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Tuesday, January 24, 2017

How the anti-DAPL movement shot itself in the foot

On just his fourth day in office, President Trump has revived the Dakota Access Pipeline. This move was nothing if not predictable, not only because it's Trump's policy to extract energy from the Earth at all costs, but because he has sizable investments both in the company building the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, and the company that will be running the pipeline, Phillips Petroleum.
President Obama had put a stop to the project on 4 December after months of popular protests led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
In a period in which the presidential campaign dominated the news, the one important grassroots campaign was able to break through the noise was this struggle of a coalition of Native Americans and climate activists to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. This Anti-DAPL movement has made and will make important contributions to the battle for a better world.
But before the election, this movement was loudly critical of Hillary Clinton's refusal to speak out in support of the pipeline movement and they didn't care if her support for them would lose her more votes than it would gain her in critical states where many voters were already leaning towards Trump because of his energy and jobs claims. They put her in a no-win situation that favored Trump.
It was a cheap trick for Jill Stein to call out Hillary Clinton for not speaking out against the Dakota Access Pipeline. She wasn't trying to win Trump voters and she didn't want Clinton to win any either. She wasn't really trying to win and she didn't want Hillary to win either,

They knew Hillary Clinton voicing support for them was "the right thing to do" and they thought the election gave them the leverage to pressure her to take a public position, but the effect of this campaign was to add to the Trump-led anti-Clinton zealotry that was key to his victory. Trump knew he had no chance of growing his support beyond his 35-40% base, so his strategy was to raise her negatives. The approach adopted by the anti-DALP movement of targeting Hillary Clinton, while remaining silent about pipeline owner Donald Trump, played right into his hands.
I raise this now because I think it is important that we learn from our mistakes.

My other recent posts relating to this unique election cycle:
fake Left's "Peace Candidate" starts a new nuclear arms race!
Jill Stein & US Green's make the Left look like a clown act
@DrJillStein now officially 'the Ralph Nader of 2016'
Where #NoDAPL covers for mass murder
Did Wikileaks call this election 10 years ago?
Did @DemocracyNow help elect President Trump?
Did the Green Party's @DrJillStein help Trump win?
How Green Party's Jill Stein tells two lies at once
Donald Trump wants to be the Last US President
Trump/Stein -- Stronger Together
Will Wikileaks "salt" the Clinton-Podesta emails before the election?
Trump Super Predator behavior is Workplace Sexual Harassment writ large
Is US Green Party's Jill Stein a holocaust denier?
Jill Stein now claiming Donald Trump is less of two evils
Did Dishonest Jill Stein change her Syria statement on the sly?
Republican support for Green Party @DrJillStein is emerging
Why "Jill not Hill" is a pro-Trump slogan
Donald Trump can only win if Jill Stein stays in
Does Donald Trump's secret plan to defeat ISIS involve using nukes?
Why doesn't "What's the Triad?" trump "What is Aleppo?"
Green Party Jill Stein's campaign in context
What should the Green Party do?
Greens could give White House to Trump as poll numbers even
Why Green Party's Jill Stein should drop her presidential bid
Amy Goodman should address this extremely important statement by her guest
How Jill Stein Tweets for Trump
HuffPost item shows how @JillStein campaign whitewashes @realDonaldTrump
Trump tells his '2nd Amendment people election will be stolen to prepare for insurrection
Trump didn't threaten Hillary, he threatened violent insurrection
Meet Green Party's Jill Stein, Putin sock-puppet & Assad apologist

Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!

Click here for a list of my other blogs on Syria
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2 comments:

  1. emjayJanuary 24, 2017 at 11:18 PM

    Your angle on this is beyond original, idiosyncratic is closer, no I think the word is perverse. The tribes, it seems to me, with the central goal of stopping DAPL in mind, did learn from past mistakes that silence from a candidate means consent (to whatever unpopular scheme or project is on the table) and-- to avoid a choice between DAPL with Trump and DAPL under HRC, tried to force Hillary into clear opposition. That she waffled no doubt pushed some people into the Jill camp, but the wishy-washy mistake was HRC's

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  2. Linux BeachJanuary 25, 2017 at 8:19 AM

    I think you make my point for me, you agree that this campaign pushed some voters away from HRC. But electing Trump was not her mistake. What you overlook is the votes she would have lost if she had made a statement of clear opposition. So now you would have had a failed presidential candidate that supported you and still Donald Trump in the WH.

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