Injustice

Did you hear that Amy Goodman was charged with trespassing and then when those charges didn’t look like they would stick, they changed the charge to inciting a riot?
Ya know, for reporting on something that wasn’t being reported on?!
Yea, reporting!
What’s further alarming is the lack of coverage by fellow journalists that a fellow journalist was being criminally charged for being a journalist. Oh wait, I mean rioting.
I’ve become accustomed to the extreme bias and distortion in reporting, but this seems to be counter intuitive for reporters to not report on a reporter who is being repressed.
I’ve seen arguments that suggest she had no right to be trespassing. I find that curious since those charges were dropped before they were even filled. Maybe she wasn’t as “trespassy” as the trespassing charges suggested?
Maybe they were a bit trumped up?
It’s hard to argue they weren’t. Especially when she wasn’t accused of inciting a riot until the trespassing charges didn’t look like they would stick. It seems like they were looking for anything to stick her with, don’t you think? It’s hard to argue they weren’t bogus accusations when the judge stopped the charge levied against her by refusing to sign the charging document.
Is it illegal to levy false charges?
Or is it ok to just make up charges willy-nilly?
Can you charge someone for charging someone with charges that have no merit?  Can you charge someone for using public resources to threaten someone who is challenging private interests?
Of course not silly, this is America, you can’t do that to corporations. They have rights, ya know!
I heard arguments that Amy wasn’t being an objective reporter? Because she was “siding with the protestors.”
Does that mean she was standing on the wrong side?
Would she have appeared more objective if she were standing on the other side?
Behind their dogs?
To that point, would the pipeline company and their private security have welcomed “objective reporting”?
Would they have welcomed Amy objectively reporting the Native American point of view?
Would that have been a problem?
Or is that the wrong sort of objectivity?
Should she have been as objective as the super objective reporters from the mega media?
The reporting that’s known to be rife with such objective objectivity.
The irony is rich, even cliche.
Their lack of objectivity, that is.
I’d argue the objective of the folks building the pipeline is objectively blocking all objections. Unfortunately, that gets really hard to do when the largest gathering of Native Americans in years has gathered to get all “objecty” to the pipe line they object to.
I’m sure they thought it wouldn’t be that hard to quell the decent.
The Indians know their place, right?
We beat them down years ago.
We haven’t played cowboys and Indians in decades.
We’re on to new bad guys who wear robes and pray on carpets.
Who even talks about Indians anymore, anyway?
Indians are so pre-coldwar.
No one cares about them anymore, aside from their casinos…Jackpot!
I’m sure they thought they could quell the images of decent.
Well, until, that pesky Amy Goodman got all reportery.
So what did they do to this reportery reporter?
Try and throw her in jail?
That’s right, they tried to throw her in jail!
How dare she report on things corporations don’t want reported, right?
You know the age old question, if a tree fall in the woods and no one is there to hear it, did it make a noise?
Would the same be true if a private security company used attack dogs to quell decent and no one is there to witness it? Would it have still happened without that reportery reporter?
I wouldn’t have known, would you?
We know that’s the case with police brutality.
But that didn’t exist unit Obama became president and did all that race baiting, right?
Or was it those pesky cell phones that are to blame?
Taking all those unauthorized videos and showing them to people.
Or is it, as they have always said, the police have been brutalizing African Americans for years and now, for the first time, there is proof?
Sorry, off topic.
Back to these uppity Indians. I mean really, who do they think they are?
Being all demanding and telling us how to use our land. Right?
What rights, I mean right do they have?
The Indians have their reservations.
Those deals were made fair and square!
They have their land, and we have ours, and we can do what we want.
This is our America now!
Ours, as in the corporations who finance the lobbyists to write the laws that support the corporations who use the laws to justify the corporate policies and profit.
Ours!?
It’s all by the book though, right?
Where was I?
Oh, Amy Goodman.
I signed the petition, Don’t imprison Amy Goodman.
I think the charges were dropped about the same time I signed.
You should know the judge’s name.
He did the right thing.
I don’t fully understand the politics behind these charges but that North Dakota state prosecutor was, from my point of view, working for monied interest, not human interest.
As we know, all too well, money and power usually win.
So when someone stands against the tide, in the name of liberty and justice for all, that should be recognized!
That judge’s name is District Judge, John Grinsteiner!
His name should be spoken with pride, District Judge, John Grinsteiner!
He declined to sign the charging document.
That’s special, he’s special.
We can all stand and do the right thing.
My mom made me so proud and stood up for a Muslim woman that encountered hatred. She stood up in front of her peers; disregarding judgment and condemnation. When one of her church peers refused to let the Muslim woman into the church on a cold day because they weren’t open yet, my mom stood up! She took this woman in out of the cold and gave her a chair and a blanket.
Disregarding her peers!
Think about that…
That’s radical!
Understand, when the tide of peer pressure is weighing on you to not do the right thing, and you do it anyway, that should be recognized!
That’s powerful…
Period!
That makes me glow with pride.
The woman who filmed the black man being harassed in Edina saw an injustice, stopped her car, and was a voice of reason and justice.
Her name is Janet Rowles, a revolutionary, standing up for justice and freedom. Think about it, stopping your car to be a voice of reason, and a witness to injustice?
She willingly put herself in harm’s way for a stranger!
There is no way she could know the consequences of her actions.
For as many accolades as she has undoubtably received, I’m sure she has received an equal amount of condemnation.
For a stranger!
Janet changed the world that day.
Judge John Grinsteiner changed the world, My mom changed the world, and Janet Rowles changed the world.
We all can change the world.
Evolve…

“In the beginning, there was only a small amount of injustice abroad in the world, but everyone who came afterwards added their portion, always thinking it was very small and unimportant, and look where we have ended up today.”
~Paulo Coelho