Six months ago, it was mostly people along the pipeline route and those who lived in the ravaged northern Alberta landscape that knew about Keystone XL. But the movement--in no small part thanks to y'all--has been been building almost exponentially, and this has been the most powerful week yet. I haven't been blogging about it because we're been working almost without cease, and also because the events around Occupy Oakland needed more attention. But I wanted to bring everyone up to date, and ask your help for the next critical period.
What really happened in the past week is that all the organizing people have been doing began to see its payoff, as in the highest circles in DC they started taking notice.
For instance, on Tuesday in San Francisco a crowd of a thousand greeted the president's motorcade on the way to one of those high-dollar fundraisers. They were chanting 'Yes We Can Stop the Pipeline,' and their numbers included some high-dollar Democratic donors, the kind of folks who get noticed by campaigners. Many thanks to CredoAction for leading that effort. The next day in Denver, students and indigenous leaders interrupted the president's speech--Thomas Poor Bear, vice chief of the Oglalla Sioux, was hauled away from the hall before he could get out most of his powerful talk. But no matter--the president heard, and he interrupted his talk to say he hadn't made up his mind and that he knew it was an important issue. Here's the video ;it's really the first time we've heard from the president on the issue, and it's at least a little comforting to know that he's still apparently open to persuasion.
How open is not clear--the next day he named a big deal lobbyist, Broderick Johnson, as a senior campaign advisor. Given the amount of money that Transcanada has been throwing around, it took about ten seconds for various reporters to figure out that Johnson has been lobbying heavily for the pipeline. Ugh. But it's very good news that the media has started paying attention to the dirty politics around this pipeline. And they're not the only ones. Congress got into the act this week, when Bernie Sanders, Ron Wyden, and Sheldon Whitehouse demanded that the State Department Inspector General investigate the environmental review--the one where State let Transcanada pick a firm to review its project, and didn't balk when they chose Entrix, which describes Transcanada as a "major client." Lots of great House members joined in too. Here's Bernie's press release. And even those Senators who were a little timid are feeling the pressure to act. John Kerry first told Politico he was "too busy" to be bothered with the scandal, but when his constituents began pressing him he issued a stronger statement the next day promising to "follow up" on any and all questions about the pipeline. (A good place to start would be holding a hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee!).
Anyway, here's the bottom line. DC is paying attention, there's real momentum, and the chance to actually score a huge victory against the fossil fuel companies. We need to just keep upping the pressure. Please spread the word about Nov. 6, when we're going to encircle the White House with protesters. Here's a just-released video from David Strathairn extending the invite.
There's a million more things I could show you from this week alone; if you follow the tarsands facebook page you'll be kept fairly abreast. I know I've never worked this hard in my life, and I'm jsut one of hundreds now doing this more or less around the clock. Join in, we need you badly!
2:54 PM PT: Every few minutes some new cool thing. This just arrived from Fargo North Dakota: http://www.kfgo.com/...