camp”
The article connected the Standing Rock Water Protector camps to 30
missing cows, and the deaths of four cows, three bison and a saddle
horse by saying it happened near the camps.
The
cow rustling incident was in a different county, investigated by a
different sheriff. It was not Morton County’s jurisdiction.
North
Dakota Stockmen’s Association (NDSA) Chief Brand Inspector Stan
Misek asserted, "They're [the cattle] missing from right beside
the camps, right there. We don't know. We don't know for sure. We're
just putting it out there and hopefully somebody will come forward."
The
camps are monitored by aircraft which visit numerous times per day.
Police have stations on the ridges above the camps. They employ
electronic surveillance devices which trap cell traffic. It is
monitored at all times, day and night. One camp is up a large hill
and has cattle catchers on the way in. Another is in a large
geographic bowl and into a plain. It is surrounded by rivers on three
sides – which at the time were not frozen. The only part of the
camp which is not surrounded by river is lined by a major highway.
The
idea that Water Protectors sneaked out undetected past the hundreds
of police and aircraft, collected 30 cattle, smuggled them back to
camp, took them along the highway, and took them either up a huge
three mile hill, past cattle catchers or down a big hill, slaughtered
them, butchered them, and ate them with no detection is truly a
concession of incompetence of police surveillance or entirely
fallacious.
The
improbably and reality is not point. This was no mindless move, or
silly bit of eye rolling non-sense. It was a shot right at the Water
Protectors’ safety. It was a shrewd move to show the Standing Rock
Sioux, Water Protectors, and their supporters the Sheriff knows
history – and they mean to repeat it.
A
dead cow and dehumanization led to wars lasting 14 years.
In
1854, the cow of a Mormon traveler on the Oregon Trail was killed by
a starving Native American. Instead of dispatching an Indian Affairs
Officer as treaty required, the military sent itself to deal with the
situation. Lakota Chief Conquering Bear met the battalion of American
Army soldiers peacefully. The military demanded he turn over the cow
murderer. Conquering Bear refused because it is against Lakota custom
to put a guest in a harmful situation. He offered the Mormon a horse
and a cow. The Mormon demanded money. Conquering Bear had no money.
Talks broke down. As he was walking away, Conquering Bear was shot in
the back and died. The Lakota killed every single soldier. The Lakota
were called violent. Newspapers said the Lakota massacred the
soldiers. The spin on their response to the violent invasion of their
territory was used to justify a war with the American people– The
First Great Sioux War.
Julie
Ellingson, NDSA Executive Vice President was asked for details
including where, when, which ranchers, or for photos and stated,
“This is an active investigation and those details
cannot be disclosed at this time as law enforcement work the case.”
When
asked how long it took for thirty cows to go missing, Ellingston
said, “Sorry, but I do not know the answer, as that is something
that the investigators gather in their case files.”
Four
days later, the Sheriff again referenced the missing cows on his
Facebook page, this time increasing the number of dead horses to two
and reassuring the public that social media rumors that the cows had
been found were entirely off base.
The
cattle rustling was just one of Morton County Sheriff’s attempts to
make the public see horns on the Water Protectors.
One
of Morton County Sheriff’s favorite tactics is to post videos of
local residents complaining about the camps. Generally the videos
lack any direct interaction with Water Protectors – instead
conveying stories about neighbors who have interactions.
On
one of the Morton County Sheriff’s video posts, an unnamed rancher
explained in an interview with Scott Hennen on the radio show “What’s
On Your Mind” that he bought a gun to defend himself against Water
Protectors after an interaction with a neighbor. “I have a neighbor
who lives in the pipeline area and he asked if he needed help, if I
would come and help. I said I would.” He continued, “At that
point I didn’t really have anything to go help him with. So I
proceeded to acquire some stuff.”
He
confessed that his only interaction with a Water Protector was
watching them change a flat tire.
Even
when interactions are direct, the bar for fear seems preposterously
low. After having a conversation with a Water Protector, which by his
account had no threats in it at all, Jared Ernst, a local farmer,
bought guns. He said, "I've been carrying a sidearm on me
everywhere I go. I have a small revolver that I carry, my wife has
started carrying, a bunch of the neighbors have started carrying
firearms in their vehicles.”
Even
though the geographic region of origin of Water Protectors should
play no role in their arrest or charges, the Morton County Sheriff
put out a map of where the arrestees were from. In a smacking case of
“let’s play jingoism” the sheriff made the tacit argument that
it is the outsiders ruining the community and making problems.
The
map calls the arrested individuals “professional protestors.”
Even though Morton County Sheriff provides no evidence for the
professionalism of the protestors, or who is funding them, or why
they are called professional protestors – they are called
professional.
The
professional protestor myth is a new form of racist double speak.
Whenever a group of people who are primarily not- white gather to
assert their rights – as in the Winters’ Doctrine which assures
fresh, clean drinking water to all Native American Nations and the
people living in them, the “George Soros Myth” pops up.
The
George Soros Myth is essentially that a Jewish guy is sending
hapless, mindless, uneducated, unemployed, brown people who are
driven only by money to upset the poor white Christian folks and
their communities.
Yup
– it is a double whammy of dehumanization and racism. It requires
the speaker and the listener to believe Jewish people want to upset
their communities and that brown people are so stupid, and mindless
that they would do anything for money – including upsetting poor,
innocent people.
It
also requires both the listener and the speaker of the myth to accept
that white people have an inherent right to have their realities stay
exactly the way they want it and it is morally wrong for Jewish
people or brown people to assert rights or pay people to assert
rights which upset their inherent right to keep things status quo.
For
a group of people who in general voted for Trump to further free
market capitalism – the idea people would get paid as a way to
express market values – like clean water or equal pay – is a
monumental act of hypocrisy.
The
map is nothing more than a tantrum that the superiority of white
people might be challenged in North Dakota and its development was
paid for by a public law enforcement official.
And
why? It serves no formal law enforcement purpose. It does however
serve an important social purpose.
North
Dakota has many nick names, most of which are unknown to the rest of
the country. It is called the Deep North or the Mississippi of the
North. The racism is unabashed in North Dakota. Drivers roll down
their window and yell “NIGGER” at black people walking down the
street. Then they circle the block and do it again. They call Native
Americans “Red Niggers” and “Prairie Niggers” and “Lazy
Indians” and “Chief” and “Half-Breed” and “Dirty
Indians.” Mexicans are called “Beaners” and “Wet Backs” and
“Fucking Juans.” The white people who ally with the minorities
are called the racist slur with the added monicker “lover”. For
example, “Red Nigger Lover.” They make unabashedly racist
comments which usually start with “They...”
And
yes – the police do call people all of those things while making
arrests or interacting with members of the public who brown too much.
North
Dakota is the keeper of
the
runner up title for state with most hate crimes
and has held that title since 2012 according to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. Well – except for 2013 when North Dakota won the
title and wore the crown of most criminal haters in the country.
The
Morton County Sheriff is deliberately demonstrating that the Water
Protectors’ are internationally and nationally challenging the
accepted racism. He is tacitly showing the challenge to white
superiority in North Dakota in order to create an us (whites) vs them
(anyone who thinks brown people are equal humans to whites). The
Morton County Sheriff is intentionally whipping up the racist
factions and increasing the settler anxiety in order to escalate
public hostility and make violence against the Water Protectors
acceptable.
Tensions
were relatively low between Water Protectors and law enforcement in
December 2016. On December 4, the Obama Administration stopped the
drilling and ordered a complete Environmental Impact Statement. On
December 5, a wave of thousands veterans arrived in Standing Rock
with the stated mission to protect the Water Protector from police
violence.
Unwilling
to allow the public to come to their senses and cool down and think;
the Morton County Sheriff released a document to whip up the racism
and dehumanization again and it used its favorite old tactics;
racist, bigoted propaganda. On January 9, 2017 the Morton County
Sheriff released
information about the cost of the Water Protector Camps.
Days of Response Support (since August 10, 2016) 153
Hours of Response Support (as of January 9, 2017) 181,232
State and Local Cost to Taxpayers (estimated as of Jan 4, 2017)
$22.3 M
In State Agencies Providing Support 91
States Providing Support1 9
Out of State Agencies Providing Support 33
Number of Arrests 581
Number of Protesters Arrested 556
Percent of Arrestees from Out of State 94.5%
Number of Arrestees with Prior Criminal Records2 182
Number of Arrestees with History of Violence3 25
Number of livestock killed/missing, injured4 (as of Jan 6, 2016)
10 / 32
Number of poaching investigations tied to protest area 53
Number of abandoned cars/structures on protest camp (estimated)
650 - 75
1. Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South
Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming
2. Total of 1062 previous citations and charges for illegal
activity (as of Jan 3, 2016).
3. Includes domestic violence and child abuse.
4. ND Stockmen’s Association. 1 bull, 2 horses, 3 bison, 4 cows
killed. 30 missing cows and calves, 2 injured cows.
5. ND State Game and Fish Department
6. ND Department of Emergency Services
First
they focus on cost, the cost and manpower to contain the evil scourge
of the Water Protectors. The cost is directly related to the mass
militarization of the police which is widely criticized by human
rights organizations, police officials, civil rights groups, and
indigenous groups.
This
is a choice the people of North Dakota have made to over police the
area. However, by framing it as an unwanted cost to the people, the
Water Protectors are seen as taking from the good, taxpaying citizens
of North Dakota.
To
translate this from the cloaked racism of the Morton County Sheriff’s
Office to the actual meaning, addressing the cost can be reduced to
one sentence, “The brown people are stealing your money.”
Missing
livestock and poaching is added to the mix in the report. Even though
the poaching and missing livestock was never linked to the camps in
any way, no evidence was provided to link it to the camps, and the
idea that a herd of 30 cows could disappear or
be slaughtered under the nose of nearly a thousand police and
National Guard with nearly constant aerial surveillance is
preposterous – it is again linked to the camps.
Horses
are considered people in Lakota tradition. The idea they would
tolerate the slaughter of a horse is ridiculous.
Then
the Sheriff’s Office moves on to painting the Water Protectors as a
collection of law disobeying miscreants.
They
bothered to do the jingoistic math for the number of Water Protectors
from out of state, asserting a number of 94.5%. They do not explain
the number or if Standing Rock Sioux Reservation is considered out of
state by their number but it serves the same purpose either way –
rile up the jingoists.
They
did not bother to do the math on the people with a history of
violence. Of the 556 arrestees at that time (it is over 700 now), the
grand total with a violent history is 25 or less than 4.5% of
arrestees had a history of violence.
Or
95.5% have no history of violence.
Did
Morton County Sheriff’s Office suddenly lose the ability to do
math? Were they suddenly stuck without a calculator? Did their phone
stop working and they could not call a high school junior for help?
Was their statistician suddenly struck by lightening and no officer
was capable of figuring out the math because their IQ is below that
of a wombat?
No.
They were caught trying to present a false narrative.
According
to the
FBI
crime statistics for 2014, 498,666 people were
arrested for violent crimes out of 11,205,833 total arrests or 4.45%
of arrests are for violent crimes. Having a 4.5% violent arrest rate
is totally, completely, and exactly in the American normal.
Either
Morton County Sheriff’s Office is so grossly misinformed about
national crime statistics that they don’t know this is perfectly
average that they should probably give up policing right now or they
are attempting to paint all the Water Protectors as a wild bunch of
violent hooligans; marauding and terrorizing the poor white community
of nice, vulnerable law-abiding citizens.
They
added in child abuse and domestic violence in the notes for the
giggles of showing those damned Indians are so dangerous – even
people in their homes are not safe. They did not disclose how many of
those 25 people had such charges.
The
Sheriff added a new category of dehumanization – dirty. They
included a number of abandoned cars and structures at the protest
camp of 650-75. Morton County Sheriff’s Office provided no evidence
for their numbers, nor how they came to those numbers.
It
would be surprising to learn how they learned which structures were
abandoned without conducting illegal searches of people’s homes in
the camps – but that is a totally separate issue.
The
point is not to be accurate or lawful, it is to paint the Water
Protectors as dirty. Not figuratively filthy, but literally slovenly.
Morton
County Sheriff’s Office validated the accusations of dehumanization
when during arrests they strip searched,
labeled,
different searches for different races, and keeping people in animal
cages.
Police raided Sacred Ground Camp on October
27, 2016. The camp was situated on grounds considered sacred burial
grounds to many Native American nations. It was also directly in the
proposed path of the Bakken Dakota Access Pipeline. Police made over
140 arrests.
Arrestees’
arms were labeled with numbers in permanent marker,
instead of their names in a fashion resembling WWII European
concentration camp victims.
They were
told to strip to one layer of clothing. They were put
in a chain link cages with concrete floors described as dog kennels.
The
Water
Protectors were
divided into groups, separated,
and sent
up to four hours away to far flung jails across the state. Many
were then strip searched, fully nude and told to cough.
The United Nations
sent human rights investigators to Standing Rock in the days after
the raid and Water Protectors gave testimony. They described the
events in lock up in specific, consistent, horrifying detail.
Morton County
Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier goes out of his way to seem he is a man of
discernment when it comes to the Water Protectors, drawing
distinctions between the good ol’ passive Water Protectors who know
their place and those arrested. He makes references to “instigators”
and “agitators” ad nauseam.
In an
interview
with KX4 in Bismarck on October 26, Kirchmeier said,
“Well, I think as we go through this, from the very beginning,
safety for everybody involved has been number one. But there are
definitely instay -- instigators in there that want us to come and
arrest them. For whatever reason that is, I don't know. For their
cause, if it thinks it will help them as they're going along here,
I'm not 100% sure.”
The next day his
department raided the northernmost Water Protector camp, Sacred
Ground Camp. Using hundreds of police from several states, law
enforcement used tasers, bean bag guns, rubber bullets, concussion
grenades, batons, billy clubs, pepper-spray, helicopters (swooped
down to dismount horse riders), LRADs, armored vehicles, smoke bombs,
mercenaries from DAPL, and tear gas.
People in the
middle of prayer, in sweat lodges, and who were just standing were
arrested by police when police came to the camp, unannounced, and
raided.
In the same KX4
interview Kerchmeier also said,
“This is nothing special that has been brought out. It's
equipment that we have at the sheriff's department and around the
sheriff's departments around the state.”
The crime they
came there to address? Misdemeanor criminal trespassing.
North Dakota must
be a scary place if the sheriffs are rolling out hundreds of cops
with weapons which are not even allowed in war to every misdemeanor
trespass call. North Dakota must be swimming in officers to mount
such offensives for every single trespass call.
Considering in
2015 North Dakota experienced one of the hugest crime spikes in its
history, with some crimes spiking over 9.3% in one year – officers
must have been rolling armored vehicles all over the state;
tear-gassing, and LRADing at impressive volume. They must have been
buying pepper-spray in 55 gallon drums.
His comments about
the normality of the weapons used at Standing Rock are meant to
normalize what is clearly an extraordinary use of force against Water
Protectors. Yes, those weapons existed but they certainly are not
used in the same way against white North Dakotans as they are Water
Protectors.
Kirchmeier said in
the KX4 interview,
“But the biggest thing I'm concerned about is the safety for
everybody involved.”
On November 20,
2016 the police turned water hoses on a group of Water Protectors in
sub-freezing temperatures standing behind 3 feet of razor wire and
concrete barriers - creating a mass causality situation. The police
also used all the same weapons on as in the raid.
Over 300 people
needed medical attention. Most of the injuries were different degrees
of hypothermia but it was not limited to hypothermia.
Police shot tear
gas into the air then as Water Protectors traced that in the air,
they shot concussion grenades and tear gas canister along the ground.
One Water Protector suffered a compound fracture to his arm when a
concussion grenade shot along the ground bounced up and hit him in
the arm.
Another Water
Protector, Sophia Wilansky, was hit in the arm by a concussion
grenade and her arm was almost completely severed from her body.
Vanessa Dundon
lost sight in one eye when she was shot at point blank range by a
canister. When she fell to the ground, she was shot in the back of
the leg with some sort of less lethal round.
Officers
indiscriminately tear gassed, pepper-sprayed, and smoke bombed the
Water Protectors.
On November 15, 2016
Water Protectors held an action near a DAPL work-site. The police
told the crowd to disperse and began to chase them in packs creating
a panic. Cars began to fly around police and Water Protectors. When a
group got into a black sports car, the police surrounded the car and
began to beat it with billy-clubs. The car tried to leave and the
police shot into the car with a black shot gun. Shot guns carrying
less-lethal rounds are generally orange.
Kirchmeier’s
officers are either so fragile that hearing Water Protectors yell and
pray at them presents such a danger it constitutes a lethal threat
and have to use nearly lethal force to protect their fragile
selves or he is explicitly categorizing Water Protectors as not human
and therefore not part of the “everybody” for whose safety
is being looked out.
The United Nations confirmed the dehumanization of Water Protectors
in jail.
“The
excessive use of State security apparatus to suppress protest against
corporate activities that are alleged to violate human rights is
wrong and contrary to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human
Rights,” said
U.N,
Special Rapporteur Kiai.
Since good decent people
who don’t speak racism, jingoism, bigotry, and moral bankruptcy
cannot decode this stuff easily, a concise summary is prudent.
Once we decode the
propaganda, The Morton County Sheriff’s position is:
Dangerous, child-abusing, thieving, cattle-rustling,
wife-beating, dirty, sub-human Indians and their professional
assistants are flooding into the white areas of North Dakota and
presenting a danger to the good, tax-paying white people here. Don’t
worry – we will protect you from having to hear them, address your
white supremacy, or see the dirty brown people using almost any means
necessary, even if a few Indians have to die.
FBI
Crime Stats
Information
on the Water Protector Camps
http://www.valleynewslive.com/content/news/Morton-County-Sheriffs-Department-releases-DAPL-protests-by-the-numbers-report-410199055.html
Kerchmeier
Interview
http://www.valleynewslive.com/content/misc/Morton-County-Sheriff-Kyle-Kirchmeier-on-DAPL-protests-and-law-enforcement-398788621.html
Hate
Crime Stats:
UN
Comments on Conditions in ND
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