Obama rejects Keystone XL – but we can’t stop here.
Bill McKibben sent this email to 350.org supporters on Friday
Dear Friends
We wanted to share with you the news: this afternoon the Obama Administration announced that they are denying the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. You did good work, against some of the longest possible odds.
For years, the knock on the President Obama was that he backed down too easily in the face of opposition. Not here. When Republicans in Congress forced the issue again by passing a 60-day time limit on the President’s final decision, he stood strong and denied the permit. And that was despite the most explicit threats from Big Oil: that they would exact ‘huge political consequences’ if he did the right thing on Keystone. Make no mistake—this is a brave decision.
And make no mistake about this either—Big Oil will do everything it can to overturn that decision, because they are not used to losing. They have one weapon—money. They’ve used it to buy the allegiance of many Representatives and Senators and now they’ll use Congress to try and get their dirty work done. That’s what happened when the President delayed the permit last November, and we should expect them to try again now.
That’s why we’re going to Congress and Big Oil, beginning next Tuesday the 24th. If you can join us, we’re meeting at noon on the West Lawn, and you should wear a referee’s shirt. We’re going to ‘blow the whistle’ on the corruption that passes for business as usual on Capitol Hill, where people take money from companies whose interests they vote on. If this happened at the Super Bowl it would be a national scandal; we’ve got to make sure it’s seen that way in our political life too. We know it’s short notice, but we hope we can get at least 500 people there. Not to get arrested, at least not this time, but to make quite a noise.
If you can make it, click here to join the action in DC.
We’ll be fighting to prevent Keystone, but we’ll also be fighting to shut off the flow of handouts to the oil, gas, and coal industries, and to take away their right to use the atmosphere as an open sewer into which to dump their carbon for free. This industry, simply because it iss rich, has been cosseted too long. Time to fight back.
What you’ve done these past eight months is quite amazing—and against all the odds. We’ve won no permanent victory (environmentalists never do) but we have shown that spirited people can bring science back to the fore. Blocking one pipeline was never going to stop global warming—but it is a real start, one of the first times in the two-decade fight over climate change when the fossil fuel lobby has actually lost.
Rest assured they’ll fight like heck—their world-record profits depend on it. We better fight just as hard, because the world depends on it.
– Bill McKibben
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Who’re the Anti-Obama Billionaires Supporting the Keystone Pipeline?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-greenwald/whore-the-anti-obama-bill_b_1214282.html
Wow powerful video footage (from the article)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Its91EsyR7o
Obama’s first campaign ad is out! And it focuses on green jobs
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http://grist.org/list/obamas-first-ad-focuses-on-green-jobs/
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via @grist
McKibben says: “When Republicans in Congress forced the issue again by passing a 60-day time limit on the President’s final decision, he stood strong and denied the permit.”
How generous BM is with his Obama-hype.
Undeservedly so, opines Ralph Nader in his recent opinion piece: “Obama and the Art of the Cave-In”. Among other Obama-scathing comments, he writes:
“Here are some high stakes fights where the Republicans defeated the White House and blocked major substantive advances. They stopped the wide-ranging energy bill, and stifled Uncle Sam’s authority to bargain for drug discounts that taxpayers are paying to the gouging drug companies for the drug benefit program for the elderly. They kept the coal industry King Coal on Capitol Hill, preserved crass corporate welfare and tax loophole programs, and blocked the able nominee to head the new agency to protect against consumer finance abuses. They also cut budgets for small but crucial safety programs in food, auto safety, and children’s hunger. Republicans preserved the notorious nuclear power loan guarantee boondoggles, a bevy of Soviet-era weapons systems nestled in the arms of the military-industrial complex and mercilessly beat up on the work and budget of the cancer-preventing, illness-reducing Environmental Protection Agency. That’s just for starters.”
Sorry, Bill, but I’m with Nader on this one.
I do believe that the willingness of hundreds of us to go to jail made this decision possible.
I also believe Bill McKibben gives Obama way too much credit. This decision didn’t stop the pipeline, it delayed it. Obama left open the prospect of using an alternative route.
Worse, Obama didn’t invoke the main reason for turning down the XL — the fact that the tar sands are a carbon bomb, thereby once again refusing to stand up for climate change action and refusing to acknowledge the fact that it is the most severe issue this country and the world faces.
How can we hope for progress when our President is too frightened or politically deranged to even hold the conversation.
Obama has been a windsock on this issue. We need a compass.
A Windsock, or A Leader With A Compass
John Atcheson, in his Comment 4 (above), hits the nail on the head. Well said, John!
We need a Leader (and I capitalized the word purposefully) who has a deep understanding of climate change, appreciates the gravity of the issue, and has a genuine, deep, and sound moral compass. We need a leader who has the ability, will, and moral fiber to actually lead.
Can President Obama be or become that leader? The answer to that question doesn’t look good, so far.
Put simply, we have to demand that he becomes that leader, or else get a new one.
President Obama has, for the most part, been a “windsock” on the issue of climate change — thanks for that way of putting it, John. He has provided (if you can call it that) almost the exact opposite of real leadership. Whatever he HAS done — and it has been far, far too little — he has done reluctantly, shyly, at the last minute, and in response to perceived political consequences that might have occurred if he hadn’t done it. It’s the opposite of leadership.
Just read his recent announcement.
What I don’t get is this: Why does Bill McKibben not (apparently) see this? And, why does Joe see this, but not do much that could actually help/encourage/prompt/force Obama to change?
We are enabling — and sometimes even applauding — ineffectiveness and an immense lack of leadership.
Let me repeat:
We are enabling — and sometimes even applauding — ineffectiveness and an immense lack of leadership, on Obama’s part.
So, what are we going to do about it? Are we even going to discuss that issue, seriously?
Seriously, given what Robert Brulle observed in a post awhile back, and given John’s point above, will we not at least discuss the problem concretely, and consider what could be done about it?
(I’ve raised the issue, numerous times. It’s in “the record”, too often. That’s all I can do, for today.)
Cheers (and thanks for your comment, John),
Jeff