Premier Rock Forum

Well, the pigs did blow her arm off just in time for Thanksgiving.

A group of my closest friends were there over the weekend. I was going to go but couldn't because of work. Last night 200 unarmed people were injured by police. Hundreds have been arrested since April in the largest American Indian resistance movement in many generations. Today there were grisly images circulating on Facebook of a woman with an arm injury from a concussion grenade, which have been confirmed but taken down at the family's request. She's in a hospital in Minneapolis and may need her arm amputated. Bernie Sanders and the post-election Our Revolution movement have prioritized the Standing Rock resistance and Sanders has been tweeting at the POTUS directly. Neil Young visited and released a song. Various video reports have been seen by tens of millions of people internationally. Direct cash donations can be made to the main camp here: http://www.ocetisakowincamp.org/No need for Trump. Obama's got this one covered.

It's been confirmed that the woman I mentioned above, Sophia Wilansky, has lost her arm. She was handing out water bottles when Morton County police and/or private mercenaries effectively blew her arm off. There's a crowdfunding page for her medical costs: https://www.gofundme.com/30aezxs?rcid=3 ... 8e65c9bc51

Just saw the arm injury, fuck. Will it make the mainstream news I wonder. And will anyone care?

Apparently they're still working on saving her arm actually. Sometimes tough to get accurate reporting when literally no news media are covering something.

Best professional reporting yet on what happened Sunday night. Jorge Barrera is one of the leading reporters on Indigenous struggles in Canada and was there: Police would arc tear gas over the heads of water protectors on the narrow, two lane Backwater Bridge and then blast them from the gun turrets, trapping people between the gas and water.Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier denied police used water cannons. He claimed the water was fired from firetrucks. œWe don t have water cannons. I don t know where the term water cannons comes from. This is just a fire hose. Basically, the firetrucks were called down there to fight the fires that were started before, said Kirchmeier.Video images clearly show an officer sitting in the gun turret of an armoured personnel carrier using a fire hose like a water cannon against the demonstrators.http://aptn.ca/news/2016/11/22/did-nort ... e-you-ask/

It's exactly the right comparison to make. Different power dynamics on a few levels. The heavily armed Bundy brothers were occupying public land in their own private interest. They're anti-regulation and opposed to any notion of the public interest or common good getting in their way as white-supremacist libertarian cowboys. They embody the true spirit of the USA, so they get off scot-free when they point firearms at cops and occupy federal land. The situation is sort of flipped at Standing Rock. Unarmed Indigenous people on Treaty land peacefully opposing private corporations (who are backed up by the police state) in order to protect the water, land, and air for all. The law and the state treat the two different groups accordingly. As does the corporate media.Worth looking at the fact sheet and guidelines for the main camp at Standing Rock: http://www.ocetisakowincamp.org/insights

Statement from Sophia Wilanksy's father Wayne: At around 4:30am after the police hit the bridge with water cannons and rubber bullets and pepper spray they lobbed a number of concussion grenades which are not supposed to be thrown at people directly at protesters or protectors as they want to be called. A grenade exploded right as it hit Sophia in the left forearm taking most of the undersurface of her left arm with it. Both her radial and ulnar artery were completely destroyed. Her radius was shattered and a large piece of it is missing. Her medial nerve is missing a large section as well. All of the muscle and soft tissue between her elbow and wrist were blown away. The police did not do this by accident - it was an intentional act of throwing it directly at her. Additionally police were shooting people in face and groin intending to do the most possible damage. Sophia will have surgery again tomorrow as bit by bit they try to rebuild a somewhat functioning arm and hand. The first surgery took a vein from her leg which they have implanted in her arm to take the place of the missing arteries. She will need multiple surgeries to try to gain some functional use of the arm and hand. She will be, every day for the foreseeable future, fearful of losing her arm and hand. There are no words to describe the pain of watching my daughter cry and say she was sorry for the pain she caused me and my wife. I died a thousand deaths today and will continue to do so for quite some time. I am left without the right words to describe the anguish of watching her look at her now alien arm and hand.https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sU1 ... TE/preview

^ Wow. A private security firm called TigerSwan linked to Blackwater has been coordinating the Morton County Sheriff Dept's intelligence efforts in addition to having mercenaries on the ground. https://www.democracynow.org/2016/11/21 ... \_linked\_toThere's a comprehensive Standing Rocking Syllabus online that includes a historical timeline and tons of reading options: https://nycstandswithstandingrock.wordp ... ksyllabus/Trade unionists can follow or plug into Labor for Standing Rock who are currently helping with winterizing the camp: https://www.facebook.com/Labor-For-Stan ... 268109852/One of the key labor people is a guy named Liam Cain who used to be a pipeline worker. Pretty inspiring. Here's a video from Chicago carpenter Joe Korenic, Local 272, talking about what he saw and what it's meant to him, the terrible media coverage, and why others should get on board: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... 3268109852http://wnpr.org/post/photos-visit-stand ... rth-dakota

Cheers. Here's some masterful shaming of Obama, who visited Standing Rock in 2014 and offered all kinds of principled Obama „¢ rhetoric. "You said that you had our backs." https://www.facebook.com/PoliticalRevol ... 971964649/https://twitter.com/OurRevolution/statu ... 5670574081