NoDAPL Water Protector Sophia Wilansky lost most of her forearm when hit by a concussion grenade. Please contribute to her medical fund.

Tenney --

Last night, Sophia Wilansky was catastrophically injured when a concussion grenade thrown by police defending the Dakota Access Pipeline company hit her left arm and exploded. Sophia, a 21-year-old climate activist, was heading to bring water to the unarmed people who were being attacked for several hours by Morton County Sheriff forces. She was successfully delivered to emergency surgery in Minneapolis.

A generous group of Climate Hawks Vote members have pledged to match any contributions made to support Sophia's medical costs. Your $5 contribution will be doubled to $10 if you make it now:

Contribute $5 to support Sophia's medical fund with Climate Hawks Vote.All funds raised will go to Sophia's medical fund.

The Morton County Sheriff’s Department is falsely claiming that she was injured by a propane explosion caused by the protectors. The grenade pieces that have been removed from her arm in surgery will be saved for legal proceedings.

[Dear Readers, I was up a long time watching the live feed of the Morton County Sheriff's Department corralling the protestors in a small space which they could not get out of, then spraying them repeatedly and at length with mace, using tear gas, spraying them with cold water while the outside temperature was only 23F with a wind that made it feel even colder.  I heard the explosions of the concussion grenades.  The police are clearly lying.  But the doctors have the evidence this time (read below).  I have just contributed more to this young woman, disfigured for life, than I even gave to Bernie (my little $27, every now and again).  Please show your support.  Sophia was out there in harm's way for us, while we were safe and warm and uninjured at home, tweeting, ok? Thanks so much, Tenney]
Sophia is currently in stable condition. Below is information about her injuries and surgery from her father, lawyer Wayne Wilansky:

A grenade exploded right as it hit Sophia in the left forearm taking most of the undersurface of her left arm with it. Both her radial and ulnar artery were completely destroyed. Her radius was shattered and a large piece of it is missing. Her medial nerve is missing a large section as well.  All of the muscle and soft tissue between her elbow and wrist were blown away. Sophia will have surgery again tomorrow as bit by bit they try to rebuild a somewhat functioning arm and hand. The first surgery took a vein from her leg which they have implanted in her arm to take the place of the missing arteries. She will need multiple surgeries to try to gain some functional use of the arm and hand.

"There are no words to describe the pain of watching my daughter cry and say she was sorry for the pain she caused me and my wife," her father says. "I died a thousand deaths today and will continue to do so for quite some time. I am left without the right words to describe the anguish of watching her look at her now alien arm and hand."

It's crucial that our support respect Sophia's deliberate sacrifice and builds power for the climate movement. We must keep organizing and holding the fossil-fuel industry and its enablers accountable.

Your $10 will be doubled to $20 to support Sophia's medical fund. 
Sophia was far from alone in suffering direct violence from the Dakota Access police forces.

Hundreds of water protectors have been injured at the Standing Rock encampments in the last few days. Law enforcement blasted the protectors with water cannons in freezing temperatures Sunday evening. Water protectors’ efforts to clear the road and improve access to the camp for emergency services were met with tear gas, stinger grenades, rubber bullets, and indiscriminate use of a water cannon with an air temperature of 26 degrees Fahrenheit. Multiple people were unconscious and bleeding after being shot in the head with rubber bullets. Hundreds were treated for injuries, tear-gas exposure, and hypothermia.

Chip in any amount now to support Sophia's medical fund. 

Please share this email with friends and family.

your fellow climate hawk,

Brad Johnson

LEARN MORE

Dakota Access pipeline protester seriously hurt during police standoff, The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/22/dakota-access-pipeline-protester-seriously-hurt-during-police-standoff-standing-rock

Dakota Pipeline: Protesters Soaked With Water in Freezing Temperatures, NBC News
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/dakota-pipeline-protests/dakota-pipeline-protesters-authorities-clash-temperatures-drop-n686581

Demand the demilitarization of Standing Rock:

White House: 202-456-1111
ND Office of the Governor: 701-328-2200
Morton County Sheriff's Department: 701-328-8118 & 701-667-3330
ND National Guard: 701-333-2000

White House phone number: 202-456-1111. 

-b

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 22nd, 2016 at 9:00am CST

For Press Conference information contact medichealercouncil@gmail.com

Prepared by Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council at the Standing Rock Dakota Access Pipeline Resistance Camps

On November 21st as a direct result of the violent police response at Standing Rock towards unarmed people opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 21 year old woman from New York City, Sophia Wilansky, was severely injured when a concussion grenade thrown by police hit her left arm and exploded. Sophia was heading to bring water to the unarmed people who were being attacked for several hours by Morton County Sheriff forces. The Morton County Sheriff’s Department has stated that she was injured by a purported propane explosion that the Sheriff’s Department claimed the unarmed people created. These statements are refuted by Sophia’s testimony, by several eye-witnesses who watched police intentionally throw concussion grenades at unarmed people, by the lack of charring of flesh at the wound site and by the grenade pieces that have been removed from her arm in surgery and will be saved for legal proceedings.

Sophia was safely taken out of North Dakota for emergent surgery and is currently in stable condition. Below is her statement as conveyed by her father, lawyer Wayne Wilansky.

“At around 4:30am after the police hit the bridge with water cannons and rubber bullets and pepper spray they lobbed a number of concussion grenades which are not supposed to be thrown at people directly at protesters or protectors as they want to be called. A grenade exploded right as it hit Sophia in the left forearm taking most of the undersurface of her left arm with it. Both her radial and ulnar artery were completely destroyed. Her radius was shattered and a large piece of it is missing. Her medial nerve is missing a large section as well.  All of the muscle and soft tissue between her elbow and wrist were blown away. The police did not do this by accident - it was an intentional act of throwing it directly at her. Additionally police were shooting people in face and groin intending to do the most possible damage. Sophia will have surgery again tomorrow as bit by bit they try to rebuild a somewhat functioning arm and hand. The first surgery took a vein from her leg which they have implanted in her arm to take the place of the missing arteries. She will need multiple surgeries to try to gain some functional use of the arm and hand. She will be, every day for the foreseeable future, fearful of losing her arm and hand. There are no words to describe the pain of watching my daughter cry and say she was sorry for the pain she caused me and my wife. I died a thousand deaths today and will continue to do so for quite some time. I am left without the right words to describe the anguish of watching her look at her now alien arm and hand.”

A fund set up by friends and verified to help with Sophia’s recovery is set up here:

https://www.gofundme.com/30aezxs

The Standing Rock Medic Healer Council deplores the ongoing use of violence by the state of North Dakota to address the concerns of the thousands of people peacefully assembled at Standing Rock to insist on the right to clean healthy drinking water.

Water is Life, Mni Wiconi

Signed,

Linda Black Elk, PhD, Ethnobotanist, Sitting Bull College

Michael Knudsen, MPH candidate, Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council

Noah Morris, EMT

Amelia Massucco, RN

John Andrews, RN

Kristina Golden, EMT, herbalist

Sebastian Rodriguez, RN

Rosemary Fister, RN, MNPHN, DNP Candidate

Rupa Marya, MD, DoNoHarm Coalition, University of California – San Francisco

David Kingfisher, MD, JD, Wichita State University

Jesse Lopez, MD, Heartland Surgical Care

Kalama O Ka Aina Niheu, MD, Aha Aloha Aina

Howard Ehrman, MD, MPH, University of Illinois - Chicago

Geeta Maker-Clark, MD, University of Chicago

Elizabeth Friedman, MD

Vanessa Bolin, ALS Paramedic

Contact: Michael Knudsen, Medic Coordinator and Standing Rock Sioux Tribe ethno-botanist Linda Black Elk, PhD – medichealercouncil@gmail.com

George Monbiot: The Deep History Behind Trump’s Rise: How a ruthless network of super-rich ideologues killed choice and destroyed people’s faith in politics

by George Monbiot, The Guardian, November 14, 2016  www.monbiot.com

The events that led to Donald Trump’s election started in England in 1975. At a meeting a few months after Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative party, one of her colleagues, or so the story goes, was explaining what he saw as the core beliefs of conservatism. She snapped open her handbag, pulled out a dog-eared book, and slammed it on the table. “This is what we believe,” she said. A political revolution that would sweep the world had begun.

The book was The Constitution of Liberty by Frederick Hayek. Its publication in 1960 marked the transition from an honest, if extreme, philosophy to an outright racket. The philosophy was called neoliberalism. It saw competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. The market would discover a natural hierarchy of winners and losers, creating a more efficient system than could ever be devised through planning or design. Anything that impeded this process, such as significant tax, regulation, trade union activity or state provision, was counter-productive. Unrestricted entrepreneurs would create the wealth that would trickle down to everyone.

This, at any rate, is how it was originally conceived. But by the time Hayek came to write The Constitution of Liberty, the network of lobbyists and thinkers he had founded was being lavishly funded by multimillionaires, who saw the doctrine as a means of defending themselves against democracy. Not every aspect of the neoliberal programme advanced their interests. Hayek, it seems, set out to close the gap.

He begins the book by advancing the narrowest possible conception of liberty: an absence of coercion. He rejects such notions as political freedom, universal rights, human equality and the distribution of wealth, all of which, by restricting the behaviour of the wealthy and powerful, intrude on the absolute freedom from coercion he demands. Democracy, by contrast, “is not an ultimate or absolute value.” In fact, liberty depends on preventing the majority from exercising choice over the direction that politics and society might take.

He justifies this position by creating a heroic narrative of extreme wealth. 

He conflates the economic elite, spending their money in new ways, with philosophical and scientific pioneers. Just as the political philosopher should be free to think the unthinkable, so the very rich should be free to do the undoable, without constraint by public interest or public opinion.

The ultra rich are “scouts,” “experimenting with new styles of living,” who blaze the trails that the rest of society will follow. The progress of society depends on the liberty of these “independents” to gain as much money as they want and spend it how they wish. All that is good and useful, therefore, arises from inequality. There should be no connection between merit and reward, no distinction made between earned and unearned income and no limit to the rents they can charge.

Inherited wealth is more socially useful than earned wealth: “the idle rich,” who don’t have to work for their money, can devote themselves to influencing “fields of thought and opinion, of tastes and beliefs.” Even when they seem to be spending money on nothing but “aimless display,” they are in fact acting as society’s vanguard. Everything the rich might do is, by definition, good.

Hayak softened his opposition to monopolies and hardened his opposition to trade unions. He lambasted progressive taxation and attempts by the state to raise the general welfare of citizens. He insisted that there is “an overwhelming case against a free health service for all” and dismissed the conservation of natural resources. It should come as no surprise to those who follow such matters that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics.

By the time Mrs Thatcher slammed his book on the table, a lively network of thinktanks, lobbyists and academics promoting Hayek’s doctrines had been established on both sides of the Atlantic,  abundantly financed by some of the world’s richest people and businesses, including DuPont, General Electric, the Coors brewing company, Charles Koch, Richard Mellon Scaife, Lawrence Fertig, the William Volcker Fund and the Earhart Foundation. Using psychology and linguistics to brilliant effect, the thinkers these people sponsored found the words and arguments required to turn Hayek’s anthem to the elite into a plausible political programme.

Thatcherism and Reaganism were not ideologies in their own right; they were just two faces of neoliberalism. Their massive tax cuts for the rich, crushing of trade unions, reduction in public housing, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services were all proposed by Hayek and his disciples. But the real triumph of this network was not its capture of the right, but its colonisation of parties that once stood for everything Hayek detested.

Bill Clinton and Tony Blair did not possess a narrative of their own. Rather than developing a new political story, they thought it was sufficient to triangulate. In other words, they extracted a few elements of what their parties had once believed, mixed them with elements of what their opponents believed, and developed from this unlikely combination a “third way.”

It was inevitable that the blazing, insurrectionary confidence of neoliberalism would exert a stronger gravitational pull than the dying star of social democracy. Hayek’s triumph could be witnessed everywhere from Blair’s expansion of the private finance initiative to Clinton’s repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act, that had regulated the financial sector. For all his grace and touch, Barack Obama, who didn’t possess a narrative either (except “hope”), was slowly reeled in by those who owned the means of persuasion.

As I warned in April, the result is first disempowerment then disenfranchisement. If their dominant ideology stops governments from changing social outcomes and delivering social justice, they can no longer respond to the needs of the electorate. Politics becomes irrelevant to people’s lives; debate is reduced to the yabber of a remote elite. The disenfranchised turn instead to a virulent anti-politics, in which facts and arguments are replaced by slogans, symbols and sensation. The man who sank Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency was not Donald Trump. It was her husband.

The paradoxical result is that the backlash against neoliberalism’s crushing of political choice has elevated just the kind of man that Hayek worshipped. Trump, who has no coherent politics, is not a classic neoliberal. But he is the perfect representation of Hayek’s “independent”; the beneficiary of inherited wealth, unconstrained by common morality, whose gross predilections strike a new path that others may follow. The neoliberal think tankers are now swarming round this hollow man, this empty vessel waiting to be filled by those who know what they want. The likely result is the demolition of our remaining decencies, beginning with the agreement to limit global warming.

Those who tell the stories run the world. Politics has failed through a lack of competing narratives. The key task now is to tell a new story; of what it is to be a human in the 21st Century. It must be as appealing to some who have voted for Trump and UKIP as to the supporters of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, or Jeremy Corbyn.

A few of us have been working on this, and can discern what may be the beginning of a story. It’s too early to say much yet, but at its core is the recognition that – as modern psychology and neuroscience make abundantly clear – human beings, by comparison to any other animals, are both remarkably social and remarkably unselfish. The atomisation and self-interested behaviour neoliberalism promotes run counter to much of what comprises human nature.

Hayek told us who we are, and he was wrong. Our first step is to reclaim our humanity.