The Passion Behind Standing Rock Protest

Click here to access the introduction followed by a transcript of an interview with Bill Means, a longtime Native American activist, by Flashpoints program moderator Dennis Bernstein of KPFA, a listener sponsored radio station in Berkeley, California. You can listen to the 10/18/2016 broadcast of this interview which starts at 26:40m into the nearly 56 minute Flashpoints program.

The months-long struggle to stop the Dakota Pipeline near the territory of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota has raised passions among Native American activists and environmentalists who have clashed with police trying to sweep the protesters aside.

To explain the intensity of the resistance, I interviewed Bill Means, co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and chairman of the International Indian Treaty Council, which has supported the North Dakota pipeline protests.

The most critical reason of all for the militant protests is the relatively high probability for a pipeline burst under or near the Missouri river adjacent to their reservation. If you think this possibility is remote, see this, this, this, and this.