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These Activists Just Unveiled A BRILLIANT Way To Protest The Dakota Pipeline

These Activists Just Unveiled A BRILLIANT Way To Protest The Dakota Pipeline

Activists in the Netherlands just built an oil pipeline of their own inside of a major bank’s headquarters as a protest against their participation in the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL). The NLtimes reports:

On Thursday morning a group of about 20 Greenpeace activists dug room for and planted 15 meters of super heavy pipe sections at the ING headquarters in Amsterdam Zuidoost. They did so to protest against the Dutch bank’s part in financing the highly controversial Standing Rock pipeline in Dakota, United States, Het Parool reports.

“We’re giving them a taste of their own medicine”, campaign leader Kim Schoppink said to the newspaper.

After the new Republican President’s executive orders on February 7th, pipeline construction hastily resumed. Trump has had numerous investments into the Energy Transfer Partners pipeline company and other oil companies which are associated with DAPL, but the extent of his current holdings is unclear today. What’s not in doubt is that the CEO of Energy Partners donated $100,000 to the Trump campaign

What’s not in doubt is that the CEO of Energy Partners donated $100,000 to the Trump campaign just from June of 2016 through the time of the election.

President Obama froze the DAPL project at the end of his last term and ordered the Amry Corps of Engineers to begin a massive environmental study of the property on January 18th, but according to AP reports, the Trump regime took the brakes off that sensible precaution today:

The Army published notice Friday in the Federal Register that it was scrapping the study.

Pipeline opponents have continued to call for more study despite the fact that ETP has said the $3.8 billion pipeline to move North Dakota oil to a shipping point in Illinois could be operating as early as next month. More than 100,000 comments had already been submitted for the study, according to the Indigenous Environmental Network.
The Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux also are fighting the pipeline work in court, with the next hearing set for Feb. 28. In the meantime, hundreds of pipeline opponents have continued to occupy a camp near the drilling site in North Dakota.

Simultaneously, the California teacher’s pension plan (CalPERS) and 100 major institutional investors have begun an open campaign to pressure the banks financing DAPL to reroute the pipeline.

Even the Pope has declared that the DAPL project is inequitable and that indigenous communities are entitled to fair participation in the decisions which impact their ancestral relationship to planet earth.

The concerns of the Standing Rock Sioux and the Water Protectors stem from both the practical need for clean drinking water and the protection of their ancestral sacred lands.

That’s why they oppose the DAPL, which would poison the land and enable more dirty petroleum extraction, in order to feed even more carbon into the earth’s rapidly heating atmosphere.

We can only hope that the Standing Rock Sioux prevail in court to hold back the massive project before it reaches completion next month.

In the meantime, readers are encouraged to divest from banks like Wells Fargo – which the City of Seattle has already done – to yank your accounts and take your business elsewhere immediately. If you find out that your city banks with Wells Fargo, encourage your local commissioners or Mayor to do the same.

Don’t be afraid to respectfully protest at public sidewalks in front of branches of Wells Fargo, because public shame is one of the most effective tools in seeking change. The only way to let these large banks know that they’ve done wrong is to make a public example.

Just like this:

Grant Stern
is the Executive Editor of Occupy Democrats and published author. His new Meet the Candidates 2020 book series is distributed by Simon and Schuster. He's also mortgage broker, community activist and radio personality in Miami, Florida., as well as the producer of the Dworkin Report podcast. Grant is also an occasional contributor to Raw Story, Alternet, and the DC Report, and an unpaid senior advisor to the Democratic Coalition and a Director of Sunshine Agenda Inc. a government transparency nonprofit organization. Get all of his stories sent directly to your inbox here:

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