Tar Sands 2-week sit-in: The Establishment is afraid of growing popular revolt against Big Oil&Gas

[seafan]

(And the MIC, for that matter...)



The Tar Sands 65, photo by tarsandsaction (via FDL)


As reported in the WSJ via Climate Science Watch:

August 21, 2011

… Among those arrested was Gus Speth, former chair of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality under President Jimmy Carter and co-founder of the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council.

In an interview, Mr. Speth said the pipeline would be used to transport a type of crude oil—known as tar-sands oil—that would encourage a continued reliance on fossil fuels and emit harmful pollution into the air.

"If we hook up the Alberta tar sands to America's insatiable lust of gasoline, I worry that you can just kiss the planet good-bye," he said before his arrest.

Mr. Speth and other protestors said the Obama administration's handling of the Keystone XL pipeline proposal would be one of the most important environmental decisions of the president's current term. …

Jane Hamsher and dozens more, arrested on Day 1 (Saturday, August 20) of the Tar Sands 2-week sit-in, and after only 10-15 were released late Saturday night, reports:

Dan Choi, Bill McKibben and Scarecrow have now spent two nights in jail courtesy of the DC police for an offense that routinely equates to a parking ticket. According to Ted Glick over at Grist, the orders to hold them came from “higher up”:

.....

In negotiations with the police prior to the action that began on Saturday, the police were very clear that what would happen after people were arrested was the vast majority would get what’s called “post and forfeit,” where you put up $100, get released from jail after several hours, and you don’t have to come back again. It’s basically like a traffic ticket.

But this is not what they did. Instead, after arresting the first day’s 70 people, they decided to hold most of them, all those not from within a 25-mile radius of Washington, D.C., in jail until a Monday afternoon arraignment. This works out to 48 or more hours in jail before being released.

Why did they do this? One of the police officers told one of the action’s lead organizers that the decision to do this was made “at a much higher level than mine.” Four separate police officers told organizers that it was explicitly to discourage other people from taking part in actions going forward. Personally, I believe this had the hand of the Obama administration all over it. They want this action to fail so as to relieve the rapidly building pressure on them to do the right thing and deny the Keystone XL permit.

----Link

I agree that there is no way the DC cops, or the Park Police, decided to do this on their own. They released 8 of the 65 people arrested on Saturday (including me) because we live in the DC area and they had an overcrowding problem in the DC jail. Which is why they also released all 45 people who were arrested yesterday. But their “solution” managed to keep Bill McKibben incarcerated for two days, significantly disrupting the leadership of the action.

I have no doubt Obama wants to give the oil companies what they want and approve the pipeline. Why wouldn’t he? The guy who took his daughter down to play in the gulf and has done nothing to hold BP responsible for the Deepwater Horizon spill is not going to stand up to the oil companies at collection election time.

Earlier, Jane blogged about what happened when she and dozens of others were arrested on Saturday, and then described what happened upon her release on Saturday night:

.....

When I got outside (released), the 350 organizers said that only about 10-15 of those who were arrested were being released, so approximately 50-55 are in jail until Monday. They said that the Park Police told them that they were keeping the others as a “lesson” that would “discourage” anyone who wanted to take part in the daily sit-ins over the course of the next two weeks. But the system isn’t set up to handle a two-week wave of demonstrators, so they believe they had to figure out a reason to let some people go. The reason that was chosen assured that Bill McKibben would remain in jail, and the organizing would be disrupted.

I had an amazing time yesterday getting to share the experience of standing up to corporate dominance of our political system, and the insatiable desire of oil companies to rape our environment at all costs, with people I care about tremendously. I also got to know a fabulous group of women, who are inspirational for their principled commitment to stopping the construction of the pipeline. Most of them came from far away to take part in this action, many from Canada, and this arrest may mean they won’t be allowed in the country again.

The night before the sit-in we went to St. Stephens Church for a training with Bill and others from 350. I don’t remember who it was, but one of the organizers mentioned that standing up to the oil companies right now — and to corporate America in general — is to us what standing up to King George was to the colonists.

That stuck with me. I am happy that we were able to protest in front of the White House and that whatever happened as a consequence, it was probably going to be a matter of inconvenience more than anything else. I’m not sure how much longer that will be true. The growing economic despair of many Americans will only get worse with the austerity measures being pushed on us, and there are signs that both the surveillance state and the police state are preparing to respond with force. It is unquestionable that this White House has only accelerated the rapidly advancing criminalization of free speech.

When Barack Obama was elected, he said that the earth would now begin to heal. Yet last week, he and Michelle took separate jets only a few hours apart to Martha’s Vineyard. There may well have been a good reason for that. But it just goes to show that even on a symbolic front, there has been no commitment to end our dependence on oil.

The decision to allow the construction of the pipeline rests with the President alone. He cannot blame Congressional gridlock or partisan intransigence. The pressure on him to allow its construction is no doubt fierce — the oil companies will claim that it will create jobs and balance our trade deficit. Yet whatever money goes back into the economy in the form of jobs will once again be extracted from the wallets of taxpayers, because that’s what the oil companies are good at orchestrating. And any reduction in the trade deficit will be achieved at the cost of cracking open the largest known deposit of carbon on earth, second only to Saudi Arabia.

Far from ending our dependence on oil, the President will be doubling down on it by allowing the construction of this pipeline.

This is not a right-left fight. And it’s also bigger than just a climate change fight. If we want to throw off the corporate overlords who push our elected officials around like pieces on a chess board, the time is now — while we still have some freedom to resist.

.....

An update from today from Jane:

.....

I spoke to the lawyers last night (Sunday) about the conditions in the jail. The women who had their sweaters and jackets taken from them were forced to sleep in thin summer garments appropriate to 90 degree heat in a very cold cell on the floor with no blankets. The styrofoam blankets that had been given to us by the Park Police were confiscated before they were transported to the DC jail. There is no doubt that the organizers were deliberately lied to so that the protesters would not be prepared, part of a conscious effort to make everyone as miserable as possible.

I’ll be at the DC courthouse for our arraignment at 2pm today, along with Scarecrow, Dan Choi, Bill McKibben and the rest of the Tar Sands 65. I’ll be posting about it as soon as I can. It will be wonderful to bring Dan and Scarecrow home.

Kevin Zeese writes today that the October2011 coalition is urging people to join the Tar Sands protest: “The over-reaction to carefully choreographed and negotiated civil resistance shows the fear the administration has of mass civil resistance.”


UPDATE: Charges dropped against everyone but Lt. Dan Choi, Tom Weis, and Dave Schleisinger of Vets 4 Peace. They’ll be brought up for arraignment shortly.

Please come to DC and send a message to the President that he cannot capitulate to the oil companies and approve the tar sands pipeline without consequence. Let him know that people who care about the environment, from conservative Nebraska ranchers to urban climate change activists, oppose this rapacious act of oil company greed.

Does this mean that Bill McKibben has been released? Hope so.



Here is the background on this pipeline being pushed by the Big Oil Boyz. You'd better sit down to read this one.


The decision is entirely in Obama's hands whether this pipeline will be built, carving through 1700+ miles from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. He cannot blame Congress for 'tying his hands' on this one. Congress is not involved in this decision whatsoever.


We will soon find out where this president stands in the global fight against global climate change, and whether he has the courage to stand up against the ravages on our planet by those pushing for ever-increasing burning of fossil fuels.


I don't have a good feeling about the outcome of this decision.

[villager]

1. I'm afraid we will find where this President "stands" in the "fight" against climate change

And I don't think we'll like it.

Good post -- thanks

[xchrom]

2. Recommend

[slipslidingaway]

3. knr nt

[seafan]

4. The fix is in: State Dept to release report minimizing environmental impact

State Department review to find pipeline impact ‘limited,’ sources say

By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post
August 24, 2011

The State Department will remove a major roadblock to construction of a massive oil pipeline stretching from Canada to Texas when it releases its final environmental assessment of the project as soon as Friday, according to sources briefed on the process.State Dept

.....

The proposed TransCanada pipeline, which could transport as much as 500,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Canada’s “tar sands” or “oil sands” fields in Alberta has strained President Obama’s relationship with his environmental base and become a proxy for the broader climate debate. Protesters from across the country have gathered daily in front of the White House since Saturday, resulting in 275 arrests so far.

Oil sands contain a viscous oil called bitumen in formations of sand, clay and water, and to extract it, companies expend more energy and water than they do to tap other crude deposits. Unlike conventional oil drilling, exploiting these resources is more like strip mining and requires tearing up large stretches of forests in northern Canada.

.....

So, the usual suspects are trumpeting that this pipeline is a "jobs engine" and it will provide oil "from an ally", and decrease US dependence "on foreign oil". Conveniently ignored are such inconveniences as inevitable toxic threats to endangered migratory bird routes, waterways and communities along the route.


But, it appears that the REAL effect of this 1700 miles of pipeline is merely to transport Canada's toxic tar sands oil to our Gulf Coast, for export to Europe and Latin America.

In a global market, analysts note, the heavy crude that will travel from Hardisty, Alberta, to Port Arthur, Tex., may very well end up being refined and shipped to Europe and Latin America to supply those regions’ demand for diesel fuel. Three operators who have signed commitments to take oil from Keystone XL — Shell, Total and Valero — run refineries in Texas in Foreign Trade Zones exempt from custom duties, making them well-positioned to ship refined products overseas.

What I will never understand is the eager enticement for and the deliberate participation by misguided Americans who live along the pipe's route, as willing victims in the harm to our own environment and the mushrooming ramifications from that.


And I neither understand, nor will I accept, a decision to allow this pipeline, by this president, who told us during his campaign that under his watch "the planet was going to heal".

"I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Barack Obama, 2008, in Minnesota---Link

Words matter, Mr. President. Where you have failed is on making them happen.

[Atman]

5. The absurd thing is, tar sands are one of the most ridiculous sources of oil...

It takes more energy to extract and refine the oil than the energy you get out of it. It causes incredible ecological damage. It does nothing to reduce our dependence upon foreign sources. The 'tar sands' industry is making money for a lot of shareholders somewhere, but it doing NOTHING to help the rest of us.

.

[seafan]

6. Map of proposed expansion of Keystone XL pipeline

Link


We need new leadership badly. It must be a new, progressive leadership that is responsive to critical needs of the people and the planet in a time of converging climatic, economical, financial and foreign policy disasters.

[dana_b]

7. Bill McKibben was on Countdown last week

after he was released. More and more people are being arrested every day. It will be very interesting to hear what goes on in those exploratory meetings.

[SpiralHawk]

8. The k

and the r.

[Kaleko]

9. Too late to rec, so KICK.

Great work.

[amborin]

10. ditto