It's crunch-time for Obama on the KXL pipeline. We know he's been lobbied, we know he's being pressured, the public has put up a good fight and so have the corporations.
Fox News has shown support for the Pipeline (with completely inaccurate information from Rep. Boehner).
https://www.youtube.com/...
Ed scultz came out against it (with real science, a rare commodity these days).
https://www.youtube.com/...
Obama has even spoken out against the "flat earth society."
https://www.youtube.com/...
Yes, or No? What will be his play?
A response to this article:
http://earthfirstjournal.org/...
I have to agree here reluctantly... In my feelings about the #NoKXL marches what I have consistently mentioned and been proud of was the showing of people for them. I've never even thought much about the passing of the pipeline; I've wanted the President to kill the pipeline through executive order, but I haven't lost sleep over it. I've thought about the success activism was having against the TPP and FastTrack but not to KXL.
The article discusses what Bill McKibben has done. Personally, I think Mr. McKibben's efforts have been excellent but not for the obvious reason of marches. His brilliance has been his ability to rally people together so that they can connect and organize later. His brilliance has been his discussions on the issues in general. His brilliance has been his success in leading divestment campaigns. As far as pressuring Obama though, I question how much effect he is having on that, specifically. Obama may still respond to public pressure but in this case it's a question of his "legacy," donation bonuses, and stocks (if he has any).
He has no fear of reelection; so at this point (as with any other power-hungry person of influence) he is facing a dilemma between the following two questions:
How will his tenure in office be remembered later on?
How much money can he rake up before he leaves office?
...then he is concerned about how much he might get from book deals; or how much he thinks he'll remain "financially secure" in the future, and will he want to make sure he made his wealthy friends happy.
If his primary concern is money he'll likely sign the Pipeline through. If his primary concern is being revered by some for taking a stand on the environment he wont sign it.