#NoDAPL Protesters Trying to Make “Something Bad” Happen to Get Attention?
“I’m here to die if I have to. I don’t want to die but I will.”
Those are the words of Didi Banerji, one of the #NoDAPL protesters participating in an illegal roadblock of Highway 1806 and an equally illegal nearby encampment on private land.
It seems the protesters are readying themselves to be cannon fodder for an extreme environmental movement. “Do what you’ve got to do,” was their message to law enforcement yesterday when they were asked to peacefully leave their unlawful roadblock and camp.
“This is a last stand right here,” one camp organizer said. “We’re not going to move.”
So where is Standing Rock Chairman David Archambault as the protest movement he helped catalyze makes fatalistic statements about impending violence with the cops? Not here in North Dakota working as a tribal leader to keep the #NoDAPL movement peaceful.
He’s in New York, cozying up to the folks at MSNBC.
He appeared on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show last night, and rambled something about how great water is and how evil oil is. Ironic comments coming from someone who owns a gas station (conveniently located near the protest camps, no less).
You can see part two of the interview over on the MSNBC website. During that segment Archambault, after railing against the evils of oil in the first segment, claims the tribe just wants the pipeline re-routed.
That’s certainly a far less extreme position to take, and I understand why Archambault and other #NoDAPL protesters must make a pretense of it, but c’mon. We’ve all heard what the protesters say and read their signs. This isn’t a pipeline protest so much as a keep-it-in-the-ground protest.
What’s really frustrating is that O’Donnell, in the second segment, goes after law enforcement telling them there has been absolutely no provocation from the protesters. But what do you call firing arrows at a law enforcement helicopter? What do you call blocking a public highway, and trespassing on private land, and refusing to leave peacefully when asked by law enforcement?
Chillingly Archambault, while complaining about the supposed lack of media attention his protest has received, said the only way they get attention is when “something bad could happen.”
Which, given the behavior of the protesters this week in particular, makes it seem like they want something bad to happen. To get attention.
There are also rumors that Archambault is meeting with the Hillary Clinton campaign while in New York. According to a post on this website, the #NoDAPL movement has sent a “delegation” of ten members to meet with Clinton.
