The time thieves: Most of these individuals are charged with misdemeanor trespass charges, but a few are even charged with theft. In this case, stealing time from Enbridge.

The time thieves

This month, nearly 300 Line 3 protesters will have court dates in Hubbard County alone.

Written By: Winona LaDuke, Honor the Earth | 9:00 am, Jan. 14, 2022

Activists are escorted out of an Enbridge Line 3 pump station after being arrested near Park Rapids, Minn., on June 7, 2021. Photo: Evan Frost/Minnesota Public Radio/AP

Come Jan. 16, some 140 people are going to be arraigned in Hubbard County for the crime basically of being a water protector.

Most of these individuals are charged with misdemeanor trespass charges, but a few are even charged with theft. In this case, stealing time from Enbridge.

Time thieves. That’s a felony theft charge.

Water protectors face over $3 million in fines, about the same as the state fine to Enbridge for busting a hole in an aquifer and destroying groundwater.

This month, nearly 300 defendants will have court dates in Hubbard County alone, where officials used “pain compliance” torture methods against peaceful demonstrators, some of whom now face permanent disabilities – and up to 11 years in prison.

If this is not a world gone mad, we don’t want to see it.

One district court judge is considering a legal brief he requested on dismissing charges “in the interest of justice.” Let’s hope judicial reasoning prevails.

But who is the real criminal here?

Enbridge is committing a crime of the century, the theft of water from Akiing, this land and water, and the destruction of water. The one-year anniversary of Enbridge's breach of the aquifer in Clearwater County is coming in late January.

After reportedly millions spent trying to stop the leak, it’s still gushing anywhere from 100,000 to 1.2 million gallons or more of artesian water daily in the Mississippi headwaters watershed! There is no word yet about any subsequent prosecution or how a $3.3 million fine was set and how it’s being enforced.

The good water is still pouring out after Enbridge violated the construction permit and drilled the bedrock 10-feet below their approved plan.

This same company burned 28 rivers and nearby wetlands with fracking fluids and secured the single largest allocation of water in the history of the state, 5 billion gallons, during the deepest drought we have seen in our lifetimes. Really appalling, as is the company backing its water trucks up to the Park Rapids city well and depleting more water so it could drill under the Shell River.

2021 was a hell of a year alright! Enbridge, the foreign multinational, occupied and ransacked northern Minnesota to put in a tar sands pipeline at the end of the fossil fuel era.

It imported 4,300 workers, (over two thirds from out of state) and occupied the north in six heavily militarized construction spreads, forcing water protectors to the front lines. There they stood peacefully. They sang, prayed, and played piano (seven people and a piano were arrested in Hubbard County last winter).

We faced police, brutal temperatures and increasingly violent arrests. In the siege of a militarized north during a pandemic, government officials bowed to a Canadian corporation and Line 3 was completed this fall. As we watch the catastrophe of climate change unfold, no one gets a tiara for this pipeline.

In the meantime, most other pipeline projects have been canceled as investors flee the dirty oil of Alberta, Canada, and the destructive nature of pipelines becomes more apparent: the Jordan Cove pipeline, Keystone, and the Constitution Pipeline did not get built. Two of those pipelines were Canadian – that’s what the country exports these days, dirty oil pipelines. But it’s finally the end of the party for tar sands pipelines, even as Enbridge seems to have the last hurrah here.

Enbridge has left Minnesota in a legal and moral quagmire and deepened divisions across the area. Although it is required by law to have a decommissioning plan, prior to installing the pipeline, it seems it has none.

Sadly, Hubbard County exemplifies what we often call the Deep North. On any given day in December, 38% of the people in jail in Hubbard County were Native; Native people comprise around 2% of the population. That’s a stat only the Deep North could produce, as my haters numbers shoot up substantially.

Like fellow water protectors, I must wonder why we\re facing criminal charges for protecting the water, and a foreign corporation which is poisoning our water is not considered an eco-terrorist, and a time thief, taking time and natural resources from our future generations.

But more than that, the company should face the deep criminal charge of ecocide – the destruction of ecosystems.

Meanwhile, back in Park Rapids, Enbridge has sold its office and moved back to Alberta to count profits. I’m going to stick around and keep calling Minnesota and Hubbard County to task for selling out water, treaties, and the civil rights of water protectors to a foreign interest.

It’s time, though, to prosecute the real criminals.

Related Articles:

• PROSECUTORS HIT ANTI-PIPELINE PROTESTERS WITH FELONY CHARGES TO SEND A MESSAGE, DEFENSE SAYS: One county prosecutor asked oil company Enbridge for reimbursement to help with some of the prosecutions clogging up rural courts.

• Prosecutor Sought Funding From Oil Giant Enbridge to Jail Line 3 Water Protectors: Report - "First the police, now the prosecutors—who's next to violate constitutional rights of water protectors and ask Big Oil to pay for it?"

• The felony theft charges, which have been levied in several counties, are prosecutorial overkill, said Joshua Preston, an attorney representing at least 35 defendants. "They are intended to have a chilling effect - to discourage people from engaging in protest."

Announcement: Winona's Endorsement for President 2020

Winona's Endorsement for President 2020

Coming to you from my windy Hemp farm while harvesting my beautiful crops, I wanted to share my endorsement for President.

As former Vice President Candidate, twice, for the Green Party endorses Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris to be our next President and Vice President. Winona encourages you to not only vote for Joe Biden but to vote Democrat across the board.

Winona's reasoning is "Our future generations count on our vote. Our collective well being is at stake. It is time to power up for change.”

This is a time of incredible change and transformation. Statues of confederates and conquistadors are falling and we are in the midst of a global pandemic.  There is no return to normal, so let’s make this world beautiful. We can be part of the change by voting for courageous and decent people.   

Winona believes Joe Biden has a plan, a plan we can work and live with that will protect our future generations. Winona stresses there is more work is to be done, but this is a great start that we can see in our future 2020 into 2021. Vote!

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Take Your Power Back - Make America Beautiful Again

by Winona LaDuke

Make America beautiful again. That’s what I say.  I remember those old advertisements of the Indian guy in the canoe, tear and all. And there was all this pollution, burning rivers and garbage. Ugly.  I want it to be beautiful again. But it’s not just environmental beauty, no more smokey skies or poisoned rivers, we want beautiful character and ethics in our society and in our government.  I want leaders who are not self serving, lying, or serving foreign companies and countries, we want them to take care of the little people, those who need champions. In other words, we want to be decent people.  We want to not have hatred, walls, and fear. I plan to be part of making  America beautiful again. 

Here’s my thinking. I’m not a Democrat or a Republican. After all, I ran two times for the office of Vice President of the United States as a Green Party candidate.  I am a Green.  That means I don’t really have a dog in this fight, neither of those parties likes a woman like me.  But this year, I am weighing in. And I am weighing in on the side of decency and for a return to a democratic process.  I’m voting for a world with less conflict, youth in detention camps, gutted environmental and civil rights protections, less hatred, no vote stealing, and fewer forest fires. 

First, I am going to ask people to vote. We know that voting makes a difference because this last mid term, Peggy Flanagan was elected to the position of  Minnesota Lieutenant Governor. We know voting makes a difference, because a young Puerto Rican woman named  Alexandria Ocasio Cortez  unseated a seven term New York City Politician Joseph Crowley to become a US Representative.  The other side had the money, but people mobilized to turn over power. 

And, her vision and ethics, combined with allies like Deb Haaland, from New Mexico, Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar  is changing this country. They  are leading the country and challenging business as usual in Washington DC.  Now is the time for solutions, and those are not going to come from the folks who got us into this mess. The solutions and a “ Moonshot”  for a better world, of a new economy are visionary. That’s what happens when people vote and organize.  Minnesota had the highest turnout in the midterm elections, and we need to do it again. 

About 700 young people became eligible to vote on the White Earth reservation for this election- and November 3 is about your future. It is about what jobs there will be, if we will have our wild rice, if we will be in ongoing crises of climate, police, riots and opioids. It is about ensuring justice, and about having enough for our communities- heat, food, and health. This is a vote during a pandemic, a vote when the world is changing, and we are the country with more cases of COVID than any in the world.  This vote is about the future of our country, our water and our people. 

Why vote Native Communities? Vote because there are Native people running for senate, house, city councils and county commissioner positions in Minnesota. And those people can bring a Native voice to the state. And, yet some of those native people, despite being tribal members do not always represent Native interests. That’s complicated, and maybe let’s vote on records and merits.  And, then let’s remember that change can happen. It’s inevitable. It’s a question of who controls the change. A surge in Native voting will change the political landscape of the North.  

Vote because it matters what kinds of leaders we have. This past week, Donald Trump’s tax returns became public, and we found out that he paid “$750 in federal income taxes for 2016 and 2017 and no personal income taxes in 10 of the 15 years previous years.”  And, he spent $70,000 on hair styling and deducted it from his taxes. 

In the meantime, millions of people are facing evictions, loss of jobs, and incredible despair, struggling to pay bills.  There are over 210,000 people dead from COVID, and over 7.4 million contracted this serious virus as a result of bad leadership, the economy is in an ongoing crisis, there are riots in the streets, people getting shot and the west coast is on fire. 

Death toll from the coronavirus pandemic could triple by year’s end, with the United States to 410,000, according to a new forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

In September, it was estimated 650,120 people filed new claims under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Act. 

Labor Department revealed that 837,000 Americans applied for jobless benefits in the latest week, in a release that did not include California, where the state has stopped accepting new claims as it investigates potential fraud.

And, then Trump has threatened that a transition may not happen.

My personal opinion: To have a Canadian corporation dictate and influence politics in the US is a problem. The guns they bring will also be a problem.  Hatred is ugly. While tribal governments wield significant economic power, politicians do not always pass bills for the benefit of tribes.  Our tribe has spoken and demands clean water and wild rice for the future. 

Some of us want peace, security and prosperity. That’s the vision of the Green New Deal. That’s the vision of renewable energy, healthcare for all, small farmers, funded education, organic agriculture, and justice. That’s the vision that needs to be here in northern Minnesota- solutions, not more problems. That’s a wave which is moving nationally, and can really change the course of our history. I say ride that wave. 

The forces at work in the north country are deep and every vote counts. President Trump did not come to Bemidji Minnesota to campaign just to see people with “good genes”.  He came because what is happening here matters. It matters to our future generations that we care for them being healthy and protecting the world for them. 

That’s a crisis.  In Northern Minnesota, the crisis grows as well. We have an opioid crisis, we have a rise in hateful behavior, we have polarized communities, and winter is coming. We are faced with the end of Wiindigo economics, the mines have run out of ore, except for a few pebbles, and the tar sands are collapsing.  Enbridge is hiring security forces and promising to bring in more militarization for a pipeline project which has been opposed by the Native people and 68,000 Minnesotans, as well as the Department of Commerce and the Attorney General of the State. This is a pipeline to nowhere. Sadly, many Democratic and tribal politicians lack courage, and are not against the pipeline, only David Suby running for House 2B, against Steve Green opposes Line 3.  

In comparison, Steve Green (House District 2B), a tribal member, is pro pipeline, and has opposed return of land to the White Earth tribe. 

Green tells us he “is addressing the nation’s energy issues by supporting the drilling of domestic oil, clean burning of coal and nuclear energy.” Senator Paul Utke has been in office since 2017, and has introduced 14 bills for the Native community, of which one passed. He is also pro Line 3, while our tribe has opposed the pipeline. 

That’s at a time when the oil industry is dying and renewable energy is surging.

This is a vision which is part of the Green New Deal, Just Transition, and needs to come to what we call the Deep North.  After all, Trump came to the Deep north because of the long history of Indian hating, and the desperation of the end of the road for late stage capitalism- that’s to say, that even the United Nations says that the kind of economics practiced by Enbridge, and RDO Offutt are not sustainable. 

This is a chance to vote for the Good life, to vote to be beautiful.
That’s what we can do today voting early and on November 3.

* A FAIR JUST ECONOMY
* RENEWABLE ENERGY
* PLAN FOR A CLEAN ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
* RIGHT TO CLEAN AIR AND CLEAN WATER #WATERISLIFE
* HEALTH CARE SYSTEM THAT WORKS. HEALTH CARE THAT IS INCLUSIVE AND EQUAL.
* PROTECT OUR VOTING RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY
* CLIMATE CHANGE
* RURAL AGRICULTURE SUSTAINABILITY
* STRENGTHENING AMERICA’S COMMITMENT TO JUSTICE
* JOE BIDEN’S COMMITMENT TO INDIAN COUNTRY

Follow Instagram @ojibwes4vote Facebook @ojibweforresponsiblegov “Ojibwes for Responsible Government,” a 501c4 Project for Indigenous Justice.