[beat]

The debate is social. This is going through tribal lands because the tribes are poor and legally limited. They can't defend themselves. If you tried to run a pipeline under the water supply for 10,000 rich white people, it'd die before the first inch of pipe was laid. The very land it's going under is just a tiny fragment of low-value land left to the tribes, after multiple gunpoint-driven treaties left a tiny "reservation".

Power. It's about power. And power is tied to race. It's morally disgusting, and a lot of this talk is just misdirection, avoiding the real, valid source of anger and rebellion.

[JumpCrisscross]

> This is going through tribal lands because the tribes are poor and legally limited

The pipeline runs close to, not "through tribal lands" [1]. The environmental concern is fair. If my neighbor builds a 300 dB speaker on their property, I have a reasonable claim to damages.

The "sacred lands" and threat to "way of life" claims, however, seem disingenuous. It amounts to laying claims based on hypotheticals on someone else's property.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Access_Pipeline#Tribal_...

[beat]

"Disingenuous" is unfair. But symbolic, certainly. What this is really about, what I'm getting at, is that this is being done because no one actually gives a shit about the tribes, except the tribes. The state is more or less free to steal from the tribes, or endanger them. If anything of value is found in whatever land they have left, it's taken from them.

So this is symbolism. Standing in front of a bulldozer and saying "NO" is all they have left.

[cloakandswagger]

"Disingenuous" seems fair to me. The land is suddenly sacred and inviolable when someone asks to build a pipeline near it (not on it), but the massive casinos these tribes erect on their "sacred" land isn't an issue.

I would be more amenable to the tribes if they were honest and upfront about what they're doing: a form of collective bargaining to maximize compensation from the government.

[beat]

Now that is disingenuous. There's no casino there. Not all land is sacred, but some is. Casinos aren't built on land that might face internal opposition within a tribe.

[zo1]

This has absolutely nothing to do with race. We would probably see LESS outrage if this was happening in a rural white community. But somehow because this is in "Indian lands" that are sacred we all claim "race" and "evil white people" again. Please stop infantilising these native American individuals, they are people.

[beat]

Please stop stealing from them.

[VickBear]

It isn't going through tribal lands.

[beat]

Perhaps not. But it's going through their water.

[ZoeZoeBee]

You mean to tell me there aren't pipelines running under water supplies? I'd suggest you look at a map.

http://www.pipeline101.org/where-are-pipelines-located