Thousands Demonstrate Against the Tar Sands/Keystone Pipeline, Two articles:

1.
The Pressure Is On: Thousands Encircle White House,
Tell Obama to Reject Keystone Pipeline 

Monday 7 November 2011 

by: Mike Ludwig, Truthout | Report

http://www.truth-out.org/pressure/1320678173

Protesters encircled the White House on Sunday to
oppose the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Many who
turned out are Obama supporters who are holding him to
his campaign promise to move the country away from its
dependence on oil. (Photo: Mike Ludwig)

WASHINGTON, DC - Thousands of people from across the
United States and Canada completely encircled the White
House grounds on Sunday in a show of collective
strength that sent a clear message to President Obama:
say no to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would
pump oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

Activists of all ages descended on the White House,
including more than 1,000 young people.

After surrounding the White House, a youth-led breakout
march snaked through downtown Washington, DC, carrying
the momentum of the Occupy movement along with an
inflatable black pipeline replica as long as a city
block.

At one point, the protesters filled the plaza outside
the American Petroleum Institute office and chanted,
"we are the 99 percent." The protesters ceremoniously
deflated their "pipeline" at the nearby Occupy DC
encampment.

Young protesters marched through the streets of
Washington DC carrying an inflatable "pipeline" as long
as a city block. (Photo: Mike Ludwig)

The march blocked traffic and drew police, but the
protest remained peaceful. No arrests were made in
stark contrast to the two-week sit-in at the White
House in August where 1,253 anti-pipeline activists
were arrested.

(Photo: Mike Ludwig)

The president was playing golf in Virginia during most
of the action, but protesters said he should not ignore
the sheer numbers of protesters that showed up at his
doorstep. Environmentalists and young voters propelled
Obama into the White House, and the Keystone XL
pipeline is quickly becoming the issue that could unite
or divide the president's voter base during the next
year.

Thousands of protesters rallied in front of the White
House to show President Obama that his supporters are
against the Keystone XL pipeline. (Photo: Mike Ludwig)

Oil giant TransCanada proposed the $7 billion dollar,
1,700-mile pipeline, which would pump 830,000 barrels
of tar sands oil a day across 14 US states to
refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. The Obama
administration is facing a year-end deadline to make a
final decision on the pipeline, but a State Department
official told reporters last week that the decision may
slip past the deadline if the administration needs more
time to review the department's final report.

In an interview with a Nebraskan television station
last week, Obama suggested that he would make the final
decision.

"We're really seeing this as a symbolic issue for
[Obama] in the next year, and if he makes the right
decision on this I think it will invigorate a whole
generation of people who were starting to waver on
their commitment to him," said Maura Cowley, a youth
organizer and the co-director of Energy Action
Coalition.

Nikki Luke, a sophomore college student who traveled
from Pittsburgh for the protest, said Obama stands to
lose much of the support his 2008 campaign enjoyed from
student volunteers if he sides with big oil and
approves the pipeline.

"I was an intern for Obama in 2008 in Virginia, and I
know that I and many of the other people in my office
worked for him for environmental reasons, and we will
have no reason to do so again in 2012 if he's not going
to show us why we voted for him in the first place,"
Luke said.

The proposed pipeline has given environmentalists of
all stripes a reason to take the streets.
Conservationists say extracting oil from the tar sands
is a destructive, chemical-heavy process that threatens
Canada's boreal forests and native communities. Climate
activists want the Obama administration to focus on
alterative energy instead of a massive oil
infrastructure project. Others say an influx of tar
sands oil, which is dirtier than oil from conventional
wells, will jeopardize the health of Americans living
in the shadow of oil refineries.

There have been 14 reported oil spills along the
existing Keystone pipeline system, and opponents say a
major spill from on the transcontinental line could
poison farmland and the Ogallala aquifer.

Young protesters stood wide eyed as a star-studded cast
of speakers addressed the crowd during an initial
rally. Co-authors and activists Naomi Klein and Bill
McKibben, founder the of climate action site 350.org,
were joined by Native American activist Tom Poor Bear,
actor Mark Ruffalo, Sojourners founder Jim Wallis, and
several others.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee) told protesters that the
Keystone XL pipeline is out of the hands of Congress
and the decision rests "squarely on the president's
shoulders."

"It's not a protest against the president," Cohen told
Truthout. "This is a protest against a decision."

Bruce Boettcher, a rancher from Nebraska, spoke on
behalf of the ranchers and landowners who have become
red-state allies of the environmentalists opposing the
pipeline. Ranchers are facing the threat of losing land
to eminent domain and worry that a potential spill
could poison farmland and the Ogallala aquifer, a
massive underground source of fresh water for millions
living in America's central plains.

"Eminent domain or otherwise, we will stand firm and
strong upon the sandy soil of the Nebraska sand hills
and the Ogallala aquifer to protect it," Boettcher
said. "We the American people do not need to sacrifice
our land and water for TransCanada's bottom line."

Legislators in Nebraska have introduced five bills that
would help the state regulated pipeline activities,
including one bill that would give a panel and the
governor authority over eminent domain claims.

Obama is not only under pressure from protesters and
environmental groups. A Canadian official has warned
that, if the Obama administration refuses to approve
the pipeline, Canada will ramp up efforts to sell its
oil to other countries, possibly in Asia, according to
Reuters.

TransCanada and supporters of the project say it will
decrease America's dependence on oil from unfriendly
countries and create thousands of jobs.

With unemployment at the top of the national agenda,
some observers expect the Keystone XL controversy to
pit two key factions of Obama's voter base, labor
unions and environmentalists, against each other.

A Cornell Global Labor Institute report released in
September, however, shows that only $3 billion to $4
billion of the $7 billion that would be spent on the
project will be spent in the US, and TransCanada's
claim that the project would create 20,000 jobs is
"unsubstantiated." The report also found that most jobs
would be temporary and go to nonlocal and out-of-state
workers. Creative Commons License 

==
2.

Encircling the White House: A New Beginning is Here

By Ted Glick

Future Hope column, November 7, 2011

http://www.grist.org/article/2011-11-07-encircling-the-white-house----a-new-beginning-is-here


About noon, as the organizers of yesterday’s
encirclement of the White House to stop the tar sands
pipeline were setting up, someone said, “the flag is
flying over the White House, that means President Obama
is home.” Said a US Park Police person standing next to
me, “it’s not true, sorry to disappoint, but he’s not
home.”

But lo and behold, at 5:15 pm, as the light was rapidly
fading and a beautiful  moon appeared in the sky over
Lafayette Park, as Bill McKibben was wrapping up,
speaking about the wonder and power of the day’s event
and this movement, a motorcade appeared at the top of
Lafayette Park. Someone pretty reliable said, “It’s
President Obama!,” and Bill proceeded to lead the
thousands of people still there in a chant of, “Yes We
Can Stop the Pipeline” as hundreds streamed toward the
cars with their flashing red lights.  If, indeed, it
was Obama in that motorcade, there is no way he didn’t
hear us.

This was just one of many amazing things that happened
yesterday.

There was the turnout, ten thousand plus, as many as
12,000 in the view of the organizers.

There was the virtually unprecedented discipline and
organization of the 2 pm rally which ended just before
3 pm despite there being 17 speakers, an amazing mix:
Gloria Reuben, McKibben, Michael Brune, Congressman
Steve Cohen, Mark Ruffalo, James Hansen, Naomi Klein,
Courtney Hight, Rev. Jim Wallis, Jody Williams,
Nebraskan Bruce Boettcher, Larry Schwieger, Roger
Touissant, Heather Mizeur, Tom Poor Bear, John Adams
and Rev. Lennox Yearwood.

The encirclement! It worked. And there were probably
enough people that if we had had the time and resources
to do so we could have been two-deep or even three-deep
all the way around. Instead, some places there was a
single line, others it was five-deep, and there was a
powerful spirit of hope and determination that was
palpable as I walked the circle doing a numbers count.

There were large numbers of youth in attendance,
perhaps half of the total being under 30. Students came
on buses from as far away as Missouri and Florida.

There was the 100-yards-or-so-long “Stop the XL
Pipeline” creation which was carried by hundreds up and
down Pennsylvania Ave., chanting as they marched.

There were the connections made by many of the speakers
at the rally, connections between the no pipeline
movement and the movements against fracking, deepwater
oil drilling and mountaintop removal, with the struggle
of workers for jobs and their rights, with the #Occupy
movement and with past social movements.

A highlight of the pre-encirclement rally was Marc
Ruffalo giving his two minute speech without using the
electronic mic and sound system. He called out “mic
check,” thousands repeated it, and he spoke [he spoke]
in the Occupy mode [in the Occupy mode] effectively and
powerfully [effectively and powerfully].

This was in no way a culminating rally; just the
opposite. At a pre-rally event Saturday evening
attended by many hundreds, and in what McKibben talked
about throughout from the stage, the warmly-received
message was that people need to go back home and, over
the next few weeks, organize actions at and visits to
Obama for America reelection campaign offices. A major
demonstration is already being organized at the
national Obama reelection office in Chicago on November
16th at noon.

Bill McKibben was clearly impressed by what took place
yesterday. For the first time that I have heard since
he and others publicly initiated this movement over
four months ago, he said, as he closed the
post-encirclement second rally, “we can win this
fight.” Yes, si se puede, yes we can stop the Keystone
XL pipeline. Yes we can transform U.S. energy policy
and create a new world.

Nov. 6th at the White House is the latest sign that a
new beginning, a powerful, loving and hopeful new
beginning, is here and sinking deeper and deeper roots
among the people of the USA.

Ted Glick is the National Policy Director of the
Chesapeake Climate Action Network. Past writings and
more information can be found at http://tedglick.com,
and he is on twitter @[log in to unmask] 

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