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My family has a cattle ranch near the protest site. What I saw was that the some of the protesters didn't really know the difference between a rancher's tractor

My family has a cattle ranch near the protest site. What I saw was that the some of the protesters didn't really know the difference between a rancher's tractor, and pipeline equipment. Now... there is some overlap there with dump trucks, but there's no way a combine can build a pipeline (edit, a combine is a machine used for separating grain from the stalks). A number of ranchers had their equipment vandalized just for having a field near the protests (5-10 mile range). Incidents of people misbehaving were pretty well documented, and worse... these ranchers didn't often have vandalism insurance to make them whole again. I don't think it was quite all "Kumbaya" is all I'm getting at here. So while I was against the pipeline, I was more against people fucking up rancher's property. These guys have a hard enough life without some punk indiscriminately trying to pour sugar in the gas tank of everything they could find bigger than a riding lawnmower. Anyway one of these has a clip of some of the protesters blocking access to a certain area. First hand, that was my experience trying to drive a pickup truck through one of the areas. These guys blocked the roads, came up to the truck, were incredibly aggressive... swearing and posturing right off the bat. My dad, who's an enrolled member of the tribe, tried to tell them he was just getting through... he's in his 70s, and these guys mistook him for a pipeline worker. Yeah... I mean, it was just surreal having someone who clearly didn't sound like they were from North Dakota yelling at my Dad, who has lived there his entire life, about how we were violating and trespassing on sacred lands and they had the right to stop us from using the road. * Ranchers Impacted by the DAPL Protests Voice Their Concerns | The Mighty 790 KFGO || https://kfgo.com/podcasts/ag-news-leader/1694/ranchers-impacted-by-the-dapl-protests-voice-their-concerns/ https://kfgo.com/podcasts/ag-news-leader/1694/ranchers-impac... * N.D. Pipeline Protests Have Agitated Area Farmers - AgWeb || https://www.agweb.com/article/nd-pipeline-protests-have-agitated-area-farmers-NAA-ben-potter https://www.agweb.com/article/nd-pipeline-protests-have-agit... * My old comments on HN on this subject || https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=dbg31415%20pipeline&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

zonidjan 7y ago
Surprise! Large groups of people have bad apples!
- dbg31415 7y ago
  So it wasn't just a few bad apples. My perspective. The group on the road was the face of the protest to anyone driving through. Right? And these guys weren't locals, they couldn't tell the difference between ranchers and pipeline workers, and generally didn't care who their actions impacted. They were thugs, people who wanted to get into a fight. That's who gravitates to a spot like that. What would have helped? Put some of the local protesters on the road, people who didn't come off as quite so aggressive, to be the face of this thing. Who could have educated people on the issue. Instead, you get some guy in a bandanna, with a baseball bat, walking up to your truck, "Get the fuck off out of here!" Again, the absurdity of some non-native non-local telling a life-long resident native rancher, "I'm protecting my sacred lands..." And if you ask the locals, there's no love for the protesters. People remember how you make them feel, right? It's impossible to defend the actions of a group of people who caused so much destruction and were such assholes to deal wtih. Any reason they couldn't tell the difference between pipeline workers and ranchers and just the the ranchers through? Ranchers are all older, I think the average age of ranchers in North Dakota is now over 50, and typically drive pretty beat up trucks (average income is $40k). If you want to fight the 1%, you don't do it by trashing on some guy who's just out there doing an honest day's work. These are family men just trying to make ends meet. These families that lost equipment... they're still down 3 years later. Anyway that was my experience with this. I hate the militarization of police, and most police in general, but it's really hard for me to feel pity for anything that happened to the protesters after the way I saw them treat local ranchers. Just no excuse for a lot of that shitty behavior.

zonidjan 7y ago

Surprise! Large groups of people have bad apples!

dbg31415 7y ago
So it wasn't just a few bad apples. My perspective. The group on the road was the face of the protest to anyone driving through. Right? And these guys weren't locals, they couldn't tell the difference between ranchers and pipeline workers, and generally didn't care who their actions impacted. They were thugs, people who wanted to get into a fight. That's who gravitates to a spot like that. What would have helped? Put some of the local protesters on the road, people who didn't come off as quite so aggressive, to be the face of this thing. Who could have educated people on the issue. Instead, you get some guy in a bandanna, with a baseball bat, walking up to your truck, "Get the fuck off out of here!" Again, the absurdity of some non-native non-local telling a life-long resident native rancher, "I'm protecting my sacred lands..." And if you ask the locals, there's no love for the protesters. People remember how you make them feel, right? It's impossible to defend the actions of a group of people who caused so much destruction and were such assholes to deal wtih. Any reason they couldn't tell the difference between pipeline workers and ranchers and just the the ranchers through? Ranchers are all older, I think the average age of ranchers in North Dakota is now over 50, and typically drive pretty beat up trucks (average income is $40k). If you want to fight the 1%, you don't do it by trashing on some guy who's just out there doing an honest day's work. These are family men just trying to make ends meet. These families that lost equipment... they're still down 3 years later. Anyway that was my experience with this. I hate the militarization of police, and most police in general, but it's really hard for me to feel pity for anything that happened to the protesters after the way I saw them treat local ranchers. Just no excuse for a lot of that shitty behavior.